SEAL trainees go on trial in Va. Beach

SPECIAL SERIES: What Happened To Jennifer Evans?
Third of 5 parts

VIRGINIA BEACH Billy Joe Brown said he stumbled out of a beach nightclub to see his best friend and fellow Navy SEAL trainee Dustin A. Turner standing over a motionless woman in his car seat.

"I saw the girl," Billy told the jury at his murder trial, in a flat voice. "She was lying there. She had blood coming out of her nose and foam on her mouth. Her clothes were open. Dusty said, 'I think I [expletive] killed her.'"

Billy, a muscular 6-foot-3, admitted he had told several conflicting stories. First, he had denied any knowledge of Jennifer Evans' death, then he had confessed to holding her legs down in the car when Dustin accidentally killed her with a chokehold.

Billy explained he had reasons for concocting those stories, but now -- in May 1996, almost a year after the killing -- he had decided to tell the truth.

It would turn out to be more lies.

So began the murder trials of Billy and Dustin, two months apart in the spring and summer of 1996. Chilling and lurid, they would lead the case into uncharted legal terrain.

Virginia Beach prosecutors borrowed parts of both men's stories and charged them with murdering Jennifer after abducting her from the nightclub parking lot to engage in "tag-team sex" with her. Under such circumstances, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys said, "It doesn't matter whose fingers were on her throat."

. . .

The case pushed all the buttons in Virginia Beach, a city built on tourism and the military. Jury selection took days because of the notoriety of the case and the community's mixed views about the commandos living in its midst.

One prospective juror declared SEALs had "to be willing to have no morals, no conscience, and just do anything they can to protect their buddies." Another called the killing a case of tightly wound warriors who "went out and got tanked up and got a little in over their heads and got in some trouble." Neither was chosen as a juror.

There was little physical evidence. Jennifer's body was so decomposed after nine days in the woods that an autopsy failed to determine how she died. Dustin's car yielded no forensic evidence. There was only Billy's evolving story and X-rated reports from people who knew him.

SEALs and other witnesses reported Billy and Dustin bragged about engaging in tag-team sex with women. One SEAL testified that Dustin told him just before leaving The Bayou with Jennifer that he and Billy were planning a threesome.

Outside the jury's presence, a SEAL testified that Billy and Dustin and others took turns having sex with a drunken woman at the SEAL barracks in Coronado, Calif., in 1994.

The judge would not allow the testimony into the trial, but prosecutor Humphreys forwarded it to the Navy, which later reported it was baseless. Humphreys told reporters, "If it's [the SEAL's] word against the Navy's, I'd be inclined to go with him."

Late in the trial, a witness disclosed Billy's "beer and a babe" comment to the jury. One juror sat back abruptly as if struck in the head by a two-by-four.

Billy's attorney called him an elite warrior who acted out of intense loyalty to a brother-in-arms. "On another day, in another world, I'm willing to bet a lot of people would like to have Billy Brown on their side."

The jury convicted Billy of murder and abduction with intent to defile. The sentence was 72 years in prison and a fine of $63,000, which was requested by prosecutors to ensure Billy would not profit if he ever decided to write a book on the case.

Billy's mother sobbed on a courtroom bench, but he betrayed no emotion.

. . .

Dustin faced his own jury in August. His case was different.

Dustin had a clean record. He had taken police to the body. He said he had been a helpless witness to Billy's violence. At one point, prosecutor Humphreys had considered letting Dustin off with a misdemeanor charge for helping Billy hide the crime. Detectives had talked Humphreys out of it.

On the witness stand, Dustin told his story for the first time.

He told jurors he had no sexual designs on Jennifer. He said he and Jennifer wanted only to talk for a while before her friends returned to The Bayou to pick her up, so they walked outside and sat in his Geo Storm, a compact car.

They were listening to a CD, Dustin said, when Billy stumbled up drunk and agitated and climbed into the back seat, behind Jennifer. He made crude remarks and touched the back of her hair.

Dustin was just about to yell at him, he said, when Jennifer swiped at Billy's hand. Then Billy, with no warning, reached around the headrest and locked his arms around Jennifer's neck.

"He was pulling back, really squeezing, and she wasn't moving. Her arms weren't up to ward him off," Dustin said. "I reached at him and he yelled at me, 'Drive.'"

Dustin recovered from the shock and pried open Billy's grip, he said, but Jennifer was limp and had no pulse.

"I was confused and scared, and I guess I was panicking," Dustin said. "The only advice I was getting was from [Billy] telling me to drive, so I started up the car and I drove."

A neurological surgeon testified for the defense that Jennifer's neck could have been broken in a way that did not show up in her vertebrae.

Dustin said he drove to dense woods just off Interstate 64 in Newport News, with Billy passed out in the back seat. Billy awoke long enough to help haul the body into the trees and cover it with leaves and sticks.

Dustin drove back to the men's barracks at Little Creek Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach. The next morning, Dustin said, Billy admitted he was stupid to kill Jennifer but said they were in it together now.

"I just kept getting deeper into it, and I felt like I couldn't turn back," Dustin told the jury with tears on his face.

Prosecutors asked how Billy could have possibly killed Jennifer before Dustin intervened. A person being strangled can lose consciousness in as little as 20 seconds, a deputy medical examiner testified, but death would take a minimum of about a minute.

Deputy prosecutor Al Alberi stood before the jury in complete silence while 60 seconds ticked off the clock. Jurors shifted uncomfortably in the quiet courtroom. Alberi asked how a highly trained warrior like Dustin had remained frozen in shock for that long while a woman was strangled before his eyes.

Dustin had lied skillfully about the killing until detectives broke him down, Alberi said. Had it been up to Dustin, he said, "nobody would ever have known what happened to Jennifer Evans."

After two hours, the jury sent a note to the judge asking for clarification on the legal point of convicting both men of murder. The judge said he was not allowed to help. A few hours later, the jury convicted Dustin of murder and abduction with the intent to defile.

Dustin's sentence was 82 years -- 10 more than Billy's.

In a phone interview last week from prison, Dustin said the case was too sensational for Virginia Beach. Prosecutors were "very hard set in getting [two] convictions," he said. "It seemed at times that the truth didn't even matter to them."

Outside the courtroom, Jennifer's mother, Delores Evans, told reporters the sentence "definitely closes a chapter in this."

Dustin's mother, Linda Summit, vowed to prove he was innocent. "I will never quit fighting for my son," she said. "Never, never, never."

NEXT: A mother's desperate quest to clear her son

Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or .