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Neighbor tells of finding Lyle teacher dead

By Lucy Dalglish
Staff Writer

AUSTIN- The neighbor of a Lyle schoolteacher found shot to death in her home Aug. 7 testified Monday that he thought something was amiss at Sharon Turnbull's home when he got up to make a pot of coffee that morning.

Acting on instinct and on the request of a friend of Turnbull's who also thought something was wrong. John Lindberg, his wife and another neighbor went to Sharon Turnbull's home and found Turnbull's body sprawled on her living room floor, a piece of decorative sewing at her feet.

Lindberg was the first witness to testify Monday at a Mower County Juvenile Court hearing that stretched into the evening.

Following the hearing, Judge Harold Krieger will decide whether a 14-year-old Lyle boy accused of shooting Turnbull in the head as she sewed and watched television should be ruled delinquent.

If found delinquent, the juvenile could be held only until he is 19.

Lindberg said he first suspected something was wrong at the Turnbull home when he arrived home from Austin about 11 p.m. Aug. 6. Turnbull, who rented her small yellow bungalow from Lindberg, was supposed to have left to visit her parents in Centuria, Wis. earlier that day but several lights were on in her house and her car was still in Lindberg's garage.

Turnbull had planned to mow her lawn that morning, but it had not been cut, Lindberg said. When the lights were still on the next morning, Lindberg said, "I thought I might check on her."

In Turnbull's house, "We found Sharon laying on her back. She had blood on her." Lindberg said. "We decided among us she was dead."

Lindberg said he called the sheriff's department, and an investigator arrived around 8:30 a.m. Sheriff Wayne Goodnature, in turn, called the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension a short time later when he and his deputies were stymied as to what happened.

Goodnature said that when Turnbull's body finally was removed from the crime scene about 4 p.m. no one had yet figured out what killed her. There was blood spattered about her body and near her head and Turnbull's right eye was discolored. Goodnature said he suspected that afternoon that Turnbull died either of a massive cerebral hemorrhage or from an injury to her eye.

"At that point in time, we were discussing that it was a very strange situation." Goodnature said, "I suspected trauma to her right eye, but at the time, evidence indicated anything but a gunshot wound."

It wasn't until after sheriff's and BCA investigators left Turnbull's house around 6 p.m. that anyone suspected a gunshot wound.

Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. the Hennepin County medical examiner's office, which performed an autospy on Turnbull, X-rayed Turnbull's skull and found fragments of what could be a bullet, according to testimony from Dr. Ned Austin, the forensic pathologist who examined Turnbull's body.

Investigators were informed a short time later that Turnbull might have been shot in the head.

About the same time, Lindberg said he and his wife walked up to Turnbull's home to look around. After noting a small hole in the outside screen door, Lindberg said he called Goodnature, who returned to the house for another look. Later that night, Deputy Sheriff Scott Moldenhauer found an empty shell casing under a flower near Turnbull's front steps.

Assistant county attorney Charlotte Peterson told the judge during her opening statement that she would prove that the youth made the "rather difficult shot that killed Sharon Turnbull."

An Austin architect presented testimony and exhibits showing the path a bullet might follow from the hole in the screen door to the spot where investigators testified they believed Turnbull's head was as she sat on the floor. Krieger permitted the testimony despite objections from the boy's attorney, Bruce Hanley.