Turner was born in 1956 and lived in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her daughter Megan died at eleven weeks in January 1980, and her daughter Cheney Louise at seven weeks in 1982. Michael Clark Tinnion, eight months, also died in her care. Each was recorded as sudden infant death syndrome, which in New Zealand in that period was a common finding and was not investigated.
Suspicion arose after the third death, and attempts on other children were also established. She was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years for attempted murders.
She was paroled in 1997, having served about thirteen years.
The case was significant in New Zealand paediatrics and is cited in the literature on repeat cot death in one family, alongside the English cases of the 1990s and Kathleen Folbigg's in Australia. The caution this archive has applied to that whole class of case applies here too, with the difference that attempted murders of surviving children were also proved.