Police: Football star was shopping for pot when he was shot

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Former football star Nick Turner and a buddy made a fatal mistake when they went to a hard-to-find parking lot in southwest Atlanta to buy “weed” from people neither young man  knew, police said Wednesday.

Those scant details are about all homicide detectives know about the death of Turner.

Investigators can’t even say officially that he's dead, though they suspect that is the case.

“We have not located the victim so this case is being worked as a missing persons,” Lt. Paul Guerrucci, commander of the Atlanta Police Department homicide unit, said Wednesday while standing just a few steps from where Turner supposedly fell dead in an asphalt parking lot in an industrial area.

"We can't work it as a homicide," Guerrucci said. "But none of the family members have heard from him."

Turner's mother has said she warned her son about making bad choices even though there was the potential for a successful life. He was a Parade All-American running back at Washington High who went on to lead Mississippi State University in rushing. He played in the same backfield as current Atlanta Falcon Jerious Norwood. But then-Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom dismissed Turner for off-field incidents, including being charged with passing counterfeit bills at a Starkville nightclub.  Turner finished his career at Murray State.

Eleven days ago, Turner, 26, and a friend, whom police have not named, went in search of "weed from unknown individuals," according to Guerrucci.

Turner and his friend went between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on  Aug. 28  to the side and rear of a warehouse on Murphy Avenue that houses storage space, a tire store and an artist's studio.

“As he approached [the people who supposedly had pot to sell], somebody starts shooting and [Turner] is hit multiple times,” Guerrucci said.

According to the friend, there were several people with guns, and he didn't know any of their names.

The friend told police he ran when the shots were fired but he circled back moments later and confirmed the 26-year-old Turner was dead, lying beside a rickety privacy fence, hit four times.

The friend then called Turner’s family, not the police, Guerrucci said.

And when the family and the friend came back to the spot, “the body was gone.”

They found a gun -- an AK-47 -- and some spent shells.

Homicide detectives were called  around 11:30 p.m. after one of Turner's relatives "flagged down" a police car, Guerrucci said.

There wasn’t much evidence to collect.

Crime scene technicians recovered a small drop of blood that has not yet been analyzed. The casings were from a handgun and not the rifle the family found.

Dogs could not pick up a scent that would lead them to Turner. Police helicopters with equipment to spot heat from a body found nothing, Guerrucci said.

Turner’s mother had predicted her son made bad decisions that would have bad consequences. "I told him, ‘If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to end up dead or in jail,'" Jennifer Dix told the AJC several days after he was last seen.

Dix said she believes her son's connection to drug dealing is the reason he disappeared and she fears those ties might have cost him his life.