THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210323
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
The scholarship fund to memorialize slain Georgia college student Jennifer L. Evans became a trial issue Monday as jury selection began for the first of two SEAL trainees charged with murdering her.
The lawyer for 23-year-old Billy Joe Brown said that the fund drive, along with other publicity surrounding the case, has made choosing a jury for Brown impossible in Virginia Beach.
``If this case doesn't rise to that level, then there is no such thing as publicity that can affect a defendant's right to a fair trial in a community,'' said Brown's attorney, Andrew Sacks.
Sacks asked the judge to move the trial out of Virginia Beach. But Circuit Judge A. Bonwill Shockley refused the change-of-venue motion until attorneys for both sides make an attempt to choose jurors.
``I want to see how we do with the jury panel,'' Shockley said. ``I don't know the answer in this case. . . Before we give up, let's at least try.''
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys agreed. ``Until we ask the people of the community if the defendant can get a fair trial, we can't assure that he can't,'' Humphreys said.
The Jennifer Evans fund drive was started last summer to create a memorial scholarship at Emory University in Atlanta, where Evans was a student. About 2,000 posters, 11,000 handbills and 1,000 fliers advertising a golf tournament were created to promote the scholarship.
The drive, organized by two Virginia Beach police officers, collected more than $16,000. Money is still being collected and another golf tournament is scheduled for this summer.
Mike Carey, a Virginia Beach police officer and a prime mover behind the drive, testified that the scholarship effort was a first for the city - in part, he said, because so many people in Virginia Beach and on the police force got emotionally involved in Evans' death.
``This particular case is one that touched us and meant an awful lot to us,'' Carey testified.
Besides the fund drive, Sacks noted that there have been dozens of newspaper stories and television reports about the case since Evans was murdered on June 19, 1995.
On Monday, jury selection proceeded slowly. Only five of the first 24 prospective jurors questioned said they had not heard about the case.
Also, three of the first four jurors who were individually questioned were dismissed, including two who said they had formed an opinion about Brown's guilt.
Jury selection will continue today. If a jury can be chosen in Virginia Beach, Sacks said it will take at least two days of questioning.
Brown and co-defendant Dustin A. Turner were members-in-training of Virginia Beach-based SEAL Team Four last June 19 when they met Evans at The Bayou, a nightclub at the Radisson Hotel on 19th Street.
Evans disappeared that night and was the subject of a regional search for eight days.
The case was broken when witnesses told police that the two SEAL candidates had been seen in Evans' company the night she disappeared, police said. During a polygraph examination in Richmond on June 27, Turner told police where to find Evans' body, police said.
The two suspects have accused each other of committing the murder. Turner told police that it was Brown who strangled Evans in Turner's car the night she disappeared. Brown, however, said it was Turner who strangled Evans.
Both admitted dumping her body in a Newport News park early that evening, then lying to police about their involvement in the crime.
Brown is charged with murder, abduction, attempted rape and penetration with an animate object. He pleaded not guilty to all four charges.
Brown and Turner face a possible sentence of life in prison. Turner's trial is to start June 25. ILLUSTRATION: ALBA BRAGOLI/Illustration
A sketch of the Virginia Beach murder trial Monday shows, from left
to right, John Preston, seated far left, defense attorney Andrew
Sacks, standing, defendant Billy Joe Brown, seated, Circuit Judge A.
Bonwill Shockley, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys,
standing, Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Albert D. Alberi, far
right, Delores and Al Evans, seated right foreground, parents of
slaying victim Jennifer Evans, and Patricia Creech, seated left
foreground, mother of the defendant.
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL by CNB