Drug killing brings life in prison

In a retrial, the jury convicted Jonathan Turner, 24, of ambushing a 19-year-old in a gang-related dispute in 2003.

By ROCHELLE OLSON, Star Tribune

Last update: November 10, 2009 - 11:33 PM

A retrial over a 2003 killing ended Tuesday with the conviction of Jonathan N. Turner in a case that the prosecutor said involved a drug-turf dispute.

Turner, 24, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of 19-year-old Javon Spencer in Minneapolis. The victim died near his truck on the 2000 block of Park Avenue S. after he was shot multiple times early on Aug. 17, 2003.

The jury started deliberations late Monday afternoon and rendered a verdict at mid-morning Tuesday. Turner was found guilty of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and was acquitted of two counts of second-degree murder. He clasped his hands over his head as the verdicts were read. He was immediately sentenced to life in prison plus five years, because he was convicted of committing a crime for the benefit of a gang, meaning he will never be released from prison.

The prosecutor argued that Turner killed Spencer in a dispute over drug-dealing turf in the Phillips neighborhood. The prosecutor said Spencer was dealing drugs in an area known as "the Zone" near the corner of E. Franklin and Park avenues when Turner told him to move off turf belonging to the Southside 20s gang, an offshoot of the Family Mob. Testimony indicated that drug proceeds in the Zone can hit $20,000 a week.

Spencer didn't move, which caused Turner to set up the fatal ambush, the prosecutor said.

In Turner's first trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict after deliberations over three days.

In an unusual interview that Turner granted during deliberations in that trial, he said he was falsely accused and wasn't in a gang. Turner said rival Family Mob gang members falsely accused him of an unsolved Minneapolis murder to get credit on their sentences. He said it wasn't until five years after the killing, when the prosecution's key witnesses faced prison terms, that they claimed that Turner killed Spencer. Turner did not testify at either trial.

Defense lawyer Gary Wolf said Turner couldn't have been the killer because he was at home, wearing an ankle bracelet that alerted his probation officer if he left his house between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Turner also faces murder charges in the death of Marcus Dortch a few weeks before the Spencer killing. Prosecutors have argued that the two killings were connected. Dortch, 24, of Minneapolis was gunned down in late July 2003 while talking to several women near 22nd Street and Oakland Avenue S. about 12:30 a.m.

Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747

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