Photo: Bamberg County Detention Center | Twitter
He was accused of assaulting three young women.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Apr 14, 2022
A North Carolina serial rapist who avoided any prison sentence, visited the grave of one of his alleged victims while he was supposed to be on house arrest, according to her family.
Bowen Turner, 19, received a sentence of probation in a plea deal last week in Orangeburg County Court after admitting that he assaulted another woman, Chloe Bess, in 2019.
Turner was also accused of allegedly committing two other sexual assault crimes as a minor, including attacking 18-year-old Dallas Stoller in 2018. However, the charges in the case were dropped after Stoller died by suicide in November 2021, before Turner could be brought to trial.
In interviews on the Murdaugh Murders podcast, Stoller's father and sister revealed that she had died from self-inflicted injury after allegedly being abused and bullied by classmates and teachers when she reported the assault.
The family was also horrified to learn that ankle monitor logs showed Turner had visited Stoller's grave in January for reasons that are still unknown. There is now a sign that hangs by Stoller's grave that reads, "Bowen Turner, you are NOT welcomed here!"
Who is Bowen Turner?
Bowen Turner is the 19-year-old man convicted of raping three women in three different counties. His lack of punishment has sparked outrage.
Turner, the son James Walter Turner and Jennifer Baugh Turner, had grown up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and attended Orangeburg Prep High School, where he played football.
His father, Walt Turner, is an investigator for the First Circuit Solicitor’s Office, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Turner, after being accused of sexually assaulting three young women in three different counties, was sentenced to five years probation on a single charge of first-degree assault and battery.
Between November 2021 and February 2022, Turner violated his court order more than 60 times, according to court documents showing his ankle-monitoring tracking. He had visited golf course, his friends’ houses, as well as Stoller's grave.
Prosecutor David Miller had agreed to the plea deal in an attempt to shield Turner from any consequences after he was found to have violated his 2020 house arrest agreement.
Shortly after Dallas Stoller reported Bowen Turner, he allegedly assaulted another victim.
Turner had been first accused in October 2018 for the assault of Stoller and was arrested that same year. While on a $10,000 bond in the Stoller case, Turner was accused again of sexually assaulting another teen, Chloe Bess.
According to court documents, Bess was at a party on June 2, 2019, and went outside at about 3 a.m. to call a friend. She told police Turner pulled her behind a truck, pushed her to the ground, pulled off her clothes, and “forced himself sexually on her.”
“I just remember being so petrified, like, I was frozen. I honestly just remember sitting there looking at the stars just praying for it to be done, waiting for it to be over with, so I could run away. … There’s not a day since this happened that I haven’t woken up and thought about it," Bess, then 16, said, according to WSCS.
The same incident had happened with Stoller, who had been sexually assaulted by Turner at a lakeside party on October 7, 2018.
Stoller's friends had found her lying unconscious as Turner was pulling his pants back up, finding bruises and scratches all over her body.
Stoller's family expected backlash from the community after reporting the assault, especially considering Turner's father's connections to their town.
"If she proceeded to move forward, I knew what was coming as far as the bullying, and the community just 100% against her,' Stoller's sister, Brette Tabatabai, said on the Murdaugh Murders podcast.
Both Stoller and Turner had attended the same preparatory school, and after the assault, she still had to see him around their school.
"She actually had to stay in school with him for two weeks while the school board decided what they were going to do when he was charged," Tabatabai added.
"She had to walk the halls in school with him for two weeks after the fact."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.