An extradition hearing for a physician accused of killing her lover — a first-year resident at Latrobe Area Hospital — will resume Tuesday in Newfoundland.
Westmoreland County authorities are seeking the extradition of Dr. Shirley Turner of St. John's, Newfoundland, who is accused of shooting Dr. Andrew Bagby last November when the two met in Keystone State Park in Derry Township to discuss the end of their relationship.
The course and length of the extradition process will depend on a ruling on a defense motion filed by attorney Randolph Piercey. He is asking Chief Justice Derek Green of the Newfoundland Supreme Court to decide whether evidence and statements obtained from Turner after she fled to Canada are admissible in the extradition hearing.
Piercey would not disclose what the statements were, but said Canadian law requires that statements and evidence gathered in Canada must be obtained according to Canadian law.
During the investigation by the Pennsylvania State Police, investigators learned from police in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that Turner had telephoned an acquaintance in Canada and told her about the investigation. Turner allegedly told the man that she was calling him from Keystone State Park and had given Bagby a gun.
The friend also recounted to Halifax police that Turner said she was aware that police in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she was working at the time of Bagby's murder, had searched her apartment. She allegedly told the friend how police first had failed to seize the clothes and shoes she was wearing the day she confronted Bagby.
Police later retrieved the items during a subsequent search of her apartment.
A state trooper also learned from a medical student in Newfoundland that Turner had told her about a miscarriage she allegedly had suffered and how she had traveled from Iowa to Pennsylvania to discuss the incident with Bagby.
Piercey said the role of the Newfoundland Supreme Court is to decide whether legal grounds exist to honor the extradition treaty that exists between Canada and the United States.
If Green finds the evidence presented by the prosecution to be insufficient, he could order Turner released. If she's held for extradition, the final decision to extradite her will be made by the Federal Justice Minister.
If the minister decides not to order extradition, the Crown Attorney can appeal the decision. If Turner is ordered to be extradited, then Piercey said he will appeal.
"We're still optimistic that she won't go back at all," Piercey told the Tribune-Review.
Complicating the case is Turner's pregnancy.
She is due to deliver on July 16, Piercey said, and claims Bagby is the father of the unborn child, although paternity of the child has not been medically established.
Neither Piercey nor Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck would say whether Turner is likely to be extradited this year.
Peck said extradition from Canada "could be a protracted process." He said he is reluctant to discuss details of the case because of Green's imposition of a publication ban that prohibits the Canadian press from reporting on any details of the case.
"I'm going to comply with his order out of respect for the court," Peck said.
State police filed a homicide charge against Turner last year but before she could be arrested, she fled to Newfoundland where she once lived.
Turner holds dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship, and U.S. authorities asked Canada to arrest her on a provisional warrant pending extradition. She remains free without bail even though she allegedly told Bagby's mother she would never return to the United States.
Turner is accused of shooting Bagby fives times after meeting him at the state park where, authorities maintain, they discussed the end of their relationship, her miscarriage and Bagby's pending date with another woman.
Turner had spent the previous week visiting Bagby in Latrobe and flew back to Iowa. State police allege that no sooner than she landed, she immediately drove nearly 1,000 miles back to Pennsylvania to confront Bagby.
Police traced her travels by charting cellular telephone calls that she made while en route.
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