Every Move You Make

by M. William Phelps

  “Stop the car,” Evans said. He looked up into the forest near Shyne Road, where the power lines seemed to run into the woods forever. Across the street was a stream. Evans said he used to swim in it as a kid. He had even taken some of the women he’d dated to the riverbed, he mumbled to Horton, to “get laid and look at the stars.”

  The incline going up the hill in between Shyne Road and Route 2 was as steep as it could be without it being a wall of rocks. There was a dirt road heading up the hill, but anything other than maybe a dirt bike would have trouble making the trip.

  Horton took the shackles off Evans so he could walk up the hill without any trouble. As Evans, Horton, Murray and DeLuca began working their way up the hill, Evans took off his shirt.

  “Where?” Horton wanted to know.

  “Up there…past the crest in the hill,” Evans said. He seemed sure of himself. It had only been about eight months since he’d murdered and buried Tim Rysedorph.

  “Shallow grave, right, Gar?” Horton asked.

  “Graves,” Evans said.

  Jesus.

  While walking up the hill, Evans launched into a fit of rage. He began breathing heavily and pounding on his chest, screaming and hyperventilating.

  At the top of the hill, he led everyone to the right, into the woods. Since it was June, the brush was thick and green, just beginning to come in. “Over here,” Evans said, walking deep into the brush, his back and chest getting scraped by prickers and tree branches.

  Back down on the street, the team of forensic specialists gathered their shovels and bags, toolboxes and equipment, ready to head up.

  “Why here?” Horton asked.

  “I like this place.”

  “Did you mark the grave?”

  Evans was scanning the ground, looking for the spot, but couldn’t find it.

  After about twenty minutes, Chuck DeLuca, who had been roaming around the area by himself, feeling the ground with the bottom of his shoes for a soft spot, said, “Over here, Jim.”

  Evans and Horton were about fifty yards away. “Is that it, Gar?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  The location where DeLuca stood wasn’t as grown in as the rest of the area. DeLuca and Murray, along with several other members of the Bureau who had since joined them, began excavating an area about ten by ten.

  Evans just stood, staring blankly as they began digging.

  “We found something,” somebody said within minutes. It looked like a foot wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and taped.

  Horton grabbed Evans by the arm and retreated back about twenty yards. He didn’t want Evans to see anything. Horton had done this before. He knew Evans would flip out at the sight of his own work. He needed to know where Falco and Cuomo were buried. If Evans snapped, he might stop talking.

  While Evans was putting his T-shirt back on, he whispered, “I’m going to take off, Guy, and…run. I want you to shoot me in the back. You’ll be the hero.”

  “Are you crazy? First of all,” Horton said softly, putting his arm around Evans’s shoulder, “I’ll miss you, Gar. No, no, no. You are not running away. I am not killing you.”

  “Come on, Guy. It’ll be the perfect end to all of this bullshit.”

  “No, Gar. We still have more work to do. Let’s play this out. You’re doing a good thing.”

  As the crew began the horrific task of unearthing Tim Rysedorph’s body parts, Horton handcuffed himself to Evans and started walking back down the hill.

  “I wasn’t taking any chances after he told me he wanted to run away,” Horton recalled later. “He was desperate at that point.”

  Horton then began questioning Evans about how and where he had killed Rysedorph. Evans said he did it across the street by the river. He said they argued. He said he talked Tim into getting out of the car and then shot him in the head and cut his body up in the woods by the river.

  “Show me where,” Horton said.

  “Right there,” Evans pointed. There was a narrow patch of road leading down toward the river. Looking at it, Horton became suspicious of the story right away.

  “Exactly where?” Horton wanted to know. “Show me the exact spot you shot him and where you cut him up.”

  Evans first said it was about fifty yards in, and then he changed his story and said it was closer to the river.

  “I knew he was lying to me,” Horton said later, “but I had no idea why. At that point, there was no reason to.”

  After Horton got Evans to admit he was lying, and that he had killed Tim at the Spare Room II storage facility, he asked him why he had cut him up.

  “You walked up that hill,” Evans said.

  “So you planned this ahead of time?”

  Evans didn’t answer.

  “What did you do with the chain saw?”

  “I threw it in the river [Hudson].”

  “Great…let’s go. You can show us where.”

  Horton ended up sending out a team of divers to search the area where Evans claimed he had tossed the chain saw into the Hudson, but they turned up nothing after a lengthy search.

  CHAPTER 83

  By June 23, 1998, the local press had latched onto the story. The Troy Record, a newspaper that had followed Evans’s career in crime, ran banner headlines: GRUESOME DISCOVERY IN BRUNSWICK: Saratoga Man’s Death Ruled a Homicide; Friend a Suspect.

  This just made things more difficult for Horton, who still had a tremendous amount of work to do with Evans. The media frenzy that ensued became almost unbearable for Horton and the Bureau as they continued to try to get Evans to admit where he had buried Michael Falco and Damien Cuomo. Rumors abounded that he had killed men in Seattle and Florida. Horton was fielding inquiries from law enforcement around the country—everyone, it seemed, had an unsolved murder that Evans could be responsible for.

  Evans had said something to Horton that had bothered Horton: “There are others….”

  Throughout the past few days, as Horton stopped at Albany County Jail to visit Evans and check on him, he would plant the notion that there would come a time when they would have to discuss what he had meant by “others.”

  Since news of Tim’s murder had broken, Horton and Evans had become local celebrities. All the newspapers and television stations were running nonstop coverage. Wherever Horton went, he was recognized. Evans, who was spending most of his time in Albany County Jail, was also gaining national serial killer celebrity status, like Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy.

  “I realized quite quickly that all this did was massage Gary’s ego,” Horton later recalled. “He had been severely depressed since giving up Timmy’s body. But now that his face and name were front-page news, he lightened up.”

  Horton viewed Evans’s newfound celebrity as a way to further his agenda. He had been stopping by to see Evans two, three, even four times a day, asking him if he needed anything.

  “How are you being treated?”

  It was “Mr. Horton” now when he walked into the jail. The guards were “very accommodating.” Whatever Horton and Evans needed, they got. No questions asked.

  “When you think about the gravity of the situation—we’re talking about a serial murderer,” Horton said, “it makes you understand how the media turns these guys into celebrities. Gary saw it coming.”

  Evans was in “protective lockdown.” He was considered a high-risk inmate. When Horton stopped by the jail to see him on June 24, Evans indicated that he wanted to go outside and talk.

  Horton would arrive at the jail, go see Evans and be asked on the way out by media and guards: “Did you get another body out of him today?” It had become rather surreal, as if people were keeping score.

  During one afternoon, Horton brought Evans out to the basketball court in the jail’s courtyard. It was a crisp, sunny day. They were alone. “Listen, Gar,” Horton said, “you told me ‘two others.’ What did you mean by that?”

  “You mean you didn’t find them?”

  “There are hundreds of
open homicides. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “West! Start looking west.”

  “Come on…don’t screw me around.”

  After Evans had a few moments of psychotic jubilation over the fact that he was still in charge, he gave Horton details that only he could have known about the murders of jewelry shop owners Douglas Berry and Gregory Jouben. Cops run the risk of sometimes accepting that a perpetrator will take responsibility for crimes he did not commit just to bask in the glory. Because of that, cops need details of the crimes only the killer knows.

  When Evans finished giving Horton two statements—regarding Berry and Jouben—he realized that there was no way Evans could have been lying; the details, matched up against the police reports from those murders, had striking consistencies.

  Later that day, Evans admitted murdering Damien Cuomo and agreed to show Horton where Damien’s body was buried.

  So again, there they were in Horton’s car en route to find another body. As they made their way into Troy, near Damien Cuomo’s parents’ house and the apartment Damien had shared with Lisa Morris, Horton asked him if he had been back to the scene since burying Cuomo.

  “Nope,” Evans said stoically. His moods fluctuated. He was up. Then down. Talkative. Then quiet. It was all part of what was going on inside his head. At times, Horton swore, it was as if the entire situation weren’t real to Evans. He began talking about a television movie and which actor was best suited to play him. He asked Horton who he wanted to play his role. Horton didn’t feed into it, but instead kept directing Evans back to what was important.

  Tropical heat had invaded the Albany region over the past few days. By midafternoon, as Horton, Evans and the forensic crew reached the wooded area where Damien was buried, the humidity was brutal.

  “I cut a tree down,” Evans said, “to mark the area. But it all looks so different now up here.”

  It had been nearly ten years since Evans had murdered Damien. The entire area had grown in. What were weeds back then were now small trees.

  Horton handcuffed himself to Evans as they made their way through the brush.

  “So you cut down a tree…. Well, the stump should still be here somewhere,” Horton offered. No sooner had he said it, then they located a tree that had been lopped off near the base of its trunk. “This has to be it.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Come on, how many trees do you see cut down around here?”

  “I’m not sure, Guy.”

  “You’re supposed to be an outdoorsman…. This tree is cut off. How many others do you see like it around here?”

  Evans again said he wasn’t sure.

  “Let’s just pretend, then, that this is it.”

  “Sixty paces straight ahead,” Evans said in a near whisper.

  Horton and Evans counted the sixty paces. “Start digging here,” Horton yelled while pointing to the ground below his feet.

  “Topsoil,” Evans said. “When you find empty white bags of topsoil, you’ve found Damien.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Bureau investigators located a piece of rope tied in a knot and two empty bags of topsoil from a local hardware store. A minute later, digging farther, they located an upside-down sneaker.

  It was Damien Cuomo’s right foot.

  Walking back to the car with Evans as the Bureau finished digging up the remains of Damien Cuomo, Horton thought, That poor bastard…he knew he was going to die long before he was murdered. He looked at Evans, who smirked sarcastically as they walked. You cold son of a bitch. I never really knew how sick you were.

  Horton, Chuck “Sully” Sullivan and Evans left the scene as the CSI unit began its tedious excavation process. Evans wanted a copy of the local newspapers and something to eat. Horton knew it would be a long day. He still had to get Evans to write an official statement regarding the events of the day. There was a Cumberland Farms convenience store right down the street.

  “Let’s stop here,” Horton said, pulling into the parking lot. He sent Sully into the store. “Get him some orange juice, the newspapers, some chocolate-chip cookies.”

  “Thanks, Guy,” Evans said from the backseat.

  With Sully inside the store, Horton leaned over the front seat and, handing Evans his cell phone, said, “Call Lisa Morris.”

  Evans froze. What?

  “Call Lisa and tell her what you did to her boyfriend, the father of her child. You’ve led her on for all these years…making her believe Damien was still alive. I want you to tell her what you did. You owe her that much!”

  Evans took the phone, sat back, stared at it and started crying.

  “Call her!”

  Evans slowly dialed the number.

  “Lisa? That you?”

  Lisa Morris’s life, by June 1998, had spiraled out of control. She was drinking heavily, abusing hard drugs and spending much of her time in local bars. She hadn’t worked in quite some time. Befriending Horton in 1997 and setting up Evans for his fall in Vermont had indeed taken its toll. She had loved Evans. She believed in her heart Damien had run out on her and Christina. Even with the latest news coverage, she still didn’t want to believe Evans had killed Damien.

  “I was grief stricken about the whole thing,” Lisa said later. “Gary was my best friend. I had lost the love of my life when Damien disappeared. Gary filled that role. Regardless of what people have said, [Gary] was good for Christina. He loved her. When I saw in the newspaper that he was giving up bodies, I couldn’t believe what they were saying about him.”

  Crying, Evans said, “I’m sorry….”

  “What do you mean, you’re ‘sorry’?” Lisa asked.

  “I gotta do this favor for these guys…. I didn’t mean to do this to you,” Evans said.

  In the end, Evans refused to tell Lisa that he had killed Damien.

  “But I knew,” she recalled later.

  Horton sat there, watching, listening.

  Lisa finally said, “Put Jim back on the phone.”

  Evans handed Horton the phone and stared out the window.

  Lisa couldn’t speak when Horton got on the phone.

  “I’m very sorry, Lisa. I am,” Horton said. “I’ll call you later.”

  CHAPTER 84

  Dealing with Gary Evans over the past week had been exhausting for Jim Horton, physically and mentally. Evans had given up four bodies. He was manic: up one minute, down the next. He demanded Horton visit him in jail every day. In addition, Lisa Morris was now calling and asking questions that Horton didn’t have answers to.

  And then there was the media.

  “The press was on me like crazy,” Horton said later. “About five or six reporters suddenly wanted to be my best friends. Both television and print. Every day they wanted to talk directly to me to see what Gary had said.”

  Horton couldn’t even go to the jails Evans was being shuffled in between, he said, without reporters knowing about it. He believed each jail had a guard feeding the media information about his movements.

  “I needed a break from Gary Evans.”

  Ever since Horton had worked himself into a bout with spinal meningitis back in the late ’80s, he had reassessed his life. He couldn’t work seventeen-, eighteen-, twenty-four-hour days without paying a price. He was forty-three years old now—same as Evans. The spinal meningitis had knocked him down for months. Doctors said a lot of it was due to the rigorous work schedule he kept.

  This time, he wasn’t going to let the job—more specifically, Evans—ruin his health. He needed to stay focused and be ready when Evans was willing to talk about other murders. In all likelihood, Tim Rysedorph, Damien Cuomo, Gregory Jouben and Douglas Berry were only the beginning. There was no telling how many more bodies would turn up.

  By June 24, a Wednesday, Horton had set two goals: One, he wanted Evans to give up Michael Falco; and two, he needed a long weekend away with his wife and children to regroup.

  After a long discussion with Evans later that day, Evans
admitted to Horton that he had killed Michael Falco and buried his body in Florida.

  “Where?” Horton wanted to know.

  “Near my sister’s house,” Evans said, “in Lake Worth.”

  Horton immediately contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and informed them that the Bureau needed aerial photographs of an area in Lake Worth near a golf course. Evans told Horton he could pick out the spot where Falco was buried but, “I would rather you take me there so I can show you myself. I’m not positive I can find it on a map.”

  An hour or so later, Horton went back and told Evans he had spoken to his boss about flying him down to Florida. “Having you travel in any fashion,” Horton said, “is out of the question. They just won’t okay it. Sorry, Gar. But I can’t do anything this time.”

  Evans was an escape risk. He had been telling the people who were visiting him that he was going to escape. He was asking for razor blades. Nobody knew it, but he had swallowed a handcuff key when he was taken into custody in Vermont and had been recycling it while in jail. Throughout his years of incarceration, Evans had sometimes slept with his index finger lodged in his right nostril for the purpose of forging a tunnel in his sinus where he could hide a handcuff key.

  “I didn’t even broach the subject with my boss of Gary flying to Florida,” Horton recalled later. “But I lied to Gary and told him he had said no. Not that I didn’t trust Gary to a point, but something told me not to move him.”

  A short while later, when Horton stopped in to see Evans, he found out how accurate his instincts were. Evans said, “I would have jumped out of the plane on the way back from Florida.”

  “We would have been in a jet. I would have been sucked out as well.”

  Evans shrugged his shoulders.

  Horton assigned Sully to go to Florida with the Bureau’s ID Unit to oversee the search and excavation of Michael Falco’s body. But before Sully could leave, Horton wanted to introduce him to Evans so Evans could show Sully, using aerial photographs, where Falco was buried. Horton had made plans to leave for the weekend. He wasn’t breaking them.