Jurors get Ture case

ST. CLOUD (AP) -- Joseph Ture Jr. methodically killed three children after beating and shooting their mother more than 21 years ago in the family's rural Clearwater home, a prosecutor charged Friday.

Stearns County jurors on Friday received the murder case against Ture, a twice-convicted murderer who is charged with killing Alice Huling and her three children, Susan, 16; Wayne, 13; and Patti, 12.

''The evidence in this case points only in one direction,'' prosecutor Patrick Strom said in his closing argument as he pointed at Ture. ''It's beyond a reasonable doubt, and it points to Joe Ture.''

Defense attorney Mark Kelly repeatedly attacked the credibility of two career criminals who testified against Ture.

The jury recessed at 4:20 p.m. and will resume work Monday morning.

Ture, 48, faces four counts of first-degree murder in the Huling deaths on Dec. 15, 1978. All four were shot to death in the early morning hours in their beds inside the Hulings' home. Another child, 11-year-old Billy, survived by huddling under his bed covers as two shotgun blasts narrowly missed his head.

Ture is already serving two life sentences for separate murders in 1979 and 1980.

The defense finished presenting its case Thursday morning without calling the defendant.

Defense attorneys suggested that former Stearns County deputy John Dwyer, who has since died, killed the family. Dwyer, a neighbor, acknowledged to one investigator that he was having an affair with Alice Huling at the time.