Plea agreed for 1995 stabbing
Frayser man sentenced in death of Emily Fisher
A Frayser man with no prior criminal record pleaded guilty Thursday in connection with the brutal 1995 stabbing death of Midtown resident Emily Klyce Fisher.
Alfred Turner, whose DNA tied him to the crime scene, entered a “best-interests” plea to facilitation to commit felony murder, the charge on which he was convicted in 2007 and which was overturned on appeal last year.
His 15-year sentence means parole is likely soon since he will be credited with the nearly eight years he already has served and has been a model prisoner, according to his attorney.
Under the law, a defendant is eligible for parole after serving less than seven years on a 15-year sentence.
“We fully expect he will be released in the near future,” said defense attorney Blake Ballin, who noted Turner had a full-time job and no prior criminal record when he was arrested. “He’s a very unusual criminal defendant. We don’t see many people with his background in the criminal court system very often.”
Turner, 41, whose DNA was found in blood at the scene, was charged in 2004 with first- degree murder, but was convicted of a reduced charge of facilitation to commit felony murder by jurors who thought he was involved but were not sure who did the actual killing.
On Thursday he entered an Alford plea to the same charge, a procedure that allows him to plead guilty while maintaining his innocence because the sentence is in his best interests.
Prosecutors Thomas Henderson and Reginald Henderson, no relation, agreed that Turner was an unusual defendant, but added that it’s also unusual to have so much blood at a murder scene and the defendant’s DNA.
“That’s what happens when you use a knife,” said Thomas Henderson. “You cut yourself.”
Fisher, 52, an accountant who was active in charitable, music and civic organizations, was stabbed more than 50 times on Feb. 27, 1995, in her home on Central near Belvedere.
Criminal Court Judge W. Otis Higgs Jr. said the crime was the most brutal he had seen in 40 years.
A co - defendant, Aaron Williams, who pleaded guilty 2007 as an accessory and received an eight-year sentence, testified that he was at the Fisher home that day, but that Turner was the one who repeatedly stabbed Emily Fisher.
He said Turner wanted to collect a $20 drug debt from Fisher’s son, who was not at home.
The victim’s sister, Ellen Byrd Klyce of California, said Turner should serve more time in prison.
“I am deeply disturbed by the idea that you can enter a home in Memphis to settle a $20 debt, brutally murder a woman who never owed it to you in the first place, and only receive a maximum 15 years sentence for it,” she said in a recent e -mail as the plea was being negotiated. “He says he is innocent and the DNA was tampered with. So, tell us what happened? How did someone make his DNA appear in blood found at the crime scene?”
Klyce said Thursday she would attend Turner’s parole hearing to oppose his release.
“At his last parole hearing, Mr. Turner maintained he was innocent and that the DNA match was a mistake, or rather a conspiracy,” she said by e -mail. “Is rehabilitation possible without repentance?”
Last year the Tennessee Supreme Court agreed with an appeals court ruling that vacated Turner’s 2007 conviction and awarded him a a new trial because jurors were told that two men initially accused of the killing were acquitted in a 1996 trial. — Lawrence Buser:
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