THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605250507
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 99 lines
Moments before Jennifer L. Evans disappeared from an Oceanfront bar last June, a Navy SEAL trainee boasted about how the Georgia college student was going to join him and another SEAL trainee in a three-way sexual encounter.
That's what a fellow member of SEAL Team Four said Friday in Virginia Beach Circuit Court during the first day of testimony in the trial of Billy Joe Brown, one of two SEAL trainees charged with murdering Evans, 21, on June 19, 1995.
According to Julio Fitzgibbons, a member of Little Creek-based SEAL Team Four, Brown and Dustin A. Turner, the other SEAL trainee accused in the murder, were standing with Evans at The Bayou as the Oceanfront bar was closing just before 2 a.m. on the morning of June 19.
Fitzgibbons testified that he asked the two SEAL trainees what they were going to do after the bar closed.
``Turner said they were going to go have a threesome,'' Fitzgibbons told Circuit Judge A. Bonwill Shockley and the jury that is hearing the case.
Brown, 23, who was standing nearby, looked at Fitzgibbons with ``a smile on his face.''
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys, during his opening statement Friday, said that ``tag-team sex'' was the motive for Evans' murder.
When the three-way sex didn't work out and Evans began to resist, Humphreys said, the two SEAL trainees refused to give up. As they reclined with Evans in Turner's car on a residential street at the North End of Virginia Beach, they forced themselves on her.
Turner, Humphreys said, ``began to choke her and choked her until she was no longer breathing. Billy Joe Brown held her down.''
After disposing of the body, the two men concocted a story to cover their trail, Humphreys said. Brown and Turner, Humphreys said, later bragged about what they had done.
``Sex, lies and arrogance, that's a way to frame the theme of the case,'' Humphreys said outside court Friday following the testimony of Fitzgibbons and one other witness. ``As I said to the jury, every piece of evidence fits into one of those categories.''
But Brown's attorney, Andrew Sacks, said Brown was also a victim. Brown, Sacks said in his opening statement to the jury, thought he was following an honor code he learned during SEAL training and lied to protect Turner, the man who actually murdered Evans.
By the time Brown came upon Turner's car in the parking lot of The Bayou, Sacks explained, Evans was already unconscious, with blood and foam around her mouth and nose. When Turner told Brown ``I think I f------ killed her,'' Brown agreed to help his SEAL buddy dispose of the body, Sacks said.
``He was misguided by friendship and the brotherhood that developed between him and Mr. Turner,'' Sacks said following Friday's testimony.
The lies that both men told to the FBI and Virginia Beach police helped divert attention from them for more than a week last June. Both denied knowing anything about Evans' disappearance.
But following polygraph examinations on June 27, both confessed to disposing of Evans' body in a Newport News park on June 19.
Still, neither took responsibility for her death. Turner said Brown strangled the pre-med honors student. Brown said Turner strangled her.
Arrogance later tied the men to the crime, Humphreys said, and may end up providing testimony that helps convict them.
The commonwealth's attorney said Brown bragged at Fort A.P. Hill before his arrest that ``I am going to take care of that bitch that Turner and I tagged last night.''
Brown also boasted that ``once a girl has had a frogman, she will always want more and will keep coming back to the bar for others,'' Humphreys said.
Evans wasn't the first woman Brown and Turner had tried to engage in a three-way encounter, Humphreys said.
``They talked about group sex quite often,'' Humphreys said. ``They bragged about it.''
Turner, who will go on trial for murder and abduction on June 25, was the more aggressive of the two SEAL trainees in the bar that night, testified Michelle McCammon, a friend who accompanied Evans to the The Bayou. It was McCammon, in fact, who pointed Turner out to Evans.
``He's cute,'' McCammon testified Friday, recalling her conversation with Evans as the two women looked at Turner from across the bar. ``He looks like your type.''
Moments later, McCammon said, Evans was standing between Brown and Turner, chatting with them.
Soon, however, Brown moved away from Turner and Evans. For the rest of the night, McCammon said, Turner pursued Evans, following her out to the car as the three girls were preparing to leave at about 1 a.m.
Turner finally convinced Evans, who already was sitting in her friend's car, to return to the bar until closing time.
``Turner, at this point, opened the door very abruptly, and helped Jennifer out of the car,'' McCammon said. ``He opened the door with a very good deal of force.''
The women agreed to meet again at the same place at 2 a.m., but Evans never showed up.
Evans was clearly pleased to be going back to The Bayou with Turner, McCammon said.
``She was almost skipping,'' remembered McCammon. ``She appeared to be happy to be going back to the bar.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Billy Joe Brown, 23, is charged with murdering Jennifer L. Evans in
1995.
KEYWORDS: MURDER KIDNAPPING ARREST
TRIAL TESTIMONY by CNB