Imprisoned SEAL trainee seeks forgiveness and freedom

Former Navy SEAL trainee Dustin Allen Turner says he has sought forgiveness from the family of a young woman he watched die even as he's been unable to forgive the actual murderer, a man who may win Turner his release from prison.

Cautiously eyeing his freedom after serving 14 years in prison for a Virginia Beach murder of which a court has ruled he shouldn't have been convicted, Turner said he recognizes the pain of the victim's family.

But he said he hasn't lost hope that someday he'll return to loved ones of his own.

Turner, now 34, spoke in a telephone interview yesterday from Powhatan Correctional Center, where he learned Tuesday that a split decision by a three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals granted him a writ of actual innocence in the strangulation murder of Jennifer Lynn Evans in June 1995.

"It is certainly my hope that there won't be an appeal," Turner said. Realistically, he said, he expects months more of litigation.

The writ is the first instance in Virginia of a murder conviction being reversed under a 2004 law that allows a review of new, non-biological evidence beyond the state's 21-day, post-conviction limit, the strictest in the country.

Turner said he still is trying to come to grips with his conduct after Evans' death. She died beside him in the front seat of a car outside a Virginia Beach nightclub when Turner's partner, Billy Joe Brown, choked her from the rear seat.

"I was taught for one and a half years [as a SEAL trainee] to save the life of my partner," Turner said, mulling over arguments that he said have played out in his head "millions of times" about why he helped dispose of Evans' body.

"There was no separation from the training I went through and my reaction" after she was killed.

"A 20-year-old kid never been in trouble, coming from a good family, not criminally minded," he said, describing himself.

Brown -- sentenced to 72 years -- recanted his denial of the killing in a penitentiary confession in 2002, setting in motion efforts to free Turner and end his 82-year sentence.

"When the secretary put me on hold, I knew something had happened," Turner said of his regular Tuesday phone call this week to his lawyer, David B. Hargett, to check opinions from the court.

Turner said his heart raced and his breathing grew more labored waiting on the telephone. Then he heard he'd won.

"It was an amazing feeling," he said. He said his mother cried for hours Tuesday when she learned he'd won his case.

"She's the emotional one; I've learned to be more rational," he said.

But Turner's case may be far from over.

The state attorney general's office is expected to decide within the next two weeks whether to appeal the decision to the full appeals court. The case then could go to the state Supreme Court.

"I'd be amazed if the matter stopped at the appeals court," Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey L. Bryant III said yesterday. "This case sets a huge precedent." He said he hopes the appeal will be made.

Additional support for an appeal is coming from Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick, R-Prince William, who was a friend of Evans' at Emory University.

In a letter to state Attorney General William Mims yesterday evening, the embattled former state Republican Party chairman urged an appeal.

"Yesterday's action by the court has been a devastating back step in the mourning process" for Evans' family, Frederick wrote, describing Turner as "more than simply a bystander of a crime who acted only after the fact."

The Evans family could not be reached yesterday, but Jennifer Evans' mother, Delores Evans, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper that the family supports an appeal of the decision.

Hargett, Turner's lawyer, said the case could end with Turner's release in a matter of weeks if the appeal doesn't materialize.

"We are the ones with the momentum now," he said, adding that prolonging the case sidesteps the finality of Brown's confession and will add to the grief of the Evans family.

Turner said yesterday that he never has contacted Brown and only a few weeks ago wrote a letter expressing his remorse and asking forgiveness from the Evans family.

"I hope that letter brings some form of closure. One of my goals was to have them look at me differently and see me as a normal human being, not as a bad guy, not as a monster or an evil guy," he said.

The letter likely arrived at the Evans home outside Atlanta early this week, possibly the same day the decision came out, he said.

At Powhatan, he said, he nearly has regained the physical toughness he possessed as a SEAL; he has tried to condition himself mentally to deal with prison and the courts, he said, adding that he's "no jailhouse lawyer."

During SEAL training, "I got up every morning and put my boots on and told myself that an instructor that day was going to try to make me quit," he said.

And each day he promised himself: "Today it's not going to happen."

He said it's the same way in prison.

Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or bmckelway@timesdispatch.com.