<p>A former animal shelter worker testified Thursday that a woman accused of fatally poisoning her husband and later her boyfriend asked her how antifreeze affects cats and whether a chemical used to euthanize stray animals is available to the general public.</p><p>Samantha Gilleland told jurors Lynn Turner claimed during the visit to her clinic in April 1999 that she wanted the information about antifreeze because there was a loose cat in her neighborhood.</p><p>"She was the first and only person to ask me about cats and antifreeze," Gilleland testified. "I suggested to her to trap the animal and bring it into the shelter. At that point, she wanted to know how the euthanasia process worked."</p><p>Gilleland added, "She asked me what we used. I told her I didn't know what it was, we called it the 'purple stuff.' She had asked me, 'Could anybody get it? Was it easy to get hold of?' I said, 'No,' that it was a controlled substance."</p><p>Two years after the conversation, Turner's boyfriend, Forsyth County firefighter Randy Thompson, died of antifreeze poisoning.</p><p>Turner, 35, is not charged in Thompson's death, but she is the prime suspect and prosecutors have a judge's approval to draw on similarities between that case and the 1995 death of Turner's husband, Cobb County police officer Glenn Turner, for which she is on trial for murder.</p><p>Gilleland's comments followed a lengthy hearing outside the presence of the jury during which defense lawyer Jimmy Berry vigorously objected to the testimony.</p><p>"How does that relate to what it might do to a human?" Berry asked Judge James Bodiford, referring to the antifreeze comment about cats. "It's a huge leap of faith and to put something in like this is devastating."</p><p>But prosecutor Russ Parker said the evidence goes to motive and is central to the state's case.</p><p>"It shows that she has the knowledge of what antifreeze will do to animals," Parker said. "She went a step further and asked about what was known as purple stuff."</p><p>Bodiford sided with prosecutors, saying the testimony meets the state's minimum standard for admitting evidence.</p><p>Gilleland also testified that during an earlier visit, Turner came into the clinic with a solicitor to discuss a county animal abuse case that the solicitor was prosecuting. At the time, Turner was an administrative assistant in the Forsyth County district attorney's office.</p><p>However, Gilleland told jurors that the abuse case involved unfed animals, not antifreeze.</p><p>Prosecutors say lust and greed for the two victims' life-insurance money drove Lynn Turner to kill them. Defense lawyers say there is no direct evidence linking his client to either death, nor that either one actually was a homicide.</p><p>Authorities initially ruled that both men died of natural causes. It wasn't until a few months after Thompson's death that police launched a criminal investigation. Police said new testing on the men's bodies showed they were poisoned with ethylene glycol, the sweet, odorless chemical found in antifreeze.</p><p>In other testimony Thursday, several witnesses testified that Glenn Turner, 31, and Randy Thompson, 32, did not appear suicidal before their deaths. Defense lawyers have suggested during questioning of witnesses that the men may have intentionally poisoned themselves.</p><p>Lynn Turner told police her husband was acting strange the night before his death and picked up a can of what appeared to be gasoline. In Thompson's case, he became ill in 1997 and 1999 after taking too much pain medication.</p><p>A close friend of Thompson's, Terry Pruitt, testified that he believes the 1999 incident was just a plea for attention and that Thompson didn't intend to take his life.</p><p>As for the 1997 incident, paramedic Jeff Lisle said he did not take Thompson to the hospital because he did not believe he was a danger to himself.</p><p>Linda Hardy, Glenn Turner's sister, testified that her brother loved life and would never have killed himself.</p><p>The trial, in its second week, was moved 110 miles from Marietta to Perry because of pretrial publicity.</p><p>Lynn Turner faces up to life in prison if convicted of her husband's death.</p>
