Plainfield Wife and Half-Brother Charged After Husband’s Dismembered Remains Are Found in a Freezer and a Lake
A Plainfield woman and her brother-in-law face criminal charges after boaters found part of a human arm in a lake more than 160 miles from their home.
Court documents now show that the arm belonged to the woman’s husband, and that the two defendants worked together to hide his death for days.
Robin Turner, 62, and James Adams, 26, are each charged with concealing a homicidal death and dismembering a human body.
The victim is 38-year-old Dalewayne Turner. He was Robin Turner’s husband and Adams’ half-brother, and all three lived in the same house on Ruth Fitzgerald Drive in Plainfield.
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| Delwayne Turner |
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| The couple before the incident |
The case started on June 28, 2026, when recreational boaters on Lake Mattoon in central Illinois spotted a partial arm with a distinct Green Bay Packers tattoo.
Illinois State Police soon connected that discovery to Dalewayne Turner, who was missing, as per Fox Chicago.
Three days later, on July 1, investigations led detectives to the couple's home and what they found was disturbing.
They found his torso and head inside a chest freezer in the basement. Blood dripped from the freezer’s drain, and a saw blade sat hidden under a blanket on top of it.
According to prosecutors, the freezer was bought at a local Best Buy store just for this purpose.
Other body parts were recovered from Lake Mattoon. A dive team later pulled up sealed garbage bags that had been weighed down with concrete.
Investigators say Robin Turner and James Adams bought the weights and 20 bags of concrete together, and surveillance footage captured the purchases.
Court records show a long effort to clean up and hide evidence. The pair reportedly used bleach, repainted parts of the house, removed and burned wood paneling, and threw away rugs.
According to KPTV, text messages between the two discussed carpet cleaner, dollies, and a hoist. At one point, Robin Turner wrote to Adams, “Be sure to fully delete everything.”
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| Robin Turner |
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| James Adam |
The break in the case reportedly came when Adams called another half-brother, Steven Turner, and confessed to him.
“I killed Dale, he is in the freezer,” Adams reportedly told him, and added that several body parts had been taken to a lake.
Steven Turner called 911 right away and when police questioned Adams, he admitted to the killing but said it was self-defense.
“The one thing I will say is that I did it, but I did it out of self-defense. I will tell you guys that,” Adams told investigators.
He said he grabbed a knife and stabbed Dalewayne Turner several times during a fight.
Robin Turner gave detectives a different account. She said she left the house to visit her mother after an argument broke out between Adams and her husband.
When she came back, her husband was gone and the house smelled strongly of bleach. She told police that Adams later admitted to her that he had stabbed Dalewayne Turner and put his body in the freezer.
Prosecutors also found a series of Google searches on Robin Turner’s phone that started weeks before the remains were discovered.
According to Patch News, the searches began on June 2 with entries like “does chloraphorm really knoc uou out.”
She then continued with several questions about overdosing on lithium, Adderall, and sleeping pills.
Later searches turned toward practical matters as on June 18 she looked up “chest freezer.” On June 22 she searched “how much concrete do you need for 9 24" x 12 post holes.”
On June 24 she asked “how long doesnit take a gresh 26 lb turkeybti freeze” and “how do you divorce someone you can’t find.”
On June 25 she searched “can spoiled meat stink ifvfrozeb” and “do you have to have a body embalmed.”
Family members say they are still trying to process what happened.
“It was a normal day and then I got told that they killed him and put him in the freezer. I was in shock. I was in disbelief. Dalewayne did not deserve to lose his life the way he did,” Steven Turner told FOX Chicago.
The victim’s cousin, Chrystal Mann, said she spoke with Robin Turner just minutes before the arrest.
“I was on the phone with her 10 minutes before she was arrested, and I said, ‘Robin, what’s going on? Why am I hearing all this crazy stuff I’m hearing? Where’s Dalewayne?’ She says, ‘Well, he’s still in treatment.’ And then she said, ‘Let me call you right back.’ I never talked to her again.”
Mann added, “My heart breaks because I never reached out to him. I feel bad because I believed her lies that she told our family, and we thought he was safe in a place where he should have been safe, but he wasn’t. Even in his own home, he wasn’t safe.”
Court records also show that Robin Turner had filed for an emergency order of protection against Dalewayne Turner on March 17, 2026. The order was granted but dismissed on April 8.
Both defendants are expected in court this week, and additional charges are expected as the investigation continues.
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