Every Move You Make

by M. William Phelps

  CHAPTER 88

  On August 9, a Sunday, Evans wrote to Jo Rehm: My mind is screaming.

  So many negative thoughts. So many strange ideas.

  Not much time left.

  Jo was a different person from the naive teenager Evans had known back on First Street in Troy when they were kids. After marrying at twenty, she had been through a divorce. She had worked hard all her life. She lived in Troy once again, but on the opposite side of town: a little house up on a hill, nearly overlooking the Troy-Menands Bridge that spanned the magnificent Hudson River leading into town. She had a dog, a garden, and a caring new husband, Ed, who adored her.

  Evans was, perhaps, still that little boy she’d tried so desperately to shelter from abusive parents.

  Over the next few days, Jo received several letters. In each one, Evans tried to convince her to stop blaming herself for the way things had turned out. Jo was still whipping herself with guilt.

  Pick a date, he wrote, and [you and Doris Sheehan get together and] get rid of things about me: pix, etc, clothes…. Start fresh.

  Oooo man my head is going back and forth so fast….Listen, you shit, that guilt nonsense you’re hammering yourself with has got to stop here and now.

  A few days prior to receiving the letters, Jo had gone to see him. Robbie was there. It turned into a shouting match, Jo explained, between Evans and Robbie. If there wasn’t a glass partition in between them, Jo believed Evans would have strangled his half sister.

  “You couldn’t believe how he was when I would go down there to see him,” Jo recalled. “I would come home crying. Because he was in such…mental…He was just so emotional. Crying and crying. Screaming. He wanted to kill Robbie that day. And would have if he wasn’t restrained.”

  Robbie was supposed to bring Devan, Evans’s nephew. But she didn’t. Evans went “nuts,” yelling and screaming, carrying on about the way she had brought Devan up. He was upset, Jo recalled, because Robbie had given Devan to their mother, Flora Mae, at one time. Evans was scared Flora Mae had sexually abused Devan, Jo heard him yell, because, he said, she had done it to him. Robbie had also, Evans lashed out, went to a local bar the previous night, got drunk and talked about him. A few guards from the jail happened to be present and told Evans about it the next morning.

  But there were also lighter moments, Jo explained. When she was with him alone one day, he held up his shackles, smiled and said, “Hey, you want to see me get out of these?”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes,” Evans said, looking around to see if any of the guards were watching.

  A moment later, as if he were Houdini, Evans was out of his shackles, waving his hands in the air. “See…”

  In what seemed like only seconds later, without Jo even noticing, he was back in the cuffs.

  The way Evans saw it during that second week of August, he wrote that Jo had it all backwards…. [Robbie,] the pig bitch, should have come crying to me, begging forgiveness for being rotten all her life to me….

  He ended the letter with a poem, telling Jo not to come see him anymore.

  It was all over. There was no reason to come back.

  Later that night, however, he changed his mind and got word to Jo to come in on Monday, August 10, and Tuesday, August 11. There were some “last-minute” issues he needed resolved.

  On Monday, when Jo showed up, he informed her that she would have power of attorney in all his affairs.

  “Why, Gary? What’s going on?”

  All the paperwork was done, Evans explained, and in the mail. He said he’d had everything notarized. “I am going to do something on Friday…,” he added in a stoic tone, as serious as he had ever been, Jo recalled.

  “What, Gary?” she asked.

  For the next few minutes, Evans laid out his entire plan, explaining every detail: when, where, how.

  “I want you to stay home on Friday, Jo,” he added near the end of the conversation. “Don’t leave your house.”

  By Wednesday, August 12, Evans was formally charged with eight counts of murder. The DA’s office promised it would decide within 120 days if he would be tried as a capital offender and face the possibility of death by lethal injection.

  On Thursday, August 13, in Little Falls, New York, Evans was charged with Gregory Jouben’s murder. Inside of one week, the DA’s office promised that he would be charged with the murder of Douglas Berry in Watertown.

  In a photograph taken by the Troy Record, Evans was shown walking down the Little Falls Courthouse stairs, smirking. While in court, facing the judge, he “smiled” and, some later said, acted like it was just another routine day in the life of Gary Evans. He had taken on an air of serenity, it seemed.

  Security had been more visible during both court appearances. With the Little Falls City Hall completely evacuated, the street near the courthouse had been cordoned off. There was a shotgun-toting trooper walking out in front of the building and several troopers with police dogs roaming around the area. In both instances, Evans wore leg chains and wrist shackles, both of which were connected to a waist chain. Apparently, the local authorities weren’t taking any chances; Horton’s constant beating of his “he will crawl through a straw” drum had worked.

  The authorities were, obviously, listening.

  Horton decided to visit Evans at Rensselaer County Jail after his court date on August 13. He sensed time was short, but insisted later that Evans had “never told [him] what he was going to do beyond ‘an escape attempt,’” which Horton had reported to all of the appropriate authorities. Because of all the press coverage and the constant bombardment of requests for interviews, and Evans calling his home several times a day, Horton had sent Mary Pat and the kids to Connecticut to get away from it all. Friends and coworkers were badgering Mary Pat for the “inside story,” and she found herself having to retell various news accounts of Jim’s involvement.

  When Horton arrived at the jail, he was given a private room to meet with Evans. The door to the room had a window, and Horton made sure he and Evans were always in full view of the guards. “Not for my protection,” Horton recalled, “but so there would be no question as to any collusion between us.”

  There they were once again in a jail, whispering to each other, just like that first meeting in Cohoes.

  “There were a couple of uniform guards right outside the door trying to hear what we were saying so they could go run to the newspapers, I suspect. They were also curious to see this infamous guy and me—the only person, besides Jo Rehm and Lisa Morris, he would really talk to.”

  Evans was depressed. He began to cry. He said he was scared. With that, Horton saw a vulnerability. Maybe he wants to talk?

  “Tell me about those other murders you mentioned,” Horton threw out, hoping to get Evans to admit to what he believed were four more murders.

  The recent Times Union article, at least in Evans’s mind, had branded him a “monster.” Because of that, he said, “No more. I’m finished giving up bodies.”

  “He was saying things about our friendship and how much he admired me,” Horton said later. “He would laugh and cry in the same breath. It was like he had been sentenced to death already and was saying his good-byes to me.”

  Evans talked about the first time he and Horton had met, mentioning again his belief that it had been fate that had brought them together.

  “I tried being a good listener. Believe it or not, it was sad to me. When I left, we hugged. I told the guards we were done. When Gary walked away, he kept looking back at me, saying things. ‘Take care of [Doris]. Be careful. Thanks for trying.’”

  “Gary,” Horton said at one point, “whatever it is you are going to do, please, please, do not hurt anyone.”

  “Well, Guy, this is it. But don’t worry. I won’t hurt anyone.”

  Horton believed Evans was going to hang himself or slit his wrists. He had warned everyone that he was suicidal and an “extreme” escape risk. Beyond that, he didn’t know what els
e to do.

  Finally, before the steel doors closed behind him, Evans looked back at Horton one last time and mouthed, I love you.

  Outside the jail, Horton sat in his car and began “feeling very strange, not knowing exactly how he should feel.” While Evans, he learned later, was in his cell whimpering.

  “I knew at that moment our relationship had ended and I was relieved by that,” Horton said later. “I also knew that there would never be a trial for Gary…. He was going to see to it that it never came to that. That being said, I also had empathy for him. Even though he was a cold-blooded multiple murderer, we spent a significant amount of time together. By that I mean, most of our time was high intensity and high pressure. Our conversations and time together was never a chitchat, walk-in-the-park type of thing. We were feeling each other out constantly. Spending time with someone, no matter what they are, can cause you to do strange things. In this case, Gary and I were brought together not as a normal friendship would begin, but because we were ‘natural enemies.’ I was, basically, even from 1985, there to take away all of his freedoms. But here we were…friends.”

  Later that same night, Evans sat in his cell and wrote two letters: one to Horton and another addressed to nobody in particular—although it would be perfectly clear within the next twenty-four hours for whom that second letter was meant.

  Horton left the jail and drove to Doris Sheehan’s trailer in upstate New York. Evans had asked him to give Doris some letters he had written to her over the past few weeks.

  While Horton was at Doris’s, talking to her over a beer, the phone rang.

  “Gary was crying and somewhat incoherent,” Horton remembered. “He basically repeated everything he had said to me earlier at the jail. I knew I would never see or hear from him again. When he told me about what he was going to do during the plane ride to Florida if we had taken him along, he said he would have a smile on his face the whole way down…screaming at the world with his middle fingers both up, indicating what he thought of everyone: ‘Fuck you.’”

  CHAPTER 89

  The fog coming off the Hudson River on some mornings is so dense one might feel compelled to reach out and touch it. August 14, 1998, was a Friday. The day had dawned crisp and cool in the Capital District. Weathermen predicted temperatures would climb into the high seventies to low eighties by midday, but the morning air still held a churlish hint that fall was right around the corner.

  Jim Horton awoke early that morning with one thought on his mind: an appointment he had scheduled with DA Kenneth Bruno’s assistant, Nancy Lynn Ferrini, at 10:00 A.M., to discuss the case against Gary Evans. Horton would be a major part of the case, of course. He had spent weeks preparing a large three-ring binder regarding the murder of Tim Rysedorph. Today was the day to hand it off to the DA’s office and begin letting go.

  Evans had a parole hearing scheduled for midmorning in Albany. Because Albany County Jail, in Colonie, had been under construction and Evans had been caught glaring at certain sections of the jail, perhaps looking for a way out, he had been transferred on June 29 to Rensselaer County Jail in downtown Troy, merely blocks from his old home on First Street. Rensselaer County had been remodeled and updated within the past few years. Everyone agreed it was a far more secure facility for a prisoner who was hell-bent on attempting an escape.

  Jo Rehm got up early on August 14. Evans had told her just days before: “Don’t leave your house.” But Jo had an errand to run. She had no choice but to go out.

  Getting dressed, Ed, her husband, asked her why she was up so early.

  “I have to go to the bank…make my car payment.”

  “Yeah…so?”

  “Today is Gary’s last day on earth,” Jo blurted out, choking up. Then she looked down at the floor and tried to figure out why she had said it.

  Not taking her seriously, Ed laughed. “Drive safely.”

  By 9:30 A.M., Jo had finished her errands and was back at home, where she would spend the remainder of the day.

  Two armed U.S. Marshals escorted Evans from the Rensselaer County Jail prisoner staging area to a light brown Chevrolet Astro minivan waiting for him. The van, which the United States Marshal Service (USMS) routinely used as a prisoner transport vehicle, was no different from the millions Chevrolet had sold to families throughout the world.

  Dressed in a fluorescent orange jumpsuit, Evans was handcuffed at his wrists and shackled at the ankles, but the USMS didn’t see the need for an additional waist chain around his hips that would have connected his handcuffs to his shackles. Even more surprising, no one had scanned Evans with a metal detector (or “wand,” as it is called) to see if he was hiding contraband.

  A second vehicle, carrying two additional armed marshals, followed behind the van as it left Rensselaer County en route to Albany.

  Inside the van, a “security cage” made of Plexiglas directly behind the front seat separated Evans, who was alone in the backseat, from the marshals. Moreover, the security cage did not cover the five 3-by-2-feet glass windows, which were locked down with simple plastic clips, on both sides of the vehicle and in back of Evans. Thus, the only material separating Evans from the outside world was a piece of half-inch-thick glass, no different from the glass Chevrolet put in all of its vans.

  According to the USMS, for the past 215 years it has been “protectors and defenders of our freedoms.” Primarily, marshals serve as watchdogs, transporting federal prisoners, protecting federal witnesses and making sure federal jurors and judges are sheltered from the obvious dangers they might face. Marshals work for the U.S. government; there is no association between the USMS and state police.

  “Don’t hurt anyone…. And don’t do it while in state police custody.”

  As of now, Evans was a federal prisoner. The state police had nothing to do with him.

  He was calm as the van began its trek into the U.S. District Court in Albany. It was his third court appearance in as many days.

  The previous day, Thursday, August 13, Randolph Treece, Evans’s court-appointed capital defender, met with him to discuss what was going to happen over the course of the next few weeks. Treece, an astute, tall, good-looking black man with a deep voice, instilled in Evans that he was prepared to do everything in his power to fight the death penalty.

  Treece later said that at some point during the conversation, Evans said, “Thanks. You guys have been really wonderful. But this is all over.”

  At the time, Treece thought Evans meant “something was going to take place in the jail…that he wasn’t going through with the trial….” So the phrase—“this is all over”—seemed to be nothing more than an inane set of frustrating words any prisoner in Evans’s position might dredge up.

  At about 10:16 A.M., Evans was signed into the U.S. Marshal’s Office at the U.S. District Court in Albany. By 10:30, U.S. District Court judge Thomas McAvoy had sentenced Evans to two years in federal prison for violating the terms of his parole. Evans was particularly passive while in court, behaving “strangely,” the judge commented later.

  Nonresponsive. Anxious. Unfocused.

  Evans just wasn’t himself.

  Michael Desautels, Evans’s public defender, had a meeting to attend down the road with Treece and his boss at 11:00 A.M. While Desautels was packing up his briefcase, Evans handed him a package of “legal papers.”

  “There’s a letter in there for Treece,” Evans said. “Make sure he gets it.”

  By 10:38 A.M., Evans was loaded back into the U.S. Marshals’ van for his trip back to Rensselaer County Jail in Troy. It was about a ten-minute ride: a straight shot up Interstate 787, a quick jaunt over the Troy-Menands Bridge into downtown Troy, and onto River Street.

  Again, the same two armed marshals sat in the front seat of the minivan while Evans sat in back alone, and an escort of two armed marshals followed closely behind.

  For the second time that day, Evans wasn’t “wanded” to see if he was carrying any type of contraband. Essentially, he had be
en in and out of court for the past three days without any problems. What could possibly go wrong now?

  As Evans headed back to jail, Mike Desautels ran up the road to make his meeting on time. On his way up the stairs inside the building, Desautels ran into Treece as he was rushing to the same meeting.

  “Listen, Randy,” Desautels said, “Gary gave me a ton of papers. He wants you to have them. He said there’s a letter in there for you. I left them in the car or in my office, but…”

  “No problem, Mike,” Treece said. “It doesn’t seem that important. Let’s get together after the meeting.”

  By 10:45 A.M., Jo Rehm was on the phone talking to her daughter, discussing mundane, domestic issues that often plague life. Midway through the conversation, after her daughter asked, Jo said she was planning on spending the rest of the day at home, doing nothing.

  “I’m just going to mope around and stay in.”

  “Is there anything wrong, Ma?”

  “No. Everything’s okay.”

  CHAPTER 90

  Kevin Kot was a thirty-seven-year-old electrical contractor who lived a rather simple, ordinary suburban life. Married with two kids, Kot loved his job. On Fridays, it was Kot who delivered payroll to the company’s dozens of employees at various job sites throughout the Capital District. Generally speaking, Fridays were Kot’s favorite day of the week.

  By 11:00 A.M., on August 14, Kot was traveling east over the Troy-Menands Bridge—which connects the village of Menands to Troy—on his way to the Emma Willard School, where his company had been working on a job for the past few weeks. The bridge spans some sixty-two feet above the Hudson River waterline. Traffic travels fast over the four-lane bridge, normally fifty-five to sixty miles per hour.