‘He was her rock’: Cyclist killed in Richland hit-and-run was a husband, father of 3

Justin Turner was the kind of dad who rode behind his kids on their bicycles to help push them along, who got up early to work out so he could help get them off to the school and who loved his wife through not one but two battles with cancer.

A driver whose identity is still unknown brought all of that to an end Saturday when they pulled out in front of a BMW on Hardscrabble Road, causing the BMW to swerve and hit Turner, who was approaching an intersection on his bicycle, troopers say. The motorist who caused the accident drove away, and Turner later died at a Columbia hospital, just weeks after his 40th birthday.

“This was a dad who loved his kids to death and spent a lot of time with them,” said the Rev. Dr. George Crow, senior pastor at Northeast Presbyterian Church, of which Turner was a member with his wife, Brooke, and their three kids. “He just had one of those personalities that everybody likes, and everybody wanted to be his friend.”

‘I guess I got her’

At Northeast Presbyterian, Turner was a deacon and Brooke Turner is the director of the women’s ministry.

In a video interview posted to the church’s website, Turner recalled being introduced to his wife by her father, who worked with him at PepsiCo, where he had worked since graduating from the University of South Carolina.

“He approached me one afternoon in the hall and said, ‘I’ve got a daughter I need you to meet,’” Turner said in the video.

When Turner showed up to what he thought was a party for co-workers, it was just him with Brooke’s family, he recalled in the video. And he learned then that she was living in Austria.

“I truly went thinking, ‘This is nice and all, but where could this possibly lead?’” he said.

A year later, Brooke returned to the U.S. to live in Columbia.

“I guess I got her,” Turner said in the interview, looking at his wife and chuckling.

Jennifer Elliott Mathis, 40, said she and Turner grew up together in Gaffney and had been friends their entire lives. She laughed recalling a time in elementary school when Turner put some dyed eggs in his backpack for Easter but never took them out.

“So, every day when my dad would pick us up, he would smell it,” Mathis said. After about 2.5 months of smelling the rotting eggs, Mathis’ father pulled over on the way home from school one day.

“He made Justin get out, throw the eggs into the field and made him leave his backpack,” she said.

‘A godly man and husband’

The Rev. Josh Desch and his family moved to Columbia so he could take a job at Northeast Presbyterian as pastor of community and discipleship.

“Justin was, honestly, one of the first people I met,” Desch said. “He was a very warm, welcoming person to me from day one.”

The two families live a short walking distance from each other and spend time together regularly, Desch said. He recently had gotten into mountain biking, and they would occasionally ride bikes together.

“Justin really modeled being a godly man and husband,” Desch said. A triathlete, Turner would wake up early in the mornings to complete his training so he could be there to help Brooke get their kids off to school, Desch said.

“He never cheated his family,” he said.

Desch remembered a trip their families took to Hilton Head; he and Turner, along with their kids, were riding bicycles on the beach one day, but their kids struggled to pedal in the strong headwind. So, Turner dropped back behind the kids and, with one hand still on the handle bars, used his other hand to gently propel each young rider forward.

“He’d pedal as hard as he could and shoot them forward,” Desch recalled. “And then he would do it to the next kid. The kids thought it was a roller-coaster ride or something.”

The day Turner died, he texted Desch around 9:30 a.m., asking if he wanted to go ride bikes. Desch, who had just gotten to the gym to start a workout, declined and apologized.

Turner replied back less than an hour before he was hit, Desch said, with a thumbs-up emoji.

‘There were a lot of tears’

Sunday was tough for the Northeast Presbyterian congregation, which has seen its share of tragedies and lives cut short, Crow said.

The church was supposed to install its new women’s board of directors Sunday, and Brooke Turner was to be a part of it, Crow said.

“We just canceled it,” he said. “There were a lot of tears — a lot of tears.”

Crow was at the hospital with Brooke Turner after her husband died Saturday.

“The only thing she talked about in the hospital after learning of Justin’s death was her three kids,” he recalled. “How do we even tell them? How do we prepare for life?”

Their church is rallying around the family, Crow said. A GoFundMe page set up for Brooke Turner and their children has raised more than $89,000 as of 5 p.m. Monday.

“She is an incredibly strong woman,” he said. “Her faith is central to her life.”

‘He was her rock’

That faith is evident in Brooke Turner’s Facebook posts that chronicle her battle with breast cancer after she was diagnosed in 2015, when she was declared cancer-free in May 2016 and when the cancer returned just several months after that.

Nearly every post includes a Bible verse or quote of hope or inspiration.

“He was her rock,” Mathis said of Turner. “These latest trips to Houston (for treatment), he would always go with her. He was her biggest cheerleader and her biggest supporter.”

In a picture posted Monday morning, Brooke Turner quotes Romans 15:13 and explains that the photo of Justin — which was taken with their son Samuel on Thursday night, after he decided to give his life to Christ — was the last picture she took of her husband.

“After we prayed, I pulled out my phone and snapped this photo because I always wanted to remember that special moment,” she wrote. “I had no idea how much the photo would mean. It’s the hope of Christ that we have clung to as a family and will continue to cling to. There is no other true hope.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2018 at 5:37 PM.