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Owen Turner is a fictional character and supporting antagonist in the British soap opera EastEnders. He appeared as a major antagonist in 2006 and a supporting character in 2009 before becoming an overarching character from 2010 onwards.

He was portrayed by Lee Ross.

Biography[]

Owen Turner first came to Albert Square at Walford, a fictional borough in East London, from June 2006. It thereupon emerges that he is the ex-husband of local resident Denise Fox and the father of their young daughter Libby. While the pair show love and compassion for their daughter, Owen's marriage with Denise had collapsed due to his alcoholic problem and they have been divorced since then.

At first Owen manages to convince Denise to give their relationship another chance. She relents until Denise decides to end things with Owen by moving on to her boyfriend Kevin Wicks. In response to this revelation, Owen hits Denise and begins a campaign of domestic violence and physical abuse that lasts until both Libby and her half-sister Chelsea end up discovering the truth about it. Soon enough Kevin finds out what Owen has been doing and confrontingly punches him, warning Owen to stay away from Denise.

Later on, Owen causes trouble at the Scarlet's nightclub; he perpetuates a robbery that leads to the owner, Ruby Allen, getting hurt in the process and later on Owen starts a fight with her manager Jake Moon. Following these incidents, Ruby informs her boyfriend Sean Slater about this and decides not to contact her gangland father Johnny Allen about it since he is serving a life imprisonment of 27 years for killing his gangland rival Andy Hunter and ordering Jake's brother Danny Moon to kill local hardman Dennis Rickman on New Year's Eve 2005.

Soon enough, Owen again confronts Denise and demands they reconcile. When she refuses, he holds her hostage in the flat and becomes violent towards her until she stabs him with a fork. Denise eventually escapes and the police are called; Owen is arrested and is set to go to prison, but instead ends up being released after recieving a six-month sentence that is suspended for two years. Although his mother Liz attempts to convince her son to move forward, Owen is unable to do so and kidnaps Libby. He drugs her and plans to kill them both in a suicidal filciide attempt. After nearly drowning her in a lake, Owen is apprehended and is jailed with a five-year prison sentence.

In 2009, three years later, Owen is released for good behaviour. He manages to reconcile with both Libby and Liz before attempting to do the same with Denise, but she is unwilling to trust him again and suspects that Owen will never change his ways. However, as time goes on, Owen is able to fully assure Denise and her surrogate father figure Patrick Trueman that he has changed his ways. They eventually believe him and Owen even begins to spend quality time with Libby and Denise in decent ways.

By then, Denise has begun a relationship with her former lover Lucas Johnson and they end up getting engaged prior to Owen's return to the square. It is then Owen and Lucas begin a feud when the latter takes an immediate dislike towards the former and makes it clear that he doesn't trust him at all. Owen then realizes that Lucas is not at all as he seems and their conflict takes a turn for the worse when Lucas attacks Owen, who is able to fight back and warns him off.

In the build-up to Denise and Lucas' wedding in November 2006, Owen learns that Lucas' ex-wife Trina had recently died and gradually learns that Lucas had killed her. Owen is determined to stop Denise marrying Lucas and makes his intentions clear to Lucas on the night before the wedding day. On that day, Owen taunts Lucas about Trina's death no sooner had Lucas is given permission by the square's criminal top-dog Phil Mitchell to drive in his car for the wedding. Owen later sneaks into Phil's car to await for Lucas and they drive to a river where they confront each other over their respective pasts.

Owen makes it clear to Lucas that he knows the truth about Trina's death and gives him an ultimatum - don't marry Denise and leave the square forever in exchange for Owen not telling the police until tonight. Eventually, Lucas confesses to Trina's murder before telling Owen that he had a chance to walk away; and because Owen didn't do that in the end, Lucas must now "pass the judgment" onto him. As Lucas begins delivering the "Our father who art in heaven" prayer, Owen decides to tell the police about Lucas' confession after all. He attempts to leave, but finds the door is locked. Owen is about to react when Lucas suddenly attacks him with his bow-tie; Owen is unable to fight back as Lucas strangles him to death.

Moments after Owen's death, Lucas buries his body at Trina's memorial tree that he made to comfort his and Trina's son Jordan over his mother's passing. Lucas then proceeds to marry Denise and everyone is left unaware of Owen's fate, though Liz begins to grow increasingly suspicious about his fate. It soon discloses that Owen had a relationship with Phil's cousin Ronnie before he died, though it ended after Denise warned Ronnie about Owen's domestic past. Not long afterwards, Ronnie gets pregnant and Owen is revealed to be the father; however, Ronnie ends up suffering a miscarriage after her villainous father Archie Mitchell slams her body accross the stool at The Queen Victoria public house during a heated confronation between them.

In 2010, Lucas kills the family dog Sugar when the latter begins sniffing around Trina's memory tree - which, to Lucas, would threaten to expose Owen's corpse. Months later, Owen's fate is finally revealed when his corpse ends up being uncovered. On the day Owen's death becomes public knowledge, Lucas confesses to Denise that he killed Owen and claims it was self-defense. But Denise eventually learns the truth and Lucas kidnaps her after she learns that he killed Trina and that Owen was right about Lucas all along. After faking Denise's death by murdering a lookalike woman to make it appear that she had committed suicide, Lucas implicates Denise as the one who killed Owen and Trina.

However, Denise eventually escapes from captivity and reveals to her family the truth about Lucas - thus exposing the murders of both Trina and Owen respectively. Lucas later admits this to the family when he arrives and Libby angrily confronts him for killing her father, demanding to know how Lucas killed him and whether Owen suffered or not. In the end, the family escapes and Lucas is arrested for the murders of both Trina and Owen. He is later sentenced to life imprisonemnt for his crimes, and Owen has his funeral taken place off-screen. When Lucas is later released from prison and reunites with Denise, she distrusts him over what he did and recounts the fact that Owen died knowing Lucas' capabilities.

Trivia[]

• He made a total of 49 appearences during his time on the show.
• The character Owen Turner was born in 1970 and died at the age of 39.

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