Five Points incident still under investigation by police, coroner
A modest memorial was set on the sidewalk outside Five Points Custom Tattoo Wednesday — a short note taped to the shop’s stucco wall, a few candles, a bouquet of flowers.
They were placed in memory of Mannon “Mike” Turner, 42, of West Columbia, who was killed midday Tuesday by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
According to Richland County Coroner Gary Watts, he died playing Russian roulette.
A release from Watts and an incident report said Turner walked into the tattoo parlor and asked the two people inside if they wanted to play.
An employee asked him to stop, but Turner emptied the .357 Magnum handgun he’d bought recently of all the bullets but one, spun the chamber, pointed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, according to the release and report.
Witnesses called 911, but by the time police arrived at the Greene Street store, it was too late.
Officers cleared the building and, within minutes, EMS arrived and declared him dead on the scene.
Pending toxicology tests and further investigation, Watts said details of the circumstances surrounding the incident were still unclear. The shooting has not yet been ruled an accident or suicide.
But Turner’s boss and the owner of Five Brand Ink, a chain of Southeastern tattoo parlors — of which Turner was general manager — insisted it was an accident.
“It was a stupid mistake, and it cost him his life,” Stan Hudgins said.
Turner’s death sent shockwaves through the tattoo community, in Columbia and beyond. As they mourned the loss, some were stunned, and others were angry, friends said.
“He’s the very last person I would have expected it to be,” said Jesse Cody, a family friend.
Turner had won national awards for his work, and he was a talented black-and-grey and cover-up tattoo artist, Hudgins and Cody said.
It was work he’d done for 25 years, a passion that began in earnest when Turner was 18.
It was then, as an Army Ranger deployed to Germany, that he first walked into a tattoo parlor, Hudgins said, and got into the culture.
He stuck with it when he left the service and returned stateside, worked as a high school math teacher and started a family.
But he realized his passion was in tattoo art, and he came to the Five Points parlor, where he worked long hours and built a relationship with a number of USC’s athletes, Columbia’s tattoo community and Five Points shop owners, Hudgins said.
And he was a big fan of cars and motorcycles, like his black Mustang, which he named “Elise” and adorned with blue racing strips and a big Army Rangers sticker, Cody said.
She was also a fan of Turner’s and a client — she’d gotten four tattoos from him, she said, crying in front of the impromptu memorial.
Hudgins had come back to the store Wednesday evening to pick the car up, an unexpected trip punctuated by neighbors, friends and coworkers pausing by the memorial on the sidewalk.
“I lost a real good friend and a damn good employee,” Hudgins said. “More than anything, I lost — we lost — a good friend.”