THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290407
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 100 lines
Navy SEAL trainee Dustin A. Turner never harmed a ``hair on the head'' of Jennifer L. Evans, but watched in horror as his ``depraved'' fellow trainee Billy Joe Brown used a choke hold to break the Georgia college student's neck in the parking lot of a Virginia Beach nightclub, Turner's attorney argued Wednesday.
Attorney Richard G. Brydges presented that story to a jury of seven men and seven women as opening statements began the second of two trials spawned by the strangulation death of Evans last year.
But Prosecutor Robert J. Humphreys told jurors that Turner, 21, was the instigator 14 months ago, when Turner and Brown first met Evans in the The Bayou nightclub in the Radisson Hotel on 19th Street.
Humphreys said it was Turner who drew Evans' attention and who eventually picked up the 21-year-old Emory University student. And, Humphreys said, it was Turner who told Julio C. Fitzgibbons, a fellow member of SEAL Team Four, that he was trying to get a three-way sexual encounter going as The Bayou closed in the early morning hours of June 19, 1995.
Turner pointed Evans out to Fitzgibbons, Humphreys said.
Fitzgibbons' testimony at Brown's trial this spring first introduced the prosecution's theory that three-way sex was the motive for Evans' murder.
In that trial Brown, 24, was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted rape and abduction. He was sentenced to 72 years in prison.
Fitzgibbons told the Brown jury that Turner said moments before Evans disappeared that he and Brown were arranging a ``threesome'' with the vacationing pre-med student.
Fitzgibbons repeated that testimony Wednesday.
He recalled that, on the evening of June 18, 1995, at The Bayou, he bumped into Turner and Brown, whom he had seen at SEAL Team Four headquarters at Little Creek but otherwise did not know.
After the three talked about SEAL training for about 30 minutes they split up, but met again just as the bar was closing at about 1:30 a.m.
When Fitzgibbons suggested that the three go to an after-hours club, Turner turned him down.
``He said him and Brown were going to have a threesome,'' Fitzgibbons said.
Evans then walked up to them and Turner introduced Fitzgibbons to Evans. ``She had a Georgia accent,'' Fitzgibbons recalled.
As Fitzgibbons started to leave, he remembered, Turner flashed him a thumbs-up sign.
Moments later, Evans disappeared from the nightclub. Her body was discovered eight days later in a wooded ravine in the Newport News City Park.
Turner led police to the body, after first denying that he knew anything about her disappearance.
When he confessed, Turner said he helped dispose of Evans' body, but he claimed that Brown killed her for no apparent reason while the three sat in Turner's car in The Bayou parking lot.
On Wednesday, Brydges claimed that Turner and Evans were innocently attracted to each other and were listening to music and talking in Turner's car when the ``belligerent drunk, maniacal Brown'' walked up to the car and got in the back seat.
Brown, who testified during his trial that he had about 50 alcoholic drinks that night, almost immediately began bothering Evans by reaching over the seat and playing with her hair, Brydges said.
Turner, Brydges said, tried to make peace by warning Evans that Brown `` `is drunk and is obnoxious. Just don't pay any attention to him.' ''
But before Turner knew what was happening, Brydges claimed, Brown grabbed Evans, ``holding her as tight as he could,'' and snapped her neck.
Evans died almost immediately, said Brydges, promising to introduce expert medical testimony that will show that Evans became incontinent in the front seat of the car and could have died almost instantaneously from certain kinds of choke-holds.
Brydges painted his client as a patriotic young man who sprang from a good family steeped in military tradition and filled with war heroes. Turner's father earned five purple hearts in Vietnam, Brydges said, and his uncle was in Army special forces.
That tradition encouraged Turner to aspire to membership in the elite SEAL commando squad from an early age. He persuaded his mother to co-sign his enlistment application when Turner was only 17, Brydges said.
Turner's only sin, Brydges said, was not reporting the death immediately to police and helping to dispose of the body in the Newport News park.
Brydges also painted Brown as demonic. He claimed that Brown began playing with Evans' body as Turner was driving to Newport News. And, once at the grave site, Brown attempted to have sex with her body, Brydges said.
Turner reacted with horror, pulling Brown off the corpse, Brydges said. ILLUSTRATION: B\W BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Former Navy SEAL trainee Dustin A. Turner sits in a Virginia Beach
courtroom at the start of his trial in the murder of Jennifer L.
Evans. Projected before him was a picture of fellow trainee Billy
Joe Brown, who was convicted of Evans' murder in June.
Graphic
The Turner Trial
[Box with photos of Turner, Brown, and Evans
The crime
Charges against Turner
Penalty
What Happened Wed.
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL MURDER U.S. NAVY SEAL DUSTIN A.
TURNER by CNB