Navy SEAL Dusty Turner spent 31 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. The man who actually committed it confessed in 2008. Dusty stayed locked up another 17 years anyway. He was finally released on March 5, 2026 — and 24 hours after sitting down for this interview, his parole officer had him arrested again on a vague "significant relationship" clause that a federal appeals court already ruled unconstitutionally vague. David Rutherford opens this episode with what happened after the cameras stopped, then hands off to a conversation Dusty has not been able to have until now: a fellow Navy SEAL asking him about the night his life ended, the swim buddy who killed Jennifer Evans, the JAG officer who told him to talk, and the 31 years that followed. Dusty Turner is a former Navy SEAL (Class 196, Team 4) who became the first person in Virginia history to be granted a Writ of Actual Innocence on non-biological evidence — a ruling the Attorney General appealed and overturned. He has been incarcerated since November 1995.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You spent thirty years incarcerated knowing you were innocent. What
keeps you going every day knowing you're there and you're innocent.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Let me tell you something. I went through hell. It's
hell week every day. The only reason I went to
prison is because he told a different story, and so
now he confesses I was going to be out. That
was two thousand and eight. I was already giving my
stuff away in prison to other prisoners because I knew
I was about to go home within a matter of days.
They created a brand new theory that a jury could
(00:32):
believe that there was still guilt on my part even
with the credible, truthful confession of the actual murderer. It's insane.
The whole thing is absolutely insane, and the more you
look at it, the more you'll be amazed at it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Welcome to the David Rotherford Show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm your host, David Rutt Rutherford, and today's show really is.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
An emotional show for me because.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The man that I interview that you'll hear later, who
spent thirty one years incarcerated under wrongful pretense, was unjustly
convicted on the murder that was ultimately confessed by the
person who murdered this young girl, Jennifer Evans, back in
nineteen ninety five, two young fresh graduates of sealed training.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Dusty Turner as the interview. Billy Brown was.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
The man who ultimately committed he murdered this whole man's
life was destroyed and he was recently released on March third.
We interviewed him on April twentieth to get his story
for all of you, and then all hell break loose,
and this is what happened. Immediately on the April twenty first,
(01:54):
he was arrested for parole violations. The issue centered around
disclosure requirements for a in quotation significant relationship. Basically, when
he got advanced parole, he had to disclose did he
have any significant relationships That's possibly an intimate. We don't
(02:15):
know because significant isn't clearly defined in any of the
case study or case law or anything. And I'll get
to where a church of the Second Circuit actually had
invalidated this in another case because it was so arbitrary,
invited arbitrary enforcement, raising due process concerns. That was from
(02:38):
the Second Circuit in another case. So the parole officer
essentially arrests him for violating the disclosure, although on the
fifth of March in his parole meeting, he disclosed the
names of two women, one that he said was a
significant relationship and one that was a in quotation significant
(03:01):
relation that was not intimate. Gave the names, the numbers,
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Fast forward on the day of his arrassment and then
his arraignment, which took place on a week ago Monday,
on the twenty seventh, the PO was questioned and basically
said it wasn't in quotes, it is not my responsibility
to call her end quote. According to Dusty's attorney, the
(03:30):
parole officer consciously chose not to make contact with these
two people. Right, because when you have to understand the
disclosure according to the courts, right and stature in state
law is basically to make sure that because Dusty was
paroled for the original because that original hearing of murder
(03:53):
conviction has not been I don't know what you call it,
a disbanded or a judae cadd or gotten rid of
next to Dusty's name, he still has that conviction in there,
even though Billy Brown has come out and said he
had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I murdered her. He wasn't involved, right, it's still there.
So by.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Legal responsibility, Dusty has to tell the parole officer in
the courts, hey, I'm involved with these women by name,
so that they're aware of I guess the court's mind
wants to make them aware that he was involved in
a murder case of a young woman, right to protect them,
potentially for innocent So again, his attorney, who I've talked to,
(04:45):
basically said that the prole officer consciously chose not to
make contact, which would have gone a long way in
answering questions or concerns to an intentionally vague term that
was included and obviously designed for actual predators, right, not
for two consenting adults. Subsequently, there was one further encounter
(05:08):
with another individual who has known Dusty for years and
was aware of his history. This encountered by any reasonable measure,
does not amount to end quotes a significant relationship. His
parole agreements, and this is coming from his attorney in
a text I just got. His parole agreements specified that
he had to abide by the instructions of his probation
(05:30):
and parole officer and be truthful, cooperative and report as instruction.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The condition No.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Number sixteen of the Separate Sex Offendi Special instructed states quote,
you will inform persons with whom you have a significant
relationship of your sexual offending behavior, as directed by your
supervising P and P officer and or treatment provider. So
(06:00):
Dusty did all of these things and informed of these
people of a significant relationship, and this other person they
basically caught him or whatever on this vague statement of
quote insignificant relationship. So saying all that to say that,
imagine spending thirty one years incarcerated for a crime you
(06:22):
didn't commit. That crime was proven in two thousand and
eight in a coarterlog by the original testimony the guy
who committed the murder Billy Brown to a judge which
then was not adjudicated and released of that sentence and
released immediately because even if he had been convicted of
(06:44):
the other misdemeanor with accessory after the fact was a
one year MAX sentencing. This guy did thirty one years,
was released, and right before he is about ready to
leave the state to go home to the state of Indiana,
he was brought in by a parole officer for what
seemed to just be some Q and A and immediately
(07:05):
rested on the scene, and now he's back in jail
for a parole violation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
This fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
This is why our judicial system is corrupt, why it's broken,
and why good people get the shitty end of the
stick on a regular basis. And it doesn't just happen
with Dusty Turner.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
And it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yes, it does matter to me that this young man
was railroaded from the beginning, that by an entire group
of peers that should have been supportive of him, should
have gotten behind him, should have helped them through this,
that they didn't. They wanted to get rid of the problem,
as they typically do in the military, and basically abandoned
(07:47):
him in the time, this twenty year old kid needed help,
and for thirty one years he languished in prison for
something he didn't do. Now, this isn't the first time
I've covered a story like this. When I was on
the team Never Quit, we had a guy, a black
gentleman named Kwame Angenou, who was incarcerated right because of
the coerce testimony from a twelve year old boy. And
(08:09):
it was later found out that the young boy, the
police officers said, if you don't testify. It was these
three kids, we're gonna put your mother in jail for
the rest of her life, and so he testified. Kwame
spent twelve his first twelve years out of twenty seven
on death row twenty Remember imagine being seventeen years old
and going on death row for something you didn't commit,
(08:31):
and nobody's there to help you. His brother and his
brother's best friend, they were on death row for years
longer than that, ultimately eventually getting out at thirty three
and thirty five years of being wrongfully incarcerated.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
This happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It happens in criminal court, it happens in civil courts.
It happens and divorce proceedings. It happens constantly. That's the
reason I'm doing it, and the reason that I believe
Dusty deserves an opportunity to tell you from his own
mouth what happened, how it makes him feel. What was
(09:04):
it like being incarcerated for thirty one years for something
you didn't do, and how you feel now on the
precipice of your real freedom, starting your new life from scratch,
and right before he gets thrown back in jail. And
what I'm hoping that after you listen to him, talk
to me in this interview that you have something in
(09:24):
your heart that is stirred, you have something in your
mind that makes you realize the wrongful nature or of
what's taking place to this man, and that you act
upon it. You share this interview with somebody else. You
call up the Parole Board of Virginia, you call up
the governor, you call up your congressman. You start bitching
(09:46):
and moaning, and you start saying, Hey, this is not
justice that's being served. This is a political hack job
because they don't want to come out admit that they
fucked up back in the old days and that they
didn't get the right guy and that they destroyed this
man's life. Should he have served absolutely for accessory after
the fact.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Was it a year? No, I'd probably think five years.
At least.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The dude did thirty one years, even after the fact
that it came out that he didn't commit murder. But again,
it's not my job to hold judgment on the courts
other than when I see wrongful actions of justice. And
that's what this interview is about. So please open your
(10:32):
mind and open your heart and listen to what Dusty
had to tell me about his experience of being a
young frogman and getting arrested and going through this whole
circumstance and then spending his entire adult life in jail.
And now just imagine after you listen to this, what
he feels like, what he's going through being forced back
(10:53):
incarcerated on a fucking ambiguous term like significant relationship out
further ado. Here's my interview with mister Dusty Turner. Dusty,
welcome to the show. I can't thank you enough for
wanting to come on. I think you know the the
(11:15):
the little the depth of your wisdom is profound.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We got to talk last night.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
At length, and I just I'm really excited that you're
willing to come on and just talk about this experience
and depth.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, I appreciate you for having me on here.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
One of the things that you and I discussed a
little bit and a little bit before we just got
on is is the idea of redemption, right, And you know,
I think you know if you if you have even
a modicum of faith the ideas that you can you
can make a mistake. But but in some capacity you know,
(11:59):
and you know and are and being a Christian, like
that's the whole pretense, Like we all sin and then
through Christ's owned sacrifice, we can be forgiven. But the
challenge in your case is is one, I think it's
a lack of education based on the specificity of the circumstances.
(12:19):
But two, it's just this, you know, this overall idea
that this young girl, Jennifer Evans lost her life and
then there was you know, these two you know, Navy
seal guys that were responsible, and so there's this unrealistic
expectation that, you know, your guilt is always linked to
(12:43):
some malevolent, diabolical, you know, destructive a circumstance. And so
let's just start there. How do you process the grief
her family has existed in and then now your process
of being free and managing that that sense of redemption
(13:06):
because I would imagine you spent a lot of time
thinking about this while you were incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So it is a lot, right, it's that's a lot.
I think that I had a difficult time maybe processing
the grief aspect when it comes to Jennifer's death and
me witnessing her murder, trying to process that while at
(13:34):
the same time fighting for my own justice, you know,
as you know, they convicted me of crimes that I
didn't commit, and you know, dealing with that and dealing
with being incarcerated obviously, and then also with my family
suffering on a daily basis through that, through that whole ordeal.
(13:59):
So it was difficult, and it has been maybe somewhat
difficult to really grasp and process Jennifer's death. And you know,
I was I was asked by the parole board who
granted me parole, to kind of limit I guess speaking
(14:20):
about Jennifer in out of respect for her family and
loved ones, in which I have done and continue to do.
And uh. And also I've gone through a lot of
victim impact and victim advocacy courses just to better learn,
(14:42):
you know, what it's like and what that means, you know,
to be victimized and the impact of that upon you know,
the survivors and the family and and that kind of thing.
So I've tried to be cautious also in speaking, because
I don't want to re traumatized her family and friends, right,
(15:05):
But yet I'm in the middle of it, and so
I have to, you know, while weaving through that, I'm
still kind of obligated to speak about the entire situation,
and you know, her tragic murder, so so processing it
(15:27):
it's not been easy, but I'm but uh, you know,
I'm taking those steps and what that looks like. And
you know, it's just a sad situation all the way around, right,
this young lady who is completely innocent, single child, you know, uh,
you know, just a wonderful and beautiful young lady who
(15:49):
had everything going for and should not absolutely should not
have lost her life.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, I I you know, as I you know, as
I was preparing for the interview, and obviously we you know,
we had, you know, two people who have been advocating
for your release when we first launched the show this
past summer, and they were wonderful and you're so blessed
to have such amazing people. And also your mom, and
(16:16):
your mom is just she's probably my favorite man, just
how you know, I guess, you know, the love of
a son is is pretty pretty substantial. And to stick
by your side and the way she did for as long,
it's just really really speaks volumes as to your real character. Right,
that people would stay involved in this fight for you
(16:37):
so long. But one of the things, you know obviously
as you know what what and I and I gotta admit,
like I I didn't really ever think about this to
the extent of what being wrongfully incarcerated was until I
used to do a show with Marcus latrelle and for
(17:01):
a long time back in the day, and we had
a guy on his name was Kwame Angenou and he
was wrongfully prosecuted in Philadelphia. The police officer there was
a murderer, and the police coerced the twelve year old
boy to admit it was the Kwame and his brother
and his brother's best friend who had murdered this person,
(17:22):
you know, because they had told the young boy, if
you don't identify these three, I'm going to put your
mom in jail for the rest of her life. So
this kid gives false testimony, and Kwame, at seventeen years old,
finds himself on death row. And and just to process
that is such and overwhelming. And I remember hearing him
(17:44):
and his experience was was so moving to me that
it flipped my whole perspective on this issue in the
in the justice system, and and and these these you know,
the places that it's really fractured in non Sufficient, Can
you kind of just give the audience a refresher of
(18:07):
where you were at at twenty where years old, where
you were at at the seal teams, and just like,
what's your wife? Your life was like, you know, the
day before versus the day after.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, it's really tragic. So I think like yourself. I
come into the Navy under the delayed entry program Dive Fair,
and so initially I was going to be a diver,
you know, coming into a boot camp, I had already
set my sights on wanting to be a seal. You know.
(18:44):
I did everything I was supposed to do and needed
to do to get myself there. I made it through buds.
I started Class one ninety four, and towards the end
of Hell Week, I was injured and ended up in
I see you at the hospital. And fortunately I was
(19:05):
further farther enough along through Hell Week that I was
put forward into the next class. Actually I rolled back
for two classes, so I I hung there and rolled
back Land until I classed up with one ninety six
and graduated with them. Nineteen guys. I think we had
one foreign national that was with us from Singapore, and
(19:29):
after jump school, I was hoping to get to Team four,
the area of operations, you know, Central and South America.
That's what I was looking to do. And that's where
I got to and and I was put into Eco
Platoon of Team four. And I had gone through the
STT and was at the concluding weeks of STT. We'd done,
(19:54):
you know, we'd gone down to Puerto Rico and did
some you know, some of the advanced time of training
and and back up, and we were finishing up some
stuff for ap Hill and looking forward to my first
deployment down to Panama. And that's where I was the
day before, right, And the day before this happened. Everything
(20:16):
was normal. In fact, that day, everything was pretty damn normal. Right.
We were at a I guess kind of a popular
night club that night. It was called the Bayou. It's
a place I'd been to a couple of times before.
And and of course everything changed that night. You know, again,
(20:40):
it was an absolutely normal night. So I haven't introduced
the the individual yet who completely changed my life, and
not for the good Billy Joe Brown, and I can
talk about him a bit and how he please please Okay,
(21:02):
well let me go back then, so in and towards
the beginning of buzz training. As you know, in your
boat crew, you're you're with guys who are the same height,
and uh, Billy Joe Brown is a guy from Ohio
with a very checkered past which I wasn't aware of
at the time, and how he got into the Navy
and then into into Budge and in the seal teams
(21:25):
to this day, I have no idea because of his past,
but I was paired up with him as a swim
buddy only because we're the same height. And that was
that was right there in the in first phase, and
we ended up we went through Hell Week together as
swim buddies. And this is I mean, it's got to
(21:46):
be pretty much unprecedented because we as you know, you know,
going through first phase and Hell Week, it's likely that
the guys next to you aren't going to be there
right at the end of all that, and certainly by
the time you get out of training. But he was there.
And at the conclusion of Hell Week, I'm rolled back
(22:07):
for two classes. He's rolled back for two classes for
a for moral neck injury. Right, I'm sorry for a
moral neck fracture. I had pulmonaria edema and amongst other things,
in my had the fractured tibius. And so he's also
(22:29):
in rollback land with me. From class one ninety four
into class one ninety six. We end up graduating together.
We go down to jump school together, we get assigned
to the same team, right, team four, and we're put
in the same platoon.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So I'm I'm I'm really stuck with this guy. In
a lot of ways, I helped him get through buds.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was a pretty proficient swimmer, and I was very
I was a competitive swimmer and high school and uh,
you know, I gave up the chance to go to
UH to get a scholarship in college swimming because I
wanted to join the military and I wanted to fight
for this country, and I wanted to be in the
seal teams. That's that's what I wanted to do. And
(23:15):
so anyway, I would often find myself dragging him through
certain water evolutions, and you know, in hindsight, obviously, uh
you know, I wish that I would have let him,
you know, die on his own, so to speak, to
fail on his own, But there we were. You know,
(23:39):
I don't know how often that would happen for two
guys to be assigned as as as swim buddies.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, I mean, I got I was in two med roles,
in a performance role, and I've never a ton of friends.
I've never seen any story like yours where two guys
had the same sequence and made it to the same
team and the same platoon.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I've just that is was.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It done on purpose? You know? I mean, how is
that possible?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I your story, I don't even know where
you begin to I'm sure you've spent hundreds, if not
thousands of hours processing every single second of the entire arc.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Right, yeah, perhaps, yeah, but regardless, you know that's where
I was. But you know, even so, he had a
check like I said, a checker passed. He had violence
against women in his past before joining the military, not
just the Navy. He actually joined this coast Guard first.
(24:47):
And so he gets in the coast Guard and apparently
he assaults an officer or something. They kick him out
of the Coastguard, and he gets in the Navy. Right.
Not only does he get in the Navy, but you know,
it gets onto buds. I witnessed him, not just myself,
but other guys that I was training with, witnessed him
(25:09):
become aggressive towards women at least twice during the time
we were in both in San Diego and then also
later in Virginia Beach, oh and Puerto Rico. He was
he became extremely violent where it took like five of
us to restrain him in Puerto Rico when he was
becoming very aggressive towards two young ladies.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Right, how come how come like the training cell along
the way didn't see this, or how come they didn't
pointed out? Why didn't they say anything? Was he ever
counseled or anything like that that you know of?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Uh, not that I know of, But the guys around us,
they knew, they've seen it, you know. And so also
at the in third phase, towards the end of Buds,
he had gotten into a drunken accident where he hit
a family, a hit and run type deal. The family
(26:08):
had gotten his license plate in description, etc. And of
course it ends up with the police department, and once again,
somehow this just gets kind of swept under the rug. Right,
So it was just you know, step after step after
step of kind of red flags against this guy of
why is he there? But regardless he makes it through Buds, right.
(26:29):
Some believe that he would have. And it's hard for
me to believe this, because he was right there on
the prespice of getting his tried intact on that somehow
he wouldn't have gotten the tried intact on, right. But
if he made it this far, why not. The man
was a psychopath. He was a psychopath who was also
(26:51):
heavily abusing alcohol, not to mention all the steroids that
he was using back in San Diego all the way
up to get coming to Team four.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So, and this was somewhat part of the culture, not
you know, as you've heard about the steroids.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I was there right after I mean I was literally
there a few classes after you. Yeah, of course it
was it was all you know, this is for those listening,
this is pre nine to eleven. And so this was
a much different error where you know, social activities and
partying and being tough guys and you know, being a
(27:30):
freedom fight and root and toot and barrel chested frogmen.
Was was kind of what was drilled into you as
as a BUD student, and guys like Brown who they
took that stuff on board and implemented it and took
it to another level, and you know it's it's the
but you know, I never saw a lot of you know,
(27:50):
the abusiveness towards women.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I mean, that thing that's pretty unique.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It is unique. I listen, I didn't really see it.
I don't know. I didn't know about his past. You know,
he had assaulted at seventeen years old. He was married
to a fourteen year old and it took like three
cops one time to restrain him when he's dragging this
girl across the yard in his home in Ohio. Right,
(28:15):
But then there was an incident. We were at Billy
ray Cyrus concert on the base in Little Creek and
he ends up He and I end up in a
freaking pond up to our noses, hiding from the police
after he became aggressive towards a woman and they didn't
(28:37):
put his hands on her, but it was enough for
her to call the police on him, and they got
the MP's out there looking for us. We're hiding out
in a pond somewhere till nightfall to get his ass
out of there. And this was a recurring thing, Right,
I'm having to save this guy on a recurring basis,
And it's not just me and some of the other
ones too, in my class or in the you know
(28:58):
out there going through STT.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, and I think that's the question, Dusty, for so
many guys out there, I mean not just from the community,
but from all people.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Just listen, Like, what kept you just close to him?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Was it just the nature of being in the same
duty station, the same sequence, or was he a guy
that you thought you could help get through?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
What was what was the thing?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Well, he was already through, right, Yeah, he was already through. Yeah,
he's another he's a team guy. You know, he doesn't
have his tried intact on yet. Yeah, nor do I have.
But he's there, right, So what do you do. I'm
younger than he is. I'm the youngest at the time.
I'm the youngest seal team member, will say in the
(29:46):
whole Navy. I'm twenty years I checked into Team four.
I wasn't. I wasn't even I was nineteen years old.
I checked into Team four nineteen years old, right, And
you know I should have still regardless us, I should have,
you know, had the responsibility to to maybe report some
of these things to some of our senior officers, Right
(30:10):
I didn't. Yeah, I'm not the only one, but I'll
take ownership of that. I should have reported some of
these things, but it's also part of it, like you said,
kind of the culture at the time in the mid nineties.
You know, that's how abnormal was it some of these
things Now now, like you said, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Well, the aggressive yeah, that I that's the one thing
I didn't see. But that's like you know, you see
that that's unique to sociopathology or psychopathology for sure, right
in that dark triad. So all right, you know, I
appreciate you given context for about him.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Let's let's talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
If we could just you know, for a few minutes,
you know, and I hate to try and like encapsulate them,
you know, the magnitude of what that felt like. But
let's let's talk about those nine days, because that's the
thing I I I get contacted most about. How can
you support a god like they're like, rut, you have daughters, man,
(31:14):
how can you support a guy?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It was nine days he let go by?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So you know, I just want to address that this
so people can get from your lips just how profoundly
you know, agonizing that must have been in every way.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
So it's it's it's a bit incomprehensible U to to
understand what that's like to uh, to witness what I witnessed,
and then to keep quiet about it. Right, I was
duty bound to keep quiet about it. And you can say, well,
(31:55):
you really weren't, or you didn't have to. You could
have told someone's right, And I don't disagree. In hindsight,
I think that I was stuck in this position where
I felt like there was a seal code that required
me to keep quiet about what happened, right, and to
(32:19):
not expose it. And why I cannot expose the guy
I've been trained to protect, because this is how I've
been trained. I cannot come out about what happened of
this horrible, horrible incident because it's gonna create such a
stain on the brand, it's gonna reverberate across the whole
(32:41):
freaking country, right, and so all that is on my
shoulders as this young kid who's never had any I've
had no kind of criminal activities mindset, nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I come from a good family, a military oriented fan family.
I'm following my people's footsteps in the military to fight
for this country. And I'm trained to protect a fucking psychopath. Right,
And this is where I'm at at nineteen years old?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right? And so what do I do? And this is
the position I'm in. I don't I literally don't know
what the hell to do, right, you know? And who
do I tell? So in hindsight, I should have I
should have went to the superior officers, right, I should
(33:35):
have told them. I should have told them. I felt
like I was duty bound first and foremost to my
swim buddy, and I couldn't rat him out for what
he had done, right, And what happens after that? What
happens to me, what happens to the brand after that?
You know, what happens to all of it. And so
I'm in a position where literally I don't know what
(33:58):
to do. And then also just the weight of the
weight of a young lady being murdered and taken from
her family. And I witnessed this, and you know, I
helped him cover it up. And this is what I'm
living with at this age. And at this point in
(34:20):
my life. Everything was grand the day before the day
of I mean, everything was great. There was no issues,
you know, everything was great. I was I was on
top of the world as a young Seal team member
about to get my tried intact on. And this is
where I'm at now. The next minute, I'm in this
(34:42):
position not because I wanted to be, you know, I
was forced. I was forced into that position and to
make those decisions on what the fuck to do, and
I wasn't trained to respond. You might have been trained
to respond to that because came after this case, right,
and so you were told, if you're if you're swim buddy,
(35:04):
does something crazy or stupid or whatever, to do this,
this or that. That's not how I was trained. I
was trained to protect my swim buddy right above and
beyond everything. I would lay down my life, you know.
And so uh, I don't you know.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We did get training after, but I'm gonna tell you
it was not the type of training that you know,
you just described where it was, you know, in detail.
I remember the first thing I got. We were in
second phase and we had a senior guy come in
and it's like it was called like ethics training or
morality training or something, and he basically was like, any
(35:44):
of you fucking assholes do the shit that Turner and
Brown did, and we're going to kill you, uh, individually
and it was just like, oh uh, well that okay,
you know, and you're like and and I it just
was and and then that was it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It was like this blip. You know, you don't destroy
the reputation of the teams. Don't do this shit, don't
be idiots will.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Kill you, you know, and you know, and obviously your your
class proctor kind of pulled it back, was like, hey,
you guys, this is you know, I got a little
bit more in depth about the description, but still it
it It wasn't you know. I don't think anybody could
at that time was capable of processing it because you're
(36:29):
still under this, you know, this pressure of making it through,
making it to the next day, getting to the next evolution,
that whole concept right where you just kind of suppress
the magnitude of the incident and it's like, you know,
don't do that or you're gone type thing.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So it was it was weird.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
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When when you finally went to your warrant. This is
kind of where the shift begins in terms of I mean,
(38:34):
malfeasans would be an understatement I would imagine coming from you.
I mean, you start to like, all right, You're you're
overwhelmed with that sense I'm gonna do the right thing.
I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, go, I'm gonna ask
my superior for advice, and then I'm gonna, you know,
do what they say. So can you talk a little
bit about that experience?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, So it's kind of, uh, it's kind of dynamic
experience because, uh, first of all, the the eight days
that I'm going through after what happened, Uh, it was,
it was horrible. You know, I'm I'm I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Can I hop in? Can I hop in? And ask
you one real quick question about the eight days.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I'm so sorry, and I popped in my head before
did did did Brown threaten you at any way shape
or form in like, hey, I'm going to kill you
if you do this or if you dial me you know,
diye me out? Or did you have that sense that
he could be violent with you?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Oh? No, I had more than a sense he could
be violent. I mean we had we had some episodes.
Uh one in Puerto Rico where, uh, my guys brought
me into town after Brown and I fought on the
beach and it was bloody and it was pretty nasty,
and and four guys, you know, it took me into
town for like five hours. By the time I came back,
(39:59):
the guy guys that were still there at the base
were like, dude, just turn around and go back because
he's he's looking for you, and he says he's gonna
kill you. And so you know, these are these are
this is the kind of guy he was. And yeah,
and so there was that issue. I'm not going to
say I was sitting here, you know, Uh that my
that my chief motivation was that I was afraid he
(40:22):
was going to kill me, right, that was I.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Just wanted to give it some cock. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
He was he was an older he was older than me.
Everybody was older than me, but he was older than me.
And uh and and some of bitch was crazy, right,
he was just crazy. So but you know, the eight
days was was terrible and I had an weapon malfunction, uh,
incident with a gosh, you know, I had a seven
(40:50):
sixty two round blow up in my face. And during
that week it was just crazy. I was wearing an
eyepatch for quite a few days and uh so, but
it was it was tough, you know, it was tough
to I couldn't Every day I'm out of the shooting
range or doing whatever, I can't concentrate. I can't even
concentrate just knowing what had happened. Uh and and to
(41:13):
this young lady. And to be honest, at the time,
I wasn't even thinking about all the people that that
that that's that that is you know, how that reverberates
amongst you know, would would be her family and friends
and community members and so forth. And it was just
it was a lot, right. So, uh So it gets
(41:34):
the point where the detectives they have a bead on
that that I was there that night and Billy Brown
was there that night, and that somehow that we could
be you know, connected to her death or her I'm sorry,
her missing, the fact that she was missing. Uh they
didn't know where she was at at the time, so
they asked if we would be willing to take a
(41:56):
polygraph test. I almost didn't hesitate whatsoever. To say. Yes.
I was in a position where I wanted so bad
to relieve myself of the burden of knowing what happened,
but not knowing how to do that at that point.
So in my mind, and you may, I don't know
(42:18):
if this sounds crazy or not, but in my mind,
I was thinking, I can take the polygraph test. I
can still lie on Billy Brown's behalf to protect him.
If it shows that I'm lying, that's not my fault, right,
and that I can't be blamed for breaking the code,
so to speak, if the polygraph shows that I lied,
(42:39):
because I still was trying to lie to protect him, right,
And that's exactly what happened. Now. Billy Brown, when they
started to hook him up the polygraph, he had no
wins to take the polygraph. He's not going to take it,
and he didn't. So I took the polygraph test, and
afterwards the detectives came to me and said, look, it's
obvious that you lied about this question, this and this,
(42:59):
and and it was right. They were right, you know,
that's what I lied about. And so they knew from
that polygraph the basics to what happened that night, and
they knew that Billy Brown killed this young lady, right,
And so then they started badgering me a bit, and
I still wouldn't say anything further, but to be honest,
(43:19):
when they started talking about Jennifer's family and their parents
and so forth, that absolutely got to me, and I
was in a in a bad way. I was very emotional,
and I asked to see my warrant officer, who was
sitting out in the lobby, and they agreed. They let
him come in and it was just he and I
(43:40):
and I said very specifically, I said, sir, the detectives
were asking me questions about things that I do know about.
I haven't told them what happened, but I don't know
what to do. And he said, tell me what happened.
So I explained to him exactly what happened that night.
I said, stay right here. I'm going to go in
(44:03):
and try to call the JAG officer and I'll be back.
So he comes back in about fifteen minutes later, he says, look,
I couldn't The JAG officer said he could not help
us out in this because now it's an off base matter. However,
the detectives are going to come in here and They're
going to ask you five questions, and I want you
(44:24):
to answer those five questions truthfully. And I said, are
you sure that's what I'm to do? And he said yes.
I took it as a direct order from my superit officer.
The detectives came in, they asked me five questions. See
what I didn't know is whatever transpired outside that door.
So it sounds kind of crazy even still today, that
JAG officer couldn't help out in this matter. And this
(44:46):
is my this is my legal advice I'm receiving. It's
from my command, my spirit officer, and I'm taking it
as a direct order. And I'm now relieved of that burden.
I've told him exactly what happened, and he's given me
the order to answer the detectives questions, the five questions
that they're asking, and and I followed his order.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
You know, yeah, obviously, you know you you told everybody
what's happened. You led the authorities back to the body. Uh,
they were able to end the search and and and begin.
But that's when things began to really go awry for you.
(45:33):
I would imagine how quickly did they put you in
custody and how soon did you know, wait a minute,
this this is going to be This is a lot
worse than what I imagine was going to happen by my.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
So admitting yeah, so what had happened is they I
even answering the detectives question. I even agreed to try
to draw out a map of where I believe that
Jennifer's body was at. Ultimately it wasn't very accurate, even
(46:11):
though I was kind of fashioned myself as a part
time cartographer for the teams. Right, but so, but they
took that map and they went in the other room
and they said, look at here, Billy Brown, we know
the whole story. Your buddy just rolled on you. He
told us everything, and you're going down. You're probably going
to get the death penalty. And and that stung him.
(46:34):
And as he says today, he felt like, what, I
broke the seal code, and therefore I broke the code.
Therefore I deserved to go down with him. Right. So
he then tells the detectives a story that puts me
(46:54):
into the crime with him, right, that I was party
to his crime that he did. And uh and and
later as he's you know, become a Christian and confessed
to exactly what had happened. Uh, he says today, he
says that he knew he knew that the detectives would
rather have two than one, right, and so he whipped
(47:16):
up a story on the spot, and uh, he included
me into his crime. It's uh, it's it's it's you know,
it's it's unfortunate. Number one. If he would have just
told the truth from beginning, they would not have arrested me, period.
They would not have arrested me. At most my role,
which was an accessory after the fact of his crime. Right,
(47:42):
and in nineteen ninety five, that role was punishable by
up to twelve months in prison. I'm sorry, twelve months
in jail, not prison. Twelve months in jail up to
is a misdemeanor crime. But instead he flips this story, right.
And even when they even when they they're like, look,
this is you got to get some kind of evidence
that what you're saying is true, he couldn't give them anything.
(48:04):
So he tells them that that I have explosives back
home in Indiana, right, because what else can he can
he tell them, right, as if this is some kind
of I don't know whatever evidence for this this case
which is ridiculous. So so in the meantime, I'm attending myself,
(48:27):
one of the detectives, and the warrant officer. We are
driving off to go physically look for Jennifer's body, and
we get to the spot approximately we separate. The three
of us separate in the woods and we come through
the woods and it was the detectives that actually come
upon our body. From that point, they called in the
(48:49):
forensics to come in to do their business, and my
warrant officer and I went back to the base. Right.
This was up at four d a p Hill. When there,
some of the officers told me, look, we think that
it's best that you get a lawyer. And I'm like,
do you really feel like I need a lawyer? This
is how naive I am at the time. I'm like,
(49:11):
you think I really need a lawyer? And they're like yeah.
And so they actually found a lawyer that had had
worked with the teams a bit and hooked me up
with them, and so he wanted me to be in
his office back in Virginia Beach the next day at noon. Meanwhile,
my commanding officer to eat from Team four wanted me
(49:32):
to be back at the at the at the compound
to have a discussion the next morning, and so we
rode back the next morning. Now in meantime, Billy Brown's
already been arrested, right, He's arrested. He's told his stories,
and and so I'm I'm I'm back at Team four
compound and I'm sitting in a conference room waiting for
(49:54):
Commander two to come in to have a discussion, to
debrief FM on exactly what happened. Right, he comes in
and he's shaking his head, and you know, he says that.
He says, Turner, the n I asked her here to
UH place you under arrest. And UH, so I didn't
make it to the lawyer's office. Uh the n I asked,
(50:15):
guys come in. They had me change out of my
fatigues into civilian clothes. They handcuffed me there on the
team for a compound and walked me out and they
drove me to the UH to the edge of the
base and handed me over to the Virginia Beach Police Department.
I went from there to UH to the the police department.
(50:39):
And from that point my family was notified. You know,
I had I had talked to my mother the night
before after all this had gone down, and and uh,
I didn't want to tell her too much, but I was,
you know, in a in a very emotional way, and
I explained to her that I had witnessed a very
horrible crime and and that I thought that it might be,
you know, that I might have to testify against somebody.
(51:03):
But even in the moment, I was still thinking that,
you know, I answered the questions of detectives. I was
still felt duty bound to Billy Brown to an extent,
and so I felt like that I would. And I
had known justice involvement before all this, so I was
totally ignorant on everything done with criminal justice system. But
I assume that maybe I would end up, you know,
(51:25):
testifying at a trial about what Billy Brown had done.
And I still in my mind was thinking, well, I
could still you know, kind of explain that what he
did was an accident, that he didn't really mean to
do it, or you know, something to that extent, right,
But in reality, he was he was completely drunk out
of his mind, and he just snapped, right, wow.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Did you ever get out of jail from the moment
you were taken by Virginia Beach?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Please?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
No, I when I that day I was arrested, and
until March fifth, last month, I've been incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
All right, let me just try and process this. So
you you're on top of the world.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
You go out, you're.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Back off on the weekends from ap hill grinding. You
meet a beautiful girl. You guys hit it off. You're
gonna go get something to eat or hang out a
little more. He gets in the car, he snaps, kills her,
forces you to bury, you know, to get rid of
the body you're burden with this. You confess you you
(52:44):
think you're doing the right thing. You're next thing, you know,
you're in jail. And then the Virginia Beach DA gets
a hold of this case. And how quickly because and
there's there's a lot of a lot of stories that
have been done. There's a documentary about the experience, which
(53:06):
is phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I recommend people watch it.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
What time in the process of the arraignments, the the
pre trial discovery, did you begin.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
To realize, Wow, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
A very difficult situation and it doesn't look like there's
an advocate on my behalf, or that the evidence has
been you know, obviously they didn't allow the evidence of
the size of your car that fit Brown's story about
you being involved in killing her, and you know, you
guys are six to foot three. That was the thing
(53:45):
for me. You know, there's this insane piece of evidence
that isn't admitted.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
What moment were you.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Like this, this is not going in any direction that's
going to benefit me.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
So I was. I was very naive, right and throughout
this entire ordeal, especially early on, I did assume that
just the truth of the matter, would you know, would
come out and anything that I was culpable for that
(54:19):
that I would be you know, say, found guilty of
or to pay for. Right So, even up until the
last moment of the trial, I assumed that the jury
would come back and say, you know, the man's not
guilty of a murder and abduction. I did not committed
a murder and reduction. Right. So, so even though there
(54:43):
was some concerning things during the trial, like they would
do things dealing with the like, since there was no
physical evidence against me, they had to build a circumstantial
case against me, right And what did that look like?
How do you build a circumstantial case to to make
a young kid like me look like I would be
(55:03):
the type of person that would do something like that, right,
And so they twisted a lot of just normal things.
They twisted them to make them look bad. You know,
even even even a evaluation I did from Puerto Rico
when we were there doing the jive training, and one
(55:24):
of our instructors was like, hey, look y'all, do this evaluation.
Uh put some you know, some real stuff in there.
But it's so and so was going to read it.
So make it you know, you can add a little
comedy to it or whatever. And I put something in
there about, you know, if if things don't start adjusting,
that this hairy chested frog man is going to find
a new job, or you know, something stupid like that.
(55:46):
I don't even have hair on my chest today. Right,
it was a joke. It was a joke, but they
use stuff like that, and they twisted to make it
seem like it's diabolic or you know, it's it's malevolent.
And that's what the prosecutors do, right, just to try
to They're trying their hardest to try to get a conviction.
Not because it's the right thing to do. It's not
because it's just it's because that's that's their goal. Right,
(56:11):
they're just trying to get a conviction. And the prosecutor
that the prosecuted me, I'm not the only wrongful conviction
that he's gotten. He's gotten others too, And he went
he told the media that when asked about that, and
he said, well, he said, I don't lose any sleep
about it because ultimately I'm not the one who convicts him,
you know, I'm just the one presenting the case. So
(56:34):
this son of a bitch, this son of a bitch,
and I mean think about that. Somebody doesn't He doesn't
lose no sleep about wrongfully convicting people, right, because he
feels like he just passes it on the responsibility. Well,
it was the jury that actually did it. I just
presented the case. Doesn't bother me at all.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
You know, it's staggering.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
I can't even I mean I can because I you know,
my old man was an attorney for fifty five years
and the amount of cases his firm, you know, loss
because of just the courts and the manipulation.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Of evidence or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
You know, somebody has a better argument or a better
you know there, whatever it is, and your your your
whole life changes, right for the worst because you know,
you're at the mercy of an attorney who is gonna
be your advocate. And if the advocate, you know, has
any is it disenfranchised with the case, or isn't all
(57:37):
in or whatever? It is like he has a bad day, right,
he misses an objection or whatever. It's like the next thing,
you know, you're spending thirty years in jail wrongfully accused.
Can we jump? Obviously you you were convicted. You were
convicted for longer than than Brown was, right, I think
(57:57):
you got he got seventy years, You got eighty five years.
That that's astonishing to me. And then but talk about
the moment where he finally decided to come clean. Did
that create a false hope in you did or where
you like, what was that whole experience going back through
(58:18):
it again like that?
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, So I didn't know about his confession for two
years after he confessed, Right, he had become Yeah, he
had become a Christian. And I feel like in eindsight
that it's he had to in order to, you know,
to be able to lieve himself with the burden of
of not only murdering an innocent young lady for no
(58:40):
just I mean just just out of just you know, psychopathy,
you know. But and then and then he and then
he blames the crime on on me, on his on
his swim buddy, and then watches me go down with him,
and watches and sees is to the extent possible my
(59:02):
family suffering through all that. Right, And this guy says, now,
he says he literally thought that I would be in
jail for two weeks before the authorities realized what had
actually happened. That's what he thought. My gosh, that's what
he thought. That's what he thought. And uh so I'm sorry,
(59:27):
I don't even remember the question you'd asked me about the.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
Question the question is like, all right, he goes on
trial again, he admits openly confession.
Speaker 3 (59:38):
You must have been like, all right, that's it, let
me out, right, let's go.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Uh yeah, So so I find out two years later, right,
Uh his attorney told him when he when he confessed
to his family and to his attorney, his attorney told
him to shut the fuck up, right because he felt
like his attorney convinced him that he still has a
chance of something with his appear right, So he did
(01:00:02):
he just shut up, and he just he asked his
attorney initially to take the information to a judge, right
and expecting that, you know what, whatever. But but then
he just stayed silent after that. And the only reason
I found out two years later is I got transferred
to another prison and a guy approached me who was
one of Billy Brown's Christian brothers. And he approaches me
(01:00:27):
and says, oh, he said, man, And he said, I
know who you are. You know, God's got great things
in store for you. This was two thousand and two, right,
Oh my god, this was two thousand and two. And
and so he's like, you know, Billy Brown's a change man.
He's a changed man. He's he's found God. He's confessed
(01:00:47):
to his family, he's confessed to his attorney. You know,
he's open about what he did, and he's, you know whatever.
And so I just took that information. I called my
mother and and told her about it, and she ended up,
you know, finding an attorney where he was close by
where he was at in prison, and sent an attorney
up there to get his get his his confession on
(01:01:11):
on audio. And then later he signed an AFFI David
of you know what he had done. And of course
I assumed that would help. You know, my case did
not require his freaking confession to know what happened. It doesn't,
it doesn't never required his confession, right, But with this confession,
(01:01:31):
the confession of the man who murdered this young girl,
this young woman, uh, you know who who the only
reason I went to prison is because he told a
different story. And that's it. That's the only reason I
went to prison. He told a different story, right, and
so now he confesses and uh, and so you know,
I tried to first appeal. There was no legal avenues
(01:01:54):
for me to get back into court, right at the time,
there was zero legal avenue used to get back into court.
So I filed a petition for a pardon through the governor.
And I really expected, you know, I hoped, and I
expected that he was going to give me a pardon
because the truth of exactly what had happened is now out.
(01:02:17):
It's as plain as can be. And so also in
the midst of that, they did pass a new law
in Virginia. And you know, we could go down a
rabbit hole with all this, but they passed new law
in Virginia which allowed for me to file a writ
of actual innocence I later became the first person ever
(01:02:38):
in the history of Virginia to be granted the writ
of actual innocence from the Court of Appeals, right, which
is non biological evidence because the DNA. Unfortunately there's no
DNA in my case. Right, DNA could have cleared me
years ago. There is no DNA. So they had been
clearing DNA wrongful convictions in the state of Virginia now
(01:03:00):
at that point for a decade. Right, They've been going
back through and seeing how many people were wrongfully convicted
because they had DNA evidence, right, and there was quite
a few of them, and I knew quite a few
of them while I was incarcerated. But my case had
no DNA evidence.
Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
So this is the first.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Opportunity to go to the Court of Appeals on a
writ of actual innocence. We went back to this to
the court, the Circuit court, the same court where I
was convicted, because they needed to know if Billy Brown's
confession was true, right, if it's credible, And so we did.
We went through a couple days of testimony. He testified
for like four hours, as did I and others, and
(01:03:38):
the judge went thoroughly through the record for a month,
and he came back and he said, Dusty Turner had
no role in the crime. He had no role in
the murder or in the restraining of the victim. Right.
That led to the Court of Appeals to grant me
the writ of actual innocence, the first person in the
(01:04:00):
state of Virginia to be granted the rid of actual
innocence for an abduction and a murder charge which I
did not commit. And they agreed. However, the Attorney General,
for whatever reason, he appealed it. Right, I was going
to be out. That was two thousand and eight. I
was already given my stuff away in prison to other
(01:04:21):
prisoners because I knew I was about to go home
within a matter of days two thousand and eight. Instead,
the Attorney General appealed it, which was his right to do.
They created a new theory under the law at the
time they could do it right. They created a brand
new theory that a jury could believe that there was
(01:04:44):
still guilt on my part even with the credible, truthful
confession of the actual murderer. Right. It's insane. The whole
thing is absolutely insane. And the more you look at it,
the more you be amazed at it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I just I every time I look at it and
I listen and I hear, and now hearing it from you,
it's just it's overwhelming to think, because what you say,
two thousand and two, two years to find out two
thousand and eight rid of innocence, two thousand what you next?
(01:05:27):
You were in twenty twenty, you know, And it's like,
what what?
Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Why?
Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Let me ask you, why do you think the State
of Virginia did not want to let you out of prison?
Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Great question? So I watched and witnessed a handful of
wrongfully convicted men in the state of Virginia go through
pains and years and years and decades trying to get exonerated.
And I watched many of them get exonerated, right up
(01:06:02):
to just in the last couple of years, I'm seeing
em exonerate. These are guys I knew in prison, right,
And I'm not going to say it's a it's an
overwhelming I'm not going to say it's a huge number.
But how many wrongfully convicted people is is is a
small amount of number, right. I Mean there's guys that
I knew that spent forty freaking years in prison for
(01:06:24):
crimes that didn't comment, forty freaking years in prison. And
I know a list of guys in this state, and
it's not hard to find that list of guys going
back to the eighties, because before then, I think it
was probably impossible to get exonerated. But a list of
guys going back to the eighties who were exonerated just
in the state of Virginia, not including But my point
(01:06:45):
is that in each one of those cases, the Commonwealth
fought tooth and nail. They fought so freaking hard to
preserve that conviction, even when their innocence was obvious. And
look at any you can look at any case out
there in which it's a wrongful conviction and see how
(01:07:06):
hard that state, and especially the state of Virginia fought
to keep them people in prison. It's sick. It's sick.
Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
It is sick.
Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
It's almost like it's almost like this this and I
think we see this across society, but in particular in
government organizations, the entrenched, insidious reluctance to admit you made
a mistake, absolute you were wrong, right, like, you know,
we don't make mistakes. We're we're the government, you know.
(01:07:38):
And when we see that just perpetually, almost in all
the corruption and all the other stuff, just nobody wants
to admit they made a mistake. And it's like, what
the hell is this about? And it's you know, and
in your case and these other people's cases, it's it's
at the expense of people's lives, right, I mean, you
(01:07:59):
spend thirty years incarcerated knowing you were innocent, and I think,
you know, for me, one of the most remarkable aspects
of it. Maybe you could just touch a little bit
before we wrap it up here. Yeah, maybe you could
just touch about what do you do in those moments?
And I know this is a monstrous question, and I
(01:08:21):
would love to have you back on to only talk
about the motivational constructor or foundation you built through your
belief systems that we're able. And I've heard people talk.
You talked about me, doctor Phil talked about me and
Search for Meaning. That's certain a book that's at a
huge in pot me. But I'm sure there's a whole myriad.
(01:08:43):
But if you could just briefly just what keeps you
going every day knowing you're there and you're innocent.
Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, there's a handful of things certainly that kept me going, Right,
I'll tell you it's you would have You would have
done the same, right.
Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
I don't know, man, you would have. It's very difficult, man. Yeah,
I wish. I hope I have what you have inside
you in some capacity that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yeah, don't know. Yeah, but I do know. I do
know because it's the same grit and determination that got
you and I through the toughest training perhaps in the world.
It is the same grit and determination that got me
through thirty years and seven months of a wrongful conviction imprisonment.
(01:09:41):
I went through. Hell. Let me tell you something. I
went through hell. You know, the what I went through
on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. It's it's it's
hell week every day. You know what I mean. It's yeah,
it's it was a lot, right, it's a lot. But
(01:10:02):
you know, it's a lot for write anyone in that
incarcerated and what it is for a person who doesn't
belong there is even more. Right. But I drew strength
from a lot of things. I drew strength from knowing,
you know, who I was as a as a person,
(01:10:26):
who I was, as a man who had it in
me to get through that same training, right and to
get the point where I was at I had a
tremendous support system. Unfortunately, that support system was non existent
from the community. Non existent, right, I say non existent.
(01:10:52):
There were a small couple handful, I mean literally a
couple guys. One of them happened to be the man
who investigated my case for the Seal Teams, right. He,
of all people, he who investigated my case for the
Seal Teams was one of my strongest supporters, right and
(01:11:15):
coming out of the community, right because he knew he
went in and looked meticulously at exactly what had happened,
and so he knew. He knew you know all the details,
right and so. But it's people like him, But it's
also you know, my family, those who have known me
(01:11:37):
all my life that knew that there's no way I
could have committed to crimes that they convicted me of.
They've known that. People who knew me always knew that.
Even people in the teams knew that. People that I
trained with knew that. People who knew me and knew
Billy Brown, they didn't even question it. But if I'm
not mistaken, they were told very specifically, have no communications.
(01:12:00):
They said specifically to you, Billy Brown and Dustin Turner
are dead. Do not attempt to have any conversations with
their family or them, right, They're dead to you, right
And they And this brings up the point that they always,
and I say they, whoever they is, have linked myself
(01:12:23):
and Billy Brown as almost the same freaking people together,
right as if we were the same people and did
the same things. From day one, it was always Turner
and Brown, Turner and Brown, Turner and Brown. Am I right?
Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
That's what we were fed?
Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Yeah, I just I just I just realized that it
would be it would be.
Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
I don't know, it would be unjust to try and
encapsulate what you learned in that self because in in
the remainder of time we have. So I'm just not
going to do it. So I'm going to beg you
to come back on to specifically talk about the regiment,
the mental, the emotional, your spiritual regiment that got you through.
(01:13:16):
If that's okay, because I just it'd be it'd be
a travesty if if if I didn't explore that more
with my audience as a person that has just really
spent you know, the last you know, X amount of
years in my life trying to understand the power of
pain and what it can do to shape us into
the people we want to become. I think how you
(01:13:37):
embody that is so unique but also just piercing in
terms of it's it's it's how profound it is. So
if you can, just if you don't mind, I'd love
to have you back, So maybe we can end on
on this.
Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
What do you have in your heart right now? Moving forward?
Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Word?
Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
And I obviously it's it's too soon to even begin
to remotely say what are you going to do with
the rest of your life?
Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Nah? You know you know, I don't. I don't want
to do that either.
Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
We'll get in that boat, like what do you have
in your heart right now that you want people to
begin to understand?
Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Well, the first thing I thought of is is I
feel like I've been almost angry during this entire interview,
right and uh, And I really appreciate you having me
on here because you were the first team guy who
who Who's Who's had me on it with an interview
and allow me to talk about and talk to And
(01:14:41):
I know there are a lot of community guys that
that that follow you and and that may be interested
in in in the story and what it actually happened,
and maybe they didn't know the whole truth of what happened,
you know, and maybe maybe this will will help them
understand and and maybe even change their mind or maybe
put themselves in my shoes. A lot of people, I know, uh,
(01:15:04):
I can't understand maybe why I made the decisions I made.
But of all people, the team guys, especially from back
in you know, the nineties, before there were cell phones,
before nine to eleven, you know, if they knew what
what if they knew what happened to me and the
(01:15:24):
position I was in and the decisions I had to
make and why I made those decisions, I don't think
that they would. They would understand, you know, they would
understand that. But with that said to I feel like
I've been a bit almost angry at this in this interview.
Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Yeah, and that's I'm so sorry. It's not what I
it's not what I wanted to as.
Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Yeah, I know I know that, but I just, man,
I there's so much power in your words, and that's
why I want to I want to create another space
where we can really just focus on the power of
what you were able to build in your heart and
your mind.
Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
So you know again, this is not entirely.
Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
I just wanted I wanted to just approach all of
the ship that that is just out there and just
from your lips to their ears, to give a voice,
to address that specifically first and then you know, and
then I think, you know, we can maybe in a
(01:16:32):
couple of weeks, have you come back and do the other.
Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
That sounds great? And uh, and I'm not I'm not
sitting around angry though, right, I'm Uh, I'm enjoying. Listen, Listen,
I'm enjoying every freaking moment more than you can imagine,
more you can understand and anybody can understand. Every little thing,
Every little thing is a joy to me. Every little
thing is a joy to me. Right, every experience is
(01:16:56):
a joy. And uh, you know, I'm not looking backwards, right,
I'm not. I'm truly I'm living in the moment and
I'm looking forward. And uh, I'm not going to let
this what is what has happened to me? You know,
I'm not going to sit around be the victim. I'm
gonna I'm going to grasp life by the balls and
I'm going to take off running. And uh, I'm you
(01:17:17):
know what I mean I'm not going to stop. I'm
I'm moving forward and uh and I'm loving it. I'm
loving every day and every moment and every moment under
the sun. It's just it's glorious, you know what I mean.
And that's what I'm doing. That's that's my attitude I'm
taking on. Just like you mentioned, Uh, Victor Frankel. You know,
I can take any damn attitude I want to take,
and I'm free to do that. And I've always been
free to do that, and uh, and this is the
(01:17:38):
attitude I'm taking forward. I'm not angry. I'm moving forward,
you know what I mean. I hate that son of
a bitch that that is responsible for putting me in
here and I and I have a lot of anger
towards a lot of others, but that's not how I'm living.
I'm living. I'm living joyfully.
Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Amen, Dusty Turner. Where can people follow you and watch
this journey, this new journey of life life and how
can they support you?
Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Well, some of my my advocates who have been great
and have supported me along the ways. I wouldn't be
out here if it wasn't for them, I truly wouldn't.
I swear to you. If it wasn't for them fighting
for me every goddamn day, I wouldn't be here. I
swear to you. They fought, you know. And uh so
they've got a they got I'm not even allowed to
have social media, right. I'm under these restrictions still today,
(01:18:24):
and I'm still fighting, right, I'm still fighting for my
ultimate freedom. But they've got social media at Free Dusty
Turner website. You know, they're updating it now, the Free
Dusty website dot org. I think free Dusty dot org.
And there's you know, there's I don't know how much
the petition site changed. Dot org is even meaningful anymore,
(01:18:48):
and it might be. Hey, I got to tell you this.
Guess who I met this morning, randomly, randomly, Governor Virginia,
Governor Ralph Northam. I just I'm eating breakfast and I
look over and I'm like, he looks familiar. His wife
looks familiar. Oh my gosh, So what do you think
I did? I'm like, hey, hey, Governor, Hey who I am?
(01:19:14):
That's exactly what I did? I said, yeah, And because
he was supposed to grant me clemency back in twenty twenty.
In twenty twenty, he was supposed to grant me Clemenson
and anyway, so I didn't hold it against him. I said, hey,
doctor Northam, how you doing, And I and introduced myself.
We had a long guess what he did. He gave
me his personal phone number and he said, look, man,
(01:19:36):
if you you know anything you need, call me. You
know what I mean, I'm here for real, just give
me a call. And so that's cool, you know what
I mean. That's pretty cool, right.
Speaker 3 (01:19:47):
Yeah, it's really cool. That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
All right, Dusty, thank you so much for your time,
and I just I pray for you and your family's peace.
And it's just that you, like you said, keep living
in a moment and keep experiencing everything. And I'm really
really looking forward to having you back on to talk
about what that mindset and that emotional state was like
to get through that thirty years.
Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Absolutely right. I appreciate you
You spent thirty years incarcerated knowing you were innocent. What
keeps you going every day knowing you're there and you're innocent.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Let me tell you something. I went through hell. It's
hell week every day. The only reason I went to
prison is because he told a different story, and so
now he confesses I was going to be out. That
was two thousand and eight. I was already giving my
stuff away in prison to other prisoners because I knew
I was about to go home within a matter of days.
They created a brand new theory that a jury could
(00:32):
believe that there was still guilt on my part even
with the credible, truthful confession of the actual murderer. It's insane.
The whole thing is absolutely insane, and the more you
look at it, the more you'll be amazed at it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Welcome to the David Rotherford Show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm your host, David Rutt Rutherford, and today's show really is.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
An emotional show for me because.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
The man that I interview that you'll hear later, who
spent thirty one years incarcerated under wrongful pretense, was unjustly
convicted on the murder that was ultimately confessed by the
person who murdered this young girl, Jennifer Evans, back in
nineteen ninety five, two young fresh graduates of sealed training.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Dusty Turner as the interview. Billy Brown was.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
The man who ultimately committed he murdered this whole man's
life was destroyed and he was recently released on March third.
We interviewed him on April twentieth to get his story
for all of you, and then all hell break loose,
and this is what happened. Immediately on the April twenty first,
(01:54):
he was arrested for parole violations. The issue centered around
disclosure requirements for a in quotation significant relationship. Basically, when
he got advanced parole, he had to disclose did he
have any significant relationships That's possibly an intimate. We don't
(02:15):
know because significant isn't clearly defined in any of the
case study or case law or anything. And I'll get
to where a church of the Second Circuit actually had
invalidated this in another case because it was so arbitrary,
invited arbitrary enforcement, raising due process concerns. That was from
(02:38):
the Second Circuit in another case. So the parole officer
essentially arrests him for violating the disclosure, although on the
fifth of March in his parole meeting, he disclosed the
names of two women, one that he said was a
significant relationship and one that was a in quotation significant
(03:01):
relation that was not intimate. Gave the names, the numbers,
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Fast forward on the day of his arrassment and then
his arraignment, which took place on a week ago Monday,
on the twenty seventh, the PO was questioned and basically
said it wasn't in quotes, it is not my responsibility
to call her end quote. According to Dusty's attorney, the
(03:30):
parole officer consciously chose not to make contact with these
two people. Right, because when you have to understand the
disclosure according to the courts, right and stature in state
law is basically to make sure that because Dusty was
paroled for the original because that original hearing of murder
(03:53):
conviction has not been I don't know what you call it,
a disbanded or a judae cadd or gotten rid of
next to Dusty's name, he still has that conviction in there,
even though Billy Brown has come out and said he
had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I murdered her. He wasn't involved, right, it's still there.
So by.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Legal responsibility, Dusty has to tell the parole officer in
the courts, hey, I'm involved with these women by name,
so that they're aware of I guess the court's mind
wants to make them aware that he was involved in
a murder case of a young woman, right to protect them,
potentially for innocent So again, his attorney, who I've talked to,
(04:45):
basically said that the prole officer consciously chose not to
make contact, which would have gone a long way in
answering questions or concerns to an intentionally vague term that
was included and obviously designed for actual predators, right, not
for two consenting adults. Subsequently, there was one further encounter
(05:08):
with another individual who has known Dusty for years and
was aware of his history. This encountered by any reasonable measure,
does not amount to end quotes a significant relationship. His
parole agreements, and this is coming from his attorney in
a text I just got. His parole agreements specified that
he had to abide by the instructions of his probation
(05:30):
and parole officer and be truthful, cooperative and report as instruction.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The condition No.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Number sixteen of the Separate Sex Offendi Special instructed states quote,
you will inform persons with whom you have a significant
relationship of your sexual offending behavior, as directed by your
supervising P and P officer and or treatment provider. So
(06:00):
Dusty did all of these things and informed of these
people of a significant relationship, and this other person they
basically caught him or whatever on this vague statement of
quote insignificant relationship. So saying all that to say that,
imagine spending thirty one years incarcerated for a crime you
(06:22):
didn't commit. That crime was proven in two thousand and
eight in a coarterlog by the original testimony the guy
who committed the murder Billy Brown to a judge which
then was not adjudicated and released of that sentence and
released immediately because even if he had been convicted of
(06:44):
the other misdemeanor with accessory after the fact was a
one year MAX sentencing. This guy did thirty one years,
was released, and right before he is about ready to
leave the state to go home to the state of Indiana,
he was brought in by a parole officer for what
seemed to just be some Q and A and immediately
(07:05):
rested on the scene, and now he's back in jail
for a parole violation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
This fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
This is why our judicial system is corrupt, why it's broken,
and why good people get the shitty end of the
stick on a regular basis. And it doesn't just happen
with Dusty Turner.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
And it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yes, it does matter to me that this young man
was railroaded from the beginning, that by an entire group
of peers that should have been supportive of him, should
have gotten behind him, should have helped them through this,
that they didn't. They wanted to get rid of the problem,
as they typically do in the military, and basically abandoned
(07:47):
him in the time, this twenty year old kid needed help,
and for thirty one years he languished in prison for
something he didn't do. Now, this isn't the first time
I've covered a story like this. When I was on
the team Never Quit, we had a guy, a black
gentleman named Kwame Angenou, who was incarcerated right because of
the coerce testimony from a twelve year old boy. And
(08:09):
it was later found out that the young boy, the
police officers said, if you don't testify. It was these
three kids, we're gonna put your mother in jail for
the rest of her life, and so he testified. Kwame
spent twelve his first twelve years out of twenty seven
on death row twenty Remember imagine being seventeen years old
and going on death row for something you didn't commit,
(08:31):
and nobody's there to help you. His brother and his
brother's best friend, they were on death row for years
longer than that, ultimately eventually getting out at thirty three
and thirty five years of being wrongfully incarcerated.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
This happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It happens in criminal court, it happens in civil courts.
It happens and divorce proceedings. It happens constantly. That's the
reason I'm doing it, and the reason that I believe
Dusty deserves an opportunity to tell you from his own
mouth what happened, how it makes him feel. What was
(09:04):
it like being incarcerated for thirty one years for something
you didn't do, and how you feel now on the
precipice of your real freedom, starting your new life from scratch,
and right before he gets thrown back in jail. And
what I'm hoping that after you listen to him, talk
to me in this interview that you have something in
(09:24):
your heart that is stirred, you have something in your
mind that makes you realize the wrongful nature or of
what's taking place to this man, and that you act
upon it. You share this interview with somebody else. You
call up the Parole Board of Virginia, you call up
the governor, you call up your congressman. You start bitching
(09:46):
and moaning, and you start saying, Hey, this is not
justice that's being served. This is a political hack job
because they don't want to come out admit that they
fucked up back in the old days and that they
didn't get the right guy and that they destroyed this
man's life. Should he have served absolutely for accessory after
the fact.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Was it a year? No, I'd probably think five years.
At least.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The dude did thirty one years, even after the fact
that it came out that he didn't commit murder. But again,
it's not my job to hold judgment on the courts
other than when I see wrongful actions of justice. And
that's what this interview is about. So please open your
(10:32):
mind and open your heart and listen to what Dusty
had to tell me about his experience of being a
young frogman and getting arrested and going through this whole
circumstance and then spending his entire adult life in jail.
And now just imagine after you listen to this, what
he feels like, what he's going through being forced back
(10:53):
incarcerated on a fucking ambiguous term like significant relationship out
further ado. Here's my interview with mister Dusty Turner. Dusty,
welcome to the show. I can't thank you enough for
wanting to come on. I think you know the the
(11:15):
the little the depth of your wisdom is profound.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We got to talk last night.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
At length, and I just I'm really excited that you're
willing to come on and just talk about this experience
and depth.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, I appreciate you for having me on here.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
One of the things that you and I discussed a
little bit and a little bit before we just got
on is is the idea of redemption, right, And you know,
I think you know if you if you have even
a modicum of faith the ideas that you can you
can make a mistake. But but in some capacity you know,
(11:59):
and you know and are and being a Christian, like
that's the whole pretense, Like we all sin and then
through Christ's owned sacrifice, we can be forgiven. But the
challenge in your case is is one, I think it's
a lack of education based on the specificity of the circumstances.
(12:19):
But two, it's just this, you know, this overall idea
that this young girl, Jennifer Evans lost her life and
then there was you know, these two you know, Navy
seal guys that were responsible, and so there's this unrealistic
expectation that, you know, your guilt is always linked to
(12:43):
some malevolent, diabolical, you know, destructive a circumstance. And so
let's just start there. How do you process the grief
her family has existed in and then now your process
of being free and managing that that sense of redemption
(13:06):
because I would imagine you spent a lot of time
thinking about this while you were incarcerated.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So it is a lot, right, it's that's a lot.
I think that I had a difficult time maybe processing
the grief aspect when it comes to Jennifer's death and
me witnessing her murder, trying to process that while at
(13:34):
the same time fighting for my own justice, you know,
as you know, they convicted me of crimes that I
didn't commit, and you know, dealing with that and dealing
with being incarcerated obviously, and then also with my family
suffering on a daily basis through that, through that whole ordeal.
(13:59):
So it was difficult, and it has been maybe somewhat
difficult to really grasp and process Jennifer's death. And you know,
I was I was asked by the parole board who
granted me parole, to kind of limit I guess speaking
(14:20):
about Jennifer in out of respect for her family and
loved ones, in which I have done and continue to do.
And uh. And also I've gone through a lot of
victim impact and victim advocacy courses just to better learn,
(14:42):
you know, what it's like and what that means, you know,
to be victimized and the impact of that upon you know,
the survivors and the family and and that kind of thing.
So I've tried to be cautious also in speaking, because
I don't want to re traumatized her family and friends, right,
(15:05):
But yet I'm in the middle of it, and so
I have to, you know, while weaving through that, I'm
still kind of obligated to speak about the entire situation,
and you know, her tragic murder, so so processing it
(15:27):
it's not been easy, but I'm but uh, you know,
I'm taking those steps and what that looks like. And
you know, it's just a sad situation all the way around, right,
this young lady who is completely innocent, single child, you know, uh,
you know, just a wonderful and beautiful young lady who
(15:49):
had everything going for and should not absolutely should not
have lost her life.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, I I you know, as I you know, as
I was preparing for the interview, and obviously we you know,
we had, you know, two people who have been advocating
for your release when we first launched the show this
past summer, and they were wonderful and you're so blessed
to have such amazing people. And also your mom, and
(16:16):
your mom is just she's probably my favorite man, just
how you know, I guess, you know, the love of
a son is is pretty pretty substantial. And to stick
by your side and the way she did for as long,
it's just really really speaks volumes as to your real character. Right,
that people would stay involved in this fight for you
(16:37):
so long. But one of the things, you know obviously
as you know what what and I and I gotta admit,
like I I didn't really ever think about this to
the extent of what being wrongfully incarcerated was until I
used to do a show with Marcus latrelle and for
(17:01):
a long time back in the day, and we had
a guy on his name was Kwame Angenou and he
was wrongfully prosecuted in Philadelphia. The police officer there was
a murderer, and the police coerced the twelve year old
boy to admit it was the Kwame and his brother
and his brother's best friend who had murdered this person,
(17:22):
you know, because they had told the young boy, if
you don't identify these three, I'm going to put your
mom in jail for the rest of her life. So
this kid gives false testimony, and Kwame, at seventeen years old,
finds himself on death row. And and just to process
that is such and overwhelming. And I remember hearing him
(17:44):
and his experience was was so moving to me that
it flipped my whole perspective on this issue in the
in the justice system, and and and these these you know,
the places that it's really fractured in non Sufficient, Can
you kind of just give the audience a refresher of
(18:07):
where you were at at twenty where years old, where
you were at at the seal teams, and just like,
what's your wife? Your life was like, you know, the
day before versus the day after.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, it's really tragic. So I think like yourself. I
come into the Navy under the delayed entry program Dive Fair,
and so initially I was going to be a diver,
you know, coming into a boot camp, I had already
set my sights on wanting to be a seal. You know.
(18:44):
I did everything I was supposed to do and needed
to do to get myself there. I made it through buds.
I started Class one ninety four, and towards the end
of Hell Week, I was injured and ended up in
I see you at the hospital. And fortunately I was
(19:05):
further farther enough along through Hell Week that I was
put forward into the next class. Actually I rolled back
for two classes, so I I hung there and rolled
back Land until I classed up with one ninety six
and graduated with them. Nineteen guys. I think we had
one foreign national that was with us from Singapore, and
(19:29):
after jump school, I was hoping to get to Team four,
the area of operations, you know, Central and South America.
That's what I was looking to do. And that's where
I got to and and I was put into Eco
Platoon of Team four. And I had gone through the
STT and was at the concluding weeks of STT. We'd done,
(19:54):
you know, we'd gone down to Puerto Rico and did
some you know, some of the advanced time of training
and and back up, and we were finishing up some
stuff for ap Hill and looking forward to my first
deployment down to Panama. And that's where I was the
day before, right, And the day before this happened. Everything
(20:16):
was normal. In fact, that day, everything was pretty damn normal. Right.
We were at a I guess kind of a popular
night club that night. It was called the Bayou. It's
a place I'd been to a couple of times before.
And and of course everything changed that night. You know, again,
(20:40):
it was an absolutely normal night. So I haven't introduced
the the individual yet who completely changed my life, and
not for the good Billy Joe Brown, and I can
talk about him a bit and how he please please Okay,
(21:02):
well let me go back then, so in and towards
the beginning of buzz training. As you know, in your
boat crew, you're you're with guys who are the same height,
and uh, Billy Joe Brown is a guy from Ohio
with a very checkered past which I wasn't aware of
at the time, and how he got into the Navy
and then into into Budge and in the seal teams
(21:25):
to this day, I have no idea because of his past,
but I was paired up with him as a swim
buddy only because we're the same height. And that was
that was right there in the in first phase, and
we ended up we went through Hell Week together as
swim buddies. And this is I mean, it's got to
(21:46):
be pretty much unprecedented because we as you know, you know,
going through first phase and Hell Week, it's likely that
the guys next to you aren't going to be there
right at the end of all that, and certainly by
the time you get out of training. But he was there.
And at the conclusion of Hell Week, I'm rolled back
(22:07):
for two classes. He's rolled back for two classes for
a for moral neck injury. Right, I'm sorry for a
moral neck fracture. I had pulmonaria edema and amongst other things,
in my had the fractured tibius. And so he's also
(22:29):
in rollback land with me. From class one ninety four
into class one ninety six. We end up graduating together.
We go down to jump school together, we get assigned
to the same team, right, team four, and we're put
in the same platoon.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
So I'm I'm I'm really stuck with this guy. In
a lot of ways, I helped him get through buds.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was a pretty proficient swimmer, and I was very
I was a competitive swimmer and high school and uh,
you know, I gave up the chance to go to
UH to get a scholarship in college swimming because I
wanted to join the military and I wanted to fight
for this country, and I wanted to be in the
seal teams. That's that's what I wanted to do. And
(23:15):
so anyway, I would often find myself dragging him through
certain water evolutions, and you know, in hindsight, obviously, uh
you know, I wish that I would have let him,
you know, die on his own, so to speak, to
fail on his own, But there we were. You know,
(23:39):
I don't know how often that would happen for two
guys to be assigned as as as swim buddies.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, I mean, I got I was in two med roles,
in a performance role, and I've never a ton of friends.
I've never seen any story like yours where two guys
had the same sequence and made it to the same
team and the same platoon.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I've just that is was.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It done on purpose? You know? I mean, how is
that possible?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I your story, I don't even know where
you begin to I'm sure you've spent hundreds, if not
thousands of hours processing every single second of the entire arc.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Right, yeah, perhaps, yeah, but regardless, you know that's where
I was. But you know, even so, he had a
check like I said, a checker passed. He had violence
against women in his past before joining the military, not
just the Navy. He actually joined this coast Guard first.
(24:47):
And so he gets in the coast Guard and apparently
he assaults an officer or something. They kick him out
of the Coastguard, and he gets in the Navy. Right.
Not only does he get in the Navy, but you know,
it gets onto buds. I witnessed him, not just myself,
but other guys that I was training with, witnessed him
(25:09):
become aggressive towards women at least twice during the time
we were in both in San Diego and then also
later in Virginia Beach, oh and Puerto Rico. He was
he became extremely violent where it took like five of
us to restrain him in Puerto Rico when he was
becoming very aggressive towards two young ladies.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Right, how come how come like the training cell along
the way didn't see this, or how come they didn't
pointed out? Why didn't they say anything? Was he ever
counseled or anything like that that you know of?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Uh, not that I know of, But the guys around us,
they knew, they've seen it, you know. And so also
at the in third phase, towards the end of Buds,
he had gotten into a drunken accident where he hit
a family, a hit and run type deal. The family
(26:08):
had gotten his license plate in description, etc. And of
course it ends up with the police department, and once again,
somehow this just gets kind of swept under the rug. Right,
So it was just you know, step after step after
step of kind of red flags against this guy of
why is he there? But regardless he makes it through Buds, right.
(26:29):
Some believe that he would have. And it's hard for
me to believe this, because he was right there on
the prespice of getting his tried intact on that somehow
he wouldn't have gotten the tried intact on, right. But
if he made it this far, why not. The man
was a psychopath. He was a psychopath who was also
(26:51):
heavily abusing alcohol, not to mention all the steroids that
he was using back in San Diego all the way
up to get coming to Team four.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So, and this was somewhat part of the culture, not
you know, as you've heard about the steroids.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I was there right after I mean I was literally
there a few classes after you. Yeah, of course it
was it was all you know, this is for those listening,
this is pre nine to eleven. And so this was
a much different error where you know, social activities and
partying and being tough guys and you know, being a
(27:30):
freedom fight and root and toot and barrel chested frogmen.
Was was kind of what was drilled into you as
as a BUD student, and guys like Brown who they
took that stuff on board and implemented it and took
it to another level, and you know it's it's the
but you know, I never saw a lot of you know,
(27:50):
the abusiveness towards women.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I mean, that thing that's pretty unique.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It is unique. I listen, I didn't really see it.
I don't know. I didn't know about his past. You know,
he had assaulted at seventeen years old. He was married
to a fourteen year old and it took like three
cops one time to restrain him when he's dragging this
girl across the yard in his home in Ohio. Right,
(28:15):
But then there was an incident. We were at Billy
ray Cyrus concert on the base in Little Creek and
he ends up He and I end up in a
freaking pond up to our noses, hiding from the police
after he became aggressive towards a woman and they didn't
(28:37):
put his hands on her, but it was enough for
her to call the police on him, and they got
the MP's out there looking for us. We're hiding out
in a pond somewhere till nightfall to get his ass
out of there. And this was a recurring thing, Right,
I'm having to save this guy on a recurring basis,
And it's not just me and some of the other
ones too, in my class or in the you know
(28:58):
out there going through STT.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, and I think that's the question, Dusty, for so
many guys out there, I mean not just from the community,
but from all people.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Just listen, Like, what kept you just close to him?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Was it just the nature of being in the same
duty station, the same sequence, or was he a guy
that you thought you could help get through?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
What was what was the thing?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Well, he was already through, right, Yeah, he was already through. Yeah,
he's another he's a team guy. You know, he doesn't
have his tried intact on yet. Yeah, nor do I have.
But he's there, right, So what do you do. I'm
younger than he is. I'm the youngest at the time.
I'm the youngest seal team member, will say in the
(29:46):
whole Navy. I'm twenty years I checked into Team four.
I wasn't. I wasn't even I was nineteen years old.
I checked into Team four nineteen years old, right, And
you know I should have still regardless us, I should have,
you know, had the responsibility to to maybe report some
of these things to some of our senior officers, Right
(30:10):
I didn't. Yeah, I'm not the only one, but I'll
take ownership of that. I should have reported some of
these things, but it's also part of it, like you said,
kind of the culture at the time in the mid nineties.
You know, that's how abnormal was it some of these
things Now now, like you said, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Well, the aggressive yeah, that I that's the one thing
I didn't see. But that's like you know, you see
that that's unique to sociopathology or psychopathology for sure, right
in that dark triad. So all right, you know, I
appreciate you given context for about him.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Let's let's talk about.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
If we could just you know, for a few minutes,
you know, and I hate to try and like encapsulate them,
you know, the magnitude of what that felt like. But
let's let's talk about those nine days, because that's the
thing I I I get contacted most about. How can
you support a god like they're like, rut, you have daughters, man,
(31:14):
how can you support a guy?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It was nine days he let go by?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So you know, I just want to address that this
so people can get from your lips just how profoundly
you know, agonizing that must have been in every way.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
So it's it's it's a bit incomprehensible U to to
understand what that's like to uh, to witness what I witnessed,
and then to keep quiet about it. Right, I was
duty bound to keep quiet about it. And you can say, well,
(31:55):
you really weren't, or you didn't have to. You could
have told someone's right, And I don't disagree. In hindsight,
I think that I was stuck in this position where
I felt like there was a seal code that required
me to keep quiet about what happened, right, and to
(32:19):
not expose it. And why I cannot expose the guy
I've been trained to protect, because this is how I've
been trained. I cannot come out about what happened of
this horrible, horrible incident because it's gonna create such a
stain on the brand, it's gonna reverberate across the whole
(32:41):
freaking country, right, and so all that is on my
shoulders as this young kid who's never had any I've
had no kind of criminal activities mindset, nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I come from a good family, a military oriented fan family.
I'm following my people's footsteps in the military to fight
for this country. And I'm trained to protect a fucking psychopath. Right,
And this is where I'm at at nineteen years old?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right? And so what do I do? And this is
the position I'm in. I don't I literally don't know
what the hell to do, right, you know? And who
do I tell? So in hindsight, I should have I
should have went to the superior officers, right, I should
(33:35):
have told them. I should have told them. I felt
like I was duty bound first and foremost to my
swim buddy, and I couldn't rat him out for what
he had done, right, And what happens after that? What
happens to me, what happens to the brand after that?
You know, what happens to all of it. And so
I'm in a position where literally I don't know what
(33:58):
to do. And then also just the weight of the
weight of a young lady being murdered and taken from
her family. And I witnessed this, and you know, I
helped him cover it up. And this is what I'm
living with at this age. And at this point in
(34:20):
my life. Everything was grand the day before the day
of I mean, everything was great. There was no issues,
you know, everything was great. I was I was on
top of the world as a young Seal team member
about to get my tried intact on. And this is
where I'm at now. The next minute, I'm in this
(34:42):
position not because I wanted to be, you know, I
was forced. I was forced into that position and to
make those decisions on what the fuck to do, and
I wasn't trained to respond. You might have been trained
to respond to that because came after this case, right,
and so you were told, if you're if you're swim buddy,
(35:04):
does something crazy or stupid or whatever, to do this,
this or that. That's not how I was trained. I
was trained to protect my swim buddy right above and
beyond everything. I would lay down my life, you know.
And so uh, I don't you know.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We did get training after, but I'm gonna tell you
it was not the type of training that you know,
you just described where it was, you know, in detail.
I remember the first thing I got. We were in
second phase and we had a senior guy come in
and it's like it was called like ethics training or
morality training or something, and he basically was like, any
(35:44):
of you fucking assholes do the shit that Turner and
Brown did, and we're going to kill you, uh, individually
and it was just like, oh uh, well that okay,
you know, and you're like and and I it just
was and and then that was it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It was like this blip. You know, you don't destroy
the reputation of the teams. Don't do this shit, don't
be idiots will.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Kill you, you know, and you know, and obviously your your
class proctor kind of pulled it back, was like, hey,
you guys, this is you know, I got a little
bit more in depth about the description, but still it
it It wasn't you know. I don't think anybody could
at that time was capable of processing it because you're
(36:29):
still under this, you know, this pressure of making it through,
making it to the next day, getting to the next evolution,
that whole concept right where you just kind of suppress
the magnitude of the incident and it's like, you know,
don't do that or you're gone type thing.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So it was it was weird.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
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When when you finally went to your warrant. This is
kind of where the shift begins in terms of I mean,
(38:34):
malfeasans would be an understatement I would imagine coming from you.
I mean, you start to like, all right, You're you're
overwhelmed with that sense I'm gonna do the right thing.
I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, go, I'm gonna ask
my superior for advice, and then I'm gonna, you know,
do what they say. So can you talk a little
bit about that experience?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, So it's kind of, uh, it's kind of dynamic
experience because, uh, first of all, the the eight days
that I'm going through after what happened, Uh, it was,
it was horrible. You know, I'm I'm I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Can I hop in? Can I hop in? And ask
you one real quick question about the eight days.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I'm so sorry, and I popped in my head before
did did did Brown threaten you at any way shape
or form in like, hey, I'm going to kill you
if you do this or if you dial me you know,
diye me out? Or did you have that sense that
he could be violent with you?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Oh? No, I had more than a sense he could
be violent. I mean we had we had some episodes.
Uh one in Puerto Rico where, uh, my guys brought
me into town after Brown and I fought on the
beach and it was bloody and it was pretty nasty,
and and four guys, you know, it took me into
town for like five hours. By the time I came back,
(39:59):
the guy guys that were still there at the base
were like, dude, just turn around and go back because
he's he's looking for you, and he says he's gonna
kill you. And so you know, these are these are
this is the kind of guy he was. And yeah,
and so there was that issue. I'm not going to
say I was sitting here, you know, Uh that my
that my chief motivation was that I was afraid he
(40:22):
was going to kill me, right, that was I.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Just wanted to give it some cock. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
He was he was an older he was older than me.
Everybody was older than me, but he was older than me.
And uh and and some of bitch was crazy, right,
he was just crazy. So but you know, the eight
days was was terrible and I had an weapon malfunction, uh,
incident with a gosh, you know, I had a seven
(40:50):
sixty two round blow up in my face. And during
that week it was just crazy. I was wearing an
eyepatch for quite a few days and uh so, but
it was it was tough, you know, it was tough
to I couldn't Every day I'm out of the shooting
range or doing whatever, I can't concentrate. I can't even
concentrate just knowing what had happened. Uh and and to
(41:13):
this young lady. And to be honest, at the time,
I wasn't even thinking about all the people that that
that that's that that is you know, how that reverberates
amongst you know, would would be her family and friends
and community members and so forth. And it was just
it was a lot, right. So, uh So it gets
(41:34):
the point where the detectives they have a bead on
that that I was there that night and Billy Brown
was there that night, and that somehow that we could
be you know, connected to her death or her I'm sorry,
her missing, the fact that she was missing. Uh they
didn't know where she was at at the time, so
they asked if we would be willing to take a
(41:56):
polygraph test. I almost didn't hesitate whatsoever. To say. Yes.
I was in a position where I wanted so bad
to relieve myself of the burden of knowing what happened,
but not knowing how to do that at that point.
So in my mind, and you may, I don't know
(42:18):
if this sounds crazy or not, but in my mind,
I was thinking, I can take the polygraph test. I
can still lie on Billy Brown's behalf to protect him.
If it shows that I'm lying, that's not my fault, right,
and that I can't be blamed for breaking the code,
so to speak, if the polygraph shows that I lied,
(42:39):
because I still was trying to lie to protect him, right,
And that's exactly what happened. Now. Billy Brown, when they
started to hook him up the polygraph, he had no
wins to take the polygraph. He's not going to take it,
and he didn't. So I took the polygraph test, and
afterwards the detectives came to me and said, look, it's
obvious that you lied about this question, this and this,
(42:59):
and and it was right. They were right, you know,
that's what I lied about. And so they knew from
that polygraph the basics to what happened that night, and
they knew that Billy Brown killed this young lady, right,
And so then they started badgering me a bit, and
I still wouldn't say anything further, but to be honest,
(43:19):
when they started talking about Jennifer's family and their parents
and so forth, that absolutely got to me, and I
was in a in a bad way. I was very emotional,
and I asked to see my warrant officer, who was
sitting out in the lobby, and they agreed. They let
him come in and it was just he and I
(43:40):
and I said very specifically, I said, sir, the detectives
were asking me questions about things that I do know about.
I haven't told them what happened, but I don't know
what to do. And he said, tell me what happened.
So I explained to him exactly what happened that night.
I said, stay right here. I'm going to go in
(44:03):
and try to call the JAG officer and I'll be back.
So he comes back in about fifteen minutes later, he says, look,
I couldn't The JAG officer said he could not help
us out in this because now it's an off base matter. However,
the detectives are going to come in here and They're
going to ask you five questions, and I want you
(44:24):
to answer those five questions truthfully. And I said, are
you sure that's what I'm to do? And he said yes.
I took it as a direct order from my superit officer.
The detectives came in, they asked me five questions. See
what I didn't know is whatever transpired outside that door.
So it sounds kind of crazy even still today, that
JAG officer couldn't help out in this matter. And this
(44:46):
is my this is my legal advice I'm receiving. It's
from my command, my spirit officer, and I'm taking it
as a direct order. And I'm now relieved of that burden.
I've told him exactly what happened, and he's given me
the order to answer the detectives questions, the five questions
that they're asking, and and I followed his order.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
You know, yeah, obviously, you know you you told everybody
what's happened. You led the authorities back to the body. Uh,
they were able to end the search and and and begin.
But that's when things began to really go awry for you.
(45:33):
I would imagine how quickly did they put you in
custody and how soon did you know, wait a minute,
this this is going to be This is a lot
worse than what I imagine was going to happen by my.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
So admitting yeah, so what had happened is they I
even answering the detectives question. I even agreed to try
to draw out a map of where I believe that
Jennifer's body was at. Ultimately it wasn't very accurate, even
(46:11):
though I was kind of fashioned myself as a part
time cartographer for the teams. Right, but so, but they
took that map and they went in the other room
and they said, look at here, Billy Brown, we know
the whole story. Your buddy just rolled on you. He
told us everything, and you're going down. You're probably going
to get the death penalty. And and that stung him.
(46:34):
And as he says today, he felt like, what, I
broke the seal code, and therefore I broke the code.
Therefore I deserved to go down with him. Right. So
he then tells the detectives a story that puts me
(46:54):
into the crime with him, right, that I was party
to his crime that he did. And uh and and
later as he's you know, become a Christian and confessed
to exactly what had happened. Uh, he says today, he
says that he knew he knew that the detectives would
rather have two than one, right, and so he whipped
(47:16):
up a story on the spot, and uh, he included
me into his crime. It's uh, it's it's it's you know,
it's it's unfortunate. Number one. If he would have just
told the truth from beginning, they would not have arrested me, period.
They would not have arrested me. At most my role,
which was an accessory after the fact of his crime. Right,
(47:42):
and in nineteen ninety five, that role was punishable by
up to twelve months in prison. I'm sorry, twelve months
in jail, not prison. Twelve months in jail up to
is a misdemeanor crime. But instead he flips this story, right.
And even when they even when they they're like, look,
this is you got to get some kind of evidence
that what you're saying is true, he couldn't give them anything.
(48:04):
So he tells them that that I have explosives back
home in Indiana, right, because what else can he can
he tell them, right, as if this is some kind
of I don't know whatever evidence for this this case
which is ridiculous. So so in the meantime, I'm attending myself,
(48:27):
one of the detectives, and the warrant officer. We are
driving off to go physically look for Jennifer's body, and
we get to the spot approximately we separate. The three
of us separate in the woods and we come through
the woods and it was the detectives that actually come
upon our body. From that point, they called in the
(48:49):
forensics to come in to do their business, and my
warrant officer and I went back to the base. Right.
This was up at four d a p Hill. When there,
some of the officers told me, look, we think that
it's best that you get a lawyer. And I'm like,
do you really feel like I need a lawyer? This
is how naive I am at the time. I'm like,
(49:11):
you think I really need a lawyer? And they're like yeah.
And so they actually found a lawyer that had had
worked with the teams a bit and hooked me up
with them, and so he wanted me to be in
his office back in Virginia Beach the next day at noon. Meanwhile,
my commanding officer to eat from Team four wanted me
(49:32):
to be back at the at the at the compound
to have a discussion the next morning, and so we
rode back the next morning. Now in meantime, Billy Brown's
already been arrested, right, He's arrested. He's told his stories,
and and so I'm I'm I'm back at Team four
compound and I'm sitting in a conference room waiting for
(49:54):
Commander two to come in to have a discussion, to
debrief FM on exactly what happened. Right, he comes in
and he's shaking his head, and you know, he says that.
He says, Turner, the n I asked her here to
UH place you under arrest. And UH, so I didn't
make it to the lawyer's office. Uh the n I asked,
(50:15):
guys come in. They had me change out of my
fatigues into civilian clothes. They handcuffed me there on the
team for a compound and walked me out and they
drove me to the UH to the edge of the
base and handed me over to the Virginia Beach Police Department.
I went from there to UH to the the police department.
(50:39):
And from that point my family was notified. You know,
I had I had talked to my mother the night
before after all this had gone down, and and uh,
I didn't want to tell her too much, but I was,
you know, in a in a very emotional way, and
I explained to her that I had witnessed a very
horrible crime and and that I thought that it might be,
you know, that I might have to testify against somebody.
(51:03):
But even in the moment, I was still thinking that,
you know, I answered the questions of detectives. I was
still felt duty bound to Billy Brown to an extent,
and so I felt like that I would. And I
had known justice involvement before all this, so I was
totally ignorant on everything done with criminal justice system. But
I assume that maybe I would end up, you know,
(51:25):
testifying at a trial about what Billy Brown had done.
And I still in my mind was thinking, well, I
could still you know, kind of explain that what he
did was an accident, that he didn't really mean to
do it, or you know, something to that extent, right,
But in reality, he was he was completely drunk out
of his mind, and he just snapped, right, wow.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Did you ever get out of jail from the moment
you were taken by Virginia Beach?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Please?
Speaker 2 (51:55):
No, I when I that day I was arrested, and
until March fifth, last month, I've been incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
All right, let me just try and process this. So
you you're on top of the world.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
You go out, you're.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Back off on the weekends from ap hill grinding. You
meet a beautiful girl. You guys hit it off. You're
gonna go get something to eat or hang out a
little more. He gets in the car, he snaps, kills her,
forces you to bury, you know, to get rid of
the body you're burden with this. You confess you you
(52:44):
think you're doing the right thing. You're next thing, you know,
you're in jail. And then the Virginia Beach DA gets
a hold of this case. And how quickly because and
there's there's a lot of a lot of stories that
have been done. There's a documentary about the experience, which
(53:06):
is phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I recommend people watch it.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
What time in the process of the arraignments, the the
pre trial discovery, did you begin.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
To realize, Wow, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
A very difficult situation and it doesn't look like there's
an advocate on my behalf, or that the evidence has
been you know, obviously they didn't allow the evidence of
the size of your car that fit Brown's story about
you being involved in killing her, and you know, you
guys are six to foot three. That was the thing
(53:45):
for me. You know, there's this insane piece of evidence
that isn't admitted.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
What moment were you.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Like this, this is not going in any direction that's
going to benefit me.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
So I was. I was very naive, right and throughout
this entire ordeal, especially early on, I did assume that
just the truth of the matter, would you know, would
come out and anything that I was culpable for that
(54:19):
that I would be you know, say, found guilty of
or to pay for. Right So, even up until the
last moment of the trial, I assumed that the jury
would come back and say, you know, the man's not
guilty of a murder and abduction. I did not committed
a murder and reduction. Right. So, so even though there
(54:43):
was some concerning things during the trial, like they would
do things dealing with the like, since there was no
physical evidence against me, they had to build a circumstantial
case against me, right And what did that look like?
How do you build a circumstantial case to to make
a young kid like me look like I would be
(55:03):
the type of person that would do something like that, right,
And so they twisted a lot of just normal things.
They twisted them to make them look bad. You know,
even even even a evaluation I did from Puerto Rico
when we were there doing the jive training, and one
(55:24):
of our instructors was like, hey, look y'all, do this evaluation.
Uh put some you know, some real stuff in there.
But it's so and so was going to read it.
So make it you know, you can add a little
comedy to it or whatever. And I put something in
there about, you know, if if things don't start adjusting,
that this hairy chested frog man is going to find
a new job, or you know, something stupid like that.
(55:46):
I don't even have hair on my chest today. Right,
it was a joke. It was a joke, but they
use stuff like that, and they twisted to make it
seem like it's diabolic or you know, it's it's malevolent.
And that's what the prosecutors do, right, just to try
to They're trying their hardest to try to get a conviction.
Not because it's the right thing to do. It's not
because it's just it's because that's that's their goal. Right,
(56:11):
they're just trying to get a conviction. And the prosecutor
that the prosecuted me, I'm not the only wrongful conviction
that he's gotten. He's gotten others too, And he went
he told the media that when asked about that, and
he said, well, he said, I don't lose any sleep
about it because ultimately I'm not the one who convicts him,
you know, I'm just the one presenting the case. So
(56:34):
this son of a bitch, this son of a bitch,
and I mean think about that. Somebody doesn't He doesn't
lose no sleep about wrongfully convicting people, right, because he
feels like he just passes it on the responsibility. Well,
it was the jury that actually did it. I just
presented the case. Doesn't bother me at all.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
You know, it's staggering.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
I can't even I mean I can because I you know,
my old man was an attorney for fifty five years
and the amount of cases his firm, you know, loss
because of just the courts and the manipulation.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Of evidence or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
You know, somebody has a better argument or a better
you know there, whatever it is, and your your your
whole life changes, right for the worst because you know,
you're at the mercy of an attorney who is gonna
be your advocate. And if the advocate, you know, has
any is it disenfranchised with the case, or isn't all
(57:37):
in or whatever? It is like he has a bad day, right,
he misses an objection or whatever. It's like the next thing,
you know, you're spending thirty years in jail wrongfully accused.
Can we jump? Obviously you you were convicted. You were
convicted for longer than than Brown was, right, I think
(57:57):
you got he got seventy years, You got eighty five years.
That that's astonishing to me. And then but talk about
the moment where he finally decided to come clean. Did
that create a false hope in you did or where
you like, what was that whole experience going back through
(58:18):
it again like that?
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, So I didn't know about his confession for two
years after he confessed, Right, he had become Yeah, he
had become a Christian. And I feel like in eindsight
that it's he had to in order to, you know,
to be able to lieve himself with the burden of
of not only murdering an innocent young lady for no
(58:40):
just I mean just just out of just you know, psychopathy,
you know. But and then and then he and then
he blames the crime on on me, on his on
his swim buddy, and then watches me go down with him,
and watches and sees is to the extent possible my
(59:02):
family suffering through all that. Right, And this guy says, now,
he says he literally thought that I would be in
jail for two weeks before the authorities realized what had
actually happened. That's what he thought. My gosh, that's what
he thought. That's what he thought. And uh so I'm sorry,
(59:27):
I don't even remember the question you'd asked me about the.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
Question the question is like, all right, he goes on
trial again, he admits openly confession.
Speaker 3 (59:38):
You must have been like, all right, that's it, let
me out, right, let's go.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Uh yeah, So so I find out two years later, right,
Uh his attorney told him when he when he confessed
to his family and to his attorney, his attorney told
him to shut the fuck up, right because he felt
like his attorney convinced him that he still has a
chance of something with his appear right, So he did
(01:00:02):
he just shut up, and he just he asked his
attorney initially to take the information to a judge, right
and expecting that, you know what, whatever. But but then
he just stayed silent after that. And the only reason
I found out two years later is I got transferred
to another prison and a guy approached me who was
one of Billy Brown's Christian brothers. And he approaches me
(01:00:27):
and says, oh, he said, man, And he said, I
know who you are. You know, God's got great things
in store for you. This was two thousand and two, right,
Oh my god, this was two thousand and two. And
and so he's like, you know, Billy Brown's a change man.
He's a changed man. He's he's found God. He's confessed
(01:00:47):
to his family, he's confessed to his attorney. You know,
he's open about what he did, and he's, you know whatever.
And so I just took that information. I called my
mother and and told her about it, and she ended up,
you know, finding an attorney where he was close by
where he was at in prison, and sent an attorney
up there to get his get his his confession on
(01:01:11):
on audio. And then later he signed an AFFI David
of you know what he had done. And of course
I assumed that would help. You know, my case did
not require his freaking confession to know what happened. It doesn't,
it doesn't never required his confession, right, But with this confession,
(01:01:31):
the confession of the man who murdered this young girl,
this young woman, uh, you know who who the only
reason I went to prison is because he told a
different story. And that's it. That's the only reason I
went to prison. He told a different story, right, and
so now he confesses and uh, and so you know,
I tried to first appeal. There was no legal avenues
(01:01:54):
for me to get back into court, right at the time,
there was zero legal avenue used to get back into court.
So I filed a petition for a pardon through the governor.
And I really expected, you know, I hoped, and I
expected that he was going to give me a pardon
because the truth of exactly what had happened is now out.
(01:02:17):
It's as plain as can be. And so also in
the midst of that, they did pass a new law
in Virginia. And you know, we could go down a
rabbit hole with all this, but they passed new law
in Virginia which allowed for me to file a writ
of actual innocence I later became the first person ever
(01:02:38):
in the history of Virginia to be granted the writ
of actual innocence from the Court of Appeals, right, which
is non biological evidence because the DNA. Unfortunately there's no
DNA in my case. Right, DNA could have cleared me
years ago. There is no DNA. So they had been
clearing DNA wrongful convictions in the state of Virginia now
(01:03:00):
at that point for a decade. Right, They've been going
back through and seeing how many people were wrongfully convicted
because they had DNA evidence, right, and there was quite
a few of them, and I knew quite a few
of them while I was incarcerated. But my case had
no DNA evidence.
Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
So this is the first.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Opportunity to go to the Court of Appeals on a
writ of actual innocence. We went back to this to
the court, the Circuit court, the same court where I
was convicted, because they needed to know if Billy Brown's
confession was true, right, if it's credible, And so we did.
We went through a couple days of testimony. He testified
for like four hours, as did I and others, and
(01:03:38):
the judge went thoroughly through the record for a month,
and he came back and he said, Dusty Turner had
no role in the crime. He had no role in
the murder or in the restraining of the victim. Right.
That led to the Court of Appeals to grant me
the writ of actual innocence, the first person in the
(01:04:00):
state of Virginia to be granted the rid of actual
innocence for an abduction and a murder charge which I
did not commit. And they agreed. However, the Attorney General,
for whatever reason, he appealed it. Right, I was going
to be out. That was two thousand and eight. I
was already given my stuff away in prison to other
(01:04:21):
prisoners because I knew I was about to go home
within a matter of days two thousand and eight. Instead,
the Attorney General appealed it, which was his right to do.
They created a new theory under the law at the
time they could do it right. They created a brand
new theory that a jury could believe that there was
(01:04:44):
still guilt on my part even with the credible, truthful
confession of the actual murderer. Right. It's insane. The whole
thing is absolutely insane. And the more you look at it,
the more you be amazed at it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I just I every time I look at it and
I listen and I hear, and now hearing it from you,
it's just it's overwhelming to think, because what you say,
two thousand and two, two years to find out two
thousand and eight rid of innocence, two thousand what you next?
(01:05:27):
You were in twenty twenty, you know, And it's like,
what what?
Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Why?
Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Let me ask you, why do you think the State
of Virginia did not want to let you out of prison?
Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Great question? So I watched and witnessed a handful of
wrongfully convicted men in the state of Virginia go through
pains and years and years and decades trying to get exonerated.
And I watched many of them get exonerated, right up
(01:06:02):
to just in the last couple of years, I'm seeing
em exonerate. These are guys I knew in prison, right,
And I'm not going to say it's a it's an
overwhelming I'm not going to say it's a huge number.
But how many wrongfully convicted people is is is a
small amount of number, right. I Mean there's guys that
I knew that spent forty freaking years in prison for
(01:06:24):
crimes that didn't comment, forty freaking years in prison. And
I know a list of guys in this state, and
it's not hard to find that list of guys going
back to the eighties, because before then, I think it
was probably impossible to get exonerated. But a list of
guys going back to the eighties who were exonerated just
in the state of Virginia, not including But my point
(01:06:45):
is that in each one of those cases, the Commonwealth
fought tooth and nail. They fought so freaking hard to
preserve that conviction, even when their innocence was obvious. And
look at any you can look at any case out
there in which it's a wrongful conviction and see how
(01:07:06):
hard that state, and especially the state of Virginia fought
to keep them people in prison. It's sick. It's sick.
Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
It is sick.
Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
It's almost like it's almost like this this and I
think we see this across society, but in particular in
government organizations, the entrenched, insidious reluctance to admit you made
a mistake, absolute you were wrong, right, like, you know,
we don't make mistakes. We're we're the government, you know.
(01:07:38):
And when we see that just perpetually, almost in all
the corruption and all the other stuff, just nobody wants
to admit they made a mistake. And it's like, what
the hell is this about? And it's you know, and
in your case and these other people's cases, it's it's
at the expense of people's lives, right, I mean, you
(01:07:59):
spend thirty years incarcerated knowing you were innocent, and I think,
you know, for me, one of the most remarkable aspects
of it. Maybe you could just touch a little bit
before we wrap it up here. Yeah, maybe you could
just touch about what do you do in those moments?
And I know this is a monstrous question, and I
(01:08:21):
would love to have you back on to only talk
about the motivational constructor or foundation you built through your
belief systems that we're able. And I've heard people talk.
You talked about me, doctor Phil talked about me and
Search for Meaning. That's certain a book that's at a
huge in pot me. But I'm sure there's a whole myriad.
(01:08:43):
But if you could just briefly just what keeps you
going every day knowing you're there and you're innocent.
Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, there's a handful of things certainly that kept me going, Right,
I'll tell you it's you would have You would have
done the same, right.
Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
I don't know, man, you would have. It's very difficult, man. Yeah,
I wish. I hope I have what you have inside
you in some capacity that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yeah, don't know. Yeah, but I do know. I do
know because it's the same grit and determination that got
you and I through the toughest training perhaps in the world.
It is the same grit and determination that got me
through thirty years and seven months of a wrongful conviction imprisonment.
(01:09:41):
I went through. Hell. Let me tell you something. I
went through hell. You know, the what I went through
on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. It's it's it's
hell week every day. You know what I mean. It's yeah,
it's it was a lot, right, it's a lot. But
(01:10:02):
you know, it's a lot for write anyone in that
incarcerated and what it is for a person who doesn't
belong there is even more. Right. But I drew strength
from a lot of things. I drew strength from knowing,
you know, who I was as a as a person,
(01:10:26):
who I was, as a man who had it in
me to get through that same training, right and to
get the point where I was at I had a
tremendous support system. Unfortunately, that support system was non existent
from the community. Non existent, right, I say non existent.
(01:10:52):
There were a small couple handful, I mean literally a
couple guys. One of them happened to be the man
who investigated my case for the Seal Teams, right. He,
of all people, he who investigated my case for the
Seal Teams was one of my strongest supporters, right and
(01:11:15):
coming out of the community, right because he knew he
went in and looked meticulously at exactly what had happened,
and so he knew. He knew you know all the details,
right and so. But it's people like him, But it's
also you know, my family, those who have known me
(01:11:37):
all my life that knew that there's no way I
could have committed to crimes that they convicted me of.
They've known that. People who knew me always knew that.
Even people in the teams knew that. People that I
trained with knew that. People who knew me and knew
Billy Brown, they didn't even question it. But if I'm
not mistaken, they were told very specifically, have no communications.
(01:12:00):
They said specifically to you, Billy Brown and Dustin Turner
are dead. Do not attempt to have any conversations with
their family or them, right, They're dead to you, right
And they And this brings up the point that they always,
and I say they, whoever they is, have linked myself
(01:12:23):
and Billy Brown as almost the same freaking people together,
right as if we were the same people and did
the same things. From day one, it was always Turner
and Brown, Turner and Brown, Turner and Brown. Am I right?
Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
That's what we were fed?
Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Yeah, I just I just I just realized that it
would be it would be.
Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
I don't know, it would be unjust to try and
encapsulate what you learned in that self because in in
the remainder of time we have. So I'm just not
going to do it. So I'm going to beg you
to come back on to specifically talk about the regiment,
the mental, the emotional, your spiritual regiment that got you through.
(01:13:16):
If that's okay, because I just it'd be it'd be
a travesty if if if I didn't explore that more
with my audience as a person that has just really
spent you know, the last you know, X amount of
years in my life trying to understand the power of
pain and what it can do to shape us into
the people we want to become. I think how you
(01:13:37):
embody that is so unique but also just piercing in
terms of it's it's it's how profound it is. So
if you can, just if you don't mind, I'd love
to have you back, So maybe we can end on
on this.
Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
What do you have in your heart right now? Moving forward?
Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Word?
Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
And I obviously it's it's too soon to even begin
to remotely say what are you going to do with
the rest of your life?
Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Nah? You know you know, I don't. I don't want
to do that either.
Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
We'll get in that boat, like what do you have
in your heart right now that you want people to
begin to understand?
Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Well, the first thing I thought of is is I
feel like I've been almost angry during this entire interview,
right and uh, And I really appreciate you having me
on here because you were the first team guy who
who Who's Who's had me on it with an interview
and allow me to talk about and talk to And
(01:14:41):
I know there are a lot of community guys that
that that follow you and and that may be interested
in in in the story and what it actually happened,
and maybe they didn't know the whole truth of what happened,
you know, and maybe maybe this will will help them
understand and and maybe even change their mind or maybe
put themselves in my shoes. A lot of people, I know, uh,
(01:15:04):
I can't understand maybe why I made the decisions I made.
But of all people, the team guys, especially from back
in you know, the nineties, before there were cell phones,
before nine to eleven, you know, if they knew what
what if they knew what happened to me and the
(01:15:24):
position I was in and the decisions I had to
make and why I made those decisions, I don't think
that they would. They would understand, you know, they would
understand that. But with that said to I feel like
I've been a bit almost angry at this in this interview.
Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Yeah, and that's I'm so sorry. It's not what I
it's not what I wanted to as.
Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Yeah, I know I know that, but I just, man,
I there's so much power in your words, and that's
why I want to I want to create another space
where we can really just focus on the power of
what you were able to build in your heart and
your mind.
Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
So you know again, this is not entirely.
Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
I just wanted I wanted to just approach all of
the ship that that is just out there and just
from your lips to their ears, to give a voice,
to address that specifically first and then you know, and
then I think, you know, we can maybe in a
(01:16:32):
couple of weeks, have you come back and do the other.
Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
That sounds great? And uh, and I'm not I'm not
sitting around angry though, right, I'm Uh, I'm enjoying. Listen, Listen,
I'm enjoying every freaking moment more than you can imagine,
more you can understand and anybody can understand. Every little thing,
Every little thing is a joy to me. Every little
thing is a joy to me. Right, every experience is
(01:16:56):
a joy. And uh, you know, I'm not looking backwards, right,
I'm not. I'm truly I'm living in the moment and
I'm looking forward. And uh, I'm not going to let
this what is what has happened to me? You know,
I'm not going to sit around be the victim. I'm
gonna I'm going to grasp life by the balls and
I'm going to take off running. And uh, I'm you
(01:17:17):
know what I mean I'm not going to stop. I'm
I'm moving forward and uh and I'm loving it. I'm
loving every day and every moment and every moment under
the sun. It's just it's glorious, you know what I mean.
And that's what I'm doing. That's that's my attitude I'm
taking on. Just like you mentioned, Uh, Victor Frankel. You know,
I can take any damn attitude I want to take,
and I'm free to do that. And I've always been
free to do that, and uh, and this is the
(01:17:38):
attitude I'm taking forward. I'm not angry. I'm moving forward,
you know what I mean. I hate that son of
a bitch that that is responsible for putting me in
here and I and I have a lot of anger
towards a lot of others, but that's not how I'm living.
I'm living. I'm living joyfully.
Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Amen, Dusty Turner. Where can people follow you and watch
this journey, this new journey of life life and how
can they support you?
Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Well, some of my my advocates who have been great
and have supported me along the ways. I wouldn't be
out here if it wasn't for them, I truly wouldn't.
I swear to you. If it wasn't for them fighting
for me every goddamn day, I wouldn't be here. I
swear to you. They fought, you know. And uh so
they've got a they got I'm not even allowed to
have social media, right. I'm under these restrictions still today,
(01:18:24):
and I'm still fighting, right, I'm still fighting for my
ultimate freedom. But they've got social media at Free Dusty
Turner website. You know, they're updating it now, the Free
Dusty website dot org. I think free Dusty dot org.
And there's you know, there's I don't know how much
the petition site changed. Dot org is even meaningful anymore,
(01:18:48):
and it might be. Hey, I got to tell you this.
Guess who I met this morning, randomly, randomly, Governor Virginia,
Governor Ralph Northam. I just I'm eating breakfast and I
look over and I'm like, he looks familiar. His wife
looks familiar. Oh my gosh, So what do you think
I did? I'm like, hey, hey, Governor, Hey who I am?
(01:19:14):
That's exactly what I did? I said, yeah, And because
he was supposed to grant me clemency back in twenty twenty.
In twenty twenty, he was supposed to grant me Clemenson
and anyway, so I didn't hold it against him. I said, hey,
doctor Northam, how you doing, And I and introduced myself.
We had a long guess what he did. He gave
me his personal phone number and he said, look, man,
(01:19:36):
if you you know anything you need, call me. You
know what I mean, I'm here for real, just give
me a call. And so that's cool, you know what
I mean. That's pretty cool, right.
Speaker 3 (01:19:47):
Yeah, it's really cool. That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
All right, Dusty, thank you so much for your time,
and I just I pray for you and your family's peace.
And it's just that you, like you said, keep living
in a moment and keep experiencing everything. And I'm really
really looking forward to having you back on to talk
about what that mindset and that emotional state was like
to get through that thirty years.
Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Absolutely right. I appreciate you
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