 December 1, 2008 What Happened To Jennifer Evans? • Part 1 - A college student on vacation in Virginia disappears • Part 2 - The SEAL trainees' stories don't add up • Part 3 - The trainees go on trial • Part 4 - A mother's desperate quest to clear her son • Part 5 - One man changes his story, but will it free the other? SEAL trainees’ stories raise suspicions VIRGINIA BEACH Detectives investigating Jennifer Evans' disappearance soon turned their suspicions to two young men training to become Navy SEALs.
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The first to question Dustin about Jennifer's disappearance was an FBI agent helping Virginia Beach police with the case. Four nights after Jennifer vanished, the agent arrived at Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg, where Dustin and Billy were stationed temporarily for training in the use of small arms and hand grenades. Dustin, who was 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, acknowledged having spent time that night with a woman matching Jennifer's description, though he claimed he didn't remember her name. "Jennifer" did not ring a bell. Dustin said he had hoped to leave the club with the woman but that he gave up that idea after Billy insisted on a ride home to their barracks at nearby Little Creek Amphibious Base. Dustin said he left Jennifer at the bar, after promising to call her, and went home alone with Billy. The FBI agent found Dustin "very calm, very collected," and his story believable. A Virginia Beach detective who re-interviewed Dustin believed him, too. But John T. Orr and Al Byrum, two veteran Virginia Beach homicide detectives who quietly had taken over the missing-person case when police began to fear the worst, did not buy his story. There was no way to square Dustin's and Billy's story about leaving the club with the witness's account of Dustin leaving with Jennifer. The SEAL trainees also claimed not to have been drinking that night, but other witnesses said Billy had been almost too drunk to stand. "We just had a hunch about them," Orr, who now is a lieutenant, recalled recently. "If they didn't have anything to hide, why would they lie about this?" Despite a flood of tips, the detectives had no other suspects. A week after Jennifer's disappearance, there was still no trace of her and no evidence a crime had been committed. But Orr felt certain that Jennifer was dead, and the chances of solving the crime diminished every day. . . .
Dustin and Billy had already been questioned twice. They had every right to refuse further cooperation or to hire lawyers. Either move could put them beyond the detectives' reach unless some dramatic new evidence turned up. Orr and Byrum gambled by asking them if they were willing to take polygraph tests. "We were basically just trying to get back into a room," Orr said. "It was a last-ditch effort." To the detectives' relief, Dustin and Billy agreed nine days after Jennifer's disappearance to submit to the tests in the Richmond FBI office, which was halfway between Virginia Beach and Fort A.P. Hill. They arrived accompanied by a Navy chief warrant officer who oversaw the SEAL trainees. For two hours, the detectives pressed Dustin and Billy, who had been trained to resist interrogation by the enemy. Billy held fast to his story and ignored the most probing questions. He seemed unflappable. When left alone for a few minutes, he appeared to nap. But in the other room, Dustin wavered. He changed small parts of his story. He grew less adamant in his denials. Emotion showed on his face. Orr saw an opening. He suggested Dustin had witnessed Jennifer's killing rather than participated in it. Did she die by accident? Orr asked. Did Billy kill her? Sensing "a little bit of conscience kicking in," Orr asked Dustin to think of Jennifer's family, who had come from Georgia to take part in a search that grew more desperate and painful by the day. "Let us get the girl and give her a burial," Orr said. Dustin lowered his head for a moment and said softly, "I'll tell you what you want to know." He said Jennifer's body lay in a wooded area just off Interstate 64 on the Peninsula. He drew a crude map on a yellow legal pad. The detectives told Dustin they suspected Billy had killed Jennifer but that they did not have enough evidence to hold him. Dustin told them Billy had done the killing in Dustin's car. Had Dustin tried to stop him? "It happened so fast," Dustin replied. "I don't know why the hell he killed her." He would say no more. The detectives asked Dustin to take them to Jennifer's body, and he agreed. Dustin rode in the passenger seat of Orr's unmarked car, with the chief warrant officer in the back seat. Dustin directed them to a thickly wooded section of Newport News Park just off I-64, then down a gravel road to woods near an archery range. When they got out of the car around 5 p.m., it was stifling hot. Dustin directed Orr into the woods. Within minutes, the detective found Jennifer's remains. She had not been buried but instead placed in a low spot in the woods and covered hastily with branches and leaves. After nine days of 90-degree heat and rain squalls, she was mostly skeleton, with her skull and arm bones exposed. But it was still possible to tell that her undergarments were askew beneath her clothes. The detectives found few clues in the woods. At dusk, they left the scene to the evidence technicians and drove Dustin back to Fort A.P. Hill. As part of the negotiations to secure Dustin's help, they had promised not to arrest him that day. In fact, Dustin's level of culpability was unclear and growing murkier. Back at the Richmond FBI office, the detectives showed Billy the map Dustin had drawn. His cocksure manner evaporated. He asked what Dustin had said, but they refused to tell him. Billy slumped in his chair, his eyes turning red. After a few minutes, he unspooled his own lurid story. . . .
Billy said he arrived at Dustin's car in the parking lot of The Bayou to find Jennifer unconscious in the front seat. He said he and Dustin drove her to a deserted residential street near the oceanfront with the intention of having sex with her. She awoke and began to struggle as both men held her down, Billy said, and Dustin applied a chokehold that accidentally killed her. Billy said he passed out in the back seat while Dustin drove, then awoke in Newport News Park in time to help Dustin hide the body. Less than an hour later, Billy changed his story. He said Jennifer was already dead when he reached Dustin's car in the nightclub parking lot. He said he chose to help Dustin rather than call the police because "Dusty has been my swim buddy all through [training], and I would do anything to protect him. I love him like a brother." Billy admitted having tried to violate Jennifer's corpse. Suddenly, police had too many conflicting confessions. And Billy's manner disturbed even the seasoned detectives. Charged with murder and handcuffed to a chair after his X-rated confession, Billy was asked if he wanted anything. He replied, "A beer and a babe." • Part 1 - A college student on vacation in Virginia disappears • Part 2 - The SEAL trainees' stories don't add up • Part 3 - The trainees go on trial • Part 4 - A mother's desperate quest to clear her son • Part 5 - One man changes his story, but will it free the other? |
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