Ex-Navy SEAL trainee appeals conviction in woman’s 1995 murder

SPECIAL REPORT: Jennifer Evans

A former Navy SEAL trainee convicted of the 1995 murder of a college student visiting Virginia Beach took his plea for freedom to the Virginia Court of Appeals in Richmond yesterday.

Dustin Allen Turner, 34, and fellow SEAL trainee Billy Joe Brown, 36, were sentenced to 82 and 72 years respectively in the June 19, 1995, slaying of Jennifer Lea Evans in a parked automobile outside a Virginia Beach nightclub.

Brown now says he alone murdered Evans, a 21-year-old student at Emory University. Last year, Judge Frederick B. Lowe of Virginia Beach Circuit Court told the appeals court that he found Brown's new account credible.

Turner is seeking a writ of actual innocence from the appeals court. If granted, it would toss out his murder conviction and be the first contested writ approved in Virginia. It is not known when the threejudge panel that heard the case yesterday might rule.

Turner and Evans left the bar early the morning of June 19, 1995. Brown, who had been drinking heavily at the same club, joined them in the car, getting into the back seat.

A witness testified that Turner told him -- as Turner and Evans left the bar -- that they, along with Brown, "were going to have a threesome." Another witness said Brown initially planned to leave with her and not Turner that night.

Under questioning nine days after the slaying, Turner led authorities to where they left Evans' body in dense woods just off Interstate 64 in Newport News. He said Brown killed Evans, Brown said Turner did, and both men were convicted in 1996.

After entering prison and finding religion, Brown said he alone killed Evans by reaching over the front passenger seat and choking her to death.

David B. Hargett, Turner's lawyer, told the judges yesterday that in light of Brown's new account, it would not be possible for "any rational trier of fact" to convict him -- something he must show to win a writ of actual innocence.

But Robert H. Anderson III, a senior assistant Virginia attorney general, said Brown has changed his story too often to be believed now and that Lowe's finding that Brown's new account is credible was based on a flawed understanding of the trial record.

Among other things, Lowe said there was little or no forensic evidence. "That is flatly incorrect," said Anderson, noting that a medical examiner testified it was unlikely Evans' neck was broken, and that it could have taken three to five minutes for her to die.

Brown said the death occurred quickly. Anderson also stressed the testimony of a witness who said Turner told him that Brown and Evans were going to have a threesome.

But Hargett said, even if that was true, "three-way sex does not mean rape and murder." He said, "there's no evidence of a plan . . . Billy Brown showed up [at the car] unannounced, uninvited and unplanned."

"There's no evidence as to what happened in that car except for the testimony of Mr. Brown and Mr. Turner," Hargett argued. "There is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing whatsoever by Mr. Turner except for after the fact," when he hid the body.

After the hearing, Turner's mother, Linda Summitt of Indiana, said, "I think it went well. I think it went very well. . . . I think innocence is innocence, and it's time to let Dusty go."

Evans' parents, Delores and Al Evans of Atlanta, who were also in the courtroom yesterday morning, disagreed. Delores Evans said, "It's hard to sit there and just listen and not be able to say anything."

"Jennifer is the real victim here," she said. Evans said they attended so they could be her voice.

She added: "It's been almost 14 years . . . since I last heard her voice."

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .