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Forida
trial set for June 15, 2005 | Extradition,
Dec. 16, 2004 | Ralph Crompton:
Pants on fire!
Blog this
Monique Turenne
"The Monique Turenne
Story"
Part 1: A soldier's
murder, cont'd
by Dan Lett, Winnipeg Free
Press, May 5, 2000
Secluded beach
Over drinks one evening Crompton
said he and Monique first talked about an affair. Both had a
lot to lose if found out. Adultery would take a major bite out
of Crompton's take-home pay for alimony and child support. For
Monique, a divorce would mean returning to Canada. "From
that conversation, I said to myself, 'That's great. I had basically
given up on my marriage and now I can have an affair with somebody
that has a lot to lose and who won't say anything,'" Crompton
said. A couple of weeks later, Crompton claimed he and Monique
had their first intimate encounter. They met late at night and
drove to a stretch of secluded beach east of Tyndall Air Force
Base. With a couple of blankets and some liquor supplied by Monique,
they made love on the beach. Crompton claimed the liaison continued
for some weeks, sometimes in motels and sometimes in Crompton's
office on the base long after everyone else had left.
Crompton said he and Monique
devised a series of telephone codes to see if a rendezvous was
on for a particular evening. "A lot of times one of us couldn't
get out. So that's when we came up with the codes. If it's off,
call one time at this time. Just let it ring once and that's
it. That would be a no-go. If there was no phone call at that
time, it's a go."
The affair continued until
Christmas, 1995, when both agreed a break was in order. Ralph
was getting ready to take a posting with Applied Research Associates
in Aiken, S. C. testing ground samples in the Savannah River
Valley for radiation, Monique, meanwhile, was struggling to keep
up with a load of five nursing school courses.
Crompton claimed the two had
discussed their marital problems, but he never got any hint that
she wanted to end her marriage, by divorce or murder. They both
understood that if her marriage ended, she would have to return
to Canada.
"We based our relationship,
the whole thing, on honesty, so I could trust her and she could
trust me."
---
One of the advantages of life
in Florida is that the work day begins and ends early. So it
was on Feb. 8, 1996, that David Turenne packed up his brief case
and left Tyndall Air Force Base at about 4 p.m. to enjoy the
last couple hours of soft Panama City sunlight.
Turenne may have stopped at
the Canadian officers' club on base for a beer or two before
heading home, as was his pattern. He arrived home at about 5
p.m., helped prepare dinner and then afterwards, helped with
the laundry. At about 10 p.m., Turenne went to his bedroom to
read.
Around the same time Turenne
was leaving work, Ralph Crompton got in a rented green Mercury
Topaz for an eight hour drive back to Panama City. He paid cash
and made sure the car had no rental tags on it. He had called
in sick that day to the job foreman from Applied Research Associates
and told the front desk at the Holiday Inn to hold all calls
and maid service until he felt better.
Before he left Aiken, Crompton
made several phone calls. One was to his wife in Panama City
to tell her he was sick and should not be disturbed. And one
other was to Monique Turenne at her work station. Crompton said
the call was to confirm his intention to meet early Friday morning
to rekindle their affair.
The true purpose of Crompton's
mission was the subject of great speculation. Panama City police
and prosecutors argued at trial Crompton made the trip with the
murder of David Turenne on his mind. They also believe Monique
set the table for a fatal conflict between the two men by sending
her husband to an all-night grocery store.
Police said they had reason
to believe Monique was planning some harm to her husband. Thursday
afternoon -- hours before the murder -- Monique went to the truck
repair bay at the rear of the ARA facility where she shared cigarette
breaks with other employees. Gary Wagner, a co-worker at ARA,
said Monique approached him that afternoon and made a startling
request.
"(Monique) said the next
door neighbour's son, a 16-year-old, had threatened to bash her
son's head in with a hammer," said Wagner, a bear of a man
with a deep southern drawl. "She asked if she could have
a pistol 'cause she knew I had guns at home. I told her straight
up if . . . you pull a gun on him you're going to jail."
Monique denies she asked Wagner
for a gun. However, her story has changed. In early interviews,
she denied ever talking with Wagner on the afternoon before the
murder. In a subsequent interview, however, she conceded the
two had talked about the trouble with the neighbourhood child,
but it was Wagner who asked if she had a gun to protect herself.
At this point, Crompton's and
Monique's versions about what happened next differ wildly. All
police can say for sure is that after purchasing Midol and Tagamet,
a stomach remedy, at a local 24-hour grocer at about 2.10 a.m.,
David Turenne returned home in his Dodge Caravan, parked in the
driveway and walked towards the garage door. Somewhere between
the van and the garage , Turenne was beaten to death with a blunt
object believed to be a ball-peen hammer. Although the receipt
for the Midol and Tagamet was found in his pocket, police never
recovered the bottles.
Monique, in a series of detailed
interviews with the Free Press, claimed she awoke early that
morning -- she is not sure of the precise time -- to find her
son Daniel held captive by a tall, thin man with a blond pony
tail. The man had a knife and demanded to see David.
Monique said she pleaded for
Daniel's release. The man, who she said had tattoos on his arms
and shoulders, angrily refused and forced the two into David's
bedroom, only to find he was not there. Then, Monique said, the
pony-tailed man forced them from room to room looking for a briefcase
full of money. When he couldn't find it, he forced them to sit
on the living room couch to wait for David to return home, she
said.
The hours dragged on, Monique
said. At one point, she claimed the pony-tailed man opened a
door from the house to the attached garage and had an inaudible
conversation with at least one other man who was searching the
garage.
Full of cash
Continuing the search, the
pony-tailed man eventually found a brief-case high up on a shelf
in the hallway closet. Monique claimed that when he opened it,
she could see it was full of cash.
At about 5 a.m., Monique said
the pony-tailed man ordered everyone to get dressed. She said
she returned to the children's bedroom and got the kids ready
for school. When she returned to the living room, Monique said
the man was gone.
It was still dark outside and
Monique said she entered the attached garage and opened the garage
door, which flooded the driveway with light. Venturing outside,
she saw a body lying face down on the grass in front of a gate
leading to the backyard. As she got closer, she could tell it
was David.
As she tried to find any sign
of life, the pony-tailed man appeared from behind a bush. "He
told me,' If you say anything to the police, I will kill you
and your children.' Then he was gone," Monique said.
Monique went back into the
house and called 911. However, when police arrived she did not
mention the pony-tailed man or the briefcase full of money. In
three subsequent police interviews, she continued to maintain
her silence about the intruders. In fact, until being interviewed
for this article, she had not told anyone outside of immediate
family and friends. She said this was because of the threats
made against her children.
Crompton's version of events
is, as expected, radically different.
Crompton said he had been lured
to Panama City on the promise of a brief but intense sexual encounter
with Monique, whom he claimed had a fantasy to have sex while
her husband slept down the hall.
Crompton said although he resisted
her invitation for some time, after several weeks in Aiken he
developed an acute sexual appetite. He said Monique exploited
this by tempting him with promises she had bought lingerie from
Victoria's Secret.
Crompton admitted he deceived
his boss, the hotel and rental car staff and his family to make
the trip to Panama City. But he denies murderous intentions.
"She had a fantasy of screwing in each other's house with
the other spouse there. Now, she said she could get her fantasy
fulfilled if I could be there at about 2:30 (a.m.) or so. That
way, we could be together for an hour or so. I can go out and
sleep in the car. She even gave me a location to park the car
at an empty house."
When Crompton arrived at the
Turenne house in the early hours of Feb. 9, he said he parked
his car and made his way to the backyard. Crompton claimed that
when he arrived at the patio doors leading to the master bedroom,
they were locked. He knocked quietly on the door, but received
no answer. Deciding to leave well enough alone, Crompton turned
to leave.
As he returned through the
fence gate, he noticed headlights approaching the Turenne house.
As the vehicle got closer, he said he recognized Turenne's minivan.
The vehicle pulled into the driveway and Crompton said he hid
behind a bush near the gate. Turenne left the van and punched
a code into the security pad near the garage door, which began
to open.
Crompton said at this moment,
he tried to make his escape. But as he moved down the driveway,
he heard what he recognized as Monique's voice in the garage.
Although he could not make out the words, when he turned around
he saw David Turenne charging out of the garage with some sort
of weapon in his hand.
"I was in the dark. He
couldn't have known it was me," Crompton said.
"Basically, I got behind him. He had hit me a couple of
good times. As we wrestled, I ended up on my back with him wailing
on me. I rolled over (on my stomach) defending myself, and that's
when I heard the conk. That's when she hit him. She kept on hitting
him but she didn't hit the head, she was swinging on his shoulders."
When Crompton got to his feet,
he turned and saw Monique with a hammer in her hand.He demanded
to know what the hell was going on. Then he saw David Turenne,
lying face down, making gurgling noises. "He was breathing
OK. I checked his pulse (but) now I'm freaking out. It's 2.30
in the morning, we've just had a fight in the front yard and
. . . I'm thinking the cops are going to be here any second.
I told her, 'Give me five minutes and then call 911.'"
Crompton got in his rental
car and proceeded directly back to Aiken. Along the way he stopped
at a pay phone and called Monique. He said he asked if she had
called 911, and she said no. Then he said, she hung up.
"I don't know what she
was going to tell the police. I was out of there. I panicked.
If I had stayed, Dave would have been alive." . . .back . . .on
to Part Two
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.