Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Bowen Turner & The Two Systems Of Justice (S01E40)

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

19-year-old Bowen Turner is accused of raping three women between 2018-2019. One of those victims, Dallas Stoller, died in November of 2021. In this special episode of the Murdaugh Murders Podcast, you’ll hear from Dallas’ sister and father, who were in the courtroom last week when Turner got a shocking sweetheart deal of just five years probation.  He won’t have to register as a sex offender. Solicitor David Miller of the Second Circuit Solicitor’s Office agreed to the deal. Judge Markley Dennis approved the sentence.  Like Paul Murdaugh, Bowen Turner had the privilege of being represented by a state senator. State Senator Brad Hutto negotiated this shocking deal for his client to go free - even after he violated his bond conditions more than 60 times. In this episode, you will hear from Mandy & Liz tell you exactly what went wrong in this case and how this case exemplifies a much bigger problem in our judicial system.  You’ll also hear from survivor Chloe Bess, who was slut-shamed in court by Senator Brad Hutto after she was assaulted by Bowen Turner.  How can you help? Read this post: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.ford.1238/posts/pfbid0xSjEDQhS1dDX1Y1oxwZmx14eK3kwqv6bVbEU9tqABYa6YqSYVvaBSnZy2gQzPY6El Or this thread: https://twitter.com/MandyMatney/status/1513676053331513348 Call the elected Officials Involved: Second Circuit Solicitor’s Office (Ask for Deputy David Miller or his boss Bill Weeks): [phone] State Senator Brad Hutto: Home Phone [phone], Business Phone [phone], Business Phone [phone], Email:[e-mail] Judge Markley Dennis: [phone], [e-mail] Oh! And please vote for Mandy as the Best Local Investigative Reporter in the Charleston City Paper here: https://bit.ly/38l2fuA And a special thank you to our sponsors: Cerebral, Hunt-A-Killer, Priceline, Embark Vet, VOURI, Hello Fresh, Babbel, Article, Daily Harvest, and others. The Murdaugh Murders Podcast is created by Mandy Matney and produced by Luna Shark Productions. Our Executive Editor is Liz Farrell. Advertising is curated by the talented team at AdLarge Media. Find us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ For current and accurate updates: Twitter.com/mandymatney Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know what it will take to change the justice system in South Carolina. But this week, we came across a shocking case that shows just how far money and influence gets you in the South Carolina courtroom. A case so egregious, it made us stop everything we were doing in the Murdoch cases so we could do a special episode bringing light to this injustice. My name is Mandy Matney. I've been a journalist in South Carolina for more than six years now. This is a special episode of the Murdoch Murders podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell.

This week, something happened that enraged Liz, David, and me. And we all decided, as South Carolina residents dedicated to exposing our polluted justice system with the hope that we can fix it, we are doing something different this week. We will be focusing a majority of today's episode on a case that is not tied to the Murdoch family in any way. But the storyline is familiar, and it is an example of the good ol' boys ruining our state and putting public safety at risk. It is a tale of two justice systems.

One for the affluent, the rich, the powerful, and one for everyone else. It's a story that deserves the national spotlight, just like the stories of Stephen, Mallory, and Gloria deserved the spotlight before last June. It's a story that serves as the clearest example of exactly why the way we elect our judges in this state corrupts the entire system. This story deserves our time and our platform. And please don't assume that this special episode means that we're running out of updates in the Murdoch cases.

We have plenty. This case just needed our immediate time and attention. So what happened? In summary, Bowen Turner is a 19 year old man who was accused of violently raping three girls between 2018 and 2019. This week, the system let him walk away free. We believe that the powerful players involved in this wanted the Bowen Turner case to go away quietly.

We're doing this podcast today to ensure that it will not. Every day, listeners send us cases that deserve the spotlight and public exposure. But honestly, I haven't had the capacity to focus any time and energy on anything else in the last 10 months. But last week, someone tagged me in an Instagram post about the Bowen Turner case and then one of the victim sisters reached out for me and asked for help and I just couldn't say no. As much as I've told myself that I should only focus on one case at a time, I couldn't

help it. I fell down the rabbit hole, mouth agape and clicked on Instagram video after Instagram video. And the thing is, I remember this case from 2019 so vividly. Liz and I were both working at the packet and paying attention to Fitznews a lot because frankly, Wolf Folks was the only one who could beat us on the Murdoch stories. We found his story about this and the story immediately made Liz and I so angry. We both saw so many similarities between Paul Murdoch and Bowen Turner.

Their mugshots alone have so many striking parallels. If you or your teenager or your adult child were to be arrested and charged with a crime, you would have to endure the booking process at a jail where you would be ordered to change out of your street clothes and into a jail uniform. We all know what jail uniforms look like. They are an ugly reminder that you are the accused and it is a visual signal that you are behind bars. After you've changed into this jail uniform, you'd have photos taken of you and those

photos would be public for the world to see. It is a photo that depicts you during what is probably your least proud moment. Then you'd have your bond hearing. For people like Paul Murdoch and Bowen Turner though, kids with parents who can afford the kind of attorneys who have plenty of power to leverage on their behalf, the booking process is different. Mandy and I call this the gentleman's treatment. In South Carolina, privileged young men like Paul and Bowen, after they've been accused

of irreparably harming other people, get to stay in their J-Crew shirts while someone takes their picture and that gets to serve as their mugshot. So basically every stigma associated with getting arrested is kept far away from these boys. In 2019, after Paul's first hearing, I read a column about this gentleman's treatment and how there are two systems of justice in South Carolina. In response to that column, I got a very long email from a man named David Miller, basically telling me that I knew nothing about how the justice system works and that everything in

Paul's case was copacetic. This he told me is exactly how the system is supposed to work. Remember that name, David Miller, because you're going to hear it again in a little bit. Bowen Gray Turner was accused of raping three girls between 2018 and 2019 in three different South Carolina counties. But this story is not about Bowen. It is about three victims and what our elected officials have done to them and what our system

is doing to our girls in South Carolina. The first victim, who was assaulted in April 2019, does not wish to be named at this time. The second victim, 20-year-old Dallas Stallard, unfortunately died from a self-inflicted wound in November 2021. The third victim, who was allegedly raped while Turner was out on bond without an ankle monitor for his charges in Dallas's case, spoke with the Murdoch Murders podcast and Fitz News. Her name is Chloe Bess.

She wants the world to hear this story. This week, we also spoke with Dallas's sister, Brett Tabatabai, and her father, Carl Stallard, who are both fighting for change in the South Carolina judicial system, even after everything that happened to them. This story takes place in Orangeburg County, which stretches across both the Midlands and the low country of South Carolina. It's about an hour north of Hampton County, in a tiny tip of its southern border, Texas Colleton County, where Moselle is located.

Hampton has a lot in common with Orangeburg. Hampton and Orangeburg are among two of the poorest counties in South Carolina. They are both rural with depleting populations, and they are both knowingly run by the good old boys. Senator Brad Heddo, a Democrat, represents the people of both Hampton and Orangeburg counties. He has been in that position since 1996 as a state senator and is now the House Minority Leader.

In fact, State Senator Brad Heddo plays a starring role in this sad saga. He was hired to represent Bowen Turner, likely because of his power and how it could keep Bowen free from consequences. Yes, just like Paul Murdock, Bowen Turner, who comes from an influential family, got a state senator to represent him and it worked just as the good old boys wanted it to. But the good old boys, per usual, underestimated the victims in this case and those who will go to war for the victims. They did not anticipate Brett, who has been blasting her sister Dallas's story on social

media for the last week. Here's Brett. Okay, so Dallas was basically the complete opposite of me. Dallas was literally just a huge, bright personality. She always had a smile on her face. She was kind to everyone. She was funny. She was extremely smart.

She was her senior class president. She was one of the top in her class. She was the editor of her yearbook. She played volleyball. She played travel volleyball. She was always very athletic. And she kind of, she wasn't really clicky. She was friends with everyone.

Anybody that you would talk to would tell you the same thing. Dallas had a huge personality, an extremely personal or extremely kind. She wanted to go to school at the College of Charleston. She was studying to be, she wanted to study to be a physical therapist. And so she was in sports management. And unfortunately, after she was assaulted, she completely changed. Dallas Dollar knew Bowen Turner. The two of them attended Orangeburg Preparatory School, which is a private school in Orangeburg.

Their families also knew each other. They hung out with the same group of friends, which is why they were both at the same party on October 7th, 2018 in Bamberg County. Here's her sister talking about what happened that night. They went to a party at a place called, you know, I can't think of it talking in my head, but like the pawn house or the lake house. Basically it was like, where all the kids would go party, right? All the high school kids, they always go party there.

You know, they're at a party, they're seniors in high school, they're drinking. She was obviously very intoxicated. Dallas, so we don't know how she got out there, but Dallas went missing. And every, you know, friends from the party, they all go searching for Dallas. They find one of Dallas's friends, they're walking through the woods and they walk up. And Bowen is standing over Dallas. Dallas is passed out on the ground unconscious, like in the woods. And he's pulling his pants up and zipping up his pants.

And this guy runs at Bowen, Bowen starts running through the woods. And the guy who sees him starts running and he actually beat him up. As all of this was going on, Dallas's mom was on the way to the party to pick her up. And she gets to the party and she has her windows rolled down and she hears two girls walking out. Like they said, we need to get out of here. Some girl got raped. My mom immediately starts panicking. Dallas's friends come up to her and they said something happened to Dallas.

You know, they're crying. They're saying something happened to Dallas. Her friends pick her up. They put her in my mom's car and she's unconscious. She's beaten. She's got bruises all over. She's got leaves and everything, you know, from the woods all over, scratching, bleeding. She, my mom, you know, hauls it to the house.

She runs in the house and wakes my dad up. And my dad comes out and they immediately call 911. They call the ambulance because Dallas was so intoxicated at this point, either intoxicated or, you know, I'm not sure how intoxicated she was, but they're obviously drinking out of parties. Dallas was a very strong girl. She was very tall, athletic. And for someone to be able to do what they did is mind boggling because in any pictures you see of her, she was a very strong girl.

So she, again, being intoxicated had to play a huge part in that, not being able to fight back. So my parents, they take her to the hospital. Here's Dallas' dad, Carl. And when they got her there, they immediately started kind of giving her fluid and that type of thing to help get the alcohol out of her system and get her where she could speak coherently and they could figure out what the extent of her injuries were and what caused them. And it took the better part of that entire night on into the next morning before they

got, well, I mean, she started coming around to treatment sooner, but as far as getting her thumb down the way she could talk about it was early that next morning. At the hospital, Dallas encountered her first of many hurdles. The thing here is that Liz and I have reported on dozens of sexual assaults in our career. And when you peel back the layers piece by piece, we've both noticed something. These women, a lot of the time, are met with so much resistance while reporting their assault. And even from those specifically trained to work with survivors. According to Dallas' family, the sexual assault nurse examiner, also known as the same nurse

at the Orangeburg Regional Medical Center, talked Dallas out of the sexual assault examination and warned her about how bad it would be. Okay. So at this point, they are at the Orangeburg Regional Medical Center. The same nurse tries to talk my sister out of doing the same, the same tip. Yeah. Very, very odd. Not sure why Dallas had, I do remember my parents calling and saying that her eyes, one

of her eyes specific was completely like red and bloodshot because of the strangulation her neck had. And these pictures are posted. We posted these pictures. Her neck was completely like black and blue from being strangled. Mind you, the solicitor has seen all of these pictures. The solicitor is solicitor David Miller, the guy Liz mentioned a little bit ago. Don't forget his name.

He is another powerful player involved in this and we'll get to him. Initially, Dallas decided against having the same nurse at Orangeburg do the examination, but ultimately she went to MUSC in Charleston where they collected evidence and performed a sexual assault exam. With the support of her family, Dallas decided to press charges and participate in the prosecution of Bowen. And then ultimately Dallas made the decision to move forward with revealing what the situation was about.

And she did say during the night of the incident that it was, she did describe her attacker and name her attacker is Bowen Turner. And she, of course, you know, within 24 hours or a little better when she talked back with Sled, she called him out of the gentleman that attacked her, don't say gentlemen, but the young man that attacked her and assaulted her. And for Sled then, you know, got with the agent in charge of the investigation. So Dallas cooperated with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as Sled, which is the lead investigating agency in this case.

It had to be done within a 72 hour period is what I think the timeline was if I make a mistake and they went down and did that and whatever results came out of that were immediately forward forwarded to Sled. And that's what pretty much kicked off the full investigation. And at that point they were after several days and I guess Sled's reaching out once they get their initial case doing get their incident report generated and they did a very thorough investigation. And we'll be right back.

As soon as Brett found out what happened, she knew her sister had a rough road ahead. Not only dealing with the PTSD from the assault, but Brett knew what Orangeburg was really like. She knew that Bowen's family had power and influence as Bowen's father was an investigator for First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe's office. I got the phone call about it, but I knew coming from that town. I knew what was coming. I knew if she proceeded can move forward.

I knew what was coming as far as the bullying and the community just 100% against her. And after this happened, she actually had to stay in school with him and for two weeks after, while the school board decided what they were going to do once he was charged, like if they were going to expel him or what needed to happen, but she had to walk the halls in school with him for two weeks after the fact, for a whole two weeks after the fact. And thank goodness it ended up being Christmas break because she would have been longer. And facing there was kids from the school that started a hashtag free Bowen, just like

constant bullying and not, not, you know, what's sad is it wasn't even just from the kids in school. It was from the teachers. It was from parents. Over the past three years, Liz and I have talked a lot about what needs to change with the system. One of the major things that we've seen in both the Murdoch case and now this case is that powerful families have a large number of people who help them cover up, downplay

or outright dismiss their bad behavior. This is where it happens at this level. Adults were participating in the bullying and ostracizing of Dallas and teachers. It's these everyday behaviors that contribute to the larger problem and every one of those people is responsible for this outcome. She was the subject of quite a bit of bullying and ridicule and, you know, folks that said young people, especially she went to Orangeburg prep here in Orangeburg, smaller, you know, not a real, real small private school, but still small by the scale versus public schools.

And she, she was at the time she, well, she was their senior class president, so she was well known into school and her class and she was pushed around pretty badly by the kids that were, you know, naturally drew the line into sand and took sides, that type of thing. And then they just had a lot of that going on. And then there was talking to community and even some adults, unfortunately, joined in on the conversation. And that was pretty, pretty devastating to her as a young lady to having been going through what she went through and then have people basically think he was lying about it.

Dallas was the person who was physically and emotionally hurt that night and she was the person being bullied by adults for doing the right thing. And yet she is the one who showed the most compassion, most maturity and had the greatest understanding of the problem. She had a big enough heart saying that he was sick and he needed to get help because she didn't want to ruin his life. Even though he ultimately ruined hers, she did not want to ruin his life, but she knew he was sick and that he would hurt someone else and she just wanted him to get help.

They were friends. They were friends before this. And I will never, I'll have children saying that, I will never forget that because she was so good at, you know, trying her very hardest and being so kind to everyone and just being that bright, you know, shining star that she was. And she always tried to see the best in people and she loved everybody. And, and I always, I know she asked me a few times, she said, Dad, I don't understand when all this was going on and the people were talking about her, adults, children, other kids,

etc. She said, Dad, I don't understand how I can love people so much and they don't love me back. And that's heartbreaking to hear that as a parent and you don't know how to respond to that because she sincerely believed that's how I was supposed to be regardless of who you were. And I will say this and I want this to be public for sure that even after this happened to Dallas that she, she didn't, she said, born, born's my friend. I don't want him hurt. I just want him to get help because he's got something going on. I don't want him to go to prison.

I want him, I want him to, to get help because he's my friend. I think that kind of maybe tells you a lot about what her character was, you know. And Dallas was right. Turner was dangerous and needed help. But because he paid to have a state senator on his side, all of that seems to have been ignored. His payment to a state senator served him well though because time and time again, he was spared the harshest consequences associated with being accused of a crime.

And here again is where similarities between Bowen and Paul exist. After being charged with three felony counts of voting under the influence, he had very few restrictions put on him. And while awaiting trial, we heard report after report from sources that he was out voting and drinking as if nothing were different. His state senator attorney's main strategy seemed to be, in part, to push the case back as far as possible. This seems to have been the case with Bowen too.

Bowen was accused of rape in April 2018. We don't have a lot of details about that case because Bowen was a juvenile and any charges he might have received would not be public information. Six months after that accusation, though, is when he was accused of assaulting Dallas. He was reportedly being investigated by Sled for the previous assault at that time. He was arrested in January 2019 and charged in Dallas's case. He was released on a $10,000 bond and ordered to wear an ankle monitor.

Less than three months later, his attorneys Charlie Williams and Shane Burroughs asked to have his ankle monitor removed and the solicitor's office and judge agreed. 41 days later, in early June, Bowen Turner was accused of rape a third time by a third girl in a third county. Her name is Chloe Bess. So now, facing two charges of first degree criminal sexual conduct, Bowen was arrested, denied bond by the magistrate and held in the department of juvenile justice, which is a very gnarly place that is poorly run.

Fitts News has covered the problems with DJJ extensively. But guess what? That is where thrice accused rape suspects who are 16 go. And that's where Bowen went. For a few weeks anyway. Another bond hearing was held in mid-July. During that hearing, State Senator Brad Hotto, who's influenced the Turner's purchased, told the court that Chloe allegedly said,

I felt ashamed and went on to say the following. Hotto clearly doesn't understand the trauma endured by sexual assault survivors. How women have been told our entire lives all of the things that we should do or not do so we won't get raped, as if it were our own responsibility. And how society shames sexual assault victims, as Hotto did in court that day. Then the paid for state senator told the court that his client doesn't belong in the DJJ. He deserves a bond.

In other words, DJJ is not preppy enough for Bowen to attend. After that hearing, the judge, who ostensibly determined that Bowen was a danger to the community, denied his bond. Lucky for Bowen, his paid for state senator attorney was there to rescue him. The first week in August, after Bowen's 17th birthday, another judge let Bowen free, with an ankle monitor and a long list of restrictions and requirements. Then, less than a year later, in March 2020, Bowen's paid for state senator attorney was able to convince the court that not living with his parents was causing Bowen emotional stress,

and therefore he needed to move home. During this time, the Stoller family was hardly updated on the status of Bowen Turner's case. Dallas's mental health was deteriorating. She got help, and her family did what they could for her. But Dallas, unfortunately, became a different person on that night in 2018, and the pain she was enduring daily was overwhelming. Not only from the assault, but from the bullying, from the people in our own hometown who said she was lying. She was so anxious that she was getting physically ill.

She actually, when she started the College of Charleston, unfortunately, some of the people that, and I begged her, and I begged her not to go there. I begged her to leave and go out of state, but she really wanted to go to College of Charleston, so she loved Charleston, and they ruined it for her. Some of the people that she went to high school with that started the hashtag for Bowen, and that slut shamed her so bad, actually one of the main ones happened to be on her hall in her dorm. So she went there, and immediately it started.

She's going to school for a fresh start, and immediately it starts. It got so, Dallas had to go to the hospital several times while she was in college, while her freshman year while she was at College of Charleston, because she was throwing up and so anxious and getting sick so often that she was getting stomach ulcers. She, I really can't explain to you the mental impact this had on her. She had to leave. She ended up having to leave College of Charleston, and she then, fortunately, went to University of Carolina Buford,

went up her very good friends from high school, was there. You know, she was doing better. We thought she was doing so much better. She was seeing therapists, she was getting help, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Dallas Hayes Stoller succumbed to a self-inflicted wound on November 14th, 2021. She was 20 years old. Here is her obituary.

Dallas Stoller will be remembered as an example of strength and bravery. A heart full of boundless generosity, forgiveness, and kindness to others. Her ability to see the good when others couldn't, and her resilience in times of adversity will be her legacy. Her light remains in each of us, who have had the blessing to be in her presence during her short time on earth. Brett, who lived in Pennsylvania, took the first flight home when she found out what happened to her sister.

She, you know, you know, what's really sad is I looked after Dallas passed away, and I flew down, obviously, the next day, the next morning, after I got the phone call at night, and the first thing I wanted to do, I was like, I need to see her phone. Just as any big sister, I wanted to check her phone, you know, I wanted to make sure there's nothing on there, it was up to my parents or anything like that, and I'm just sitting there, I'm actually sitting in the bathtub,

with, here's our empty bathtub with my best friend from high school, and we're just, you know, we're going through her phone, and we're just looking, we're like looking for anything, like what a note, you know, something, some sort of answer, you know, you don't, you don't know what you're looking for at that point, but we were looking at her pictures, and one of the things that really stood out to me is me being so far away, and being gone for so long, I've been up here a little over eight years,

you know, we're scrolling through her phone, we're looking at her pictures, and you just see, I watched her physically change, look, look, to look in her face, to look in her eyes, or smile, it changed, and I think that was one of the hardest things when I'm just looking, you know, I'm just scrolling through all her pictures, and time goes on, and it, she changed, and you could see it. And we'll be right back. South Carolina's ankle monitoring system is terrible,

and no one seems to be clear on who is in charge of the outcomes. Private bond companies handled the administration of a defendant's ankle monitor, and in Bowen's case, he was responsible for paying that bill. But for Bowen, his ankle monitor was basically a piece of clunky jewelry, because it appears no one was actually doing the monitoring part of it. According to a motion that was filed the last week of March, Bowen seems to have done whatever he wanted while he was under house arrest. Between November and February, there were more than 65 examples of him

breaking the rules, going golfing, leaving the state to look at a car, going to bed bath and beyond, twice for some reason. And here is the horrible part. The victims are the ones who had to fight for authorities to even check to see what Bowen was up to while he was on house arrest. Yeah, because he was about to get in trouble, because so Chloe Bess's mom called the sled at him, and was basically like, what the hell is going on?

We've heard people saying they see Bowen out. Well, are you guys monitoring this? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we are. She's like, I want you to check it. I want to see, you know, it's my right to see his tracking, whatever report that is. Well, sure enough, they call it March 2nd, and since November, they pull it from November to the end of February. They run it from then.

And that's when he's going to play golf several times. That's when he's going to car shopping the day before Christmas. He's going to people's houses in Columbia. He's going to people's houses in Orangeburg, who are these attorneys that I'm talking about, who are, he's hanging out with all these people, from the country club, from the church, and they all know this. They all know that he is supposed to be on house arrest,

and they're hanging out with him. He went to Dallas's grave site January 4th at nine o'clock at night. Did you hear that? Bowen went to the victim's cemetery while he was on house arrest. In our episode preview on social media, we posted a photo of Dallas's grave site with a sign that says, Bowen Turner, you aren't welcome here. Now you understand why that sign says that.

And the thing is, they only found that out because one of the victim's mothers told Sled to start monitoring a man's ankle monitor who had already allegedly raped three girls. This is another time we have to question. Do any South Carolina authorities care about our girls in this state? Here's Dallas's father Carl again. On March 2nd of this year, after Ms. Beth, the third victim's mother, pressed and pressed and pressed, and finally got the GPS,

Sled, to get the GPS monitoring people to respond to them, that's when we found out that the, I think, some short while after Dallas passed away, that just in that time frame, from November to March the 2nd or 3rd, whatever day that was, they handed that document to Solicitor David Miller, the Deputy Solicitor, that he had violated those terms 50 plus times. You would think if someone violated house arrest that many times,

especially someone who was accused of raping a girl while he was out on another bond, you would think that person would be immediately arrested, but not in South Carolina. Not even after the judge who approved Bowen's house arrest explicitly said this. Any and all violations of the conditions of home detention must be reported to the 2nd Circuit Solicitor's Office or the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office within 24 hours of the violation. Failure to comply with this notification requirement

will subject the electronic monitoring company to potential criminal and civil sanctions for contempt of court. If Turner is observed violating any term or condition of the order granting bond, any law enforcement agency is authorized to immediately take him into custody and hold him in custody pending a hearing on the alleged violation of the order. But that is not what happened. Bowen was not arrested. The judge wrote what he wrote in that order

because he was preemptively saying, if Bowen steps out of bounds once, go get him and put him behind bars and he can wait there until a hearing is scheduled. And again, this is not what happened. Bowen's house arrest transgressions were discovered March 2nd. The bond revocation hearing was scheduled for April 8th and nobody, not the solicitor, not the bond company, not Bowen's parents, not his own attorney,

not sled, nobody said he's in violation of a court order. Go get him and put him behind bars. This is where we have yet another example of how the system seems to favor those who can afford to hire a state senator to represent them. That's something that really angers me is because I know as an officer that if I violated the court order, it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a badge or not, I'm going to jail. Not only did the solicitor's office not follow the court order about detaining Bowen,

they appear to have done something else altogether. So in my opinion, in my mind, I only call it opinion, I mean that he was lawfully, David Mills was lawfully compelled to follow the court's order and have him immediately picked up, not make a call to the senator and say, hey, let's make a deal. Delaying the case no longer benefited Bowen Turner, because Bowen Turner got caught in the probability of a judge thinking it was fine and dandy that he violated a court order was not great.

So his paid for state senator attorney had to act fast. Good thing for him, the solicitor's office apparently had his back. Sarah Ford, the Stoller family's attorney, got shocking news from the Second Circuit Solicitor's Office last week. Ford was told by Deputy Solicitor David Miller that they were dropping the charge in Dallas's case and allowing Bowen to plead to a lesser charge in Chloe's case. This was infuriating to the victims' families,

as a court order clearly stated that Turner belonged in jail. Now suddenly, a Deputy Solicitor who was paid by tax dollars to serve the public was telling them that instead of Turner going to jail for breaking the court order, he was going to get a plea deal and he wasn't going to get prison time and he wasn't going to have to register as a sex offender. Just five years probation. Brett and her family were stunned. He needs to say that to our face.

Like, he needs to make a fucking effort since he clearly has not... He hasn't made any sort of effort to fight for these girls whatsoever. You need to come here and talk to us. And he said he would do a Zoom call. So we zoomed at 2.30 and he was saying, you know, he was sorry and he's dropping the case, but he clearly was not sorry.

He's demeanor, did not care whatsoever. Thank God we didn't see him in person because my father, like I said, my father is extremely intelligent. He's well-versed in the law and he is asking him, why? Why are you dropping this? And that is when he said we're not going to waste money on something that we're not going to win, that I know we're not going to win.

Specifically, the family was told they were dropping Dallas's case because Dallas wasn't alive to testify. I want to stop right here and explain a couple facts of the case because when solicitors' offices say rape cases are too difficult to prosecute, they immediately start listing all the missing pieces. No physical evidence, no witnesses, the victim isn't willing to testify, et cetera, et cetera. But that is not true here.

First of all, the prosecution had physical evidence, including DNA from sexual assault exams in both Dallas's and Chloe's cases, according to their attorney, Sarah Ford. The man who said he saw Bowen towering over Dallas after the assault gave his statement and his testimony to authorities. Chloe was willing to testify in her case. But the solicitor's office dropped the sexual assault charge in her case as well.

Chloe sat down with Will Folkes, our founding editor at Fitznews, and Dylan Nolan, our special projects editor, on Tuesday afternoon and talked to them about that night. In Senator Brad Hutto, listen, this is the girl that you slut shamed in court. I was, you know, just with my friends trying to, you know, have a good night. You know, things like this happen all the time without bad things happening, so it can't happen to anybody, you know. It's one of those things where you don't think it's going to happen until it happens to you.

Chloe was with a group of friends and her twin brother that night in June. It was a normal night, and after a miscommunication, her brother and her best friend left the party they were at to go get food. Chloe stepped outside to call her best friend to see where she went. And as I'm making this phone call, Bowen walks out, and I kind of start to feel uncomfortable, but he lived down the street from me. My dad's a pastor and his family attended our church, so there was, he was familiar to me.

I didn't, I thought it was weird because we weren't close friends or anything, so I was, you know, thinking to myself, like, why is he coming out here? Chloe said it's hard for her to remember certain parts of that night because of all the trauma, but there are pieces that she will never forget. So I remember him coming out, and then I was asking my friend to come pick me up or when she was coming back, I was trying to leave. Like, please don't leave, please don't leave, like, stay, stay. And I'm looking at him, like, I'm very transparent, and I was looking at him,

like, what are you talking about? And so the phone conversation ends, and then I just remember him pulling me into, like, a tree line. There was a truck parked there, and we go behind the truck. The next thing I know, I'm on the ground, and he's a lot bigger than me. I only weigh, like, 115 pounds. I'm really tiny. And so there was not much I could do at that moment in time.

So I remember that, and then just being on the ground. And like I said, in a different interview, it's, I remember looking at the stars. That was, like, the main point, and I could, you know, feel what was happening. I was aware of what was going on, and I was just petrified. I was frozen. I couldn't move. I wanted to kick and scream, but I just couldn't move. I didn't know what to do.

And so at that point, I'm looking at the stars, and I'm just like, okay, like, I just hope it's at least, you know, quick so I can just get up and run away. After the rape, Chloe got up and ran as fast as she could. I remember I ended up in the bathroom, and I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I mean, my hair was all crazy. There were leaves and twigs in my hair. My shirt was a shrew. It was like I wasn't even looking at myself.

It was very weird. And then that's when I peeked out the door. He was, so I thought he was asleep on the couch. So I took that as an opportunity to run out of the house. I hid behind a bush, pulled my phone out. It's all cracked and shattered at this point. It's on 1% as well. So I just clicked the first person that my phone opened up to.

He was one of my good guy friends at the time. I called him and he answers. I don't even know how he understood what I was saying because I was so hysterical, but all I said was Bowen's name and he knew. And he was like, I'm on the way. Like I'm coming to get you. And at this point, Bowen now walks out of the house and is like screaming my name. So if you can imagine the terror of me just hiding behind this bush as,

you know, he's screaming my name, I'm aware of what just happened. And I don't even know what to make of it. So Chloe is describing something so horrifying here. I'm having a hard time putting it into words. The man that she said just violently raped her was now looking for her. And she was hiding behind a bush. What did he want from her? It is so scary to think about.

Now I'm just waiting for my friend to come get me. So he gets on a truck and is now driving around to trying to find me, screaming my name out the window, all of this stuff. So I make my way up the driveway because it's on some property. And my friend told me he was about to pull in. So I make my way up the driveway. I see his car. We get in and that was kind of that.

I, you know, felt safe in that moment once I got in that car. And then, I mean, the ball started rolling from there. So the jury would have heard that horrific story at trial, and they would have seen the physical evidence from the same exam that she got. But remember, solicitor David Miller said that this case was not worth his time or the taxpayer's money. He said there is no way he could have won. Makes you wonder, what exactly does David Miller need to win a case? And Friday's hearing was supposed to be about Bowen violating his bond conditions,

which the court had evidence of and didn't even need a hearing to issue an arrest. Bowen violated a court order more than 60 times. How did this turn into solicitor David Miller dropping charges and Bowen going free? No idea. But David Miller wants to be a judge. He's been trying to get appointed for a while now, according to records from the South Carolina legislature. And as you guys know, the paid for long-time state senator attorney has a say in that.

Because in South Carolina, our most powerful attorneys get to choose the judges who rule in their cases. And the fact of the matter is, regardless of the reasons Mr. Miller agreed to this outcome, regardless of where his career ambitions stand, regardless of how good his reputation is as a prosecutor, and by the way it is good, the system we have now and the circumstances of the plea deal makes it so we have to question his intentions here. In his May 2019 emails to me, Mr. Miller, a man I had never spoken to nor even heard of, came at me hard calling my column garbage and my opinion grossly ill-informed and vile.

The main point of my column, remember, was that there appears to be two systems of justice in South Carolina, one for guys like Paul Murdoch, who come from certain protected families and who can afford to hire certain highly connected attorneys, and one for me, for you, and for your children. This guy I had never met nor heard of told me that the next time I want to quote impugn the judicial system, I should quote, take the time to send him an email first. He signed the email David W. Miller, Aiken, South Carolina. And he included this quote at the bottom of his email.

We are lawyers on the side of the people. Never let us forget that the law is never settled until it is settled right. It is never right until it is just, and it is never just until it serves society to the fullest. Yeah, okay, David. So on Friday, what was supposed to be a bond revocation hearing turned into a quickie plea deal which fully benefited Bowen Turner and kept him out of jail in the short term and potentially prison in the longer term. This deal did not benefit the victims, and we failed to see where it benefited the state

beyond expediency. Further, Bowen, who is almost 20, was sentenced under the Useful Offenders Act according to the Orangeburg Times and Democrat, which is confusing because in 2019 it was determined that he would be tried as an adult. Another interesting observation. Judge Markley Dennis, who was appointed in 1994, has drawn public outrage in the past over his sentencing decisions. That in itself isn't surprising.

Judges have difficult decisions to make and they don't always get it right, but a look at his history was startling. In one case, he sentenced a father who pleaded guilty to raping his own daughter from age 5 to 14 to therapy. He sentenced him to therapy. Sources have told us that he's not known as being a victim's judge. Also something he's not known for? Being in the Orangeburg County Courthouse, apparently, which is where Bowen's hearing

was on Friday. According to his schedule, the last time he presented over general sessions in Orangeburg was 2013, so I guess you could say that his appearance on Friday was good timing. David Miller and the paid for state senator attorney agreed to a deal in which Bowen Turner would admit guilt to first degree assault and battery. Three accusations of rape. Three different girls in three different counties. And Bowen Turner walks away with the same charge as if he had flashed a knife in a

road rage incident. He has now admitted to harming or threatening to harm Chloe. The girl whose state senator Brad Hutto said in open court felt shame and regret for getting on the ground and having sex with a boy she didn't know. I am not sure how Brad Hutto or David Miller or Mark Lee Dennis can explain the cognitive dissonance in saying the sex was consensual, but at the same time Bowen Turner is committing felony assault and battery. Judge Dennis sentenced Bowen to five years of probation during which he must adhere to

the rules of the sex offender registry. If he gets in any trouble during that time, he'll have to register as a sex offender. I 100% believe it was already decided on. I think it was started on as far back as the ball got rolling on March the 2nd or 3rd when they saw that paper and the phone call was made from David Miller to the Brad Hutto. It had to be. And you don't just come up with that overnight. You don't do that.

And he offered him a sweetheart of a deal. And if there was any shadow or any spread of doubt, and Brad Hutto is the defendant's attorney's mind, his client was indeed in jeopardy of being convicted. Then obviously it was a deal when you basically get nothing. It's a deal worth taking, right? And so, yeah, I'm going to admit guilt in this third case, but I'm only going to get the assault and battery one with non-violence. And then I'm going to get...

I could go to prison for 10 years, but I'm going to sentence you under the Youth Offenders Act to six years suspended to five years probation. And unless you violate your probation, if you do not violate your probation and you walk the line for those five years, you won't get registered on the sex offender list. And you'll be eligible for a full expungement of your record. So that's a pretty good deal. After Bowen's hearing Friday, several people reported that his parents threw him a party to celebrate.

We wanted to share all of this with you to help give the victims in this case and their families the voices they deserve to have and the voice that Dallas no longer gets to have. We also wanted to show you in real time how the system of legislator attorneys really works. This system is one that continues to protect the few at the expense of the many. It's one in which certain lawyers get to choose their judges, where they get to manage the outcomes and police each other how they please, while telling the rest of us that all is the way it's supposed to be. It is a system that allowed Ellic Murdoch to become Ellic Murdoch.

In South Carolina, we are discovering that some powerful attorneys become powerful not because of their mastery of the law, but because of where they sit at the table, who their friends are, and what they come to the trading floor with. They probably don't like hearing this about themselves, but it is the truth as we see it. We talked to Will folks about this. Will has been following this case since the very beginning. Fitz News, by the way, is interviewing the victims in this case, and we are working on a mini documentary, so be sure to follow us on social media for updates.

This case is one of the most egregious examples of it because you've got, you know, again, a powerful member of the General Assembly, Brad Hutto, is the Democratic leader of the Senate. He's the highest ranking Democrat. He's got tremendous influence in that chamber. And so no judge is going to, it's going to go up against him. No judge is going to go up against him. So, yeah, just it's indicative of the problem.

This case is everything that's wrong with South Carolina's system of justice. And in fact, I've started calling it the injustice system because, frankly, that's what is stolen out. There's no justice. You know, there are three families whose lives, whose futures, whose hopes have been just permanently and irrevocably shattered. And the only thing that they went looking for was, obviously, they can't replace the loss of what happened, can't be undone. So what can be done?

The victims want more people to be aware of what is going on. So share this story. Share the links in our description. Donate to the South Carolina Victims Assistance Network. Show support for the victims. Make noise. Make so much noise that it's hard for the good old boys to ignore. Contact State Senator Brad Hutto's office.

Call the Second Circuit Solicitor's office. Call Judge Markley Dennis's office. These men work for us, the people. And here's Chloe Bess. So if they're okay representing criminals, and they can sleep at night by knowing that they, you know, gave him five years probation for assaulting three girls, I mean, I don't know how you do it. It's very sick and twisted.

And I just want this to be one more example of how their system is not their system is not working. And somebody needs a wake up call. Somebody needs a reality check because people are going to get mad. People are already starting to turn their heads. And that's a great thing. I want to continue doing that. That is what this whole thing is about right now.

And hopefully we can see some change, make a change, because that's all we can really do now. We will be posting more calls to action on our social media. So be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. This case is just beginning, so stay tuned. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell. Produced by Luna Shark Productions.