THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996           TAG: 9609050355
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   82 lines

TURNER'S FATE IS NOW IN THE JURY'S HANDS A JUDGE RULES THEY HAVE ONLY TWO CHOICES: FIRST-DEGREE MURDER OR ACCESSORY AFTER FACT.

A jury began deliberating on Wednesday whether former SEAL trainee Dustin A. Turner should be convicted of first-degree murder or the relatively minor offense of accessory after the fact in the June 19, 1995, slaying of Georgia pre-med student Jennifer L. Evans.

For Turner, it is the difference between life in prison and freedom.

And it is almost the same choice presented to the jury that convicted Turner's co-defendant - fellow SEAL trainee Billy Joe Brown - of first-degree murder and two other felonies in June. Brown was sentenced to 72 years in prison.

During arguments over instructions to the jury on Wednesday, Circuit Judge John K. Moore decided that lesser offenses - such as second-degree murder or manslaughter - would not be given to the jury as options.

``I don't think the evidence shows the defendant to be guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter,'' Moore said. ``He is either guilty of first-degree murder or accessory after the fact.''

The first-degree murder offense, which includes an abduction with intent to defile charge, carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Accessory after the fact carries a maximum penalty of 12 months in jail and a fine of $2,500.

If Turner, 21, is convicted of the lesser charge, he will be released from jail. He already has served more than 12 months since his arrest on June 28, 1995.

Conceding that outright acquittal was unlikely, Turner's attorney asked the jury to convict his client of the accessory charge.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours Wednesday before Moore dismissed them shortly after 5 p.m. They will resume deliberations this morning.

In Brown's trial, Judge A. Bonwill Shockley refused to allow the jury to consider lesser offenses such as second-degree murder and manslaughter. Brown was also convicted of abduction and attempted rape.

Turner is accused of helping Brown, his SEAL Team swim buddy, to abduct Evans 14 months ago from The Bayou, a Virginia Beach nightclub on 19th Street. Evans, a 21-year-old Emory University student, was vacationing with friends in Virginia Beach.

Evans' body was found eight days later in a wooded ravine in Newport News.

Prosecutors believe Turner and Brown made a hobby of picking up women for three-way sexual encounters. Evans died, they said, when she resisted their advances.

Both men, members of Little Creek-based SEAL Team Four, admitted to disposing of the body. Each blamed the other for strangling her.

In closing arguments Wednesday, defense attorney Richard G. Brydges again blamed the murder on Brown, who he described as ``depraved, maniacal, drunk, angry and sex-starved.''

``There is your killer,'' Brydges told the jury as he showed them a picture of Brown.

Brydges maintained that Turner was talking quietly with Evans in his car when Brown stumbled drunk from the nightclub, climbed into the vehicle and suddenly strangled Evans.

But Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys called Turner's story ``absurd.''

The parking lot, Humphreys said, was teeming with activity as The Bayou was closing. Also, at the time when Turner said that Evans was strangled, several police officers and security guards were patrolling the nightclub parking lot, he explained.

Instead, Humphreys said, Evans was somehow subdued by Brown and Turner and taken to another location for group sex against her will.

``A threesome was planned,'' Humphreys said. ``At some point, this defendant came to the conclusion that this young lady was not going along with it, and Billy Joe Brown decided he was going to participate whether this young lady liked it or not. Jennifer was taken from this parking lot and killed elsewhere. It is the only thing that fits.''

Humphreys said the jury does not need to determine who actually strangled Evans to find Turner guilty of murder.

``If Billy Joe Brown and Dustin Turner were working together to sexually molest Jennifer Evans against her will and removed her from the parking lot to do so, it doesn't matter whose hands were on her throat,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

The Turner Trial

[For complete copy, see microfilm]

KEYWORDS: MURDER U.S. NAVY SEAL TRIAL by CNB