November 6, 2017 • 54 mins
Dusty Turner was a 20-year-old Navy SEAL trainee when he was arrested for the murder and abduction of Jennifer Evans. On June 19th, 1995, Dusty Turner was out at a bar with some friends in Virginia Beach, VA, including his roommate and training partner, Billy Brown. Dusty Turner and Jennifer Evans were sitting in his car waiting for Evans’s friends to join them when an extremely intoxicated Billy Brown forced his way into the back seat and began insulting Evans and pulling her hair. When she tried to defend herself, Brown suddenly attacked her, wrapped his arms around her neck in a forceful choke hold, and killed her instantly. All the while Dusty Turner had been prying and clawing Brown’s hand off of Evans, pleading with him to stop. Finally realizing that she was dead, Dusty panicked and reacted to his intensive SEAL training that demanded “always protect your swim buddy” regardless of the cost. Dusty’s instinct for survival and misplaced loyalty to Brown took over as he drove out of the parking lot and helped Brown hide the victim’s body in a nearby wooded area. Eight days later, Dusty confessed the entire story to his commanding officer and agreed to take the police to the body after being assured that he would only be used as a witness during the trial. During Billy Brown’s trial in 1996, Brown testified against Dusty to receive a lesser sentence of 72 years in prison. Three months later, with an outraged community and media frenzy surrounding the case, Dusty Turner was convicted of first-degree murder and abduction, and sentenced to 82 years in prison. In 2002, Billy Brown confessed to Jennifer Evans’ murder and said that Dusty Turner played no part in it. Dusty Turner petitioned for a “writ of actual innocence” and his conviction was overturned by a three-judge panel of the Virginia State Court of Appeals. However, the State Attorney General’s Office quickly appealed this decision and the original Court of Appeals ruling was overturned. To date, Dusty Turner has served nearly 22 years in prison, over half of his life.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
you say, well, when we go to a hearing or
(00:22):
we go to court, the truth will come out. The
prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let
forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the
way up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone
with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment,
unchecked authority. Don't presume that people are guilty when you
(00:46):
see him on TV, because it may just be a
dirty d A that is trying to rise upward. This
is wrongful conviction. Hello, this is a prepaid call from
(01:14):
I'm innovated to Virginia Department of Corrections, Green Steel Correctional
and Work Center to accept this call. This call is
from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Welcome back to ronfal Conviction with Jason Flam Today. I'm
interviewing someone who I have a great deal of respect
and admiration for, Dusty Turner. On June ninety, one year
(01:39):
old PREMN student went missing while vacationing with family friends
at Virginia Beach. Twenty one year old Jennifer Evans abducted
and murdered while vacationing in Virginia Beach that Sunday night,
Jennifer Evans left the now defunct Biou nightclub with former
Navy Seal trainee Dustin Turner. Police say the two got
in the car with another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown.
(02:01):
Police found her body nine days later in this wooded
area of Newport News. She had been strangled. Both men
blamed each other in court. Turner was sentenced to eighty
two years and Brown to seventy two years. Both sentenced
to spend the rest of their lives in prison, but
the appeals continued through this year. When Brown told police
he was solely responsible for Jennifer's death, the confession gave
(02:23):
Dustin Turner one last chance to walk free. The Virginia
Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday against Dusty Turner's petition for exoneration.
That really means Turner in another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown,
will spend the rest of their lives in prison for
the murder of Jennifer Evan. Dusty, welcome to the show.
(02:44):
The reason you're hearing him sound sort of like he's
on another planet is because he is. He's in prison
in Virginia where he's been locked up for twenty two
years for a crime he had nothing to do with.
It's a complicated case and a very tragic situation because
Dusty had just completed the training to be a Navy
Seal when he was arrested for a murder that he
(03:05):
didn't commit. And Dusty, let's go back to that. When
did you sign up for the Navy? What made you
want to serve your country? Well, my, uh, my family
has been in the military, my father, my stepfather, and
my my brother. My older brother he was in the
Navy before me, and I guess I just have always
had that appeal for the military to my country, right,
(03:27):
But you took it to another level going through that
Navy Seal training. That is the most extreme thing you
can do, right. Seals and Rangers are the most elite
troops that we have, and so you decided to subject
yourself to basically torture in order to really become a machine. Right, Yes,
I guess that's right. You know, initially when I first
(03:49):
signed up to the military, the Navy, I wanted to
be a diver. I was the scuba diving for fifteen
years and befool I was under the with COVID DELAYE
interry program and the before actually arrived at boot camp
by sit mynd fights on becoming a still I don't
know really what it is. It drove me so much,
(04:10):
but I just wanted to be in the most uh
elite the unit that I could be in order to
fight from my huntry. And ironically this all went horribly wrong.
And there's a connection. There's a very strong connection to
the training because of the fact that it was that
faithful night when you were out with your training buddy
(04:31):
when all of this tragedy began. Your training partner was
Billy Brown, right, Yes, Billy Brown and I were paired
together early on in buds training and throughout the entire
Shield training we were paired up. And actually the only
reason we're paired up at the beginning is because we're
the same height and as fate would have it. That's
(04:52):
why we were paired up. Why does that matter, Well,
the everyone is assigned to a boat crew in buds.
Training in your boat crew is dependent upon height, and
so we were in the same boat crew, were the
same height. One of structures that you and you you're
together now swim body And that was early in trade.
And the issue was Billy was a very volatile character. Right,
(05:17):
There's questions that have been raised as to whether he
should have ever been admitted into the Navy in the
first place when he had a history of well, let's
just say, erratic behavior that would be concerning you would
think before allowing him in to serve in that capacity.
Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, So
I didn't know about his past until after the trial.
(05:41):
He did have a violent history, Apparently he had I
thought that at least one email before he came to
the military. He was discharged out of the Coast Guard
before he came into the into the Navy, and he
had a couple of other things on his record, which
I mean, I was kind aware of the prior. You know,
(06:02):
there's some people have said that when he wouldn't have
gone through the process, get his security clearance, that they
would have recognized this and then picked them out of
the service. I'm not so sure if that's the case
or not, but he certainly had the final path. And
it is surprising, you know, in hindsight, is very surprising
that he was allowed not only the military, but to
(06:23):
uh come through into the Special Forces and Dusty so
going through the training with him, I mean, you guys
are taught to protect each other at all costs, even
if it means risking or putting your own life in danger.
Is that right? Yes? It is during the training throughout
a good majority of it. If we were separated more
(06:44):
than six ft, we would be punished for that. You know,
I could trust him in the field so to speak
to uh shoot over top of my back and my
parachute to speak. Um. So there was a great deal
of trust and a binding board for it to come
with the training, right, you literally had to trust each
(07:05):
other with your lives in a very very in a
very real way. I'm bringing that up because it has
a bearing on the events, the tragic events that happened
on June in Virginia Beach. And I don't think anybody
who hasn't been in your shoes can judge how you
(07:26):
acted on that particular night. It's a very unique case
and a very unique set of circumstances. Let's talk about that.
Because you guys went out to a bar that night.
The evening started innocently enough, but Billy had a drinking
problem from what I've read, and apparently he got pretty blitzed.
Is that right? Yeah, he had been drinking that day
(07:49):
and it just continued end of the evening that we
were at the club at nine, and he was so
walk us through what happened, Dusty, because this is really
the moment, right when your life was turned upside down.
How did this unravel from the time you were in
the club to when you ended up in the car
(08:09):
and then ultimately what happened after that, well, you know,
and started off as kind of a normal, normal evening.
I've been to that club a few times previous. I
was relatively new to the area in Virtnua Beach, not
only been there maybe maybe three weeks. And so initially
three of us guys were going to go out to
(08:30):
do the club at nine. One of the guys ended
up going and I don't know, going off with this
girl friend or something. So Billy and I went to
the club. It was again it was kind of a
normal here Billy is drunk. Again. I kind of separated
myself at the club promium and uh, I had met
a very nice young lady named Jennifer Evans. We kind
of hit it off. We're having a good time for
(08:51):
sharing with each other. Felt it was what we were into.
You know. She was at a college studs down in Georgia.
And I generally didn't talk very open about my build experience,
but with her, I did, and I opened up and
I told her when I was doing there the beach. Now,
mind you that I was in the club with a
under age and I had a bag. I d that
(09:14):
I got in there. You were twenty at the time, right,
That was yeah, I was twenty years old. Jennifer was
twenty one. And so again we you know different, I
we hit it off. We had to separate ourselves from
from Billy. I had met her girlfriends, her two friends
as she came there with We've been out on the
dance floor and uh, you know again it's it's very
very normal type of evil and the last thing I
(09:38):
was imagine with something tragic happening that night, so it
put it in the night her girlfriend had left. Briefly
they were going to go get some coffee, din everyone
that they would be in the club. So we actually
had an idea of trying to go down to the beach,
picking our shoes off, and walking down on the beach.
But as the night progressed and her girlfriends were going
to come pick her back up at two o'clock in
(09:59):
the morning, which is the on this club clote, Jennifer
and I realized we didn't know the time to go
down to the beach and then make it back to
meet her girlfriends, so we stayed in the club, and
in fact, we went out into the lobby where it
was more quiet, and we just sat out there and
had a conversation. Just previous to this, I had gotten
ability to ride home with this ex girlfriend who happen
(10:22):
to be in the club that night, Christian Posishop, and
reluctantly she did agree to take him home. She was reluctant,
hesitant because she knows the type of character that he
is and she really didn't want to deal with him,
especially because he was so drunk, which I understood, but
you know, I was happy that she was willing to
take come home. So I was confident that I wouldn't
(10:43):
even see him for the rest of the night. And
I was with Dinnifer, and it was closing upon two
o'clock in the morning. We were out in the lobby
and uh we decided to go out into the parks
and lots and wait for her girlfriend and sit in
my car and listen to music. And so within about
ten minutes, still too again, we went out to my
car and we were there listen to music and looking
(11:07):
for her girlfriends to show up at any minute. Instead,
what we saw coming down to Whill was Billy Brown
and he was heading towards the part. You know, I
certainly wasn't expecting him. Christian was supposed to stake him home.
I knew he was drunk and belligerent, but when he
was approaching the vehicle, I told Jennifer, I said, look,
you know this is the guy I come here with.
(11:28):
You know he's drunk. Just just don't pay no attention
to something. I've seen him in the past, especially when
we were in Puerto Rico. I've seen him to witnessed
him become kind of violent towards women. I didn't think
that he would become violent towards dinner fer but I
did assume he was at least going to be obnoxious
and somewhat belligerent. So when he got into the car, wait,
(11:51):
hold up there for a second, Dusky, what kind of
car was it? So I had a small Geo Storm.
So that's a small car, right, Yeah, it is very
a car. And you're big guys, both of you guys are.
He was bigger than I. We were both six ft
two and a half, I guess, and he outweighed me
by maybe maybe he did peas point pund so he
(12:11):
was I think he was about two hundred and thirty somewhere,
and that's the third pounds. He approaches the pass your
side of the car and he opens the door and
he kind of pushes the Varsity forward with Jennifer is sitting,
he pushes the seat forward a little roughly, and he
gets in the car and the back seat right behind her.
Of course, his big frame compared with fit back, and
(12:32):
this he did a very small carm. Those knees are
against the back of the pert And as soon as
he sits down, I turned to him and I said, Billy,
what's what's going on? Was was Christian not taking you home?
And he uh immediately goes into a tirade about oh
(12:53):
screw me, that f that girl, or should you think
you know blah blah, he's a nothing but a this
or that. This is the last thing you want to see, right,
You're having a nice moment with a girl, you have
a nice connection with her. The last thing you want
to see, the last thing anybody would want to see
is a drunk, belligerent, violent anybody you want don't want
(13:14):
to see anybody at that point. You just want to
be in your little bubble with her, listen to music.
Everything's good. I mean, you never could have predicted how
bad it was going to get, but already it's bad. Yeah,
So this is obviously, this is the crux of the
situation Jennifer and having this time. We were not romantically
involved at this time. Earlier I had given her on
(13:35):
her when I thought that she was gonna leave with
her girlfriends, and that's the only time we had any
comfortable contact. Said, she's a very decent young lady. You know,
she was a good girl with a great who was
going to college. It's a very nice young lady. And
so we're having a great conversation and said, here comes
(13:56):
this drunk buddy in mine own to the car. So
he's now in the back seat and is acting as
you would have probably predicted that he would have act
because of what you know about his character and his
current state of mind. But then it gets much worse. Yeah. Yeah,
So after asking him why Christians taken him home, and
(14:18):
you know, he said what he said about her, and
he turned his attention to Jennifer, and uh, he made
some very rude comments, if I remember correctly, said something
about asking her if she was a virgin something like that.
It was certainly, uh, inappropriate, and I immediately said, look, Billie,
why don't you get out and go find Christians that
(14:39):
she was taking home. And so he was not trying
to hear that at all. He's like that that bitch.
So again he kind of turns this pench to Jennifer
in the mind you within two, three or four minutes
before her girlfriends are coming to pick her up right
there where we're at in the parking lot. They're supposed
to ride there, and they supposed to be there and
(14:59):
to this bot, and it has to be within a
couple of minutes before two, And of course I didn't
know at that point to what it transpired in the
blood between him and Kristen. That made him additionally belligerent.
Who turns his finch back to center her and he
uh said something about her hair. He reached it up
(15:19):
with his right hand. I don't know if he touched
her her shoulder or her hair. But at that point, Jennifer,
at this throughout this time, this brief a couple of minutes,
he had not said a word, did not open her
mouth to him or revived in him. And so when
he touched her hair or her shoulder, she smacked his
(15:41):
hand from behind, you know, swatted his hand, and that's
when he snapped. So I wasn't looking directly at him
when he snapped, but with all his might, he silently
brushed his arms around her upper bought her neck area,
and with so much force that the whole car literally
(16:05):
say right, and I'm thinking about it, dust. He had
his feet, as you said, his knees were up against
the seat. And here's a big, strong pound guy who's
trained to kill with his with his hands, and he's
got total leverage right because he's got the knees. I
mean you know it would have been nothing for him
(16:25):
to do this, considering all of those you know, I
don't you know, I don't know about saying it would
have been nothing. I really don't know. I know that
seemingly words coming for him. The strike that he did
upon this innocent young woman was so violent that when
I turned and started screaming at him, just let her go,
(16:49):
and he's screaming me, just epan, drive and drive first,
I started crying and trying to pull his arms off,
over and streaming at him. This this entire great time.
When this happened, Jennifer never once reached up to defend herself.
It was that quick that she was out, and so
I immediately grabbed his arms and I'm screaming at him
(17:12):
just let her go, to let them and he's screaming
at me, just drive, just up and drive. Only after
a couple of seconds at pulling in his arms didn't marks.
So I reached under his fingers literally and pride his arms,
using one hand on his elbow in the other under
his fingertips and pride his arms up off of her.
At this point, when I dig at his arms off her,
he took back in the seat and she is out.
(17:35):
He did. Her head is built towards the passenger side window,
her arms and other side she avoided herself. And I'm
just complete shot and just utter confusion and disbelief. And
I'm and he still he is yelling at me, just
(17:55):
being dry and dry, dusty. I'm just thinking that. I'm
just the physics of it. I mean, it would have
been almost impossible for anyone, even a strong guy like yourself,
to pull somebody off from the side when he's in
the position like he was in, especially when it happened
as quickly as it did. I mean, you really had
no chance to save this poor girl. And I mean
(18:17):
obviously you did what you could, but she had no chance.
And at this point, were you concerned that he was
gonna try to kill you too? No, it certainly wasn't mine.
They didn't go through my head at the time. My
only thought, And I think that anyone sitting in my
seat would have had a same reaction. You know, one
minute having a good time with a young lady, and
(18:39):
the next minute, this guy, this violent predator, compleatly just
alters history. I don't know, it's strain it. I mean,
he is one act that he does. It's changes the
lives of so many people, and he's drunk, and you know,
I'd like to think that he really didn't know what
the heck is doing. He has his past, and he
has asked of the violence swords Limou, but he's been
(19:02):
increasingly becoming an alcoholic over the last several weeks a
month in which is drinking every single time. This was
a bad, bad bud, not to mention the fact that
he was taking terribilely leading up to this as will. Obviously,
he destroyed her and killed her, and he ruined the
lives of everyone who cared about her, her family, etcetera.
(19:23):
He ruined your life, he ruined his own life. He
ruined the lives of your families, right, your family, all
military heroes and so yeah, in one short burst of
violence that from what it sounds like, lasted only seconds,
not even minutes, he managed to destroy so many people.
And then that's where the story gets into a whole
(19:44):
different phase. Right and again, I'm I can't walk in
your shoes. No one can walk in your shoes with
all the factors that were going on, Dusty, with the
fact that you had been now trained practically indoctrinated into
this idea that you must protect this guy and he's
going to protect you. You know, that's just in the mix.
(20:06):
I just want to put that in there. But besides that,
you're in a state I can imagine of complete shock
and panic. And who could imagine this terrible turn of events,
as you said, And what a dramatic turn when it
goes from what sounds like a beautiful night, a nice
connection two this absolute horror that you're you've just witnessed
(20:30):
as close and personal as you can imagine with somebody
that you were supposed to trust and protect and someone
else that you would have liked to protect but you couldn't.
He's screaming at you to drive. What what happened? Yeah?
And this is like, this is why you're in because
of what you've done afterwards. And if people can't understand
(20:50):
your reactions afterwards, the normal person would have jumped out
of the vehicle and ran to find the phone or
the police somewhere or tails body. Something just terrible hasn't happened.
And that might be the case for most people. I
don't know, but I think that's the way I reacted
because it would have been different even if my own
(21:10):
brother would have been in Billy Brown's place, I think
I would have reacted differently, because, like I said, to
the way I was conditions and indoctrinated at twenty years old,
I reacted how I reacted. I'm not a criminal. I've
never been violent. I certainly have never been violent towards women,
and I'm not criminally minded. And so why is is
(21:33):
that a twenty year old trust in this position which
I should never have been in to begin with, and
it had to make these kinds of decisions. And so
when I realized that the first did and build my
own screaming them and I really didn't know what I'm
in a place in this area, Like I said, I
(21:53):
hadn't have been and the beach for a couple of
weeks and weeks fun. So I just put the car
in the drive and I took off drive, and I
didn't know where I was going. I didn't even know
how to barely get out of the Virginia Beach area
until I ended up. In fact, Bill Brown, when I
started driving, he said, I turn left here, turn right there,
(22:17):
And I ended up on sixty four, and I'm sixty four.
I'm familiar with that highway, and so I just started
traveling west on sixty four and I didn't know where
I was going, and I just kept driving and driving
until I started seeing a lot of wooded areas, and
so I pulled off on an excess. Again, I have
no idea where I'm at, and I'm just driving. I
(22:39):
pulled off into another area which seemed more wooded, until
I get to a more secluded area, which is not
that far from here state, and both of us, myself
completely get up the car. I grabbed for wrist, he
grabbed her legs, and we carried her perhaps thirty art
(23:00):
into the woods. And again I was incomplete chaotic shock,
and and I didn't know what I was doing. I
didn't know what else to do. And yeah, I understand
that people they will look at that moment there and say,
you know that, why would you do that? Why you
(23:22):
know I would have done that? But others have popped
in in my shoes. They don't understand, and perhaps I
don't even understand why I reacted that would other than
to say that this is kind of how I was
trying to react. They didn't say in a situation which
you know there's been a crime and it's a civilian
who has been hurt, protect your swimboddy. Of course they
(23:42):
didn't say that. However, now I want to understand when
you go through still training today, they do have classes
and training that says, look, if this type of scenario happens,
you need to consider what you know, where you're at,
what you're doing, and so forth, and do not protect
your own body if he has done something so harnted
(24:03):
the wrong. And that's the place today because of because
of this, But Dusty, I want to bring up an
important point. What is important from a legal perspective to
remember is that in Virginia, hiding a body after a
murder is a misdemeanor punishable by up to twelve months
in jail. And that's not what you got convicted of.
(24:24):
That's not what they wanted you for. And we're going
to get to that in a minute. But that's a
very important thing to remember. In certain states that's not
the case. There's some states where it's treated very differently.
In some states it's treated the same as murder, just
you know, hiding the body after the fact. But that's
the only thing that you were guilty of, and that's
one of the reasons why I've dived into your case
(24:45):
and why I'm doing everything I can to help you
try to find justice, because it's obviously a terrible miscarriage
of justice, the fact that you're serving time for murder
when what you did was wrong, but it's not murder.
So now going forward, you go back to the base,
(25:07):
and this is big news, right the town is up
in arms. Everyone's wondering what happened to this girl? And
this must have been driving you crazy, right, Well, I
wasn't really aware at the time of the news and
the media. But what was driving me crazy. It's just
having witnessed this and and and knowing about it and
attempting to remain silent about it. It was, Uh. It
(25:31):
put me in a state of almost like a zombie
like state throughout the next week in which I held
this specret and witness really do this terrible, terrible deed,
and I had it within and and I couldn't tell anybody,
and so it was it was definitely eating me up
(25:52):
on the inside. The coming week we were up nor
something uh from place called ape you doing addital training.
But then I wasn't During the time, I wasn't aware
of the news and the media down that pretenue to beach,
but it was certainly eating you up on the inside.
So your conscience got the best of you, and you know,
(26:15):
you did the right thing after having done the wrong
thing and went to the authorities, right, And that's where
things get really dicey from everything I've read, where they
didn't behave in a straightforward manner when it comes to
how they treated you. Right. Well, first of all, you know,
I did it still be defective? You know everything that
they asked me. You know, at first I did not
(26:36):
den everything, but it came to a point, especially after
they had presented me with the fact that Jennifer's family
is in absolute going to a traumatic breathing experience and
they just want to know appen and want to know
where their daughter is. And it was through this line,
I think for our questioning that I asked to see
(27:00):
my very officer, and my spirit off came in and
we were alone, and I told him everything that happened,
and so he said that he was gonna attempt to
call the dad officer and to see what we could
do as far as legally or something like that. But nonetheless,
fifteen minutes later, when the Texas come in, I told
him everything that they had asked, and they even asked
(27:22):
me if I would help them first draw a map
to where Gennifer's body was, which I did, I tempted
to do, and then asked me if I would accompany
him the help find Centifer Society, so which I did also,
and I'm still my spirity officer and one of the detectives.
We went to the location and we separated to search
(27:43):
through the wood. Finally I did find her body. At
that point I went back to the base. They had
presented Billy Brown with the map that I had drawn.
He said, look, your buddy completely just rolled on you.
He told us everything you're going al You're probably gonna
get the definitety whatever else. And so at that point
(28:05):
that he began with the stories about now I had
something to do with it. He later said that he
was going down he didn't think me with and so
he made up a story saying that we're both home. Yeah.
I mean, he was obviously furious because he believed that you,
who was supposed to be his protector, had betrayed him.
He's gonna do what he can to bring you down
(28:25):
with him because in his twisted way of thinking, you
should have covered up this murder and protected him, and
so you did what you thought was right, albeit after
the fact and the consequences started to become very real
now from what I've read, Dusty, the detectives made certain
(28:45):
promises to you, right that if you help them, you
were going to be kind of okay, right, yeah, they
think you know. They did say that. Lafter telling Muster
officer what had happened, and he spoke to the Texas
As will and take together. They said, look, just just
answer the questions. It'll be all right. And I said,
are you sure you know? And I kind of took
(29:07):
it as a direct order from my spare offer. I said,
are you sure that's what I should do them? And
he said, yes, just answer the questions, be all right.
I said, okay. Now, they didn't come to me and
say anything like, well, for your testimony, will allow some
kind of agreement or something like that. No, they never
actually came to me and said that. And of course,
being very ignorant of the criminal justice, you know, I
(29:29):
didn't know that I would even need a lawyer, or
they that I should remain time about certain things or
where have you, but you know I will only ask
them to search my vehicle. I mean, I answered the
questions truthfully, and I thought that maybe what this would
lead to was at some point me on a witness
(29:50):
spand explaining as Billy Brown and being charged with her murder,
that I would be explaining exactly how things happened. Maybe
I was naive, but I assume, and that's a coming work.
I certainly didn't assume that they were going to charge
me after speaking of Billy Brown and hid the point
of the fingers much Still, I certainly didn't think orge
(30:12):
And this is an important point, Dusty, right, because the
police spent forty eight hours examining your car, right, So
they turned that thing upside down. And yet they never
used any of the evidence from the car at trial
because it wasn't gonna be favorable to them, And in fact,
by not presenting the evidence at trial, they didn't have
(30:34):
to turn over to the defense, when in fact, if
they had, it would have been definitely in your favor.
Because of the fact that everything you were saying makes true,
that the physics of it just don't add up. Some
of the things that they said. It doesn't make sense
(30:59):
to add insult to injury and in a in a
terrible call it a coincidence. The year that you were
convicted was the same year that Virginia abolished parole, which
is shocking to my conscience in a nation where we
believe in second chances and we believe in redemption and
we believe in that stuff, the idea that if you
were so misfortunate as to be convicted in Virginia later,
(31:21):
you are not eligible for parole. I wouldn't even know
what parole meant. I wasn't aware, you know, today had
just abolished prole Virginia. I don't think I would have
would have paired. It's time. I wasn't so I gets
concerned about the sentence I was given. I was concerned
about the fact that I was convicted of two charges
that I did not commit. Whether it gave it ten
(31:42):
years or a hundred years, I was convicted of something
I didn't commit. And that's that was the Travis. It's
it's uh. I can't um I can't really imagine how
that could make sense in a society like ours. But
but it is in fact a reality, and it's your reality,
and it's why now everyone is working so hard to
(32:03):
help you get clemency or a pardon or a conditional
pardon from the governor because of the fact that that
is the only recourse left. Another thing that's of sort
of a unique and to me troubling concept is the
idea that you only have really one appeal of actual
innocence in Virginia, right. And that's something I want to
(32:25):
get to Dusty, because, first of all, a crazy thing
happened in two thousand and two, right, which is that
Billy he had some sort of an awakening and decided
to come clean and tell the truth. We're talking two
thousand and to fifteen years ago, right, and he recanted
and admitted that he was the sole murderer. And I
(32:45):
think people are listening now, I'm going, well, wait a minute,
if that happened, why is Dusty still in prison? Can
you explain that scenario? Yeah, Vokan explaient. Yes, as he
sing his time and some other prison I guess some
guys had approached him and got them to get into Christianity,
(33:05):
and this allowed him to finally relieve his burden that
he's been holding for all these years and to confess.
And so that happened again in early two thousands, and
here it is fifteen years later, and I'm still sitting here,
still sitting here, after after he's come clean, after he
(33:26):
finally said, yeah, everything that Dost just said, that's what happened,
and the judge rule that he's credible in that confession.
So there was no mechanisms and more recently of even
getting back into court with such new evidence. But there
was a time later into thousand six seven, and so
we finally rid of actual innocence to the appeals court,
(33:50):
which ended with well, the appeals court initially overturned my conversation.
They did convict me of the misdemeanor accessory after the
fact to the pony, which indeed I am guilty though
and like you said earlier, that was a maximum sentence
of twelve months in jail. Well, they made this ruling
(34:10):
and they dropped my charges. There's a two thousand nine
I'm expecting me home within a matter of days. For weeks.
This is what makes me insane. And I think anybody
listening is like, wait, wait, wait, So your conviction was vacated, right,
and then that means to a layman who's not intimately
familiar with the law or criminal proceedings. When you're convictions vacated,
(34:34):
you have every reason to believe you're gonna go home. Right.
They've actually come out and said, Okay, we are now
acknowledging there is no physical evidence connecting you to this.
None of this stuff adds up, right, not to the murder.
Like you said, you're guilty of the accessory after the fact,
and now you have the actual killer confessing in court
under oath. Sounds like a winner. Right, You're going home,
(34:57):
except for then the state decided to put it's foot
back on your neck, so to speak. Right, and then
what happened? Yeah, so the joint to vacated my my conviction,
and I was expect to be home with the matter
of day. The acting Attorney General came forward and said
that he wanted to feel this decision, and so they
appealed it and it went back through the Pelot Court
(35:19):
and then on into the later into the Supreme Court
in Virginia and under a new theory that one of
the judges of the pilot court created, and the spread
of actual innscence is so demanding as they say that
the evidence has to be just as substantial as DNA evidence,
which Unfortunately, there's no DNA evidence in my case. But
so one of the judges says, well, although he didn't
(35:43):
have anything to do with the murder, and this has
been decided bout it, he didn't have anything to do
with the murder, and he didn't restrain. This judge says, well,
perhaps a jury could believe that when Dusty walked out
of the bar to the parking lot to his call,
that the a jury could believe that that was an
(36:04):
abduction by deception. And if the jury believed that, and
then Jennifer was later killed darlissha Power who's killed her,
the u which built the guilty the jury is still
find me guilty about the abduction in the murder. So
they created a new theory in my face. There's just
not only the asinine, but it was never presented before
a jury, and there's no jury in the world they
(36:27):
would believe this idea, especially with all the additional evidence.
So under that because of that, and it's all the
semantics of this word restraint, and that's what it comes
down to. I'm still in prison because of the semantics
of the word restraint. And it's unbelievable. So they overturned
my release and then reinstated my completion. And here it
(36:50):
is seven years later and I'm still sitting here PRIs
I did not. So they're basically trying to say that
they're going back in time to the going back into
and trying to come up with a theory that could
actually read your mind. Right, they're going back in a
(37:11):
time machine and reading your mind and saying, well, this
may have been, could have been, would have been something
that he might have been thinking of doing. There's no
evidence to prove it. How could anybody? I don't know.
It makes me nuts. It's such a bizarre It's such
a bizarre thing for a court or a judge to say.
As far as I'm concerned, not think that the legislators
(37:33):
recognized that after my case and I said, you know,
this river excell inncence is obviously entirely to restricted and
h to open for interpretation or whatever. And so they
since I went through this river excellencence, now they've changed
the law the wording of a river excellence. Instead of saying,
could any jurorfying you with this? Now it's more specific,
(37:58):
and it may sound supplicit, but it's more to this thing.
Would a rational juror still find deal with this new
evidence and the new wording, which I can't go back
into the river of actionist because it's the one shot deal,
and so I'm left hung out to draw on this
on this whole time. Well, hopefully not for too long,
because you have a lot of really great people on
your side now, and you have a governor who cares
(38:20):
about these issues and who has shown in actions that
he believes in justice, that he believes in fairness, and
that he has the courage to do something about these things.
He does seem like convery fair man, and I do
have hope. I do think that he will look at
my case, and I know and I'm very confident that
(38:43):
if he does, if he just looks on my case,
that he realize that I'm not supposed to be here,
I do have that tremendous hope that he will take
action in my case. Well, Dusty, I can tell you
that I think that there's a lot of reason to
have have hope in this current administration that we have
there because of the fact that you do have such
a ground swell of support, and not only that, because
(39:06):
of what you've done, the remarkable record of accomplishment that
you've had on the inside, and I want to talk
about that. I know that you know you're finding hope
in a hopeless place, but I want to paint a
picture for the audience of just how grim it is
to be in this situation you're in, and then also
what you've managed to make out of that experience. Well,
(39:30):
you know, I've got a quote from a guy who
knows suffering, and a couple of things have kept me
I don't move forward and and positive. I can be
one of the supporters that I do have, not just
my family, but other total strangers who have reached out.
And it gives me a lot of hope, and it
gives me a lot of strength to endure. This is
(39:53):
what I'm going through in this environment, and it is terrible,
It's absolutely terrible. But this quote, one of my favorite quotes.
It says that everything to be taken from a man,
but one thing, the last of the human freedom, and
that is to choose one's own attitude in any set
of circumstance, choose one's own way. A man named Victor
(40:14):
frankl And you know, I've I guess I've taken on
this this attitude you know that which allowed me to
persevere through through bud training to still training. I reached
for this almost on a daily basis. You know. I
put my feet on the ground and I said, I
have to I have to continue on today, and I
have to push forward, and I can't allow this environment
(40:36):
to get the best of and I want to transcend
in spite of where I'm at. And so I've looked
to try to do things to try to help out
not only the people around me in my environment for years,
and I've helped guys who struggled with a drug addition
or criminal thinking. And I've just kind of made it
a part of my own character to trying to help
(40:59):
you guys and to move past, transcend some of these
things in which they've been stuck in. And not only that.
Proposed a dog training program. That's the last institution that
I was in. It was luckily it was to prove
and we had the dogs come in and for about
three years I was able to be a dog trainer.
And I had studied and read up and learned so
(41:22):
much about training dogs and I really enjoyed them. And
how does that training program work, Dusty? The dogs are
they rescue dogs and what happens to them after they're trained, right,
So these are absolutely rescued dogs. These were abandoned. We
worked with a shelter out of Ashley, Virginia called Bark
the a r COM and that's the Abandoned Adoption and
(41:42):
Rescued KANUS really great orderzation and they would bring us
six dogs at time and we would have them for
three months and we had my total was a twelve
dog trainers too free stalls and we were trained the dogs,
these dogs that were abandoned and you never know what
their history was. They could than maybe beef in or
however that they were rescued and we were given the
(42:05):
tools to help train these dolls and then afterwards they
were adopted and we had an a stoption rate of
some ninety something percent coming out of there. We trained
them in basic and non obedience. It was a really
really great, really positive program. And there had gotten into
me and another guy. We have been talking about different
(42:26):
ideas concerning the judicial systems. When we come across this
idea of restorative justice, and after we had studied on
it and we've gotten in contact with some restorative justice practitioners,
we decided that with our knowledge of this environment in
the prison, and we knew what was lacking in this environment,
(42:46):
we knew some of the things that could help in
the rehabilitation of the solo invates. We constructed a restorative
justice program. We're still in the process of kind of
fleshing out some of the more detailed aspects of the curriculum.
But this is what my passion has been into for
the past few years. I've really been concentrating my efforts
into this program. And we have people and restore just
(43:09):
practitioners from university another organizations really really like what we
have created and they want to help out a little bit. Well,
you know, that's you know what it sounds like to me.
It sounds like you're doing more good, like I said,
from this hopeless place than most people on the outside
can never even dream of doing. And that's you know,
(43:29):
that's to your credit obviously, and it's another reason why
it makes sense for you to be granted your freedom
after all these years. And if you even allow your
mind to go there, what do you want to do?
What's your plan? Well, as you hit upon do I
even want to go there? I have been looking, especially
(43:51):
after seven years ago when I was expecting to get out,
and I always denied that that was a very crushing
blow and it was difficult endurance. But yeah, of course
I do allow myself to think about once amount of here,
although I don't do well upon it because I just
(44:12):
I don't know. I just I can't go there for
so much. But the more I've gotten into a restorative justice,
the more I think it's an extremely a beneficial philosophy
and instead of practices for to kind of compliment our
criminal justice system. And so I really want to pursue
that direction, and I think that I could, I could
(44:34):
help out. I think I had a lot of cool
our shield and knowledge from being in here for the
last point two plus years in observing things from the inside.
I feel like I have a great respective to be
able to help out in the resort justice. That sounds
like a great scenario to me and benefits the society
(44:55):
across the board. I don't know if you're able to
talk about it, but they really struck me earlier when
(45:18):
you told me that the prisoner or your pot is
on lockdown. What does that mean? Well, so, where I'm
at now, we've been on lockdown for the last two weeks,
which means we're confined to our concrete posts are so
and when we're coming out every seven two hours to
take a shout, they bring the food to our door.
(45:39):
And I say our door because I have a film partner.
Every show as two people for film, and this is
how I've been living for the last two weeks. The moreover,
it's pretty much how I've been living for the last
point two years. But when we're not on lockdown, you know,
I do have a modicum of freedoms if you will,
you know, every once while I can get outside, bake
(46:01):
fresh air and work out. Um enrolled into a horticulture
class and learn about horticulture and I can actually have
my fingers in the soil and be able to have
the opportunity to plant from the seeds and vegetables and
so forth. It's really been a positive thing, really really
enjoining the horticulture. And the last question about the prison experience,
(46:23):
what is an average day like when you're not on lockdown?
You wake up at five or something, How does how
do you get through the day. Yeah, so they have
what they call a count procedures in which they have
to come through and literally count every individual while they're
locked in the sill about four times or so every day,
(46:43):
spread out throughout the day, and during that time you
have to be standing up and your life have to
be on so they can see that you're alive and
you will and and that starts certain with the four
six o'clock in the morning. So for the last point
two years I've been up um about that time and
standing on my feet and the life the fluorescent lights
(47:05):
every every morning. That's that's just one of the countenance.
And like I said, that goes through up to day
and that kind of segments the day that in the beating,
the channel from beating schedule, so the preactast, lunch center
and these kind of condition you in condition one too,
the segments of the day. And so there's a period
(47:26):
in the morning after practice in which, if we're lucky
even might get outside. The recreation and recreation consists of
a yard as a track. I usually go jogging. If
I'm able to, I'll go into the weightlifting area listening
weight They have a couple other recreational things. The guys
get around with the volleyball or the beast. Otherwise there's
(47:48):
not a lot of I don't know kind of rehabilitative programs.
There are a few, you know, I've been through a
lot of those things, but for most guys, I think that,
you know, this place is more of a warehouse humans
than anything. It's not really designed or as its all
corrections necessarily, although there has been you know, steps towards
(48:08):
that direction, as steps in that direction, you know, I
think that the governor has made some steps in that
direction with three entries, ideas and so forth. But you know,
unfortunately there's largely the prison are placed with the warehouse humans.
So there's only so much a man do in this.
(48:29):
So I do utilize my time studying, send my money
on the books, and there was a library when I can,
and so that's kind of how I send my time. Well, Dusty, all,
I can tell you again, I know you know about it,
but I hope you can feel it. There's a real
wave of support for you among so many people who
(48:54):
care and who want to see you released and able
to get on with your life and put this nightmare
behind you. Of course, Lisa Speies has been a huge advocate.
I think she's a very strong supporter and a very
positive and wonderful person. And I want to turn it
over to you typically un wrongful conviction. I like to
(49:15):
leave the last word open so that you can share
any thoughts you have about anything at all with our audience.
I'll turn it over to you, Dusty. Okay, Well, you
mentioned where my supporters, Lisa, You've been certainly has been great,
especially in what I under staying in the social media field,
(49:37):
I guess and I do have a lot of very
strong supporters out here in Virginias who are total strangers.
Some of them have gotten to know personally and they're
just great people. And I'm very fortunate to have these
people in my corner and who have recognized my wrongful
p As far as the last words, thankful, I really
(50:00):
appreciated Mr from for interviewing me. Very thankful that increasingly
more people know than I have been wrongfully sick. And
I hope that people, you know, maybe reach out and
talk to somebody. The filmmaker named j D has created
a film called The Target of Opportunity about my case,
(50:22):
and I was able to view it one time two
years ago, and I think it encapsulates my situation put
it pretty well, and I just hope that people will
take some kind of interest and look into my case,
and I know that if anybody does, they will see
the travesty and the fact that I've been here for
over twenty two years or something I didn't do. I
(50:44):
had such a future brought in the military. I love
the military. I'm planning to make it career. Prap. I
wanted to be in the Filkins and want to be
a one best sil team operators for this country that
I could have been. My world was turned upset down
and a lots of so many people over one that
by this guy. So many people have been destroyed and
(51:07):
ruin and family on my family, like City, the Billy
Brown family, so many others. But again, I just thank you.
I really appreciate opportunity to interview so Dusty. I want
to repeat that the name of the film is the
name of the film is Target of Opportunity. Target of
Opportunity is the film. I've watched it. I hope other
(51:28):
people that are listening now we'll watch it too. And Dusty,
I'm sure people are listening. They want to know how
can they get involved? What would you advise? Right? You know,
Unfortunately I'm I am largely isolated. I have no Internet access.
I've never been on the Internet. I've never even used. However,
I think that people could uh maybe visit. I know
(51:49):
that totters have created a website, the free Dusty dot Org.
And I do know too that there is a Twitter
and Instagram account under my name of free dust the Turner.
I think, and I know that's very least reaching out there.
That's much supporters with. I'm sure direct folks into the
best way that they might be able to help. I
(52:10):
know that writing to the governor donor Arry mccaulos in
Virginia's directly they help out other Other than that, I'm
really not sure what else to say about it. Okay,
So once again, that's free Dusty Turner is the Instagram
and the Twitter. The movie is target of Opportunity. Please
learn more about this case and get involved. Follow Dusty
(52:33):
on social media and there'll be more information there that
you can learn how to how to help. And now
is the time to do it, because we're really in
the home stretch of this this effort to free Dusty Turner.
You have it, Dusty. All I can say is hanging there,
(52:54):
We're coming to get you. Thank you, Dusty for for
being on the show, and uh I'll look forward to
to seeing you on the outside, hopefully sometime very soon.
You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
Conviction Behind Bars with Dusty Turner. Dusty, thanks again, Thank you, sir,
(53:18):
Thank you for using GTL. Don't forget to give us
a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
(53:40):
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
(54:04):
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
naive enough to believe that I would be able to
just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be
going to prison because I was a good person. I
hadn't do anything wrong. In the back of your mind,
you say, well, when we go to a hearing or
(00:22):
we go to court, the truth will come out. The
prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let
forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the
way up to United States Supreme Court. You have someone
with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment,
unchecked authority. Don't presume that people are guilty when you
(00:46):
see him on TV, because it may just be a
dirty d A that is trying to rise upward. This
is wrongful conviction. Hello, this is a prepaid call from
(01:14):
I'm innovated to Virginia Department of Corrections, Green Steel Correctional
and Work Center to accept this call. This call is
from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Welcome back to ronfal Conviction with Jason Flam Today. I'm
interviewing someone who I have a great deal of respect
and admiration for, Dusty Turner. On June ninety, one year
(01:39):
old PREMN student went missing while vacationing with family friends
at Virginia Beach. Twenty one year old Jennifer Evans abducted
and murdered while vacationing in Virginia Beach that Sunday night,
Jennifer Evans left the now defunct Biou nightclub with former
Navy Seal trainee Dustin Turner. Police say the two got
in the car with another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown.
(02:01):
Police found her body nine days later in this wooded
area of Newport News. She had been strangled. Both men
blamed each other in court. Turner was sentenced to eighty
two years and Brown to seventy two years. Both sentenced
to spend the rest of their lives in prison, but
the appeals continued through this year. When Brown told police
he was solely responsible for Jennifer's death, the confession gave
(02:23):
Dustin Turner one last chance to walk free. The Virginia
Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday against Dusty Turner's petition for exoneration.
That really means Turner in another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown,
will spend the rest of their lives in prison for
the murder of Jennifer Evan. Dusty, welcome to the show.
(02:44):
The reason you're hearing him sound sort of like he's
on another planet is because he is. He's in prison
in Virginia where he's been locked up for twenty two
years for a crime he had nothing to do with.
It's a complicated case and a very tragic situation because
Dusty had just completed the training to be a Navy
Seal when he was arrested for a murder that he
(03:05):
didn't commit. And Dusty, let's go back to that. When
did you sign up for the Navy? What made you
want to serve your country? Well, my, uh, my family
has been in the military, my father, my stepfather, and
my my brother. My older brother he was in the
Navy before me, and I guess I just have always
had that appeal for the military to my country, right,
(03:27):
But you took it to another level going through that
Navy Seal training. That is the most extreme thing you
can do, right. Seals and Rangers are the most elite
troops that we have, and so you decided to subject
yourself to basically torture in order to really become a machine. Right, Yes,
I guess that's right. You know, initially when I first
(03:49):
signed up to the military, the Navy, I wanted to
be a diver. I was the scuba diving for fifteen
years and befool I was under the with COVID DELAYE
interry program and the before actually arrived at boot camp
by sit mynd fights on becoming a still I don't
know really what it is. It drove me so much,
(04:10):
but I just wanted to be in the most uh
elite the unit that I could be in order to
fight from my huntry. And ironically this all went horribly wrong.
And there's a connection. There's a very strong connection to
the training because of the fact that it was that
faithful night when you were out with your training buddy
(04:31):
when all of this tragedy began. Your training partner was
Billy Brown, right, Yes, Billy Brown and I were paired
together early on in buds training and throughout the entire
Shield training we were paired up. And actually the only
reason we're paired up at the beginning is because we're
the same height and as fate would have it. That's
(04:52):
why we were paired up. Why does that matter, Well,
the everyone is assigned to a boat crew in buds.
Training in your boat crew is dependent upon height, and
so we were in the same boat crew, were the
same height. One of structures that you and you you're
together now swim body And that was early in trade.
And the issue was Billy was a very volatile character. Right,
(05:17):
There's questions that have been raised as to whether he
should have ever been admitted into the Navy in the
first place when he had a history of well, let's
just say, erratic behavior that would be concerning you would
think before allowing him in to serve in that capacity.
Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, So
I didn't know about his past until after the trial.
(05:41):
He did have a violent history, Apparently he had I
thought that at least one email before he came to
the military. He was discharged out of the Coast Guard
before he came into the into the Navy, and he
had a couple of other things on his record, which
I mean, I was kind aware of the prior. You know,
(06:02):
there's some people have said that when he wouldn't have
gone through the process, get his security clearance, that they
would have recognized this and then picked them out of
the service. I'm not so sure if that's the case
or not, but he certainly had the final path. And
it is surprising, you know, in hindsight, is very surprising
that he was allowed not only the military, but to
(06:23):
uh come through into the Special Forces and Dusty so
going through the training with him, I mean, you guys
are taught to protect each other at all costs, even
if it means risking or putting your own life in danger.
Is that right? Yes? It is during the training throughout
a good majority of it. If we were separated more
(06:44):
than six ft, we would be punished for that. You know,
I could trust him in the field so to speak
to uh shoot over top of my back and my
parachute to speak. Um. So there was a great deal
of trust and a binding board for it to come
with the training, right, you literally had to trust each
(07:05):
other with your lives in a very very in a
very real way. I'm bringing that up because it has
a bearing on the events, the tragic events that happened
on June in Virginia Beach. And I don't think anybody
who hasn't been in your shoes can judge how you
(07:26):
acted on that particular night. It's a very unique case
and a very unique set of circumstances. Let's talk about that.
Because you guys went out to a bar that night.
The evening started innocently enough, but Billy had a drinking
problem from what I've read, and apparently he got pretty blitzed.
Is that right? Yeah, he had been drinking that day
(07:49):
and it just continued end of the evening that we
were at the club at nine, and he was so
walk us through what happened, Dusty, because this is really
the moment, right when your life was turned upside down.
How did this unravel from the time you were in
the club to when you ended up in the car
(08:09):
and then ultimately what happened after that, well, you know,
and started off as kind of a normal, normal evening.
I've been to that club a few times previous. I
was relatively new to the area in Virtnua Beach, not
only been there maybe maybe three weeks. And so initially
three of us guys were going to go out to
(08:30):
do the club at nine. One of the guys ended
up going and I don't know, going off with this
girl friend or something. So Billy and I went to
the club. It was again it was kind of a
normal here Billy is drunk. Again. I kind of separated
myself at the club promium and uh, I had met
a very nice young lady named Jennifer Evans. We kind
of hit it off. We're having a good time for
(08:51):
sharing with each other. Felt it was what we were into.
You know. She was at a college studs down in Georgia.
And I generally didn't talk very open about my build experience,
but with her, I did, and I opened up and
I told her when I was doing there the beach. Now,
mind you that I was in the club with a
under age and I had a bag. I d that
(09:14):
I got in there. You were twenty at the time, right,
That was yeah, I was twenty years old. Jennifer was
twenty one. And so again we you know different, I
we hit it off. We had to separate ourselves from
from Billy. I had met her girlfriends, her two friends
as she came there with We've been out on the
dance floor and uh, you know again it's it's very
very normal type of evil and the last thing I
(09:38):
was imagine with something tragic happening that night, so it
put it in the night her girlfriend had left. Briefly
they were going to go get some coffee, din everyone
that they would be in the club. So we actually
had an idea of trying to go down to the beach,
picking our shoes off, and walking down on the beach.
But as the night progressed and her girlfriends were going
to come pick her back up at two o'clock in
(09:59):
the morning, which is the on this club clote, Jennifer
and I realized we didn't know the time to go
down to the beach and then make it back to
meet her girlfriends, so we stayed in the club, and
in fact, we went out into the lobby where it
was more quiet, and we just sat out there and
had a conversation. Just previous to this, I had gotten
ability to ride home with this ex girlfriend who happen
(10:22):
to be in the club that night, Christian Posishop, and
reluctantly she did agree to take him home. She was reluctant,
hesitant because she knows the type of character that he
is and she really didn't want to deal with him,
especially because he was so drunk, which I understood, but
you know, I was happy that she was willing to
take come home. So I was confident that I wouldn't
(10:43):
even see him for the rest of the night. And
I was with Dinnifer, and it was closing upon two
o'clock in the morning. We were out in the lobby
and uh we decided to go out into the parks
and lots and wait for her girlfriend and sit in
my car and listen to music. And so within about
ten minutes, still too again, we went out to my
car and we were there listen to music and looking
(11:07):
for her girlfriends to show up at any minute. Instead,
what we saw coming down to Whill was Billy Brown
and he was heading towards the part. You know, I
certainly wasn't expecting him. Christian was supposed to stake him home.
I knew he was drunk and belligerent, but when he
was approaching the vehicle, I told Jennifer, I said, look,
you know this is the guy I come here with.
(11:28):
You know he's drunk. Just just don't pay no attention
to something. I've seen him in the past, especially when
we were in Puerto Rico. I've seen him to witnessed
him become kind of violent towards women. I didn't think
that he would become violent towards dinner fer but I
did assume he was at least going to be obnoxious
and somewhat belligerent. So when he got into the car, wait,
(11:51):
hold up there for a second, Dusky, what kind of
car was it? So I had a small Geo Storm.
So that's a small car, right, Yeah, it is very
a car. And you're big guys, both of you guys are.
He was bigger than I. We were both six ft
two and a half, I guess, and he outweighed me
by maybe maybe he did peas point pund so he
(12:11):
was I think he was about two hundred and thirty somewhere,
and that's the third pounds. He approaches the pass your
side of the car and he opens the door and
he kind of pushes the Varsity forward with Jennifer is sitting,
he pushes the seat forward a little roughly, and he
gets in the car and the back seat right behind her.
Of course, his big frame compared with fit back, and
(12:32):
this he did a very small carm. Those knees are
against the back of the pert And as soon as
he sits down, I turned to him and I said, Billy,
what's what's going on? Was was Christian not taking you home?
And he uh immediately goes into a tirade about oh
(12:53):
screw me, that f that girl, or should you think
you know blah blah, he's a nothing but a this
or that. This is the last thing you want to see, right,
You're having a nice moment with a girl, you have
a nice connection with her. The last thing you want
to see, the last thing anybody would want to see
is a drunk, belligerent, violent anybody you want don't want
(13:14):
to see anybody at that point. You just want to
be in your little bubble with her, listen to music.
Everything's good. I mean, you never could have predicted how
bad it was going to get, but already it's bad. Yeah,
So this is obviously, this is the crux of the
situation Jennifer and having this time. We were not romantically
involved at this time. Earlier I had given her on
(13:35):
her when I thought that she was gonna leave with
her girlfriends, and that's the only time we had any
comfortable contact. Said, she's a very decent young lady. You know,
she was a good girl with a great who was
going to college. It's a very nice young lady. And
so we're having a great conversation and said, here comes
(13:56):
this drunk buddy in mine own to the car. So
he's now in the back seat and is acting as
you would have probably predicted that he would have act
because of what you know about his character and his
current state of mind. But then it gets much worse. Yeah. Yeah,
So after asking him why Christians taken him home, and
(14:18):
you know, he said what he said about her, and
he turned his attention to Jennifer, and uh, he made
some very rude comments, if I remember correctly, said something
about asking her if she was a virgin something like that.
It was certainly, uh, inappropriate, and I immediately said, look, Billie,
why don't you get out and go find Christians that
(14:39):
she was taking home. And so he was not trying
to hear that at all. He's like that that bitch.
So again he kind of turns this pench to Jennifer
in the mind you within two, three or four minutes
before her girlfriends are coming to pick her up right
there where we're at in the parking lot. They're supposed
to ride there, and they supposed to be there and
(14:59):
to this bot, and it has to be within a
couple of minutes before two, And of course I didn't
know at that point to what it transpired in the
blood between him and Kristen. That made him additionally belligerent.
Who turns his finch back to center her and he
uh said something about her hair. He reached it up
(15:19):
with his right hand. I don't know if he touched
her her shoulder or her hair. But at that point, Jennifer,
at this throughout this time, this brief a couple of minutes,
he had not said a word, did not open her
mouth to him or revived in him. And so when
he touched her hair or her shoulder, she smacked his
(15:41):
hand from behind, you know, swatted his hand, and that's
when he snapped. So I wasn't looking directly at him
when he snapped, but with all his might, he silently
brushed his arms around her upper bought her neck area,
and with so much force that the whole car literally
(16:05):
say right, and I'm thinking about it, dust. He had
his feet, as you said, his knees were up against
the seat. And here's a big, strong pound guy who's
trained to kill with his with his hands, and he's
got total leverage right because he's got the knees. I
mean you know it would have been nothing for him
(16:25):
to do this, considering all of those you know, I
don't you know, I don't know about saying it would
have been nothing. I really don't know. I know that
seemingly words coming for him. The strike that he did
upon this innocent young woman was so violent that when
I turned and started screaming at him, just let her go,
(16:49):
and he's screaming me, just epan, drive and drive first,
I started crying and trying to pull his arms off,
over and streaming at him. This this entire great time.
When this happened, Jennifer never once reached up to defend herself.
It was that quick that she was out, and so
I immediately grabbed his arms and I'm screaming at him
(17:12):
just let her go, to let them and he's screaming
at me, just drive, just up and drive. Only after
a couple of seconds at pulling in his arms didn't marks.
So I reached under his fingers literally and pride his arms,
using one hand on his elbow in the other under
his fingertips and pride his arms up off of her.
At this point, when I dig at his arms off her,
he took back in the seat and she is out.
(17:35):
He did. Her head is built towards the passenger side window,
her arms and other side she avoided herself. And I'm
just complete shot and just utter confusion and disbelief. And
I'm and he still he is yelling at me, just
(17:55):
being dry and dry, dusty. I'm just thinking that. I'm
just the physics of it. I mean, it would have
been almost impossible for anyone, even a strong guy like yourself,
to pull somebody off from the side when he's in
the position like he was in, especially when it happened
as quickly as it did. I mean, you really had
no chance to save this poor girl. And I mean
(18:17):
obviously you did what you could, but she had no chance.
And at this point, were you concerned that he was
gonna try to kill you too? No, it certainly wasn't mine.
They didn't go through my head at the time. My
only thought, And I think that anyone sitting in my
seat would have had a same reaction. You know, one
minute having a good time with a young lady, and
(18:39):
the next minute, this guy, this violent predator, compleatly just
alters history. I don't know, it's strain it. I mean,
he is one act that he does. It's changes the
lives of so many people, and he's drunk, and you know,
I'd like to think that he really didn't know what
the heck is doing. He has his past, and he
has asked of the violence swords Limou, but he's been
(19:02):
increasingly becoming an alcoholic over the last several weeks a
month in which is drinking every single time. This was
a bad, bad bud, not to mention the fact that
he was taking terribilely leading up to this as will. Obviously,
he destroyed her and killed her, and he ruined the
lives of everyone who cared about her, her family, etcetera.
(19:23):
He ruined your life, he ruined his own life. He
ruined the lives of your families, right, your family, all
military heroes and so yeah, in one short burst of
violence that from what it sounds like, lasted only seconds,
not even minutes, he managed to destroy so many people.
And then that's where the story gets into a whole
(19:44):
different phase. Right and again, I'm I can't walk in
your shoes. No one can walk in your shoes with
all the factors that were going on, Dusty, with the
fact that you had been now trained practically indoctrinated into
this idea that you must protect this guy and he's
going to protect you. You know, that's just in the mix.
(20:06):
I just want to put that in there. But besides that,
you're in a state I can imagine of complete shock
and panic. And who could imagine this terrible turn of events,
as you said, And what a dramatic turn when it
goes from what sounds like a beautiful night, a nice
connection two this absolute horror that you're you've just witnessed
(20:30):
as close and personal as you can imagine with somebody
that you were supposed to trust and protect and someone
else that you would have liked to protect but you couldn't.
He's screaming at you to drive. What what happened? Yeah?
And this is like, this is why you're in because
of what you've done afterwards. And if people can't understand
(20:50):
your reactions afterwards, the normal person would have jumped out
of the vehicle and ran to find the phone or
the police somewhere or tails body. Something just terrible hasn't happened.
And that might be the case for most people. I
don't know, but I think that's the way I reacted
because it would have been different even if my own
(21:10):
brother would have been in Billy Brown's place, I think
I would have reacted differently, because, like I said, to
the way I was conditions and indoctrinated at twenty years old,
I reacted how I reacted. I'm not a criminal. I've
never been violent. I certainly have never been violent towards women,
and I'm not criminally minded. And so why is is
(21:33):
that a twenty year old trust in this position which
I should never have been in to begin with, and
it had to make these kinds of decisions. And so
when I realized that the first did and build my
own screaming them and I really didn't know what I'm
in a place in this area, Like I said, I
(21:53):
hadn't have been and the beach for a couple of
weeks and weeks fun. So I just put the car
in the drive and I took off drive, and I
didn't know where I was going. I didn't even know
how to barely get out of the Virginia Beach area
until I ended up. In fact, Bill Brown, when I
started driving, he said, I turn left here, turn right there,
(22:17):
And I ended up on sixty four, and I'm sixty four.
I'm familiar with that highway, and so I just started
traveling west on sixty four and I didn't know where
I was going, and I just kept driving and driving
until I started seeing a lot of wooded areas, and
so I pulled off on an excess. Again, I have
no idea where I'm at, and I'm just driving. I
(22:39):
pulled off into another area which seemed more wooded, until
I get to a more secluded area, which is not
that far from here state, and both of us, myself
completely get up the car. I grabbed for wrist, he
grabbed her legs, and we carried her perhaps thirty art
(23:00):
into the woods. And again I was incomplete chaotic shock,
and and I didn't know what I was doing. I
didn't know what else to do. And yeah, I understand
that people they will look at that moment there and say,
you know that, why would you do that? Why you
(23:22):
know I would have done that? But others have popped
in in my shoes. They don't understand, and perhaps I
don't even understand why I reacted that would other than
to say that this is kind of how I was
trying to react. They didn't say in a situation which
you know there's been a crime and it's a civilian
who has been hurt, protect your swimboddy. Of course they
(23:42):
didn't say that. However, now I want to understand when
you go through still training today, they do have classes
and training that says, look, if this type of scenario happens,
you need to consider what you know, where you're at,
what you're doing, and so forth, and do not protect
your own body if he has done something so harnted
(24:03):
the wrong. And that's the place today because of because
of this, But Dusty, I want to bring up an
important point. What is important from a legal perspective to
remember is that in Virginia, hiding a body after a
murder is a misdemeanor punishable by up to twelve months
in jail. And that's not what you got convicted of.
(24:24):
That's not what they wanted you for. And we're going
to get to that in a minute. But that's a
very important thing to remember. In certain states that's not
the case. There's some states where it's treated very differently.
In some states it's treated the same as murder, just
you know, hiding the body after the fact. But that's
the only thing that you were guilty of, and that's
one of the reasons why I've dived into your case
(24:45):
and why I'm doing everything I can to help you
try to find justice, because it's obviously a terrible miscarriage
of justice, the fact that you're serving time for murder
when what you did was wrong, but it's not murder.
So now going forward, you go back to the base,
(25:07):
and this is big news, right the town is up
in arms. Everyone's wondering what happened to this girl? And
this must have been driving you crazy, right, Well, I
wasn't really aware at the time of the news and
the media. But what was driving me crazy. It's just
having witnessed this and and and knowing about it and
attempting to remain silent about it. It was, Uh. It
(25:31):
put me in a state of almost like a zombie
like state throughout the next week in which I held
this specret and witness really do this terrible, terrible deed,
and I had it within and and I couldn't tell anybody,
and so it was it was definitely eating me up
(25:52):
on the inside. The coming week we were up nor
something uh from place called ape you doing addital training.
But then I wasn't During the time, I wasn't aware
of the news and the media down that pretenue to beach,
but it was certainly eating you up on the inside.
So your conscience got the best of you, and you know,
(26:15):
you did the right thing after having done the wrong
thing and went to the authorities, right, And that's where
things get really dicey from everything I've read, where they
didn't behave in a straightforward manner when it comes to
how they treated you. Right. Well, first of all, you know,
I did it still be defective? You know everything that
they asked me. You know, at first I did not
(26:36):
den everything, but it came to a point, especially after
they had presented me with the fact that Jennifer's family
is in absolute going to a traumatic breathing experience and
they just want to know appen and want to know
where their daughter is. And it was through this line,
I think for our questioning that I asked to see
(27:00):
my very officer, and my spirit off came in and
we were alone, and I told him everything that happened,
and so he said that he was gonna attempt to
call the dad officer and to see what we could
do as far as legally or something like that. But nonetheless,
fifteen minutes later, when the Texas come in, I told
him everything that they had asked, and they even asked
(27:22):
me if I would help them first draw a map
to where Gennifer's body was, which I did, I tempted
to do, and then asked me if I would accompany
him the help find Centifer Society, so which I did also,
and I'm still my spirity officer and one of the detectives.
We went to the location and we separated to search
(27:43):
through the wood. Finally I did find her body. At
that point I went back to the base. They had
presented Billy Brown with the map that I had drawn.
He said, look, your buddy completely just rolled on you.
He told us everything you're going al You're probably gonna
get the definitety whatever else. And so at that point
(28:05):
that he began with the stories about now I had
something to do with it. He later said that he
was going down he didn't think me with and so
he made up a story saying that we're both home. Yeah.
I mean, he was obviously furious because he believed that you,
who was supposed to be his protector, had betrayed him.
He's gonna do what he can to bring you down
(28:25):
with him because in his twisted way of thinking, you
should have covered up this murder and protected him, and
so you did what you thought was right, albeit after
the fact and the consequences started to become very real
now from what I've read, Dusty, the detectives made certain
(28:45):
promises to you, right that if you help them, you
were going to be kind of okay, right, yeah, they
think you know. They did say that. Lafter telling Muster
officer what had happened, and he spoke to the Texas
As will and take together. They said, look, just just
answer the questions. It'll be all right. And I said,
are you sure you know? And I kind of took
(29:07):
it as a direct order from my spare offer. I said,
are you sure that's what I should do them? And
he said, yes, just answer the questions, be all right.
I said, okay. Now, they didn't come to me and
say anything like, well, for your testimony, will allow some
kind of agreement or something like that. No, they never
actually came to me and said that. And of course,
being very ignorant of the criminal justice, you know, I
(29:29):
didn't know that I would even need a lawyer, or
they that I should remain time about certain things or
where have you, but you know I will only ask
them to search my vehicle. I mean, I answered the
questions truthfully, and I thought that maybe what this would
lead to was at some point me on a witness
(29:50):
spand explaining as Billy Brown and being charged with her murder,
that I would be explaining exactly how things happened. Maybe
I was naive, but I assume, and that's a coming work.
I certainly didn't assume that they were going to charge
me after speaking of Billy Brown and hid the point
of the fingers much Still, I certainly didn't think orge
(30:12):
And this is an important point, Dusty, right, because the
police spent forty eight hours examining your car, right, So
they turned that thing upside down. And yet they never
used any of the evidence from the car at trial
because it wasn't gonna be favorable to them, And in fact,
by not presenting the evidence at trial, they didn't have
(30:34):
to turn over to the defense, when in fact, if
they had, it would have been definitely in your favor.
Because of the fact that everything you were saying makes true,
that the physics of it just don't add up. Some
of the things that they said. It doesn't make sense
(30:59):
to add insult to injury and in a in a
terrible call it a coincidence. The year that you were
convicted was the same year that Virginia abolished parole, which
is shocking to my conscience in a nation where we
believe in second chances and we believe in redemption and
we believe in that stuff, the idea that if you
were so misfortunate as to be convicted in Virginia later,
(31:21):
you are not eligible for parole. I wouldn't even know
what parole meant. I wasn't aware, you know, today had
just abolished prole Virginia. I don't think I would have
would have paired. It's time. I wasn't so I gets
concerned about the sentence I was given. I was concerned
about the fact that I was convicted of two charges
that I did not commit. Whether it gave it ten
(31:42):
years or a hundred years, I was convicted of something
I didn't commit. And that's that was the Travis. It's
it's uh. I can't um I can't really imagine how
that could make sense in a society like ours. But
but it is in fact a reality, and it's your reality,
and it's why now everyone is working so hard to
(32:03):
help you get clemency or a pardon or a conditional
pardon from the governor because of the fact that that
is the only recourse left. Another thing that's of sort
of a unique and to me troubling concept is the
idea that you only have really one appeal of actual
innocence in Virginia, right. And that's something I want to
(32:25):
get to Dusty, because, first of all, a crazy thing
happened in two thousand and two, right, which is that
Billy he had some sort of an awakening and decided
to come clean and tell the truth. We're talking two
thousand and to fifteen years ago, right, and he recanted
and admitted that he was the sole murderer. And I
(32:45):
think people are listening now, I'm going, well, wait a minute,
if that happened, why is Dusty still in prison? Can
you explain that scenario? Yeah, Vokan explaient. Yes, as he
sing his time and some other prison I guess some
guys had approached him and got them to get into Christianity,
(33:05):
and this allowed him to finally relieve his burden that
he's been holding for all these years and to confess.
And so that happened again in early two thousands, and
here it is fifteen years later, and I'm still sitting here,
still sitting here, after after he's come clean, after he
(33:26):
finally said, yeah, everything that Dost just said, that's what happened,
and the judge rule that he's credible in that confession.
So there was no mechanisms and more recently of even
getting back into court with such new evidence. But there
was a time later into thousand six seven, and so
we finally rid of actual innocence to the appeals court,
(33:50):
which ended with well, the appeals court initially overturned my conversation.
They did convict me of the misdemeanor accessory after the
fact to the pony, which indeed I am guilty though
and like you said earlier, that was a maximum sentence
of twelve months in jail. Well, they made this ruling
(34:10):
and they dropped my charges. There's a two thousand nine
I'm expecting me home within a matter of days. For weeks.
This is what makes me insane. And I think anybody
listening is like, wait, wait, wait, So your conviction was vacated, right,
and then that means to a layman who's not intimately
familiar with the law or criminal proceedings. When you're convictions vacated,
(34:34):
you have every reason to believe you're gonna go home. Right.
They've actually come out and said, Okay, we are now
acknowledging there is no physical evidence connecting you to this.
None of this stuff adds up, right, not to the murder.
Like you said, you're guilty of the accessory after the fact,
and now you have the actual killer confessing in court
under oath. Sounds like a winner. Right, You're going home,
(34:57):
except for then the state decided to put it's foot
back on your neck, so to speak. Right, and then
what happened? Yeah, so the joint to vacated my my conviction,
and I was expect to be home with the matter
of day. The acting Attorney General came forward and said
that he wanted to feel this decision, and so they
appealed it and it went back through the Pelot Court
(35:19):
and then on into the later into the Supreme Court
in Virginia and under a new theory that one of
the judges of the pilot court created, and the spread
of actual innscence is so demanding as they say that
the evidence has to be just as substantial as DNA evidence,
which Unfortunately, there's no DNA evidence in my case. But
so one of the judges says, well, although he didn't
(35:43):
have anything to do with the murder, and this has
been decided bout it, he didn't have anything to do
with the murder, and he didn't restrain. This judge says, well,
perhaps a jury could believe that when Dusty walked out
of the bar to the parking lot to his call,
that the a jury could believe that that was an
(36:04):
abduction by deception. And if the jury believed that, and
then Jennifer was later killed darlissha Power who's killed her,
the u which built the guilty the jury is still
find me guilty about the abduction in the murder. So
they created a new theory in my face. There's just
not only the asinine, but it was never presented before
a jury, and there's no jury in the world they
(36:27):
would believe this idea, especially with all the additional evidence.
So under that because of that, and it's all the
semantics of this word restraint, and that's what it comes
down to. I'm still in prison because of the semantics
of the word restraint. And it's unbelievable. So they overturned
my release and then reinstated my completion. And here it
(36:50):
is seven years later and I'm still sitting here PRIs
I did not. So they're basically trying to say that
they're going back in time to the going back into
and trying to come up with a theory that could
actually read your mind. Right, they're going back in a
(37:11):
time machine and reading your mind and saying, well, this
may have been, could have been, would have been something
that he might have been thinking of doing. There's no
evidence to prove it. How could anybody? I don't know.
It makes me nuts. It's such a bizarre It's such
a bizarre thing for a court or a judge to say.
As far as I'm concerned, not think that the legislators
(37:33):
recognized that after my case and I said, you know,
this river excell inncence is obviously entirely to restricted and
h to open for interpretation or whatever. And so they
since I went through this river excellencence, now they've changed
the law the wording of a river excellence. Instead of saying,
could any jurorfying you with this? Now it's more specific,
(37:58):
and it may sound supplicit, but it's more to this thing.
Would a rational juror still find deal with this new
evidence and the new wording, which I can't go back
into the river of actionist because it's the one shot deal,
and so I'm left hung out to draw on this
on this whole time. Well, hopefully not for too long,
because you have a lot of really great people on
your side now, and you have a governor who cares
(38:20):
about these issues and who has shown in actions that
he believes in justice, that he believes in fairness, and
that he has the courage to do something about these things.
He does seem like convery fair man, and I do
have hope. I do think that he will look at
my case, and I know and I'm very confident that
(38:43):
if he does, if he just looks on my case,
that he realize that I'm not supposed to be here,
I do have that tremendous hope that he will take
action in my case. Well, Dusty, I can tell you
that I think that there's a lot of reason to
have have hope in this current administration that we have
there because of the fact that you do have such
a ground swell of support, and not only that, because
(39:06):
of what you've done, the remarkable record of accomplishment that
you've had on the inside, and I want to talk
about that. I know that you know you're finding hope
in a hopeless place, but I want to paint a
picture for the audience of just how grim it is
to be in this situation you're in, and then also
what you've managed to make out of that experience. Well,
(39:30):
you know, I've got a quote from a guy who
knows suffering, and a couple of things have kept me
I don't move forward and and positive. I can be
one of the supporters that I do have, not just
my family, but other total strangers who have reached out.
And it gives me a lot of hope, and it
gives me a lot of strength to endure. This is
(39:53):
what I'm going through in this environment, and it is terrible,
It's absolutely terrible. But this quote, one of my favorite quotes.
It says that everything to be taken from a man,
but one thing, the last of the human freedom, and
that is to choose one's own attitude in any set
of circumstance, choose one's own way. A man named Victor
(40:14):
frankl And you know, I've I guess I've taken on
this this attitude you know that which allowed me to
persevere through through bud training to still training. I reached
for this almost on a daily basis. You know. I
put my feet on the ground and I said, I
have to I have to continue on today, and I
have to push forward, and I can't allow this environment
(40:36):
to get the best of and I want to transcend
in spite of where I'm at. And so I've looked
to try to do things to try to help out
not only the people around me in my environment for years,
and I've helped guys who struggled with a drug addition
or criminal thinking. And I've just kind of made it
a part of my own character to trying to help
(40:59):
you guys and to move past, transcend some of these
things in which they've been stuck in. And not only that.
Proposed a dog training program. That's the last institution that
I was in. It was luckily it was to prove
and we had the dogs come in and for about
three years I was able to be a dog trainer.
And I had studied and read up and learned so
(41:22):
much about training dogs and I really enjoyed them. And
how does that training program work, Dusty? The dogs are
they rescue dogs and what happens to them after they're trained, right,
So these are absolutely rescued dogs. These were abandoned. We
worked with a shelter out of Ashley, Virginia called Bark
the a r COM and that's the Abandoned Adoption and
(41:42):
Rescued KANUS really great orderzation and they would bring us
six dogs at time and we would have them for
three months and we had my total was a twelve
dog trainers too free stalls and we were trained the dogs,
these dogs that were abandoned and you never know what
their history was. They could than maybe beef in or
however that they were rescued and we were given the
(42:05):
tools to help train these dolls and then afterwards they
were adopted and we had an a stoption rate of
some ninety something percent coming out of there. We trained
them in basic and non obedience. It was a really
really great, really positive program. And there had gotten into
me and another guy. We have been talking about different
(42:26):
ideas concerning the judicial systems. When we come across this
idea of restorative justice, and after we had studied on
it and we've gotten in contact with some restorative justice practitioners,
we decided that with our knowledge of this environment in
the prison, and we knew what was lacking in this environment,
(42:46):
we knew some of the things that could help in
the rehabilitation of the solo invates. We constructed a restorative
justice program. We're still in the process of kind of
fleshing out some of the more detailed aspects of the curriculum.
But this is what my passion has been into for
the past few years. I've really been concentrating my efforts
into this program. And we have people and restore just
(43:09):
practitioners from university another organizations really really like what we
have created and they want to help out a little bit. Well,
you know, that's you know what it sounds like to me.
It sounds like you're doing more good, like I said,
from this hopeless place than most people on the outside
can never even dream of doing. And that's you know,
(43:29):
that's to your credit obviously, and it's another reason why
it makes sense for you to be granted your freedom
after all these years. And if you even allow your
mind to go there, what do you want to do?
What's your plan? Well, as you hit upon do I
even want to go there? I have been looking, especially
(43:51):
after seven years ago when I was expecting to get out,
and I always denied that that was a very crushing
blow and it was difficult endurance. But yeah, of course
I do allow myself to think about once amount of here,
although I don't do well upon it because I just
(44:12):
I don't know. I just I can't go there for
so much. But the more I've gotten into a restorative justice,
the more I think it's an extremely a beneficial philosophy
and instead of practices for to kind of compliment our
criminal justice system. And so I really want to pursue
that direction, and I think that I could, I could
(44:34):
help out. I think I had a lot of cool
our shield and knowledge from being in here for the
last point two plus years in observing things from the inside.
I feel like I have a great respective to be
able to help out in the resort justice. That sounds
like a great scenario to me and benefits the society
(44:55):
across the board. I don't know if you're able to
talk about it, but they really struck me earlier when
(45:18):
you told me that the prisoner or your pot is
on lockdown. What does that mean? Well, so, where I'm
at now, we've been on lockdown for the last two weeks,
which means we're confined to our concrete posts are so
and when we're coming out every seven two hours to
take a shout, they bring the food to our door.
(45:39):
And I say our door because I have a film partner.
Every show as two people for film, and this is
how I've been living for the last two weeks. The moreover,
it's pretty much how I've been living for the last
point two years. But when we're not on lockdown, you know,
I do have a modicum of freedoms if you will,
you know, every once while I can get outside, bake
(46:01):
fresh air and work out. Um enrolled into a horticulture
class and learn about horticulture and I can actually have
my fingers in the soil and be able to have
the opportunity to plant from the seeds and vegetables and
so forth. It's really been a positive thing, really really
enjoining the horticulture. And the last question about the prison experience,
(46:23):
what is an average day like when you're not on lockdown?
You wake up at five or something, How does how
do you get through the day. Yeah, so they have
what they call a count procedures in which they have
to come through and literally count every individual while they're
locked in the sill about four times or so every day,
(46:43):
spread out throughout the day, and during that time you
have to be standing up and your life have to
be on so they can see that you're alive and
you will and and that starts certain with the four
six o'clock in the morning. So for the last point
two years I've been up um about that time and
standing on my feet and the life the fluorescent lights
(47:05):
every every morning. That's that's just one of the countenance.
And like I said, that goes through up to day
and that kind of segments the day that in the beating,
the channel from beating schedule, so the preactast, lunch center
and these kind of condition you in condition one too,
the segments of the day. And so there's a period
(47:26):
in the morning after practice in which, if we're lucky
even might get outside. The recreation and recreation consists of
a yard as a track. I usually go jogging. If
I'm able to, I'll go into the weightlifting area listening
weight They have a couple other recreational things. The guys
get around with the volleyball or the beast. Otherwise there's
(47:48):
not a lot of I don't know kind of rehabilitative programs.
There are a few, you know, I've been through a
lot of those things, but for most guys, I think that,
you know, this place is more of a warehouse humans
than anything. It's not really designed or as its all
corrections necessarily, although there has been you know, steps towards
(48:08):
that direction, as steps in that direction, you know, I
think that the governor has made some steps in that
direction with three entries, ideas and so forth. But you know,
unfortunately there's largely the prison are placed with the warehouse humans.
So there's only so much a man do in this.
(48:29):
So I do utilize my time studying, send my money
on the books, and there was a library when I can,
and so that's kind of how I send my time. Well, Dusty, all,
I can tell you again, I know you know about it,
but I hope you can feel it. There's a real
wave of support for you among so many people who
(48:54):
care and who want to see you released and able
to get on with your life and put this nightmare
behind you. Of course, Lisa Speies has been a huge advocate.
I think she's a very strong supporter and a very
positive and wonderful person. And I want to turn it
over to you typically un wrongful conviction. I like to
(49:15):
leave the last word open so that you can share
any thoughts you have about anything at all with our audience.
I'll turn it over to you, Dusty. Okay, Well, you
mentioned where my supporters, Lisa, You've been certainly has been great,
especially in what I under staying in the social media field,
(49:37):
I guess and I do have a lot of very
strong supporters out here in Virginias who are total strangers.
Some of them have gotten to know personally and they're
just great people. And I'm very fortunate to have these
people in my corner and who have recognized my wrongful
p As far as the last words, thankful, I really
(50:00):
appreciated Mr from for interviewing me. Very thankful that increasingly
more people know than I have been wrongfully sick. And
I hope that people, you know, maybe reach out and
talk to somebody. The filmmaker named j D has created
a film called The Target of Opportunity about my case,
(50:22):
and I was able to view it one time two
years ago, and I think it encapsulates my situation put
it pretty well, and I just hope that people will
take some kind of interest and look into my case,
and I know that if anybody does, they will see
the travesty and the fact that I've been here for
over twenty two years or something I didn't do. I
(50:44):
had such a future brought in the military. I love
the military. I'm planning to make it career. Prap. I
wanted to be in the Filkins and want to be
a one best sil team operators for this country that
I could have been. My world was turned upset down
and a lots of so many people over one that
by this guy. So many people have been destroyed and
(51:07):
ruin and family on my family, like City, the Billy
Brown family, so many others. But again, I just thank you.
I really appreciate opportunity to interview so Dusty. I want
to repeat that the name of the film is the
name of the film is Target of Opportunity. Target of
Opportunity is the film. I've watched it. I hope other
(51:28):
people that are listening now we'll watch it too. And Dusty,
I'm sure people are listening. They want to know how
can they get involved? What would you advise? Right? You know,
Unfortunately I'm I am largely isolated. I have no Internet access.
I've never been on the Internet. I've never even used. However,
I think that people could uh maybe visit. I know
(51:49):
that totters have created a website, the free Dusty dot Org.
And I do know too that there is a Twitter
and Instagram account under my name of free dust the Turner.
I think, and I know that's very least reaching out there.
That's much supporters with. I'm sure direct folks into the
best way that they might be able to help. I
(52:10):
know that writing to the governor donor Arry mccaulos in
Virginia's directly they help out other Other than that, I'm
really not sure what else to say about it. Okay,
So once again, that's free Dusty Turner is the Instagram
and the Twitter. The movie is target of Opportunity. Please
learn more about this case and get involved. Follow Dusty
(52:33):
on social media and there'll be more information there that
you can learn how to how to help. And now
is the time to do it, because we're really in
the home stretch of this this effort to free Dusty Turner.
You have it, Dusty. All I can say is hanging there,
(52:54):
We're coming to get you. Thank you, Dusty for for
being on the show, and uh I'll look forward to
to seeing you on the outside, hopefully sometime very soon.
You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful
Conviction Behind Bars with Dusty Turner. Dusty, thanks again, Thank you, sir,
(53:18):
Thank you for using GTL. Don't forget to give us
a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps.
And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
(53:40):
important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
(54:04):
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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