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#568 Maggie Freleng with Dusty Turner · Wrongful Conviction

0:05
Speaker 1: Over the course of nineteen ninety four and ninety five,
0:08
Speaker 1: Dusty Turner and Billy Joe Brown trained together to become
0:13
Speaker 1: Navy seals.
0:14
Speaker 2: I know this guy because I've been training with for
0:16
Speaker 2: a year and a half, from islands into Pacific to
0:19
Speaker 2: jumping out of planes and throwing hand grenades over each
0:22
Speaker 2: other's backs and diving in pitch black waters in the
0:25
Speaker 2: middle of the oceans. And one of the things that
0:27
Speaker 2: beats into my unconsciousness is, no matter what, I have
0:34
Speaker 2: to protect this guy. I don't even have a choice
0:36
Speaker 2: to protect him. I have to protect him.
0:38
Speaker 1: But that training left Dusty ill prepared for partying off
0:44
Speaker 1: base with Billy. On June nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, Dusty
0:49
Speaker 1: met twenty one year old mid student Jennifer Evans on
0:53
Speaker 1: the dance floor while Billy, who had alcohol related anchor issues,
0:58
Speaker 1: had a night that devolved into rage. After spoiling his
1:02
Speaker 1: ride home, Billy tried to squeeze into Dusty's car behind Jennifer,
1:07
Speaker 1: and after she didn't respond well to his belligerence, Billy
1:11
Speaker 1: attacked and killed Jennifer right next to Dusty, But in
1:16
Speaker 1: the intense moments following her death, he protected Billy.
1:21
Speaker 2: That was absolutely brainwashed to protect this psychopath. I know
1:26
Speaker 2: what I would do now, It's easy be hindsight. I
1:29
Speaker 2: could have jumped out the car or took off running somewhere.
1:31
Speaker 2: I could have drove someone different. I could have done
1:33
Speaker 2: something different right.
1:35
Speaker 1: But eventually Dusty turned Billy in and with the death
1:39
Speaker 1: penalty looming, Billy then flipped the tables.
1:45
Speaker 2: My name was Dustin Turner and I was incarcerated for
1:49
Speaker 2: thirty years and seven months. To be specific, that's eleven
1:53
Speaker 2: two hundred and eight days.
1:57
Speaker 1: From Lava for Good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
2:00
Speaker 1: Freeling today, Dusty Turner.
2:13
Speaker 2: I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, and I have three
2:18
Speaker 2: brothers and a sister. And my mother was a elementary
2:22
Speaker 2: school teacher and my stepfather, who I really grew up with,
2:27
Speaker 2: was an insurance salesman. I suppose I had a very
2:30
Speaker 2: typical Midwestern Indiana who's your upbringing? I played sports all
2:35
Speaker 2: my life as a kid. You know, we were rough
2:37
Speaker 2: and tumble and we would run around playing all those games.
2:40
Speaker 2: And my family was very outdoorsy. We gardened and we
2:45
Speaker 2: hunted for mushrooms and for simmons, and my family members
2:49
Speaker 2: were hunters, and a lot of my family were veterans
2:52
Speaker 2: or they were in the military, and so I think
2:55
Speaker 2: my upbringing was colored by that experience. It was just
2:58
Speaker 2: built into fabric of my family going back really quite
3:02
Speaker 2: a few generations.
3:04
Speaker 1: And Dusty also grew up with a love for the water.
3:10
Speaker 2: So I was swimming from before I was conscious. I
3:13
Speaker 2: guess my mother had me in the pool, probably why
3:15
Speaker 2: I was still in diapers. I was a swimmer and
3:17
Speaker 2: I was always interested in water sports. And when I'll
3:22
Speaker 2: share this with you, when I was very young, I
3:24
Speaker 2: found a book and there was a photo in the
3:27
Speaker 2: book that intrigued me, and it was a sunken ship
3:30
Speaker 2: with a treasure chest and it might have been a
3:33
Speaker 2: pirate or something, and he had a knife between his
3:36
Speaker 2: teeth and he was diving free diving down to the
3:40
Speaker 2: sunken chest. And I just thought this guy was the
3:43
Speaker 2: ultimate badass of the water. And I think somehow that
3:47
Speaker 2: really influenced my getting into scuba diving.
3:50
Speaker 1: So around what age were you solidified like I am enlisting,
3:56
Speaker 1: And I guess even though my partner was in the army,
3:58
Speaker 1: he still tries to explain like enlisting and then joining
4:01
Speaker 1: Special Forces. So this might be when did you decide
4:04
Speaker 1: to enlist and then become a seal?
4:06
Speaker 2: A good question. I did enlist when I was still seventeen,
4:10
Speaker 2: still in high school. My mother had to sign for
4:12
Speaker 2: me because I was under eighteen. I don't want to
4:14
Speaker 2: speak for her. She may have been a little apprehensive,
4:17
Speaker 2: but she knew that's what I wanted to do, and
4:19
Speaker 2: she signed the necessary papers and allowed me to join
4:22
Speaker 2: under the delayed entry program. Before I was eighteen, I
4:26
Speaker 2: was into a lot of sports and growing up through
4:29
Speaker 2: high school and especially towards the end of high school,
4:32
Speaker 2: I was a competitive state swimmer in Indiana and I
4:38
Speaker 2: had an offer for a scholarship, but I chose the military.
4:43
Speaker 2: I actually initially wanted to be a diver, a scuba
4:46
Speaker 2: diver for the Navy, and then later on I heard
4:49
Speaker 2: more about the seal teams. I wanted to be in
4:51
Speaker 2: the seal teams, but I didn't know how to get
4:53
Speaker 2: myself there. So when I was in boot camp, and
4:56
Speaker 2: that was in Orlando, Florida, I had an option need
5:00
Speaker 2: to take the physical test to become a diver, but
5:06
Speaker 2: I actually snuck into another line. That was the guys
5:09
Speaker 2: that were wanting to be in the seal teams. I
5:12
Speaker 2: was one of just a few people that passed it.
5:15
Speaker 2: And the seal that was there taking in the scores,
5:18
Speaker 2: he looked through his clipboard and he said, wait, you
5:20
Speaker 2: took the wrong test. You were supposed to take the
5:23
Speaker 2: other one. And I said, I know, However, I'm desirous
5:27
Speaker 2: of being a seal, and he said, I'll tell you what.
5:29
Speaker 2: I'm going to make sure you get to the training
5:31
Speaker 2: and he saw the fort two that I had and
5:33
Speaker 2: desire I had. So that's how I got into seal
5:36
Speaker 2: training out in San Diego and Corneatto Island.
5:40
Speaker 1: And it was during seal training that he was paired
5:43
Speaker 1: with the actual perpetrator of the murdering question, Billy Joe Brown.
5:48
Speaker 2: Early in training, they pair people up in boat crews
5:51
Speaker 2: by your height, and so we were the exact same height,
5:56
Speaker 2: and at some point we were literally paired up as
5:59
Speaker 2: with a call the swim Buddies training partners. And this
6:03
Speaker 2: was prior to even prior to Hell Week. So over
6:06
Speaker 2: a year and a half of the most excruciating military
6:11
Speaker 2: training perhaps in the world, we're bonded through that fire.
6:16
Speaker 2: We were trained to or at least in my mind
6:20
Speaker 2: to be prepared to give our lives in the defense
6:24
Speaker 2: of this nation. And I was okay with that. I
6:27
Speaker 2: was prepared for that. And I have to say there's
6:30
Speaker 2: a lot of mental manipulation. Yes, if you want to
6:34
Speaker 2: call it brainwashing or whatever. I was nineteen years old.
6:39
Speaker 2: They totally shaped my mind when it came to these
6:46
Speaker 2: ideas of brotherhood and the culture of military and special
6:50
Speaker 2: forces and maybe specifically in the seal teams.
6:53
Speaker 1: Which may go a long way in explaining Dusty's behavior
6:58
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of what bill Is eventually did two
7:02
Speaker 1: Jennifer Evans. But before that, despite Billy Joe Brown not
7:07
Speaker 1: going as far as murdering someone, there was definitely a
7:12
Speaker 1: history of violence.
7:13
Speaker 2: Two times previous I saw his attempt of violence or
7:19
Speaker 2: aggression I should say, towards women. And once was in
7:22
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico, and thankfully there was multiple people around to
7:26
Speaker 2: restrain him. Another time it was just me and I
7:30
Speaker 2: was able to restrain him. But yeah, so you know,
7:33
Speaker 2: I've seen that aggressive behavior of him often having to
7:37
Speaker 2: ensure that he gets out of trouble. Right, this is
7:41
Speaker 2: only going on when he's drunk and when he's sober.
7:45
Speaker 2: It was never like this right. When he's drinking, he's
7:48
Speaker 2: like a ticking time bomb. And so there was multiple
7:51
Speaker 2: times in which I had to extract him from situations
7:57
Speaker 2: at a concert. At one time he attacked a guy
7:58
Speaker 2: and really messed him up, and I had to jump
8:01
Speaker 2: in and pull him out. And it ended with later
8:04
Speaker 2: in the night, we were fleeing from the police. I
8:07
Speaker 2: haven't told many people this, but we ended up in
8:09
Speaker 2: a pond, literally underwater.
8:13
Speaker 1: Now, for our audience, I urge you to count yourself
8:16
Speaker 1: lucky if you've never had to be the caretaker of
8:20
Speaker 1: this kind of friend. Some folks are not that lucky.
8:25
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, Dusty had not yet cut ties with Billy
8:30
Speaker 1: Joe Brown, and at this time, well completing their training
8:35
Speaker 1: in Virginia, Billy Joe Brown was drinking a lot as
8:40
Speaker 1: he was on June nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, when a
8:45
Speaker 1: few Seal trainees were set to head out to party
8:49
Speaker 1: in Virginia Beach.
8:51
Speaker 2: There was originally I think three of us that were
8:53
Speaker 2: supposed to be there that night, and it ended up
8:55
Speaker 2: it was just Billy Brown and myself. Well. We went
8:58
Speaker 2: to a club that we had been to.
9:01
Speaker 1: It was called the Bayou Nightclub and as Dusty told
9:04
Speaker 1: Jason in previous coverage which we'll link to in the
9:07
Speaker 1: episode description, Dusty had separated himself from Billy that night,
9:12
Speaker 1: and then he met twenty one year old med student
9:15
Speaker 1: Jennifer Evans on the dance floor. She was on vacation
9:19
Speaker 1: and her friends had moved on to another place. They
9:21
Speaker 1: were planning to circle back at closing time, and Dusty
9:25
Speaker 1: had also arranged with Billy's ex girlfriend to get him home. Allegedly,
9:30
Speaker 1: the night progressed and Jennifer and Dusty went out to
9:34
Speaker 1: the parking lot to wait for her friends. When Billy
9:37
Speaker 1: stumbled over to the car, Dusty morange, Jennifer, just don't
9:42
Speaker 1: engage with Billy if he's belligerent or obnoxious, and then
9:45
Speaker 1: he gets into the backseat behind her.
9:49
Speaker 2: I saw that he was in the mode which I've
9:52
Speaker 2: seen before with him, that he could become violent, and
9:57
Speaker 2: so I was doing everything I could. And really, I
9:59
Speaker 2: say that I won't say everything I could, because in
10:02
Speaker 2: hindsight there's other things I could have done, But at
10:07
Speaker 2: the moment, I thought by speaking to him calmly and
10:10
Speaker 2: trying to get him to relax, and hey, look, let's
10:13
Speaker 2: just find Kristen his friend who was supposed to take
10:16
Speaker 2: him home. Let's just find her, she can take you home.
10:19
Speaker 2: But he was completely belligerent, completely belligerent.
10:23
Speaker 1: Apparently Billy had done something to cause his ax to leave,
10:27
Speaker 1: So while Dusty tried to de escalate, Billy allegedly said
10:32
Speaker 1: some nasty things and touched Jennifer's hair. Allegedly, she brushed
10:38
Speaker 1: him off, and then Billy lashed out.
10:42
Speaker 2: His initial maneuver was explosive enough to literally shake the
10:46
Speaker 2: whole vehicle, and I wasn't looking directly at him. It
10:50
Speaker 2: took me a second to realize what has just happened.
10:55
Speaker 2: Her head was twisted towards the car window, and he
10:59
Speaker 2: had his own arms locked around her. I started grabbing
11:02
Speaker 2: his arms and screaming at him, and Jennifer was completely limb.
11:08
Speaker 2: It was that quick. So I just immediately grabbed his
11:25
Speaker 2: arms and trying to pull him off of her, and
11:28
Speaker 2: at first I couldn't, but he was screaming at me,
11:31
Speaker 2: just fucking dry and screaming at me, and I was
11:34
Speaker 2: screaming at him to just let her go. And I
11:38
Speaker 2: literally had to put my fingers under his fingertips and
11:42
Speaker 2: pry his first hand from his arm as he was
11:47
Speaker 2: locked and pry his arms off of her. And then
11:50
Speaker 2: when I get his arms off of her, he's still
11:52
Speaker 2: screaming at me. Now he's up in my ear, just dry,
11:55
Speaker 2: just from here, and Jennifer's limbs, she's gone, She's completely gone,
12:00
Speaker 2: and she's slumped into his seat. I know this guy
12:04
Speaker 2: sitting behind me because I've been training with him a
12:07
Speaker 2: year and a half through all this stuff, from islands
12:10
Speaker 2: into Pacific to jumping out of planes and throwing hand
12:14
Speaker 2: grenades over each other's backs and diving in pitch black
12:18
Speaker 2: waters in the middle of the oceans. And the only
12:21
Speaker 2: thing I know for a fact that is beat into
12:24
Speaker 2: my unconsciousness is this man. No matter what, I have
12:30
Speaker 2: to protect I don't even have a choice to protect him.
12:32
Speaker 2: I have to protect him. That's what colored my decisions
12:38
Speaker 2: that I made at that point. I was absolutely brainwashed
12:42
Speaker 2: to protect this psychopath. I shouldn't have been in that position.
12:47
Speaker 2: He should never have been in that position. He should
12:49
Speaker 2: have never been in the military, let alone in the
12:51
Speaker 2: special forces community never. But ultimately, regardless of all, it's
12:58
Speaker 2: still my decision. I could have jumped out the car,
13:00
Speaker 2: took off, run in somewhere. I could have drove someone different.
13:02
Speaker 2: I could have done something different right at that point, but.
13:07
Speaker 1: He didn't, and that decision became a key point of scrutiny.
13:13
Speaker 2: I didn't know Virginia Beach areat. I literally didn't know
13:16
Speaker 2: where to turn when I left the parking lot. In fact,
13:20
Speaker 2: he was yelling directions at me, turn left, turned right.
13:25
Speaker 1: Dusty drove them onto Interstate sixty four, and then they
13:28
Speaker 1: exited near a wooded area by Newport News, where they
13:32
Speaker 1: left Jennifer's body about thirty yards into the woods. Over
13:38
Speaker 1: the next week, Dusty says, guilt weighed heavily on him.
13:43
Speaker 1: Then detectives caught up with them. Both seals initially denied involvement,
13:50
Speaker 1: but after speaking with his commanding officer, Dusty decided to confess,
13:56
Speaker 1: leading authorities to the body and to Billie Brown. Facing
14:00
Speaker 1: the death penalty, Brown seemingly created a story implicating Dusty
14:05
Speaker 1: in the murder. Yours leader, Dusty, says Brown explained why
14:10
Speaker 1: he believed that decision was justified.
14:14
Speaker 2: He said he thought I was going to do two
14:17
Speaker 2: weeks in jail before the authorities realized the truth of
14:21
Speaker 2: what happened, and instead, the authorities used his false stories
14:27
Speaker 2: to convict me of his crimes. How do you even
14:29
Speaker 2: wrap your head around them? But all he had to
14:32
Speaker 2: do is come clean. See, he knew, he knew that
14:38
Speaker 2: there was this code, and he called it the Seal
14:43
Speaker 2: Team code, that I couldn't tell the authorities what he
14:46
Speaker 2: had done.
14:48
Speaker 1: He said that to.
14:48
Speaker 2: You years later, he said, that's the whole reason he
14:51
Speaker 2: made up the story to implicate me is because I
14:55
Speaker 2: broke the Seal Code, and therefore I deserved to be
15:00
Speaker 2: unjustly put in prison because I broke the Sealk Code
15:03
Speaker 2: by telling the authorities of what had happened. That's it.
15:09
Speaker 2: If he would have told the truth from the beginning,
15:11
Speaker 2: i'd obviously never been convicted of these crimes.
15:14
Speaker 1: Meaning the ones he says he didn't do. First degree
15:17
Speaker 1: murder and abduction. Billy Brown received seventy two years, while
15:22
Speaker 1: Dusty got eighty two and then even more insult to injury.
15:28
Speaker 2: From what I understand, the authorities within the military had
15:31
Speaker 2: told guys that I had been around that they are
15:34
Speaker 2: to have no contact with me or my family. That's difficult,
15:38
Speaker 2: to be honest. There's a lot of things that I
15:40
Speaker 2: still have a hard time with concerning the military and
15:43
Speaker 2: the way I was treated it was wrong. And I
15:45
Speaker 2: will say I've heard from a couple of the former
15:48
Speaker 2: Silting guys, which is nice and I really appreciate that.
15:51
Speaker 2: But there had been a kind of a hand washing
15:55
Speaker 2: of both myself and Billy Brown, as if we were
15:58
Speaker 2: the same people, as if we were in Caho says,
16:01
Speaker 2: if we deserved the same fate. But beyond that, I'm
16:07
Speaker 2: past it.
16:08
Speaker 1: And perhaps Dusty had help. In two thousand and two,
16:11
Speaker 1: Billy Brown found religion and made a confession that Dusty
16:16
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the murder and corroborated what
16:19
Speaker 1: Dusty maintained all along, that he protected his training partner,
16:25
Speaker 1: whom he says he should have immediately exposed for his crime.
16:29
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of ironic. That's a stale team
16:31
Speaker 2: investigator for the military. He is a very strong advocate
16:35
Speaker 2: for me for years. He's a strong advocate because again
16:39
Speaker 2: he investigated my case, but he didn't do it for
16:41
Speaker 2: the civilian side. He did it for the military. His
16:45
Speaker 2: reports were destined only for the military leaders. But what
16:50
Speaker 2: he found was basically the same thing that now everyone knows, right,
16:55
Speaker 2: and that is I had no role in the murder.
16:58
Speaker 2: I had no role in abducting Jennifer.
17:01
Speaker 1: Dusty's legal team filed a writ of actual innocence, citing
17:05
Speaker 1: the confession as new evidence, and his conviction was overturned
17:09
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, but the Attorney General appealed
17:13
Speaker 1: and his murder and abduction convictions were reinstated and he
17:17
Speaker 1: served sixteen more years. How did you survive thirty years
17:24
Speaker 1: in prison?
17:25
Speaker 2: So?
17:25
Speaker 1: I guess there's a lot to this. I mean, you're
17:28
Speaker 1: convicted of a crime you did not commit, and even
17:32
Speaker 1: the thing that you did do is only punishable by
17:35
Speaker 1: up to twelve months in prison, So that is completely unjust.
17:40
Speaker 1: How do you survive prison in a place that you
17:43
Speaker 1: know you shouldn't be? How did you do that?
17:47
Speaker 2: I think it was, I guess, the same thing that
17:50
Speaker 2: allowed me, I guess to survive steal training resolved of love,
17:58
Speaker 2: and I have to say, maybe even hate, the love
18:02
Speaker 2: of my family and supporters. That alone got me through
18:07
Speaker 2: some very difficult times. I have a persistent, maybe we'll
18:15
Speaker 2: just say hatred towards Billy Brown and if that's the
18:20
Speaker 2: right word, but it's never subsided. And part of that
18:23
Speaker 2: is obviously, first of all, what he did to Jennifer
18:27
Speaker 2: in her family, and secondly what he did to me
18:31
Speaker 2: and my family. He has written to my mother and
18:36
Speaker 2: through my mother trying to asking or begging for me
18:40
Speaker 2: to forgive him. And here it is thirty one years later,
18:44
Speaker 2: almost and my hatred for him still burns deep in
18:48
Speaker 2: my chest, and I can't look at all the at
18:53
Speaker 2: my family, everything that we've been through and not feel
18:58
Speaker 2: that hatred towards him.
19:00
Speaker 1: I understand that you're one of the first people out
19:02
Speaker 1: of how many wrongfully convicted people I've spoken to, that
19:07
Speaker 1: has not forgiven. And I think you're the first person
19:10
Speaker 1: that I relate to because I can't imagine forgiving somebody
19:14
Speaker 1: who did that to me.
19:15
Speaker 2: And sometimes I think maybe it's maybe I'm failing there,
19:19
Speaker 2: but that I should forgive. And I've even wrote an
19:22
Speaker 2: essay on forgiveness. It may even be posted on my
19:25
Speaker 2: website because I was exploring it. And one of the
19:27
Speaker 2: things I think it's in my little essay that I
19:29
Speaker 2: had a chaplain come to me and he said, just
19:32
Speaker 2: completely assuming because he knew me. I had a lot
19:34
Speaker 2: of interactions with him, and he's like, well, you're a
19:37
Speaker 2: smart guy. You know that forgiveness is not about him.
19:41
Speaker 2: It's about you, and he just assumed that I had
19:43
Speaker 2: forgiven him, and because I'm not so stupid to not
19:47
Speaker 2: forgive him, because what that suggests is it's just putting
19:49
Speaker 2: more upon myself, you know. But I don't forgive him.
19:54
Speaker 2: And I feel like that that anger and that burning hatred,
19:59
Speaker 2: that really maybe in some ways it helped me get
20:02
Speaker 2: through some of the more difficult times of my prison senters.
20:08
Speaker 1: I one relate to that. I tell people, like, the
20:12
Speaker 1: reason I can keep going is because I want vengeance
20:16
Speaker 1: on people, and for me, it's the prosecutors that hurt
20:19
Speaker 1: all of you guys. That's why I keep listening to
20:21
Speaker 1: these stories.
20:22
Speaker 2: You know, listenance. Vengeance is in our vernacular for a reason, right,
20:28
Speaker 2: It's an ancient idea of just desserts. But regardless, obviously
20:32
Speaker 2: I'm not seeking to exact some kind of vengeance myself.
20:36
Speaker 2: But there needs to be accountability.
20:38
Speaker 1: That's such a better word.
20:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that goes beyond Billy Brown, because there's others
20:45
Speaker 2: who knew that I had no role in those crimes,
20:49
Speaker 2: and they either loud or were actively involved in convicting
20:52
Speaker 2: me or keeping me in prison.
21:11
Speaker 1: A cellmate of yours once said, quote, you were a
21:15
Speaker 1: little too talkative about plant life. I think this was
21:20
Speaker 1: perhaps one of yours for parole.
21:23
Speaker 2: I know who you're talking about too.
21:26
Speaker 1: And so I want to ask you about that. How
21:30
Speaker 1: did you get into horticulture?
21:33
Speaker 2: You know, I grew up, like I said, I was
21:35
Speaker 2: in a family that was very outdoorsy and we had
21:38
Speaker 2: a decent family garden growing up, and so I learned
21:41
Speaker 2: a lot from my stepfather about horticulture. Therefore, I thought
21:44
Speaker 2: I knew quite a bit about horticulture. So I joined
21:47
Speaker 2: a horticulture of course, and then I realized I don't
21:50
Speaker 2: know anything about horticulture right. So, over the course of
21:53
Speaker 2: a year and then I got through that program, I
21:56
Speaker 2: took an advanced horticulture program. This was well in prison, yeah, absolutely,
22:01
Speaker 2: Soon thereafter I was tutoring incarcerated students horticulture. But I
22:05
Speaker 2: found it to be an opportunity not simply just to speak, Hey,
22:08
Speaker 2: here's how you germinate seeds, and here's how you grow
22:11
Speaker 2: a plant, and here's the names of these different species.
22:15
Speaker 2: But there's a therapeutic element, especially for those in prison
22:19
Speaker 2: who are surrounded by nothing but concrete and still there's
22:23
Speaker 2: a therapeutic aspect to the idea of being able to
22:26
Speaker 2: grow things or see growing things and living things. And
22:31
Speaker 2: it was I got to say, relatively speaking, it was beautiful.
22:34
Speaker 2: I'm in garden spaces that I helped create, and I'm
22:38
Speaker 2: out there with all these students, and they come from
22:40
Speaker 2: all all over Virginia, all walks of life. I had
22:44
Speaker 2: a lot of inner city guys who are like, you know,
22:46
Speaker 2: when I go home, I am creating a community guard
22:49
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do it, and I know exactly
22:50
Speaker 2: where I'm going to put it, and this is my goal.
22:53
Speaker 1: Dusty's former sell me wrote a letter to the parole
22:56
Speaker 1: board supporting his release, saying what a good person Dusty
23:01
Speaker 1: is and his largest complaint about him is that he
23:04
Speaker 1: talks about plants too much. In twenty twenty, a new
23:08
Speaker 1: law was passed in Virginia and Dusty was released in
23:12
Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty six.
23:15
Speaker 2: I didn't invite all my family because first of all,
23:19
Speaker 2: most of my family is in Indiana and in other states.
23:22
Speaker 2: And I hope it didn't hurt some people's feelings. But
23:24
Speaker 2: I didn't invite all my family. I have a very
23:27
Speaker 2: large family. I can't invite everybody, right, but I did
23:29
Speaker 2: have some of my family and some of those who
23:31
Speaker 2: maybe I've been closest with throughout the years and they've
23:35
Speaker 2: really been there for me. And then my advocates, right
23:40
Speaker 2: those who have fought so hard for so much of
23:44
Speaker 2: their time and energies and money and everything else. They
23:48
Speaker 2: recognized the injustice and that drove them with a passion.
23:53
Speaker 2: I absolute wouldn't be sitting here without them. They would
23:56
Speaker 2: not have given me parole without my advocates fighting for me, period.
24:01
Speaker 2: And so its beautiful to see everybody and to embrace everyone,
24:04
Speaker 2: and it was emotional. It was overwhelming, and it still
24:09
Speaker 2: is overwhelming. I do not have my feet on the ground.
24:13
Speaker 2: I'm working on it. I wish you could be in
24:15
Speaker 2: my shoes or last thirty hours or so, just to
24:19
Speaker 2: experience what I'm in. Such an amazing place right now.
24:24
Speaker 2: I'm in such an amazing place right now. I was
24:27
Speaker 2: in a side by side vehicle a few hours ago
24:30
Speaker 2: driving through just amazing countryside, the outskirts of a property.
24:36
Speaker 2: I'm blown away. There's a river it just runs right
24:39
Speaker 2: through here. And I'm unfortunate in that respect, so fortunate
24:43
Speaker 2: and grateful, and I'm going to soak it all in.
24:47
Speaker 1: How do you think your life would have been different.
24:49
Speaker 1: Maybe if none of this happened and you stayed a
24:51
Speaker 1: seal instead of becoming a horticulture mauster. I don't know
24:55
Speaker 1: what to call it.
24:56
Speaker 2: I'll say that, yeah, not there yet, but you know,
25:00
Speaker 2: I don't know. Listen, my plan was to do two
25:02
Speaker 2: deployments and then apply try to get into what's now
25:05
Speaker 2: referred to as Seal Team six. That's what I want.
25:08
Speaker 2: I want to be the best operator for the military.
25:11
Speaker 2: I loved it, and that's what I had a passion for.
25:14
Speaker 2: But I have some friends that I trained with who
25:17
Speaker 2: died not long after I was incarcerated.
25:21
Speaker 1: You probably would have wound up in Iraq. Do you
25:23
Speaker 1: think about that?
25:24
Speaker 2: No, I don't think about it because who knows, right,
25:27
Speaker 2: I don't have a clue what could have happened. I
25:29
Speaker 2: also could have been dead, and who knows what could
25:32
Speaker 2: have happened. And I don't think it really matters at
25:34
Speaker 2: this point, right All that matters is now and moving forward.
25:39
Speaker 2: I would I would drive myself nuts thinking about that.
25:42
Speaker 1: What has surprised you the most? Maybe, like yesterday we
25:46
Speaker 1: were talking and you were facetiming with me on a
25:49
Speaker 1: cell phone. What are some of the things that so
25:52
Speaker 1: far in your very short time, have really surprised you.
25:55
Speaker 2: Ohoul, have surprised me how big everything is? Thing is
26:00
Speaker 2: it just looms large, everything from just the buildings and
26:04
Speaker 2: the sky and the clouds, and everything just seems so big.
26:08
Speaker 2: It's surreal. Through a good portion of this past day
26:13
Speaker 2: and a half, I felt like I've not even been
26:16
Speaker 2: inside my body, Like I'm just hovering and just watching.
26:20
Speaker 2: And I got to say it again, I'm fortunate to
26:23
Speaker 2: have all my people around me. I don't have to
26:26
Speaker 2: worry about the things. I know so many people who
26:29
Speaker 2: are getting out of prison I have to worry about.
26:32
Speaker 2: And so I'm so fortunate for that right I have
26:34
Speaker 2: those resources. Not many people do. And I recognize that.
26:40
Speaker 2: So my family, my supporters have provided so many things
26:43
Speaker 2: for me that I'm able to really just absorb things right.
26:49
Speaker 2: And they've given me that opportunity to just really sit
26:51
Speaker 2: back and absorb things, and they're taking me around. I
26:55
Speaker 2: walked into my first small grocery store today. I walked
27:00
Speaker 2: down the aisles and before I went in, I said,
27:02
Speaker 2: I'm not going to I'm not touching nothing. I'm not
27:04
Speaker 2: going to buy anything. Y'all can get what you want
27:07
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna look all right, and there's they had
27:10
Speaker 2: already purchased so much stuff, and I got fruit baskets
27:13
Speaker 2: and beef jerkeys and I don't know all kinds of stuff.
27:15
Speaker 2: By the way, good advocate friend has brought some New
27:20
Speaker 2: York strip We're going to be really amazing. Yeah, and
27:22
Speaker 2: he's got some rabbis and they're doing I don't know,
27:25
Speaker 2: they've got just the whole work. So we had a
27:27
Speaker 2: beautiful feast last night, and tonight it's gonna be no less.
27:30
Speaker 1: Were the flavors of like real food like surprising.
27:35
Speaker 2: It's all everything I taste, everything I smell, everything I
27:39
Speaker 2: see is so incredibly different that it's a lie. It's
27:44
Speaker 2: like maybe four we'll say, a normal person to be
27:48
Speaker 2: given like hyper stimulus, to be overwhelmed with hyper stimulus.
27:53
Speaker 2: All my senses are overwhelmed.
27:55
Speaker 1: Yesterday you mentioned the smells. That was one of the first.
27:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the first structure I walked into. I
28:02
Speaker 2: was in the lobby of the hotel. But it's every
28:05
Speaker 2: since everything I see and everything nice smell and taste
28:09
Speaker 2: and touch and yeah, it's a lot. And I'm glad
28:13
Speaker 2: that my close friends and loved ones are able to
28:17
Speaker 2: be with me, to experience that with me, because it's
28:21
Speaker 2: special for them too.
28:23
Speaker 1: I know you've mentioned step by step, So what is
28:26
Speaker 1: something you're looking forward to if you want to tell
28:29
Speaker 1: me big picture, even like later today, what are you
28:32
Speaker 1: looking forward to?
28:34
Speaker 2: Well, I told you here very shortly. We're going to
28:36
Speaker 2: have a bit of I guess a bonfire, small fire, campfire,
28:41
Speaker 2: and I think someone even brought some s'mores. We're going
28:43
Speaker 2: to be toting smores after the feast. I look forward
28:45
Speaker 2: to settling in a little bit and I'm going to
28:48
Speaker 2: be doing some real work out here on farm and
28:51
Speaker 2: the property, and I look forward to contributing. I look
28:55
Speaker 2: forward to learning. This is in some way in intermediate
28:59
Speaker 2: or short term ideas. I look forward to continuing experience
29:04
Speaker 2: the things I've been experiencing, because they've been great long term.
29:08
Speaker 2: I'm not done fighting. I'm not exonerated, as you brought
29:12
Speaker 2: up early on. If I'm not exonerating, I'm simply given parole.
29:16
Speaker 2: That's not a just remedy in my case.
29:20
Speaker 1: People know you're still a convicted felon.
29:22
Speaker 2: Not just a convicted felon, but the abduction charge. Years
29:26
Speaker 2: and years later, they determined that they made that into
29:30
Speaker 2: what they call like a registering offense. Right. Oh wow, Yeah,
29:34
Speaker 2: so that comes with a whole host of things, every
29:36
Speaker 2: bit of it's horrible and it's unjust. I'll be fighting,
29:40
Speaker 2: and I hope and I expect I'm going to have
29:42
Speaker 2: some people on my team that care about justice and
29:45
Speaker 2: they're going to help me out.
29:47
Speaker 1: We're definitely on your team, so we will be here. Dusty.
29:50
Speaker 1: One of my last questions for you is just it's
29:54
Speaker 1: been over thirty years. You've been reported on in the
29:57
Speaker 1: media multiple times, there have been documentaries. What do you
30:01
Speaker 1: want people to know about you? Oh?
30:05
Speaker 2: I would like for people to know that I'm just
30:07
Speaker 2: a genuine guy. And maybe as they hear my experiences
30:11
Speaker 2: and what led me to sitting right here speaking to
30:13
Speaker 2: you the whole way, through my childhood, through my experiences
30:18
Speaker 2: in the military, and the tragic events that led me
30:22
Speaker 2: to be incarcerated and the horrible hell that I went through,
30:27
Speaker 2: I guess I may now have a unique perspective online
30:30
Speaker 2: and maybe that holds some value somewhere for someone, and
30:34
Speaker 2: I hope it does.
30:39
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
30:42
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall and
30:45
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, as well as executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
30:49
Speaker 1: Kevin Wortis, and Jeff Clyburn. The music in this production
30:53
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
30:57
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all so media platforms
31:01
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
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Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
31:08
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
31:11
Speaker 1: Good podcast in association with Signal Company Number One. We
31:15
Speaker 1: have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
31:18
Speaker 1: this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
31:21
Speaker 1: the individuals featured in this show are their own and
31:23
Speaker 1: do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good