In a voice marked by both sadness and outrage, the father of a murdered Latrobe physician castigated Canada's court system for allowing a suspected killer to regain custody of his 13-month-old grandson.
David Bagby, a former California resident who now lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, was the father of the late Dr. Andrew Bagby, 28, and the grandfather of Zachary Bagby.
The toddler was drowned last month by his mother, Dr. Shirley Turner, before she took her own life.
"Shirley Turner bears 100 percent responsibility for the murder of our son, Andrew," David Bagby said. "We believe that the legal system helped her kill our grandson, Zachary."
He and his wife, Kathleen, spoke publicly about the tragedies for the first time Wednesday at a press conference in St. John's. They said they have been silent since their son's November 2001 death to preserve a relationship with their grandson, whose mother was pregnant with him when she allegedly killed his father.
In a five-page statement, the couple indict both Turner and the legal system. They questioned how Canadian judges could allow an alleged killer to remain free and take care of a baby.
Last month, the bodies of Turner and her son were found on a beach in Conception Bay, south of St. John's. The coroner there ruled the deaths murder-suicide as the result of drowning.
Turner, a physician who held dual citizenship, fled to Canada a step ahead of Pennsylvania State Police, who issued a warrant for her arrest in December 2001. The Bagbys followed her to Newfoundland, where they petitioned the court for custody of their grandson the day after Zachary was born in July 2002.
At the time of her death, Turner was fighting extradition to the United States. Her attorneys said she maintained her innocence and was preparing a full defense to homicide charges.
Turner was released on bail after Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck agreed not to pursue the death penalty against her. When a Canadian judge ruled she could be extradited, she was jailed for two months. During that time, the Bagbys had custody of Zachary.
When Turner was released on bail a second time and allowed to pursue appeals, a judge ordered Zachary returned to her. The Bagbys were allowed supervised visits with their grandson.
Last month, police said, Turner took Zachary from his crib during the night and drove to Kelligrews, a small town on the Conception Bay coastline. She left her car, walked to the beach and threw the baby into the waves before going into the water.
The baby's father, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident at Latrobe Area Hospital, was found dead early on Nov. 5, 2001, hours after he met Turner at Keystone State Park in Derry Township to discuss their recent breakup and her pregnancy. Police said an enraged Turner shot him five times after he told her he was ending their relationship.
Turner, who met the victim in medical school, visited him the week before his death. Police said she flew back to Iowa, where she practiced medicine, but then immediately drove back to Latrobe. Investigators linked her to the crime by tracking her journey through cellular phone calls she made along the way.
Family's statement
The following statement was given Wednesday by David and Kate Bagby, parents of murder victims Dr. Andrew Bagby and his son, Zachary Bagby.
I wrote this down so that I wouldn't get up here and rant and rave like a maniac.
I have no idea what happens when Canada asks the United States to return a fugitive. It may be just as appalling as what we have seen here. It's wrong anywhere it happens.
Throughout the entire extradition process since December 2001, and the entire custody battle since July 2002, Kate and I have scrupulously avoided any contact with the press, for two reasons:
We did not want to appear to be trying to influence the extradition process. We didn't want to be seen as these damned arrogant Americans coming up here telling Canadians what to do. And, besides, we shouldn't have any influence -- the process should be governed by laws and not by public opinion.
As far as the custody battle for Zachary was concerned, Family Court issues are purposely kept out of the public eye, by law, for a very good reason. Children don't need to be hounded by publicity. We conformed with that rule because it was the law, and because we did not want to see Zachary's face smeared all over the television and newspapers.
We waited for the police to complete their investigation of the death of Shirley Turner and Zachary in order to be sure we had the facts straight. They have confirmed the Medical Examiner's verdict of murder/suicide.
We no longer have any need to be quiet.
We know that Shirley Turner's family must be in agony right now, just as we are, but these things have to be said.
We believe that Shirley Turner bears 100 percent of the responsibility for the murder of our son, Andrew.
We believe that the legal system helped her to kill our grandson, Zachary.
After Andrew was murdered in November of 2001, Kate and I could do nothing but cry, complete meltdowns, off and on all day, every day. He was our beautiful baby, and he was our main reason to be alive. When Shirley Turner was formally charged with the killing and escaped to Canada, we naively thought she would be sent back to Pennsylvania in a few weeks at the most. When we learned that she was out on bail, under an order from Justice David Russell, we were numb. We could not conceive how they could let a probable premeditated murderer walk the streets.
We already knew we had to attend her trial in Pennsylvania, so that when it was over we would understand exactly how the jury arrived at their decision. Now we knew we had to come to Canada so that we could understand exactly how they decided on extradition.
When we learned that Shirley Turner was pregnant, we knew we had to come to Canada for an even more important reason. If the baby was Andrew's, he would be the last of our blood, the last of our DNA. We had to see that he got a good start in life. He became our new reason to be alive, at least as important as seeing our son's killer brought to justice.
Time. We thought it was all about time. Each step in the extradition process, each incomprehensible four-week, six-week, eight-week delay, was another knife in our guts. But everybody who knew anything about the law told us this was business as usual. This was normal speed. "The law is slow," they told us. And it damn sure was.
When Zachary was born, we applied for custody the next day. Paternity testing proved that he was our beloved Andrew's baby, and we started another long gut-wrenching process of negotiating access to spend as much time with him as we possibly could, so that when she was finally put away, he would know us and be comfortable with us, and there could be a smooth transition into our care.
At our first appearance in Unified Family Court, Justice Robert Wells reviewed the visitation conditions demanded by Shirley Turner, including having our visits with Zachary supervised and having us submit ourselves to be searched prior to each visit. We agreed to these conditions in order to gain access to our grandson without a long court battle.
During the hearing, Justice Wells noted the "strong feelings on both sides," and then suggested that "usually these things can be worked out." Did he give any consideration to the possibility that we might be dealing with a premeditated murder, and that if the allegation were true, she might eventually, in whatever warped way such a mind works, find a reason to harm Zachary?
While Shirley Turner was in jail for two months from November 2002 to January 2003, we had Zachary full time in our home. He was so beautiful and so sweet and happy, and we were in love again. We were like a young couple in their twenties. And Zachary loved us, too. We didn't know it at the time, but that two months was as good as it was ever going to be.
In January, under an order from Justice Gayle Welsh, Shirley Turner was released on bail, again, and we went numb, again. We had to give Zachary right back into the hands of Andrew's killer.
At that bail hearing, Justice Welsh refused to even consider Mr. Madden's primary argument against bail -- that the appeal was frivolous -- although legal aid commission attorneys had already reviewed the appeal and refused to waste their time representing her.
That was the beginning of a long, long mixture of joy and anguish. We loved every minute we could have with Zachary, and we loathed every minute we had to spend with Shirley Turner. We maintained a civil relationship with her so that we could have more time with Zachary, and so that he would see only peace and harmony. As much as possible, we had our time with Zachary away from her, but that was not always possible. We made every effort to keep her as mellow as possible, because we feared what she might do to Zachary if she got upset.
Meanwhile, we waited and waited and waited for the authorities to do their job and lock her up.
Nobody will ever know exactly how Shirley Turner convinced herself that it was OK to kill a baby, anybody's baby, but particularly her own baby, and I don't care how she did that. It doesn't matter how she did that.
What matters is that we knew from the record of the extradition case that she was almost certainly a monster. We knew, and we can't see how the judges and lawyers involved in the extradition could not have known. And still we left her free on the streets.
We knew from the record of the case that she bought a gun, took lessons to learn how to shoot it, put it in her car and drove a thousand miles to Andrew's home, and set him up, and she shot him like a rabid dog. We knew from the record that she lied about where she was at the time of the killing, but the cell phone records showed her actual location to be in the vicinity of Andrew's murder.
So then she changed her story several times to several different people about where she was and about where the gun was. And finally, she called Kate before we had learned of Andrew's death and tried to use her to set up a phony alibi for her whereabouts at the time of the killing.
We knew from the record that she was a monster, and we left her free to do it again.
The Crown Prosecutor, Mike Madden, might have argued against releasing Shirley Turner on bail at the beginning of the extradition process. Would he have had any chance at all of winning that argument?
Bail was set at $75,000. Before Andrew was murdered, we naively thought bail meant somebody gave real money to the court. Money they would not get back if the accused didn't show up. Not so. All you have to do is sign your name. And they'll take a signature from somebody who doesn't have a dime. Somebody with a negative net worth. Somebody living on student loans. Somebody who couldn't pay that money without robbing a bank.
Shirley Turner's defense attorney, Randy Piercey, is professionally obligated under the fundamental tenets of criminal law to act at all times in the best interest of his client. This obligation forces him to make arguments that most of the population would find nauseating.
At one point in the hearings last year, he stood up in court and argued that, because the Authority to Proceed was incorrect and because some arbitrary time limit had expired, "It's ball game over." That is a direct quote from an interview on the evening news. In effect, Mr. Piercey said, "Let's don't even find out if this person did that monstrous crime, because some letters on a piece of paper are wrong."
This ball game was about my son's murder, and eventually about my grandson's life. For Zachary, this ball game is over.
Fortunately, Chief Justice Derek Green ruled against that ludicrous argument, but it took him several weeks to do it, so Mr. Piercey got what he was probably after all along -- more delay. More time on the street for this evil monster.
Chief Justice Green knew what was in the record of the case against Shirley Turner. If justices Russell and Welsh, who released her on bail, did not know what was in the record of the case, they should have. All three knew, or should have known, that she was almost certainly capable of the most brutal act one human being can do to another.
Think about that! This is not a possible car thief or a possible burglar, or even someone who might have killed accidentally. This is a very special category of person who can set out to deliberately kill another. Plan the steps to kill someone, and then carry out the plan, step by step, to make someone die.
Simple caution, prudence, common sense, revulsion at the way my son died -- something should have warned all the judges involved in this case to keep her locked up, to keep the rest of us safe, until a jury had a chance to do its job.
Other people with an official connection to Shirley Turner might also have discovered that she was a monster.
At the very beginning of the custody battle, our lawyer, Jackie Brazil, informed Betty Day of the Department of Social Services about our concern for our unborn grandchild. That department never responded to us, and obviously never acted to remove Zachary from Shirley Turner. Did they review the record of the extradition case, or consult with her psychiatrist?
We know that a social worker, Susan Green, was assigned to Shirley Turner. Did she ever see any signs of instability in Shirley Turner, or any other indications of possible danger to Zachary?
We know that Shirley Turner was under the treatment of at least one psychiatrist, Dr. John Doucet. Did he ever see any signs of instability, or any other indications of possible danger⢠Was Dr. Doucet treating Shirley Turner at the time he signed up for $65,000 of her bail?
We want these other people who had an official connection with Shirley Turner to search their records and search their souls to see if there were any indications of danger. We're not asking this to crucify them. They would never have needed to consider these questions if the legal system had done its most basic job and locked her up. We're asking these people to absorb this atrocity into their experience, into their professional persona, tune their antennas, whatever you want to call it, so that they can be on the alert for another Shirley Turner.
Throughout this entire process, Kate, Jackie and I always felt like we were the only ones who took seriously the danger, to everyone around Shirley Turner, that is implicit in the record of the case.
It is now obviously too late to do anything for our grandson. Can anything be done to prevent the next Shirley Turner from killing the next Zachary⢠Are there others out on bail now who are accused of premeditated murder?
If so, you District Attorneys and Crown Prosecutors, please go back into court and make applications to revoke their bail.
And you judges hearing those applications, please, please, please keep Zachary in mind, too, while you're poring over the criminal codes and case law. You have it in your power to prevent the next Zachary.
