Just after 1 a.m. on January 18, 2015, law enforcement officers responded to a report of an unconscious female in a field near the Kappa Alpha fraternity house, according to a sentencing memo.
They
found the victim on the ground, in a fetal position, behind a garbage dumpster. She was breathing but unresponsive. Her dress was pulled up to her waist. Her underwear was on the ground; her hair disheveled and covered with pine needles.
About 25 yards away, two men, passers-by, had pinned down and restrained a young man who was later identified as Turner.
"We found him on top of the girl!" one of the men said. Turner smelled of alcohol as he was handcuffed.
One of the men later told authorities that Turner had been on top of the motionless woman.
"Hey, she's f------ unconscious!" one of the men yelled. Turner managed to get away briefly but the man tripped and later tackled him. Turner was held down until deputies arrived.
After the assault, detectives saw a text message on Turner's cell phone referring to breasts, according to the sentencing memo. The message said, "WHOS T-- IS THAT". It was sent in the early morning hours the day of the assault. Before that text, a photo was sent to a group via a third party app called GroupMe.
Prosecutors included a screen grab of the exchange in the sentencing memo.
Investigators obtained a search warrant for Turner's phone but were unable to retrieve the alleged photo because GroupMe "images are not stored on the phone and can be deleted by a third member in the group," the document said.
A witness told investigators that the day of the assault "he saw a female subject lying on the ground behind the dumpster... He also noticed a male subject standing over her with a cell phone. He was holding the cell phone. The cell phone had a bright light pointed in the direction of the female, using either a flashlight app in his phone or its built-in flash."
