RIVERVIEW, Fla. (WFLA) – Melissa Turner was known as a Cosplay actress until Oct. 18 when she called 9-1-1 to say she’d found her boyfriend on the back porch. Turner said he was unresponsive and cold to the touch.
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies soon arrived and found problems with her story.
According to warrants filed in the case, deputies found a neighbor with a nest camera recording with audio of a woman’s voice at 4:31 a.m.
The woman’s voice can be heard saying, “You stay down” and then later, “I hate you”
Detectives believe Turner murdered her live-in boyfriend, Matthew Trussler, 25 and then waited four hours to call 9-1-1.
The Hillsborough County Medical examiner believes it would have taken Trussler more than ten minutes to bleed out and die from his injuries.
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Dawn Meyers is not involved in the case, but believes the audio recording will be powerful evidence for a jury.
“If we’ve got a recording of the actual argument that occurred and we know the exact time frame it occurred in we can piece together the timeline of when the defendant reported,” said Meyers.
Detectives also recovered a smartwatch from the victim that shows the exact moment his heart stopped and he died. Meyers believes that will go a long way with a jury.
“When you are listening to two people testify and determine who you believe there is some uncertainty, there is a level of uncertainty with that and when you have a video or a timestamp or an audio in real-time, obviously there is less argument as to what happened,” said Meyers.
Turner is now charged with second-degree murder.