I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
I was naive enough to believe that I would be able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a good person. I hadn't done anything wrong.
In the back of your mind, you say, well, when we go to a hearing or we go to court, the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment, unchecked authority.
Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them on TV, because it may just be a dirty DA that is trying to rise upward.
This is wrongful conviction.
Hello, this is a pre bay call from I'm enidated from Virginia Department of Corrections, Green Steel Correction and Work Center to accept this call plus zero who refuses. This call is from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm today, I'm interviewing someone who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for, Dusty Turner. On June nineteenth, the twenty one year old pre med student went missing while vacationing with family friends at Virginia Beach.
Twenty one year old Jennifer Evans abducted and murdered while vacationing in Virginia Beach that Sunday night, Jennifer Evans left the now defunct Bayou Nightclub with former Navy seal training Dustin Turner. Please say the two got in the car with another seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown. Police found her body nine days later in this wooded area of Newport News. She had been strangled. Both men blamed each other in court.
Turner was sentenced to eighty two years and Brown to seventy two years.
Both sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison, but the appeals continued through this year. When Brown told police he was solely responsible for Jennifer's death, the confession gave Dustin Turner one last chance to walk free.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday against Dusty Turner's petition for exoneration the rule. He means Turner and another Seal trainee, Billy Joe Brown, will spend the rest of their lives in prison for the murder of Jennifer Evans.
Dusty, welcome to the show. The reason you're hearing him sound sort of like he's on another planet is because he is. He's in prison in Virginia where he's been locked up for twenty two years for a crime he had nothing to do with. It's a complicated case and a very tragic situation because Dusty had just completed the training to be a Navy Seal when he was arrested for a murder that he didn't commit. And Dusty, let's go back to that. When did you sign up for
the Navy? What made you want to serve your country?
Well, my family has been in the military, my father, my stepfather, my brother, my older brother he was in the Navy before me, and I guess I just have always had that appeal towards the military and to serve.
My country, right, but you took it to another level going through that Navy Seal training. That is the most extreme thing you can do, right. Seals and rangers are the most elite troops that we have, and so you decided to subject yourself to basically torture in order to really become a machine, right, Well, yeah, I.
Guess that's right. You know, initially, when I first signed up to the military, to the Navy, I wanted to be a diver. I was scuba diving for about fifteen years ago, and before I was in the Sacovia Delayed Entry program, and before I actually arrived the boot camp, I set my sights on becoming a stew I don't know really what it is that drove me so much, but I just wanted to be in the most elite unit that I could to be in order to fight for my country.
And ironically, this all went horribly wrong. And there's a connection. There's a very strong connection to the training because of the fact that it was that faithful night when you were out with your training buddy when all of this tragedy began. Your training partner was Billy Brown, right, Yes.
Billy Brown and I were paired together early on in bus training and throughout the entire field training. We were paired of and actually the only reason we're paired of at the beginning is because we're the same height, and as fate would have it, that's why we were paired.
Of And why does that matter.
Well, everyone's assigned to a boat crew in bus training, and your boat crew is depended upon height, and so we were in the same boat crew. We're the same height. One instructors that you and you, you're together. You're now slim buddy.
And that was early in And the issue was Billy was a very volatile character. Right, There's questions that have been raised as to whether he should have ever been admitted into the Navy in the first place when he had a history of well, let's just say, erratic behavior that would be concerning you would think before allowing him to serve in that capacity. Can you talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, So I didn't know about his past until after the trial. He did have a violent history. Apparently he had adulted at least one email before he came to the military. He was discharged out of the Coastguard before he came into the Navy, and he had a couple other things on his record, which again I was unaware of.
The Brier.
You know, there's some people have said that when he would have gone through the process get his security clearance that they would have recognized this and then kicked them out of the service. I'm not so sure if that's the case or not, but he certainly had this vile pass and it is surprising, you know, in hindsight, is very surprising that he was allowed not only in the military, but to come through into the Special Forces.
And Dusty so going through the training with him, I mean, you guys are taught to protect each other at all costs, even if it means risking or putting your own life in danger. Is that right?
Yes, it is during the training throughout a good majority of it. If we were separated more than six feet, we would be punished for that. You know, I could trust him in the field, so to speak, to shoot over top of my back and you know, my parachute, so to speak. So there was a great deal of trust and a binding bors for it to come with the.
Training, right, you literally had to trust each other with your lives in a very, very in a very real way. I'm bringing that up because it has a bearing on the events, the tragic events that happened on June nineteenth, nineteen ninety five in Virginia Beach. And I don't think anybody who hasn't been in your shoes can judge how you acted on that particular night. It's a very unique case and a very unique set of circumstances. Let's talk about that. Because you guys went out to a bar
that night. The evening started innocently enough, but Billy had a drinking problem from what I've read, and apparently he got pretty blitzed. Is that right?
Yeah, he had been drinking that day from early on and it just continued into the evening, and that we were at the club at ninety and he was absolute.
Devote So walk us through what happened, Dusty, because this is really the moment right when your life was turned upside down. How did this unravel from the time you were in the club to when you ended up in the car, and then ultimately what happened after that.
Well, you know, it started off as kind of a normal, normal evening. I'd been to that club a few times previous. I was relatively new to the area in Virginia Beach, not only been there maybe maybe three weeks, and so initially three of us guys were going to go out and to the club at night. One of the guys ended up going and I don't know, going off with his girlfriend or something. So Billy and I went to the club. It was again, it was kind of a normal here,
Billy is drunk. Again. I kind of separated myself at the club from him, and I had met a very nice young lady named Jennifer Evans. We kind of hit it off. We were having a good time. We're sharing with each other what we were into. You know, she was a college studit down in Georgia, and I generally didn't talk very open about my still experience, but with her, I did, and I opened up and I told her
what I was doing there for the beach. Now, mind you that I was in the club with a underage and I had a fake ID that I got in there.
You were twenty at the time, man, that was yeah.
I was twenty years old. Jennifer was twenty one, and so again we you know, different and I we.
Hit it off.
We had to separate ourselves from from Billy. I had met her girlfriend, her two friends that she came there with. We had been out on the dance floor and you know, again it was very very normal type of evening. And well, the last thing I was imagining was some contractic happening that night, so it put it in the night her girlfriend had left. Briefly they were going to go get some coffee. Ten everyone to say was be in the club.
So we actually had an idea of trying to go down to the beach, taking our shoes off, and walking down on the beach. But as the night for breast and her girlfriends were going to come pick her back up at two o'clock in the morning, which is the this club quote, Jennifer and I realized we didn't know his time to go down to the beach and then make it back to meet her girlfriend, so we stayed in the club, and in fact we went out into the lobby where it was more quiet, and we did
that out there and had a conversation. Just previous to this, I had gotten Billy to ride home with his ex girlfriend and it happened to be in the club that night Christian's Bishop, and reluctantly she did agree to take
him home. She was reluctant, hesitant because she knows the type of character that he is and she really didn't want to deal with him, especially because he was so drunk, which I understood, but you know, I was happy that she was willing to take him home, so I was confident that I wouldn't even see him for the rest of the night. And I was with Jennifer, and it
was closing upon two o'clock in the morning. We were out in the lobby and we decided to go out into the parking lote and wait for her girlfriend and sit in my car and listened to some music. And so within about ten minutes, still too again, we went out to my car and we were sitting there, listening to music and looking forward her girlfriends to show up at any minute. Instead, what we saw coming down the hill was Billy Brown, and he was heading towards the
park spot. You know, I certainly wasn't expecting him. Christian was supposed to take him home. I knew he was drunk and belligerent, but when he's approaching the vehicle, I told Jennifer, I said, look, you know this is the guy I come here with. You know, he's drunk, just still paying no attention to them. I've seen him in the past, especially when we were in Puerto Rico. I've seen him, witness him become kind of violent towards women.
I didn't think that he would become violent towards Jennifer, but I did assume he was at least going to be obnoxious and somewhat belligerent. So when he got into.
The car, wait, hold up there for a second, Dusty, what kind of car was it?
So I had a small geostorm.
So that's a small car, right, yeah, it is very car. And you big guys, both of you guys.
Are He was bigger than I. We were both six foot two and a half, I guess, and he outweighed me by him maybe maybe fifteen twenty pounds, so he was I think he was about two hundred and thirty somewhere around that's thirty pounds. But he approaches the passer's side of the car and he opens the door and he kind of pushes the car sty forward with Jennifer is sitting, he pushes the feat forward a little roughly, and he gets in the car in the back seats
right behind her. Of course, his big frame compared with fitback and this he's did a very small car. Those knees are against the back of her seat. And as soon as he sits down, I turned to him and I said, Billy What's what's going on? Why why was Christian not taking you home? And he immediately goes into a tirade about oh, screw me, that f bet girls you think you know, blah blah, he's nothing but a favet.
This is the last thing you want to see, right, You're having a nice moment with a girl, you have a nice connection with her. The last thing you want to see, last thing anybody would want to see is a drunk, belligerent, violent anybody. You don't want to see anybody at that point. You just want to be in your little bubble with her, listen to music. Everything's good. I mean, you never could have predicted how bad it was going to get, but already it's bad.
Yeah, So this is obviously, this is the crux of the situation. Jennifer and I were having a time. You know, we were not romantically involved at this time. Earlier I had given her a husband when I thought that she was going to leave with her girlfriends, And that's the only time we had any come physical context. Say, Jeff, she's a very decent young lady. You know, she was a good girl with a great teacher and farmer who was going to college. And it's a very nice young lady.
And so we're having a great conversation, and as you said, here comes this drunk buddy of mine down.
To the calling.
So he's now in the back seat and is acting as you would have probably predicted that he would have act because of what you know about his character and his current state of mind. But then it gets much worse.
Yeah. Yeah, So after asking him why Christian was taking him home, and you know, he said what he said about her, and he turns the bench to the Jennifer and he made some very rude comments, if I remember correctly, he said something about asking her if she was a virgin, something like that. It was certainly inappropriate. And I immediately said, look, really, why don't you get out and go find Christians that she's gonna take him home. And so he was not
trying to hear that at all. He's like, that's that bitch. So again he kind of turns his bench to Jennifer in Now, mind you, within two or three or four minutes before her girlfriends are coming to pick her up right there where we're at in the parking lot. They're supposed to arrive there, and they told us to be there to the bot, and it has to be within
a couple of minutes before too. And of course I didn't know at that point too what had transpired in the gloves between him and Kristen that made him additionally belligerent. So he turns his entire back to Jennifer and he said something about her hair. He reached her up with his right hand. I don't know if he pushed her her shoulder or her hair, but at that point Jennifer had, throughout this time, this brief couple of minutes, she had not said a word, did not open her mouth to
him or refined to him. And so when he pushed her hair or her shoulder, she smacked his hand from behind, you know, swatted his hand, and that's when he snapped. So you know, I wasn't looking directly at him when he snapped, but with all his might, he violently brushed his arms around her body, her neck area, and with so much force that the whole car literally see.
Right, And I'm thinking about it, Dusty. He had his feet, as you said, his knees were up against the seat. And here's a big, strong, two thirty pound guy who's trained to kill with his with his hands, and he's got total leverage right because he's got the knees. I mean, you know, it would have been nothing for him to do this considering all of these well.
You know, I don't you know, I don't know about saying it would have been nothing. I really don't know. I know that if seemingly it was coming for him, the strike that he did upon this innocent young woman was so violent that when I turned and start screaming at him to just let her go, and he's screaming at me, just ep and drive, just ep and drive. First, I started crying and trying to pull his arms off
over and screaming at him. This entire brief time when this happened, Jennifer never once reached up to defend herself. It was that quick that she was out, And so I immediately grabbed his arms and I'm screaming at him, just let her go, let him and he's screaming at me,
just fucking drive, just up and drive. Only after a couple of seconds at pulling in his arms didn't work, so I reached under his fingers literally and pried his arms, using one hand on his elbow and the other under his fingertips and pride his arms up off of her. At this point, when I dig at his arms off her, he took back in the seat, and she is out, said, her head is built towards the passenger side window, her
arms on the other side. She had belittered herself. And I'm just complete shot and just uttered confusion and disbelief, and I and I'm and him still he is yelling at him, just epping drive, just epping dry dust.
I'm just thinking that I'm just the physics of it. I mean, it would have been almost impossible for anyone, even a strong guy like yourself, to pull somebody off from the side when he's in a position like he was in, especially when it happened as quickly as it did. I mean, you really had no chance to save this poor girl. And I mean I obviously you did what
you could, but she had no chance. And at this point, were you concerned that he was going to try to kill you too, No, it certainly wasn't mind.
They didn't go through my head at the time.
No.
My only thought, I'm not think that anyone sitting in my seat would have had a same reaction. You know, one minute having a good time with a young lady and the next minute, this guy, this violence predator, completely just alters history. I don't know it's spoke stream, but I mean the one act that he does, it changes the lines and so many people. Sure, and he's drunk, and you know, I'd like to think that he really didn't know what the heck he's doing. He has his past,
and he has nance asked the violence start women. But he's been increasingly becoming an alcoholist over the last several weeks or months, in which he's drinking every single night. It's just a bad, bad bruise, not to mention the fact that he was thinking sterially leading up to this as will.
Obviously, he destroyed her and get killed her, and he ruined the lives of everyone who cared about her, her family, etc. He ruined your life, He ruined his own life. He ruined the lives of your families, right, your family all military heroes and so yeah, in one short burst of violence from what it sounds like last only seconds, not even minutes, he managed to destroy so many people. And
then that's where the story gets into a whole different phase. Right, and again, I can't walk in your shoes, No one can walk in your shoes with all the factors that were going on, Dusty, with the fact that you had been now trained, practically indoctrinated into this idea that you must protect this guy and he's going to protect you. You know, that's just in the mix. I just want
to put that in there. But besides that, you're in a state I can imagine a complete shock and panic, and who could imagine this terrible turn of events, as you said, And what a dramatic turn when it goes from what sounds like a beautiful night a nice connection to this absolute horror that you're you've just witnessed as close and personal as you can imagine with somebody that you were supposed to trust and protect and someone else that you would have liked to protect but you couldn't.
He's screaming at you to drive what happened?
Yeah, And this is, like you said, this is why you're in prisons is because of what you've done afterwards, and that people can't understand your reaction afterwards. The normal person would have jumped out of the vehicle and ran to find the phone or the police somewhere or somebody. Something just terrible has happened, And that might be the case for most people. I don't know, but I think that the way I reacted it would have been different.
Even if my own brother would have been in Billy Brown's place, I think I would have reacted differently, because, like you said too, the way I was conditioned and indoctrinated at twenty years old, I reacted how I reacted. I'm not a criminal. I've never been violent, and I certainly have never been violent towards women, and I'm not criminally minded. And so why is is did a twenty year old trust in this position which I should never have been to begin with, and had to make these
kinds of decisions. And so when I realized that Jennifers did, and Billy Brown screaming them, and I really didn't know what it is. I was in a place in this area, like I said, I had only been ever being beach for a couple of weeks and a three weeks in time. So I just put the car to drive and I took off driving, and I didn't know where I was going. I didn't even know how to barely get out of the Virginia Beach area until I ended up in I
Phil Brown. When I started driving, he said, I'll turn left here to turn right there, and I ended up on sixty four, and on sixty four, I'm familiar with that highway, and so I just started traveling west on sixty four and I didn't know where I was going, and I just kept driving and driving until I started seeing a lot of wooded area, and so I pulled
off on an exit. Again, I have no idea where I'm at, and I'm just driving, and I pulled off into another area which seemed more wooded, until I get to a more secluded area which is not that far from the interstate, and both of us, myself and Billy, get.
Up the car.
I grabbed Ennifer's wrist, he grabbed her legs, and we carried her perhaps thirty or into the wood. And again I was in complete chaotic shock, and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what else to do. And yeah, I understand that people people look at that moment there and say, you know that, why would you do that? Why you know I would have done that?
But others have topped in in my shoes. They don't understand, and perhaps I don't even understand why I reacted that with other than to say that this is kind of how I was trained to react. They didn't say any situation which you know there's been a crime and it's a civilian who's been hurt, profect your swim budding. Oh
of course I didn't say that. However, now, from what I understand, when you go through still training today, they do have classes in training that says, look, if this type of scenario happens, you need to consider what you know, where you're at, what you're doing, and so forth, and do not protect your if he has done something so horrendous, so wrong. And that's the place today because because.
Of this city.
But Dusty, I want to bring up an important point. What is important from a legal perspective to remember is that in Virginia, hiding a body after a murder is a misdemeanor punishable by up to twelve months in jail. And that's not what you got convicted of. That's not what they wanted you for. And we're going to get to that in a minute. But that's a very important thing to remember. In certain states that's not the case.
There's some states where it's treated very differently. In some states, it's treated the same as murder, just you know, hiding the body after the fact. But that's the only thing that you were guilty of, and that's one of the reasons why I've dived into your case and why I'm doing everything I can to help you try to find justice, because it's obviously a terrible miscarriage of justice, the fact that you're serving time for murder when what you did
was wrong, but it's not murder. So now going forward, you go back to the base, and this is big news, right the town is up in arms. Everyone's wondering what happened to this girl? And this must have been driving you crazy, right, Well, I wasn't.
Really aware at the time of the news the media, But what was driving me crazy is just having witnessed it and and knowing about it and attempting to remain silent about it. It was, Uh, it put me in a state of almost like a zombie like state throughout the next week in which I held this speacret and witness really do this terrible, terrible beat, and I had it within and and I couldn't tell anybody, and so it was it was definitely eating me up on the inside.
So of course, the coming week we were up north something a place called a support a doing additional training for men. I wasn't during the time. I wasn't aware of the news in the media down in Virginia Beach, but it was certainly eating you up.
On the inside.
So your conscience got the best of you, and you know, you did the right thing after having done the wrong thing and went to the authorities, right. And that's where things get really dicey from everything I've read, where they didn't behave in a straightforward manner when it comes to how they treated you right.
Well, first of all, you know, I did it till the detectives, you know, everything that they asked me. You know, at first I did.
Not deny it.
I denied everything, but it came to a point, especially after they had presented me with the fact that dinner first family is an absolute going to a traumatic and brieving experience and they just want to know how they
want to know whether their daughter is et cetera. And it was through this line of enquirer questioning that you know, I asked to see my superior officer and my spirit off came in and we were alone, and I told him everything that happened, and so he said that he was going to attempt to call the dad officer and to see what we could do as far as illegally or something like that, but nonetheleast fifteen minutes later, when the Texas come in, I told them everything that they
had asked me, and they even asked me if I would help them first draw maps to where Jennifer's Bobby was, which I did, I attempted to do, and then asked me if I would accompany them and they helped find Jennifer's Bobby, so which I did also, and I still my spreit officer in one of the expectives. We went to the location and we separated the search through the woods.
Finally I did find her body. At that point I went back to the base they had prevented Billy Brown with the map that I had drawn, and said, look, your buddy completely dis rolled on you. He told us everything you're going, you're probably gonna get the deaf penalty whatever else. And so at that point that he began with the stories about now I had something part to do with it. He later said that he was going down He's gonna take me with and so he made up a story saying that.
We're both all yeah. I mean, he was obviously furious because he believed that you, who was supposed to be
his protector, had betrayed him. He's going to do what he can to bring you down with him, because, in his twisted way of thinking, you should have covered up this murder and protected him, And so you did what you thought was right albe it after the fact and the consequences started to become very real now from what I've read, Dusty, the detectives made certain promises to you, right that if you help them, you were going to be kind of okay, right.
Yeah, they you know, they did say that laughter, telling Monster officer what had happened, and he spoke to the sextus as will.
Together.
They said, look, just just to answer their questions, it'll be all right. And I said, are you sure you know? And I kind of took it as a direct order from my carey officer. I said, very sure, that's what I should do, and he said, yes, just answer the questions, be all right. I said, okay. Now, they didn't come to me and say anything like, well, you know, for your testimony, will allow some kind of agreement or something like that. Now, they never actually came to me and
said that. Of course, being very ignorant of the criminal justice stem, you know, I didn't know that I would even need a lawyer, or that I should remain time about certain things or what have you. But you know, I willingly asked them to search my vehicle. I mean, I answered their questions truthfully, and I thought that maybe what this would lead to was at some point me on a witnessman explaining as Billie Brown and being charged with her murder, that I would be explaining exactly how
things happened. Maybe I was naive, but I assume that's company work. I certainly didn't assume that they were going to charge me.
After speaking with Billy Brown and him pointing the finger as much Phil, I certainly didn't think want to be George Hurd.
And this is an important point, Dusty, right, because the police spent forty eight hours examining your car, right, so they turned that thing upside down, And yet they never used any of the evidence from the car at trial
because it wasn't going to be favorable to them. And in fact, by not presenting the evidence at trial, they didn't have to turn over to the defense, when in fact, if they had, it would have been definitely in your favor because of the fact that everything you were saying makes true, that the physics of it just don't add up some of the things that they said. It doesn't make sense to add insult to injury, and in a
terrible call it a coincidence. The year that you were convicted, nineteen ninety five was the same year that Virginia abolished parole, which is shocking to my conscience. In a nation where we believe in second chances and we believe in redemption, and we believe in that stuff, the idea that if you were so misfortunate is to be convicted in Virginia nineteen ninety five or later, you are not eligible for parole.
I wouldn't even know what parole meant. I wasn't aware, you know today had just abolished parole in Virginia. I don't think I would have would have paired its time. I wasn't so I gets concerned about the sins I was given. I was concerned about the fact that I was convicted of to charges that I did not commit. Whether it gave me ten years or one hundred years I was convicted of something I didn't commit, and that's that was the travisy.
It's it's I can't I can't really imagine how that could make sense in a society like ours, But it is in fact a reality, and it's your reality. And it's why now everyone is working so hard to help you get clemency or a pardon or a conditional pardon from the governor because of the fact that that is
the only recourse left. Another thing that's of sort of a unique and to me troubling concept is the idea that you only have really one appeal of actual innocence in Virginia, right, And that's something I want to get to Dusty, because, first of all, a crazy thing happened in two thousand and two, right, which is that Billy he had some sort of an awakening and decided to come clean and tell the truth. We're talking two thousand and two, fifteen years ago, right, and he recanted and
admitted that he was the sole murderer. And I think people are listening now and going, well, wait a minute, if that happened, why is Dusty still in prison? Can you explain that scenario?
Yeah, I'll I'll regan explain it. Yes, as he's serving his time in some other prison, I guess some guys had approached them and got them to get into Christianity, and this allowed him to finally relieve this burden that he's been holding for all these years and to confess.
And so that happened again in early two thousands, and here it is fifteen years later, and I'm still sitting here, still sitting here after he's come clean, after he finally said, yeah, everything that Dusty said, that's what happened, and the judge rule that he's credible in that confession. So there was no mechanisms more recently of even getting back into court
with such new evidence. But there was a time later in two thousand and sixty five to seven, and so we finally rid of actual innocence to the appeals court, which ended with well, the appeals court initially overturned my convictions.
They did convict me of the misdemeanor accessory after the fact to the pelony, which indeed I am built, and like you said earlier, that was a maximum sentence of twelve months in jail when they made this ruling and they dropped my charges as the two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, I'll expect to be home within a matter of days or weeks.
This is what makes me insane. And I think anybody listening is like, wait, wait, wait, So your conviction was vacated, right, And then that means to a layman who's not intimately familiar with the law or criminal proceedings, when your conviction is vacated, you have every reasonablieve you're going to go home. Right. They've actually come out and said, okay, we are now acknowledging there is no physical evidence connecting you to this.
None of this stuff adds up, right, not to the murder, Like you said you're guilty of the accessory after the fact, and now you have the actual killer confessing in court under oath. Sounds like a winner. Right, You're going home, except for then the state decided to put it's foot back on your neck, so to speak. Right, And then what happened?
Yeah, so the pins the vacated my conviction and I was expected to be home with a matter of days. The acting Attorney General came forward and said that if he wanted to appeal this decision, and so they appealed it.
And it went back through the appellate court and then on into the later into the Supreme Court in Virginia, and under a new theory that one of the judges of the pelate court created, and the bread of actual innocence is so demanding as they say that the evidence has to be just as substantial as DNA evidence, which
unfortunately there's no DNA evidence in my case. But so one of the judges says, well, although he didn't have anything to do with the murder, and this has been decided by the judges, he didn't have anything to do with the murder, and he didn't restrain the victim. This judge says, well, perhaps a jury could believe that when Dusty walked out of the bar to the parking lot to his calm, that a jury could believe that that
was an abduction by deception. And if a jury believed that and then Jennifer was later killed, regardless of power who was killed her, that I would still be guilty. And the jerk is still found me guilty of both the abduction and the murder. So they created a new theory in my face, there's just not only the asonine, but it was never presented before a jury, and there's no jury in the world that would believe this idea,
especially with all the additional evidence. So under that, because of that and all the semantics of this word restraint, and that's what it comes down to, I'm still in prison because of the semantics of the word restraint. And it's unbelievable. So they overturned my release and they reinstate my conviction. And here it is seven years later and I'm still sitting here for crime but I did not spend.
So they're basically trying to say that they're going back back in time to nineteen ninety five. They're going back inside the nineteen ninety five and trying to come up with a theory that could actually read your mind. Right, They're going back in a time machine and reading your mind and saying, well, this may have been, could have been, would have been something that he might have been thinking of doing. There's no evidence to prove it. How could anybody?
I don't know. It makes me nuts. It's such a bizarre It's such a bizarre thing for a court or a judge to say, as far as I'm concerned, nothink to be.
The legislators recognized that after my case, and they said, you know, this rivaculinniscence is obviously entirely to restrictiveness and to open for interpretation or whatever. So they since I went through this rivactionlinscence, now they've changed the law the wording of arivactionism. Instead of saying could any jurorifying you
with this dies? Now it's more specific and it may sound public, but it's more the thing would a rational juror still find deal with this new evidence and the new word in which I can't go back into the very rationalist just because it's the one shot deal and to I'm left hung out to drial on this whole time.
Well, hopefully not for too long, because you have a lot of really great people on your side now, and you have a governor who cares about these issues and who has shown in actions that he believes in justice, that he believes in fairness, and that he has the courage to do something about these things.
From my perspective, he does seem like a very fair man, and I do have hope. I do think that he will look at my case, and I know and I'm very confident that if he does, if he just looks at my case, then he'll realize that I'm not supposed to be here. I do have that tremendous hope that he will take action in my case.
Well, Dusty, I can tell you that I think that there's a lot of reason to have hope in this current administration we have there because of the fact that you do have such a ground swell of support, and not only that, because of what you've done, the remarkable record of accomplishment that you've had on the inside. And
I want to talk about that. I know that you know you're finding hope in a hopeless place, but I want to paint a picture for the audience of just how grim it is to be in the situation you're in, and then also what you've managed to make out of that experience.
Well, you know, I've got a quote from a guy who knows suffering, and a couple of things have pip me. I don't want to move forward, and it's positive. I can be one of the supporters that I do have, not just my family, but others, you know, total strangers who have reached out. And it gives me a lot of hope, and it gives me a lot of strength to endure. This is what I'm going through in this environment, and it is terrible, it's absolutely But this quote is
one of my favorite quotes. It says that everything be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedom, and that is to choose one's own attitude in any set of circumstance, choose one's own way as a man named Victor Frankel. And you know, I guess I've taken on this, this attitude, you know, that which allowed me to persevere through through bud training to the still training. I reached for this on a daily basis.
Now I put my feet on the ground and said, I have to I have to continue on today, and I have to push forward, and I can't allow this environment to get the best of them. And I want to transcend in spite of where I'm at. And so I've looked to try to do things to try to help out not only the people around me in my environment.
For years, I've helped guys to have struggle with drug addiction or you know, criminal thinking, and I've just kind of made it as the part of my own our character, just trying to help you guys out and to move past, transcend some of these things in which they've been stuck in. And not only that, proposed a dog training program. That's the last institution that I was at. It was luckily it was to prove and we had the dogs come in and for about three years I was able to
be a dog trainer. And I had studied and read up and learned so much about training dogs and I really enjoyed that.
And how does that training program works? The dogs? Are they rescue dogs? And what happens to them after they're trained?
Right?
So these are absolutely rescued dogs. These were abandoned. We worked with a shelter out of Ashville, Virginia called bark Bar Communty and that's the abandon the Jobson and Rescued Canines, a really great organizations and they would bring us six dogs at time and we would have them for three months and we had a total of twelve dog trainers too free stocks, and we would train the dogs. These dogs that were abandoned and you never know what their
history was. They could than maybe beacon or however that they were rescued and we were given the tools to help train these dolls, and then afterward they were adopted and we had an adoption rate of some ninety something percent coming out of there, and we taint them in basic and obedience. It was a really, really great, really
positive program. And from there I had gotten into Me and another guy, we had been talking about different ideas concerning the judicial system when we'd come across this idea
of restorative justice. And after we had studied on it and we had gotten in contact with some restorative justice practitioners, we decided that with our knowledge of this environment in the prison and we knew what was lacking in this environment, we knew some of the things that could help in the rehabilitations of the solo inmates, we constructed a restorative justice program. We're still in the process of kind of fleshing out some of the more detailed aspects of the curriculum.
This is what my passion has been into for the past few years. I've really been concentrating my efforts into this program. And we have people and restore just practitioners from university and other organizations really really like what we have created and they want to help them out a little bit.
Well, you know, it's you know what it sounds like to me, it sounds like you're doing more good, like I said, from this hopeless place then most people on the outside can never even dream of doing. And that's you know, that's to your credit obviously, and it's another reason why it makes sense for you to be granted your freedom after all these years. And if you even allow your mind to go there, what do you want to do? What's your plan?
Well, as you hit upon do I even want to go there? I have been reluctant, especially after seven years ago when I was expecting to get out and I was denied that. It was a very crushing blow and it was difficult to conserve. But yeah, of course I do allow myself to think about once I'm out of here, although I don't dwell upon it because I just I don't know. I just can't go there for so much.
But the more I've gotten into restorat justice, the more I think it's an extremely beneficial philosophy and instead of practices to kind of complement our criminal justice system. And so I really want to pursue that direction, and I think that I could help out. I think I have a lot of school or skills, I guess knowledge for being in here for the last twenty two plus years and observing things from the inside, I feel like I have a great perspective to be able to help out in the restora justice.
That sounds like a great scenario to me, and we'll have benefits to society across the board. I don't know if you're able to talk about it, but it really struck me earlier when you told me that the prison or your pod is on lockdown. What does that mean?
Well, so where I'm at now, we've been on lockdown the last two weeks, which means we're componed to our concrete box, oursel and when we're coming out every seventy two hours to take a shower, they bring the food to our door. And I say our door because I have a fill partner every shows two people for film and just now I've been living for the last two weeks. The moreover, it's pretty much now I've been living for
the last twenty two years. So when we're not on lockdown, you know, I do have a potcum of freedoms that you will you know, every one while I can get outside, take fresh air and work out. I've been rolled into a horticulture class and learn about horticulture I can actually have my fingers and the soil and be able to have the opportunity to plant some feeds and vegetables and so forth.
It's really been a positive thing, really really enjoining the horticulture.
And the last question about the prison experience, what is an average day like when you're not on lockdown, you wake up at five or something, How does how do you get through the day?
Yeah, so they have what they call count procedures in which they have to come through and literally count every individual while they're locked in the shell, about four times or so every day, spread out throughout the day, and during that time you have to be standing up and your life have to be on so they can see that you're alive and will and and that starts certainly
before six o'clock in the morning. So over the last twenty two years, I've been up at five forty five about that time and standing on my feet with the lights on, the fluorescent lights every every morning. That's that's one of the councilors, like I said, that goes throughout the day and the kind of segments the day that in the beating the channel feeding schedule, so the breakfast lunch is center and these kind of condition you and
condition one into the the segments of the day. And so there's a period in the morning after breakfast im which, if we're lucky, we might get outside the recreation and recreation consists.
Of a yard as a track.
I usually go jogging. If I'm able to, I'll go into the weightlifting area and what's some weight and they have a couple other recreational things. The guys be around with the volleyball or the basketball. Otherwise there's not a lot of kind of rehabilitative programs. There are a few, you know, I've been through a lot of those things, but for most guys, I think that, you know, this
place is more of a warehouse humans than anything. It's not really designed for as it's called, corrections necessarily, although there has been, you know, steps towards that direction, of the hopeful steps in that direction. You know, I think that the governor has made some steps in that direction with the re entry ideas and so forth. But you know, unfortunately there's largely the prisons are placed with the warehouse humans. So there's only so much a mind to do in
this environment. So I do utilize my time studying, you know, I spend my money on books and these the library when I can, and so that's kind of how I in my time.
Well, Dusty, all, I can tell you again. I know you know about it, but I hope you can feel it. There's a real wave of support for you among so many people who care and who want to see you released and able to get on with your life and put this nightmare behind you. Of course, Lisa Speeds has been a huge advocate. I think she's a very strong supporter and a very positive and wonderful person. And I
want to turn it over to you. Typically on wrongful conviction, I like to leave the last word open so that you can share any thoughts you have about anything at all with our audience. I'll turn it over to you, Dusty.
Okay, Well, as you mentioned the you know, we're of my supporters at least that you've been certainly has been great, especially in the what I understand in the social media field, I guess and I do have a lot of very strong supporters out here your Virginia. We're total strangers. Some of them have gotten to know personally and they're just just great people. And I'm very fortunate to have these people in my corner and who have recognized my wrongful conviction.
As far as the last word, I'm thankful. I really appreciate mister Bomb for interviewing me. Very thankful that increasingly more people know that I have been wrongfully stick and I hope that people, you know, maybe reach out and talk to somebody. The filmmaker named j. D Weet has created a film called The Target of Opportunity about my case, and I was able to view it one time a few years ago, and I think it encapsulates my situation
putting pretty well. And I just hope that people will take some kind of interest and look into my case. And I know that if anybody does, they will see the travesty and the fact that I've been here for over twenty two years for something I didn't do. I had such a future brought up in the military. I love the military and I was planned to make it a career. I wanted to be in the film teams and want to be one of the best fil team
operators in the country that I could have been. In my world, it would turn upside down and a lots of so many people over one at Brothers Guy, so many people have been destroyed in ruin in a Brevns family, my family, like city, and Billie Brown's family, so many others. But again, I just thank you. I really appreciate opportunities.
Back to the interview, So Dusty, I want to repeat that the name of the film is.
The name of the film is Targetive Opportunity.
Target of Opportunity is the film. I've watched it. I hope other people are listening now will watch it too. And Dusty, I'm sure people are listening. They want to know how can they get involved? What would you advise?
Right?
You know, unfortunately I am largely isolated. You know, I have no internet access. I've never been on the internet. I've never even used the bill phone. However, I think that people could maybe visit. I know that twitters have created a website at pre dusty dot org. And I do know too that there's a Twitter and Instagram account under my name of free dust Turner. I think, and I know that's a very leaf reaching out there that my supporters with I'm sure direct folks into the best
way that they might be able to help. I know that writing to the governor Unitarry mccaullis in Virginia's directly they help out. Other than that, I'm really not sure what else to say about it.
Okay, So once again, that's free. Dusty Turner is the Instagram in the Twitter. The movie is Target of Opportunity. Please learn more about this case and get involved. Follow Dusty on social media and there'll be more information there. You can learn how to how to help, and now is the time to do it, because we're really in the home stretch of this, this effort to free Dusty Turner. You have one in it, Dusty. All I can say
is hang in there. We're coming to get you. Thank you, Dusty for being on the show, and I'll look forward to seeing you on the outside, hopefully sometime very soon. You've been listening to a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction Behind Bars with Dusty Turner. Dusty, thanks again, Thank you sir.
Thank you for using GTL.
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
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