Judge Drops Newly Brought Murder Charges Against Parents In 1989 Killing Of Boy

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina judge on Friday threw out murder charges filed this year against a father and a stepmother, saying there was no new evidence they killed their 5-year-old child in 1989.

Circuit Judge Roger Young ruled the original detective in the case changed his interpretations of the evidence and with more than 20 witnesses either dead or unable to testify in the 35-year-old case, the couple couldn’t put up a fair defense and question witnesses who claimed they made incriminating statements.

The judge barred prosecutors from ever charging the couple again. The boy’s father said Friday by wrongly focusing on them at the start they could never properly grieve and the real killer likely will never be known.

“I feel like they did a very poor case from the beginning,” said Victor Turner, father of 5-year-old Justin Turner. “I’m glad that it’s over with but now we really won’t ever know too much. All I wanted was to get the person who did this.”

Justin Turner was found dead in a cabinet in a camper behind his Berkeley County home in March 1989. He had been strangled.

Investigators immediately thought the killing scene had been staged and they caught his father, Victor Turner, and stepmother, Megan Turner, in lies, Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said at a January news conference where he announced murder charges against both of them in the cold case.

Megan Turner was also charged with murder in 1990, but a grand jury refused to indict her.

Megan Turner said the suspicion around her since her stepson’s death has been crushing. She has been afraid to speak to anyone, fearing her words would be twisted by police determined to unjustly convict her.

“It’s been over 30 years,” Turner said, crying. “We