Ex-SEAL trainee seeks freedom in woman's slaying

Turner's co-defendant, Billy Joe Brown, signed a sworn statement in 2003 saying he alone killed Jennifer L. Evans, who was abducted from a Virginia Beach bar.

It wasn't until a year later that Virginia legislators passed a bill relaxing the nation's toughest law governing new claims of innocence.

Now that a judge has deemed Brown's statement credible, Turner hopes the Virginia Court of Appeals will grant him freedom under the 2004 law allowing newly discovered evidence of innocence other than DNA. It is a feat that has eluded more than 120 other inmates.

"If you had asked me about my chances before the judge ruled, I'd have had a neutral response," Turner said in an interview at Powhatan Correctional Center. "Now it gives me tremendous hope."

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"Dusty" Turner met Evans at a nightclub called the Bayou, where he and Brown had gone to unwind in June 1995 after a long week of training. Instructors had made Turner and Brown "swim buddies," which meant they were supposed to remain close and watch out for one another during training.

According to Turner, he and the 21-year-old Emory University premed student from Tucker, Ga., hit it off and slipped out to listen to music and talk in his car. He claims a drunken and belligerent Brown got into the back and reached around the front passenger seat to strangle Evans.

Panicked and mindful of the SEALs rule that you never abandon your swim buddy, Turner said, he drove 30 miles to Newport News and helped Brown dump Evans' body in a wooded park.

Prosecutors at Turner's trial laid out a different scenario. They said he and Brown wanted to have sex with Evans and killed her when she resisted. Turner, they said, was more than a spectator.