Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating
new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help
the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm
to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.
Lise Jane
TURNER
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders:
1980 - 1982
Date of birth: 1956
Victims profile:
Megan Turner,
11-weeks-old (her daughter) / Cheney Louise Turner,
7-weeks-old (her daughter) / Michael Clark Tinnion,
8-month-old
Method of murder: Suffocation
Location: Christchurch,
South Island, New Zealand
Status:
Sentenced to life
term + 10 years for attempted murders
in 1984.
Paroled in
1997
Megan Turner was eleven weeks old on
January 11, 1980, when her mother rushed her to a hospital emergency
ward in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The child had inexplicably stopped
breathing, Lise Turner said, and help arrived too late to save her
life. Physicians could not specify a cause of death, and so they
blamed the tragedy on SIDS--the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome that
strikes certain newborns without warning or apparent cause.
Lise Turners second child, daughter
Cheney Louise, was born on January 31, 1982.
Seven weeks later, on March 15, a
visiting neighbor found the baby dead in her crib, the blanket stained
with blood from Cheneys mouth. Again, no cause of death was
ascertained.
Again, physicians put the blame on
SIDS. Lise Turner would have no more children, but bad luck continued
to haunt her, stretching out a lethal hand to others in her company.
Nine months after Cheneys death, in October 1982, four-month-old
Catherine Packer was left with Lise while her mother went shopping.
Mrs. Packer returned to find her
child vomiting, bleeding from the mouth, but hospital physicians saved
her life. At first, Catherine seemed to recover with no ill effects,
but the strange attacks were repeated over the next six months, always
occurring when Lise Turner came to call. Catherine's mother finally
saw through the coincidence when Lise joined her on a visit to the
hospital, her appearance prompting tearful screams from Catherine as
she cowered in her bed.
Turner was henceforth barred from
the Packer residence, but no charges were filed ... and there were
always more children around. Katrina Hall, five weeks old, was
stricken with vomiting and labored breathing in Lises care, but she
recovered in the hospital and suffered no more ill effects.
Eight-month-old Michael Tinnion was
less fortunate, found dead while Turner baby-sat, with sticky fluid
seeping from his nose and mouth. This time, physicians diagnosed
asphyxiation as the cause of death. prompting police to reexamine
other cases from their files.
In November 1984, Lise Turner stood
trial in the High Court of Christchurch, charged with three counts of
murder and two counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors referred to
four other attacks, on children unnamed in the indictments, but the
evidence on file was bad enough.
No motive was advanced, though Lises
crimes are strongly reminiscent of several American killers, all
diagnosed as suffering from Munchausens syndrome by proxy.
Convicted on all counts, Turner was
sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, plus five years on each of
the attempted murder counts.
Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial
Killers - Hunting Humans
Lisa Jane TURNER
Convicted child
killer Lisa Jane Turner, 41, was released from Arohata Women’s Prison
in August 1997 after serving 13 years for killing three babies and
attempting to murder two others. At her trial, evidence was presented
that she had tried to kill four other babies.
Turner, formerly of
Christchurch was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of
three babies, and to three five year sentences for the attempted
murder of two others. Two of the murdered children, Megan and Cheney
Louise, had been her own. The third was eight months old Michael Clark
Tinnion whom she suffocated.
Children under her
care developed cot-death syndrome or respiratory problems, some of
which were very serious. The circumstances led to authorities asking
questions and a case was made against her.
Turner was released
this year on life parole, under the control of her probation officer.
As a condition of her parole, she is not allowed unsupervised contact
with children. Dick Ashley, her de facto husband at the time she
committed the crimes, waited out the 13 years she was in prison and
they are now re-united.
At the time of her
release, Lauree and Kelvin Tinnion whose son Michael was suffocated by
Turner, issued a news release saying they felt freeing her was ‘the
end of justice’ for their son, who by then, would have been a
teenager.
