Guilty verdict in quickly at Elliot murder trial

Karen Zekan

Thursday, Aug. 27, 1998 | 10:46 a.m.

The gun was never found and no eyewitnesses saw Clarence Elliot pull the trigger, but the man's jealousy, possessiveness and lies were enough for a jury to find him guilty of murdering his newlywed wife.

The three women and nine men deliberated 2 1/2 hours before returning their verdict Wednesday evening to District Court Judge Jeffrey Sobel, who on Oct. 22 will decide if Elliot deserves life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

The parole option could see Elliot, 59, freed from prison after serving 40 years behind bars -- 20 years for the first-degree murder conviction and an additional 20 years for using a deadly weapon to kill his wife.

"It's over," were the only words an exhausted David Turner could say, a smile of relief slowly forming on the face of the man who canvassed the town with missing-person flyers and doggedly pushed law enforcement and prosecutors to find the person who killed his mother, Barbara Turner-Elliot, on Feb. 19, 1996.

About noon that day, Turner-Elliot signed paper work on a life insurance policy naming Elliot as the sole beneficiary of $25,000 in the event of her death.

She was last seen in public checking out of the Lucky grocery store at Rainbow Boulevard and Flamingo Road at 5:05 p.m. with a box of oyster crackers, Roma tomatoes, an onion, chicken, and a box of Benadryl.

Her silver Honda Accord, with personalized license plate "BTE 1" and blood-stained passenger seat, was noticed by a security guard in the Angel Park golf course parking lot at 9:50 p.m. One tire was flattened by a screw, possibly intentionally, and her purse, cellular phone, money, Benadryl and a prescription were found locked inside.

Her keys, including one of the Honda's master on the ring she carried with her every day, were later found at her home along with the second master key that came with the car.

Turner-Elliot's decomposed body was found three months later at the bottom of a ravine at mile marker 14 off West Charleston Boulevard near the Red Rock Detention Basin. She'd been shot at least four times with a rare type of .38-caliber bullets -- the same type Elliot had in his home and later turned over to police during the investigation.

Elliot maintained his innocence in interviews with police, claiming his 58-year-old wife never made it home from work Feb. 19, and that he hadn't seen her since she left the house for her social worker job at University Medical Center about 7:30 a.m.

In closing arguments Wednesday, deputy district attorneys Art Noxon and Dan Seaton used deductive reasoning to fill in gaps in the case built almost entirely upon circumstantial evidence.

Seaton theorized that Turner-Elliot made it home from the grocery store Feb. 19, put the perishable groceries away and started making dinner. At some point, she got into the Honda's passenger seat. Because neighbors never heard gunshots from the Holloran Court home, authorities believe she was killed near Red Rock, dragged from the car and dumped into the ravine.

Elliot drove the car to Angel Park, then walked the 3.9 miles to the couple's home, Seaton theorized. At 8 p.m., he began his alibi by calling his wife's best friend, Belinda Thompson, to say that his wife was missing, Seaton said.

Elliot never joined his wife's friends and family in the search that ended the day her body was found, instead sleeping, drinking and going gambling. He was the only family member who didn't speak at his wife's funeral, and appeared virtually devoid of any emotion since that February day.

Elliot never testified on his own behalf during the three-day trial, and his court-appointed attorney, Kirk Kennedy, never called any witnesses to the stand.

Friends and coworkers testified that Turner-Elliot had changed from the outgoing, friendly woman before she married Elliot June 30, 1995, to sullen and withdrawn by the time she mysteriously disappeared seven months later.

Testimony revealed the couple's marital problems were a result of Elliot's jealousy and possessiveness. In the weeks before her death, Turner-Elliot confided in a friend that her husband wanted the gentle woman to carry a gun for her protection.

Mention of a gun raised red flags in friends' minds because Turner-Elliot hated firearms, and nearly divorced her first husband when he gave Turner, then a teenager, a gun.

She called her friend, Belinda Thompson, the night before she died to say she was about ready to call it quits in her marriage. Elliot was listening in on the conversation, Thompson said, relating how she heard the click-click of an extension phone in the house.

David Turner saw Elliot with what he thought was a .38-caliber gun the month before she died. Elliot, he said, told him the gun was purchased illegally.

SUN REPORTER Bill Gang contributed to this story.