FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Gerald Turner argues the state has no evidence to keep him in custody as a sexual predator so he should be released, as the state tries to keep the notorious “Halloween Killer” at a secure mental health facility, since his prison term has been completed.
Turner, 73, was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing 9-year-old Lisa Ann French while she was trick-or-treating in Fond du Lac in 1973. Her body was found a few days later in the town of Taycheedah. His prison term complete, the state filed suit in 2018, seeking to have Turner deemed a sexually violent offender, and ordered to remain at a secure mental health facility under the Chapter 980 sexual predator law. His attorneys have opposed the request, and want him released. Five years later, that process is still going on.
In a 16-page motion filed Tuesday afternoon, attorney Evan Weitz asks for the case to be dismissed.
“The fatal flaw in the State’s prosecution of a petition against Mr. Turner is that it is so divorced from the established medical practice that it creates more than a mere risk of an erroneous determination, it actively invites such an error. Despite having now been evaluated by three different experts, no expert in the field of sexual offender risk assessment has been able to offer an opinion that Mr. Turner meets the criteria for commitment under Chapter 980. Accordingly, to allow the State to continue in its prosecution of a Chapter 980 petition against Mr. Turner would be to unconstitutionally deny him of Due Process and would create an unacceptable danger of an erroneous indefinite deprivation of his liberty,” Weitz wrote.
Weitz notes a jury determined in 1998 that Turner was not a sexually violent person. Subsequent reports also do not support such a finding, Weitz argues, yet Turner has been deprived of his liberty for more than five years as this court case proceeds.
“The State’s attempt to pursue civil commitment of Mr. Turner presents another circumstance where this Court must clarify the constitutional bounds of permissible civil commitment,” Weitz wrote. “This Court must reject such an expansion of the use of civil commitment as it exceeds the bounds of Due Process… To allow the State to continue to pursue commitment of Mr. Turner, without any expert saying he meets the criteria of the law, is a clear violation of established federal constitutional law.”
The state has a few weeks to file its reply to Tuesday’s motion. A hearing is scheduled for March 3 before a Fond du Lac County judge.
Turner is currently held at the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston.
After serving 17 years in prison for a 38-year sentence, Turner was released from prison in 1992 but returned to prison that same year following a court decision challenging calculation of time served. Turner was again released on parole in 1998 but returned to prison in 2003 for 15 years after pornographic images were found on his computer.
