Victor Lee Turner, left, and Megan Turner when they were arrested this week. Photo provided by Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office.By Andy Brack | In my mind’s eye, the image of a white pickup-truck camper with a light blue accent stripe continues to haunt me. Inside it 35 years ago, a dead boy had been found.
The camper was parked outside of a rural Moncks Corner home, maybe a white trailer. Buzzing around were law enforcement officers trying to figure out what happened to 5-year-old Justin Lee Turner. I remember there seemed to be a lot of yellow crime scene tape.
The boy went missing on March 3, 1989. Two days later with police on the scene, the boy’s father discovered his son stuffed into a cabinet in the camper near the home that had been searched earlier. The boy had been strangled. There was evidence he may have been sexually assaulted.
This cold case has haunted seasoned investigators and reporters for years. It came during a simpler time when fast-growing Berkeley County was half its size. Mobile phones were new, but available only in bulky bags. Web sites were more than two years away. Local news organizations scrummed to get the latest sensational scoop.
This week, Berkeley County authorities arrested the boy’s 69-year-old father, Victor Lee Turner, and 63-year-old stepmother, Megan R. Turner, on murder charges. They’re currently in jail pending a bond hearing later this month. Back in late 1989, officials arrested the boy’s stepmother, who changed her name from Pamela K. Turner, in the death. The following year, they dropped charges for lack of evidence. In 1992, the case went to a grand jury, but it returned no indictment.
And then the case just seemed to fizzle. But Berkeley County authorities, in coordination with the State Law Enforcement Division and its forensic lab and others, kept poking away. According to old newspaper reports, they reportedly always thought they knew what happened, but didn’t have enough evidence.
“We believe that they in concert moved his body to that camper to make it look like a stranger had murdered him,” Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said in a Thursday interview. Earlier, he noted, “Every sheriff from M.C. Cannon to Ray Isgett, Wayne DeWitt and myself – they’ve all looked into this case to some degree and tried to solve it. We were fortunate enough that we were able to do some things that we were not able to do before. It compressed the timeline.”
Lewis said authorities preserved evidence, but recently were able to subject it to new forensics tests.
“We had the leash that we believe was used to strangle Justin,” he said. “We’ve always had that. We were able to extract fibers from that leash onto Justin’s shirt collar. So you had transfer of particles from his shirt collar to the leash, and the leash to the shirt collar.”
That evidence, in coordination with more analysis of everything from what the boy had for breakfast to supposed inconsistencies in suspect statements led to this week’s charges, the sheriff said.
“It’s not just about DNA any more,” he said. “There’s a lot of things we can do that we couldn’t do back then – we didn’t have the means to do it.
“In this case, time was good to us. In others, it’s not. We just kept at it and kept trying things and reaching out to solve some mysteries of the case. It worked out to where we were able to get enough probable cause to arrest them.”
Arrests came in the cold case of Justin Lee Turner for three main reasons. First, police used science to make connections. Second, governments made investments in forensic technology, such as the $63 million State Law Enforcement Division forensic lab that opened last year. Third, authorities diligently kept at it to figure out what happened.
Lessons to remember: Trust in science; don’t discount it. Invest in government infrastructure. Employ dedicated people who won’t give up.
Justin Lee Turner. Rest in peace.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
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