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The body of a man fatally shot early Friday is removed from a residence on Madison's North Side. The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday identified the man as James M. Turner, 35, of Madison.
Authorities have identified the man police said was killed breaking into a North Side apartment early Friday.
The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday identified the man as James M. Turner, 35, of Madison, and said preliminary results of an autopsy Saturday confirmed that he died from homicidal firearm-related trauma.
Turner was masked and possibly armed when he was shot to death after breaking into an apartment at 1714 Packers Ave. about 2:30 a.m. Friday, police said.
Nobody has been charged with Turner’s death, but a criminal complaint filed Monday that described the shooting and the investigation that followed charged Jose M. Gomez, 25, with possession with intent to deliver marijuana, possession of a firearm by a felon, maintaining a drug trafficking place and misdemeanor bail jumping.
His wife, Shauniquah R. Gomez, 24, was charged with maintaining a drug trafficking place.
Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference Friday that a masked man broke into the apartment before the shooting. A criminal complaint filed Monday, as well as a probable cause affidavit, didn’t specifically mention a mask being found on the person who died. The man who died was not described in either document, nor was any weapon he may have been carrying.
The complaint states a woman called 911 around 2:40 a.m. Friday to report an intruder in the home who was shooting a gun. Police arrived to see a man, later identified as Jose Gomez, carrying a white trash bag toward a trash can. Gomez later said it contained marijuana he was trying to hide from police.
According to the complaint, Jose Gomez initially told police he and his wife were upstairs in bed when they heard sounds outside their bedroom. He said he looked out the bedroom door, saw a person and started screaming, and then that person fired gunshots into the bedroom. He said his wife then fired back at the intruder, killing him.
But during an interview a few hours later, confronted with conflicting information police received from Shauniquah Gomez, the account changed. Jose Gomez said instead that he heard someone in the hallway, so he got up and grabbed a gun from his closet. He said he looked through a hole in the door, where a doorknob would ordinarily be, saw someone there and shot him.
Gomez said he keeps a gun in the house for protection because he sells marijuana. Because Gomez has a prior felony conviction, for domestic strangulation in 2015, he is barred by law from possessing a firearm. His brother gave him the gun, he said, according to the complaint.
“I can’t buy a gun so he gave me one for protection,” Gomez told investigators, the complaint states.
He said it didn’t make any sense to him for an intruder to be upstairs when anything of value was on the first floor of the apartment.
Gomez said he kept two guns in the house for protection, one in the bedroom where he and his wife and child sleep, and another in a different room of the apartment that was used by his wife.
Searching the apartment, police found multiple containers of THC concentrate and liquid derived from marijuana plants, more than 7 pounds of THC gummies and THC brownies, along with a small amount of ecstasy and 120 Adderall pills.
Jose Gomez appeared Monday in court, where his bail was set at $1,000. He has since been released from the Dane County Jail. Shauniquah Gomez, who is not in custody, is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 27.
Barnes said there had been “general disturbance”-type calls to the area and building in the past, but it wasn’t clear if the calls were specifically to the apartment where the shooting occurred. City property records show two residential units at that address.
Friday’s fatal shooting is the seventh killing this year in Madison, Barnes said, although two were deemed justified.
Turner’s death remains under investigation by the Madison Police Department and the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office. Police spokesperson Hunter Lisko said “the investigation is still active, and that MPD is working closely with the District Attorney’s Office on the case.”
District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said he has not received a request for homicide charges from police.
Barnes has asked anyone with information about the Packers Avenue shooting to call police at 608-255-2345 or contact Madison Area Crime Stoppers at 608-266-6014 or P3Tips.com. Tipsters can remain anonymous.
Jeff Richgels is at jrichgels@madison.com. Ed Treleven is at etreleven@madison.com.
From the more than 240 stories I published in 2021, here are five that stand out in my mind for various reasons, because of their unusual subject matter, popularity among readers or the lasting impact the subjects of those stories will have. Most are different from the usual things I encounter in the courts every day.
Edgewood High School's football team was in the WIAA playoffs when it was disqualified for having an ineligible player.
This was one of the more unusual cases I covered this year.
East High School business teacher David Kruchten, explained himself in a letter to U.S. District Judge James Peterson before his sentencing.
Amid days covering unspeakable tragedy, it was a wonderful diversion to meet Alan Crossley, a volunteer with Wheels for Winners.
A state Supreme Court decision put the drunken driving homicide case against Dawn Prado, pending since 2015, back on the Dane County docket.
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Ed Treleven is the courts reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
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The body of a man fatally shot early Friday is removed from a residence on Madison's North Side. The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday identified the man as James M. Turner, 35, of Madison.
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