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“I caught her cheating, so I went to New York and bought a gun,” Jordan Turner told Presiding Superior Court Judge Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi in Hackensack.
“When you shot her, it was your intention to kill her, right?” Public Defender Francis Meehan asked him.
“Yes,” Turner replied.
After killing 22-year-old Heather Reyes in February 2011, Turner went to the Garden State Plaza and called police, who found him waiting for them outside a movie theater minutes after midnight.
Turner, 25, couldn’t recall the exact address of his apartment, but he told police it was white and “just east of a stop sign” on East Quackenbush Avenue.
After checking the area, Dumont police found the house.
They got the key to a rear apartment from the owner and found Reyes’s body. She’d been shot in the chest and abdomen with an AR-15 rifle, prosecutors said.
Turner — who was on probation for theft and conspiracy convictions at the time — could have faced life in prison if convicted at a trial of murder, unlawful weapons possession and illegal possession of an assault weapon.
Instead, he accepted a plea deal, under which he must serve 38¼ years before he is eligible for parole.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer told the judge that Reyes’ family — including several members who attended the plea — was “in complete agreement” with the deal, including the sentence.
DeAvila-Silebi set a Sept. 5 sentencing date.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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