Mom charged with murdering daughter after faking her terminal illness
A Colorado mom who went on a high-profile fundraising blitz for her supposedly sick daughter has been charged with the child’s murder — after the youngster’s body was exhumed and showed no signs of terminal illness, according to authorities.
Kelly Renee Turner, 41, repeatedly got 7-year-old daughter Olivia Gant on the news in Denver as she sought donations for expensive medical treatment as well as fulfilling her “bucket list” of dreams.
She raised 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.
Medicaid also overpaid the mom $538,991 for treatments that authorities now say the girl no longer needed, according to her indictment.
Turner allegedly decided to stop providing nutrition through a tube her daughter had been surviving on and signed a “Do not resuscitate” order for her daughter, who died in a hospice in August 2017.
Authorities only became suspicious a year later when Turner started seeking help for another daughter, claiming she was a cancer survivor now suffering “bone pain,” according to the indictment. Authorities removed the girl, who has had no problems since, the indictment said.
Grilled by investigators, the mom spontaneously brought up Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents make up serious illnesses of their loved ones to get attention, authorities say.
“That has never been my case, like at all, whatsoever,” she said in the interview, the documents say.
Olivia’s doctors then revealed that they had repeatedly stated that the youngster was not terminally ill, starting from when the girl started getting treatment four years before her death, the complaint said.
Her body was exhumed last year, and an autopsy found no physical evidence of that illness or other conditions that Turner claimed the girl 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 — also known as Kelly Gant — was charged with 13 criminal counts that included first-degree murder, child abuse, theft and charitable fraud in a grand jury indictment revealed Monday.
It is not clear if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf. It was also unclear where her other daughter was now living.
Make-A-Wish Colorado told the Denver Post it was “deeply disturbed” by the allegations.
“As we seek to learn more about the circumstances that led to Olivia’s death, we fondly remember her spirit and hope that granting her wish brought some joy to her tragic life,” a spokesperson told the paper.
With Post wires
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