Autopsy: Baytown woman shot 3 times
A 44-year-old woman last week suffered three gunshot wounds during a fatal confrontation with a Baytown police officer, according to a private autopsy commissioned by the woman’s family.
One of those gunshots hit Pamela Turner, who had paranoid schizophrenia, in the left cheek and shattered several bones, attorney Benjamin Crump said on Wednesday. The autopsy found that another gunshot hit the slain woman in the left chest, and a third struck her in the right abdomen.
None of the shots were fired from what’s classified as a “close range,” and none of them exited her body, according to the report.
“After learning the details of this autopsy, there’s only one conclusion in my mind: This man tried to kill my mom,” daughter Chelsie Rubin said under the domed ceiling of the Community of Faith church in north Houston. “This was purposely done.”
Juan Delacruz has been identified as the Baytown police officer in the May 13 shooting that killed the mother of two and grandmother of three. He is on paid administrative leave.
Lt. Steve Dorris, spokesman of the Baytown Police Department, declined to provide updates on the officer-involved shooting investigation which has drawn national attention. He re
ferred questions to the Texas Rangers, who are taking over the investigation.
“Since we have turned the case over to the Rangers we are patiently waiting just like everyone else for the results of their investigation,” Dorris said on Wednesday.
Delacruz was attempting to arrest Turner on open warrants when they began to struggle at her apartment complex at 1601 Garth, police said. The officer deployed a Taser on Turner, after which she used the officer’s own Taser against him, Dorris said.
A bystander video showed the officer struggling with Turner, standing over her, as she laid on the ground. He appeared to be backing away as five gunshots sounded, according to the footage. An autopsy report by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences is not ready to be released, a spokeswoman said Wednesday afternoon. Preliminary information classified the shooting as a homicide, with Turner dying of “multiple gunshot wounds.”
The attorneys representing Turner’s family declined to release the name of the independent pathologist who performed the private autopsy. The doctor “does not wish to be publicly associated with this highly publicized case,” according to a spokeswoman for Crump a nationally known civil rights attorney.
The first gunshot wound described in the autopsy entered Turner’s left cheek and traveled down to her neck, fracturing bones in her face. That one was particularly gruesome, but wasn’t fatal, Crump said.
“The funeral home director had to rebuild her face so she can have a proper homegoing service,” he said.
The second and third wounds described in the report caused her death, according to the autopsy. One of the wounds entered her chest on the left side of her body and moved laterally, passing through several organs. The other fatal wound broke through Turner’s right abdomen.
Two other unclassified wounds were found on Turner’s body but were not identified. Turner’s family believes they were from Delacruz’s Taser, Crump said.
The pathologist didn’t come to a conclusion on whether Turner was pregnant, as the bystander’s video caught her telling Delacruz in the moments before she was shot. Baytown police said after the confrontation that the county’s autopsy found her not to be with child.
Several family members stood in a huddle, crying, as Crump read the results of the report. Antoinette Dorsey-James also read a letter she said her slain sister relayed to her during conversations they’ve had at night.
In those conversations, Turner told Dorsey-James that God is using her death to bring awareness to mental health issues.
“We are human; we deserve to live without harassment,” she read. “We have rights, but more importantly our lives matter.”
Turner’s funeral is scheduled to be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Houston with the Rev. Al Sharpton delivering a eulogy.