Every Move You Make

by M. William Phelps

  By Monday, June 1, 1998, five days after Evans had been captured, word was that he wanted out of Vermont as soon as possible, but the only person he said he wanted to talk to about it was Horton.

  In turn, Horton spoke to Evans over the phone and reiterated his prior advice: “Waive extradition.”

  U.S. Marshals transported Evans back to Albany on Wednesday, June 3. He was placed in custody as a federal prisoner at Albany County Jail—a familiar place he had grown to hate, for obvious reasons, throughout the years. Because of the federal warrants standing against Evans, Horton, a state police officer, still couldn’t mention Falco, Cuomo or Rysedorph. Anything they discussed would have to be personal, and Horton was strongly encouraged to stay the hell away from him.

  Within a day of Evans’s return, Evans called Horton at home, crying. “I need to see you, Guy,” he said.

  “All right. I’ll be over there tomorrow.”

  Horton set it up where he could meet with Evans in a small, empty consultation room, alone.

  Evans was crying as two corrections officers sat him down in a chair next to Horton. The room was noisy, echoey, and cramped. The first thing Horton noticed was how docile and depressed Evans had become. It was quite the change from the cocky, upbeat attitude he espoused in Vermont. The last time Horton had spoken to him, Evans was enthusiastic about the future. He had talked about seeing his nephew, and mentioned a woman in Troy who, he said, had literally raised him.

  “Her name is Jo. I think of her as my mother.”

  But here he was now, unshaven and dirty. He hadn’t showered in days. Had he given up?

  “You smell. Do you know that?” Horton said as Evans sat down.

  “I can’t do this,” he said through tears, “I can’t be locked up anymore. I need to take a fresh-air ride…. I need to spend some time with you.” He was holding a piece of paper, twisting it, folding it, fidgeting with it.

  “We should talk, Gar.”

  “Yeah, yeah…I need to tell you—”

  “No!” Horton said. “Don’t say anything just yet, Gar. There are a few legal matters we have to take care of first.”

  Evans had let two of his fingernails grow unusually long, and had sharpened them into points.

  “What’s up with that?” Horton asked.

  Looking down, sticking out his hand, Evans began whimpering. Horton recalled later that Evans was “like a baby, crying and breathing heavily. I had never seen him like this.”

  “With these,” Evans said, staring at his fingernails, twisting his hand and curling his fingers up to his face, as if he were admiring a recent manicure. “I’m going to slit my wrists.”

  “Come on, Gar. Why would you want to do that?”

  “I can’t do this. I can’t be locked up. I need to tell you—”

  Horton interrupted again. “Whoa! Don’t tell me anything, Gar. Here’s what you have to do.”

  New York had a strange law whereby a suspect with a warrant against him could not waive his right to an attorney and begin confessing to any crimes without an attorney present. It seemed almost ludicrous that a suspect couldn’t just sign a waiver and begin talking, but it was the law. Horton wasn’t about to waste what amounted to twelve years’ worth of work by overlooking it. He was too close. He could feel the energy bleeding out of Evans; he wanted to get things off his chest. He needed to talk. Whatever he was carrying around with him, Horton recognized, was destroying him physically, mentally, emotionally.

  “If there was one part of being human that Gary Evans could never handle,” Horton observed later, “it was stress.”

  So Horton explained, as plainly as he could, the law as it stood in Evans’s case. He told him he would call the district attorney’s office—“Only if you want me to?”—and set it all up on his behalf.

  Evans, still crying, mumbling and fidgeting in his chair, began saying how he believed Horton was the only person he had left, the only person he felt comfortable talking to. He talked about Lisa Morris—“I don’t ever want to see that bitch again”—and how she had set him up. Then he went into a diatribe regarding Horton’s involvement in his Vermont capture. Yet he quickly changed subjects, saying, “You did a good job,” as if it were some sort of game between them that Horton had won.

  Horton didn’t comment. Instead, he listened.

  “Why couldn’t you have let someone else do it, or go work on another case?” Evans wanted to know at one point.

  “Come on, Gar,” Horton said. Then he asked, changing the subject, “What should I do for you?”

  “Do what you have to. Just get it done.”

  Horton got up and began walking toward the door. “Hang on, Gar. Don’t worry about this. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I won’t talk to anyone else,” Evans said. “Just you, Guy.”

  From his cell phone in the parking lot of the jail, Horton called the Albany County District Attorney’s Office—specifically, ADA Paul Clyne. Horton and Clyne had worked together on cases in the past.

  “Hey, Paul. It’s Jim. I’ve got Gary Evans.”

  “I’ve heard, Jim. Good work. Congratulations.”

  “Listen, he wants to talk to me. Obviously, we want to talk to him. But he has a few warrants on him. He’ll waive his rights, but I need a lawyer for him. We need to do it on the record.”

  This was an unprecedented move all around. It shocked Clyne. Here was Evans, suspected of several murders, ready to waive his rights. In effect, he was signing and sealing a death sentence for himself.

  Clyne, a baby-faced man of about five feet eight inches, 140 pounds, wore thick, wired-rimmed glasses. Academic-looking, he could have easily doubled for Ernie Douglas, a character on the hit television show My Three Sons. His father, John, was an Albany County Court judge and was commonly called the “hanging judge,” or “Maximum John,” because of his harsh attitude toward punishing convicted criminals. Clyne, as a prosecutor, had no trouble building the same type of reputation.

  “Paul Clyne is honest to a fault,” a colleague later said. “Criminals try to stay out of the Capital District because of him.”

  Clyne explained to Horton how they would have to go about the process of Evans legally waiving his rights to counsel. There would have to be a court date and a judge. Evans would show up with his lawyer and, basically, against everyone’s advice—with the exception of Horton, of course—waive his Miranda rights in an open courtroom. He would literally be giving Horton and the state police a free pass on questioning him about anything they wanted.

  “Let’s get a judge then,” Horton said. “Like you said, get it on the record. We’ll get him a public defender.”

  “How ’bout Joe McCoy?” Clyne suggested.

  McCoy was a public defender Horton had known for some time. They had always worked well together. Horton would even send McCoy personal business from time to time. As defense attorneys go, cops don’t normally associate with them. But Horton trusted McCoy. There was no need getting some young, crass, eager-to-prove-himself lawyer in Evans’s camp. As Horton saw it, Evans was ready to admit to several murders. He wanted to talk. Horton needed answers. Family members of Tim Rysedorph, especially Caroline Parker, were back in the newspapers bad-mouthing the police, Horton in particular. Horton needed Evans to confess as soon as possible, before the press tagged him some sort of monster and scared him into silence.

  “Joe McCoy sounds good, Jim,” Clyne said.

  “I’ll call him.”

  “What do you expect to get out of Evans, anyway?” Clyne wanted to know.

  “I really don’t know,” Horton said. “Anything I can, I guess.”

  When Horton contacted McCoy by phone, he explained the predicament Evans was in, and asked him if he was interested in the case. McCoy, at first, couldn’t believe Evans was prepared to waive his rights. It was unheard of. No suspect in his right mind would want to waive his right to an attorney, sit down with a cop and begin admitting to murdering several people. The end resu
lt would not be anything that would ever help the suspect.

  Despite an overflowing amount of cases on his plate already, McCoy agreed to represent Evans.

  On Friday morning, June 19, 1998, in front of Judge Thomas Breslin, who himself couldn’t believe what Evans wanted to do, along with district attorneys Paul Clyne and Sol Greenberg, and public defenders Eugene Devine and Joe McCoy, Evans was brought before Albany County Court. Wearing a lime green jumpsuit, he was shackled from his wrists to his waist to his ankles. He looked tired and beaten down—empty. He had obviously been crying for much of the time he was back in the Capital District. The large bags under the lower portion of his eyelids looked as if they had been painted on with mascara. He sounded weak, frail and confused.

  What no one knew at the time was that despite his gutless approach to saving himself and his unreserved “give up on life” attitude, Evans had a get-out-of-jail-free card: a handcuff key, either inside his stomach as he stood before Judge Breslin, or hidden somewhere in his cell.

  Right off the bat, the judge asked Evans if he understood what he was doing. “It has been brought to my attention that you have sought an opportunity to speak to the New York State Police. Is that correct?”

  In a whisper, Evans said, “Yes, sir.”

  Horton sat in the back of the courtroom by himself, weighing what was taking place. Like a lot of people in the courtroom that day, he couldn’t understand why Evans was so eager to waive his rights, but he wasn’t going to argue with him about it.

  “He didn’t have to do it,” Horton said later. “It was kind of surreal. He could have said nothing—and we would have never found anyone. But for some reason—which, of course, I, along with everyone else, would find out soon enough—he decided to make it easy for me.”

  The judge then stressed the importance of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and how it was designed to protect people in Evans’s position. He wanted Evans to understand completely what he was doing.

  “Yes…yes, sir,” Evans responded with assertion, as if he just wanted to get the proceedings over.

  To clarify what role Evans would play in the coming weeks and months as he began to talk to the state police, as he so desperately wanted, the judge asked, “Just to put it into context, this isn’t…‘I want you to question me, members of the New York State Police.’ [But,] ‘I want to speak to you.’ Is that a fair statement?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The judge sat back, looked down at the paperwork in front of him and thought for a moment about what was taking place. For everyone involved, this was the first time they had ever experienced such a thing.

  McCoy had one demand. He wanted the court to understand he wasn’t going to be accompanying Evans, per Evans’s request, during his talks with, as McCoy put it, “Investigator Horton.” But if Horton eventually wanted Evans to sign a statement, McCoy wanted the court to recognize that it should first be faxed to him for review before Evans actually signed it.

  “You’re saying to me, just so that’s clear, too,” Breslin said, looking up at Evans, “that you”—he looked directly into Evans’s eyes—“want to speak to members of the New York State Police in your attorney’s absence?”

  “Right.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With the legal wrangling out of the way, Horton now had the go-ahead to interrogate Evans about anything he wanted.

  Still sitting in the courtroom as Evans was brought back to a holding cell in the same building, Horton began pondering what the next couple of days were going to be like. Once they got going, he expected a long interview session with Evans. Not only would Evans give up Rysedorph, Cuomo and Falco, Horton believed, but probably every other crime he’d ever committed. In the end, what mattered most to Horton was that, for the first time, he was going to hear what had happened to Rysedorph, Falco and Cuomo.

  The truth was coming. He could feel it.

  Getting up from where he sat in the courtroom, Horton felt a sense of achievement wash over him as he realized that, besides himself, family members of Rysedorph, Cuomo and Falco were finally going to get some answers after all this time. As an added bonus, the press, once he gave them one last good helping of meat to feed on, would get off his back. The Evans saga would be wrapped up, and he could move on to other cases that demanded the time and energy Evans had sapped out of him all these years.

  CHAPTER 31

  For cops, an unsurprising facet of dealing with criminals on a daily basis is the unpredictability of the people who associate with them and the darkly arousing attraction some of those people harbor.

  By the end of June, articles in the local newspapers were speculating that Evans was responsible for not one or two murders, but three. If this was true, and he had killed these men over a period of fourteen years, he was considered, by sheer definition, a serial killer—a brand that would bring a fleeting moment of fame to him almost immediately. Soon, letters from well-wishers—mostly females—came pouring into the jail as though it were Christmas and Evans was Santa Claus.

  There was one particular letter that set Evans off on a tangent. It was from a young woman he had dated briefly in 1988. Ten years later, here she was writing to say it had “surprised” her to see his name and photo in the newspaper, but—at the same time—seeing his face had stirred up old memories.

  I have to admit, you cross my mind every now and again, she wrote.

  They had met at a pool hall. The woman, married at the time, complained she was being abused by her husband. Being a young mother, she told Evans it was difficult to leave the man because he provided for her and the kids.

  Evans’s suggestion? A night of sex with him.

  They had shared, the woman wrote, a common love for painting, being creative, the arts and the Allman Brothers Band. Her fondest memory was of spending a weekend with Evans in Latham at Cocco’s Bar. They laughed. They joked. They played pool. They had “marathon sex.” Life was good. Exciting. She had forgotten about her abusive husband.

  A week or so after that, Evans told her he didn’t want to see her anymore. She had become a number on a long list of females he had used over the years specifically for sex.

  In her letter, she went on to explain how it had hurt her when he told her he didn’t want to see her again. At the same time, though, she wanted to let him know now—ten years later—that she had always thought he was “kind, gentle, understanding, and a great listener.” Because of the time they had spent together, the woman wrote, she ultimately developed the courage to leave her abusive husband and had been totally indebted to Evans all these years for giving her the guts to do it.

  At the bottom of the letter, in large black scribbling, Evans had written, Leave me alone! I love [Doris Sheehan]. Then he put the letter back in the envelope and wrote, Return to sender on the front. He had told Horton Sheehan was the only woman he had ever truly loved.

  The message never reached the woman, however, because it was intercepted by Horton.

  Doris Sheehan, a woman Evans had professed his love for throughout the past ten years or more, was someone Horton hadn’t thought could help him much. “I considered her just another one of Gary’s bimbos…. He had lots of them.”

  Horton and Evans had discussed Doris, and it seemed that whenever Evans ended up in jail, the one person he worried most about disappointing was Doris. In several of the letters he had written to Horton, Evans was always firm about his instructions for contacting Doris.

  Tell her I love her, he wrote once. Tell her not to worry about me. She is the only one I have ever loved.

  Inside the backpack the Bureau found on Evans in Vermont were a half-dozen Polaroid photographs of Doris. Sitting clothed, in various positions on a porch and next to a tree, her long mane of brown hair brushing over her shoulders and rather large breasts, Doris smiled for Evans as he photographed her. She appeared happy and seductive, relishing the attention Evans was giving her
.

  In the grand scheme of things, as Horton paced the hallway outside Evans’s holding cell in Albany County Court, waiting for the marshals to release him, he thought about how he could use Doris as an asset. Bringing up Lisa Morris, Horton knew, was out of the question; she was the scapegoat, the person Evans could place the blame on for being captured. But Doris…she could be a bargaining tool; someone Horton could use to make Evans feel more comfortable.

  Taking out his cell phone, Horton dialed his office and told Chuck DeLuca to find out where Doris Sheehan was. “I’m going to need her today.”

  The purpose behind interrogating Evans was to get him to give up Falco, Cuomo and Rysedorph. There was, really, no other reason to speak to him, at least not right away. As an experienced interrogator and former polygraphist, Horton knew he had to provide friendship and comfort to Evans if he expected to get anything out of him. He couldn’t just sit him down and begin pressuring him to talk. Evans needed to direct the interview. It was the only way.

  Only a few hours after Evans had waived his Miranda rights in front of Judge Breslin, a pair of marshals brought him out and indicated to Horton that he could take him.

  Everyone involved, including Horton’s own investigators, thought he was crazy for transporting Evans by himself. They were concerned Evans might try something. Branded an escape risk most of his criminal life, Evans was now facing the most serious time of his career. What did he have to lose?

  “I wasn’t worried, for the most part,” Horton said later. “Gary had always said he would never do anything to hurt my career, and I trusted him, as he also trusted me.”

  Still, it wasn’t such a bad idea to bring along someone else for the ride to Troop G in Loudonville, which was about fifteen minutes away.

  During the ride, Evans sat in the backseat with one of Horton’s investigators while Horton drove. Staring out the window, watching freedom pass him by, Evans whimpered and sulked, as if he were a child on his way to reform school.