Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / The Night That Changed Everything

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The Night That Changed Everything · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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  Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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  Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
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  Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
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  Speaker 2: exactly right media.
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  Speaker 3: For so many years, he've been told by so many attorneys,
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  Speaker 3: by everybody, just be quiet, just be quiet, and they'll
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  Speaker 3: let you out. And it hasn't happened.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knife. I'm patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith.
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  Speaker 1: We are releasing an episode today that we were originally
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  Speaker 1: going to release in January. It's an episode about a
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  Speaker 1: man named Dusty Turner who was convicted of first degree
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  Speaker 1: murder and abduction in nineteen ninety six, but he has
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  Speaker 1: always maintained his innocence and has been fighting for his
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  Speaker 1: freedom for thirty years. We ended up delaying that episode
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  Speaker 1: release because we heard he was actually scheduled to be paroled,
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  Speaker 1: but that any kind of media coverage could potentially interfere
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  Speaker 1: with his parole, which of course we didn't want to do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Dusty has since been released and he has
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  Speaker 2: given us permission to air the episode, so we are
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  Speaker 2: going to do that today. In this episode, we don't
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  Speaker 2: speak with Dusty himself for that you will have to
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  Speaker 2: wait until next week. Instead, we interviewed his advocate and friend,
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  Speaker 2: Aaron Lottman. In nineteen ninety six, Dusty Turner and Billy Brown,
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  Speaker 2: friends and Navy seal training partners, were convicted of the
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  Speaker 2: abduction and murder of Jennifer Evans. Dusty's conviction relied heavily
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  Speaker 2: on the testimony of Billy Brown, which was later recanted.
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  Speaker 2: Dusty maintained his innocence for thirty one years and never
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  Speaker 2: stopped fighting to clear his name. Aaron Latman walks us
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  Speaker 2: through his case as a reminder. When we recorded this interview,
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  Speaker 2: Dusty had not yet been released. He was released about
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  Speaker 2: three months later.
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  Speaker 1: Let's get into the interview.
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  Speaker 2: Hi Erin, thank you so much for taking the time
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  Speaker 2: to speak with Hannah and I today.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: We're really looking forward to speaking with you today me too.
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  Speaker 2: Just to start us off, could you go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: just introduce yourself.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, My name is Aaron Lattman. I live in Virginia
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  Speaker 3: in what be considered the mid Atlantic southeastern part of
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  Speaker 3: Virginia and a sister city to Virginia Beach, where this
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  Speaker 3: crime happened.
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  Speaker 2: And you're from Virginia, Is that right?
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in this area, Yes, lived here all
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  Speaker 3: my life.
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  Speaker 2: For those who aren't familiar with it, could you tell
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  Speaker 2: us a little bit about what the area sort of
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  Speaker 2: looks and feels like when you're living there.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, this is a predominantly military area. It's a big
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  Speaker 3: melting pot of military families. It is obviously coastal. So
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  Speaker 3: beach is our thing. And I usually say that we
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  Speaker 3: don't like the snow, we don't white the cold weather.
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  Speaker 3: We love the sand. When I first got my driver's license,
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  Speaker 3: me and a lot of my girlfriends would drive down
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  Speaker 3: to Virginia Beach and we did what everybody did at
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  Speaker 3: that age when you weren't old enough to go into
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  Speaker 3: the bars, and it was cruising the strip and hollering
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  Speaker 3: at boys and going to hotel parties. And it wasn't
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  Speaker 3: uncommon that we would meet young enlisted men and we
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  Speaker 3: would go to parties. You know, one of my girlfriends
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  Speaker 3: went to the prom with somebody that was in the
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  Speaker 3: army because of somebody she met at the beach.
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  Speaker 1: If you live in Virginia Beach, the military's presence is
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  Speaker 1: inescapable at any given time an estimated eighty two one
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand active duty service members are stationed in the
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  Speaker 1: Hampton Roads metropolitan area, and it's a source of local pride.
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  Speaker 1: Bumper stickers reading iheartjet Noise are a familiar site, a
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  Speaker 1: nod to the near constant roar of aircraft from nearby
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  Speaker 1: Naval Air Station Oceania. It's also common to find yourself
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  Speaker 1: at a bar alongside young trainees blowing off steam. In
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, Aaron was twenty years old spending nights
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  Speaker 1: at the ocean Front's eighteen and up clubs. It felt fun,
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  Speaker 1: it felt safe until June of that year, when a
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  Speaker 1: young woman disappeared after a night out at an ocean
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  Speaker 1: Front nightclub.
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  Speaker 3: Hung out at this one location called the Abyss, which
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  Speaker 3: was across the street from the club where Jennifer Evans
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  Speaker 3: went missing from.
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  Speaker 2: When did you first become aware of Jennifer robbins disappearance?
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  Speaker 2: Sort of set us in time and place for you.
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  Speaker 2: How old were you, what was going on in your
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  Speaker 2: life when you first became aware of her disappearance.
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  Speaker 3: It was on the news initially, it was you know
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  Speaker 3: that she was missing. There were missing posters that were
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  Speaker 3: put up and at the time. I remember thinking that
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  Speaker 3: weekend that she went missing, I was across the street
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  Speaker 3: at the Abyss, which was a club the street from
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  Speaker 3: the Evadison Inn, which had a bar called the Bayou.
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  Speaker 3: So initially I saw it on TV, and then it
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  Speaker 3: was all in the newspapers. This is back when we
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  Speaker 3: actually got newspapers at our door, and it was the
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  Speaker 3: first time probably that I ever read a newspaper article
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  Speaker 3: from start to finish. It is something that was talked
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  Speaker 3: about amongst all my friends. I mean obviously because we
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  Speaker 3: went to the ocean front and it was a sense of,
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  Speaker 3: you know, this could.
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  Speaker 1: Have been me.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned, this was really being talked about a lot,
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  Speaker 2: and there was a lot of news coverage. Was this
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  Speaker 2: something that the reaction was that, due to like the
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  Speaker 2: rarity of crimes like.
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  Speaker 3: This, you never heard of anybody going missing or murdered
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  Speaker 3: in the area that I grew up in. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: if certainly there was, but you just never heard of it,
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  Speaker 3: or it just never made it never made the news.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 1: You mentioned the connection you felt with Jennifer Evans hearing
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  Speaker 1: this story, especially because you went to the same places
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  Speaker 1: in the same neighborhood and probably hung out with similar
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  Speaker 1: people and were close in age. What was your age difference?
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  Speaker 3: So I was twenty Jennifer Evans was twenty one at
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  Speaker 3: the time. I can't imagine what her family was going
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  Speaker 3: through and through all of this. I think it's very
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  Speaker 3: important that we always keep Jennifer in the front of
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  Speaker 3: all this, because she is the victim.
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer Lee Evans was reported missing on June nineteenth, nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety five. She was last seen the night before at
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  Speaker 1: a bar called The Bayou in Virginia Beach. Jennifer was
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  Speaker 1: from a suburb of Atlanta. She was in town visiting
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  Speaker 1: friends and planned to return home within a couple of
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  Speaker 1: days to start a summer job. She had graduated from
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  Speaker 1: Oxford College the year before with a degree in biology,
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  Speaker 1: and she hoped to attend medical school. Aaron did not
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  Speaker 1: know Jennifer personally, but she felt some kind of kinship
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  Speaker 1: with her. Aaron, like so many others, was glued to
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  Speaker 1: the television, watching and waiting for updates, hoping Jennifer would
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  Speaker 1: be found alive. What unsettled Aaron most was how familiar
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer felt to her.
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  Speaker 3: She listened to the same kind of music I did,
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  Speaker 3: which at that time I don't know why this stands
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  Speaker 3: out a lot, but she liked TLC and that was
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  Speaker 3: like big, big, big thing. At that time. She was
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  Speaker 3: on the Dean's List. She volunteered for a local hospital,
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  Speaker 3: and her goal was to be a pediatrician. She wanted
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  Speaker 3: to get to medical school. She actually was a gymnast
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  Speaker 3: for a long time, and then she also coached kids
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  Speaker 3: and gymnastics. I really saw herself as like my friend
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  Speaker 3: or my sister, and initially that's what brought interest to
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  Speaker 3: the case.
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer's friends reported her missing first thing in the morning
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  Speaker 1: of June nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, an investigation was opened.
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  Speaker 1: People who'd been at the Bayou the night before told
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  Speaker 1: investigators they'd seen Jennifer with some military guys. They didn't
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  Speaker 1: know their names, but Virginia Beach police quickly focused the
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  Speaker 1: investigation on two young men, close friends who had just
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  Speaker 1: completed Navy seal training, Dusty Turner and Billy Brown.
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  Speaker 3: So first she's missing, and then two days because her
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  Speaker 3: girlfriends were able to say she left here with this guy,
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  Speaker 3: and at the time they didn't know his name, they
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  Speaker 3: just knew he was a Navy seal, so they were
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  Speaker 3: able to zero in on Dusty. They actually interviewed both
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  Speaker 3: Billy Brown and Dusty and initially it was you know,
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  Speaker 3: we're just going to say we were there and we
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  Speaker 3: left her with her friends.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and can you tell me a little bit about
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  Speaker 2: Dusty and Billy's relationship at this point in time, if
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  Speaker 2: they've been doing together, what have they been working on together?
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  Speaker 2: Sort of described that bond to me. Yeah, that is
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  Speaker 2: something that is really hard to describe. It is a
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  Speaker 2: very tight bond that they forged through training. And one
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  Speaker 2: thing I do want to point out is that there
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  Speaker 2: are some schools of thought on them being Navy Seal trainees,
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  Speaker 2: and the word trainees to me is somebody that hasn't
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  Speaker 2: finished butts, and I think it's a word that was
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  Speaker 2: used by the media and a word that was decided
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  Speaker 2: to buy the sale team community is to make them trainees,
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  Speaker 2: to disassociate themselves from both of them. But they had
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  Speaker 2: completed Navy steal training and certainly they did not have
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  Speaker 2: their tridents, but they were very close to receiving their tridents.
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  Speaker 2: They were graduates of Navy sil training. They did the
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  Speaker 2: hard stuff. They did everything together. They ate together, they
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  Speaker 2: slept together, they trained together. There was times that Dusty
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  Speaker 2: helped them get through, like really hard swims. I think
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  Speaker 2: Dusty excelled in the swimming aspect and Billy Brown did not.
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  Speaker 2: And it was, I guess a good pairing because you know,
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  Speaker 2: you can't get through without the other one getting through,
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  Speaker 2: and certainly Dusty had a lot to do with getting
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  Speaker 2: Billy Brown through training.
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  Speaker 1: Dustin Turner, who went by Dusty, was twenty years old
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  Speaker 1: at the time. He was tall and blonde, originally from Bloomington, Indiana.
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  Speaker 1: He'd been on his high school swim team. He'd been
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  Speaker 1: accepted into the Seals training program just before his nineteenth birthday,
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  Speaker 1: which made him one of the youngest recruits in his class,
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  Speaker 1: and it was there that he met Billy Brown. Billy
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  Speaker 1: was three years older than Dusty. He grew up in
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  Speaker 1: Huber Heights, Ohio, had dropped out of high school, and
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  Speaker 1: had a somewhat tumultuous past. Regardless of their differences, the
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  Speaker 1: two sailors bonded. They became swim buddies and were fiercely
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  Speaker 1: dedicated to each other. But now they were the focus
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  Speaker 1: of a missing person's investigation.
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  Speaker 2: This is June eighteenth, nineteen ninety five. Within two days,
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  Speaker 2: authorities have zeroed in on Dusty Turner and Billy Brown,
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  Speaker 2: who Jennifer Evans friends say agree she was with that night.
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  Speaker 2: What unfolds once Dusty and Billy are contacted by authorities. First,
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  Speaker 2: Dusty and Billy decide together they're just going to tell please, yes,
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  Speaker 2: we were with her that night, but she left with
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  Speaker 2: her friends, and sort of take us through how their
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  Speaker 2: story evolves from that point.
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  Speaker 3: They brought them to the FBI building in Richmond, Virginia,
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  Speaker 3: and Virginia Beach police attempted to minister a light attacker.
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  Speaker 3: Billy Brown got all wired up and then decided, within
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  Speaker 3: like a few questions, he was done for Dusty, he
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  Speaker 3: did it. He for eight days, you know, all this
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  Speaker 3: is weighing on him, and he was about to explode.
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  Speaker 3: They came back to him and said, we know you
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  Speaker 3: didn't do it. We know because of the way you
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  Speaker 3: answer the questions, because you did not tell the truth
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  Speaker 3: that you didn't know what happened to Jennifer, and you
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  Speaker 3: passed the part where you didn't hurt her. You didn't
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  Speaker 3: kill her. We know Billy did, and we need you
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  Speaker 3: to help us. And he says, well, I want to
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  Speaker 3: talk to my warrant officer.
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  Speaker 1: According to statements from people who'd also been at the
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  Speaker 1: Bayou the night of June eighteenth, Dusty and Jennifer were
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  Speaker 1: seen together, chatting, dancing, and flirting. They were even seen
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  Speaker 1: walking out of the club together. In fact, the picture
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  Speaker 1: that emerged was that Dusty Turner was the last person
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  Speaker 1: seeing with Jennifer the night she disappeared. What also came
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  Speaker 1: to light were more details about the relationship between Dusty
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  Speaker 1: Turner and Billy Brown. The two were reportedly inseparable, They
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  Speaker 1: had just applied for an apartment to live together, and
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  Speaker 1: yet it had also become apparent that Billy had a
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  Speaker 1: tendency to drink heavily on his days off.
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  Speaker 3: Billy Brown was drinking more than everybody else. It is
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  Speaker 3: drinking an excess. A month before this happened, Dusty was
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  Speaker 3: hiding from Billy Brown for an entire day over a
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  Speaker 3: volleyball game. He said he was going to kill him. Literally,
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  Speaker 3: Billy said he was going to kill Dusty. Yeah, over
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  Speaker 3: a volleyball game. Yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like the Navy Sealed training that they both
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  Speaker 2: went through together as teammates. By design, you're made to
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  Speaker 2: feel very, very loyal to this person because the situations
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  Speaker 2: that you'll be sent into as Navy seals would inevitably
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  Speaker 2: require that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, part of the training is never to be more
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  Speaker 3: than six feet away from each other.
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  Speaker 1: By the time Dusty took the light detector test, eight
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  Speaker 1: days had passed since Jennifer disappeared, and it seemed that
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  Speaker 1: Dusty was ready to talk. He told his warrant officer
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  Speaker 1: exactly what he remembered from the night of June eighteenth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five.
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  Speaker 3: He and Billy Brown had gone to the club. You know,
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  Speaker 3: Billy Brown was in one part of the bar and
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  Speaker 3: Dusty was in another. They weren't really hanging out that night,
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  Speaker 3: because Billy was just drinking a lot and Dusty was
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  Speaker 3: oft himself listening to the music. There was a band
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  Speaker 3: playing that night, and Jennifer Evans came up and introduced herself.
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  Speaker 3: You know, she at some point, so it was going
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  Speaker 3: back to her friends, and her friends came over at
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: one point and spoke to Dusty. She had two girlfriends
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  Speaker 3: with him that night, and then you know, one of
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  Speaker 3: the girlfriends wanted to leave and she didn't feel well.
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  Speaker 3: She had a headache, and Jennifer didn't want to leave,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: so she nursed her beer so she could stay a
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: little longer. And then the plan was that they were
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  Speaker 3: going to go, and Dusty walked her out to her
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  Speaker 3: friend's car, and Jennifer asked her friends, you know, well,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: can I stay here longer? They were trying to come
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  Speaker 3: up with some other plans. Either Dusty could bring her
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  Speaker 3: back to the beach house where she was staying, and
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: they didn't like that idea, and they said, you know what,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: we'll come back at two o'clock when the bar closes,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: we'll come get you. That was the plan that this
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: time was like quarter after one, and we'll be back
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  Speaker 3: in forty five minutes. We'll get coffee and we'll come
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  Speaker 3: back and get you. And so they thought that they
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: would go down to the beach walk on the beach
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  Speaker 3: for a while.
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  Speaker 2: Dusty and Jennifer did. Yes, okay, So Dusty and Jennifer
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: are sort of planning, we're going to go for a
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: walk down the beach. Her friends are going to be
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: back in forty five minutes to an hour.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, And so Dusty wanted to find a ride for Billy.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: He didn't want Billy to be interrupting them, and he
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: didn't know how, he just didn't want him around, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: so he found a ride. It took two tries. He
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: asked a Navy steale who he had never met before,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: who said that he had plans to go after hours,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: that he couldn't take Billy back. So he went to
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Billy Brown's ex girlfriend, who was reluctant but agreeable to
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: take him home. And then by the time he finally
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: found a ride, it was too late to go to
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the ocean front walk on the beach and come back,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: so they decided I did that they would just hang
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: out in his car and wait for her friends.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: There are multiple accounts of Dusty and Jennifer leaving the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Bayou together the night of June eighteenth. It was sometime
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: between one point thirty and two am. There are also
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: multiple accounts that Jennifer seemed so excited to meet Dusty
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: she didn't want to leave the bar with her friends.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: She'd convinced them to leave without her and then swing
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: back around to pick her up when the bar closed.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: That gave her forty five more minutes with this cute
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: new Navy seal training she'd met Dusty Turner, and yet
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the next morning she would be reported missing, and the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: police investigation would focus on Dusty. This is what we
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: can tell from court documents about what happened at the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: nightclub The Bayou on the night of June eighteenth, nineteen
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: ninety five. From one of the court documents, it's noted
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: that Dusty Turner and Jennifer Evans met that evening and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: then they were seen interacting on and off for hours.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Jennifer's friends then wanted to leave, but Jennifer wanted to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: stay and keep talking with Dusty, so her friends left
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and agreed to return in forty five minutes to pick
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: her up at two am. Meanwhile, Dusty had arrived at
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the club with his fellow Navy Seal trainee and friend,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Billy Brown. What's clear is that Billy was drinking heavily
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: that night. One court document says he spent the majority
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of the day drinking before they got to the club,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and then had an estimated quote eight to ten beers,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: eight to ten shots, and twelve mixed drinks at the bar. Dusty,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: who just met Jennifer, didn't want Billy hanging around, especially
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: when Billy was clearly intoxicated, but he also didn't want
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to leave his friend high and dry, so he went
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: around the bar securing a ride home for Billy. Once
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: that was done, Dusty and Jennifer left the bayou, and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: according to Dusty's testimony, he and Jennifer went and sat
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: in his car waiting for her friends to come back
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and pick her up. Reportedly, about ten minutes later, Billy,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: who was highly intoxicated, got agitated in the bar and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: decided to leave and go find Dusty. So he headed
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: out to the parking lot where Dusty and Jennifer were
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: sitting in Dusty's car.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: He found the car, He got in the car, he
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: got into the back seat of the car. Yeah, So
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Jennifer's in the passenger seat, Billy Brown is in the
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: back seat, and he's already belligerent. He was trashed. He
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: was trashed.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so Dusty's in the driver's seat of their
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: parked car, Jennifer's passenger seat, and Billy Brown is belligerently drunk,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and he gets into the back seat of the car
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: in the car's parked.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Okay. The following account reflects Dusty Turner's statement about what
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: happened that evening. Aaron has since learned a lot about
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: this case, but She has also spoken directly with Dusty,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: which we'll talk more about later. This is Dusty's story
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: about what happened in the car. Once Billy Brown got
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: into the back seat.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: He's totally inappropriate, saying inappropriate things to Jennifer, and he
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: either touches her hair or touches her shoulder. And up
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: until that point, Dusty had told right before he got
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: in the car, he's like, look, my friend's about to
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: get in this car and he's drunk and he's probably
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: going to say some inappropriate things. Just ignore them. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: so at that point she was totally ignoring his inappropriate comments.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Once he touched her hair, touched her shoulder, she swatted
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: his hand away, and that's when he erupted in violence
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: and put his arm around her neck. Dusty describes it
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: as being, you know, he didn't see it, he felt
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: it initially, and when he went to take his hands,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: he tried to take the hands off of her. First
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: of all, that happened so quick, you know, Dusty said,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: it happened instantly. By the time that he tried to stop,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: he had already taken his arms away from her. She
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: was limp.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So just so I'm understanding, the mechanics. Billy is taking
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like his arm and sort of wrapping it around the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: front of the seat and her neck with his elbow
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and then pulling backward. And you have to imagine this
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: guy's a Navy seal and he's taking steroids. Oh and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: he was taking steroids.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Yeh wow.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's pretty intense. And Dusty's in the driver's seat. Yeah,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that's so hard, ough horrible.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I've known him for like sixty years
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: now and I've gotten little pieces out of him over
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: you know, I was seven years now and it was
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: just a few months ago where he shared with me,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: you know, some of the training they actually teach him
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: the different choke holds, and it's like that's what he
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: used on her was something that they trained for.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: And so Jennifer is at this point in Dusty's car
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: when you say she went limp. I mean, these are
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: morbid questions. But just to understand how this is unfolding
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: for Dusty and Billy in this moment as they're you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: committing they are committing a crime. Well maybe Dusty hasn't yet,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: but that's about to happen. Is Jennifer dead or does
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: it seem like she has passed out?
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Well, Dusty, I mean this is even in his original
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: trial transcripts. Yes, he said he took a pulse, but
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: he felt like at that time she was dead. What
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Billy had done, it was like instant she was dead.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a horrific crime, like they're really
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: there aren't words to put to it.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It's just like one minute you have these people who
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: are just meeting and flirting and yeah, having this innocent
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: sort of fun, and then the next minute it's a
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: total nightmare and horrible and this young woman is dead. Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So Dusty is now sitting in the driver's seat
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of a car with Jennifer who is deceased, and Billy
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: who is belligerently drunk and has killed her. What do
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: you know about what unfolded?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Billy Brown told Dusty to drive, drive, drive, drive. As
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: soon as that happened, get out of here, and that
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I think he instinctively went to his training and that
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: was to evade an escape, and he drove, He drove away,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: and at that moment, that decision, at that point, is
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: what changed the course of events. But I think it's
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: also very important because I have talked. I have spoke
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: to people in the community. And I when I say
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: the community, some Navy seals, some are really reluctant to talk.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: But you know, you are not going to find a
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: seal that's running to the authorities. That's just not the mindset.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: It's not something that they do. And you know, some
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: people may say, well, this isn't work time, this is
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: you know, civilian. But I think that he went to
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: his brain. I mean, I was saying, he's twenty years old,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: he's a kid, and he reacted in the way that
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: he was trained, and he drove away, didn't know where
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: he was at, didn't know where he was going, and
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: he drove off. He ended about fifty miles down the
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: road and got off an exit. Didn't know what he
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: was going to find when he got off the exit,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: but he found a park.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Was Billy telling him where to go?
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, initially he told him turn right here, turn left
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: here to get out of you know, the ocean front
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: area of Regina Beach. But once he was on the highway,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: thus he kind of knew general areas where he needed
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: to go as far as how to get back to
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: where they were training. But there was points that Billy
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Brown passed out. They flipped.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So they drive. Dusty drives, you know, fifty miles out
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: of town, gets off at an exit where they find
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: a park. What happens when they get to the park.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I think Billy probably woke up or was awake
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: at that point.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: This part is very dark, and Aaron did not feel
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: comfortable talking about it, but I think it's important to
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: mention since what happened at the park impacted future court cases.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: According to Dusty's court testimony, he said that while he
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: drove the fifty miles, at one point, Billy attempted to
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: reach into Jennifer's pants and Dusty yelled at him to stop.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: When they were at the park, they removed Jennifer's body
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: from the car. At one point, Dusty went back to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the vehicle to look for a shovel, and when he returned,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: he said Billy was laying on top of Jenny of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: his dead body and her pants were down by her ankles.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Dusty pulled him away. This would later bring a charge
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: against Billy for attempted rape. They covered up Jennifer's body
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: with leaves and then drove back to the base in Virginia.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Beach and you know, they were just going to pretend
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: like everything was normal.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Did they have a conversation about, well, her friends are
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: going to come back to the bar and look for
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: her and she's not going to be there.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: No, there was hardly any conversation. Dusty was was, I
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: guess lost for words. He was, you know he was.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: They did not have a conversation other than Billy saying, well,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: we got to stick together.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Now. I'm curious if Dusty has told you anything about
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the next twenty four hours, just because when I was
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: reading the court documents, might want to be really clear
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that I don't think having assumed any amount of alcohol
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: or anything as any kind of excuse for what Billy
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: did at all. But I'm wondering if you had a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: moment the next day in sobriety where he was like,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: oh my god, what have I done, or if he
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: ever expressed anything like that to Dusty.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Dusty has not shared any of that with me, And
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: for him, if anything, was very easy for him to
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: carry on and go about normal business as usual for Billy,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: it seems for Billy's yeah, which is that's pretty eerie, okay,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: what they went on as business as usual, and they
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: actually were making plans to get an apartment, so they
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: try to sign a lease for an apartment. There was
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: a whole week. There was not any discussion other than
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: the initial we weren't there. We left and left her
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: with her friends. And so that was the story that
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: was told to police in the FBI when they came
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: to talk to them.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Do you remember, if you've ever talked to Dusty about
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: what those next twenty four hours were like for him?
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Emotionally very numb.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was there, but very numb. You know a
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: lot of things, you know, the training, I think a
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: lot of it. You know, they do check out emotionally,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: That's part of it in compartmentalizing, and for him, the
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: way he describes it is just going through the motions,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: but it weighing on him a lot. And I think
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: he had called his mother during this time period, maybe
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: not the first twenty four hours, but leading up to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: the time he was arrested. He may have been calling
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: home a little bit more just to hear a calm,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: reassuring voice. But yeah, he he was numb. It would
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: be the best way to describe it.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It's worth noting that Navy seal training known as Bud's
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Basic Underwater Demolition. Seal training lasts about six months and
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: is designed to break people down physically and psychologically. The
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: focus is on endurance, pain tolerance, obedience, and mental resilience.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: The program is notoriously brutal, with only about twenty to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: thirty percent of trainees making it through the most infamous phase,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Hell Week, involves extreme physical exertion, near total sleep deprivation,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and a culture of unforgiving toughness meant to enforce total
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: loyalty to the team. A twenty twenty two New York
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Times investigation found that eleven men had died during sealed
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: training since nineteen fifty three. That's training, not combat. While
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the shared suffering can create intense bonds among those who
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: survive it, it may also carry lasting consequences. The Times
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: reported that performance enhancing drug use is an open secret,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: reinforcing a mindset that whatever it takes to succeed is acceptable.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: The program's intensity has also been linked to substance abuse,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: particularly the overuse of alcohol and prescription drugs. This is
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the environment that Billy and Dusty had been living in.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And so Jennifer is reported missing. There's news coverage happening
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: about her disappearance. In the meantime, Billy and Dusty are
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: trying to just go through the motions. The police zero
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: in on them. Dusty ops to take the light detector test,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: and they start to believe that, Okay, Dusty, we know
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: you know what happened, and we know you didn't kill her.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: How does it go from that light detector test? And
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: authorities kind of confronting Dusty with this.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: He at some point, you know, talked to his warrant
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: officer and he says, I'm a call Jag, and Jag says, well,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: we can't assist our help in this because it's a
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: civilian case. And so his warrant officer came back to
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: him and said, the police want to ask five questions.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: And I think these five questions were the same questions
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: that were at I'm the light detector? I see in
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: which came first, I don't remember. So he agreed to
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: talk to police and answer their questions, and that's when
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: the police said, well, we know that Billy Brown did
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: it and we want you to help us. And so
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: he agreed to draw a map of where Jennifer was
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: and they took that drawing and showed Billy Brown, and
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: at that point Billy knew that Dusty told the truth
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: and essentially turned on him and what he perceived as
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: breaking a seal code, and that's when he decided that
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: he was going to tell the police. Well several other
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: different stories, one involved Dusty being basically putting Dusty in
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: his shoes, and one saying that he somehow helped him.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I see, so, just so I'm clear in that moment,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you know, when you can imagine if it were a movie,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: like the investigators get information from someone they're interviewing in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: one room, bring it over to the next person, like, well, look,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Dusty showed us on a map where her body is,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: and you're saying in that moment, Billy, who had previously
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: just been saying we got to sit together, we got
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: to stick together, which really, you know, a few decode
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: that means don't betray me, realizes that Dusty has probably
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: told investigators what happened. And then his statement at that point,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Billy's is to say that no, Dusty was the one
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: who killed her. Is that right?
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Billy Brown said that when he got to the car,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Dusty jumped out of the car and said, I killed
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: her she said or something like that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: His story was that when he got to the car
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: that night, that Jennifer was already dead.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, one of his stories.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: One of his stories, Okay.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: And so at that point they're both charged with Jennifer's
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: murder in addition to charges really did to moving her body.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Billy Brown's trial was gonna say May, and Dusty's trial
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: was the end of August early September.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: This is in nineteen ninety six, so a year after
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Jennifer was murdered.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Right, And during that time, that's all what was on
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: TV in the news was this case. That's all we heard.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Do you remember, you know, as someone who was local
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to the area and you know, was very present for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: watching the news cycle, what was the general consensus of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: people in that area during that trial? Was it like
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: clearly both these guys did it. Was there any you know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: question or what was the general feeling?
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: The general feeling is they both did it. They both
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: did it, And I mean that was my takeaway from
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: reading the articles from the news is they both did it.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that Billy's trial was first, do you recall
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: what the result of his childle was.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: He was found guilty on all charges first degree murder, abduction,
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: and attempted rate. There was a lot of things in
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: his trial that was not allowed to be introduced that
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: was allowed in Dusty's case. Oh like what because this
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: was the circumstantial case in this also being in Virginia,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: which is the Bible Belt for people who are familiar
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: with Pat Robertson, was like literally down the road on
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: the seven hundred club because Dusty and Billy Brown had
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: partaked and consensual sex, that somehow they were these sex
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: fiines that were looking to rape and murder women.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: The consensual sex Aaron mentioned refers to an occasion at
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: some point in the past in which Dusty Turner and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Billy Brown had a sexual encounter that involved multiple people.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Dusty and Billy's fell Seal trainees were able to testify
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: they'd heard both Billy and Dusty Bragg about this encounter.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: For some reason, the information about this group sex was
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: not permitted to be talked about in Billy Brown's trial,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: but it was permitted to be used in Dusties. The
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: prosecution used this incident to paint a picture for the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: jury that Dusty was someone who did not have strong morals,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: and the judge that was put on. He actually asked
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: to be on the case. He was a former Navy
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: officer himself. This is, you know, like I said, a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: community that has strong alliances with the seale community. I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: just thought it was always very interesting that he asked
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to have case when it wasn't his time too, Almost
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: like he was trying to say, this guy doesn't represent
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the values of the military kind of thing. Was that
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the sort of sentiment of like we're painting the sky
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: is like this outlier who is a pervert and like
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: scroop sex and he's clearly not representative of the upstanding
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: character of Navy seals.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think there was a huge sense of
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: the Navy seal community to preserve their brand. They wanted
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: for them to appear like they were outliers. They wanted
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: to separate themselves. I think that's why Dusty didn't even
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: have any proper representation, you know, just the way they
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: really just wanted to wash their hands of him, of Dusty,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: that is, and they just rolled him up with Billy
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: and instead of owning that, they allowed somebody that had
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: history of violence against women, which would be Billy. Yeah,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Billy Brown had been in the coastguard who had beat
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: up an officer and was kicked out, and then a
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: month later was a to apply and then became enlisted
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: into the Navy. And I think, now that's his totally conjecture,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: but I think, you know, they do somewhat of a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: you know, psychological assessment on all these guys that go
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: through the pipeline, and you know, their pick for a
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: certain reason.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: We're talking about someone who maybe is being given the
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: training to do harm that is not emotionally regulated and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: has misogynistic value systems, violent behavior, violent behavior.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: A history of it. Yeah, you know, I have to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: wonder about that. According to reporting from the Virginia Pilot,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Billy Brown was arrested when he was seventeen years old,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: but his record had been sealed since he was a juvenile.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: When Billy was seventeen, he was married to a fourteen
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: year old girl, and he reportedly beat her up in
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: public in front of several police officers, dragging her by
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: her hair, claiming that she cheated on him. He was
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: arrested for assault. The Navy claimed to not know about
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: this arrest when Billy was accepted to steal training. From
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Aaron's perspective, the Navy was eager to distance itself from
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: both Billy and Dusty, lumping them together as best friends
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: who are both unruly, violent sex fiends, and that they
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: did not represent the morals of the Navy. And so
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Billy goes to trial first. The unrelated sex acts are
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: kept out of his trial, and he is convicted on
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: all charges. And so Dusty's trial is next, and the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: judges asked to be put on the case. Tell us
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: about what happens a Dusty's trial.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Dusty takes the stand. It was something that his attorney suggested.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: They bring in a mop of Dusty's car, which was
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: a small two seater. The way they described the prosecution
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: described how things happened was that somehow she was in
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: between the seats, which is physically impossible. There's no evidence
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: a blood, semen, or any of the things that they
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: claim that happened. There's footage of the prosecutor after the
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: trial saying we had to convince the jury that Jennifer
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Evans was kidnapped from the parking lot, because if they
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: can stick them on the abduction, they had him on
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: the murder.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Dusty had admitted to investigators that he helped Billy move
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and conceal Jennifer's body. That admission amounts to accessory after
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: the fact, a crime that at the time in Virginia
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: carried a sentence of about one year in prison, but
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: that is not what Dusty was convicted of. Instead, prosecut
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Cokeuters argued that the whole thing was planned, that Dusty
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and Billy acted together, that they abducted Jennifer forcefully from
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the parking lot with the intent to engage in group sex.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Their case relied heavily on Billy Brown's testimony, which changed
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: multiple times. There was no physical evidence. It was all circumstantial. Nonetheless,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Dusty was convicted of first degree murder and abduction with
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: intent to defile.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: He got eighty two years for a first degree murder
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: abduction with intent to defile. Billy Brown got seventy two years.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Wow with the attempted rate that art.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So wild that he got ten more years than Billy Brown.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, forty five years for first degree murder and thirty
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: seven years for abduction with intent to defile, ten years
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: longer than the one given to Brown. I know at
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: the time this was being covered a lot, but you
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: didn't yet have any sort of personal connection to Dusty.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Do you recall Jennifer Evans family and they're sort of
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: feeling about both of them having been convicted, you.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Know, just what I've seen, you know, in the documentary.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I think for the most part, you know, they were
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: relying on the police, and they were going off what
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: the police was telling them. And they've always felt that
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Zeste was as culpable as Billy Brown because of what
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: they were told from police, and that totally shaped their
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: feelings about Dusty because they felt that he was an
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: active participant in the crime.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Billy Brown and Dusty Turner both went to prison, and
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: then a few years later Billy Brown started talking. His
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: story was changing.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: From what I understand. It was actually in nineteen ninety
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: nine when he told his mother and his attorney and
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: at Herney didn't believe him, and he tells them what
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: he said, Dusty had nothing to do with it. I lied.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: He helped me cover up the crime.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Do you know if in those conversations he says why
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: he lied about it.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he said that he snitched. Those are his words.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: He snitched. He told on me, and he said I
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: told the police what they wanted to hear. I figured
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: they would want to instead of one. So I told
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: him he was involved, and he gets what he gets
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: for telling on me, and he says that he honestly
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: did not. They figured they would figure the truth out.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: They would figure it out and Dusty would be out.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: And he didn't think he was going to get convicted.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't until he became saved and found Jesus Christ,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: and is the reason why he reached out to his
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: mother and his attorney. He wanted to free himself of
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: what he had done. His lawyer did nothing with the
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: information that he shared. Did his mother do anything with
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: the information, not that I'm aware of. No. And in
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: two thousand and two, Dusty was out on the reckyard
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: and an inmate said, well have you heard and he
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: said heard what? He goes, Well, Billy Brown is going
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: around telling everybody you're you're innocent. And immediately Dusty called
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: his mother, and his mother found a lawyer in the
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: area where Billy Brown was housed at whatever prison he
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: was at at the time, and he found a lawyer.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: He agreed to give an affid David from there. So
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: that was in two thousand and two. It took another
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: six years to get in court, and Dusty was the
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: very first person who actually was granted ad of actual
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: innocence in Virginia based on non biological evidence, which would
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: have been Billy Brown's confession.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: This is a clip from the documentary Target of Opportunity,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the US Navy Seals and the Murder of Jennifer Evans
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: from Near Genius Films. In this clip, Billy Brown is
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: testifying in Virginia Circuit Court in two thousand and eight.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I think I sat back in the seat, and then
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: one minute I was normal, And the next minute I
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: snapped and I started choking her. And I think, Dusty,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: I believe, I recall him trying to pull my arm
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: away and started choking her. How did you accomplish that?
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: I just reach around and started choking. One minute, it
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: was normal. In the next minute, I was gone. And
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: then I said whoa, And then it was too late.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Then I knew it was too late. It was too
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: late in the sense of what she was gone.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Billy Brown said. The reason he was coming forward
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: now was that he had found faith.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: Well, I became a Christian man. I knew immediately in
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: my heart what I had to do was to tell
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: the truth. And I didn't want to, but I said,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: so I just did it. Why did you want it? Because, man,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, how would you like to stand up before
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: the whole world and tell them not only were you
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: a murder and a liar, but you betrayed your best friend.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: So it wasn't easy to tell in the flesh to do.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: What did that writ of innocence do for Dusty?
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Once they ruled that Dusty was granted the writ of
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: actual innocence, Dusty felt like that was it. His family celebrated.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: He thought he was going to get out. But then
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the Attorney General appealed that decision and requested the full
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Court of Appeals, which is called the en Banc, which
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: sat eight judges. So before it was three judges, it
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: was three judge panil. Now we have an eight judge panel.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: What is really important for people to know is that
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: the original prosecutor in this case sat now on the
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Court of Appeals. There was a lot of people in
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: this case that had elevated positions after this case. It
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: was a big one.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: That's a major conflict of interest.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: He recused himself, I should say that he's still he
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: recused himself, but he was there. It was a judge
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: that put forward a theory, and then the theory was
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: abduction by deception, and really it was a loophole of
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: misinterpreting the law and really a misconsidering the facts of
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: the case in order to uphold his convictions. That's all
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: this was. And so the Supreme Court then by this time,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: this is another tidbit, the Attorney General that appealed the writ.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: By the time it gets to the Supreme Court, he's
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: now sitting on the Supreme Court. The Attorney General is
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: still on the Supreme Court, who upholds the final decision
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: of the enbanc court of the Court appeals.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's unfathomable that in nineteen ninety nine, Billy
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Brown changes his story, says Dusty had nothing to do
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: with Jennifer's murder and his attorney does nothing with it.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Dusty's family gets an attorney to talk to him. He
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: tells it judge the same thing, Dusty had nothing to
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: do with it. That judge says, okay, like I'm agreeing
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: with this. And then here we are in December twenty
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: twenty five and Dusty is still in prison. Yeah, And
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: so before we get up to sort of right now,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: and what's happening with the case. Tell us about how
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: you became connected to Dusty.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: So in two thousand and fifteen, I remember hearing in
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: the news that one of them, Because at this time
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't know their names, I knew that one of
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: them was claiming innocence. So I got on my laptop
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: and started searching, and then that's when I knew their
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: names and learned that it was Dusty Turner who had
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: been in court and who had claimed in incense.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Aaron watched the twoth twenty eleven documentary Target of Opportunity,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: the US Navy Seals and the Murder of Jennifer Evans,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: which chronicled the events of Jennifer's murder, as well as
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Dusty Turner's continual efforts to overturn his conviction. One piece
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: of information that Aaron learned was that in the early
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: two thousands, a jury member from Dusty's trial spoke out.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: They said the jury had asked multiple times for clarification
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: on sentencing from the judge, but the judge refused to
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: speak to them. The jury member said that if they
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: had had clarification about sentencing, the convictions might have been
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: different instead of being charged with accessory after the fact
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: with a twelve month sentence. Dusty's charges incurred an eighty
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: two year sentence. By twenty fifteen, the year Aaron watched
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the documentary, Dusty had already been in prison for nineteen years.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Aaron became convinced that Dusty was wrongfully convicted and should
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: not still be serving time.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: But when I watched it, I felt compelled. I can't
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: describe it. I felt angry. I felt a lot of anger.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I wrote a letter to Dusty, and then after writing it,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I balled it up and threw it away. And another
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: year goes by and I think about it again, and
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: I write another letter. By twenty seventeen, I wrote a
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: letter again, I balled it up, do it away. Part
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: of me was like, why are you writing a letter
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: to somebody in prison? That is so weird? And another
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: two years good bye, and I sent him ajpay, which
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: is a electronic version of email for prisoners, and I thought, well,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: I'll send it and I can't bollop a piece of paper.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: And it started out with an email once a week
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: to maybe twice a week for several months, and then
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: a phone call once a week. Then it came multiple
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: times a week, and now I talked to him multiple
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: times a day. I consider him my best friend because
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: when you talk to me, really get a sense of
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: who he is. And he is a remarkable person. At
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: a dog who was fourteen years old and was at
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: the end of her life and had to put down,
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: and I will tell you that rocked my world, and
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: he was there for me for that. We've lost family
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: members together. He lost his father, He's lost his grandmother
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: and his stepfather during all this, and we also went
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: through the pandemic together. He really cares. He sends his
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: family and his friends, including me, birthday cards, Mother's eight cards.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm wondering if you have any sort of awareness
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: of Jennifer's family's thoughts on everything happening with Dusty and
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: those advocating for his release and his innocence.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I've always thought about, you know, what they
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: think or how they may feel, But you know, I
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: can't presume to know how they're feeling. I don't know
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: much about her family. I know she has friends that
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: certainly still experienced a lot of grief and have missed
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of milestones. And you know, Jennifer hasn't been
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: there for any of that.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, also to acknowledge that, in sort
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: of fairness to everything that did happen, Dusty committed a
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: crime when he moved her body, and he has been
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: in prison. I guess I'd have to fact check this again,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: but it sounds like if that's the charge that he
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: is truly guilty of, he has served that time. Yes,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: is Dusty remorseful for the role he played in this?
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, he's that's definitely has taken responsibility for the
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: part he took after the crime, and he has acknowledged that.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: He has acknowledged that with the parole board and even
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: in an open letter that he wrote that hopefully Jennifer's
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: family and friends would be able to read if the
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: parole board felt or deemed appropriate.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And what is the sort of next thing that
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: needs to happen for Dusty to sort of have hope
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: that he would eventually be released.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: So what's available right now and what's on the plate
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: right now is parole. And like I said, is this
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: his fourth time. Back in July he met with a
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: parole examiner. So in Virginia, most people going up for
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: parole are well, actually, I need to back up a
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: little bit, because Virginia abolished parole in nineteen ninety five
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: July first of nineteen ninety five. The only reason why
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: Billy Brown and Dusty Turner are parole eligible, it's because
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: of a law that was a pass between the years
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety five and two thousand. It's called the
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: fish Back gap, where juries were not informed that Virginia
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: had abolished parole. So what we were finding is that
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: they were these really long sentences because juries felt like
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: they were only going to spend, you know, a third
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: of that time in prison, so they were giving them
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: these really long sentences, and so juries unless they knew,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: and even when they asked, and in this particular case,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Fasty's jury asked specifically about parole in the judge refused
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: to answer, and so it affected quite a bit of people.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: So in two thousand, this went went through the legislation
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: and Dusty went up pearol for the first time, and
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Dusty was given a three year deferral. He went up
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: again in twenty twenty three, Deny in twenty twenty four,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: and now we're up right now. In July, he was
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: interviewed by a examiner and then Dusty got called in
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: August by three members of the Parole Board to have
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: a zoom interview and they asked a lot of questions
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: about the case. And then, through his lawyer, recently voided
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: the voting process and we found out that he has
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: the necessary votes to be parolled as of the end
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: of October. It doesn't become certified until you're put on
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: a public hearing, and it was just announced in December
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: that he's not on December's docket, So we have one
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: month left and we're wondering what's going on. Why isn't
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Dusty getting his public hearing to certify these votes.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Aaron and a small group of volunteers work together as
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: advocates for Dusty Turner release. They meet regularly amongst themselves
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and with Dusty. They took a group trip to visit
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Dusty in prison. They have gone to DC and met
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: with representatives, and they're also trying to raise awareness of
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Dusty's case on social media under the account free Dusty Turner.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: This case has consumed me. I mean, if you were
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: looking this or right now, I have all his case
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: files in here. It's totally consumed me. You know, I
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: do little things for Dusty on a daily basis. You know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: I'm older, I'm fifty years old, say made as Dusty
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: and my kids are grown, they're adults, and you know,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: they've told me that, Mom, you or you are spending
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: a way too much time on this. You need to
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: do you need to do something else. They have come around.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: My oldest daughter really, in particular, she was very concerned
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: with me communicating with somebody in the prison. She's expressed
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: she's like, mom, I had a hard time, which a
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: lot of people do. They had a heart. She had
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: a hard time with really the fact that Dusty drove away,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: and that was it for her, and that is it
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: for a lot of people. Is they get hung up
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: on the fact that he drove away. And I get it.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, how could you not? And so that has
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: really has bothered her. But like I said, in recent weeks,
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: she's come around. I don't believe that Dusty still needs
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: to be there. But for the longest time she had
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of animosity and why are you helping him?
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: I really don't have an answer to it. I think
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of it was because of the friendship that
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: we developed, and when you get to know him, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: he doesn't have a lot of people fighting for him,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: you know. Until social media, it was just his family,
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: his mom's getting older. Now, I felt like there was
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: nobody else out there, and truly there really wasn't anybody
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: else out there, and him finally deciding, yes, let's do
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: social media. For so many years, who've been told by
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: so many attorneys, by everybody, is just be quiet. That's
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: what he's been told to, Just be quiet and they'll
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: let you out. And it hasn't happened. And I hope
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: that other people can see the injustice in this, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: And I think this is probably what he would say,
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: is even if you don't agree with the part with
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: him driving away with Billy Brown in hiding Jennifer, it
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: doesn't equal thirty years in jail, and that's where he's
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: been in prison for thirty years. He is guilty of
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: accessory after a fact. An accessory after a fact does
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: not equal thirty years, and anybody he believes injustice would
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: agree to that.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we were able to release this
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: episode because, yeah, it's just it's an important story.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we were about ready to release it in January,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: and then at the last minute made that decision, which
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: we both think was a good call. But I'm so
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: glad that his story has gotten out there and that
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: also he's been paroled. Now.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In fact, as you know, I watched the parole
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: hearing live, and it was excruciating to watch, actually, like
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: the nervousness that I felt watching it on behalf of
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: the people who were up for parole in this virtual hearing,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: and I just, I mean, I can't imagine how it
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: must feel on the other end of that. There's this
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: panel of the parole board and they're sitting at this
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: table's a virtual conference. Actually the people who were up
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: for pearol were not in the room. They were also
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: in their virtually how many people were up for parole
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: I watched too. I watched the person who went before Dusty,
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: and then Dusty's I don't know if there was another.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: So the gentleman who was up for a parole prior
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: to Dusty, I believe he was charged with murder that
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: was a result of a burglary or something along those lines.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: They voted yes to parole him, and the reason being
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: that he was very elderly and no longer risk to society.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: In their eyes. How long had he been in prison?
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Do you remember? Decades?
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, decades, I think since the mid nineties. Ok so
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: you know, similar to Dusty. Yeah, but you know you're
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: sitting there looking at him and he's an old man
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: and he just wants to go be with his family,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: and you know, to the victim's family. I don't recall
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: what was said on behalf of the victim's family or
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: the victim in the parole hearing, but he acknowledged remorse
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: and that this shouldn't have happened. And when you're looking
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: at someone who's clearly not a risk to society and
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: you're thinking about the time they've already served, I don't know.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: To me, it just was like, oh my gosh, let
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: him out, let him out. Interesting, Yeah, I mean, yeah,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. I feel like if I were the
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: family member of the person killed, my argument would be, well,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: that person never got to grow old. They never got
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to you know, they didn't have any other days left
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: with their family. So I can also understand how maybe
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the family members will be against it. It's a hard decision.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the line the parole board is always
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: trying to walk, and there was a big difference between
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: the way that the parole board spoke about this person
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: that they ended up parolling, and then how they spoke
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: about Dusty. Oh really yeah, they were way easier on him.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: On Dusty or the nose on the first guy. Really yeah.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I think the votes were unanimous. I don't actually remember exactly,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: but I recall being like, oh, this was actually great,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Like I was just expecting the worst and you know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: them sending this old man now back to prison for
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: the rest of his life. But they didn't do that.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: They were like, you've served your time, You're no longer risk.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I think he also had some health issues that they
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: were considering. And then it was Dusty's turn, and Dusty's
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: sitting in this room, not in the actual room with
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: the parole board, and Dusty gets the majority vote and
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: he is paroled three out of five or something. Yeah,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: I think it was three out of five. So did
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: they start with the vote? Yeah, so they start it
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: was a vote. But it's like, if we're a parole board,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: I give my logic and reasoning and then I tell
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: you my vote. I see, And so you're listening to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: their whole explanation of their vote before getting their vote,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: and it's pretty clear how they're going to vote by
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: what they're saying. But you know, there was one person
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: on the parole board who really was unhappy, clearly not
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: going to vote in support of Dusty's release, and he
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: talked about how you're a Navy seal, this is such
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: a stain on the military, and you know, I just
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: thought to myself, like, I just don't see it that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: way at all. And you know, I've never been a
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: member of the military, and so I can't speak from
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: the same perspective he's speaking from. But I'm looking at
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: this person as a young twenty something young adult who
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: found themselves in this horrific situation and has already now
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: done thirty years. So they move on to the next person,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: and that person was a yes, I believe he's a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: former prosecutor, and he was like, I don't think that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: you were correctly charged for your role in her murder,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: that you didn't have a role in her actual murder,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: and I think you should have been charged for something else,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: and that sentence would have been up a long time ago.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Twelve months is what it would have been.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: And this person clearly did a deep dive into the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: court records and the trial and the case and the investigation,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: and you know, I just thought, Oh, that to me
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: means so much, because why are we making these decisions
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: based purely on emotion? There's inevitably some of that because
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: you have a victim, sure, and you're considering how their
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: family's going to feel if they're revictimized by someone's release,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: and that matters, But it matters to an extent, And
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: the rest of what matters is this person, at least
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: to me a citizen. Is this person a risk to society?
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Is this person how have they done time? That tells
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: me that there has been some level of justice in
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: this case.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Were they charged based on what the law says their
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: crime deserves is a big one. Right, just because someone
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: might have opinions about what you should do as a
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: member of the military, that's irrelevant. Yeah, what crime did
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: he commit and what is the proper punishment? And that
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: was done incorrectly?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So this guy, I thought, Wow, I really appreciate
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: that he is going off of his interpretation of the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: law and what was done incorrectly in his eyes in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: this case. And I thought that's so meaningful that means
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: so much more to me than someone saying that it
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: had to do with like the reputation of Navy Seals.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't care about that right now.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the reputation by the way of Navy Seals
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: or of any organization if they claim to be honorable
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: and care about justice, and you know, truth should be
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: to try to find what really happened and to get
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: people fair you know, sentences, not just to punish, punish
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: for no reason.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like for the sake of a reputation. Yeah,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: and that I was like, Wow, there's a lot of
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: emotion wrapped up in this decision, and that doesn't feel
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: right to me.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe there were some people who didn't believe Billy Brown's
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: reversal of his statement, Like I wonder if that is
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: ever part of it, because you know, he came out
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: and said that he lied, that he committed this murder himself,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: he was the only one that was part of it,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and that he was upset that Dusty turned him in
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: and so he lied and pulled him under with him.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: But I wonder if there was some Pearl board members
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: who maybe didn't necessarily believe Billy Brown. I don't know
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: if that was that brought up at all.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: I don't recall anyone saying that specifically, But there was
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: one woman on the parle board who voted against Dusty's release,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: who said, you know, I would just hope that in
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: the future this parole board upholds what the sentencing was initially.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, it's a bizarre take, because that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: is your whole job, right on this parole board, is
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: to decide has someone done enough time? Yeah, I mean
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: it sounds like you would just like this process not
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: to exist. Dusty was very respectful and quiet and listened.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just a person watching and these are my personal opinions.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: And then the next person voted to release him and said,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: you know, she thought he had done thirty years and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: that was enough time, and that she also saw issues
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: with the trial and yeah. And so when Dusty was released,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: I wish I had been able to record it. I
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: don't know what I was expecting. I hadn't really given
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: it that much thought as to like how he would
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: actually react, But there was no, like big reaction, and
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: that makes sense to me. I mean, I can only
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: imagine how it feels to go up against a panel
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: of people deciding if you're going to live the rest
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: of your life in prison or not. And there's probably
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: some part of you that never lets yourself fully go there.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Until the day you walk free. Yeah, you're probably still
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: on guard to think this could be reversed totally. Yeah. Wow,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: so cool that you were able to watch it and
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: tell us about what happened, and you know, very exciting.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: We have since been in contact with Dusty and we
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: actually did an interview with him and you're going to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: get to hear it next week. Yes, so you know,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: he is out. He's just very recently been released. By
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the time we talked to him, I think he had
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: not even been out for a month.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he had not been out for a month yet
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: when we spoke with him. And yeah, I'm so grateful
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: that he gave us that time. So definitely tune in
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: next week to hear directly from Dusty.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: rightmedia dot com or and follow us on Instagram at
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production hosted and produced
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: And me paysha Ety.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.