Witnesses: Murder victim’s husband unmoved

Karen Zekan

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998 | 10:44 a.m.

As friends and family frantically searched in vain for the late Barbara Turner-Elliot, her newlywed husband on trial for her murder was described in court Tuesday as virtually unmoved in the days after she mysteriously disappeared.

Police visits to the couple's Halloran Court home upon numerous occasions found Clarence Elliot sleeping. Just six days after the woman disappeared, Elliot told a friend that he was going gambling.

A total of 16 witnesses were called to the stand in District Judge Jeffrey Sobel's court in the trial's second day as testimony concentrated on Turner-Elliot's last known movements Feb. 19 to Feb. 22, 1996, when police recovered her blood-stained Honda Accord in the Angel Park golf course parking lot.

David Turner, the University Medical Center social worker's son, described for the nine men and three women in the jury box his struggle to get Elliot to file a missing persons report with police when his mother disappeared.

Elliot at least twice got mad at Turner in his efforts to find his mother, objecting to his search inside the couple's home to find photos of Turner-Elliot to use in a missing person flyer and again when he tried to call credit card agencies to see if there had been any activity on his mother's accounts.

Turner also described for the court a meal Clarence made for him the day after his mother disappeared -- chicken tacos.

The contents of the meal are critical in the case, primarily because the ingredients include some of the items Turner-Elliot is believed to have purchased at the Lucky store at Rainbow Boulevard and Flamingo Road in the moments before she was killed.

Elliot has maintained that his wife left for work Feb. 19 about 7:30 a.m. and never made it home. Witnesses said she made it to the grocery store about 5 p.m. Her car was found Feb. 22 at Angel Park golf course, and her decomposed body turned up three months later in a ravine near Red Rock.

Brenda Roser-Eyre, a civilian Metro employee, recalled Elliot as unusually calm when he arrived at the substation with a worried, nervous Turner to file the report Feb. 20.

Testimony from people at Lucky helped build a time line. Examining store receipts found in the deceased woman's car, a Sav-On pharmacist confirmed Turner-Elliot purchased a prescription at 4:51 p.m. The store's manager confirmed that the woman purchased food and a box of Benadryl at 5:05 p.m.

A security guard who arrived for work noticed the woman's silver Honda Accord in the lot when he arrived at work about 9:50 p.m. that night.

Laura Anderson, a Metro Police missing persons detective, said a check of the woman's cell phone activity showed that three calls had been made from her phone to unknown West Las Vegas numbers that evening.

Barbara Wright, a social worker at UMC, said Elliot's oddly calm behavior after his wife's disappearance stirred her suspicions. She sensed that he knew where the woman was Feb. 23 when he called to see if he could come over to talk.

"We had all been out looking for her, handing out flyers, and he hadn't been doing anything," she said. "I thought maybe the guilt was getting to him."

She said she waited more than an hour, but Elliot never showed. He called later that evening to say police had just been to his house and that they were looking at him as a suspect -- a statement officers testifying Tuesday had denied.

"Clarence said, 'I'm sorry about what happened to this woman, but I don't need this ...,' " Wright said.

The two met for breakfast the next morning at Elliot's request, yet Wright said every reference she made to her missing friend saw Elliot change the subject during their hour-long meal at a local pancake house. At breakfast's end, Elliot told her he was going gambling.

Kirk Kennedy, Elliot's court appointed attorney, offered little in the way of defensive questioning of the witnesses outside of periodic queries if those taking the stand were aware that the seemingly emotionless man was a Vietnam war vet.

Following more testimony, the case is expected to go to the jury today.