Every Move You Make (16 page)

Sully had a clear view of him from the bank window.

Sitting atop the monument, Evans cradled his chin with his right palm, while his large legs hung down off the front without touching the ground. He appeared calm, comfortable, just sitting, waiting, apparently, for Lisa to arrive. Every once in a while, he would look down at his watch and scan the entire area with his eyes.

“I don’t even know where he came from,” somebody said over the radio.

“Well, he’s back.”

“Shit,” Sully said, “I have him…. He’s sitting right here.”

All of the investigators in the field, Horton later noted, knew exactly what to do and when to do it. They certainly didn’t need some overly excited senior investigator barking orders as if he were some taxicab dispatcher, directing their every move. They were professionals. They had all done this before. If there was a chance to grab Evans, they would take it.

As much as it hurt him, Horton could only sit and wait—having no idea what was going on.

Without warning, one by one, each investigator emerged from his or her position and began to move in on Evans at the same time as he sat on the monument.

At first, Evans didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Then, as he “felt everyone closing in” on him, he later told Horton, he leaped off the monument and took three quick steps toward the street, heading for the wooded area behind McDonald’s. There were immense pine trees, in perfect rows, like farmed Christmas trees, directly in back of the restaurant. The woods, beyond the trees, were thick and dense. Because it was the beginning of spring, the leaves on the trees and bushes had recently bloomed an army green dark color. It would be impossible for anyone to catch Evans once he bled into the aesthetics of the woods. Further, throughout the morning, it had become increasingly cloudier. The sun was covered by clouds now. Once Evans reached the woods, he would be in his element, the keeper of his own fate. A band of street cops from Albany would be no match.

As Evans bolted across the street, however, the K-9 cop, who was closest to him, unleashed the dog. A large German shepherd, trained to attack a moving target, took one leap and sank his razor-sharp teeth into Evans’s calf, tearing a gash in his flesh as if it were a piece of raw beef.

Evans fell immediately to the ground and began fighting off the dog.

Within seconds, every investigator in the field ran toward him and tackled him.

Sully, who had come running out of the bank toting his shotgun, ran up and, along with the others, pointed the barrel of his weapon directly at Evans’s head.

Do not move, motherfucker
, seemed to be said in unison.

Horton had warned everyone about Evans’s penchant for being able to escape while in custody, not to mention the reputation he had for hiding razorblades and handcuff keys all over his body, in every imaginable cavity. The only way to monitor his behavior at all times and be sure he wasn’t “up to something,” Horton suggested, was to strip him naked.

So, after handcuffing him, two investigators stripped him.

A crowd had begun to swell as people in town began to figure out what was happening. One of the investigators had already radioed for backup and several local and state police cruisers had arrived on-scene, lights blaring, sirens wailing.

Bare-assed and handcuffed, Evans now stood in front of what were scores of onlookers and law enforcement. At first, he tried wrestling the handcuffs off, hopping around, falling down, getting back up again, his right leg bloodied from the dog bite. But then, as he began to realize there was little chance of getting away, he broke into a violent rage, screaming aggressively in what could only be described as one of his Incredible Hulk moments.

Evans would later say he was, at that moment, picturing himself “caged” and locked up again. In his mind, it was over. No more running. No more hiding.

No more freedom.

Twenty-five to life
.

Back at base camp, Horton and Lang hadn’t heard anything for about eight minutes. The last they had heard was that someone had spotted Evans in town. For all Horton and Lang knew, the entire plan had gone bust and Evans was gone.

Maybe someone had even gotten hurt?
Horton thought.

Then, over the radio, came those words cops love to hear during stakeouts and surveillances—which were especially welcomed, Horton later admitted, in this case.

“Target in custody without incident.”

Horton looked over at Lang and shook his hand.

“Thank you, Lieutenant, for everything. Your men were amazing.”

CHAPTER 28

In the coming months, communities around New England would begin to understand that the stripping of Evans’s clothes on Main Street in St. Johnsbury would serve as a metaphor for what was about to happen as soon as Horton was able to secure extradition and bring Evans back to New York State. Evans hadn’t said a word to anyone as he was taken into custody. But an hour after he was processed and fingerprinted, he finally opened his mouth.

“Jim Horton. I will only speak to Horton.”

He had run out of options. His deal-making days were over. Horton, who still hadn’t seen him by 4:00
P.M
. that day, had one person on his mind as he contemplated when he was going to visit Evans—Tim Rysedorph.

What Horton was about to hear from Evans in the coming weeks—crimes so horrible in their nature they were hard to fathom—would set Evans on a path of self-destruction, culminating in a series of events that, by midsummer 1998, would devastate anyone and everyone involved.

Before contact with Evans could be established, Horton wanted to find out a few things. Part of figuring out what Evans had been up to for the past eight months while on the run entailed locating where he had been staying while in Vermont. Since he wasn’t talking and Horton didn’t want to go in and confront him just yet, it was a guessing game. The most logical conclusion was that he had camped somewhere in the woods near McDonald’s. So Horton had a team of troopers begin the time-consuming task of combing the woods. Horton figured if he didn’t go in and see Evans right away, Evans would possibly believe Horton hadn’t been involved in his capture.

“I didn’t want to alienate him,” Horton said later. “I wanted him to open up to me when we met later on. I should have known he was a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.”

After radioing for a team of troopers to begin searching an area outside of town, Horton and Lang, who were still at base camp, drove immediately to Troop B, where Evans was now chained to the wall, seething like a rabid raccoon.

No one was pressuring him. “Good,” Horton said. “Just leave him be. Let him think about things.”

“His mind was cranking,” Horton recalled. “He was thinking, ‘What the hell just happened? How in the hell am I going to get out of this?’”

After Horton explained to Lisa that the wiretap he’d placed in her car was a ruse, she followed him and Lang back to Troop B and waited in the lobby while Horton met with his team. With any luck, Horton told her, she would get to see Evans later that night.

From there, Horton and his team began to go through the items Evans had on him when he was captured. Most interesting was what appeared to be a small, handheld Tech-9 machine gun. At first, it looked as real as the $100 bills Evans had on him, yet ended up being nothing more than a child’s plastic toy. Several bus and plane receipts inside his backpack confirmed he had been to Oregon, Alaska, Washington, California, New Mexico, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Also inside his backpack were maps, brochures, hats, bandannas and several personal hygiene items. Inside his wallet was a stack of paperwork that explained just how far he had gone to conceal his identity. Traveling under the name “Louis William Murray III,” he had managed to obtain four different driver’s licenses—two sets under two different addresses—from the state of Washington. In each photo, Evans had altered his appearance just enough so as to look like a different person. In one, he wore glasses, had no facial hair and smiled into the camera; in another, he had a Fu Manchu mustache, wore no glasses and twisted his face muscles enough to appear more serious and academic. Under the Louis Murray name, he had even obtained a Social Security card and enrolled in a food stamp program in Seattle. A tattered and worn Certificate of Baptism, signed by what turned out to be a fictional reverend, was folded and stuffed deep inside a pocket in the bag. On it, he had written his birthplace as Latham, New York—the same town where Horton had lived for most of his life.

Mixed in with a stack of business papers were several business cards from various commercial deep-sea fishing vessels. Later, Horton learned Evans had obtained a job aboard an Alaskan fishing boat that traveled from Alaska into the Bering Strait, finally making landfall in Russia. Evans said he had planned to defect to Russia once the boat arrived, but he had caused some trouble during the trip and ended up locked in the brig.

The Timex Expedition watch he had been wearing when he was arrested had a handcuff key strapped to the back of it. It was a cheap, outdoorsy type of watch one could purchase (or steal) from any department store. As Horton picked it up, held it in his hand and looked at it more closely, he realized it was the exact same watch he had on.

Rusted and slightly bent, a tad smaller than a house key, the handcuff key found strapped to the back of the watch served as peace of mind for Evans. He had escaped from custody before and later told Horton he was never without at least one handcuff key at all times. Yet, as investigators searched further, they found two more keys.

A fourth key, Horton would learn later, was never found.

Whenever Evans went out in public or set out to do a “job,” he hid a handcuff key in his mouth, underneath his tongue. If he ever got caught, he swallowed it. Twenty-four hours later, while in custody, he could shit it out, clean it off and put it back in his mouth. No one knew it at the time, but it was likely that inside Evans’s stomach, as he sat chained to the cell wall inside Troop B, was that same handcuff key he had recycled numerous times throughout the years.

Besides finding several more everyday household items, the most telling item investigators found was located in Evans’s wallet: a photograph.

Nearly a week prior to his arrest in Vermont, the
Albany Times Union
, a local Albany newspaper, had run a story about cold case investigations. The photo that ran with the story showed Horton opening a filing cabinet. It was a good shot, taken from the waist up. Evans had cut out Horton’s photo, folded it neatly and kept it tucked away in a separate pocket in his wallet. If anyone had ever doubted how personal the connection between Evans and Horton was, here was proof: the villain, in all his narcissism, had been carrying around a photo of the cop who was hunting him.

Horton, when confronted with the photo, looked at it and smiled.

“Gary would, even if he was in Vermont, Maine or wherever, order the
Albany Times Union
newspaper so he could keep tabs on what was happening locally. Was I surprised when we found the photo? Of course. But when I sat down later and thought about it, I understood that Gary was, in his own way, trying to prove to himself how much he respected me. The only mistake he made, he told me later, was not leaving St. Johnsbury when he saw my photo in the
Times Union
. That was a sign for him to leave, he claimed, and he didn’t listen to it.”

An off-duty VSP trooper, who had been out jogging in downtown St. Johnsbury during the morning hours of May 27, had come up on a section of woods outside of town near an underpass and had seen “a man on a bike come speeding out of a culvert” that led into the woods.

Later that day, when the trooper showed up for work and saw Evans in lockup, he said, “I saw that guy this morning coming out of this culvert on the edge of town….”

When Horton got wind of what the trooper said, he immediately ordered a team to the area. Near the culvert, as cops began to search, someone noticed a fresh break in the brush leading farther back into the woods; small trees and bushes had been matted down near freshly cracked twigs along what looked to be a man-made path.

For a few hours, Horton and several troopers searched the area but found nothing. It was rough terrain. Lots of rock ledge. Thick green brush. Blooming wildflowers. Swampland. Hills. Evans’s camp could be anywhere inside a two-or three-mile radius.

Realizing it was the perfect spot for Evans to camp, Horton called in a helicopter.

Hours later, the helicopter search team spotted what looked like the top of a tent and directed Horton and his crew into the area.

Sure enough, up in the most mountainous portion of the area, near a waterfall, hidden inside a band of densely overgrown bushes and oak trees, was Evans’s campsite.

He had been smart enough to drape a dark green tarp over the top of the small, one-man tent. Not only for cover from the rain, but camouflage.

They could tell he had been camped there for some time. The ground around the tent was worn and well-trodden. There was something about the place, when Horton first arrived, that struck him. It was serene. The air was crisp, fresh, like walking into a greenhouse for the first time. He could understand why Evans chose it.

The campsite itself was homey and peaceful. Evans had apparently planned on staying for quite some time. Throughout his life, one of Evans’s greatest pleasures was to camp by himself in conditions other human beings might view as severe. There was one time in 1976 when he camped up north near the Canadian border during winter. Temperatures had fallen beyond comprehension. Later, while in prison, Evans wrote about the experience:

I remember in ’76 I was camping out alone in the snow…on this mountain. It said it was minus 54 [degrees] with the wind chill factor! I was wrapped in sheepskin, inside a down sleeping bag, in a mountaineer tent under a pine tree snow fort…. I was freezing!! But it was fun—and one of the last times of freedom I had.