Every Move You Make

by M. William Phelps

  Driving in the far right lane—two lanes head east, two west—Kot saw a “very nondescript Astro van” coming up from behind him on the left side, in the left lane. He took notice of the van only because he had one just like it sitting in his driveway at home.

  As the van crept up alongside his Pontiac Firebird, a fine mist of what Kot initially thought were “sand pebbles” began bouncing off his front windshield. Originally, it sounded to Kot as if he had been in back of a state plow truck dropping sand and salt on the roads during winter. But as the van passed, Kot’s vision was quickly shrouded as he realized that what at first he thought to be sand pebbles was actually shards of glass pelting his windshield.

  “I was thinking,” Kot said later, “it was stuff falling from the top of the bridge.” The bridge was old. It needed work.

  Yet, as quickly as Kot thought that the bridge was falling apart, he looked to his left and saw the Astro van lock up its brakes and begin to skid sideways into his lane. At that point, he saw what appeared to be an “orange jumpsuit coming out of the side window of the van.”

  What the hell?

  It was Evans. He had kicked out the side window of the van and was climbing out from it.

  Kot then slammed on his brakes and began to skid.

  In back of the van was the second USMS vehicle, a Ford Expedition; it, too, locked up its brakes and went into a tailspin.

  They were about three-quarters of the way over the bridge.

  As Evans kicked out the passenger-side window and jumped out, he got hung up for a moment on the broken glass and dangled there, his feet hitting the ground as the van continued skidding to a stop.

  Unnerved by what he was witnessing, Kot watched as Evans, with the finesse of a stuntman, then took a headfirst dive onto the pavement after shimmying himself free from the window and rolled on the tar with the momentum of the van.

  “For a noticeable amount of time,” Kot said, “he was struggling to get loose. He hit the pavement and just started tumbling.”

  With the tires squealing and Kot’s Pontiac beginning to come to a stop, he almost hit Evans as he bounced off the tar, rolled a few times and popped up off the ground and onto his feet as if the scene had been scripted for him.

  As Evans got up off the ground, he hopped over the guard-rail and made it onto the sidewalk that ran along the bridge on both sides. Once there, he made a mad dash, Kot insisted, for the center of the bridge.

  After racing out of the vehicle, the two marshals in the Expedition in back of Kot’s Pontiac headed Evans off from one side of the bridge, while the two marshals in the van, after jumping out and running, trailed him from behind.

  When Evans saw that he was cornered and had nowhere left to run, he glanced quickly back at the marshals coming up from behind, then turned and looked at the marshals in front of him.

  There’s no way out.

  Faced with being bottled in on both sides and traffic completely stopped, Evans looked up toward the sky, bowed his head and then tucked his body underneath the second guard-rail—a solid piece of metal running along the outer side of the sidewalk.

  With sixty-two feet between him and the water below, Evans jumped.

  CHAPTER 91

  Kevin Kot, after watching Evans run by his car and head for the middle of the bridge, immediately dialed 911 from his cell phone. The four marshals, realizing what Evans had done, stood by the side of Kot’s car staring over the side of the bridge.

  Holy shit.

  “I’m on the Troy-Menands Bridge…,” Kot said hurriedly, “lawmen have an escaped prisoner who went over the side of the bridge.”

  “You’re where?” the startled dispatcher asked. “Can you repeat that?”

  Looking at the marshals, Kot couldn’t understand why they were so calm. There was a boat heading upriver toward the exact spot where Evans had jumped. The marshals weren’t dashing for the lower part of the bridge or drawing their weapons.

  “I thought it was some master plan,” Kot said later. “Your mind does crazy things. I saw the boat, [Evans] had jumped, and I was thinking…‘They’re just going to let him get away?’”

  At 11:07 A.M., Jo Rehm was still on the phone with her daughter. During the conversation, Jo heard a commotion going on outside her home and told her daughter to hang on for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jo walked out her front door, which basically overlooked the Troy-Menands Bridge, and heard what sounded to her like “thousands” of sirens blaring and wailing and heading for the bridge.

  “I’ll call you back later,” she told her daughter in a whisper. “I have to go.”

  A minute later, as Jo stood near her garden, a helicopter came sweeping over her house so close, she remembered later, she felt as if she could have reached up and grabbed hold of it.

  Standing, looking toward the bridge, she placed her hands over her mouth and started crying.

  Chaos reigned supreme back at the bridge as cops, fire trucks, U.S. Marshals, local and state police, countless other law enforcement, rescue personnel and media rushed to the scene: Gary Evans had escaped. He’s on the loose.

  Down below the bridge, near the Troy side of the banks of the Hudson, Evans lay in about twelve inches of water, approximately ten feet from shore.

  While Horton was meeting with Nancy Lynn Ferrini, discussing the Tim Rysedorph murder, his pager went off. 911, it said on the screen—which meant big trouble.

  “Excuse me one minute, Nancy,” Horton said. At that moment, the phones in the DA’s office began screaming. People started shuffling about, huddling in corners, talking, scrambling around as if the governor had called an air raid.

  Horton found an empty room and called Troop G. Within moments, he had administrative Bureau senior investigator John Caulfield on the phone.

  “What’s up?”

  “As far as I know,” John said, “Gary is…”

  I fucking knew it! Horton thought.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Well, apparently, he escaped and jumped off the Troy-Menands Bridge.”

  Horton dropped the phone and ran toward the door. Nancy Lynn asked if she could go with him.

  “Yeah, but let’s go right now!”

  Gary Evans, his face bloodied from an incredible sixty-two-foot fall, lay faceup and still as any one of the thousands of stones in the water around him.

  He was dead.

  Oddly, he had two sets of handcuffs attached to his hands: one connecting both hands around his back; and a second pair connected to one wrist, the other end dangling. His legs were still shackled together.

  The first person on the scene was one of the marshals. He had walked over, dragged Evans out of the water and flipped him over. Just then, a local Troy officer appeared from the wooded area near the bank of the river.

  “Give me your handcuffs,” the marshal yelled up to the cop.

  The cop then tossed his set of cuffs down to the marshal and ran back up to an area directly underneath the bridge to direct the onslaught of vehicles arriving on the scene.

  After cuffing Evans, the marshal stood and looked at him. There was blood streaking down the side of his mouth and nose. Several of his teeth had been knocked out from the fall. His eyes were open. There was a large gash on the right side of his head that had been made by a piece of rebar sticking out of the water where he had landed. Quite bizarrely, Evans’s right hand was frozen in a position of “fuck you” his middle finger sticking straight up with his other fingers curled down. In a way, he had done exactly what he had told Horton he would do: go down saying “fuck you” to the world.

  By the time Horton arrived on the scene, there must have been, he later said, “fifty to sixty law enforcement vehicles parked near the immediate area.”

  “There were Troy, Albany County, Colonie, state police, along with cops I had never seen before, when I got there. It was a circus-type atmosphere. Even sergeants with desk jobs who hadn’t been on the road in years were wanderin
g around. Everyone wanted to touch Gary Evans. I saw troopers assigned to the Police Academy roaming around and I thought, ‘What the hell is this?’”

  The area where Evans had landed was near an old oil-refining plant. There were rusted and empty oil tanks and train tracks separating the river from the road. A chain-link fence kept the media far enough back so they couldn’t see anything, or take any photos. A photo of a dead Gary Evans would be priceless.

  As Horton walked around the scene, sizing up Evans, he yelled out, “What’s this? Why does he have two sets of handcuffs on him?”

  “I know Gary Evans,” one of the local Troy cops said, “I was worried he would escape.”

  “He fell sixty feet and landed on a piece of rebar…. You think he was going anywhere?”

  Barney fucking Fife, Horton thought, walking away. Jesus Christ.

  Horton then reached down and checked the serial numbers on both sets of handcuffs. The cuffs that were attached to both of Evans’s wrists, holding his arms behind his back, were from the Troy Police Department; the cuffs dangling from his right wrist, attached to only one arm, were from the USMS.

  What the hell? Horton said to himself. How did he get out of his cuffs?

  “Hey, Horton, what’s going on?” somebody yelled from behind the fence as Horton stood up. “Tell us what’s happening…. Come talk to us.”

  Media were everywhere, scurrying around on the opposite side of the fence. Word had spread in record time that the infamous Gary Evans had made an escape attempt and failed. News organizations, of course, wanted that exclusive story from the one man who knew Evans best.

  CHAPTER 92

  Not long after Evans had been pronounced dead at the scene by Dr. Barbara Wolf, a renowned forensic pathologist who freelanced for the Albany County Coroner’s Office, Horton made a decision to leave the scene.

  “Dozens of cops were trying to be a part of it,” he said later, “who absolutely had no legitimate purpose for being there. The press were really hounding me. Civilians were rubbernecking and gawking. I couldn’t take it anymore. My beeper was going off nonstop.”

  Horton’s mother had been home watching television when she heard the news and immediately paged him to see how he was holding up.

  “Hello, Ma.”

  She said she only wanted to know one thing: “How do you feel about what’s happened?”

  “Not sure,” Horton said. “I don’t feel anything, actually.”

  “Ambivalent,” she said with an influence only a mother could evoke. “You feel ambivalent. That’s good. That’s how you should feel.”

  After speaking to his mother, Horton turned off his pager, found Jack Murray and Bud York, and said, “Get me outta here.”

  When it came down to it, there was no reason for Horton to stay at the scene. What was done, was done. From there, it was paperwork, questions and, hopefully, answers.

  The autopsy was another matter. Horton insisted he be present for it. It would be a while, Barbara Wolf said, but she would see that it was done that night.

  By nature, an autopsy is designed to clear up any unanswered questions. But Horton and Barbara Wolf were about to learn that Evans’s autopsy would only unearth new questions about Gary Evans and how he had managed to escape under the radar of four armed U.S. Marshals.

  From the death scene at the bridge, Horton, York and Murray drove into downtown Troy and stopped at a local pub to get something to eat and, deservedly, a stiff drink.

  Nobody in the bar knew who they were, but the crowd was glued to the television, hanging on every detail about the Evans escape that was slowly trickling out. Incredibly, not three hours after Evans had been pronounced dead, the bar was pushing a drink it called “Gary on the Rocks.” Vodka, cranberry juice and ice. The dark red cranberry juice, Horton learned by reading the chalkboard announcing the new special as you walked into the bar, represented the blood of Troy’s most famous serial killer.

  When he read it, Horton’s appetite diminished. Additionally, he felt the need to be doing other things back at work, including talking to his bosses and preparing to attend Evans’s autopsy. A neighborhood bar seemed like the last place in the world he should be.

  CHAPTER 93

  Once word of what Evans had done made its way to Randolph Treece, he realized he was probably in possession of a suicide letter Evans had written. Sitting in his office, watching the story unfold on television, Treece’s mind shifted away from the television as he recollected what Michael Desautels had said to him earlier as they made their way up the stairs: “[Gary] said there’s a letter in there for you.”

  Treece immediately called Desautels. “Mike, you said Gary’s got papers for me?”

  “Yeah, and one of them is a letter addressed to you.”

  “Get those things over to me…. No, I’ll send my investigator over there right now.”

  Rummaging through the stack of papers about an hour later, Treece picked up the letter and opened it.

  I’d like it known why I can’t allow myself to be imprisoned, the two-page letter began. Because of all the things taken from me….

  If there was any doubt Evans had designed his escape for any other purpose besides suicide—which was certainly the feeling by some early on—Evans’s own words made it clear that his sole intention was to kill himself.

  He went on to write that he couldn’t live in a world knowing he would never get to experience certain “things” again. Most important, he wrote, was all the magic moments with the girl I love [Doris Sheehan]….

  Then he talked about living “in a cage forever.”

  In the middle of the clearly printed letter, he wrote about the things in life that had made him the happiest: Jet Skiing in Florida, viewing the stars in Alaska, swimming with sharks, touching a sleeping pelican, watching a moose, saving an octopus and feeling the “deepest love imaginable” for a person. The future, he wrote, would be nothing but torment, torture and misery forever. And to allow my life to be taken from me by the enemy is not something I will do. Slow death or fast, makes no difference. They can’t have it.

  Beginning on the top of the second page, Evans had circled an entire section and explained to Treece in a side note that he wanted it released to the media.

  Paper and TV, he wrote. TV’s better, the papers lie a lot.

  My lessons here are learned = on to a better place now. My friends are happy, and I’m already there. With Canis Minor and a beautiful blue moon. With a smile stars surround me and peace and love are mine. They can’t be taken or touched.

  Lastly, he wrote, I win.

  He made a note on the bottom of the page: Mail it to Jo Rehm…and tell her to give it to my girl I love. Underneath that: And my words to her [Doris] are: Be happy for me, don’t be sad. For you, us, I’m OK now. He drew a smiley face. Then, No drinking. I love you always. Live long, you’ll be an awesome mom. Hey Boogie! See ya next place.

  Words he had spoken to Lisa Morris and Jim Horton merely days earlier were scattered, if only by impression, all over the letter: “If I die in here, they win. If I die out there, I win.”

  CHAPTER 94

  Kenneth Bruno released a statement only hours after Evans had made his fatal leap. After explaining what had happened in figurative detail, Bruno said that “although the criminal prosecution against Gary Evans is over, my office will continue to make ourselves available to” the families of his victims. He talked about “mixed emotions” during what was going to be a time of uncertainty. Finally, “No one celebrates the death of any individual, even if death would have been the appropriate consequence for his actions. That’s a decision that I won’t have to make in this case.”

  What was, essentially, mere politically correct sentiment didn’t bode well with public opinion, however. One man told reporters that Evans had “saved the taxpayers a lot of money.” Another said, “I’m glad he’s dead.” Yet another commented, “I’m not an advocate of anyone dying, but you have to make an exception in this case.�
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  One of Michael Falco’s brothers told the Times Union, “I think there was a higher court looking to judge this one. His death, the way it all happened, it’s called ‘poetic justice.’”

  Regardless of how people felt, Evans was dead. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone again. For Horton and his colleagues, though, they needed answers to several questions—one of which being, how in the hell did a prisoner who was considered an escape risk, to begin with, get out of his handcuffs and hurl himself over a bridge in broad daylight in the presence of four armed marshals?

  None of it made sense.

  Horton, Dr. Barbara Wolf and several Bureau investigators met at Dr. Wolf’s Albany office later that night to go through Evans’s body with a magnifying glass. Hopefully, they would find some answers. Dr. Wolf had done thousands of autopsies in a career that had spanned decades. She was appointed to collect forensic evidence after the ill-fated TWA Flight 800 crash off Long Island Sound. Well-respected, Wolf was known throughout the forensic community as someone who took her work seriously. If Evans’s body held secrets, Dr. Wolf would find them.

  Almost immediately, Evans’s corpse yielded clues as to how far he was prepared to go in order to carry out his plan. After undressing him, Dr. Wolf made note of all his tattoos as Horton and the others looked on. Down near Evans’s Achilles’ heel, they found a paper clip and a blade from a razor taped to his leg underneath his sock. A quick search by anyone at the jail or courthouse would have found it easily.

  Horton picked it up and looked at it. “What the hell? How did he get this? How come nobody found it?”

  There were some who later insisted that it had to have been a guard at Rensselaer County Jail, but it would never be proven. While others swore it had been Horton, Lisa Morris or Jo Rehm.

  The next order of business was to do a full-body X ray.