MONCKS CORNER — As the fate of the father and stepmother accused of sexually assaulting and strangling their 5-year-old son remains to be decided, a law professor studying a serial killer insists he could be behind the brutal murder that grasped Berkeley County in 1989. Law enforcement officials, however, disagree.
The case against Victor and Megan Turner was already hanging in question after the lead detective admitted last week that no new evidence, only new theories, brought charges against the elderly couple after a 35-year delay their lawyer claims is unconstitutional.
Victor Lee Turner, Justin’s father, and Megan R. Turner, formerly known as Pamela K. Turner, the child’s stepmother, were charged with murder in January 2024 for the death of 5-year-old Justin Turner.
Then, that same defense attorney dropped a “bombshell,” alleging the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office developed tunnel vision in the case. They declined to investigate other suspects for Justin Turner’s murder, even after the FBI in 2007 asked multiple law enforcement agencies to investigate “ALL unsolved abductions, sexual assaults, and/or murders” in case they could be linked to serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz, he alleged.
Evonitz was in the Navy, and his ship docked in Charleston the same day the boy, Justin Turner, went missing. He was known to prefer rural and country settings and to drive upward of 50 miles to abduct his victims, according to University of Virginia law professor Deirdre Enright.
She contends a trove of evidence her team has analyzed since 2022 points toward the possibility that Turner is one of numerous victims Evonitz could have gotten away with killing.
Definitive evidence the FBI has uncovered that links Evonitz to one abduction in Columbia and three homicides in Virginia is only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to Enright’s studies.
She feels “almost certain” her team at UVA’s Project for Informed Reform will link him to other crimes in South Carolina, the state where Evonitz resided when an abduction backfired on him and caused him to end his life while being encircled by law enforcement.
“I’m worried about South Carolina,” Enright said.
Here’s what to know about the serial killer born and bred in the Palmetto State.
It all started in Columbia
Born at the Providence Hospital in Columbia, Evonitz struggled with a controlling father and dysfunctional family. When he graduated from Irmo High School in 1980, he fled, joining the Navy as a sonar technician.
He was honorably discharged eight years later and worked as a traveling salesman. He returned to his home state in 1999.
He flew under the radar until June 24, 2002, when he abducted 15-year-old Kara Robinson (now Kara Robinson Chamberlain) from a Columbia front lawn.
Richard Evonitz abducted 15-year-old Kara Robinson in Columbia in 2002. He has since been linked to three murders, and one law professor believes those are "just the tip of the iceberg."
“Choosing me was his biggest mistake,” she said in a series of videos posted to TikTok on the 20th anniversary of her kidnapping.
By embracing her past and speaking freely to audiences across the country, she has amassed nearly 643,000 followers and garnered 9.4 million likes. She did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication.
That day, she was standing outside in her pajamas watering her friend’s flowers when she noticed a Pontiac Trans Am drive out of the neighborhood and circle back, she described in the series of TikTok videos.
A man “who did not look creepy, scary or suspicious in any way,” parked in the driveway and approached her under the guise of selling pamphlets. As he passed her a pamphlet, she remembers feeling a cold metal gun barrel pressing into her neck.
“You’re going to come with me,” he said.
He forced her into a plastic bin in the backseat of his car and pulled over in the middle of the drive to place a ball gag in her mouth and restrain her, she recalled in the videos.
As he carried her out of the car and into his apartment, she said her survival instincts kicked in and she set her mind on pleasing him, gathering as much information as possible and escaping.
Then began what she describes as “18 hours of hell” as he repeatedly assaulted her and held her hostage. She recalls only snapshots of the incident.
Richard Evonitz abducted 15-year-old Kara Robinson in Columbia in 2002. He has since been linked to three murders, and one law professor believes those are "just the tip of the iceberg."
A hair brush with long red hair. Menstrual products. The name of his doctor and dentist. The serial number inside the plastic bin she was shoved into. That he had served in the Navy.
Remembering information “was my way of fighting back while I was there,” she said, speaking calmly and surely in the videos.
She realized her time to escape had come when he slept soundly in a bed beside her. Her hands were cuffed together and her feet were bound, but she managed to wriggle out of her restraints, remove a barricade by the front door and dash into the parking lot.
She jumped in front of a car, which took her to the police station, and law enforcement was able to track Evonitz, her captor, based on the information she memorized.
Capturing the killer
But by the time law enforcement barged into Evonitz’s apartment, he had fled.
This began a two-day, 500-mile police chase that ended with Evonitz admitting to his sister that he had committed “more crimes than he could remember” shortly before being encircled by law enforcement and shooting himself.
Officials uncovered information in his apartment that linked him to other crimes. By August 2002, FBI officials announced he was behind three unsolved Virginia killings.
These included the 1996 murder of 16-year-old Sofia Silva and the 1997 killings of sisters Kristen and Kati Lisk in Spotsylvania County, Va. Each of the three teenage girls was abducted near their homes after school.
Evidence included newspaper clippings he had kept of the crimes, hair and fingerprints found inside a vehicle he left in Columbia and fibers found on the bodies that matched those of furry handcuffs he had bound Robinson with, according to various news reports.
The FBI posted this alert in 2007 to notify law enforcement to check their unsolved abduction, rape and murder cases for similarities to cases Richard Evonitz has been linked to.
Kevin Wheeler, a spokesman for the Columbia Field Office of the FBI, confirmed to The Post and Courier that Evonitz is linked to these three murders, but declined to comment on whether he is or is not linked to other cases.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told The Washington Post in 2002 that a team of two sheriff’s deputies and one FBI agent were going to reconstruct Evonitz’s life.
Though investigations into serial killers never officially close, law enforcement has not publicly linked any other crimes to Evonitz since 2002.
“We tried to trace his steps … to see if there were any missing girls, or kidnapped girls, or sexually assaulted girls,” Lott told The Post and Courier. “We were not able to determine any other victims. That doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
Robinson Chamberlain is sure there are more victims that officials haven’t uncovered, she said resolutely in a video.
Could there be other victims?
In 2000, professor Enright represented a man accused of murdering two women in Shenandoah National Park. The case against her client fell apart, and the homicides were left unsolved.
When she heard about the FBI linking Evonitz to the three murders that happened nearby and during a similar time period, she remembers thinking, “Who is this guy?”
She founded the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia, which seeks exoneration for wrongfully convicted people in Virginia. But she wanted to do more.
Now, as the director of the Project for Reformed Inform, she and her team are working to identify cold and unsolved rape and murder cases in the United States and other countries that could be linked to Evonitz.
Her team is analyzing evidence related to Evonitz, tracking his whereabouts and searching for major crimes that happened while he was within a 50-mile radius.
Enright used Navy records, phone records, medical records, bank records, plane tickets and car rentals to lay out exactly where he was at any given time.
“We’re creating this massive timeline in an effort to tick tock his life as best we can,” Enright said. “I feel like I’m in a position to do something with this (evidence) that could help people."
They’ve logged “so many” potentially related crimes that it’s overwhelming, she said. The team is currently focusing on investigating seven specific cases that could fit Evonitz, but that other people are jailed for or accused of being the suspects in.
Justin Turner’s case is one of those seven.
Could Justin Turner’s murder be related?
Sheriff Lott did not entertain the possibility that Evonitz could be behind the killing of a 5-year-old boy.
He’s been linked to one abduction and three murders, Lott said. All of them were teenage girls. Wheeler declined to comment when asked if kidnapping, raping and killing a 5-year-old boy fits into the profile the FBI has built around Evonitz.
“We have no indication whatsoever that he was attracted to boys,” Lott said. “There are no similarities. He only kidnapped and raped girls.”
But that’s precisely the problem, Enright says.
Evonitz was quickly linked to the murders in Virginia. And then? Nothing.
That’s where the investigation stopped, she alleges.
“When they say he’s only been linked to the murders of teenage girls, I would say, that’s because they’ve only looked at them,” Enright said.
As part of the project, she reviewed hours of the pornography Evonitz watched. It shows he was interested in “every kind of sexual exploitation that existed,” she alleged.
Men, boys, women and children — nothing was off his radar, she said.
“I feel like this is the tunnel vision of law enforcement,” Enright said. “Everyone has started saying, ‘Oh, he only liked young girls,’ … Because they only looked at that. I kind of had hoped they would start broadening their vision and considering other options, but I waited for that for a long time, and it just didn’t happen.”
Justin Turner
She believes Evonitz should not be ruled out as a suspect in Justin Turner’s killing.
He’s been linked to abductions, rapes and murders of children who were taken from their front yards, in broad daylight, just after being dropped off by their school buses. He was known to use sex toys to assault his victims, she said.
He is known to have preferred rural, country settings, and to drive 50 miles to abduct his victims. He has tried to frame others for his crimes, she said.
What she doesn’t know is what time his ship docked in Charleston on March 3, 1989, the day Justin Turner went missing. The Navy has not yet provided her those records.
“When people are so scared of looking at (Evonitz) for something else, I just start to think, you’re just afraid you sat on this for decades,” Enright said.
The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office is continuing to investigate the death of Justin Turner, spokesperson Jeremy Baker said.
It’s still unclear if the case against the Turners will go to trial or get dismissed.
