THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609130707
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Case No. 95-031343
Jennifer Evans Murder Case
[Part II]
SOURCE: Mike Mather
LENGTH: 427 lines
In the story so far, detectives working a missing-persons case are convinced a beautiful Georgia college co-ed is more than just missing. They believe she's dead.
Through a week of investigation, suspicions eventually pointed to a pair of Navy SEAL candidates stationed for training in Virginia Beach. The men, Dustin Turner and his swim buddy, Billy Joe Brown, were the last people seen with 21-year-old Jennifer Evans before she vanished from a popular nightclub.
The men initially were dismissed as suspects. But their accounts of what they were doing that night began fraying, and then unraveling.
This is the story of how three lives full of hope and promise ended in tragedy. It is a tale of loyalty, deception, betrayal and murder. Reporter Mike Mather followed the case from the beginning, when Evans disappeared, to the end, when Turner on Sept. 5 became the second of the two SEAL trainees to be convicted of murdering Evans. After their trials ended, authorities opened their case files and told Mather the full story of how the crime was solved.
Tuesday, June 27, 5:30 a.m.
Holiday Inn, Richmond.
The night's sleep was short.
In a few hours, the detectives would face two murder suspects in an all-or-nothing psychological assault.
The investigators were out of tactics. Out of tricks. Out of time.
If they won, they would break the case and return the body of Jennifer Evans to her grieving parents, who were still praying their missing daughter would return alive.
If they lost, the murder could go unpunished. Other than the detectives' gut feelings, there was nothing so far to implicate the men in Evans' disappearance. By now, the detectives were sure they were working a homicide. And they were sure the sailors were involved.
They would meet the two Navy SEAL candidates on the sailors' home turf: Fort A.P. Hill.
It had been a week since Evans vanished, and suspicion eventually turned to SEAL trainees Dustin Turner and Billy Joe Brown. Through the week, the sailors had answered the detectives' questions with lies.
Lies, lies, lies.
Lies about their drinking. Lies about their time with Evans. Lies about what happened that Sunday night at The Bayou nightclub, where Evans met the handsome young men.
Homicide detectives John ``J.T.'' Orr and Al Byrum slid onto the worn seats of an umarked blue sedan and left for their meeting with the SEAL candidates.
They needed a confession. Nothing less would do.
Sgt. Tommy Baum and his wife, Lt. Sandi Baum, were already traveling by car to Richmond's FBI headquarters.
The Baums were transporting the machines. Two polygraphs. Two lie detectors.
At Fort A.P. Hill, the suspects were waiting. Today, they would try to outsmart the machines and keep hidden their murderous secret.
7:30 a.m.
Fort A.P. Hill
Orr and Byrum arrived at the fort's main gate. Waiting for them was Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeffery O'Konek.
O'Konek was a father figure to Turner and Brown, and to the rest of the SEAL candidates trying to stay alive and unbroken through the 25 grueling weeks it takes to join the most elite of military warriors.
To O'Konek, Turner and Brown were like sons. He was responsible for their safety and welfare, their praise and discipline.
The chief and the detectives drove through the base. SEALs ran in formation along the roadside.
Turner and Brown were waiting, freshly showered after a morning workout.
O'Konek asked to join the detectives as they drove Turner and Brown to Richmond FBI headquarters. The detectives agreed.
During the 50-minute ride south, Orr and Byrum chatted with the sailors. Orr, a former Navy man, asked about their training.
The detectives kept the conversation light. They never mentioned the crime.
Brown was jovial. He cracked jokes.
Turner was solemn. He stared out the window.
Orr was pensive. He mulled the plan in his head.
Byrum was anxious. He tapped his fingers on the passenger door.
At FBI headquarters, the detectives led the sailors into small, windowless rooms where the machines were ready to catch the lies.
Sgt. Baum was with Turner.
Lt. Baum was with Brown.
A polygraph test is useless unless the person taking the test knows the questions in advance. The yes-or-no questions came in blocks of 10, but only three questions in each block were about the crime. Each block would have to be asked at least twice.
Brown sat in front of Lt. Baum. He casually crossed his legs and slumped his large frame in the chair. He yawned.
``Mr. Cool,'' she thought. But the yawn signaled nervousness. Much of lie-detector training centers on psychology.
Sandi Baum oversees the Virginia Beach Police Academy. She rose through the department's ranks when the ranks were hard on women. Now, no woman outranks her.
She's sensitive to how women are treated. Brown isn't. That would cause a problem.
Brown kicked back. Sensors measuring his heart rate, his blood pressure and his body's involuntary responses began feeding ink needles that scrawled across graph paper.
In a nearby and similarly featureless room, Turner was more visibly nervous. He sat across from Sgt. Baum, a former homicide detective who now heads the squad.
The questions started.
``Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Jennifer Evans?'' Sgt. Baum asked Turner.
``No.''
Outside the interview rooms, Orr and Byrum paced like expectant fathers. Most of the FBI building was off-limits to them, and that confined their pacing to a small lobby. They were almost running into each other.
They stopped long enough to talk.
``When do we get accusatory?'' Byrum asked.
Orr wasn't sure. But he knew it would have to be soon. If they didn't break the SEAL candidates today, they never would. And they'd never find Evans.
Minutes dragged by. Then hours.
Turner and Brown were still answering questions.
In the windowless room, Lt. Baum examined the graph that reflected Brown's answers. Her trained eyes scrutinized the pattern of lines meandering across the graph paper, rising and falling in response to each question.
Deception.
She ran him through the questions again.
Deception.
Deception on the questions that probed Evans' disappearance.
She had to narrow the issue.
She drew up another block of questions that asked if he killed her. For the test to work, Brown had to agree to answer them. He balked.
``I am not going to answer any more of your questions,'' he said. Brown emphasized the word ``your.'' To Baum, the implication was clear. He wasn't comfortable answering to a woman.
Brown spoke freely to men before today, and he would offer to speak with men after the test, but she sensed that he wanted no part of her.
The lieutenant left the room and shared the results with Orr and Byrum. It was time for them to go to work. They went in to face Brown.
Next door, Sgt. Baum reviewed Turner's graph.
Lies.
``Son, when you came in here today, you knew the truth,'' Sgt. Baum said. ``Now, we both know the truth. Don't get yourself in deeper. It's time to come clean.''
Turner put his head down. He was getting weak. But he stuck to his story: He had nothing to do with the woman's disappearance.
Sgt. Baum asked a second block of questions.
``Did you kill Jennifer Evans?''
``No.''
Deception.
In Brown's room, Orr and Byrum started hammering. They let him run through his story once again. Little changed. Then, they picked at the lies. They tried to break off the small lies and use them like stairsteps to approach the bigger lies.
``We know you and Dusty didn't leave together,'' Orr said.
Brown wasn't fazed.
``We know you were drinking.''
Nothing.
``Billy, let us give this girl a burial,'' Byrum implored. ``Think if it was your mother, or your sister. What would you want?''
It wasn't working. The interview was going nowhere. The day's plan was slipping away.
Orr and Byrum retreated to small talk. Then they left the room. Brown fell asleep.
It was time to work Turner.
While Brown snoozed next door, the detectives cranked up their choreographed routine. The questions and accusations were the same.
The response, however, was different. Tears welled in Turner's eyes.
``Dusty, we want to bring Jennifer home to her family,'' Byrum said. ``They've traveled from Georgia to be here, and they're hurting. Let us get this girl and give her a burial.''
Turner was ready to snap. Nine days of concealing the secret were taking a toll on him. He was ready to burst.
His eyes looked like they'd erupt into a shower of tears any moment.
This was it. Orr could see it coming.
Turner put his head down. The detectives' eyes bored into him. They were searching for the words to bring him over the edge.
Suddenly, Turner's head popped up.
``I'll tell you what you want to know,'' he said. ``But I want to talk to my chief first.''
No, no, no. Not good, Orr thought. He and Byrum worked hard to knock Turner down this far. He didn't want to give him time to regroup.
But if they didn't allow it, Turner would shut down. And if they did let them speak, the detectives would give up control. Neither was a good choice, but granting Turner's request was the least damaging.
Byrum fetched the chief.
``Chief O'Konek, sir, these men are asking me to make statements to incriminate myself,'' Turner said.
Orr winced. Turner's delivery sounded strangely rehearsed.
``I'll see about legal representation,'' the chief said.
Byrum was coming unglued. He was nearly in a panic. They were moments away from cracking this case and a lawyer would muddle the progress.
For that matter, any first-year law student could give Turner the proper advice: ``Shut up, idiot.''
O'Konek went to a phone.
But, Orr thought, Turner hadn't asked for a lawyer. Turner didn't say he wanted one.
Here the law is clear. If a suspect doesn't clearly ask for a lawyer, a detective isn't obligated to help him get one.
Orr breathed deeply. He knew he had three minutes to break Turner. Three minutes. The duration of a phone call.
Turner was more confident now. He'd drawn strength from O'Konek. Orr began slashing. The clock was running.
Meanwhile, Byrum was racing to find his boss, Sgt. Baum.
``Tommy, I think we can get Jennifer today if we don't arrest him now,'' he said. Baum nodded. Byrum ran to another phone and called Virginia Beach Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Al Alberi. Byrum wanted to know if they could defer an arrest for a day.
Alberi said yes.
In the interview room, Turner was nearly crying again. Orr had reduced him to his weakest point yet. Turner's resolve was leaving him like the dying flame of a spent candle. He had no more fight.
But it was too late.
O'Konek returned before the secret slipped out.
The chief had spoken to a Navy lawyer. The detectives watched helplessly.
But the lawyer told O'Konek that, since the case didn't happen on a base, he couldn't help Turner.
What?
Orr and Byrum choked back disbelief. A massive blunder, they thought. Of course the lawyer could help him. Any lawyer could. The door was still open and the detectives charged through it.
``Dusty, the only thing we are interested in today is getting Jennifer back,'' Orr said. ``I can't promise what will happen down the road, but I won't arrest you today.''
The secret suddenly escaped.
``Brown killed her,'' Turner blurted. ``I don't know why in the hell he did it.''
His head sank.
Turner drew a crude map depicting where he and Brown dumped the body. He didn't know any of the street names, only Interstate 64. Orr left the room and asked for a map from the FBI, but no one could find one.
That's just great, Orr mumbled. No one here has a map.
He returned to Turner, who volunteered to lead Orr to Evans.
Orr needed Turner's statements to arrest Brown. He stared at the blond sailor and spat questions.
``Did you see this happen?''
``Yes.''
``Did Billy kill her?.''
``Yes.''
``Did it happen in Virginia Beach?''
``Yes.''
``Did it happen in your car?''
``Yes.''
Turner said Brown was upset when he forced his way into the rear passenger seat, behind Evans. Brown had argued with Bishop, his former girlfriend.
Suddenly, Brown reached forward and locked his arms around Evans' neck and yanked.
Turner said he was powerless to stop it.
That was enough. An arrest warrant for Brown was on the way.
Orr, O'Konek and Turner left to retrieve the body. All Turner could remember was he had taken the ``Lee something'' exit from I-64.
Brown was still sleeping when Byrum barged into the interview room. Now, Brown was no longer free to leave.
Brown looked up.
``Dusty has told us where Jennifer is,'' Byrum said flatly. ``We're going to go get her.''
Byrum showed him Turner's sketch. Brown stared at the paper.
``We are going to talk now,'' Byrum said. ``We need to get this straight.''
Brown's smug expression ebbed into disbelief. Then, his face went blank. He had been betrayed by the man he loved like a brother. By his swim buddy.
``What did Dusty say?'' he asked.
``I'm not going to tell you that,'' Byrum said. ``I need to hear your version.''
What Brown didn't know is that Turner dropped all the blame on his swim buddy's shoulders.
And Brown, now dejected, also spilled the secret. It was a more chilling version than Turner's.
4 p.m.
Orr, O'Konek and Turner drove east on I-64. Orr and O'Konek talked, but Turner was silent.
Orr stopped at a rest area. He gave Turner change for a soda and the detective stepped into the bathroom.
He didn't need to go, but he wanted to take his eyes off Turner. Orr wanted to show Turner he wasn't in custody and wasn't under arrest. If a custody issue came up in court later, Orr could show he left him alone at the rest area.
In the back of his mind, Orr thought Turner might run. But it was a chance the detective had to take.
He waited a few minutes in the restroom. Then he returned to the car. Turner was waiting.
In the sedan, the three approached the Lee Hall exit. Turner looked up.
``This has to be it,'' Orr said. Turner wasn't sure. He hadn't approached the exit from this direction before, and it didn't look familiar. Orr took the exit anyway.
Turner's head swiveled.
``This is it,'' he said. ``Go to the next stop light and take a right.'' The sedan was on Jefferson Avenue, flanking the thickly wooded Newport News Park.
Orr turned the car onto a gravel path, but, again, Turner didn't recognize the area. They turned onto a second path, and it seemed more familiar.
``I think this is it,'' Turner piped from the back.
All three got out of the car. O'Konek, the Navy officer, took charge and organized the search.
It was 5 p.m., and, barely a week into summer, the sun was still high on the horizon.
They started looking for Evans' body.
Meanwhile, at the Richmond FBI headquarters, Brown was writing his confession.
He wasn't the same proud warrior the detectives had met at Fort A.P. Hill eight hours earlier. He was sad, dejected, tired.
He was broken.
John Orr didn't break Brown, and Al Byrum didn't break Brown.
Dusty Turner broke Brown.
Brown finished his confession and Byrum read it. Brown's version of what happened June 19 is the version the detectives believe.
The details were vivid and damning. Brown heaped blame upon himself as well as Turner; Turner wouldn't admit he'd done anything wrong. And, simply, the detectives thought Brown's story was more plausible:
When Brown got into Turner's car, Evans was unconscious in the back seat. Turner had choked her into a blackout. The swim buddies drove to a side street on the Oceanfront's North End and began undressing her in the car. They wanted sex, and it wouldn't be the first time the sailors engaged in a threesome.
A sex escapade in the barracks at Coronado once drew spectators.
Brown pulled off her shorts and Turner pushed up her bra.
She awoke and began thrashing. Brown laid across her and held her down. Turner grabbed her throat and squeezed.
Then, Jennifer Lea Evans died.
They panicked and drove away.
While Turner drove, Brown fondled Evans' body.
``I guess that's pretty sick,'' Brown told Byrum.
Brown said he fell asleep in the back of the car, and when he woke, Turner had driven to Newport News.
The men put her body in the woods and covered her with leaves and twigs. Then, they drove back to Virginia Beach, where Brown ate breakfast. Turner didn't.
Now Turner was again in the same woods. He was helping Orr search for Evans' remains.
Orr looked down. He saw a sandal.
He squinted. He could make out the shape of a body. After nine days of oppressive summer heat, little was left of Jennifer Evans. She had melted into the forest floor.
Turner crept up behind Orr and looked over the detective's shoulder.
``That's her,'' Turner said. His voice was emotionless.
Turner stood and stared at the pile of twigs covering the severely decomposed body of the woman who had first caught his eye nine days earlier.
He stood motionless and stared several moments.
Orr watched him and thought he sensed emotion filling the sailor's gut. Maybe sadness. Maybe remorse. Maybe disappointment at getting caught.
Orr marched Turner and O'Konek out of the woods.
A team of forensic technicians and several detectives were arriving as the trio left the woods.
The detective drove Turner and O'Konek back to Fort A.P. Hill as Byrum arrested Brown at the FBI's Richmond headquarters. There was no secure place for Brown, so Byrum handcuffed him to a table while he waited for arrest warrants.
Warrants finally in hand, Byrum and Lt. Baum took Brown to the Henrico County Jail, where he would spend the night.
As the officers prepared to leave, Byrum asked Brown a question:
``Billy, is there anything I can get for you before I go?'' the detective asked.
``Sure,'' Brown replied with a wry grin. ``A beer and a babe.''
For crying out loud, Byrum thought. What's wrong with this guy?
At Fort A.P. Hill, Orr kept his word. He let Turner go this night.
From the base, Turner called his mother.
``Mom, can I talk to you?''
``Sure, Dustin,'' Linda Summitt answered.
Summitt is an elementary-school teacher in Bloomington. Dusty Turner is the youngest of two sons from her first marriage. When Dusty was young, she remarried and had two more sons with her new husband. Her second marriage also gave Dusty a step-sister a few years older than he.
Summitt sensed something was wrong with her son. She knew something was wrong. Her son was filling the air with small talk, but there was something important he wasn't saying.
``Dusty, what's wrong?'' she asked. ``I know there is something wrong with you.''
``Mom, how can you always tell?''
``Because I can. Are you sick? Were you in an accident?'' she asked.
``Worse.''
``Dusty,'' she implored. ``What is it?''
``Mom, I witnessed a murder.''
She gasped.
One day later, her son was charged with that murder.
Epilogue
A few day's after Turner's arrest, prosecutors from the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office began reviewing the case.
They wanted to cut Turner loose on a misdemeanor - accessory after the fact - because they couldn't make a case against him. Not enough evidence.
The detectives said no.
If a jury acquits him, then fine, the investigators said. But Orr and Byrum believed Turner was equally responsible for what happened June 19 and they didn't want to let him go. They couldn't.
In weeks and months that followed, Orr would uncover more damaging evidence against the sailor from Bloomington. Piece by piece, the case against Turner grew until the prosecutors believed it could be won.
Then, Commonwealth's Attorney Bob Humphreys and his chief assistant, Al Alberi, took the case file and ran without looking back. When Dusty Turner took the stand in his own defense, Alberi shredded him.
Two jury members said the panel never believed the young man's stories.
On Sept. 5, the jury convicted Turner of murder in the first degree and other charges. The jury recommended an 82-year prison sentence.
Brown was was also convicted of first-degree murder and other charges, on June 6, even though he recanted his confession. Brown was sentenced to 72 years in prison.
On Thursday, Turner's mother, Linda Summitt, returned to her teaching job in Bloomington. She had visited her son in jail on Mother's Day, on his birthday, and on countless days through the year.
She believes her son is innocent.
``I will never quit fighting for my son,'' she said. ``Never, never, never.''
The parents of Jennifer Evans blame both men equally for what happened to their only child. Jennifer Evans is buried in Fitzgerald, Ga., in the small town where her parents grew up.
At the Oxford College of Emory University, a small tulip poplar tree is growing under the massive canopy of century-old oaks. A bronze marker at the base of the thin trunk reads: ``This tree is dedicated to the memory of Jennifer Lea Evans, 1974-1995, by her friends at Oxford.''
``It has deep roots and it grows strong,'' said Jennifer's mother, Delores Evans.
At Emory University, a scholarship started in Jennifer's name by Virginia Beach police officers Mike Carey and Lou Thurston has grown to more than $16,000. ILLUSTRATION: Drawings by Betty Wells
Photos
The Police
The Killers
The Victim
Parents and friends
Body found
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MURDER CONVICTION SERIES JENNIFER EVANS by CNB