The evening of July 31, 1995, was picturesque in Roebuck, South Carolina, a town of 2,200 people eighty miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina. Door-to-door saleswoman Diane Harris had had a good day, making several sales, including a bottle of cleaning fluid to twenty-seven-year-old Dana Satterfield, owner of the Roebuck Hair & Tanning Center, a trailer converted into a salon, just off United States Highway 221.

In addition to making the sale to Dana, Diane had also made a new friend. The two women found they had several mutual interests and chatted for a while. Dana, the mother of two small children, was separated from her husband and experiencing the struggles of being a single mom and running her business. Diane empathized, as she was also divorced and struggling to make a career as a saleswoman.

Diane was the newest person to meet Dana . . .  and she was also the last person to see her alive. Two hours later, Diane came by the salon again and came face to face with Dana’s killer.

Dana Satterfield

At 7:30 p.m., approximately an hour after making the sale to Dana, Diane passed by the salon again and, through the window, saw Dana cleaning. Diane made two more calls before returning to the salon area between 8:30-8:45, to wait for her ride home. Darkness had descended, and Diane was surprised to see the lights were still on in Dana’s salon.

Shortly before 9:00, as Diane waited for her ride, she heard three loud noises coming from the salon. When she looked in its direction, she noticed the lights were then turned off. Soon, she heard a loud crash as a man came out of the salon, not through the door, but through the window. He then ran away.

Believing she had seen a burglar, Diane proceeded to run to a liquor store fifty feet from the salon to call the police. Before she made it to the store, however, she came face-to-face with the man she had seen jump from the salon window.

The two briefly stared at each other, Diane with fear, the man with rage. Diane then ran to a nearby house and called 911; the man did not pursue her.

Diane Harris

Upon arriving at the salon shortly after 9:00, Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Deputy J.D. Burnett found a screen lying on the ground and an open window. Believing he was investigating a robbery, he entered the salon. Upon doing so, he found the situation more serious.

Roebuck Hair & Tanning Center

A badly bruised and lifeless Dana Satterfield lay hanging from a duffel strap tied to a hot water heater in the salon’s combination bathroom/laundry room. She was partially-clothed and had been beaten, raped, and strangled to death.

Robbery was ruled out as a motive as Dana’s purse was in the salon and her money, credit cards, and other vital belongings were intact. Money was also still in the cash register.

Dana Is Found Raped And Murdered

A fingerprint found on the water heater near Dana’s body was matched to her estranged husband, Mike. He and Dana had recently separated and the violent nature of the crime suggested Dana’s murder was a crime of passion.

As investigators’ hopes for a quick resolution rose, however, they were quickly dashed. Though they were separated, Mike and Dana were jointly and amicably trying to repair the marriage. Mike owned a nearby heating and air conditioning shop; his fingerprint was on the water heater because he had installed it only a couple of weeks earlier.

Dana And Mike

In addition, the man Diane had seen fleeing the salon was thin and in good physical shape. Mike was obese and could not have fit through the window. He was confirmed fifteen miles away at the time of Dana’s murder and was cleared of involvement.

Mike Is Cleared

Diane helped police create a composite sketch of Dana’s killer. After the sketch was publicized, motorist Ken Smith, who knew Dana as she had cut his hair several times, told police he believed he had also seen her killer. Ken said he saw a man resembling the image entering a blue and white Ford Bronco near the salon at approximately 8:40 p.m.

Several other people also believed they had seen the man loitering near the salon and helped police developed a second composite.

 

Composites Of Dana’s Killer

Several months after the release of the sketches, the Spartanburg police were contacted by a man in a South Carolina prison saying he believed his cellmate, Russell Quinn, may have been involved in Dana’s murder. Quinn was imprisoned for assaulting a woman shortly after the slaying, and he talked frequently of Dana and seemed to fantasize about her.

Quinn bore a resemblance to the composite of Dana’s killer and drove a blue and white Ford Bronco.  Hopes were again dashed, however, as his DNA was not matched to that found on Dana.

Russell Quinn

Over the following decade, several suspects were investigated and cleared of Dana’s murder. The break in the case finally came in October 2005 when vaginal DNA was matched to a local man.

The Case Goes Cold

Jonathan Vick had been interviewed by police soon after Dana’s murder and was considered a suspect. He lived near the salon, and he often drove a dark blue and white Ford Bronco registered to his mother. Vick also knew Dana through being a customer at her salon and his friend form high school, Michael Pace, had contacted police shortly after the murder saying the seventeen-year-old Vick had a crush on the twenty-seven-year-old Dana and wanted to date her.

Vick, like Quinn, also bore a resemblance to the killer’s composite. Police were able to obtain Quinn’s DNA because he was incarcerated, but Vick had no criminal record and refused to provide a sample for testing. Authorities attempted to get a court order to obtain his DNA, but a judge ruled the evidence was insufficient to compel him to provide a sample.

Jonathan Vick

In the ten years since Dana’s murder, however, Vick had received a general discharge from the Marines (a euphemistic way of saying he was kicked out) after two assault convictions, one on a male and the other on a female. As a civilian, he had twice been arrested, once for domestic assault and the other for vandalism, although the charges were dropped in both instances. In addition, former girlfriend Cora Kent said Vick told her that if she did not do what he said, she would end up like Dana Satterfield.

This time, a judge deemed the evidence sufficient to obtain a DNA sample from Vick, which was matched to the vaginal DNA found on Dana.

At the time of his arrest, the twenty-eight-year-old Vick had married. He and his wife, Caroline, had a child, and he had also fathered a child with Cora.

Vick’s DNA Is Deemed A Match

Investigators surmise Jonathan Vick went to the Roebuck Hair & Tanning Center near closing time on the evening of July 31, 1995, in an attempt to get closer to Dana Satterfield. He probably either asked her for a date and/or made a sexual advance toward her and was rejected. Enraged, Vick proceeded to rape and murder her.

Despite being only seventeen-years-old at the time of Dana’s murder, Vick was tried as an adult, although his age at the time of the crime prevented him from being subject to the death penalty. Even with the DNA match, his defense was based on a pubic hair found in Dana that did not match his. It was determined, however, that Dana had been killed in the men’s restroom of the salon, and the prosecution successfully argued the hair was likely that of a customer.

In December 2006, Jonathan Vick was convicted of the murder of Dana Satterfield. He was given a life sentence behind bars as well as an additional thirty year sentence for sexual assault. He will be eligible for parole in 2035, when he will be fifty-seven-years-old.

Con”vict”ed

Jonathan Vick is incarcerated at the Lieber Correctional Institution, a maximum security facility in Ridgeville, South Carolina. In 2010, he was placed in lockdown after he assaulted another inmate and threatened to kill a prison guard and his family.

The incident earned Vick two additional three years terms in prison.

A Bad Boy Behind Bars

Vick was a suspect in the 2002 disappearance of Michele Whitaker. She had vanished from Spartanburg, South Carolina, in Roebuck, only five miles to the south.

In 2008, however, Michele was found living in Oregon. She had disappeared of her own volition, saying she was despondent with her life following two drunk driving arrests.

Michele Whitaker

Vick is still, however, a suspect in the disappearance of his former fiance, Heather Sellars. The twenty-year-old was last seen in two Spartanburg bars with Vick on the evening of September 24, 2002. She also worked at the same Waffle House, along Highway 9 and Interstate 85, as Michele Whitaker.

In 2006, a year after Vick was arrested for Dana Satterfield’s murder, bloodstains and blonde hair were found in an abandoned vehicle registered to Vick. Investigators believe the physical evidence may be from Sellars, but, so far, their suspicions have not been conclusively proven by forensic testing.

Heather’s family claims Vick physically abused her, but the allegations were never reported to police. She has a history of drug use, and several people at the bars say she may have been using drugs on the evening she was last seen. Her family, however, says she had successfully completed a drug rehabilitation program the previous year and that she was drug-free when she disappeared.

Heather Sellars

At the time of her disappearance, Heather Rena Sellars was five-feet-two-inches tall and weighed between one-hundred and one-hundred-ten pounds. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, a mole on her cheek, and a tattoo on her arm.

If you have information on the disappearance of Heather Sellars, please contact the Spartanburg, South Carolina, County Sheriff’s Office 864-503-4500.

Still Missing

Trey Gowdy was the Spartanburg County prosecutor at Jonathan Vick’s trial. He later became a United States Congressman and is currently a FOX News analyst. He called convicting Vick one of his most satisfying moments as a lawyer.

Trey Gowdy

Prosecutor

Dana Satterfield had two children, daughter Ashley and son Brandon. They were ages eight and six, respectively, when their mom was murdered.

Dana And Baby Ashley

The now married Ashley Arrowood is mother of two who works as victim’s advocate for the Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Sheriff’s Office. She also created a jailhouse program to inform inmates of the effects their violent crimes have on their victims and their families.

Ashley Arrowwood

Dana Satterfield’s Daughter

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46209305/dana-chyleen-satterfield

SOURCES:

• Charley Project
• Disappeared
• Forensic Files
• Spartanburg Herald-Journal
• Unsolved Mysteries