April 5, 2026 • 54 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, it's counter Hall, the producer for wrongful Conviction. After
thirty one years of wrongful incarceration, Dusty Turner was freed
just a few weeks ago, and Maggie was able to
snag a post release interview. It's hard to believe that
Jason covered his story nearly ten years ago. Right here,
Dusty Turner.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
we go to a hearing, 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 the United
States Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
in that moment, unchecked authority.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Don't presume that people are guilty when you seem on TV,
because it may just be a dirty da that is
trying to rise upward.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
Hello, this is a pre kay call from an animated
Virginia Department of Correction Green Steel Correctional and Work Center.
To accept this call, plus Nero refuses. This call is
from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flaum. Today, I'm
interviewing someone who I have a great deal of respect
and admiration for, Dusty Turner.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
On June nineteenth, the twenty one year old pre men
student went missing while vacationing with family friends at Virginia Beach.
Speaker 7 (02:12):
Twenty one year old Jennifer Evans abducted and murdered while
vacationing in Virginia Beach that Sunday night. Jennifer Evans left
the now defunct Bayou Nightclub with former Navy Seal training
Dustin Turner. Police say the two got in the car
with another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown. Police found her
body nine days later in this wooded area of Newport News.
(02:33):
She had been strangled. Both men blamed each other in court.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Turner was sentenced to eighty two years and Brown to
seventy two years.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
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 Dustin Turner one last chance to walk free.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday against Dusty Turner's
petition for exoneration. The really means Turner, in another seal training,
Billy Joe Brown will spend the rest of their lives
in prison for the murder of Jennifer Evans.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Dusty, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
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
(03:33):
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?
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Well, my family has been in the military, my father,
my stepfather, my brother, my older brother, he was in
the Navy before me, and I guess I just have
always had that appeal towards the military to serve my country.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Right, But you took it to another level going through
that Navy seal training. That is the most extreme thing
you can do.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Right.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
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.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Right, Well, yeah, I guess that's right. You know, initially
when I first signed up to the military and the Navy,
I wanted to be a diver. I was a scuba
diving for about fifteen years, and before I was in
the PASTOBA Delayed Entry program, and so before I actually
arrived at boot camp, I set my sights on becoming
(04:32):
a stew I don't know really what it is that
drove me so much, but I just wanted to be
in the most elite unit that I could to be
in order to fight for my country.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
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, when all of this
tragedy began. Your training partner was Billy Brown, right, Yes.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Billy Brown and I were paired together early on in
bus training and throughout the entire field training. We were
paired of. And actually the only reason we're paired of
at the beginning is because we're the same height, and
as fate would have it, that's why we were paired of.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
And why does that matter.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Well, everyone's assigned to a boat crew in bus training,
and your boat crew is dependent upon the height, and
so we were in the same boat crew. We're the
same height. Want to structures that you and you you're together,
You're now slim, buddy. And that was early in training.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
And the issue was Billy was a very volatile character. Right.
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 into serve in that capacity. Can
(06:02):
you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
Yeah, So I didn't know about his pass until after
the trial. He did have a violent history. Apparently he
had assulted at least one femail before he came to
the military. He was discharged out of the Coastguard before
he came into the Navy, and he had a couple
(06:24):
other things on his record, which again I was unaware
of the prior. You know, some people have said that
when he would have gone through the process get his
security clearance, that they would have recognized this and then
kicked him out of the service. I'm not so sure
if that's the case or not, but he certainly had
the final pass, and it is surprising, you know, in hindsight,
(06:48):
he's very surprising that he was allowed not only in
the military, but to come through to the Special Forces.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
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?
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Yes, it is during the training throughout a good majority
of it. If we were separated more than six feet,
we would be punished for that. You know, I could
trust them in the field, so to speak, to shoot
over top of my back and you know, a para,
so to speak. So there was a great deal of
a trust in a binding force, I guess to come
(07:29):
with the training.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Right, you literally had to trust each 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 nineteenth,
nineteen ninety five in Virginia Beach. And I don't think
anybody who hasn't been in your shoes can judge how
(07:53):
you 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.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Yeah, he'd been drinking that day from early on and
it just continued into the evening until we were at
the club at nine, and he was absolutely.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
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,
and then ultimately what happened after.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
That, Well, you know, It started off as kind of
a normal, normal evening. I've been to that club a
few times. I was relatively new to the area in
Virginia Beach, not only been there maybe maybe three weeks,
and so initially three of us guys were going to
go out and to the club at nine one. The
guy ended up up going, I don't know, going off
(09:02):
with his girlfriend 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 from him, and I had
met a very nice young lady named Jennifer Evans. We
kind of hit it off. We were having a good
time for sharing with each other. Fellow was what we
were into.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
She was a college student down in Georgia, and I
generally didn't talk very openly about my field experience, but
with her I did, and I opened up and I
told her what I was doing there the beach. Now,
mind you that I was in the club with a
underage and I had a fake ID that I got
in there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
You were twenty at the time, man, That was yeah,
I was.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Twenty years old. Jennifer was twenty one. And so again
we you know, Jenffer and I we hit it off.
We had to separate ourselves from from Billy. I had
met her girlfriend, her two friends that she came there with,
We had been out on the dance floor, and you know,
again it was very very normal type of evening, and well,
the last thing I was imagined was something trastic happening
(10:07):
that night, So it put it in the night. Her
girlfriend had left briefly they were going to go get
some coffee and everyone to say with me in the club.
So we actually had an idea of trying to go
down to the beach, taking 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 the morning, which is the time
(10:27):
of this club quote, 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
to the lobby where it was more quiet, and we
just got out there and had a conversation. Just previous
to this, I had gotten Billy a ride home with
(10:48):
this ex girlfriend who happened to be in the club
that night, Christians Bishops, and reluctantly she did agree to
they come 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 him home, so
(11:09):
I was confident that I wouldn't even see him for
the rest of the night. And I was with Jennifer,
and it was closing upon two o'clock in the morning.
We were out in the lobby and we decided to
go out into the parking lot and wait for her
girlfriend and sit in my car and listened to music.
And so within about ten minutes, still two again, we
(11:30):
went out to my car and we were sitting there
listening to music and looking for her girlfriend to show
up at any minute. Instead, what we saw coming down
the hill was Billy Brown, and he was heading towards
the parkpot. You know, I certainly wasn't expecting him. Christian
was supposed to take him home. I knew he was
drunk and belligerent, but when he was approaching the vehicle.
(11:52):
I told Jennifer, I said, look, you know, this is
the guy I come here with. You know, he's drunk.
Just just don't pay no attention to him. I've seen
him in the past, especially when we were in Puerto Rico.
I've seen him, witness him become kind of violent towards women.
I didn't think that he would become violent towards Jenner Firm,
but I did assume he was at least going to
(12:14):
be obnoxious and somewhat belligerent. So when he got into.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
The car, wait, hold up there for a second, Dusty,
what kind of car was it?
Speaker 6 (12:21):
So I had a small geostorm.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
So that's a small car, right, yeah, it is a
very small car. And you're big guys, both of you
guys are.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
He was bigger than I. We were both six foot
two and a half, I guess, and he outweighed me
by maybe fifteen to twenty pounds, So he was I
think he was about two hundred and thirty somewhere aund
indus or thirty pounds. But he approaches the passer's side
of the car and he opens the door and he
kind of pushes the car seat forward where Jennifer was sitting,
(12:51):
he pushes a seat forward a little roughly, and he
gets in the car in the back seats right behind her,
and of course his big frame compared with the back
in this once you did a very small comb Those
knees are against the back of her seat. And as
soon as he sits down, I turned to him and
I say, Billy, what what's going on? Was was Christian
(13:15):
not thinking you home? And he immediately goes into a
tirade about oh, screwing that f bet girl you think
you know, blah blah, he's a nothing.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
But of this event, 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, last thing anybody would
want to see is a drunk, belligerent, violent anybody. You
don't want 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
(13:47):
predicted how bad it was going to get, but already
it's bad.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Yeah, So this is obviously, this is the crux of
the situation. Jennifer and I were having the time, you know,
we were not romantically involved at this time. Earlier I
had given her a husband when I thought that she
was gonna leave with her girlfriends, and that's the only
time we had had a come physical contact. I said,
said Jeniffer, she's a very decent young lady. You know,
(14:14):
she was a good girl, was a great teacher in
front of her who was going to college. And it's
a very nice young lady. And so we're having a
great conversation and you said, here comes this drunk buddy
of mine down to the calling.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
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.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Yeah. Yeah, So after asking him while Christian was taking
him home, and you know, he said what he said
about her, and he turned his attention to Jennifer, and
he made some very rude comment, if I remember correctly,
he said something about asking her if she was a virgin,
something like that, certainly inappropriate. And I immediately said, look, Billy,
(15:04):
why don't you get out and go find Christians that
she was going to take me home, And so he
was not trying to hear that at all. He's like
half that bitch. So again he kind of turns his
benches to Jenner from my eyes, who within two or
three or four minutes before her girlfriends were coming to
pick her up right there where we're at in the
parking lot. They're supposed to arrive there, they told used
(15:26):
to be there at to the clock, and it has
to be within a couple of minutes before too. And
of course I didn't know at that point too what
it transpired in the gloves between him and Christian that
made him additionally belligerent. So it turns his SENSI back
to Cennifer, and he said something about her hair. He
(15:47):
reached up with his right hand. I don't know if
he pushed her her shoulder or her hair. But at
that point Jennifer had just throughout this time, the brief
couple of minutes she had not set a did not
open her mouth to him or refined to him, And
so when he touched her hair or her shoulder, she
(16:08):
smacked his hand from behind, you know, swatted his hands,
and that's when he snapped. So I wasn't looking directly
at him when he snapped, but with all his might.
He violently thrust his arms around her, of her body,
her neck area, and with so much force that the
(16:31):
whole car literally shaped right.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
And I'm thinking about it, d'sti. He had his feet,
as you said, his knees were up against the seat.
And here's a big, strong, two thirty 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 to
do this considering all of these well, you know, I
(16:55):
don't you.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Know, I don't know about saying it would have been nothing.
I really don't know. I know that if seemingly it
was 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 to just let her go,
(17:17):
and he's screaming at me just ep and drive, just
up and drive first, I started crying and trying to
pull his arms off of her and screaming at him.
This entire brief time when this happened, Jennifer never once
reached up to defend herself. It was that quick that
she was out, and so I immediately grabbing his arms,
(17:38):
and I'm screaming at him, just let her go, let
her go, And he's screaming at me, just fucking drive,
just up and drive, you know. Only after a couple
of seconds at pulling in his arms didn't work, so
I reached under his fingers literally and pried his arms,
using one hand on his elbow and the other under
his fingertips, and pride his arms up off of her.
At this point, when I dig at his arms off her,
(17:59):
he took back and the seat and she is now
did her head is built towards the passenger side window,
her arms on the other side. She had delided herself.
And I'm just complete shocked and just utter confusion and disbelieve.
(18:19):
And I'm still he is yelling at him. He just
has been drawn.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Drawn, 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 a 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 I obviously
(18:45):
you did what you could, but she had no chance.
And at this point, were you concerned that he was
going to try to kill you too?
Speaker 6 (18:52):
No, it certainly wasn't an they didn't go through my
head only thought. I'm not thinking anyone sitting in my
seat would have had the same reaction. You know, one
minute having a good time with a young lady, and
the next minute, this guy, this violent predator, cleatly just
alters history. I don't know it's spoke stream, but I
(19:15):
mean he is. The one act that he does, it
changes the lives of so many people.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Sure, one act.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
And he's drunk, and he's and you know, I'd like
to think that he really didn't know what the heck
he's doing. He has his past, and he has lent
past of a violence towards women. But he's been increasingly
becoming an alcoholic over the last several weeks or months,
in which he's drinking every single night. It's just a bad,
bad brude. Not to mention the fact that he was
thinking sterile. He's leading up to this as will.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Obviously, he destroyed her and get killed her, and he
ruined the lives of everyone who cared about her, her family,
et cetera. 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 violence,
from what it sounds like last only seconds, not even minutes,
(20:05):
he managed to destroy so many people. And then that's
where the story gets into a whole different phase. Right,
and again, 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
(20:28):
must protect this guy and he's going to protect you.
You know, that's just in the mix. 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
(20:51):
to this absolute horror that you're you've just witnessed as
close and personal as you can imagine with somebody 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 happened?
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Yeah, And this is like you said, this, this is
why you're in prison is because of what you've done afterwards.
And if people can't understand your reaction afterwards, the normal
person would have jumped out of the vehicle and ran
to find the phone or the police somewhere, or to
tell somebody something just terrible has happened. And that might
(21:30):
be the case for most people. I don't know, but
I think that's the way I reacted. It would have
been different. Even if my own brother would have been
in Billy Brown's place, I think I would have reacted differently.
This is like you said, to the way I was
conditions and indoctrinated at twenty years old, I reacted how
(21:51):
I reacted. I'm not a criminal. I've never been violent,
and I certainly have never been violent towards the women,
and I'm not criminally minded. And so why is is
did a twenty year old trust in this position which
I should never have been in to begin with, and
had to make these kinds of decisions. And so when
I realized that in the first day and Billy Brown
(22:14):
screaming them and I really didn't know what to do.
I was in a place in this area, Like I said,
I had only been in Virginia Beach for a couple
of weeks and three weeks of five. So I just
put the car to drive and I took off driving,
and I didn't know where I was going. I didn't
even know how to barely get out of the Virginia
(22:37):
Beach area until I ended up in fact Phillip Brown.
And when I started driving, he said, I'll turn left here,
turn right there, and I ended up on sixty four,
and on 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
(22:58):
kept driving and driving until I started I seen a
lot of wooded area, and so I pulled off on
an exit. Again, I have no idea where I'm at,
and I'm just driving. I pull off into another area
which seemed more wooded until I get to a more
secluded area which is not that far from the interstate,
and both of us myself can bally get up the car.
(23:19):
I grabbed Nimfer's risks, he grabbed her legs, and we
carried her perhaps thirty yards into the wood. And again
I was in complete chaotic, shocking, and I didn't know
what I was doing. I didn't know what else to do.
(23:42):
And yeah, I understand that people people look at that
moment there and say, you know that, why would you
do that? Why you know I would have done that?
But others have not been in my shoes. They don't understand,
and perhaps I don't even understand why I reacted that
with other than to say that this is kind of
how I was trained to react. They didn't say, in
(24:03):
a situation which you know there's been a crime and
it's a civilian who's been hurt, tect your swim body.
Oh of course I didn't say that. However, now from
what I understands, when you go through still training today,
they do have classes in training that says, look, if
this type of scenario happens, you need to consider what
(24:24):
you know, where you're at, what you're doing, and so forth,
and do not protect your swim body if he has
done something so horrendous, so wrong. And that's the place
today because of this city.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
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. 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
(24:56):
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 and why
I'm doing everything I can to help you try to
find justice, because it's obviously a terrible miscarriage of justice,
(25:23):
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 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.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Well, I wasn't really aware at the time of the
news in the media, but what was driving me crazy,
is just having witnesses and knowing about it and attempting
to remain silent about it. It was, Uh. It put
me in a state of almost like a zombie like
state throughout the next week in which I held this
(26:07):
speakert and witness bill. They do this terrible, terrible beat
and I had it within and and I couldn't tell anybody,
and so it was it was definitely eating me up
on the inside. So of course the coming week now
we were up north something from a place called a
support ap doing addigital training for men. I wasn't during
(26:31):
the time. I wasn't aware of the news in the
media down in Virginia Beach. But it was certainly eating
you up on the inside.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
So your conscience got the best of you, and you know,
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.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Well, first of all, you know, I did it tell
the Texas you know, everything that they had asked me.
You know, at first I did not denied it. I
denied everything, but it came to a point, especially after
they had presented me with the fact that Jennifer's family
is an absolute go into a traumatic and brieving experience
and they just want to know how and they want
(27:19):
to know where their daughter is, et cetera. And it
was through this line of the Enquirer questioning that you know,
I asked to see my very officer, and my spirit
offic came in and we were alone. I told him
everything that happened, and so he said that he was
on an attempt to call the Dad officer and to
see what we could do as far as legally or
(27:41):
something like that. But nonetheless, fifteen minutes later when the
texts come in, I told them everything that they had asked,
and they even asked me if I was helping them
first draw maps to where Jennifer's Bobby was, which I did,
I attempted to do, and then they asked me if
I would accompany them they Jennifer Scotty, so which I
(28:03):
did also, and I still my spreite officer in one
of the expecutives. We went to the location and we
separated the search through the woods. 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
(28:25):
on you. He told us everything, you're going down. You're
probably gonna get the death penalty whatever else. And so
at that point that he began with these stories about
now I had something to do with it. He later
said that if he was going down, he's gonna take
me with and so he made up a story saying
that we're both gone.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
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 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. I'll
be it after the fact and the consequences started to
(29:08):
become very real now from what I've read, Dustie, the
detectives made certain promises to you, right that if you
help them, you were going to be kind of okay.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Right, yeah, they think you know. They did say that
after telling my sperit officer what had happened, and he
spoke to the textives as well, and together they said, look,
just answer the question. It'll be all right. And I said,
are you sure you know? And I kind of took
it as a direct order from my spirit officer. I said,
very sure, that's what I should do, and he said, yes,
(29:39):
to answer the questions, be all right. I said, okay.
You know, they didn't come to me and say anything like, well,
for your testimony, will allow some kind of agreement or
something like that.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Now.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
They never actually came to me and said that. Of course,
being very igorant of the criminal justice, you know, I
didn't know that I would even need a lawyer or
the that I should do remain time about certain things
or what have you. But you know, I willingly asked
them to search my vehicle. Mean, I answered the questions truthfully,
(30:12):
And I thought that maybe what this would lead to
was at some point me on a witness fan explaining
that Billy Brown is being charged with her murder, that
I would be explaining exactly how things happened. Maybe I
was naive, but I assume that's how things worked. I
certainly didn't assume that they were going to charge me.
(30:32):
After speaking with Billy Brown and him pointing the fingers
much so I certainly didn't think that I was going
to be charged with the murder.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
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 going to be favorable to them, And
in fact, by noting the evidence at trial, they didn't
(31:01):
have 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 to add insult to injury. And in a
(31:29):
terrible call it a coincidence, the year that you were convicted,
nineteen ninety five, 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 is to be convicted in Virginia
nineteen ninety five or later you are not eligible for parole.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
I wouldn't even be able with parole. Meant, I wouldn't aware.
You know that they had just abolished parole in Virginia.
I don't think I would have would have paired at
the time. I wasn't, So I gets concerned about the
sense I was given. I was concerned about the fact
that I was convicted of two charges that I did
not commit. Whether they gave me ten years or one
hundred years, I was convicted of something I didn't commit.
(32:13):
And that's that was the Travis.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
It's I can't I can't really imagine how that could
make sense in a society like ours, but it is
in fact a reality, and it's your reality, and it's
why now everyone is working so hard to help you
get clemency or a pardon or a conditional pardon from
the governor because of the fact that that is the
(32:37):
only recourse left. Another thing that's 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 get to Dusty, because
first of all, a crazy thing happened in two thousand
(32:58):
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 two, fifteen
years ago, right, And he recanted and admitted that he
was the sole murderer. And I think people are listening
now and going, well, wait a minute, if that happened,
why is Dusty still in prison? Can you explain that scenario?
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Yeah? If I can't explain it, yeah, as he's serving
his time and some other prison I guess some guys
had approached him and gotten him to get into Christianity,
and this allowed him to finally release this burden that
he's been holding for all these years and to confess.
(33:42):
And so that happened again in early two thousand and
Here it is, fifteen years later, and I'm still sitting here,
still sitting here after he's complaint, after he finally said, yeah,
everything that Dusty said, that's what happened, and the judge
rule that he's credible in that confession. So there was
(34:03):
no mechanisms more recently of even getting back into court
with such new evidence. But there was a time later
in two thousand and sixty Pound seven until we finally
rid of actual innocence to the appeals court, which ended
with well, the appeals court initially overturned my convictions. They
did convict me of the misdemeanor accessory after the fact
(34:27):
of the felony, which indeed I am blp of and
like you said earlier, that was a maximum sentence of
twelve months in jail. When they made this ruling and
they dropped my charges. This is two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine. I was expecting me home within
a matter of days or weeks.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
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 your conviction
is vacated, you have every reasonablieve you're going to go home.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
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,
(35:24):
except for then the state decided to put its foot
back on your neck, so to speak. Right, and then
what happened?
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Yeah, so the toils the vacated my conviction and I
was expect to be home with a matter of day.
The acting Attorney General came forward and said that he
wanted to appeal this decision, and so they appealed it
and went back through the appellate court and then on
into the later into the Supreme Court of Virginia and
under a new series that's one of the judges of
(35:53):
the Pilates Court created. And the thread of actual innocence
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 have anything
to do with the murder, and this has been decided
(36:13):
by the judges, he didn't have anything to do with
the murder, and he didn't restrain the victim. This judge says, well,
perhaps a jury could believe that when Dusty walked out
of the bar to the parking lot, to his car,
that a jury could believe that that was an abduction
by deception. And if a jury believed that and then
(36:37):
Jennifer was later killed regardless of power who was killed her,
that I which still be guilty and the jury is
still find me guilty of both the abduction and the murder.
So they created a new theory in my face. There's
just not only is the asonine, but it was never
presented before the jury. And there's no jury in the
world that would believe this idea, especially with all the
(36:58):
additional evidence. So under that because of it, 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 overturn my release and they reinstate my colas and
here it is seven years later and I'm still sitting here.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
So they're basically trying to say that they're going back
in time to nineteen ninety five. They're going back in
time the nineteen ninety five and trying to come up
with a theory that could actually read your mind. Right,
They're going back in a 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
(37:46):
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, I.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Think that the legislators recognized that after my case, and
they said, you know, this rivactional innocence is obviously entirely
too restrictiveness and to open for interpretation or whatever. So
they since I went through this rivactional inscence, now they've
changed the law the wording of the rivactionalness. Instead of
saying could any juror find guilt with this evidence? Now
(38:24):
it's more specific, and it may sound puplicit, but it's
more specific thing. Would a rational juror still find guilt
with this new evidence and the new word in which
I can't go back into the river actionalness because it's
the one shot deal. And Tom left hung out to
drial this on this whole thing.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
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 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.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
From my perspective, he does like a very 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 if he does, if he just looks
at my kids, then he'll realize that I'm not supposed
to be here. I do have that tremendous hope that
he will take action in my case.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Well, Dusty, I can tell you that I think that
there's a lot of reason to 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 of what you've done, the
remarkable record of accomplishment that you've had on the inside.
(39:41):
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 the situation
you're in, and then also what you've managed to make
out of that experience.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
Well, you know, I've got a quote a guy who
knows suffering, and a couple of things have kept me
I don't know, to move forward, and its positive. I
can be one of those the supporters that I do have,
not just my family, but others, you know, total strangers
who have reached out, and it gives me a lot
of hope, and it gives me a lot of strength
(40:19):
to endure this what I'm going through in this environment.
And it is terrible, It's absolutely terrible. But this quote,
it's one of my favorite quotes. It says that everything
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 circumstances, choose one's own
(40:39):
way as a man named Victor Franklin. And you know,
I guess I've taken on this, this attitude, you know,
that which allowed me to persevere through through bud training
and is still training. I reached for this on a
daily basis. Now I put my feet on the ground
and say I have to I have to continue on today,
(41:01):
and I have to push forward, and I can't allow
this environment to get the best of them. 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 have
struggled with drug addiction or you know, criminal thinking. And
(41:23):
I've just kind of made it as part of my
own our character to trying to help you guys out
and to move past, to transcend some of these things
in which they've been stuck in. And not only that,
I proposed a dog training program. That's the last institution
that I was at. 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.
(41:47):
And I had studied and read up and learned so
much about training dogs and I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
And how does that training program work? That the dogs are?
They rescue dogs and what happens to them after they're trained?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Right?
Speaker 6 (42:00):
So these are absolutely rescued dogs. These were abandoned. We
worked with a shelter out of Ashland, Virginia called bark
Baar Community and that's the abandoned the adoption and rescued canines.
A really great organizations, and they would bring us six
dogs at time and we would have them for three months,
and we had a total of twelve dog trainers, two
(42:20):
free stocks, and we would train the dogs. These dogs
that were abandoned and you never know what their history was.
They could send maybe beat them or however that they
were rescued and we were given the tools to help
train these dogs, and then afterward they were adopted and
we had an adoption rate of some ninety something percent
(42:42):
coming out of there, and we trained them in basic
pin obedience and it was a really, really great, really
positive program. And from there I had gotten into me
and another guy, we had been talking about different ideas
concerning the judicial system and we'd 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,
(43:05):
we decided that with our knowledge of this environment in
the prison and we knew what was lacking in this environment,
we knew some of the things that could help in
the rehabilitations of the fellow inmates, we constructed a restorative
justice program. We're still in the process of kind of
flushing out some of the more detailed aspects of the curriculum.
(43:27):
But this is what my passion has been into for
the past few years, and I've really been concentrating my
efforts into this program. And we have people restored, just
practitioners from universities and other organizations to really really like
what we have created and they want to help them
out a little bit.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
Well, you know, it'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, 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
(44:08):
allow your mind to go there, what do you want
to do? What's your plan?
Speaker 6 (44:14):
Well, as you hit upon do I even want to
go there? I have been reluctant, especially after seven years
ago when I was expecting to get out and I
was denied that. It was a very crushing blow and
it was difficult to endure. But yeah, of course I
do allow myself to think about what I'm out of here,
(44:36):
although I don't dwell upon it because I just I
don't know. I just can't go there for so much.
But the more I've gotten into restort justice, the more
I think it's an extremely beneficial philosophy and instead of
practices to kind of compliment our criminal justice system. And
(44:57):
so I really want to pursue that direction, and I
think that I can help out. I think I have
a lot of school or feel over here, So now
it's for being in here for the last twenty two
plus year in observing things from the inside, I feel
like I have a great perspective to be able to
help out in the source.
Speaker 5 (45:17):
Just that sounds like a great scenario to me, and
both have benefits to society across the board. I don't
(45:42):
know if you're able to talk about it, but it
really struck me earlier when you told me that the
prison or your pod is on lockdown. What does that mean?
Speaker 6 (45:51):
Well, so, where I'm at now, we've been on lockdown
the last two weeks, which means we're componed to our
concrete box TI and when we're coming out every seventy
two hours to take a shower, they bring the food
to our door and I say our door because I
have a fill partner. Every sales two people for film,
(46:14):
and this is how I've been living for the last
two weeks, but moreover, it's pretty much how I've been
living for the last twenty two years. But when we're
not on lockdown, you know, I do have a ploticum
of freedoms if you will. You know, every once in
a while I can get outside and take fresh air
and work out. I've been rolled into a horticulture class
(46:34):
and learn about horticulture. I can actually have my fingers
and the soil and be able to have the opportunity
to plant some feeds and vegetables and so forth. It's
really been a positive thing, really really joining the horticulture.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
And the last question about the prison experience, 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?
Speaker 6 (46:59):
Yeah, so they have what they call count procedures in
which they have to come through and literally count every
individual while they're locked in the cell, about four times
or so every day, spread out throughout the day. And
during that time you have to be standing up and
your lives have to be on so they can see
that you're alive and will and that starts certainly before
(47:22):
six o'clock in the morning. So over the last twenty
two years, I've been up at five forty five about
that time and standing on the feet mid life wrong
the fluorescent lights every morning, and that's one of the
countsmen like I said, that goes throughout the day, and
that kind of segments the day. That in the beating
the channel repeating schedule. So the breakfast, unch, and dinner
(47:46):
and these kind of condition you and condition one into
the segments of the day. And so there's a period
in the morning after breakfast, I which if we're lucky,
we might get outside the recreation and recreations of a
yard as a track. I usually go jogging. If I'm
able to, I'll go into the weightlifting area list some
(48:07):
weight and they have a couple other recreational things to
guys hit around with the volleyball or the basketball. Otherwise,
there's not a lot of 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 for
(48:27):
humans than anything. It's not really designed for as it
called correction necessarily, although there has been, you know, steps
towards that direction, of the hopeful steps in that direction.
You know, I think that the governor has made some
steps in that direction with the re entry ideas and
so forth. But you know, unfortunately there's largely the prisons
(48:50):
are placed with the warehouse humans. So there's only so
much a mind too in this environment. And so I
do utilize my time studying, you know, I spend my
money on the books and there's a library when I can,
and so that's kind of how I send my.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
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 care and who want to see you
or released and able to get on with your life
and put this nightmare behind you. And I want to
(49:30):
turn it over to you. Typically on wrongful conviction. I
like to 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.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
Okay, Well, as you mentioned, I do have a lot
of very strong supporters out here you Virginia, who are
total strangers, some of them gotten to know personally, and
they're just break people. I'm very fortunate to have these
people in my corner and who have recognized my wrongful prediction.
(50:06):
As far as the last words, I'm thankful. I really
appreciate mister Bomb for interviewing me. Very thankful that increasingly
more people know that I have been wrongfully depicted. And
I hope that people, you know, maybe reach out and
talk to somebody. The filmmaker named JD. Sleet has created
(50:28):
a film called The Target of Opportunity about my case,
and I was able to view it one time a
few years ago, and I think it encapsulates my situation
pretty 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
(50:49):
the travesty and the fact that I've been here for
over twenty two years for something I didn't do. I
had such a future in front of the military. I
love the military, plan to make a career. I want
to be in the Philpines and want to be the
best still Team operators in the country that I could
have been. My world was turned upside down and a
(51:11):
lot of so many people over one net brother guy.
So many people have been destroyed in Ruin in a
Brevin's family and my family, like city, and Billie Brown's family,
so many others. But again, I just thank you. I
really appreciate opportunities. Back to the interview.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
So, Dusty, I want to repeat that the name of
the film is.
Speaker 6 (51:32):
The name of the film is Target of Opportunity.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
Target of Opportunity is the film. I've watched it. I
hope other people that are listening now will watch it too.
And Dusty, I'm sure people are listening. They want to
know how can they get involved? What would you advise?
Speaker 6 (51:45):
Right? You know, unfortunately I am largely isolated you. I
have no Internet accidents. I've never been on the internet.
I've never even used the bill phone. However, I think
that people could maybe visit. I know that twitters have
created a website at Fredusty dot org. And I do
know too that there's a Twitter and Instagram account under
(52:08):
my name Free Dusty Turner, I think, and I know
that it's in a very leaf reaching out there that
my supporters would I'm sure to direct folks into the
best way that they might be able to help. I
know that writing to the governor Governitarry mccallis in Virginia's
directly may help out O. Other than that, I'm really
(52:29):
not sure what else say about it.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
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 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
(52:53):
in the home stretch of this, this effort to free
Dusty Turner. You have wha we're having Dusty. All I
can say is hang in there. We're coming to get you.
Thank you Dusty for being on the show, and I'll
look forward to seeing you on the outside, hopefully sometime
(53:17):
very soon. You've been listening to a very special episode
of Wrongful Conviction Behind Bars with Dusty Turner. Dusty, thanks again, Thank.
Speaker 6 (53:27):
You sir, Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 5 (53:38):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(53:59):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hey, it's counter Hall, the producer for wrongful Conviction. After
thirty one years of wrongful incarceration, Dusty Turner was freed
just a few weeks ago, and Maggie was able to
snag a post release interview. It's hard to believe that
Jason covered his story nearly ten years ago. Right here,
Dusty Turner.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
we go to a hearing, 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 the United
States Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
in that moment, unchecked authority.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Don't presume that people are guilty when you seem on TV,
because it may just be a dirty da that is
trying to rise upward.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
Hello, this is a pre kay call from an animated
Virginia Department of Correction Green Steel Correctional and Work Center.
To accept this call, plus Nero refuses. This call is
from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flaum. Today, I'm
interviewing someone who I have a great deal of respect
and admiration for, Dusty Turner.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
On June nineteenth, the twenty one year old pre men
student went missing while vacationing with family friends at Virginia Beach.
Speaker 7 (02:12):
Twenty one year old Jennifer Evans abducted and murdered while
vacationing in Virginia Beach that Sunday night. Jennifer Evans left
the now defunct Bayou Nightclub with former Navy Seal training
Dustin Turner. Police say the two got in the car
with another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown. Police found her
body nine days later in this wooded area of Newport News.
(02:33):
She had been strangled. Both men blamed each other in court.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Turner was sentenced to eighty two years and Brown to
seventy two years.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
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 Dustin Turner one last chance to walk free.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday against Dusty Turner's
petition for exoneration. The really means Turner, in another seal training,
Billy Joe Brown will spend the rest of their lives
in prison for the murder of Jennifer Evans.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Dusty, welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
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
(03:33):
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?
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Well, my family has been in the military, my father,
my stepfather, my brother, my older brother, he was in
the Navy before me, and I guess I just have
always had that appeal towards the military to serve my country.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Right, But you took it to another level going through
that Navy seal training. That is the most extreme thing
you can do.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Right.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
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.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Right, Well, yeah, I guess that's right. You know, initially
when I first signed up to the military and the Navy,
I wanted to be a diver. I was a scuba
diving for about fifteen years, and before I was in
the PASTOBA Delayed Entry program, and so before I actually
arrived at boot camp, I set my sights on becoming
(04:32):
a stew I don't know really what it is that
drove me so much, but I just wanted to be
in the most elite unit that I could to be
in order to fight for my country.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
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, when all of this
tragedy began. Your training partner was Billy Brown, right, Yes.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Billy Brown and I were paired together early on in
bus training and throughout the entire field training. We were
paired of. And actually the only reason we're paired of
at the beginning is because we're the same height, and
as fate would have it, that's why we were paired of.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
And why does that matter.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Well, everyone's assigned to a boat crew in bus training,
and your boat crew is dependent upon the height, and
so we were in the same boat crew. We're the
same height. Want to structures that you and you you're together,
You're now slim, buddy. And that was early in training.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
And the issue was Billy was a very volatile character. Right.
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 into serve in that capacity. Can
(06:02):
you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
Yeah, So I didn't know about his pass until after
the trial. He did have a violent history. Apparently he
had assulted at least one femail before he came to
the military. He was discharged out of the Coastguard before
he came into the Navy, and he had a couple
(06:24):
other things on his record, which again I was unaware
of the prior. You know, some people have said that
when he would have gone through the process get his
security clearance, that they would have recognized this and then
kicked him out of the service. I'm not so sure
if that's the case or not, but he certainly had
the final pass, and it is surprising, you know, in hindsight,
(06:48):
he's very surprising that he was allowed not only in
the military, but to come through to the Special Forces.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
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?
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Yes, it is during the training throughout a good majority
of it. If we were separated more than six feet,
we would be punished for that. You know, I could
trust them in the field, so to speak, to shoot
over top of my back and you know, a para,
so to speak. So there was a great deal of
a trust in a binding force, I guess to come
(07:29):
with the training.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Right, you literally had to trust each 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 nineteenth,
nineteen ninety five in Virginia Beach. And I don't think
anybody who hasn't been in your shoes can judge how
(07:53):
you 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.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Yeah, he'd been drinking that day from early on and
it just continued into the evening until we were at
the club at nine, and he was absolutely.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
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,
and then ultimately what happened after.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
That, Well, you know, It started off as kind of
a normal, normal evening. I've been to that club a
few times. I was relatively new to the area in
Virginia Beach, not only been there maybe maybe three weeks,
and so initially three of us guys were going to
go out and to the club at nine one. The
guy ended up up going, I don't know, going off
(09:02):
with his girlfriend 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 from him, and I had
met a very nice young lady named Jennifer Evans. We
kind of hit it off. We were having a good
time for sharing with each other. Fellow was what we
were into.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
She was a college student down in Georgia, and I
generally didn't talk very openly about my field experience, but
with her I did, and I opened up and I
told her what I was doing there the beach. Now,
mind you that I was in the club with a
underage and I had a fake ID that I got
in there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
You were twenty at the time, man, That was yeah,
I was.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Twenty years old. Jennifer was twenty one. And so again
we you know, Jenffer and I we hit it off.
We had to separate ourselves from from Billy. I had
met her girlfriend, her two friends that she came there with,
We had been out on the dance floor, and you know,
again it was very very normal type of evening, and well,
the last thing I was imagined was something trastic happening
(10:07):
that night, So it put it in the night. Her
girlfriend had left briefly they were going to go get
some coffee and everyone to say with me in the club.
So we actually had an idea of trying to go
down to the beach, taking 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 the morning, which is the time
(10:27):
of this club quote, 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
to the lobby where it was more quiet, and we
just got out there and had a conversation. Just previous
to this, I had gotten Billy a ride home with
(10:48):
this ex girlfriend who happened to be in the club
that night, Christians Bishops, and reluctantly she did agree to
they come 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 him home, so
(11:09):
I was confident that I wouldn't even see him for
the rest of the night. And I was with Jennifer,
and it was closing upon two o'clock in the morning.
We were out in the lobby and we decided to
go out into the parking lot and wait for her
girlfriend and sit in my car and listened to music.
And so within about ten minutes, still two again, we
(11:30):
went out to my car and we were sitting there
listening to music and looking for her girlfriend to show
up at any minute. Instead, what we saw coming down
the hill was Billy Brown, and he was heading towards
the parkpot. You know, I certainly wasn't expecting him. Christian
was supposed to take him home. I knew he was
drunk and belligerent, but when he was approaching the vehicle.
(11:52):
I told Jennifer, I said, look, you know, this is
the guy I come here with. You know, he's drunk.
Just just don't pay no attention to him. I've seen
him in the past, especially when we were in Puerto Rico.
I've seen him, witness him become kind of violent towards women.
I didn't think that he would become violent towards Jenner Firm,
but I did assume he was at least going to
(12:14):
be obnoxious and somewhat belligerent. So when he got into.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
The car, wait, hold up there for a second, Dusty,
what kind of car was it?
Speaker 6 (12:21):
So I had a small geostorm.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
So that's a small car, right, yeah, it is a
very small car. And you're big guys, both of you
guys are.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
He was bigger than I. We were both six foot
two and a half, I guess, and he outweighed me
by maybe fifteen to twenty pounds, So he was I
think he was about two hundred and thirty somewhere aund
indus or thirty pounds. But he approaches the passer's side
of the car and he opens the door and he
kind of pushes the car seat forward where Jennifer was sitting,
(12:51):
he pushes a seat forward a little roughly, and he
gets in the car in the back seats right behind her,
and of course his big frame compared with the back
in this once you did a very small comb Those
knees are against the back of her seat. And as
soon as he sits down, I turned to him and
I say, Billy, what what's going on? Was was Christian
(13:15):
not thinking you home? And he immediately goes into a
tirade about oh, screwing that f bet girl you think
you know, blah blah, he's a nothing.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
But of this event, 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, last thing anybody would
want to see is a drunk, belligerent, violent anybody. You
don't want 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
(13:47):
predicted how bad it was going to get, but already
it's bad.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Yeah, So this is obviously, this is the crux of
the situation. Jennifer and I were having the time, you know,
we were not romantically involved at this time. Earlier I
had given her a husband when I thought that she
was gonna leave with her girlfriends, and that's the only
time we had had a come physical contact. I said,
said Jeniffer, she's a very decent young lady. You know,
(14:14):
she was a good girl, was a great teacher in
front of her who was going to college. And it's
a very nice young lady. And so we're having a
great conversation and you said, here comes this drunk buddy
of mine down to the calling.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
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.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Yeah. Yeah, So after asking him while Christian was taking
him home, and you know, he said what he said
about her, and he turned his attention to Jennifer, and
he made some very rude comment, if I remember correctly,
he said something about asking her if she was a virgin,
something like that, certainly inappropriate. And I immediately said, look, Billy,
(15:04):
why don't you get out and go find Christians that
she was going to take me home, And so he
was not trying to hear that at all. He's like
half that bitch. So again he kind of turns his
benches to Jenner from my eyes, who within two or
three or four minutes before her girlfriends were coming to
pick her up right there where we're at in the
parking lot. They're supposed to arrive there, they told used
(15:26):
to be there at to the clock, and it has
to be within a couple of minutes before too. And
of course I didn't know at that point too what
it transpired in the gloves between him and Christian that
made him additionally belligerent. So it turns his SENSI back
to Cennifer, and he said something about her hair. He
(15:47):
reached up with his right hand. I don't know if
he pushed her her shoulder or her hair. But at
that point Jennifer had just throughout this time, the brief
couple of minutes she had not set a did not
open her mouth to him or refined to him, And
so when he touched her hair or her shoulder, she
(16:08):
smacked his hand from behind, you know, swatted his hands,
and that's when he snapped. So I wasn't looking directly
at him when he snapped, but with all his might.
He violently thrust his arms around her, of her body,
her neck area, and with so much force that the
(16:31):
whole car literally shaped right.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
And I'm thinking about it, d'sti. He had his feet,
as you said, his knees were up against the seat.
And here's a big, strong, two thirty 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 to
do this considering all of these well, you know, I
(16:55):
don't you.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Know, I don't know about saying it would have been nothing.
I really don't know. I know that if seemingly it
was 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 to just let her go,
(17:17):
and he's screaming at me just ep and drive, just
up and drive first, I started crying and trying to
pull his arms off of her and screaming at him.
This entire brief time when this happened, Jennifer never once
reached up to defend herself. It was that quick that
she was out, and so I immediately grabbing his arms,
(17:38):
and I'm screaming at him, just let her go, let
her go, And he's screaming at me, just fucking drive,
just up and drive, you know. Only after a couple
of seconds at pulling in his arms didn't work, so
I reached under his fingers literally and pried his arms,
using one hand on his elbow and the other under
his fingertips, and pride his arms up off of her.
At this point, when I dig at his arms off her,
(17:59):
he took back and the seat and she is now
did her head is built towards the passenger side window,
her arms on the other side. She had delided herself.
And I'm just complete shocked and just utter confusion and disbelieve.
(18:19):
And I'm still he is yelling at him. He just
has been drawn.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Drawn, 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 a 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 I obviously
(18:45):
you did what you could, but she had no chance.
And at this point, were you concerned that he was
going to try to kill you too?
Speaker 6 (18:52):
No, it certainly wasn't an they didn't go through my
head only thought. I'm not thinking anyone sitting in my
seat would have had the same reaction. You know, one
minute having a good time with a young lady, and
the next minute, this guy, this violent predator, cleatly just
alters history. I don't know it's spoke stream, but I
(19:15):
mean he is. The one act that he does, it
changes the lives of so many people.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Sure, one act.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
And he's drunk, and he's and you know, I'd like
to think that he really didn't know what the heck
he's doing. He has his past, and he has lent
past of a violence towards women. But he's been increasingly
becoming an alcoholic over the last several weeks or months,
in which he's drinking every single night. It's just a bad,
bad brude. Not to mention the fact that he was
thinking sterile. He's leading up to this as will.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Obviously, he destroyed her and get killed her, and he
ruined the lives of everyone who cared about her, her family,
et cetera. 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 violence,
from what it sounds like last only seconds, not even minutes,
(20:05):
he managed to destroy so many people. And then that's
where the story gets into a whole different phase. Right,
and again, 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
(20:28):
must protect this guy and he's going to protect you.
You know, that's just in the mix. 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
(20:51):
to this absolute horror that you're you've just witnessed as
close and personal as you can imagine with somebody 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 happened?
Speaker 6 (21:09):
Yeah, And this is like you said, this, this is
why you're in prison is because of what you've done afterwards.
And if people can't understand your reaction afterwards, the normal
person would have jumped out of the vehicle and ran
to find the phone or the police somewhere, or to
tell somebody something just terrible has happened. And that might
(21:30):
be the case for most people. I don't know, but
I think that's the way I reacted. It would have
been different. Even if my own brother would have been
in Billy Brown's place, I think I would have reacted differently.
This is like you said, to the way I was
conditions and indoctrinated at twenty years old, I reacted how
(21:51):
I reacted. I'm not a criminal. I've never been violent,
and I certainly have never been violent towards the women,
and I'm not criminally minded. And so why is is
did a twenty year old trust in this position which
I should never have been in to begin with, and
had to make these kinds of decisions. And so when
I realized that in the first day and Billy Brown
(22:14):
screaming them and I really didn't know what to do.
I was in a place in this area, Like I said,
I had only been in Virginia Beach for a couple
of weeks and three weeks of five. So I just
put the car to drive and I took off driving,
and I didn't know where I was going. I didn't
even know how to barely get out of the Virginia
(22:37):
Beach area until I ended up in fact Phillip Brown.
And when I started driving, he said, I'll turn left here,
turn right there, and I ended up on sixty four,
and on 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
(22:58):
kept driving and driving until I started I seen a
lot of wooded area, and so I pulled off on
an exit. Again, I have no idea where I'm at,
and I'm just driving. I pull off into another area
which seemed more wooded until I get to a more
secluded area which is not that far from the interstate,
and both of us myself can bally get up the car.
(23:19):
I grabbed Nimfer's risks, he grabbed her legs, and we
carried her perhaps thirty yards into the wood. And again
I was in complete chaotic, shocking, and I didn't know
what I was doing. I didn't know what else to do.
(23:42):
And yeah, I understand that people people look at that
moment there and say, you know that, why would you
do that? Why you know I would have done that?
But others have not been in my shoes. They don't understand,
and perhaps I don't even understand why I reacted that
with other than to say that this is kind of
how I was trained to react. They didn't say, in
(24:03):
a situation which you know there's been a crime and
it's a civilian who's been hurt, tect your swim body.
Oh of course I didn't say that. However, now from
what I understands, when you go through still training today,
they do have classes in training that says, look, if
this type of scenario happens, you need to consider what
(24:24):
you know, where you're at, what you're doing, and so forth,
and do not protect your swim body if he has
done something so horrendous, so wrong. And that's the place
today because of this city.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
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. 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
(24:56):
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 and why
I'm doing everything I can to help you try to
find justice, because it's obviously a terrible miscarriage of justice,
(25:23):
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 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.
Speaker 6 (25:43):
Well, I wasn't really aware at the time of the
news in the media, but what was driving me crazy,
is just having witnesses and knowing about it and attempting
to remain silent about it. It was, Uh. It put
me in a state of almost like a zombie like
state throughout the next week in which I held this
(26:07):
speakert and witness bill. They do this terrible, terrible beat
and I had it within and and I couldn't tell anybody,
and so it was it was definitely eating me up
on the inside. So of course the coming week now
we were up north something from a place called a
support ap doing addigital training for men. I wasn't during
(26:31):
the time. I wasn't aware of the news in the
media down in Virginia Beach. But it was certainly eating
you up on the inside.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
So your conscience got the best of you, and you know,
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.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
Well, first of all, you know, I did it tell
the Texas you know, everything that they had asked me.
You know, at first I did not denied it. I
denied everything, but it came to a point, especially after
they had presented me with the fact that Jennifer's family
is an absolute go into a traumatic and brieving experience
and they just want to know how and they want
(27:19):
to know where their daughter is, et cetera. And it
was through this line of the Enquirer questioning that you know,
I asked to see my very officer, and my spirit
offic came in and we were alone. I told him
everything that happened, and so he said that he was
on an attempt to call the Dad officer and to
see what we could do as far as legally or
(27:41):
something like that. But nonetheless, fifteen minutes later when the
texts come in, I told them everything that they had asked,
and they even asked me if I was helping them
first draw maps to where Jennifer's Bobby was, which I did,
I attempted to do, and then they asked me if
I would accompany them they Jennifer Scotty, so which I
(28:03):
did also, and I still my spreite officer in one
of the expecutives. We went to the location and we
separated the search through the woods. 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
(28:25):
on you. He told us everything, you're going down. You're
probably gonna get the death penalty whatever else. And so
at that point that he began with these stories about
now I had something to do with it. He later
said that if he was going down, he's gonna take
me with and so he made up a story saying
that we're both gone.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
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 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. I'll
be it after the fact and the consequences started to
(29:08):
become very real now from what I've read, Dustie, the
detectives made certain promises to you, right that if you
help them, you were going to be kind of okay.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Right, yeah, they think you know. They did say that
after telling my sperit officer what had happened, and he
spoke to the textives as well, and together they said, look,
just answer the question. It'll be all right. And I said,
are you sure you know? And I kind of took
it as a direct order from my spirit officer. I said,
very sure, that's what I should do, and he said, yes,
(29:39):
to answer the questions, be all right. I said, okay.
You know, they didn't come to me and say anything like, well,
for your testimony, will allow some kind of agreement or
something like that.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Now.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
They never actually came to me and said that. Of course,
being very igorant of the criminal justice, you know, I
didn't know that I would even need a lawyer or
the that I should do remain time about certain things
or what have you. But you know, I willingly asked
them to search my vehicle. Mean, I answered the questions truthfully,
(30:12):
And I thought that maybe what this would lead to
was at some point me on a witness fan explaining
that Billy Brown is being charged with her murder, that
I would be explaining exactly how things happened. Maybe I
was naive, but I assume that's how things worked. I
certainly didn't assume that they were going to charge me.
(30:32):
After speaking with Billy Brown and him pointing the fingers
much so I certainly didn't think that I was going
to be charged with the murder.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
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 going to be favorable to them, And
in fact, by noting the evidence at trial, they didn't
(31:01):
have 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 to add insult to injury. And in a
(31:29):
terrible call it a coincidence, the year that you were convicted,
nineteen ninety five, 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 is to be convicted in Virginia
nineteen ninety five or later you are not eligible for parole.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
I wouldn't even be able with parole. Meant, I wouldn't aware.
You know that they had just abolished parole in Virginia.
I don't think I would have would have paired at
the time. I wasn't, So I gets concerned about the
sense I was given. I was concerned about the fact
that I was convicted of two charges that I did
not commit. Whether they gave me ten years or one
hundred years, I was convicted of something I didn't commit.
(32:13):
And that's that was the Travis.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
It's I can't I can't really imagine how that could
make sense in a society like ours, but it is
in fact a reality, and it's your reality, and it's
why now everyone is working so hard to help you
get clemency or a pardon or a conditional pardon from
the governor because of the fact that that is the
(32:37):
only recourse left. Another thing that's 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 get to Dusty, because
first of all, a crazy thing happened in two thousand
(32:58):
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 two, fifteen
years ago, right, And he recanted and admitted that he
was the sole murderer. And I think people are listening
now and going, well, wait a minute, if that happened,
why is Dusty still in prison? Can you explain that scenario?
Speaker 6 (33:21):
Yeah? If I can't explain it, yeah, as he's serving
his time and some other prison I guess some guys
had approached him and gotten him to get into Christianity,
and this allowed him to finally release this burden that
he's been holding for all these years and to confess.
(33:42):
And so that happened again in early two thousand and
Here it is, fifteen years later, and I'm still sitting here,
still sitting here after he's complaint, after he finally said, yeah,
everything that Dusty said, that's what happened, and the judge
rule that he's credible in that confession. So there was
(34:03):
no mechanisms more recently of even getting back into court
with such new evidence. But there was a time later
in two thousand and sixty Pound seven until we finally
rid of actual innocence to the appeals court, which ended
with well, the appeals court initially overturned my convictions. They
did convict me of the misdemeanor accessory after the fact
(34:27):
of the felony, which indeed I am blp of and
like you said earlier, that was a maximum sentence of
twelve months in jail. When they made this ruling and
they dropped my charges. This is two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine. I was expecting me home within
a matter of days or weeks.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
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 your conviction
is vacated, you have every reasonablieve you're going to go home.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
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,
(35:24):
except for then the state decided to put its foot
back on your neck, so to speak. Right, and then
what happened?
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Yeah, so the toils the vacated my conviction and I
was expect to be home with a matter of day.
The acting Attorney General came forward and said that he
wanted to appeal this decision, and so they appealed it
and went back through the appellate court and then on
into the later into the Supreme Court of Virginia and
under a new series that's one of the judges of
(35:53):
the Pilates Court created. And the thread of actual innocence
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 have anything
to do with the murder, and this has been decided
(36:13):
by the judges, he didn't have anything to do with
the murder, and he didn't restrain the victim. This judge says, well,
perhaps a jury could believe that when Dusty walked out
of the bar to the parking lot, to his car,
that a jury could believe that that was an abduction
by deception. And if a jury believed that and then
(36:37):
Jennifer was later killed regardless of power who was killed her,
that I which still be guilty and the jury is
still find me guilty of both the abduction and the murder.
So they created a new theory in my face. There's
just not only is the asonine, but it was never
presented before the jury. And there's no jury in the
world that would believe this idea, especially with all the
(36:58):
additional evidence. So under that because of it, 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 overturn my release and they reinstate my colas and
here it is seven years later and I'm still sitting here.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
So they're basically trying to say that they're going back
in time to nineteen ninety five. They're going back in
time the nineteen ninety five and trying to come up
with a theory that could actually read your mind. Right,
They're going back in a 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
(37:46):
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, I.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Think that the legislators recognized that after my case, and
they said, you know, this rivactional innocence is obviously entirely
too restrictiveness and to open for interpretation or whatever. So
they since I went through this rivactional inscence, now they've
changed the law the wording of the rivactionalness. Instead of
saying could any juror find guilt with this evidence? Now
(38:24):
it's more specific, and it may sound puplicit, but it's
more specific thing. Would a rational juror still find guilt
with this new evidence and the new word in which
I can't go back into the river actionalness because it's
the one shot deal. And Tom left hung out to
drial this on this whole thing.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
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 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.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
From my perspective, he does like a very 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 if he does, if he just looks
at my kids, then he'll realize that I'm not supposed
to be here. I do have that tremendous hope that
he will take action in my case.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Well, Dusty, I can tell you that I think that
there's a lot of reason to 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 of what you've done, the
remarkable record of accomplishment that you've had on the inside.
(39:41):
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 the situation
you're in, and then also what you've managed to make
out of that experience.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
Well, you know, I've got a quote a guy who
knows suffering, and a couple of things have kept me
I don't know, to move forward, and its positive. I
can be one of those the supporters that I do have,
not just my family, but others, you know, total strangers
who have reached out, and it gives me a lot
of hope, and it gives me a lot of strength
(40:19):
to endure this what I'm going through in this environment.
And it is terrible, It's absolutely terrible. But this quote,
it's one of my favorite quotes. It says that everything
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 circumstances, choose one's own
(40:39):
way as a man named Victor Franklin. And you know,
I guess I've taken on this, this attitude, you know,
that which allowed me to persevere through through bud training
and is still training. I reached for this on a
daily basis. Now I put my feet on the ground
and say I have to I have to continue on today,
(41:01):
and I have to push forward, and I can't allow
this environment to get the best of them. 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 have
struggled with drug addiction or you know, criminal thinking. And
(41:23):
I've just kind of made it as part of my
own our character to trying to help you guys out
and to move past, to transcend some of these things
in which they've been stuck in. And not only that,
I proposed a dog training program. That's the last institution
that I was at. 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.
(41:47):
And I had studied and read up and learned so
much about training dogs and I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
And how does that training program work? That the dogs are?
They rescue dogs and what happens to them after they're trained?
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Right?
Speaker 6 (42:00):
So these are absolutely rescued dogs. These were abandoned. We
worked with a shelter out of Ashland, Virginia called bark
Baar Community and that's the abandoned the adoption and rescued canines.
A really great organizations, and they would bring us six
dogs at time and we would have them for three months,
and we had a total of twelve dog trainers, two
(42:20):
free stocks, and we would train the dogs. These dogs
that were abandoned and you never know what their history was.
They could send maybe beat them or however that they
were rescued and we were given the tools to help
train these dogs, and then afterward they were adopted and
we had an adoption rate of some ninety something percent
(42:42):
coming out of there, and we trained them in basic
pin obedience and it was a really, really great, really
positive program. And from there I had gotten into me
and another guy, we had been talking about different ideas
concerning the judicial system and we'd 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,
(43:05):
we decided that with our knowledge of this environment in
the prison and we knew what was lacking in this environment,
we knew some of the things that could help in
the rehabilitations of the fellow inmates, we constructed a restorative
justice program. We're still in the process of kind of
flushing out some of the more detailed aspects of the curriculum.
(43:27):
But this is what my passion has been into for
the past few years, and I've really been concentrating my
efforts into this program. And we have people restored, just
practitioners from universities and other organizations to really really like
what we have created and they want to help them
out a little bit.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
Well, you know, it'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, 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
(44:08):
allow your mind to go there, what do you want
to do? What's your plan?
Speaker 6 (44:14):
Well, as you hit upon do I even want to
go there? I have been reluctant, especially after seven years
ago when I was expecting to get out and I
was denied that. It was a very crushing blow and
it was difficult to endure. But yeah, of course I
do allow myself to think about what I'm out of here,
(44:36):
although I don't dwell upon it because I just I
don't know. I just can't go there for so much.
But the more I've gotten into restort justice, the more
I think it's an extremely beneficial philosophy and instead of
practices to kind of compliment our criminal justice system. And
(44:57):
so I really want to pursue that direction, and I
think that I can help out. I think I have
a lot of school or feel over here, So now
it's for being in here for the last twenty two
plus year in observing things from the inside, I feel
like I have a great perspective to be able to
help out in the source.
Speaker 5 (45:17):
Just that sounds like a great scenario to me, and
both have benefits to society across the board. I don't
(45:42):
know if you're able to talk about it, but it
really struck me earlier when you told me that the
prison or your pod is on lockdown. What does that mean?
Speaker 6 (45:51):
Well, so, where I'm at now, we've been on lockdown
the last two weeks, which means we're componed to our
concrete box TI and when we're coming out every seventy
two hours to take a shower, they bring the food
to our door and I say our door because I
have a fill partner. Every sales two people for film,
(46:14):
and this is how I've been living for the last
two weeks, but moreover, it's pretty much how I've been
living for the last twenty two years. But when we're
not on lockdown, you know, I do have a ploticum
of freedoms if you will. You know, every once in
a while I can get outside and take fresh air
and work out. I've been rolled into a horticulture class
(46:34):
and learn about horticulture. I can actually have my fingers
and the soil and be able to have the opportunity
to plant some feeds and vegetables and so forth. It's
really been a positive thing, really really joining the horticulture.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
And the last question about the prison experience, 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?
Speaker 6 (46:59):
Yeah, so they have what they call count procedures in
which they have to come through and literally count every
individual while they're locked in the cell, about four times
or so every day, spread out throughout the day. And
during that time you have to be standing up and
your lives have to be on so they can see
that you're alive and will and that starts certainly before
(47:22):
six o'clock in the morning. So over the last twenty
two years, I've been up at five forty five about
that time and standing on the feet mid life wrong
the fluorescent lights every morning, and that's one of the
countsmen like I said, that goes throughout the day, and
that kind of segments the day. That in the beating
the channel repeating schedule. So the breakfast, unch, and dinner
(47:46):
and these kind of condition you and condition one into
the segments of the day. And so there's a period
in the morning after breakfast, I which if we're lucky,
we might get outside the recreation and recreations of a
yard as a track. I usually go jogging. If I'm
able to, I'll go into the weightlifting area list some
(48:07):
weight and they have a couple other recreational things to
guys hit around with the volleyball or the basketball. Otherwise,
there's not a lot of 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 for
(48:27):
humans than anything. It's not really designed for as it
called correction necessarily, although there has been, you know, steps
towards that direction, of the hopeful steps in that direction.
You know, I think that the governor has made some
steps in that direction with the re entry ideas and
so forth. But you know, unfortunately there's largely the prisons
(48:50):
are placed with the warehouse humans. So there's only so
much a mind too in this environment. And so I
do utilize my time studying, you know, I spend my
money on the books and there's a library when I can,
and so that's kind of how I send my.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
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 care and who want to see you
or released and able to get on with your life
and put this nightmare behind you. And I want to
(49:30):
turn it over to you. Typically on wrongful conviction. I
like to 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.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
Okay, Well, as you mentioned, I do have a lot
of very strong supporters out here you Virginia, who are
total strangers, some of them gotten to know personally, and
they're just break people. I'm very fortunate to have these
people in my corner and who have recognized my wrongful prediction.
(50:06):
As far as the last words, I'm thankful. I really
appreciate mister Bomb for interviewing me. Very thankful that increasingly
more people know that I have been wrongfully depicted. And
I hope that people, you know, maybe reach out and
talk to somebody. The filmmaker named JD. Sleet has created
(50:28):
a film called The Target of Opportunity about my case,
and I was able to view it one time a
few years ago, and I think it encapsulates my situation
pretty 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
(50:49):
the travesty and the fact that I've been here for
over twenty two years for something I didn't do. I
had such a future in front of the military. I
love the military, plan to make a career. I want
to be in the Philpines and want to be the
best still Team operators in the country that I could
have been. My world was turned upside down and a
(51:11):
lot of so many people over one net brother guy.
So many people have been destroyed in Ruin in a
Brevin's family and my family, like city, and Billie Brown's family,
so many others. But again, I just thank you. I
really appreciate opportunities. Back to the interview.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
So, Dusty, I want to repeat that the name of
the film is.
Speaker 6 (51:32):
The name of the film is Target of Opportunity.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
Target of Opportunity is the film. I've watched it. I
hope other people that are listening now will watch it too.
And Dusty, I'm sure people are listening. They want to
know how can they get involved? What would you advise?
Speaker 6 (51:45):
Right? You know, unfortunately I am largely isolated you. I
have no Internet accidents. I've never been on the internet.
I've never even used the bill phone. However, I think
that people could maybe visit. I know that twitters have
created a website at Fredusty dot org. And I do
know too that there's a Twitter and Instagram account under
(52:08):
my name Free Dusty Turner, I think, and I know
that it's in a very leaf reaching out there that
my supporters would I'm sure to direct folks into the
best way that they might be able to help. I
know that writing to the governor Governitarry mccallis in Virginia's
directly may help out O. Other than that, I'm really
(52:29):
not sure what else say about it.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
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 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
(52:53):
in the home stretch of this, this effort to free
Dusty Turner. You have wha we're having Dusty. All I
can say is hang in there. We're coming to get you.
Thank you Dusty for being on the show, and I'll
look forward to seeing you on the outside, hopefully sometime
(53:17):
very soon. You've been listening to a very special episode
of Wrongful Conviction Behind Bars with Dusty Turner. Dusty, thanks again, Thank.
Speaker 6 (53:27):
You sir, Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 5 (53:38):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(53:59):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
by the individuals featured in this show are their own
and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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