Convict in Fisher killing up for parole in 2 weeks
Prison crowding qualifies man for ‘safety valve date’
Alfred Turner could be home for Christmas. After serving less than four years of his 25-year prison sentence, the man involved in the brutal murder of Midtown resident Emily Klyce Fisher has a parole hearing scheduled in two weeks.
Turner, whose sentence officially expires in the year 2028, was convicted earlier this year of facilitation — aiding and abetting — to commit felony murder.
A Criminal Court jury was unsure whether he actually committed the murder, but was convinced he was involved because his DNA was found in the ornate home on Central near Belvedere where Fisher was stabbed to death in 1995.
Her family knew Turner could get out in about five years, but not this soon, they said.
“Why didn’t someone tell us that 25 years meant six months?” said Fisher’s sister, Katherine Klyce, a resident of New York who will fly to Tennessee for the hearing. “That’s nuts. The whole thing’s crazy. Are we going to have to go every year?”
Turner, 36, who had no prior record, was not linked to the crime until 2004, when an accomplice gave police his name and DNA tests showed that blood found at the crime scene belonged to him.
During his trial in January, the medical examiner said Fisher suffered more than 50 stab wounds.
Criminal Court Judge W. Otis Higgs Jr. said in sentencing Turner to the maximum 25 years in prison in February that the murder was the most brutal he had
seen in 40 years.
Turner and a companion were at the Fisher home to collect drug money from her son when the crime occurred, prosecutors said.
Under the law in this case, parole is possible after 7.5 years on a 25-year sentence.
Turner has been credited with more than three years he has been in custody — he was arrested in February 2004 — and 304 days of pretrial goodbehavior credit, said Dorinda Carter, spokesman for the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole in Nashville.
In addition, Turner has received 54 days of sentence reduction credit for program participation, which gave him a release eligibility date of August 2010.
Carter said, however, Turner’s offense qualifies for a “safety valve date,” which is early parole consideration because of prison crowding.
The safety valve reduces by 40 percent the time between when his sentence began — Feb. 5, 2004 — and his release eligibility date of Aug. 14, 2010.
Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons sent a letter Friday to the parole board in Nashville opposing Turner’s release.
“It would be a serious injustice to the family of the victim and to the citizens of the State of Tennessee for Alfred Turner to be paroled,” Gibbons said in the letter. “It is my wish that Mr. Turner serve every day of the time to which he has been sentenced. ... I believe Alfred Turner to be a serious threat to the community.”
Turner will be considered for parole at a hearing on Sept. 13 at the West Tennessee State Prison at Henning.