'Regis and Kelly' Help Take Down a Criminal

[Brian Damage]

Sometimes morning TV can be more than perky weather girls and middle-aged anchors with over-sized coffee mugs.

One of the U.S. Marshal's most wanted criminals is now in custody thanks to the unlikely partnership of Regis Philbin, Kelly Ripa and John Walsh.

Just a week after being added to the U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted list and one day before his case was to be profiled nationally on FOX's 'America's Most Wanted,' former state corrections officer Albert James Turner, Jr. is now in custody.

Walsh visited 'Live with Regis and Kelly' Friday morning to discuss the 1,000th episode of the long-running true crime show and his interview with President Obama. He previewed the upcoming cases Friday morning, and the right person was watching.

As a U.S. Marshal's press release states, "a viewer tip led to Turner's arrest this morning at a mall in Concord, N.C. He was taken into custody without incident."

"The U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force, along with the Rosenberg (Texas) Police Department, had been searching for Turner for the Dec. 27, 2009 murders of his wife, Keitha Turner, and mother-in-law Betty Joe Frank. Turner's wife and her mother died from stab wounds to the face and neck – injuries inflicted in the presence of a number of Turner's children. Turner fled the Texas crime scene and had been on the run prior to his arrest this morning."

There's no official word on this, but this could be the first time an 'America's Most Wanted' criminal was snagged off a TV-inspired tip before his case actually appeared on the Fox show.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/03/07/re...%28TV+Squad%29