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Colorado Mom Charged With Murdering Her Daughter

A mother in Colorado–who fundraised for her supposedly sick daughter–has been charged with the child’s murder. The young girl’s body was exhumed and showed no signs of the terminal illness her mom claimed she had, according to authorities.

41-year-old Kelly Renee Turner repeatedly got her 7-year-old daughter Olivia Gant on the news in Denver, seeking donations for expensive medical treatments and fulfilling her “bucket list.” She ended up raising over $25,000 and the Make-A-Wish Colorado Foundation spent $11,264 on a bat princess party for the girl, who was separately made an honorary police chief and then a firefighter during ride-alongs. Not only that, Medicaid overpaid the mother a whopping $538,991 for treatments, which authorities now say the girl never needed, according to her indictment.

Turner allegedly decided to stop providing nutrition through a tube, which her daughter had supposedly been surviving on, and signed a “Do not resuscitate” order for the young girl, who died in a hospice back in August of 2017. Kelly was free and clear until authorities became suspicious a year later, when she started seeking help for another daughter, claiming she was a cancer survivor now suffering “bone pain.”  Authorities removed the girl, who has had no problems since, the indictment said.

When quetioned by investigators, the mom voluntarily brought up Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents make up serious illnesses of their loved ones to get attention. “That has never been my case, like at all, whatsoever,” she said in the interview, according to the documents.

Olivia’s doctors went on to reveal that they had repeatedly stated that the child was not terminally ill, starting from when the girl started getting treatment four years before her death.

Jump to last year, the 7-year-old’s body was exhumed and an autopsy found no physical evidence of that illness or other conditions that Turner claimed she suffered, including seizure disorder and a buildup of fluid in cavities deep within the brain. Olivia’s death is now listed as undetermined.

Turner was arrested Friday at a Denver-area hotel and held without bond, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said.

In a grand jury indictment revealed Monday, Turner was charged with 13 criminal counts that included first-degree murder, child abuse, theft and charitable fraud in a grand jury indictment revealed Monday Make-A-Wish Colorado told the Denver Post it was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations.

 

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