Dogwoods of Remembrance
Over the years, I have read many crime stories. To this day, however, only one still lingers vividly in my memory, haunting me since I was the impressionable age of fifteen; the Richard Valenti case.
It was late May in the year of 1973. and I was just about to turn fifteen years of age while living in the suburbs of Charleston, South Carolina. Two teenage girls, 13 and 14 years old, had gone missing while visiting a popular barrier island off the peninsula, Folly Beach, located about twenty minutes from the city. About nine months following the disappearance of the first two girls, a third girl, Mary Earline Bunch, who was the daughter of the Sheriff of Folly Beach, also went missing; she was only 16 years of age and disappeared while sitting in front of the Sheriff's Office, no less. I recall in detail that my mother, aunt, and grandmother speculated on the girls' disappearance, horrified by the possibilities of what might have happened to them. I particularly remember that my aunt was friends with a family member of the Bunches. For some reason, my aunt's extended acquaintance with one of the families seemed to make the girls' disappearance more relatable and very real, and the thought instilled an even greater sense of fear in me.
As a young girl who was around the same ages as that of the missing girls, fear was a very palpable thing. I was a worrier to begin with, so I suffered consistent bouts of anxiety that the same thing would happen to me even though I did not frequent Folly Beach nor did I live anywhere close to the vicinity. Their disappearance was repeatedly covered by all news outlets, and everyone in the vicinity grew more and more anxious as the weeks and months went by. It seemed to be the only thing the community could speak of for months on end, and as an impressionable youth, my mind also ran rampant with thoughts of what might have happened.
It was not until April 12th of 1974, nearly a full year following the initial disappearance of the first two girls, that a Folly Beach policeman was responding to a nearby complaint and discovered three girls bound and gagged beneath a house just one street over from the beachfront. One of the girl’s gags had slipped loose, and she had been able to scream for help, attracting the attention of the policeman. The girls were from the neighboring town of Summerville and reported they had skipped school to visit the beach for the day when a man with a beard and gun had abducted them, threatening they'd be killed if they did not comply. Once moved to a vacant house, they had been bound and gagged and then left by their abductor in the shower room located beneath an empty house. The three girls were able to provide detailed information about the appearance of the man who had kidnapped them and a composite was released in the media shortly thereafter to alert everyone of the suspect.
With this unexpected, new development, a resident of Folly Beach began to wonder more about a recent, but odd incident involving his dog at a spot on the beach very near the house where the three girls had been discovered. On April 16th, the man called police to report the incident, telling them that his dog had been repeatedly drawn to a spot on the beach where he wanted to dig nonstop despite the man's attempts to distract his dog. The police responded and investigated the area in question where they began a search that included deep digging. In doing so, a young female’s clothing was discovered and a larger investigation ensued. It was over the course of several days and bulldozing, that the decayed remains of three missing teenage females were discovered, buried in two different areas; one a few hundred feet from the house and the other in the backyard of the house where the three girls had been rescued. A full blown pursuit for the suspect was instigated, including roadblocks, navy jets surveying the area with infrared sensors, and house-to-house investigations gathering as much detailed information as possible.
Only a short while following the composite drawing's release in the news, a young woman in North Charleston, who had only recently survived a brutal beating by a sailor she had picked up from a local Naval Base Bar, began to put pieces of her story together. The woman was able to identify the man who had beat her as the man in both the composite drawing and the military pictures released on the news. From this development, was then confirmed the man's name was Richard Valenti. Valenti had rented a home on Folly Beach and according to those who knew him, he was a 31-year old male who had recently shaved his head and grown a mustache, most likely in an attempt to disguise himself. Neighbors reported Valenti had lingered onsite during the investigations, attempting to make comforting comments following the discovery of the deceased girls' bodies. Police also recognized Valenti as a spectator who had offered them food and drink during the search and recovery of the bodies. This is often a prevalent behavioral trait for criminals in many instances. The perpetrator will assist with police efforts for a crime of which he is ultimately responsible and is often in the direct midst of concentrated investigative efforts. This may largely be due to the fact that some criminals think they are much smarter than authorities or because some actually wish to be caught, seeing no end in sight to their atrocious behavior. Some also likely obtain a perverted thrill from being an onlooker in cases involving their own devious crimes.
Valenti was arrested shortly after the discovery of the missing girls and charged with three counts of murder, four counts of assault and battery with intent to kill, and one count of assault and battery with intent to ravish. He was held without bail until his trial ensued a few months later.
During the trial, The Charleston County Medical Examiner testified that the two teen-age girls (Clark and Latimer) found buried on Folly Beach died as a result of hanging. Valenti described to police how he had approached the girls on the beach with a gun (later identified as only a toy gun) and told them if they did not comply with his orders, he would shoot them. He then took them to a vacant house where, in an outside shower stall, he had them partially disrobe and tied their hands and feet, making them pose in various positions. After having the girls stand on a chair, he had placed nooses around their necks that were tied to the water pipes above before he kicked the chairs from beneath them and watched as they died, finding gratification in doing so.
A great deal of background information, including the fact Valenti had grown up in a dysfunctional home with a domineering, all-controlling mother, was presented by the defense during the trial. His own wife described him as a sexual deviant who desired to reverse the domination he had experienced from his mother most of his life, which was the only way he could achieve sexual gratification and control and admitted that he had controlled her in such a perverted manner. However, she further reported that when the couple had moved to Charleston, they had become Christians, so she mistakenly had thought that Valenti’s perversion or crisis had passed, and he was a changed man.
The trial lasted for four days and the jury took less than an hour to find Valenti guilty on two counts of murder. On June 2, 1974, Valenti was given two life sentences to be served consecutively less than two months after the discovery of the deceased girls. Shortly following the trial, an attempt to move forward was made by planting dogwood trees as a memorial at the schools the victims had attended. The dogwood trees bloom each spring on the school grounds. As a side note, Valenti was never officially tried for the murder of the last girl to go missing (Bunch).
Years after the three murders, once I had graduated from college, I secured a job working in the Charleston County Solicitor’s Office. As a result, I became privy to more undisclosed information on the Valenti case. I can only tell you that the things Valenti did to those girls were completely, undeniably unforgiveable and inhuman. I am choosing to allow those things to remain hidden in long buried court documents, as they should, but I can tell you that no one should ever have to endure such atrocious acts, most especially not children or young adults.
During my time in the Solicitor’s Office, I also learned that because of the way the law was written when Valenti was convicted of murder in 1974, he became eligible for probation after serving only ten years of his sentence. Fortunately, Valenti did not achieve parole after serving the ten years, but due to the same law, he then became eligible for parole every two years thereafter. This former law was was a horrible crack or failing on the part of South Carolina's legal judicial system, especially for the victims' families. I will note that the law was later corrected in the years that followed Valenti's conviction and those individuals convicted of murder in SC are no longer eligible for parole every two years after serving such a small portion of their sentences.
Due to the former law, the families of Valenti's victims had to make the long one hundred-mile trek to Columbia, SC where Valenti was housed in prison every two years, thereby reliving the deaths of their children as they begged the parole board not to release this monster of a man. By the time Valenti died in a South Carolina prison in December of 2020 at the age of 77, he had been up for parole twenty-one times. Numerous petitions and letters from people who had been affected by and opposed Valenti’s atrocious crimes and early release, including me, accompanied the families each time they made a trip to the parole board. Fortunately, the families were always successful and Valenti was repeatedly denied, never being released prior to this death.
While it is true there are other horrific crimes with detailed information to which I was privy while working in the Solicitor’s Office during the 80's, and many quite graphic and unforgettable, this is the case that hit closest to home, leaving its mark. I will, much to my dismay, never forget it or the violent man who took the lives of such young souls.
In some odd way, it nearly feels like sacrilege to write this piece and give Valenti the least bit of memory on paper or otherwise. Therefore, I am choosing to concentrate on and honor the deceased by posting the picture of dogwoods as a heading to this piece, just as the school chose to plant the beautiful, blooming trees in memory of the girls.
Dogwoods are a symbol of hope, life, and peace. May Alexis Ann Latimer (13 years old), Sheri Jan Clark (14 years old), and Mary Earline Bunch (16 years old) rest in peace. I am sure Richard Valenti does not.
RESOURCES:
https://murderpedia.org/male.V/v/valenti-richard.htm
https://law.justia.com/cases/south-carolina/supreme-court/1975/20100-1.html