Dustin “Dusty” Turner, whose parole was recently certified after more than three decades in prison, will not receive a release date until he completes a required re-entry program that could keep him incarcerated for at least two more months, according to his advocates.
An update posted Tuesday, January 13, on Turner’s Instagram account said he was transferred days after his parole hearing from Buckingham Correctional Center to another Virginia facility to complete Intensive Re-Entry Programming, or IRP, which has been made a condition of his parole.
Turner’s supporters said the requirement has delayed any timetable for his release despite what they described as a low-risk assessment score.
According to the updated social media post, Turner had been housed at Buckingham under the “Virginia Model,” an incentive-based system emphasizing rehabilitation and accountability, where he lived in a veterans pod and had access to expanded programming and communication. Turner was moved two days after the parole hearing, despite requests that any additional programming be completed at Buckingham, where he was described as “stable and thriving.”
Since the transfer, Turner is now held in a unit described by his advocates as heavily affected by drugs and gangs, with significantly reduced access to communication. The post said the facility’s JPAY kiosk is down indefinitely, leaving Turner without email access and limiting him to one or two phone calls per day. For safety reasons, the update added, he is now housed alone in a cell.
Advocates said they have been told that Turner will not be assigned a release date until he completes IRP, which they said is being fast-tracked and could take at least eight weeks. Under standard timelines, the post said, the programming can last five to six months.
Turner, now in his 50s, was convicted in a 1996 Virginia trial of abducting and killing 21-year-old Jennifer Evans and sentenced to 82 years in prison. He has long maintained that he did not commit the murder, a claim supported in part by later sworn statements from a co-defendant who said he acted alone. Virginia appeals courts ruled that the co-defendant acted independently, but higher courts eventually declined to overturn Turner’s conviction.
Earlier this month, Turner participated in an exclusive interview with The Dallas Express shortly before a January 7 parole hearing that advocates said was the final procedural step to certify an earlier parole vote.
“How I have been able to cope with the challenges of each day after 11,000 plus days in prison for crimes I did not commit is difficult to sum up in so many words,” Turner said in the DX interview. “I expect to unravel and express all of that after my long-overdue release.”
Shortly thereafter, the Virginia Parole Board certified the votes granting parole, though no release date was provided at the time.
Turner’s Instagram account said his legal and advocacy team is actively pressing for clarity and monitoring his conditions, while urging supporters to continue writing letters during what they described as the final phase of his incarceration.
The Virginia Department of Corrections was contacted by DX but did not immediately respond with a comment before publication.
