Brutally stabbed on Thanksgiving weekend 20 years ago, SC man’s murder still a mystery

Dale Fetner was an easy going guy, glib, the kind of man who could — and did — strike up a conversation with almost anyone.

Imposing at 6-foot-4, 240 pounds, he was strong, a contractor by trade.

So, who could have wanted the 44-year-old dead and, perhaps more importantly, who could have overpowered him with only a knife?

It’s been 20 years since that Thanksgiving weekend evening in Greenville when Fetner was brutally attacked, and still no suspect.

“No one has been ruled out,” said Greenville Police Det. Andrew Smith, who is leading the investigation. “Leads seem to come in every year. They’re like pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes they come together.”

Anderson County native

Fetner grew up in Belton about 25 miles southeast of Greenville in Anderson County. He had a typical Southern upbringing with a father who worked as a carpenter and a mother who enjoyed cooking for whoever showed up at her table. He had a brother and a sister and lots of friends, the Rev. Bob Clardy remembers. Clardy was best friends with Fetner’s older brother, and Fetner was the tag-along little brother.

Clardy said Fetner’s father often took them camping and fishing and worked on cars with them.

“Dale was always up for a challenge,” Clardy said. “We had a lot of fun just being boys. We’d slip and smoke, stuff like that. He wasn’t wild.”

They all went to Whitefield Baptist Church in Belton, where Clardy is now an associate pastor. Fetner continued to attend most Sundays as an adult, sitting on the back row with his sister, Clardy said.

Marriages and a career

Once out of Palmetto High, Fetner moved to Greenville. He married in 1990 and was divorced about two years later. Fetner bought a house on Bennett Street near downtown Greenville in 1992.

A son was born in 1994. Fetner married the boy’s mother in 1996, and they divorced about two years later.

Fetner owned Renovations by Dale, which did jobs of varying sizes, from swapping electrical outlets to rebuilding the inside of a store at Haywood Mall.

On July 31, 2000, nearly four months before his death, firefighters were called to the Bennett Street house to tame a blaze. Smith, the police detective, said the fire was labeled suspicious and has not been solved. He and the group of retired detectives who make up the city’s cold case unit are looking into whether the fire and Fetner’s murder were related.

“It sends off a red flag,” Smith said. “It could be one of the pieces to that puzzle.”

The house was not destroyed but was damaged enough Fetner had to move into the newly built Azalea Hill apartment complex near the Verdae Golf Course on Greenville’s prosperous Eastside.

A planned assault

On Thanksgiving, Fetner spent the day with family. Later in the week, he worked on a house he was building in Saluda, N.C. It was to be his mountain home. It was cloudy and cold as he came down the mountain through the Greenville Watershed, a protected wildland that surrounds the North Saluda Reservoir, where Greenville gets its drinking water.

He stopped at Arby’s around 6:30 p.m. for takeout and headed to his apartment. It had been dark for about an hour. Sometime after leaving his work van in the apartment parking lot, Fetner was attacked.

Smith said the attack was planned, and the fight was brutal. Fetner was found 25 feet from where the struggle began. A neighbor found Fetner’s body, face down in a pool of blood, between 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m.

He suffered 15 stab wounds to the lower back, chest, abdomen and face, and there were defensive wounds on Fetner’s arms and hands. The coroner put the time of death at 7:50 p.m.

Smith said the Arby’s bag, Fetner’s keys and other items police will not describe were found near the body. The other items might have been left by the killer, Smith said. The van was undisturbed, and nothing was stolen. Police declined to describe the murder weapon as well.

In the days after the murder, a reward of $50,000 was offered, a huge amount at the time, Smith said.

Another murder that took place that same day was easily solved by a confession from a man on the scene, but the Fetner case dragged on. Notes filled hundreds of pages. Fetner had so many personal contacts, the number of interviews seemed to rise exponentially.

Evidence was bagged, and through the years, the Greenville Police Department sent off DNA samples for testing. Two years ago, they thought DNA would be the key, as it was in several other cases they had solved.

Smith was involved in identifying a suspect in the decades-old case of Alice Ryan, a wealthy widow stabbed to death in her Tudor-style mansion near downtown Greenville. That case will go to trial soon, Smith said.

Police are not giving up on science. A DNA sample was sent to the state crime lab about a month ago. They hope to have results soon.

Looking for tips

None of Fetner’s family members would agree to an interview about the case. They all still live in Anderson County. The parents have died. Clardy, the minister, said he helped preach the funeral for Fetner’s father, the man he calls “Mr. James,” a few months ago. Fetner’s son attended. He’s in the Air Force now and has a family of his own, Clardy said.

“They hope it will be resolved. We pray about it,” Clardy said.

He said there’s a bit of discomfort on the family members’ part. With no suspect identified, what if it’s someone they know?

Clardy said he can’t believe someone could live with a gruesome killing like this on their conscience for 20 years.

Smith hopes that kind of guilt unlocks the case. No matter how little the information is, he is appealing to anyone who might have heard even the smallest something or saw a vehicle speeding away to contact Crimestoppers. As always, tips can be anonymous.

Smith returned to his puzzle analogy.

“We haven’t found the right piece,” he said. “It’s a matter of picking the case up, re-interviewing people and looking at the case from the outside in.”

This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 10:36 AM.