SC boy was sexually assaulted and strangled. 29 years later, his killing is unsolved

Five-year-old Justin Turner walked out the door to catch the school bus one morning 29 years ago. He never made it to school.

On March 5, 1989, two days after Justin didn’t show up to his school, his body was found in a camper located in the yard of his family’s Berkeley County home. He had been sexually assaulted and strangled, according to reports in The State at the time.

The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office on Monday asked anyone with information on his killing to come forward.

“Justin was just a sweet, 5-year-old boy and somebody out there knows something,” Sheriff Duane Lewis said in a message posted to the sheriff’s office Facebook page.

Justin left his family’s Moncks Corner home around 11 a.m. on March 3, 1989, to go to a neighbor’s home and catch the school bus, the sheriff’s office said. His stepmother, Pamela Turner, went to take a shower and did not accompany him outside.

When his stepmother went to meet the school bus that afternoon, Justin wasn’t on it, and she later found out he had not been at school that day, the sheriff’s office said. The neighbor Justin was supposed to meet that morning went outside with her grandson to him on the bus but never saw Justin.

Law enforcement spent two days searching the area around the Turner home, the sheriff’s office said. Justin’s father found him in a cabinet inside a camper, which was in the yard of the home.

Pamela Turner was charged with murder in December 1989, according to previous reports. However, the charge was dropped by prosecutors, who said there was insufficient evidence.

Anyone with information about the child’s death or his killer is asked to call the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office at 843-719-4465 or submit an anonymous tip through Crimestoppers of the Lowcountry at 843-554-1111.

This story was originally published March 6, 2018 at 10:08 AM with the headline "SC boy was sexually assaulted and strangled. 29 years later, his killing is unsolved."