Boys' funeral set after mom takes wrong road

PLUMERVILLE Three boys who died when their mother's car plunged into a lake during rain and fog in the middle of the night will be buried in a single casket, a service that's scheduled as investigators continue to look at the circumstances of the crash.

Amber Turley told authorities that she took a wrong turn and wound up on what used to be a state highway, a road that now goes straight into a man-made lake. There is scant notice to motorists of the peril ahead a sign with curved arrow and a placard blasted by a shotgun warning people not to swim.

Turley was traveling from a friend's house at 3:30 a.m. Sunday when she drove into Lake Brewer. Conway County Sheriff Mike Smith reiterated Tuesday there was no present indication that Turley intended for her children to die.

"There's a whole lot of assumptions out there," Smith said. "We deal in facts."

Pending are results of Turley's blood test for alcohol or drugs and an official cause of death for the boys. Smith said the toxicology report will take a couple of weeks and that a preliminary cause of death should be determined by the state Crime Laboratory by Friday.

"We'll know a little bit more then," the sheriff said. He said his obligation is to conduct a thorough investigation.

A visitation is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday at a Morrilton funeral home for Aaron Turley, 8; Alex Turley, 7; and Anthony Turley, 2. Burial will be Thursday at Middleton Cemetery in Birdtown, a few miles north of Lake Brewer. The plot in Birdtown is where the boy's father's brother is buried, relatives said.

"The family did ask that all three boys be buried in the same casket," funeral director Richard Neal said.

Amber Turley is separated from the boys' father, according to the family.

The route from the funeral home to the cemetery will take mourners across the county of 20,000 people, but west and north from the road that leads to the lake.

Larry Hopkins, grandfather of the boys and father of Amber Turley, said Tuesday the tragedy has been hard on the entire family. He said his daughter, who on Monday bought burial clothes, has persevered despite having difficult intervals.

"She's had her moments we've had to keep her sedated. She's had her moments when she can function and some times when she can't," he said.

"Bless her heart. She's losing it," said Margaret "Dean" Turley, Hopkins' mother and the dead boys' great-grandmother.

Hopkins spoke Tuesday on the porch of a family home as relatives and friends came and went. Several friendly dogs scampered about, checking out the new arrivals.

"The babies are gone," he said. "They're with God."

The sheriff said Turley was coming from visiting a friend in Conway, leaving at about 3 a.m., and stopped several miles north of that city in Mallet Town, where she dropped off her boyfriend. Then she proceeded to the Plummerville area where she lives. Turley told investigators she turned on the wrong road.

Hopkins said his daughter was tending the children when she went into the lake.

"The little fellows were fussing with one another and she was trying to get them pacified," Hopkins said. "If there had been a barrier ...," he said, his voice trailing off.

Smith said Turley said that her older boy, Aaron, told her he could swim, and that she had Alex hold onto her belt while she gathered Anthony in her arms as they exited through the driver's window of the sedan. She told investigators that Aaron didn't make it to the shore and that Alex lost his grip. As she grasped for Alex, Turley told investigators, she lost her grip on the toddler. She said she was able to make it to the shore herself and run a half mile to the nearest home to call 911.

The children were pronounced dead at a hospital after attempts by rescuers to revive them.

In 1994, a South Carolina mother, Susan Smith, was convicted of killing her two sons by drowning them in a lake after claiming for nine days that a carjacker kidnapped the boys. Prosecutors said she killed the boys in an attempt to save her relationship with a boyfriend.

The sheriff drew no parallels to the Smith case but said he was frustrated by rumors in the community.

"I'm trying to protect the integrity of this investigation," he said.

Hopkins said the family has received great support from friends and from Turley's employer, ICT Group Inc., a telemarketer in Morrilton. But not everything Hopkins has heard has been good.

"People make remarks, rumors go around," he said. "I feel like she was being treated like a criminal. My daughter is no criminal."

Hopkins complained that the path to the lake should have been blocked. He said he had received a telephone call from a stranger Monday night who told him he'd driven into the lake several years earlier and almost drowned.

"They could put piles of dirt, piles of big rocks. Cars have air bags now. I'd rather hit a guard rail you stand a better chance," he said.

Hopkins said losing the three boys isn't the first tragedy of someone in the family dying too young.

"I lost a daughter before. Children are supposed to outlive you. Grandkids are sure supposed to outlive you," Hopkins said.

A fund to defray burial expenses has been set up at US Bank locations, and people can also make donations to the Amber Turley Fund through Bob Neal and Sons Funeral Home in Morrilton, Hopkins said.