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full screen Five-year-old Justin Lee Turner in 1989. Photo: Kailey Cora/AP
A 5-year-old boy was strangled to death in South Carolina in 1989.
Almost 35 years later, the parents are prosecuted using microscopic fibers.
“He never got on the school bus because he was dead,” Sheriff Duane Lewis said during a news conference Wednesday.
A previously cold case has been brought back to life in South Carolina using new technology, reports say Washington Post.
In March 1989, five-year-old Justin Lee Turner had been missing for two days as police and volunteers searched his parents’ home and the surrounding area for signs of his disappearance.
A local TV crew following the incident went with the father into the caravan behind the house. Only seconds later he came out.
– He’s in there, said the father Victor Lee Turner.
Then he went outside, sat on a nearby wooden bench, put his face in his hands and cried in front of the cameras.
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full screenVictor Lee Turner, 69, and Pamela Turner, 63, formerly Megan Renee Turner. Photo: Kailey Cora/AP
The body was found in a cupboard
The boy’s body was found in a cupboard in the caravan and investigators immediately suspected that the murder scene had been staged by the father and stepmother. Then followed dubious information from the parents.
Especially if the son got on the school bus the day of his disappearance. Usually, stepmother Megan used to wave him off every morning, but that particular Friday she had taken a shower because she wasn’t feeling well, she told investigators.
Witness statements contradicted the mother’s story. According to them, Justin had never taken the bus and had never been to school that day.
“He never got on the school bus because he was dead,” Sheriff Duane Lewis said during a news conference Wednesday.
Other likely proof is the food Justin and his parents ate for dinner the night before his death. The autopsy found that the food in Justin’s stomach was only partially digested, indicating that he was murdered shortly after.
A criminal investigation for murder was opened against the stepmother shortly after the boy was found. But it was quickly dropped for lack of evidence with the exception that it could be reopened if new evidence came to light.
Microscopic threads helped the case
The couple moved, Megan changed her name to Pamela, and investigators never heard from them again.
– I never received a single phone call from the father or the stepmother. Something along the lines of “What are you doing for my son?” could have been expected. And what does that tell you?, Lewis said.
32 years later in April 2021, the case was reopened. Using new technology, they were able to connect microscopic threads from Justin’s shirt and wounds from the neck with a tape from inside the couple’s home.
“That led us to connect the murder weapon, which we believe was used to strangle Justin, to fabric on his clothing at the time of his death,” Lewis said.
Amy Parsons, Justin’s cousin, who was eight years old at the time of the suspected murder, also attended the press conference.
– They have been free for 34 years while our family suffered. And they don’t deserve another day out of jail.