ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH
SOURCE: Associated Press
HIS ATTORNEY says the defendant helped hide the Georgia woman's body, but that a friend did the killing.
The second former Navy SEAL trainee charged with the slaying of a Georgia college student helped dump her body but did not kill her, a defense lawyer said Wednesday during opening arguments.
Dustin A. Turner picked Jennifer L. Evans up in a bar and watched, horrified, as his drunken friend broke her neck, killing her, attorney Richard Brydges said.
Brydges said Turner, 21, made a terrible mistake by helping Billy Joe Brown take Evans' body to a Newport News park about 30 miles from the nightclub where Evans disappeared. ``Was it fear or some sort of misplaced loyalty to Brown? I don't know what it was, but it ate on him'' and Turner told police where the body was, Brydges said.
But Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphries said Turner earlier that night had told another SEAL trainee in the nightclub that he and Brown, 24, were planning to have sex with Evans: ``One of the oldest motives in the world was at work here - sex.''
Evans, 21, was an Emory University student who disappeared in June 1995 while vacationing with friends.
A Virginia Beach jury convicted Brown, 24, of murder 21/2 months ago. A judge sentenced him to 72 years in prison without parole.
Turner, of Bloomington, Ind., and Brown, of Dayton, Ohio, blamed each other for the killing. Both admitted dumping the body in the park.
Prosecutors contend that both Navy men tried to have sex with Evans in Turner's car and when she resisted, Turner strangled her while Brown held her down.
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB