Deaths deemed murder-suicide

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This article was published 24/05/2018 (2160 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police say they are still trying to piece together what happened at a Charleswood home where a husband and wife were found dead on Monday, but have deemed the incident a murder-suicide.

Lorne Turner, 58, killed Angela Turner, 50, his wife of 31 years, before killing himself, police said on Friday.

According to court documents obtained by the Free Press, the couple had a long history of domestic disputes, with Angela Turner expressing concern for her safety as far back as the early 1990s. In June 1991, she was granted a non-co-habitation order because of her husband’s temper and “wild rage.”

“(Lorne) has a bad temper and frequently loses his temper, resulting in yelling and screaming sessions which I believe are bad for the children and myself… And in general, (he) had a very bad outburst of temper, to the point where I was afraid to remain in the home. No physical harm came to me, but I was becoming concerned that it may,” she wrote in a court affidavit.

The couple were recently separated, according to Winnipeg Police Service Const. Tammy Skrabek, who said Lorne Turner had moved out of the home on the 600 block of Buckingham Road three weeks before the attack.

“The homicide unit is still trying to piece something together in terms of the injuries that were sustained by both parties and how they came into possession of the instruments that may have caused the injuries,” Skrabek said.

Police would not divulge information on any potential weapons involved, only saying Angela Turner sustained “upper-body injuries” in an assault, and Lorne Turner’s “injuries were found to be self-inflicted.”

City police responded to a domestic dispute involving the couple in 2009, but no charges were laid, Skrabek said, adding another incident at the home that year wasn’t connected to the couple, who have three adult sons.

On Monday night, shortly before police arrived, neighbours said they saw one of the sons standing outside the home, looking distraught.

“Somebody who attended to the residence wasn’t able to get an answer at the door. They did happen to look through a window and see something which they felt was suspicious, and thus the call (to police) to check on the well-being (of the residents),” Skrabek said.

On Friday afternoon, police tape that had been up at the home earlier in the week was gone. The front door was open, and a woman and young child were sitting on the steps.

When approached, the woman declined comment and asked a reporter to leave the property.

Next door is a church. On the church’s front lawn stands a large sign, which reads, “Pray for our neighbourhood and safety for all.”

Angela Turner’s mother declined comment on Friday when reached by the Free Press.

On Wednesday, a relative — who asked not to be named — spoke to the Free Press, saying the family was struggling to cope in the wake of the violence. “We’ve had this experience in our family already.”

Angela Turner’s father, David Bray, was murdered in 1973, according to Free Press archives.

Manitoba has the second-highest rate of intimate partner violence among the provinces, according to 2016 data compiled by Statistics Canada and released in January.

Winnipeg recorded 2,350 reports of intimate partner violence that year, 83 per cent of which involved female victims.

Roughly one in five (19 per cent) solved homicides over the past decade were committed by past or present intimate partners, according to Statistics Canada. In 2016, 28 per cent of all police-reported violent crime was intimate partner violence.

The WPS homicide unit continues to investigate, and is looking to interview more family, friends and acquaintances of the deceased, Skrabek said.

“If somebody did have conversations where either (Lorne Turner) or (Angela Turner) were showing extreme emotions in the days before — whether it be anger, whether it be rage, whether (Angela Turner) was displaying depression — we really don’t know what happened,” Skrabek said.

“(Family members and friends) may or may not have information about their attitudes, their mental states, (or) if they had said anything.”

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @rk_thorpe