On July 13, 1985, three men, Robert Turner, Michael Turner, and Daniel Hines, executed a pre-meditated plan to trick a girl into pulling over her car by pretending to be police officers, with the goal of kidnapping and raping her. That girl was 16-year-old Bridget Drobney of Downers Grove, Illinois. The details of the kidnapping, gang rape, torture, and ultimate murder in a cornfield in Macoupin County are more gruesome than most can endure reading. The jury in the trial felt unanimous that the person responsible for ending Bridget’s life, Robert Turner, who stabbed her in the throat because “She would not shut up, so I stuck her,” deserved the ultimate punishment available at the time -the death penalty.

Later, in 2003, Governor George Ryan granted all Illinois death row inmates commutation to life sentences. The Drobney family’s pleas went unheard, and Robert Turner was granted life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Recently, the unthinkable happened again when the Drobney family was informed by a state employee friend that the Illinois Prison Project, an organization that chooses prisoners to represent for clemency, had been granted a hearing with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board for June 15, 2022. The State never notified the family. The Drobneys, their family and friends, residents of the Macoupin County area, and other concerned citizens sent letters to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board and the Illinois Prison Project pleading that Robert Turner not be granted clemency. As a result, the Illinois Prison Project delayed Robert Turner’s hearing until October 2022. In a press release, the Illinois Prison Project invited the family to “have a dialogue with Mr. Turner so they could fully understand the person he has become after nearly four decades in prison,” leaving the family to wonder what person Bridget may have become if her life was not taken, without hesitation, by Mr. Turner. Then, in August, the family was notified that the hearing was postponed again until January 13, 2023.

Robert Turner has never expressed remorse for the crimes he freely admits to. His guilt has never been in doubt, nor has his desire to utilize an innocent girl for his sexual perversions. He is still young enough to pose a credible threat to society, causing extreme duress for Bridget’s family and loved ones, including her mother and three siblings. Releasing Robert Turner from the imprisonment he justly deserves would re-introduce a murderer, rapist, and predator into society and revictimize those who loved Bridget and are still healing from her tragic loss.

This petition is written with the request that Robert Turner’s clemency hearing be canceled and clemency never be granted.

If you would like to help, please contact Governor Pritzker, the Illinois Attorney General, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, or your local state representative to request that Robert Turner never receive clemency.

Contact information is listed below.

Prisoner: Robert Turner 

IDOC Prisoner Number: N66184

Direct email address to clemency board:

prb.clemency@illinois.gov