Kelly Renee Turner was indicated on 13 counts, including first-degree murder, child abuse and charitable fraud. She is charged with killing her daughter, Olivia Grant. After claiming her daughter died of a terminal illness a couple of years ago, her mother has been accused of murder after allegedly faking her daughter’s condition.
Turner also committed charitable fraud by soliciting and accepting money from organizations that donated to her daughter, who was not actually ill.
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The obituary for Olivia, who died on August 20, 2017, claimed that she passed away after a “long battle” with a “rare disease. An autopsy conducted in 2018, however, found no evidence of a prolonged illness.
Before she died, several local papers ran stories about helping Olivia fulfill her bucket list, which included becoming a police officer and a firefighter.
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An investigation which began in 2018, found that Turner had lied about her older daughter having cancer. Human Services in Jefferson County then began investigating Olivia’s death, noting that Turner may have been benefiting from the attention around Olivia’s death and that she had a “financial and social motivation for her children’s medication conditions, both real and fictitious.”
The same report alleged Turner “lied about the children’s medical conditions and therefore may have caused harm to the children and/or caused them to have significant medical procedures.”
Turner has been charged with defrauding Medicaid of more than $538,000, stealing $22,270 from GoFundMe and $11,264 from Make-A-Wish Foundation, as well as a funeral home and cemetery, according to an indictment provided by BuzzFeed News.
Over the years, Turner claimed Olivia suffered from autism, seizures, hydrocephaly and more. She also claimed Olivia had a terminal illness which “causes the body to shut down a system at a time.” Turner allegedly signed a “do not resuscitate” directive for her daughter.
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Pediatric doctors and surgeons who treated Olivia told police she did not have a terminal illness, nor did she have the medical conditions Turner claimed.
In 2018, Turner was interviewed by authorities but denied any wrong-doing. “There has never been my case, like at all, whatsoever,” she told the police. “You can talk to anyone that stood by my side through and all of this.”
Turner is being held without bond at the Douglas County Detention Facility in Colorado, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
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