Every Move You Make (47 page)

Evans had always been, Robbie said, “protective of her” and Devan. He wanted to shelter them now more than ever. The horror of who he truly was hadn’t even been made public, yet he was already beginning to rationalize his behavior.

“I haven’t hurt any children or women,” Evans added, “only bad people.” Again, more justification for the terror he had perpetrated on five victims, two of whom were innocent jewelry shop owners. “Don’t hate me for what I’ve done. I’m not a monster. I just have to get this over.”

Horton stood by and tried to give Evans what privacy he needed.

“I’m with Jim,” he continued. “I’m okay. He’s taking good care of me…. I love you.” By this point, Robbie recalled later, “he was really sobbing and very pensive.”

“Have a good life,” Evans then said. “I wish I could have been more, but I am not to be in this world. I chose this life. I’m at peace with myself. I just need to get the pain out of my heart and be done with it all. I’m tired. I want out of this life.”

Then, as if he wanted to prove that he could be remorseful, he said, “I wanted to protect the children,” meaning the children of his victims. “I go in peace now, whenever that may be. I learned some really hard lessons. I learned a lot I wish I never knew. I did this. Of course, everything has been affected by the things that happened to me as a child—but I still had free choice. I chose my way.”

After a brief pause to collect his composure, Evans said, “I hate the world.”

“You okay, Gar?” Horton asked.

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 82

About one hundred yards from where Horton and his entourage had pulled off Route 2 to allow Evans a place to vomit and call Robbie, there were large power lines cutting across Route 2, near the corner of Shyne Road.

“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!”