In 1989, a man who was seen on television crying with his hands in his hands after finding his son’s body was arrested for murder.
“My son is in there!” In the station’s archive footage, Victor Lee Turner can be heard saying as local television filmed the moment five-year-old Justin Turner’s body was found in a trailer and then immediately began sobbing.
Although the authorities had their suspicions at the time, the young boy’s killers, including his crying father, were brought to justice only 34 years later.
More than three decades later, Mr. Turner and the boy’s stepmother, Megan Turner, were arrested and charged with murder in South Carolina after the unsolved case was reopened by investigators in 2021.
Physical evidence collected from the scene and autopsy was re-evaluated by forensic pathologists, police said.
“I can’t think of a more tragic and horrific murder than this. “He’s a 5-year-old child,” Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said at a news conference Wednesday.
“Justin could have been 40 years old, he could have finished high school, he could have gone to college, he could have gotten married, he could have had kids, he could have been a productive citizen,” Mr. Lewis said.
“But it wasn’t like that because we believe that these two people took it from all of us and from this family that I have been in contact with for years. “And they went to extraordinary lengths to keep this cause alive, to push us, to ask questions, and to help us get to where we are today.”
On March 3, 1989, police were called to the couple’s home after Justin allegedly did not get off the bus after school. WCSC aforementioned.
That morning, Mrs. Turner told police that she did not see her stepson go to school as he usually did because he was not feeling well and was taking a shower. But witnesses also reportedly told investigators they did not see him leave the house or get on the school bus.
“He never got on that bus. He never got on that bus because he died inside that house,” Mr Lewis said.
Turner admitted that he and the young boy argued, claiming that was the last time he saw him alive, the newspaper reported.
After this, a two-day search was launched to find Justin, and the boy’s body was discovered in the trailer to which the couple had keys and sole access.
It was Mr. Turner who made the discovery, and despite his sobbing, he still made investigators suspicious.
Authorities said he found his son’s body “within seconds of entering the trailer,” and the search warrant suggested he “knew exactly” where his son’s body was. WCSC aforementioned.
The arrest warrant reportedly went on to say that Mr. Turner did not check his son for any signs of life; Turner refuted this, telling investigators that he “appeared to be dead.” I could sense something was wrong with him. I didn’t touch him.”
Before the discovery, Mr. Turner allegedly asked a law enforcement officer whether someone had “harmed the victim, such as killed him.” What would happen to this person?
Investigators said that when Mr. and Mrs. Turner knew physical evidence had been collected from the scene, they “expressed concern and devised a plan to hide/conceal potential evidence” and made “spontaneous incriminating statements to indicate responsibility for the death” and “intention.” to conceal physical evidence from investigators,” he reported.
Although investigators believed the crime scene was fake, Mr. Lewis said there was no solid evidence to prosecute either of them at the time.
Ms. Turner, then known as Pamela Turner, was arrested by a grand jury, which recommended she be charged with murder, but was released due to insufficient evidence, WCSC said.
Mr. Lewis said the couple eventually moved out of town and none of the family ever heard from them again.
“Isn’t this weird? I never received a single phone call from his father or stepmother,” Mr. Lewis said.
“’What are you doing about my son’s death?’ Not one. What does this tell you?”
According to court documents obtained by the media, the cause of death of the child was allegedly asphyxiation.
Forensic analysis of the tie found in the couple’s home matched the child’s neck wounds, and fibers found in the tie were consistent with the child’s clothing fibers.
“This is a great day,” Mr. Lewis said of the murder charges.
“We got here thanks to new technology and forensics. We all know how things have progressed over the years.
The couple was arrested at their home in Cross Hill and extradited back to Berkley County. The couple was being held at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center while awaiting a bail hearing on Wednesday.