CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A former Raone County resident is heading to prison for a 1999 murder.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jim Stucky sentenced Daniel Turner Thursday to 30 years in prison with 146 days credit for time served for the murder of Terry Clark.
Clark’s first cousin Sally Burger said the family was satisfied with the sentencing.
“We didn’t think it would ever be solved,” she said. “So this gives us the ability to just let it rest and move on.”
The case went cold for more than a decade until last summer when DNA collected at the crime scene matched Turner’s. He later confessed to the murder when a Charleston detective came to question him in a federal prison in Memphis, Tenn., where Turner was serving time for drug charges.
Turner sounded remorseful during Thursday’s hearing.
“I apologized to the family but there isn’t nothing I can do,” Turner said during a statement.
Turner killed Clark at her Charleston apartment in May 1999 after a drug deal went bad. Turner told the court the murder was not premeditated.
“I hate that a life was taken and that I did it, and I don’t really want to ask for forgiveness from the family,” he said. “I do want them to know that I didn’t go there to kill nobody that day and it was just unfortunate. This was not done out of hate.”
Turner later dumped Clark’s body along Route 119 in Roane County, where it was later found. Now 14 years later, a case that was once cold is now closed and a family can finally move on.
Burger said Turner has already been forgiven.
“We had to forgive whoever did that 14 years ago—that’s how we’ve been able to go on,” she said. “So the fact that we know now who he is, he was forgiven long before we knew who he was.”
Burger said the family was grateful to Charleston Police Detective Sgt. Bobby Eggleton, who never gave up on the case and saw it through to the end.