Murders of Andrew Bagby and Zachary Turner

Zachary Turner
Born	Zachary Andrew Turner (2002-07-18)18 July 2002 St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Died	18 August 2003(2003-08-18) (aged 1) St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Cause of death	Drowning
Nationality	Canadian
Known for	Murder victim
Parent(s)	Andrew David Bagby Shirley Jane Turner

Zachary Andrew Turner (18 July 2002 – 18 August 2003) was a boy from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada who was killed by his mother, Shirley Jane Turner, in a murder-suicide on 18 August 2003. Turner drugged the infant and jumped into the Atlantic Ocean.^[1] At the time, Turner had been released on bail and awarded custody of the infant even though she was in the process of being extradited to the United States to stand trial for the murder of his father, Andrew David Bagby. The case led to a critical overview of Newfoundland's legal and child welfare systems as well as Canada's bail laws.

A 2006 inquiry found serious shortcomings in how the province's social services system handled the case, suggesting that the judges, prosecutors, and child welfare agencies involved were more concerned with presuming Shirley Turner's innocence than with protecting Zachary Turner. The inquiry reached the conclusion that Zachary Turner's death was preventable.^[2] The case led to the passage of Bill C-464, or Zachary's Bill, which strengthened the conditions for bail in Canadian courts in cases involving the wellbeing of children.

The deaths of Andrew Bagby and Zachary Turner later became the basis for the 2008 documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, directed by Kurt Kuenne.^[3]

Shirley Jane Turner (b. 28 January 1961 - d. 18 August 2003^[4]) was the Canadian-American daughter of a U.S. serviceman and a local woman from St. Anthony, Newfoundland. Turner was raised with three siblings in Witchita, Kansas, United States, but moved to Newfoundland with her mother after her parents separated and, eventually, divorced.^[5] Turner's family lived what has been described as an "exceptionally frugal" existence, living on income supplements.^[6] In 1980, Turner enrolled at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, aspiring to work as a doctor and enjoy the job's financial dividends in order to move past her impoverished upbringing.^[7]

In the autumn of 1981, Turner became pregnant by a long-time boyfriend from Parson's Pond, Newfoundland.^[8] On 28 December 1981, they married during Memorial University's winter recess; it was the first marriage for both partners. The child, a boy, was born on 9 July 1982. Turner's husband raised their child as a stay-at-home dad while Turner continued her studies. In 1983, Turner moved to Labrador City and began work as a science teacher. Two years later, she gave birth to a daughter.^[9] Turner refused to allow her mother-in-law to fill the role of paternal grandmother for her first son, and apparently did not accept her mother-in-law's gifts to the infant.^[10]

During this period, Turner resumed a previous relationship with a fisherman from Deer Lake, Newfoundland.^[11] Turner's marriage deteriorated and ended in divorce on 29 January 1988.^[12] In June 1988, one month before her second marriage to her boyfriend from Corner Brook, Turner had an abortion under vague circumstances.^[12] Her second marriage was short-lived and the couple separated on 20 March 1991. Their only child, a daughter, was born on 8 March 1990. Turner completed her undergraduate education while raising her children with help from her estranged second husband.

On 29 October 1993, a man boarding with Turner confided to his therapist that he had witnessed her physically and emotionally abusing two of her three children. The account was reported to Newfoundland's Department of Social Services, which interviewed the children at school in St. John's. While the children did not exhibit physical signs of abuse, they did not deny the report and said their "disciplinarian" mother punished them with spankings and beltings. Turner's second husband, in his own interview, claimed that Turner only used the belt as a threat. Turner never answered requests for an interview. The case was closed on 11 January 1994 without the Department ever having spoken to Turner.

Turner planned to return Memorial University to obtain her medical degree, this time without taking her children with her. Her two eldest children lived with their paternal grandmother in Parson's Pond while her third child lived in Portland Creek with her father, Turner's second husband. Turner brought her children to live with her during the two later academic years. On 21 February 1997, Turner divorced from her second husband and was granted custody of their daughter. Within days of the ruling, however, Turner sent her daughter back to live with her father while her other two children returned to Parson's Pond.

Since 1982, Turner had taken out "baby bonuses" for all three of her children from a scholarship fund with the expectation of sending them to university. However, in the summer of 2000, Turner confessed to a relative that she had spent the baby bonuses on her own living expenses as well as her doctoral education. Turner insisted, however, that she would earn "big money" after completing her post-residency training and would pay for her children's post-secondary education.

Shirley Turner received her undergraduate degree from Memorial University in May 1994; four years later, she earned her MD degree. Between 1998 and 2000, Turner served as a medical intern or resident physician at teaching hospitals in St. John's, St. Anthony, Corner Brook, Norris Point and possibly Grand Falls.

Turner's residency training with the Grenfell Regional Health Services in 2000 ended with a glowing letter of appraisal, commending her "openness to ideas and suggestions and [her] cheerfulness." However, Turner's performance during her 1999 residency period at a family practice in St. John's elicited harsher assessments. Her supervising physician claimed that, after he made a comment criticizing her treatment of colleagues, she "became quite hostile[,] yelling, crying, and accusing me of treating her unfairly." She falsely accused him of "improper supervision", and falsely claimed to have had a flawless assessment record.

Turner's behavior was worse during her remedial second residency period in early 2000. She missed nine days of her three month rotation, giving a myriad of questionable accounts excusing her absences. She also falsified some of her clinical reports. At least one patient refused to return to the St. John's practice after an encounter with her. The supervising physician and at least two of his colleagues became "so concerned about Shirley Turner's approach to confrontation and the truth that we would never give her feedback or hold any major discussion [with her] alone. This was the only time in 21 years of teaching that I have had to use this approach."

These confrontations with Turner left the supervising physician with the impression that:

I felt I was being manipulated whenever I spoke with Shirley Turner. When negative items would come up she would change the topic to one of my failings. She could be charming[,] friendly and lively but when caught in an untruth she would become angry, accusatory and loud. I always felt Shirley Turner was putting on a show,’ as if she were playing the role but had no feeling for her work. I cannot recall a trainee like Shirley Turner in that her approach lacked personal commitment and her relationships with people seemed, at least to me, to be superficial when compared to the over 400 residents I have supervised during the past 21 years.

In a later interview with an assessment officer of the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate, the supervising physician described Turner in hindsight as "a manipulative, guiltless psychopath." The experience with Turner led the St. John's practice to make "constructive changes" in its residency evaluation process. By the summer of 2000, Turner completed the requirements of her residency training and became qualified to practice medicine.

In March 1996, Turner began a relationship with an unidentified man from St. John's who was nine years her junior. The man attempted to break up with Turner after his employment required him to move elsewhere in Newfoundland. Turner subsequently inundated him with phone calls after the move. In November 1997, when the man enrolled in a vocational school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, her behavior became increasingly unhinged. Not long after tracking him down in Halifax, she struck the man in the jaw with her high-heeled shoe. Not long afterwards, she was kept overnight in a Halifax hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, and was subsequently treated as an outpatient by a psychiatrist.

After consulting with his parents in St. John's, the man moved to Westtown Township, Pennsylvania, United States in 1998. However, Turner tracked him down and once again inundated him with phone calls over the following year. In some of her voicemail, she made death threats against the man, saying, "You will die," "I'll stab you," and "You'll soon be six feet under." Eventually, she began traveling to Pennsylvania to make unannounced visits to the man's apartment. On several occasions, he summoned troopers from the Pennsylvania State Police to convince her to leave. He eventually asked the police to place his apprehension on record because he "could not be certain what Dr. Turner would do next."

On 7 April 1999, the man found Turner lying semi-conscious outside of his apartment. A later police investigation would show that she had ingested a combined 65 milligrams of over-the-counter drugs in what may not have been a sincere suicide attempt. Turner was wearing a black dress, and carried a bouquet of red roses and two suicide notes on her person. One was addressed to the man and the other to her psychiatrist; the latter read, "I am not evil, just sick." Paramedics rushed Turner to hospital, where her stomach was pumped. The following day, the man found a voicemail by a female caller – likely Turner disguising her voice – who said, "Dr. Turner died last night."

Beginning in early 1999, Turner began dating Andrew David Bagby (b. 25 September 1973 – d. 5 November 2001), an American medical student studying at Memorial University for his third year. Bagby came from Sunnyvale, California and was the son of Kathleen Daphne Bagby (née Barnard) a registered nurse and midwife from Chatham, Kent, England; and David Franklin Bagby, a former U.S. Navy serviceman and computer engineer. Bagby was twelve years and eight months her junior.

Turner decided not to practice in Newfoundland and, in December 1999, made an agreement with the Trimark Physicians Corporation of Fort Dodge, Iowa, United States to start work at the company's health care clinic in Sac City, Iowa. She moved there in August 2000, leaving her three children in Canada. Meanwhile, after graduating from Memorial University in May 2000, Bagby landed a surgical residency at the State University of New York at Syracuse. Despite the distance between states, Turner and Bagby initially tried to maintain a long distance relationship.^[13] By Turner's account, she visited Bagby's residence in Syracuse seven times while he visited her once in Sac City.

On 29 May 2001, during one of her visits to Bagby's apartment in Syracuse, Turner had left his door unlocked and later phoned him about this inexplicable act. When Bagby arrived that evening, he found that several items – including his laptop computer, his Palm Pilot, and his cheque book – had been stolen. Bagby and Turner had been the only people in the apartment in what was a highly-secured building, and no other apartments had apparently been burglarized. When Bagby reported the burglary to the Syracuse Police Department, they contacted Turner in Sac City. She denied stealing the missing items.

On 10 July 2001, less than a year into her ten-year contract with Trimark, Turner resigned from her position in Sac City and moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she was hired by Alegent Health System of Omaha, Nebraska, United States. On 11 October 2001, Turner purchased a permit which entitled her to buy a firearm. Less than a week later, she purchased a Phoenix Arms HP22 handgun. The gun vendor advised that she buy a permit to personally carry the gun if she "really needed it for protection," but no evidence exists that she did. Shortly after, she purchased .22 ammunition. She used the weapon and ammunition when she took firearms lessons in Omaha in late October 2001.

Meanwhile, Bagby had moved to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, United States, where he began his residency at a family practice under the supervision of Dr. T. Clark Simpson. During this period, Turner began to exhibit possessive and paranoid behavior towards Bagby and his co-workers. When Turner visited Bagby in Latrobe in late October 2001 – immediately after her firearms lessons in Omaha — the two frequently argued over what Bagby's relationship with a new girlfriend, a radiology clerk at his practice. During the visit, Turner allegedly left two harassing voicemail messages to Bagby's girlfriend. On 3 November 2001, Bagby drove Turner to the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport and broke up with her, sending her on a plane back to Iowa.

Throughout 4 November 2001, Turner made a total of three phone calls to Bagby's residence in Latrobe. At approximately 1:00 p.m. local time, Turner embarked on a sixteen hour, 1,523 kilometre (946 mile) drive back to Pennsylvania; her gun and ammunition were inside a gun box in her Toyota Rav4. In the early morning of 5 November 2001, she confronted Bagby at his Latrobe residence, located across the street from his practice. Bagby arrived at work in an "agitated" state and told Simpson about her appearance, but dismissed his advice to call the police and not meet with her in private; Bagby subsequently promised to visit Simpson's house after talking to Turner that evening. Bagby never came. Turner later drove home and left a message on Bagby's answering machine.

On the morning of 6 November 2001, Bagby's body was found in a day-use parking lot at Keystone State Park in Derry Township, Pennsylvania. He had been shot five times in the face, the chest, the buttocks, and the back of the head with CCI .22 bullets. Acting on statements by Simpson and others, the Pennsylvania State Police contacted Turner. Despite Turner's claim to have been in bed sick on 5 November, cell phone and Internet records showed that she had made cross-country calls both to and from Latrobe, accessed eBay and Hotmail from Bagby's home computer, and used Bagby's home phone to call in sick. When confronted with this evidence, Turner claimed that she met with Bagby at Keystone State Park, but that he put the gun in the trunk of his car.

Investigators interviewed Turner's shooting instructor in Omaha, who explained that her handgun would eject live rounds during lessons; this was consistent with an unspent round recovered near Bagby's body. Later, a Derry resident traveling through the park reported seeing Bagby's Toyota Corolla parked next to Turner's Rav4 approximately ten minutes after Bagby made his last phone call to Simpson; the resident later saw the Corolla parked alone the following morning. The lot number on a box of condoms found in Turner's Council Bluffs apartment matched a box purchased by Bagby in Latrobe on the night of their breakup. Also in Turner's apartment were Mapquest printouts for road directions between Iowa and Pennsylvania. Despite the evidence gathered, Turner fled the country by the time Pennsylvania police obtained a warrant for her arrest.

On 12 November 2001, Turner left Council Bluffs and took a flight from Omaha to Toronto, traveling on her Canadian passport; she gave false and conflicting accounts of Bagby's murder to explain her reappearance. On 16 November, she returned to St. John's with her first son. Acting in collaboration with the Pennsylvania State Police, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary's Intelligence Unit conducted surveillance on her movements. On 2 December, the Unit seized Turner's trash and discovered printouts for an ultrasound taken on 29 November, showing a fetus that was conceived by Bagby.

One week later, on 12 December 2001, extradition proceedings commenced against Turner. On that same day, Turner was arrested by the RNC. However, Crown Prosecutor Michael Madden allowed Turner to be released on bail hours later, surmising that she was not a flight risk despite her previous actions – actions clearly outlined in the warrant submitted by the Westmoreland County district attorney's office. In exchange for her freedom, Turner was required to post CAD$75,000 bail, turn in her passports, pay weekly visits to the RNC, promise not to leave the area, and make no attempt to contact Bagby's family.

The news that Turner was pregnant with Bagby's child turned the extradition case into one involving child custody, and subsequently led to a complicated legal saga.^[14]

In the summer of 2003, Turner began dating a local man from St. John's, concealing her past and notoriety. However, in July, the man learned about Bagby's murder and ended the relationship. Turner responded by leaving two-hundred angry voicemail messages, one of which claimed that she was pregnant with his child; a later autopsy found that she was not.

On 18 August 2003 – a day Zachary was scheduled to be in his mother's custody – Turner purchased thirty tablets of Ativan from a St. John's pharmacy.^[15] She then drove with Zachary to nearby Conception Bay South, where her former boyfriend lived. There, Turner parked her car near his house and left photographs of herself and Zachary, as well as a used tampon, on the front seat; police concluded that she was attempting to frame the boyfriend for the impending murder-suicide. After spiking Zachary's baby formula with Ativan and ingesting it herself, Turner strapped the infant to her chest and jumped off a fishing wharf into the Atlantic Ocean. Both drowned. It was determined that Zachary Turner was rendered unconscious by the Ativan and did not suffer.

On 31 March 2006, a disciplinary board convened by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador found Dr. John Doucet guilty of professional misconduct for his involvement in helping post Turner's $75,000 bail in 2001. Doucet was ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 — covering one third of the $30,000 incurred by the College for the inquiry — and was ordered to undergo psychiatric counseling. Doucet said he was "disappointed" by the verdict, while David Bagby stated that he was happy with the precedent his case would be setting.^[16] According to filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Doucet later left Newfoundland and relocated elsewhere in Canada.^[17]

In October 2006, Winnipeg-based coroner Peter Markesteyn released the Turner Report and Investigation, which concluded that Zachary Turner's death was preventable and criticised Newfoundland and Labrador's social services system for failing to protect the child from his mother, stating, "Nowhere did I find any ongoing assessment of the safety needs of the children." Markesteyn specifically cited poor communication between social services officials, who worked on the presumption of Shirley Turner's innocence throughout the case and became more concerned for her welfare than for Zachary's. Markesteyn ultimately concluded that internal disagreements between case workers and managers weren't openly discussed, and that an intervention by an outside office should have been made.^[18] The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador accepted the report's conclusions and its twenty-nine recommendations.

On 23 October 2009, Scott Andrews, a Liberal MP from Newfoundland and Labrador, introduced Bill C-464, or "Zachary's Bill", which would change the Criminal Code of Canada to allow the courts to justify their refusing bail to those accused of serious crimes in the name of protecting their children. The bill received unanimous partisan support in the Canadian House of Commons, and received support from Liberal Senator Tommy Banks. It was finally signed into law by Governor-General David Johnston on 16 December 2010. Andrews later said that the law "gives [the Bagbys] some sense that someone has heard their cries so this will not happen again, to change the law to make sure something this tragic will never happen again."^[19]

On October 31, 2008, MSNBC Films and Oscilloscope Laboratories released a documentary film, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, written and directed by Kurt Kuenne. The film is partly composed of home movies Kuenne and Bagby shot together as teenagers in California, and features interviews with Bagby's parents, extended family, friends, classmates, and colleagues both before and after Zachary's murder. A portion of the film also shows Kuenne meeting Zachary in Newfoundland in July 2003 to celebrate his first birthday, one month before his death; Shirley Turner is present during the visit, but Kuenne avoids her. The film premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival, and was broadcast by MSNBC on December 7, 2008.

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures named the film one of the five top documentaries of the year for 2008. Among those who named it one of the best films of 2008 were Time Out Chicago, The Oregonian, the Times Herald-Record, Slant Magazine, and WGN Radio Chicago.^[20] The website Film School Rejects place the film in third place in their "30 Best Films of the Decade" list.^[21] The Film Vault included the film on their "Top 5 Good Movies You Never Want to See Again."^[22]

The Chicago Film Critics Association nominated Dear Zachary for Best Documentary. The Society of Professional Journalists presented the film with its Sigma Delta Chi Award for Best Documentary, it received the Special Jury and Audience Awards at the Cinequest Film Festival, it was named an Audience Favorite at Hot Docs, it received the Audience Awards at the St. Louis International Film Festival and the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, and it was named Best Documentary at the Orlando Film Festival.^[20]

2001

October

• 20 October - Approximate date of Zachary Turner's conception, during Shirley Turner's penultimate visit to Andrew Bagby in Latrobe.

November

• 3 November - Andrew Bagby breaks up with Shirley Turner. Turner flies from Latrobe, Pennsylvania to her home in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

• 4 November - Turner begins a cross-country drive back to Latrobe, making cell phone calls from Chicago, Illinois, South Bend, Indiana, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along the way.

• 5 November -
  • 5:30 a.m. - Turner arrives in Latrobe and shows up at Bagby's house, saying that she wants to speak with him in private at Keystone State Park in Derry Township that evening.
  • 7:30 a.m. - Bagby goes to work at his practice across the street while Turner remains in his house. She accesses eBay and Hotmail on his home computer, falsely calls in sick to work on his home phone, and apparently steals the box of condoms he purchased on 3 November.

• 6 November - A park ranger discovers Bagby's body lying face-down in the parking lot of Keystone State Park. He had been shot in the face, the chest, the buttocks, and the back of the head by what ballistics experts later determined were CCI .22 bullets from a Phoenix Arms HP22 handgun.

• 12 November - Turner abandons her apartment, possessions, and vehicle in Council Bluffs. Traveling on her Canadian passport, she takes a flight from Omaha to Toronto, Ontario. She reunites with her eldest daughter at a Toronto motel.

• 20 November
  • Acting in conjunction with the Pennsylvania State Police, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary's Intelligence Unit opens a file on Shirley Turner.
  • Turner attends Bagby's memorial service on the Memorial University campus. RNC officers conduct surveillance on Turner at the gathering.

• 28 November
  • The Intelligence Unit contacts the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency advising that "an alert be placed on Canadian border crossings" for Turner.

• 29 November
  • The Intelligence Unit puts Turner on their database, noting "suicidal tendencies."
  • Turner keeps an ultrasound appointment.

December

• 12 December
  • The RNC arrests Turner in St. John's for Bagby's murder.
  • Crown Prosecutor Michael Madden and Justice David Russel of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador conditionally allow Turner to go free on bail. Doucet pays most of her CAD$75,000 bail.

2002

July

• 18 July - Shirley Turner gives birth to Zachary Turner; David and Kate Bagby are in the hospital during the birth, but Turner refuses to let them enter the delivery room to see their grandson.

2003

August

• 18 August - Shirley Turner drugs herself and Zachary, and then jumps into the ocean. Both drown.

2006

March

• 31 March - The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador find Turner's former psychiatrist, Dr. John Doucet, guilty of professional misconduct, ordering him to pay a CAD$10,000 fine and undergo psychiatric counseling.

October

• 4 October - The Turner Report and Investigation is released, finding that Zachary's death was preventable and that Newfoundland and Labrador's social services system did not adequately act to protect him from Turner. The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador accepts the report and its twenty-nine recommendations.

2008

October

• 31 October - Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, a documentary by Kurt Kuenne partly covering the Turner case, premieres at the Slamdance Film Festival.

December

• 7 December - Dear Zachary premieres on the U.S. cable news channel MSNBC.

2009

October

• 23 October - Liberal MP Scott Andrews introduces Bill C-464, or "Zachary's Bill", for the purpose of strengthening Canada's bail requirements.

2010

December

• 16 December - Bill C-464 is given Royal Assent — i.e. signed into law — by Governor-General David Johnston.

• Murder of Victoria Climbié
• Murder of James Bulger
• Andrea Yates
• Dena Schlosser

• Turner Review and Investigation