“It bothers me every day. I can’t hardly talk about him without crying,” Patrick Turner said of his son four years after his death.
Skylor Neal Turner was born on April 12, 1990, to Patrick and Lind Mae Turner. He was one of six siblings. In life, he was an avid football fan, a truck driver, and a devoted father to his son. But when he died, a hole was created in his family that has yet to be healed.
“I’ve stayed awake a lot,” Patrick said. “(Skylor’s son) asks me questions and I don’t know how to answer. I can’t answer. And it will always be like that.”
On Nov. 12, 2020, inmates at the Adair County regional jail were being briefly held in the conference room to ensure they were negative for Covid 19 before they were moved to general population.
It was in this room that Skylor Turner died by suicide—an act that would send shockwaves across the county, his family, and would bring the jail under public scrutiny.
Turner was arrested in Russell County where he was held for almost two weeks before being transferred to Adair County. During his first night at the Adair County Regional Jail, 11 hours passed between his last bathroom break at 4:06 p.m. on Nov. 11 until his body was discovered shortly after 3 a.m. on Nov. 12.
Jail policy required hourly checks on all prisoners with a “grease board” used to keep track of where prisoners were located.
A shift change at 6 p.m. (with no noted check at 5 p.m.) saw a new group of deputy jailers who say that Turner’s name was not on the grease board, and so they did not check the conference room where he was held.
A wrongful death suit was filed not long after Turner’s death against then-jailer Joey White, the county government and several deputy jailers.
Since then, a civil rights violation case on the federal level was dismissed and a state-level case has shown little movement with numerous postponements.
While they have spent years now waiting on a result of this case, the family says they would rather focus on who Skylor was and what was lost in his passing.
“Skylor was a good boy. He worked hard all of his life,” Patrick said.
Skylor’s strong work ethic was born out of both necessity and a desire to provide for his younger siblings.
He dropped out of high school to help make ends meet, which included making sure his brothers and sisters had a nice holiday season. The then-teenager used some of his own money to put a Nintendo DS under the Christmas tree. He would also frequently take the younger Turners to Little Caesars and K-Mart and allow them to buy something they wanted.
“One time I had a trip for church,” Mariah said. Going on the trip itself was free, but travelers had to bring their own cash for food and anything they bought.
“My brother found out about it. He sent my mom $200 and said to give me every bit of that… I’ve seen him before at Walmart see somebody panhandling. I’ve seen him drop his last $20 (for them). He would say you can’t look down on anybody, that you don’t know what they are going through,” Mariah said.
Skylor was fiercely protective of his younger siblings, even beyond providing financially. Born with amniotic band syndrome, his sister recalls Skylor taking her and their sister to the fair one year and stood up for her against people who were staring at her arm.
Having someone like Skylor in your corner could make anyone feel safe. Skylor was 6’2 and around 300 pounds. Intimidating though his presence may be, his sister and father both used the same phrase to describe him: “teddy bear.”
“He put on a hard front,” Mariah said. “Life made him feel like he had to be a man. But he could empathize with anyone. He had so much empathy… He always had a heart for the outcast. He always had a heart for the underdog… He didn’t care if you were the CEO or the janitor. It was the same respect.”
According to his sister, Skylor Turner’s life took a turn following the death of their mother in 2019. Much how Skylor never looked down on anyone, Mariah wants people to have the same compassion for her late brother and not let what became the lowest point of his life define him forever, or outweigh all the years he spent doing anything he could for others.
“He was not a bad person. He just hit rock bottom and needed someone,” she said.
She and Patrick both feel the jail could have done more, and had they made hourly checks, he may still be alive.
“It has definitely caused us to carry a burden we were never meant to bear… I will always be my brother’s keeper… and make sure his son knows how much he loved him,” Mariah said.
Patrick says the biggest injustice is arguably the lack of acknowledgement.
“I never even got an apology (from the jail),” he said, adding that all he wants, personally, is for them to say, “’We’re sorry for the family’s loss. It happened on our watch.’”
A court date is scheduled for Dec. 2 at 2 p.m. at the Adair County Circuit Court with Judge Judy Murphy presiding.
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
