THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 28, 1995 TAG: 9506280502
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
The search for a missing Georgia college student ended late Tuesday with the discovery of her body in Newport News Park by detectives who then charged a Navy SEAL candidate with her slaying.
Jennifer Lea Evans, a 21-year-old pre-med student from Emory University in Atlanta, had been missing since June 19. She was vacationing with friends at Sandbridge.
``This is a sad day for the Evans family and also for the people involved in the investigation,'' said police spokesman Mike Carey. ``It's certainly not the conclusion we would have wished for. We're extremely disappointed.''
Billy Joe Brown Jr., a 23-year-old signalman assigned to SEAL Team 4 in Little Creek, has been charged with murder and sexual assault. Warrants were faxed to the FBI's Richmond office. Brown was arrested and was to be held in that area overnight by police.
His return to Virginia Beach is expected sometime today, police said.
Charges are also being considered against a second Navy man who had been extensively questioned in the case, police said. Authorities said Brown and that man, whose name was not released, had met Evans in a popular Oceanfront-area nightclub, The Bayou, on the evening of her disappearance. The club is in the first floor of the 19th Street Radisson Hotel.
A police artist's sketch of the second Navy man led authorities to him. They questioned him last week, but released him after he said he left the bar without Evans. Police said then they considered him only a witness.
But hours after his release, police caught him in a lie that turned around the case, authorities said.
According to Virginia Beach police spokesmen Carey and Lou Thurston, and several law-enforcement sources who declined to be identified, this is how the investigation unfolded:
When police and FBI agents questioned the man last seen with Evans, he told them he and Evans parted company in the bar. With no other evidence, authorities believed him and released him.
But later, another person came forward and told police Evans and the second Navy man were seen walking hand-in-hand into the parking lot. That was the tip that broke the case, Lt. Jack Pritchard said.
``His story was no longer as plausible as it was before,'' Pritchard said.
The second man was questioned again and released, but this time authorities put him under tight surveillance.
Late Monday, a team of detectives drove to the Richmond area with a plan to confront the two men, who had gone to Fort A.P. Hill for training. Tuesday, the men were again questioned. Brown confessed, police said, and told them where to look for the body.
The body was found in the underbrush about 25 yards off Jefferson Avenue, not far from a bike trail in the 8,000-acre Newport News Park. It had been placed against a tree and covered with branches.
The role of the second Navy man - the man depicted in the police sketch - was still unclear late Tuesday. However, Pritchard said his status has moved from witness to suspect. Sources said he probably would be charged in connection with Evans' death.
Brown, who is from Dayton, Ohio, was in the final stages of SEAL training, Navy authorities said. He graduated from initial training in California in December.
He was attached to one of three SEAL teams at Little Creek, under the command of Special Warfare Group 2.
SEALs, the Navy's elite commando force, are trained for unconventional warfare and specialized covert operations. The assignment is one of the military's most demanding.
As many as 14 detectives have dogged the case since hours after Evans' reported disappearance. The FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Navy SEAL teams all assisted in the investigation, Carey and Thurston said. Police said the federal and military agencies were instrumental in breaking the case.
Evans, a fourth-year dean's list student with a near-perfect grade point average, wanted to be a doctor. She worked at the Emory University Research Laboratory and was a volunteer in a children's hospital.
Her disappearance led to one of the department's most extensive investigations. A combined reward of $27,000 - believed to be the largest offered in the city's history - helped prompt more than 100 Crime Solvers Tips. The money was offered by local police, a Georgia utility company, and The Bayou, although The Bayou's $1,000 was only for Evans' safe return.
``We want to tell the Evans' family and friends, here and in Atlanta, that our hearts go out to them on this day,'' Carey said.
Evans' body was taken to the Norfolk medical examiner's office, where the autopsy is scheduled for today.
The case was officially transferred Tuesday from missing-person Detective Louis Chappell to homicide Detective John Orr. Although the body was discovered in Newport News, the Virginia Beach detectives will investigate. MEMO: Staff writer Jon Frank contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Jennifer Lea Evans' body was discovered Tuesday in a wooded area in
Newport News Park. An autopsy is to be performed today.
Jennifer Lea Evans, a pre-med student in Atlanta, had been missing
since June 19.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SEX CRIME ARREST by CNB