ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 8, 1996 TAG: 9606090061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH
SOURCE: Associated Press
A former Navy SEAL trainee has been sentenced to 72 years in prison in the murder, abduction and attempted rape of a vacationing college student.
Billy Joe Brown will serve 42 years for first-degree murder, five years for attempted rape and 25 years for abduction with the intent to defile in the death of Jennifer Evans. The sentences imposed Thursday will run consecutively.
Virginia abolished parole for violent offenders two years ago, meaning Brown, 24, would be 96 before he is freed.
``Justice is done. He'll never be on the street again to hurt anyone else,'' said Evans' mother, Delores Evans.
Neither Brown nor his mother, Patricia Creech, showed any emotion as Circuit Judge A. Bonwill Shockley accepted the sentence jurors recommended after deliberating for 51/2 hours.
Evans, a 21-year-old Emory University student from Tucker, Ga., was vacationing in Virginia Beach where she disappeared the night of June 19 from a nightclub.
Brown, of Dayton, Ohio, testified during the trial that his buddy, Dustin Turner, killed Evans. Brown said the woman was bleeding from the nose and appeared dead when he got into a car with Turner outside the Bayou nightclub. He said he did nothing more than help Turner dispose of the body.
But prosecutors said Brown and Turner wanted to have ``tag-team sex'' with Evans and killed her when she refused. Her body was found June 27 in a park in Newport News, about 30 miles away.
Prosecutors presented jurors with contradictory statements Brown made to police less than three hours apart. In the first, he said he held Evans down while Turner strangled her. In the second, he said he only helped dump the body.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys asked the jury to recommend a life sentence, but he expressed satisfaction with the outcome.
In addition to the prison sentence, Brown was fined $63,000, an amount that Humphreys said would prevent Brown from profiting by selling his account of the slaying.
``That effectively takes care of any book rights,'' Humphreys told reporters.
Brown's attorney, Andrew Sacks, said he will appeal the verdict based on publicity surrounding the case.
Turner, of Bloomington, Ind., also was training for the Navy's elite commando unit. He is scheduled to stand trial on similar charges Aug. 26. He could receive a life sentence if convicted.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB