To help locate him, MPD posted Turner’s description to its Facebook page.
Matthew Pope said that he and his wife, Katelynn, spotted a man who turned out to be Turner about 50 yards away from the family’s West Carrollton home as they went on a walk March 13 with their 4-year-old and 1-year-old daughters.
“I just kept an eye on him,” said Pope told this news outlet. “I didn’t think anything of it. At that time, I didn’t even think about the Facebook post.”
Pope, who had served in the Army Reserve and Air Force and recently started work as a police officer in another Montgomery County community, said he realized Turner was not from around the neighborhood.
“I don’t see him walk on on our road very often, and I do that with anything that I see down the road, a car or anything,” he said. “It’s just, I got two little girls. I got to protect them, right?”
Turner aroused the couple’s suspicion when he stopped in their driveway and walked up it about 10 feet.
“We’re like, ‘What is this guy doing?’ and that’s where it kind of drew a red flag because we didn’t recognize him,” Pope said.
As a Miamisburg police cruiser later sped past them with its lights on, the couple noticed the man acting suspiciously and realized he looked and was dressed like the description police had issued via social media.
Then the couple noticed Turner walk across Elm Street and into “a little patch of woods” near a neighbor’s home.
“That’s when we were like, ‘OK, we should flag one of these officers down if we see another one.”
They soon did so and police apprehended Turner, 32, in the 700 block of Golden Arrow Court in Miamisburg.
Police later told the couple they had helped apprehend a murder suspect.
“We were actually completely shocked, because we had no idea that whole time after the cruisers were flying, we’d had no idea that it was that guy we told the police officer about,” he said. “We were just blown away. We both had goosebumps up our back because we were almost face to face with this guy, too, and I had both of my my little girls with me.”
The city of Miamisburg and Miamisburg Police Department honored the Popes with a Certificate of Appreciation at Tuesday’s Miamisburg City Council Meeting, recognizing them for their assistance in helping apprehend Turner.
“All night long, we (used) the resources of the Ohio State (Highway) Patrol, the (Montgomery County) Sheriff’s Office, other agencies around us, our drones, all of our people, our detective section, the TCSU detective section, all those collaborative efforts, and we were still just one step behind him,” Police Chief Mike Brem said at Tuesday’s Miamisburg City Council Meeting.
Pope said being honored by Miamisburg was “fantastic,” but he and his wife definitely didn’t feel like the city and its police department needed to do any of that.
“I feel like we were just in the right place at the right time,” he said. “.”
Turner was indicted by a grand jury last month. He is charged with two counts each of murder and felonious assault and one count each of grand theft, tampering with evidence and aggravated possession of drugs, according to Miamisburg Municipal Court records.
He also is charged with a misdemeanor count of assault.
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