Ashley W. Turton: Energy Lobbyist, Wife of Key White House Aide, Dies in Fire

January 10th, 2011

Update: Grandmother Uses Toy Horse to Fend Off Burglar

Via: KSDK:

A grandmother used a toy horse to fend off a robber in her Washington, DC home Tuesday.

Catherine Turton moved there to take care of three grandchildren last year after their mother, lobbyist Ashley Turton, died in a bizarre garage fire.

One of the kids spotted the intruder Tuesday morning.

Turton went downstairs and saw the burglar with an armful of her belongings, so she grabbed the kids’ hobby horse and confronted the intruder.

“He grabbed my hair and pulled my neck, pulled my head over and shouted obscenities at me, and I recovered and said, ‘Now, put the stuff down!'” Turton said.

Turton was able to push the man out of the house.

Police found him hiding behind a car around the corner and arrested him.

—End Update—

Update: Police: Ashley Turton’s Death Was An Accident

You’ve heard of Magic Bullet theories. Here’s a Magic Spontaneously Combustive BMW theory.

Via: DCist:

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Turton — who was married to White House deputy director of legislative affairs Dan Turton — was heading to catch a flight when she got behind the wheel of a 2008 BMW X5 shortly before 5 a.m. on January 10. She then fell unconscious. The vehicle proceeded to roll into a workbench inside the garage, and a fire ignited in the car’s engine compartment. Turton reportedly never woke up after first slipping into unconsciousness and before flames engulfed the vehicle.

—End Update—

Update: Turton Was Intoxicated When She Died

Via: NBC Connecticut:

An autopsy report has revealed that a former aide to Rep. Rosa DeLauro was intoxicated when she died.

Ashley Turton was found dead just after 5 a.m. on Jan. 10 after her car caught fire in a parking garage in Washington, D.C.

The Chief Medical Examiner’s office told “The Hill” that “acute alcohol intoxication” was a contributing factor in Turton’s death.

—End Update—

Update: Ruled Accidental

Via: AP:

The D.C. Medical Examiner’s office says the death of a lobbyist in a car fire last month was accidental.

The office said Friday that 37-year-old Ashley Turton died from burns and inhaling products of combustion. The Washington Post reports that an autopsy also revealed acute alcohol intoxication contributed to her death.

—End Update—

Update: The Magic Headlights and Coolant Theory

Via: NBC:

Investigators in Washington, D.C. say their investigation into the death of Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s former aide is focusing on the headlights of her 2008 BMW X5.

Ashley Turton died January 10 after a fire engulfed her car.

Turton was at the a lobbyist for Progressive Energy and wife a senior aide to President Barack Obama.

WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. is reporting that sources have told them that Turton’s high-intensity headlights of the SUV may have started the fire.

“Investigators believe the radiator in Turton’s BMW was punctured when it rolled into a workbench. The halogen headlights, which emit a bluish light and illuminate the road better than conventional headlights, stayed on after the radiator was punctured,” according to WTOP. “Heat from the headlights, in proximity to the radiator’s antifreeze, either caused of exacerbated the initial fire, which ignited the garage.”

Two engineers from BMW have joined the investigation by the Metropolitan Police
Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Although an autopsy is still pending, authorities believe Turton was somehow stricken and was unconscious before the fire started, WTOP reported.

—End Update—

Update: ‘Some Unusual Circumstances’

Via: Politico:

“The leading theory is accidental, [that] the car crashed through the garage doors and…was found on fire in the garage area,” Piringer said, adding that the incident is under joint investigation by the fire and police departments. “There were some unusual circumstances – just the way the car was, low-speed, significant fire, things like that….For the most part, the fire was confined to the area of origin.”

—End Update—

Via: Washington Post:

The wife of a key White House aide was found dead early Monday in a sport-utility vehicle that was heavily damaged by fire in the garage of the couple’s Capitol Hill home, sources familiar with the incident said. The cause of her death is uncertain.

Ashley W. Turton, 37, an energy company lobbyist and one-time top aide to former U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), was found dead shortly before 5 a.m. in a burning BMW, the back end of which was partly out of the garage, as if the vehicle had been entering or leaving when the fire started, authorities said Turton was the wife of Daniel A. Turton, 43, the White House’s deputy director of legislative affairs for the U.S. House. As such, he is President Obama’s point man on legislation moving through the House.

He and Ashley Turton, who have three children, were a Washington power couple well known in Democratic circles. She was a lobbyist for North Carolina-based Progress Energy, which announced a merger Monday with Duke Energy.

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