Man sentenced in murder of well-known Batteau Festival participant

By Erin McGrath
Nelson County Times

Published: April 30, 2008

LOVINGSTON — An Arrington man was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for the fatal shooting of another Nelson man last spring during an argument over money.

Thomas Junior Turner, 37, was sentenced in Nelson County Circuit Court to 28 years in prison, with eight years suspended, for killing Dewey Wood, also of Arrington, on May 23.

A jury recommended a 28-year sentence after convicting Turner in February of second-degree murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

Wood, 51, was a popular member of the James River Batteau Festival community.

Unlike February’s two-day trial — where the courtroom gallery was at capacity — Tuesday’s sentencing lasted only 30 minutes and drew less than half the crowd.

Wood and Turner had argued for several days prior to the shooting over payment for a deck Wood was building onto Turner’s home.

During Turner’s trial, his attorney Joseph Sanzone argued that his client did not intend to shoot Wood when Wood showed up at his house. Rather, he said, Turner was acting in self-defense because he believed Wood had come to collect money and was intending to harm him.

Nelson County’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Payne said Turner planned on shooting Wood and invited him to his house with the intention of confronting him with a gun.

On Tuesday, Payne asked the court to impose the jury’s recommended sentence.

“He was a good child,” Alma Bell, of Maryland, said of her son, Turner, on Tuesday during the sentencing. “He’s just a peaceful person. He doesn’t like violence.”

The only other person to testify on Tuesday was Turner, who took the stand in a black-and- white jail jumpsuit.

When asked by Sanzone what his plans were when he gets out of prison, Turner said, “I don’t know… I’ll be an old man by then.”

When Judge J. Michael Gamble asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Turner turned to the gallery and apologized to Wood’s family.