Ivelis Turell | Homicide Watch Trenton

Still no decision from Turell Jury

Paul Mickle — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:01:21 -0400

TRENTON – The jury in the Ivelis Turell murder case could not reach a verdict again Monday, despite more than 18 hours of deliberation starting last Wednesday.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

In a note to Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez just after noon, the jury said it has deliberated a “significant’’ amount of hours and hadn’t been able make a decision.
The judge sent them to lunch with orders to return at 2 p.m. to try again to come to a verdict. By 4:15 p.m., they hadn’t and were sent home with orders to return Tuesday morning at 9.

Turell, 34, is charged with killing the father of her two boys, Michale Whitaker, during a long day of argument at their home on Ferry Street the night of April 30, 2007.
Prosecutors contend she shot deliberately because Whitaker refused to sign a letter agreeing to pay off their credit cards bills before leaving her and their sons, then ages 2 and 6.
The defense contends Turell was an abused spouse who accidentally shot Whitaker as they tussled for the gun, a 9 mm Ruger that also went off and shot the woman in the shoulder.
A dozen or so friends and relatives of both Whitaker and Turell have been attending the trial, now in its third week.

Turell murder case goes to jury

Paul Mickle — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:31:10 -0400

TRENTON — A jury of nine women and three men is deliberating the fate of Ivelis Turell, on trial for the shooting murder of the father of her two sons on April 30, 2007.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

After four alternate jurors — all men — were culled out, the remaining 12 started deliberations shortly after 3 p.m., following instructions from Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez.
The jurors did not reach an immediate verdict and were sent home in time for dinner.

The judge told the jurors they could find Turell, 34, guilty of murder, aggravate manslaughter, reckless manslaughter or not guilty — plus guilty or not guilty of possession of a gun for unlawful purpose.
Earlier in the day, the defense said the death of Mike Whitaker was the result of an accidental shooting, but the prosecutor insisted she planned the murder of Whitaker.
To hear defense lawyer Steve Slaven tell it, Turell was trapped in an abusive relationship and shot Whitaker as both tussled for control of a 9mm Ruger in the bedroom of their home on Ferry Street.
Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Skylar Weissman told the jurors Turell planned the killing, as evidenced by the agreement about paying credit card bills she wrote two days before telling Whitaker he could leave her if he signed it.
“In closing,” said Weissman, “Mike Whitaker met his demise at the hand of a defendant who had planned this. You can leave if you sign this. When he did not sign, she fatally shot him.”

Cop: Ballistics squad wiped prints from Turell murder weapon

Paul Mickle — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:42:08 -0400

TRENTON — The defense rested Tuesday morning after getting a detective to admit no fingerprints could be lifted from the gun that killed Michael Whitaker because the weapon has been cleaned with hydrogen peroxide.

But don’t look at Ivelis Turell, on trial for Whitaker’s murder, as the cleaner of the 9mm Ruger.

State police Detective Mike McCormick told defense lawyer Steve Slaven the ballistics squad apparently wiped down the weapon before he could dust it for prints.

In crime-scene photos shown in court, the gun is seen on the floor where it fell after the shooting at the Whitaker home on Ferry Street. It has blood spots on the barrel and trigger at that time.

Turell, 34, is on trial for the shooting death of her lover of four years and the father of her two boys on April 30, 2007. She testified it happened when the possibly hair-triggered Ruger went off as she and Whitaker snatched for it following a long argument in the bedroom of their Ferry Street home.

The prosecution contends she fired on Whitaker deliberately and then made conflicting statements to police, including that her 6-year-old son had shot the father with the 9mm.

After Tuesday’s final disclosure Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez dismissed the jury panel of nine women and seven men and told them to be in at 9 a.m. and ready for closing arguments and his instructions of law.

They could get the case by Wednesday afternoon, the judge said.

Ivelis Turell takes the stand in her own defense

Paul Mickle — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:00:32 -0500

TRENTON — A tearful Ivelis Turell took the stand yesterday to defend herself against murder charges by telling of life with two little boys and a boyfriend fascinated by a gun that ended up killing him.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

“I was like, ‘Mike, I love you,’ ” she testified in a cracking voice to telling victim Mike Whitaker after she gunned him down with the 9mm Ruger in the bedroom of their Ferry Street home the night of March 30, 2007.

Seconds later she was downstairs, where the jammed gun went off as she banged it against the stove and, once it became unstuck, fired a shot that passed through her left neck and shoulder.
By then the fatally wounded Whitaker, 35, had come down the steps himself and was crying and apologizing to Turell, whom he had lived with for four years and sired two boys with.
Whitaker hugged her, Turell said, and “we both fell to the floor,” where investigators later found a large splotch of blood in the doorway of the kitchen.
Turell, 34, is on trial for murder and a weapons offense before Mercer County Superior Court Pedro Jimenez and a jury panel of nine woman and seven men.
Under cross examination from Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Skylar Weissman, Turell stuck to her battered housewife story.
Turell told the prosecutor of being choked to near unconsciousness in the basement of the home not long before the shooting started at about 10:40 that night.
When she finally got her breath she found herself locked in the basement, with Whitaker standing right outside the door for about 30 minutes. When he let her out, she said, he backhanded her across the face.
That’s when she got a large black garbage bag from the kitchen and headed upstairs to pack his belongings in it. He confronted her in the room about 10 minutes later,
There, after bumping past her, she said, he reached atop a tall chest and pulled down his silver handgun. Turell said they were standing inches away, on opposite corners of the bottom right of the bed, when he tripped over something in the congested little room.
He fell to both knees, she said, and when she saw the gun fall to the bed she snatched and it instantly fired. Whitaker was hit in the right deltoid by a shot that fatally passed through the top of his chest.
Turell, crying on the witness stand, said she took the gun downstairs and was thinking of shooting herself when it the got stuck. She banged it against the stove and it shot across the room.
She was pointing it toward herself, she said, when Whitaker stumbled down the stairs vomiting up lots of blood and screaming “No, Ive, no, don’t do it,” just as the gun went off and a bullet shot through her left neck and shoulder blade.
Turell told Weissman she doesn’t remember ever telling any cops that her then 6-year-old son — who is known as Eddie, Donnie and Danny — shot Whitaker that night, despite the testimony of city detectives.
But she and defense lawyer Steve Slaven did get on the record the story, which occurred about five months before the murder, of the older boy getting a hold of Whitaker’s gun and it instantly going off. She showed the jury where the bullet left a hole in the armpit of the shirt of then 2-year-old Giovanni and said he was scraped by the slug.
Weissman questioned why she didn’t report that or other incidents to police.

Judge refuses to throw out murder case against Ivelis Turell

Paul Mickle — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:20:06 -0500

TRENTON – A judge has refused to toss out the murder case against Ivelis Turell, ruling against defense arguments that the prosecution didn’t prove its case against the suspected boyfriend shooter.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez made the decision after Assistant Prosecutor Skylar Weissman rested the state’s case and defense lawyer Steve Slaven said not enough evidence was introduced to convict Turell of murdering Michael Whitaker on April 30, 2007.

The decision came after Investigator James Joyce, a veteran firearms examiner for the state, said the 9mm handgun that killed Whitaker would not go off with a light touch, nor when dropped to the floor.
Part of the Turell defense is that Whitaker’s Pennyslvania-purchased Ruger seemed to go off too easily.
Among the sometimes conflicting stories she has told detectives is that her six-year-old touched the gun and it went off and that it accidentally fired to wound her in the seconds after it went off and shot Whitaker that night at their Ferry Street home.

Murder victim easily bought the weapon that killed him

Paul Mickle — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:08:56 -0500

TRENTON — Mike Whitaker, slain in a domestic violence incident, purchased the apparently hair-triggered gun that killed him under Pennsylvania’s easy rules for getting deadly weapons.

Ivelis Turell, charged with killing him, said in an audio tape played in court Thursday that Whitaker showed his Pennsylvania driver license and had no trouble coming home with the silver 9mm Ruger.

Some weeks before the gun took his life, according to testimony at Turell’s trial, the automatic handgun had gone off accidentally when in the hands of her 6-year-old and the bullet passed through the shirt her 2-year-old was wearing.

Turell’s former laywer, Tim Smith, told The Trentonian before the trial that Whitaker often threatened her with it, made her play Russian Roulette and ignored the city cops and relatives who told him to get rid of the automatic handgun.

But Whitaker said he was more afraid of local gangbangers than of the cops, the woman is heard saying on the tape that was played in the courtroom of Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez.

Turell, sometimes in hysterics, told the story to Detective Edgar Rios the afternoon after she fatally gunned down Whitaker the night of April 30, 2007. For weeks, she said on the tape, the couple had argued about the gun being in the house and the danger it posed to her little boys.

She also tells Rios on the tape that the couple argued often about him running up bills for things like car rims on her credit card.

The night of the slaying, Turell says in the tape interview, she followed Whitaker upstairs to their bedroom because she knew he was getting the gun there. When she got there, the gun was on the bed near her sleeping 2-year-old.

She told Rios, who confirmed what he was told from the witness stand, that the gun went off and hit Whitaker as they were “struggling” for the weapon. Earlier that same day, however, she had told Detective Scott Peterson she alone had possession of the gun when it went off – the statement that got her charged with the slaying.

Turell also said on the tape that after shooting Whitaker, she took the gun downstairs and it accidentally fire again into a kitchen wall. Then she somehow shot herself with the handgun.

Another cop says Turell admitted shooting her boyfriend

Paul Mickle — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:34:28 -0500

By Paul Mickle

TRENTON – Another Trenton cop testified today that Ivelis Turell admitted to him that she shot her boyfriend after blaming her six-year-old son for the fatal gunning on April 30, 2007.

Trentonian Photo/PAUL MICKLE
Ivelis Turell (left), on trial for murder, walks to the courthouse with her mother on Wednesday.

Detective Scott Peterson said Turell made the admission at a city hospital not long after telling him from the stoop of her Ferry Street home that her little boy “Eddie" had accidentally shot Michael Whitaker.

The victim was shot dead with his own gun, an apparently hair-triggered 9mm Ruger that Turell told police at least three different stories about in the hours after the shooting that night at 10:42, following a day of argument about the weapon being in the house.

In a 911 audio tape played in court, Turell can be heard in hysterics telling the operator that she shot Whitaker upstairs in their bedroom in a tussle for the silver handgun. She then admits accidentally shooting herself.

Minutes later, according to testimony from the first cop on the scene, Turell told street officers the little boy had gotten the gun and it accidentally went off, hitting Whitaker in the shoulder with a slug that passed into his chest.

One cop went upstairs to find the accused shooter and his little brother asleep in bed.

Peterson, the duty detective that night, said he never realized Turell has been shot and wasn’t questioning the story about the boy while talking to her outside the house. Twenty minutes later in the hospital, Peterson said, Turell told him she alone was holding the gun when it fired at Whitaker.

“I was in possession of the gun," Peterson cites the woman as telling him in his report on the case. With that, the detective said, he advised her of rights, told her she’d be charged and turned the case over to top homicide investigator Detective Edgar Rios.

With Whitaker in the same hospital near death, Peterson said Turell told him: “When I realized I shot him I freaked out. I was carrying the gun and it went off again."

The bullet hit the ceiling and then bounced back into her shoulder.

There’s at least a germ of truth in the story about little Eddie and the gun. Some weeks before the killing, the boy had gotten a hold of the gun and it went off. A city cop told Whitaker to get rid of it, and relatives and friends of Turell told her to leave him.

Testimony resumes Thursday before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez.

Ivelis Turell murder trial begins

Trentonian Staff — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:45:15 -0500

By PAUL MICKLE
TRENTON – Ivelis Turell told the first cop on the scene her six-year-old son Eddie had shot and killed her boyfriend when the man’s silver 9 mm Ruger accidentally went off the night of April 30, 2007.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

A former Trenton street cop told the story in court yesterday soon after the jury heard an audio tape of the suspect admitting to detectives that she shot Michael Whitaker in a tussle for a gun she feared he was about to use on her.

It happened in the family home on Ferry Street at about 10:40 that night while Eddie and his 2-year-old brother were sleeping, the woman told detectives in an audio tape played in the courtroom of Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez.
Prosecutors also played the audio of Turell’s call to 911, in which she says there’s been a shooting, that two might be dead and that two children are sleeping in the house.
The first officers on the scene that night found both boys asleep, which did not jibe with Turell’s initial statement about the boy, who has the name of her first husband but was Whitaker’s son.
In her statement to Trenton Detective Edgar Rios and others played in court, Turell said the couple argued often and that she knew what it meant when Whitaker ran upstairs during a fight that night: He was getting his gun.
It was on the bed when she reached the bedroom and she tried to snatch it away from him. It fired, and Turell said she thought the shot hit the wall. But then Whitaker went down.
“Mikey, you see what you’ve done. I love you,’’ Turell, by now in hysterics, told the detectives.
She ran downstairs, gun in hand, and somehow shot herself, she said, just as Whitaker reached her and started hugging her. They fell to the floor but managed to get up and go outside, where he fell on the pavement and she collapsed in the doorway.
She allegedly had shot him in the shoulder with a bullet that passed into his chest. She allegedly shot herself in the shoulder, but never told the first cops on the scene that she was wounded -- only that she was numb on her left side.
In the audio tape, Turell spoke of the gun as if it was hair-triggered. She said her young Eddie had gotten a hold of the gun a few months before and it accidentally fired.
A cop came to the house after that and told Whitaker he better get rid of the weapon, Turell told Rios. Friends and relatives also told her to leave Whitaker.
But he was her first real love, she told Rios, crying hysterically. She cried harder as she told of her toddler Giovanni loving his father so much.
“When his father came home, he’d be so excited. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’"
The mother said the older Eddie, named for another man, hated his biological father.

Jury selection may finally end in Turell case

Trentonian Staff — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:41:55 -0500

By PAUL MICKLE
TRENTON — Both sides think a jury will finally be selected in time to start opening arguments Friday in the trial of a camera-shy mom claiming she killed her boyfriend in self-defense.

Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend Michael Whitaker, tries to avoid having her picture taken at the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.

In the fourth day of a search for 12 jurors and two alternates, the judge ordered another few dozen potential jurors brought in for screening to fill the last spots on the panel to decide the fate of Ivelis Turell.

She’s the mother charged with killing boyfriend Michael Whitaker in May of 2007 during a struggle over a gun in which she also was shot. It happened in the new home they shared on Ferry Street in Trenton.

A previous judge tossed out the charges, saying it was a case of self-defense. Turell’s previous lawyer, Tim Smith of upstate Fairfield, said Whitaker was inclined to rages and often made the woman play Russian Routlette.

Turell, who was wearing a brown pants suit that matched brownish red hair Thursday, would not consent to have her picture taken in court by The Trentonian when the judge gave permission. But she was snapped earlier today leaving the courthouse.

Jury selection continues in case against Ivelis Turell

Trentonian Staff — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:55:25 -0500

By PAUL MICKLE
pmickle@trentonian.com
TRENTON — Another 50 prospects were brought Tuesday afternoon in a bid to find the last few jurors for the trial of a long abused woman claiming she killed her boyfriend in self-defense.
Soon after they were brought before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jiminez, most members of the jury pool were lining up to talk to the judge about why they couldn’t serve.

During the day's proceedings, and last week, the judge excused prospective jurors who said they were self-employed or would not be paid by their employers for time missed. The trial is expected to go three weeks.
Prospective jurors, including 15 now seated in the jury box but subject to getting cut, have been asked if domestic violence has touched their lives. Most said no.
They will be asked to decide the fate of Ivelis Turell, who allegedly shot and killed Michael Whitaker in a struggle over a gun in May 2007 at their home on Ferry Street.
She also was shot in the struggle with Whitaker, who worked as a heating and AC technician. A previous Mercer judge called it self-defense and tossed out the case. Turell’s previous lawyer, Tim Smith of upstate Fairfield, said Whitaker beat Turell frequently and often made her play Russian Roulette.
But prosecutors sought and got another indictment and have pressed on with the case.
The couple had one child together and lived with her other two children in a new house overlooking a small park at Ferry and Bridge Street.

Turell doesn't want kids to see her face in the paper

Brian Dzenis — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:14:31 -0500

By PAUL MICKLE
pmickle@trentonian.com
TRENTON — Ivelis Turell, on trial for allegedly shooting her boyfriend to death, doesn’t want her kids to see her picture in the newspapers.

She would not cooperate Thursday morning even after a judge gave The Trentonian permission to get photos of her in the courtroom while the jury was not present.

Her lawyer, Steve Slaven, said during a sidebar with the newspaper, judge and prosecutors that his client would have to consent before the paper could start snapping — though New Jersey Supreme Court rules say the judge and lawyers, not the suspect, must set the boundaries.

Turell is charged with shooting her boyfriend, heating and cooling technician Michael Stephen Whitaker, on May 2, 2007. The case against Turell was tossed out in November 2008 by Mercer County Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Kelly, who said he thought it was self-defense in a domestic violence event.

But Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Skylar Weissman again presented the case to a grand jury with more charges, and Turell was indicted again. She’s now free on $250,000 bail.

Tim Smith, Turell’s former lawyer, told The Trentonian Turell was a victim of domestic violence for years and that Whitaker routinely made her play Russian roulette with his handgun.

Turell was offered a plea agreement in which she would plead guilty to manslaughter for a seven-year, 85 percent prison term, but she turned it down. She faces 30 years to life in prison if found guilty at trial.

Turell murder trial begins Wednesday

Trentonian Staff — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:52:45 -0500

TRENTON — Jury selection starts Wednesday in the case of the woman who already has convinced one judge it was self-defense when she fatally shot her boyfriend and took a bullet to the shoulder in a struggle with him in 2007.
Ivelis Turell, of the 200 block of Ferry Street, has been indicted twice on homicide and weapons charges for the shooting death of Michael Whitaker, 35, on May 2 of that year.

The case against Turell was tossed out in November 2008 by Mercer County Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Kelly, who said he thought the case was one of self-defense in a domestic violence event.
But Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Skylar Weissman again presented the case to a grand jury with more charges, and Turell was indicted again. She’s now free on $250,000 bail.
Turell was offered a plea agreement in which she would plead guilty to manslaughter for a seven-year, 85 percent, prison term, but she turned it down. She faces 30 years to life in prison if found guilty at trial.
Earlier this month, just as jury selection was to begin, Turell asked the court to permit her to return to an attorney who dropped her months ago, Tim Smith. She was denied and appealed.
The appeals court returned a ruling in days, denying the woman’s request.

Trial postponed in 2007 homicide case

Trentonian Staff — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:42:08 -0500

TRENTON – Ivelis Turell, whose trial for allegedly killing her boyfriend in 2007 finally started Monday, has won another legal delay, this time so an appeals court can decide if she can change her mind again about her lawyer.

With jury selection underway, the suspect asked Mercer County Superior Court Judge Pedro Jiminez if she could go back to her original lawyer, Timothy Smith, who dropped her case eight months ago.

Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Skylar Weissman opposed the move, as did the judge, who ruled against her. That prompted her current lawyers to file a motion with the appeals court to permit the return of the former lawyer.

Turell, 34, of the 200 block of Ferry Street and free on $250,000 bail, has been indicted twice on homicide and weapons charges for the May 2, 2007, shooting death of Michael Whitaker, 35.

According to police, Turell shot heating and air conditioning technician Whitaker in the chest, killing him, and then turned the gun on herself, shooting her shoulder.

The case against the woman, who had a child with Whitaker, was thrown out in 2008 by Mercer Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Kelly, who said he thought the case was one of self-defense in a horrible domestic violence event.

But Weissman again presented the case to a grand jury with more charges and new evidence. Again, she was indicted.

Turell was later offered a plea agreement in which she would plead guilty to manslaughter for a seven-year term, but she turned that down.

Turell, if found guilty, faces 30 years to life in prison.