NSW: Quadruple murderer died in jail at 80 of natural causes

AAP General News (Australia)
12-22-2009
NSW: Quadruple murderer died in jail at 80 of natural causes

By Margaret Scheikowski

SYDNEY, Dec 22 AAP - Eric Thomas Turner murdered four people, became NSW's longest
serving inmate and, at 80, was baptised on his jail deathbed in July 2008.

After spending 56 of his last 59 years behind bars, Turner was riddled with cancer
and unconscious when the prison chaplain baptised him at the request of the killer's niece.

Gail Turner had recently organised for her uncle to make day release visits to her
family, and had found him to be "very pleasant".

After receiving cancer treatment, he was looking forward to his release and "moved,
walked and had the energy of a 50-year-old, not an 80-year-old", she said.

In Glebe Coroners Court on Tuesday, Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon ruled that Turner
died of natural causes, from acute bronchial pneumonia which was due to his lung cancer.

Although Ms Turner raised concerns about the care her uncle was receiving in Sydney's
Long Bay jail hospital, the coroner concluded he received proper treatment.

Turner was the last inmate in NSW to be sentenced to death - later commuted to life
imprisonment - over the 1948 strangling murder of his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was
20.

On the same day, Turner also murdered her father with an axe.

In 1970, he was released but three years later fatally stabbed his mother-in-law and
killed his 11-year-old stepson who went to the woman's aid.

He was again sentenced to life imprisonment in 1973, which was later redetermined to
a 20-year non-parole period.

In a statement tendered to the Glebe inquest, his niece said she had known her uncle
all her life.

When she was 15, he was released from jail for the 1948 murders and came to live with
her family in Sydney's west.

"I remember my uncle was a wonderful person, he was very caring but he only lived with
us for a very short time before he moved to the city or near it, where he met Rose who
he married a few weeks after meeting her," she said.

"This marriage Eric had to Rose lasted three weeks before Eric murdered Rose's son
and mother and was again arrested and placed back into custody."

In about May 2007, Turner was diagnosed with lung cancer, deemed to be terminal, and
received palliative chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other medical care.

In June last year, he collapsed in his cell and after the cancer was found to have
spread, he refused further palliative care, the coroner said.

"It is clear to me that his life expectancy at that point was limited," he said.

When his niece visited him two weeks before he died, she found he was a different person
who could hardly stand up or walk.

On July 14, 2008, Ms Turner said she was at her uncle's bedside, holding his hand for
three hours as he struggled to breathe.

At her request, the prison chaplain joined her and baptised her uncle, just hours before he died.

AAP mss/hn/ldj/apm

KEYWORD: TURNER

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