THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 4, 1996 TAG: 9609040410
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 136 lines
With one prosecutor playing the part of Billy Joe Brown and another the part of Dustin A. Turner, the murder of Jennifer L. Evans was re-enacted in court Tuesday morning - in the same car seats where the homicide took place 14 months ago.
The re-enactment came during the last day of testimony in Turner's first-degree murder trial. The 21-year-old Turner also is charged with abduction with intent to defile. If convicted, Turner could be sentenced to life in prison.
After closing arguments, a 12-member jury is expected to begin deliberating the case today.
Prosecutors say Turner and Brown, who was convicted of the same offenses plus attempted rape in June, lured Evans, a vacationing Georgia pre-med student, from a Virginia Beach nightclub in the early morning of June 19, 1995.
The two SEAL trainees intended to engage her in a three-way sexual encounter, prosecutors say. When Evans refused, they say, she was killed.
Turner then drove Evans to the City Park in Newport News with Brown drunk in the back seat. Brown and Turner threw her body into a wooded ravine, where it was discovered eight days later when Turner confessed and led police there.
Turner has told a different story during his trial, which began Aug. 26.
He claimed that Brown suddenly reached into the front seat of his car and strangled Evans. Turner tried unsuccessfully to pull Brown off, he claimed.
His only crime, he said, was helping Brown to dispose of the body and lying to police about his role in Evans' disappearance.
On Tuesday, as Turner directed the courtroom re-enactment from the witness stand, Robert J. Humphreys, commonwealth's attorney, reached from the back seat of the re-created interior of Turner's Chevrolet Geo Storm to simulate the strangling with a volunteer from the courthouse staff.
Prosecutor Al Alberi, pretending to be Turner, sat in the driver's seat, which along with the back seat and the passenger seat had been mounted on a platform by city carpenters in the exact location and dimensions as they were in Turner's car.
Turner said that moments before Evans died, he tried to get Brown, his swim buddy from SEAL training and fellow member of Little Creek-based SEAL Team Four, to settle down.
``I believe my words were `Chill out,' '' Turner recalled as he remembered how he reacted when a highly intoxicated Brown stumbled out of The Bayou, a Virginia Beach nightspot on 19th Street, and got into the car where Evans and Turner were talking and listening to music.
When Brown began playing with Evans' hair, Turner said he ordered him to stop.
``That's when I told him either chill out or get out of the car now,'' Turner said.
Evans also discouraged Brown, Turner said, by slapping his hand away.
That's when Brown reached into the front seat, Turner said, and with both arms gripped Evans around the neck and strangled the Emory University student.
Dr. Leah Bush, a Norfolk-based state medical examiner, testified that such a choke hold is known as a ``bar-arm choke hold'' and can induce death in at least two ways.
In one scenario, Bush said, death comes when the blood flow to the brain is cut off.
Sometimes, the larynx also is crushed, Bush said, which increases the speed of death.
The other scenario, Bush said, is similar to a whiplash injury in which the neck is hyper-extended, and the point where the brain stem and spinal cord connect is crushed. Death can occur almost instantaneously in this scenario, Bush said.
Although X-rays of Evans' neck showed no damage, Bush said, she added that the body was badly decomposed by the time she examined it.
Bush was never able to determine an exact cause of death.
Turner said he tried to pry Brown's arms away from her neck, but managed only to get Brown's right arm off.
Turner said he drove out of The Bayou parking lot when he panicked as Brown began yelling at him to ``drive'' and ``go.''
The panic that set in prevented him from attempting some other method of helping Evans, such as hitting Brown, getting help from others or trying to save her life, he said.
But Alberi claimed Turner did nothing for Evans because he did not think she was dead and still wanted to have group sex with her and Brown.
``To sum up,'' Alberi said, ``you never threw a punch at Billy Joe, you never honked the horn, you never got out of the car and ran for help and you never administered CPR.''
Under questioning from Alberi, Turner also testified that he had survived commando training, some of the most intense the military offers, that specifically tries to weed out those prone to panic.
And he admitted that he had the presence of mind to drive to Newport News and find a remote location to place the body.
Turner said Evans' death traumatized him. In the week between the murder and the discovery of the body, ``I felt like a zombie,'' Turner said.
But a fellow member of SEAL Team Four, Matthew S. Novello, said he heard Turner joking about the investigation into Evans' death at a Pizza Hut near Fort A.P. Hill, where they undergoing SEAL training.
When a newspaper printed a composite drawing meant to resemble Turner, Brown showed it to Turner, Novello said.
``They were laughing and joking,'' Novello said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BETH BERGMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
Under cross examination by prosecutors, Dustin A. Turner
demonstrates how he took Jennifer L. Evans' pulse after she lost
consciousness.
Graphic with photos
THE TURNER TRIAL
Defendant
Dustin A. Turner
The victim
Jennifer L. Evans
Convicted
Billy Joe Brown
The crime
Turner is on trial in the abduction and death of Evans, a pre-med
student from Atlanta who died in June 1995 while vacationing in
Virginia Beach. Brown was convicted in June of first-degree murder,
attempted rape and abduction and sentenced to 72 years in prison.
Both men were Navy SEAL trainees at the time of the crime.
Charges against Turner
First-degree murder and abduction
Penalty
Up to life in prison
What happened Tuesday
The murder was re-enacted in the courtroom in the same car seats
where Evans was killed 14 months ago. The seats from Turner's Geo
Storm were removed from the car and brought to the courtroom on a
platform. Prosecutors acted out the murder in the manner in which
Turner said it occurred: Evans, sitting in the front passenger seat,
was strangled by Brown as he reached with both arms from the back
seat and used a bar-arm choke hold on the 21-year-old Emory
University student.
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL by CNB