Dusty Turner: The Navy SEAL Wrongfully Convicted for 31 Years. Prison, Parole, and the Fight for Exoneration

Dusty, it is so great to finally have you on my show.

It is such an honor to meet you in person, and I'm so excited for this conversation.

Well, thank you, Rachel, and I'm excited to be here.

Thank you.

Um, so listen, uh, people that started this episode have heard a whole, um, long, uh, opening about what has happened, so I, I wanna rewind and hear it from you.

Um, before we discuss what happened to you, though, I'd, I'd love to hear from you, um, about who Jennifer Evans was as you have come to understand her.

So, uh, Jennifer, um...

I'll say a couple things real quick.

Um, first of all, Jennifer's loved ones, um, I think, prefers that, um, that I speak about her kind of to a minimum.

Okay.

However, uh, she is very much, uh, obviously a, a, a huge part of, of this story, my story, and, um, what happened to her is nothing less than, you know, tragic and, and really catastrophic into her family.

So without, um, uh, kind of violating what, um, her loved ones would, would want from me or not want from me, um, I would just say that, uh, you know, Jennifer was, uh, obviously a very lovely young lady, and she had the world in front of her, and what happened to her was extremely tragic and horrific.

And, um, and I'm sure that her family just, uh, still to this day, just misses her incredibly, and, and it's a very sad situation.

Okay, I can c- completely understand your answer, and I, and I respect that.

So can we talk about who you were growing up? Um, tell me a little bit about where you were born, your childhood, and, and how you got into wanting to get into the military when you were younger.

Uh, yeah, I grew up in, in the Midwest, in Bloomington, Indiana.

And, um, I was into a lot of sports growing up, and I had a lot of family members who were in the military Um, my father and my stepfather were, uh, Vietnam veterans.

Uh, my older brother was in the Navy and, uh, he kind of encouraged me a bit to follow him, um, into the Navy.

But I was kind of destined for the military, I believe.

I could have, I could have went on to, um, scholarships through swimming and, and, um, going into, into the, into college.

But, um, I was really, I just wanted to serve.

I wanted to serve the country, and what I understood at the time was the best way to do that was in the, uh, in the military.

So, um, initially, I wanted to be a diver.

I was into scuba diving when I was young, and I wanted to be a diver with the Navy.

And as I got closer and closer to joining, I, I kind of, uh, set my sights on becoming a, a US Navy Seal.