True Crime All The Time - Gary Charles Evans

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Gary Charles Evans experienced a horrible childhood at the hands of his alcoholic parents. He was the victim of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. He left out on his own at an early age and lived off the money he earned robbing stores and houses in New York. But, in 1985, Gary committed his first murder, and it seems as though it became easy for him after that. He killed store owners when they got in his way and he killed his accomplices when he thought they had stolen from him.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Gary Evans. He had a childhood that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. And, it seems early on, he did whatever he felt he had to do to get the money he needed to survive. But, the question with Evans is why did he begin killing? His first murder was that of his partner and childhood friend. He mistakenly thought this man had stolen from him. Over the years, he murdered five people and spent a lot of time incarcerated. But, police never knew he was a murderer, right up to the time that he confessed. Gary then made the decision he would not be locked up forever or wait on death row for his execution. While be transporting from a court appearance, he jumped off a bridge over the Hudson River in what authorities have called a suicide.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information.An Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 218 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson. Give me what's up, man? Hey man, how you doing? I'm doing really well. Good. You and I just had some beef brisket that was off the charts. Man.

A little burn ends on them. Yeah. It was tasty. Little dickies. Yeah, our options are limited where we live in Ohio when it comes to really good barbecue. We're not in Memphis. We're not in Kansas City, Texas. So we get what we get, but it was really good tonight.

Yeah. Gibbs, we continue to see some great Patreon support. Let's give our shoutouts. We had Jared Swanson. Hey, Jared. Gary St. Jock. What's going on, St. Jack? Lillianna Palacios.

Placio. Bex Mon. What's going on, Mon? Colin Corden. Hey, Colin. Zachary Moore jumped out at our highest level. Hey, appreciate that, Zach. Mary Mayhew's. What's up, Mayhew? Brian Stone. Well, thank you, Brian. Matthew Garcia jumped out at our highest

level. Appreciate that, Matthew. Cheryl Perino. Amy Criederman. Hey, Amy. Randy Baca Coons. What's up? Randy Baca Coons. Chris Barker. Hey, Chris. Catherine Welker. Appreciate that, Catherine. Allegra whispered jumped out to our highest levels. Allegra. We had Nicole Boats. What's going on, Nicole? Amelda Kirkoff jumped out at our highest level. What's up, Kerkoff? Nicole Donovan. Thank you, Nicole. Miss Urban swag. Well, get that swag on. Hannah Dixon jumped out at our highest level. Thanks, Hannah. So did Kia jumper. Well, thank you, Kia. And so did Angela Davis. Man, thanks, Angela. So a lot of people jumping out at our highest level, we really appreciate all that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Morgan Murphy. Well, good old Morgan. Our really good

friend Morgan. Yeah. She's been with us such a long time. And we appreciate all that long term support as well. We had some great PayPal donations as well from Mary Beth Long. Thanks Mary Beth. A really good friend. Pia Johansson. Pia. Pia. John Novick. Thanks, John. And Jennifer Dix. Well, appreciate that, Jennifer. Gives, we have a lot out right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We have an episode out on Lindsay Booziac. Yeah. And this is a case that a lot of people find very interesting. Right.

You and I do, did, obviously. So we're headed up to Canada to talk about Lindsay, who went missing while showing a million dollar home. Yeah. And there's a lot of intrigue, a lot of mystery. It's a case that people really get fascinated by. Definitely a lot of chatter on it. Yeah.

There is. A lot of internet chat. And we have a new Patreon-only episode out right now on both audio and video. It's on Robert Carl Foley. So we're down in Kentucky. We're into some illegal drugs, some moonshining, and some killing. You know, that was a good case. Yeah, it really is.

That guy just didn't care. He did not. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We are headed to New York to talk about things. Fend serial killer, Gary Charles Evans. Not really a person that I consider your typical serial killer, much like the Patreon episode we did. Robert Carl Foley, I think they get classified as serial killers because there's multiple murders, there's layoffs. I think it meets that criteria.

But these people aren't Bundys or Dombers or, you know, people like that. This is a guy who, man, I'm telling you what, was verbally, psychologically, physically, and sexually abused as a child. He started stealing at an early age and really just kept on his entire life. He admitted to killing five people over about a 13 year period. But Gibbs, as you and I often say about most killers, how many more people could this guy have killed? That question is always there, right? that possibility exists. Sure, we're never going to know. Now, with this guy, he confessed to things that police didn't know about. So you, you kind of think, okay, if he did that, why wouldn't he

confess to everything? But there might be a murderer or two or even more that maybe the details were such or the people were who they were and he didn't want anybody to know about those. It's very true. And I'll tell you right up front. man, this was a very tough case to research. It's a story that, you know, I've been wanting to cover for some time now, but I was shocked by how little coverage there really was of Gary Evans, especially by newspapers. It's like they did not really pick up this case much at all, even in New York, until the very end. And obviously people will understand why that is. I think it has something to do with the fact that, you know, he never made it to trial.

And we'll get into the reasons behind that. Gary Charles Evans was born on October 7th, 1954 in New York to Roy and Flora Evans. He grew up in Troy, New York, a little bit north of Albany. He had an older half-sister named Robbie. Gary has painted a picture of his childhood that no child should have to endure. and I don't think anyone would wish on their worst enemy. And some of his claims have been corroborated by friends. I will say much of this information comes from a book on Evans written by William Phelps called

Every Move You Make. You know, it's a good read. I definitely would recommend it for anybody that wants to know more about Gary Charles Evans. His parents were constantly fighting. They both had issues with alcohol abuse. His mother tried to end her life numerous times. And Gibbs, it was often in front of Gary. I mean, I'm talking about, you know, she slit her wrists.

She tried to stand in front of trains. Really? On the tracks as they were coming. She once jumped off their apartment building. So this is a good way to let your kids know that they're wanted, right? I mean, you're trying to take your life. in front of them. Yeah, I mean, you know, all of this stuff that we're going to talk about, but this in

particular, you wonder what it does psychologically for a child. Sure. Impactful for sure. Yeah. And not in a good way. No. Right? In a very negative way, you know, suicidal thoughts, suicidal tendencies.

Those are tough. You know, people really struggle with those types of things. But to think that you would do that in front of. your child. That is, it's such a tough thing for most people to grasp. But no doubt, this was an unhappy woman. And, you know, like we said, you know that her children, including Gary, seeing these things had to have a very major impact in a negative way on their lives. Gary's father was physically abusive to him. He said that his father beat him with a leather strap. And I think In Kibbs, it was one of those that you see like in the barber, the old barbershops.

Oh, really? The sharpen your razor. To sharpen your razor. Those are made very thick on purpose. Right. Because of what they're designed to do. I think you and I have talked on other episodes that we got, we got our share of punishment.

We did. We grew up in the age of corporal punishment when principles were allowed to use. paddles, you know, dads, grandfathers used hands, belts, switches. Race track pieces. For you, racetrack pieces, which is something I never went through. Yeah. But I think, no doubt, right, this type of stuff went far beyond what was even considered normal back when we were growing up.

Most people don't consider that normal today. Oh, no. something like that today, children's services. You might catch a charge. Yeah. But he would also lock Gary in his room for extended periods of time, you know, days, Gibbs, sometimes without food. And he would often take the light ball out of his room so that he would be completely in the dark.

It's like being in prison. To me, it almost sounds like some kind of psychological warfare. Right. Like you're trying to extract information from someone. So, you know, you're, you're doing the slow water drip on them. And then you're doing the isolation in the darkness. And that's some heavy metal rock every now and then, blaring just to really throw them off. I mean, you know how it all works.

You've done it. I have. As if the psychological and physical abuse wasn't bad enough, Gary also claims that he was sexually abused by both of his parents. Couldn't find much on what he says his mother did to him, but he definitely said that his father would handcuff him to a post in the basement of their apartment. And according to him, molest him in the most vile of ways. So we're not in father of the year territory. This is a horrible guy who, you know, abused alcohol.

I think he had trouble keeping a job. I want to say his dad got in a bad accident at one point and was unable to work. There was some things in the reading about, you know, how that might have exacerbated his temper, anger issues. Yeah, unfortunately, these are kids that should have been yanked out of that house a long time ago. Yeah, you would have liked it to happen that way. Right. And, you know, we'll probably talk about it maybe at the end of the episode after we find out exactly what Gary did and how his life unfolded. Okay, what did all this stuff? What role did it play in his future behavior?

It'd be a tough environment to grow up in for sure. Yeah, without a doubt. You know, I think because of the sexual abuse, especially the handcuffing part, Gary Evans had a fear of being handcuffed. so much so that he kept handcuffed keys on him all the time. As do I. As do you, but for different reasons. Exactly. You know, obviously his most likely stemmed from his experiences of sexual abuse as a child while being handcuffed. I'm sure it was a trigger for him.

I think anytime anyone suffers some type of trauma or abuse like that, you're going to have a number of trigger. of triggers with things that happened that corresponded with that type of trauma or abuse. Gary did have a history of animal torture, setting cats on fire. And Gibbs, it's so horrible, but we've seen it so many times in these killers lives, in their upbringings, tying animals together, setting them on fire. You know, obviously we know it's a very bad sign. It's documented. And you think it's because they endure so much torture themselves that they want to push that on to somebody else or something else?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's something like that. Yeah. You know, could it be that their lives are so far out of control, meaning they're being abused? They can't control what's happening to them. So they crave this type of control. Right. I mean, that's control, right? When you're talking about being in control of the life of an animal, you are deciding what is going to happen to them.

Yeah. So it could be one of those situations where he's like, you know, I can't control my own life. I can't control these things that are happening to me, but I can damn sure control what happens to this animal. And maybe at the same time take out some of my frustrations on them. It's tough to, you know, kind of make sense of this type of sickening behavior. But I think we might be on the right track. I think it's a possibility that some kids when they're doing that type of thing might view it that way. I'm sure there's lots of other reasons too.

Like I said, Gary was a thief his entire life. He started young. I mean, eight, nine, ten years old. One report said that he stole a wrong. ring worth about a thousand dollars around the age of eight. Wow, early. So yeah, two things jumped out at me about that, right? Eight years old is very early to be, you know, a cat burglar. Yeah. Or however he, I don't know how he got his hands on this ring. And then the second thing was, right, we're talking about the early 1960s. A heck of a ring. Yeah. To be worth that much money back at

that time, what do you think a ring worth $1,000 in the early 60s would be worth today? Beepo, people, beepo, boop. $12,000. I'll go with that. Yeah. I always go with your stuff because I have no idea. Unless it's the ring from order of the rings. You mean it's the one that binds or ties everything together?

It's the big ring. That one's priceless, man. Exactly. It's precious. Yeah, I have no idea what it would be. I could look it up. but that takes all the fun out of it. I want to hear your answer.

You're probably not as far off as you sometimes are. What you mean? Sometimes you are so far off, man. You're crazy, man. People email in with the right answer, and it is so far off. It's going to be hard to be off on this one unless you actually know what made up that ring. It's really not because they have these things called inflation calculators.

Well, I got that. But I'm saying, you know, is it diamond? Is it an element? Emerald. That's true. I get what you're saying. Gold, silver. I was looking at it more of a just a dollar amount. A thousand dollars in 1960s is now worth X. I gotcha. But you're right. I get that, right? The price of gold, the price of silver, the price of valuable gems. Yes. Gary's parents divorced in 1968. His mother went on to remarry a number of times and gives every time. These men were described as abusive alcoholics.

Seems like what she attracted. Yeah, maybe. I mean, she, I think, had an alcohol problem herself. And maybe that probably went a long way to meeting whoever she was meeting. Yeah, not sure where they met, but if they met at the bar. At the bar, you know, you're going to. Maybe. Yeah.

But I think what's important, because I really couldn't find much about, you know, his dad and what he did afterwards. But it's really at, at this point, point that Gary Evans begins staying with different people, but really essentially living on the street, doing whatever he has to do to survive. He was busted for breaking and entering at the age of 15 and did 90 days in jail. I do know his father died in 1977 from throat cancer and his mother died in 1983. After falling on some ice and hitting her head, I just really couldn't find any evidence that he had all that much to do with them after what is a pretty early age. Right.

After this divorce. And it's kind of hard to blame him for that, right? You and I talked about it. It sounds like these people were horrible parents. Probably just wanted to wash his hands of it. Yeah. I would have. They mistreated him very badly if you believe what he has said. Well, that's true. Right. It's a one side of story. It is a one side of story. It is a one side of story because I think by the time he's probably telling it, both of his parents are deceased, but I did say, and I think this is important, you know, some of his claims were corroborated by, you know, friends or I don't think he had a lot of friends because I don't think he was allowed to have a lot of friends, but just the fact that you do have some corroboration goes a long way.

Yeah, it does. One thing I found interesting is that Gary didn't drink. or do drugs. And in fact, he detested people who did. My thought Gibbs is that probably stemmed from what he endured at the hands of his parents. I'm sure most of that, if not all of that, occurred when they had been drinking. And I'm surprised because sometimes the drinking part can be hereditary. Yeah. I do think there are some genetics that can come into play.

but it could also be learned, right? Now, it seems like for him, it was learned, but it was, hey, I don't like that because bad things happen, maybe. And I'm making some assumptions here. Sure, yeah. Some people use alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism. It's interesting that he chose not to. So Gary is thieving in order to survive. In his 20s, he got together with two childhood friends.

Like I said, I don't think he had a lot of friends because I don't think his parents allowed him to have a lot of friends. But he did get together with two childhood friends named Michael Falco and Tim Rysdorf. These guys all moved in together. And over the years, they committed a lot of burglaries together. They were partners in crime with Gary Evans essentially as the ringleader. And Gibbs, I think these guys got to be pretty good. at casing places and, you know, planning out their robberies. They focused a lot on antique stores.

But as much planning as they did, as much casing as they did, Gary had a habit of getting caught from 1971 to 1998. He was arrested 22 times. That's a quick bit. And received 15 felony convictions. Yeah. That is a lot. Now, we're not going to.

be able to discuss them all. So we'll focus on the things that are more important. But you know just by me giving you those numbers what we're going to see. Oh, sure. Yeah. You know, this trend that seems to come up in so many cases of him getting out fairly early. Now, when I talk about all these arrests and all these, you know, felonies, they weren't for murder. and you know, that's kind of a distinction.

He was not known as a murderer until the very end. You know, he was known as a thief. Just a bad individual, but not a murderer. Yeah. Interesting that they chose to rob antique stores. The way that I understood it was they kind of focused on those in the beginning. Yeah. Now, you say it's odd.

Why do you think it's odd? I mean, you had to have some type of knowledge to know what you're grabbing that would be valuable enough to sell basically on the black market to a fence or yeah well i think that's where the casing comes in right right you're going to have to walk through that store you're going to have to know that they've got some you know some valuable merchandise this is not like a flea market type of antique situation here i mean i know you mourn't antiques than i right you've got your antique t sets and things like that that you like to dabble in oh yeah because i drink so much tea. You know, you just like those fancy tea sets. But I do think that's where the casing comes in,

right? If you're going to be a good thief and you're going to decide on places to hit, well, you better pick something that has some value to it. Some rare, rare items for sure. Now later on, we'll see they get into jewelry stores and some other things where, okay, if you're going to hit a jewelry store, chances are there's valuable stuff there because, you know, jewelry stores tend to have that. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors, and first up is Better Help. Folks, if there's something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals, Better Help Online Counseling is there for you. I've tried to service out. I signed up. I answered all the questions to help them assess my needs, and I got matched with a licensed

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Babel, Language for Life. In January of 1977, Evans received a four-year sentence for breaking into a house in Lake Placid, New York. He did most of that time and was paroled in March of 19. So he got out a little early, but it's not one of these situations where he got four years and he was out in two months. Right. For murder, you and I have seen that or for some type of very vicious sexual assault. Well, we just had that Patreon only episode where he received a 35 year sentence and only served four years. Yeah, that kind of blew us away.

Yeah, it did. You know, a little bit. But I think you and I are often confused about some of these 1970s, 80s type sentencing. Right. You get four, you do three for burglary. Okay. I'm not going to put a stink. Exactly.

You know, about that. But here's the thing about Gary Evans. It didn't matter if he was on parole or not. He always went back to the one thing he knew how to do and that was robbing. He was caught in possession of stolen goods very soon after he was paroled and put back behind bars. But the other thing about Gary Evans is that he was always plotting. Authorities have said that he was caught a number of times over the years plotting out escapes. In June, not long after they sent him back, he escaped from Rensselaer County Jail.

Now, he wasn't gone long, right? Police cornered him at the Troy Public Library several hours later. Eventually, he ended up out on the ledge of this library. And Gibbs, there are some really good pictures from different papers. Yeah. About this incident. You can see Evans wearing what appears to be something like sweatpants. Oh, he takes after your attire.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. With no shirt. Also, very much the way that I like to go. Unfortunately. unfortunately for everyone and he's out on this ledge right and i haven't talked about gary's physical description yet you know as an adult he was a little bit on the short side at five six but he was a

big guy and you know he got progressively bigger over the years through as many stents in jail and prison he was good with the prison workout he must have worked out a lot because you know he seemed to have little body fat. He had a lot of muscle. So police officers are out on this ledge with him, right? They're positioned on either side of him. And I'm sure there's a whole bunch more back inside the library. At a certain point, a bunch of looky-loos came because you're going to have that. You got a guy on a ledge. Oh, you want to be there and see that. If I was walking by or hell, if I was driving by, I'd pull over to watch that. You'd be the one chanting, jump, jump, to see what was about to unfold. So you have all these people standing down on the ground watching this thing play out.

Right. At one point, a police officer handed him a cigarette as they were trying to get him to come down. And I think eventually they just rushed him, grabbed him, and they were able to get him back in custody. He received additional time for the escape. He spent some of that time at Clinton, correctional center in Danamora and some of that time at Attica. Attica. It's kind of hard not to say Attica without the chant. You got to do that.

You almost have to do it. Those are two pretty famous prisons, right? The one at Dan Amora and Attica. He was released from Attica in 1982. But right away, went back to thieving. And again, he was caught, spent the next two years locked up. So he got out again in 1984. And he got the band back.

together. And for somebody like him, when you spend so much time in prison, you don't really fear going back to prison. I don't think they do. On top of that, they can come out of prison instead of trying to fight for some type of job they really don't want to do. They can steal, and it's gratifying to them right away because they're getting paid quicker, right? They can go steal something, take it to their fence, get some cash, and they're doing what they want. Yeah, I think you're right. The other way that I kind of look at it is, you know, here was a guy that was essentially on his own from a pretty early age. Yeah. Had to scrap, find places to live, food to eat. So, all right, is he that worried about the risk of getting caught? Now, I'm sure

he doesn't want to lose his freedom, but he's also got a roof over his head. He's got a bunk. He gets three meals a day. Free gym membership. free gym membership. So I think you have to look at it from that standpoint as well. For a guy like Gary Evans, the rewards far outweighed the risks, in my opinion. You know, for guys like you and I, I don't want to sit one second in a jail cell. And I sure as hell don't want to go to prison. Yeah, you don't even want to leave your house. I don't even want to leave my house. You're absolutely right. So I'm not going to do anything. that is going to jeopardize my freedom.

But I think about some of these people that you and I talk about, I'm not sure their lives are where they would like them to be. And so their risk reward ratio is a little bit different than most of ours. So he's back living with Falco and Rysdorf and the three of them were stealing whatever they could. They pulled off some pretty big jobs. When I say big, I mean like, you know, $12,000, $15,000 a pop, which to them, I'm sure was, you know, a lot of money. Especially at that time. Even split three ways.

We're not talking about millions, but definitely money that they could live off of. Evans committed his first known murder in 1985. It was shortly after he and Michael Falco had completed a job together. Gary shot and killed. His longtime friend and partner, Michael Falco. in the apartment that they shared. He used a 22 caliber gun with a homemade silencer. He then got Tim Rysdorf to help him dispose of the body.

So, you know, I, again, I found this very odd. Here you have three guys living together. Yeah. Who have known each other since they were kids. One of them kills one of the guys. And then you're going to get the other guy to help you. roll up the body and dispose of it? I think Tim

should have been a little bit nervous about that. Yeah, well, we're going to find out Tim's probably a big reason for why Gary killed Michael Falco. So they rolled Falco's body up in a sleeping bag and they drove to Florida where Gary's sister lived, half sister.

They disposed of his body in a swamp near her house. So I'm thinking Gibbs they use this excuse of going to visit his sister to hide their true intentions, which was to dispose of Michael Falco's body. That's a long drive with a body in the trunk. It is. It is. I mean,

you got to make sure you don't get pulled over and searched, but it's also a pretty good alibi. The other thing is you're disposing of a body, what, 2,000 miles from home plus. I don't know how far it is. but is that body going to be connected to you? I mean, obviously the further away you get,

the better. Well, yeah, yeah. And you have a legitimate reason for being there. But within a week or so of returning to New York from Florida, Gary robs some drug dealers of $12,000. And during this incident,

he got involved in a high speed chase with police and he was caught again. So, I mean, it's like he just cannot keep from getting caught. This time he was sentenced to four years in Sing Sing. He's really spending some time at some major prisons. Yeah, he's trying to make his way through all the famous prisons in New York. I think is what he was trying to do.

So, you know, I talked about it. I know this guy pulled a lot of jobs over the years, but, you know, let's be honest. He didn't seem real adept at not getting caught. His success ratio is not very good. Yeah, I don't know arrests to jobs, what that ratio would be. But, you know, he did get caught quite a bit. But it was inside Sing Sing, where Gary Evans met and became friends with none other than son of Sam David Berkowitz. I even found what appears to be a Polaroid of the two taken inside the jail. And you can find that it's out there online. But how bizarre is that? It's really bizarre. That, you know, it's old David Berkowitz. I think I should befriend him.

And in that picture, I'll say David Berkowitz looked big too. I guess, you know, there's just nothing else to do but work out. All day long. When you got life. Yeah. You know, you might as well keep your body up, I guess. Evans got out of Sing Sing in 1988. I don't know if he kept in touch with Berkowitz or not.

Maybe he got tired of David, you know. And you remember how much bullshit that guy had. He had a lot of bullshit. He did, man. It was like you could not believe anything that came out of his mouth. Now, the same could be said for a lot of serial killers, but. But he knew what he was doing, you know, playing that game. Oh, he knew how to game the system for sure.

And I think Mine Hunter did a good cover on him. Yeah, I enjoyed that. I mean, you know, I love that show. I wish it would come back soon. Right. But after he got out, Gary had to, find a new partner. You know, he had killed his main partner, Michael Falco, and really even before that, he and Tim, they weren't working that much together. I don't think Tim was as involved in,

in some of the thefts as Gary and Michael were, but he did find a new partner in a man named Damien Cuomo. Later that year, the two drove to a jewelry store in Watertown, New York. They broke in, but were met by the store owner, 63-year-old Douglas Berry, who had been sleeping in the back room. So again, if you're casing a joint, maybe you ought to find out if the owner sleeps there from time to time.

They must have missed that part. Important fact to know. Gary Evans shot Barry to death. And then they took off with their loot. But by the end of that year, Evans murdered Damien Cuomo. He shot him multiple times in the head. head with the 22 and then buried his body. So Gibbs, I think by this point in time, Gary Evans

didn't have a problem with murder. You know, I think you've talked about it before. What happens in your mind after you've committed that first one, right? How much easier does it get to say, yeah, I can do that again. Oh, yeah, I believe that. You know, I think for people like this, it starts to become second nature. Well, I don't have an experience with it, but I can't imagine that the second one is as tough as the first. And then, you know, as you go down the line, it just has to get easier and easier as, as strange as that is to say about taking someone's life.

At the time, Cuomo was killed. He was living with his girlfriend and the daughter they had together. Incredibly, Gary Evans convinced them both. that Damien had abandoned them. And then he essentially just stepped into his role. It was like he was playing house with his murder victim's family. And I think this went on for a couple of years. I'm not exactly sure how long,

but I do know he was relatively quiet for about a year. I'm sure he stole something from someone, but he didn't commit his next murder until October of 1991. Evans had set his sights on another jewelry store. This one owned by 36-year-old Gregory Jobin. He staked out this jewelry store for weeks. Then he walked in. He pretended like he was looking at a piece of jewelry.

Then he shot the owner in the head multiple times. And there were some reports, Gibbs, that he got away with as much as $60,000 from, you know, this robbery. And that's a good chunk of change. But man, he is just not even. giving it a thought now to pulling that gun shooting. Yeah. Yeah.

Like I said, I think it's, it's becoming easier and easier, too easy, right, for him. Because I don't have all the details on this encounter, but he had robbed so many places over the years and never killed anyone as far as we know. Why all of a sudden is he killing people? Right. Could he not have pointed the gun at this guy, tied him up, and left? Yeah. But the guy would have seen his face. Right.

Well, maybe this is how he thought he was going to keep from getting caught. Yeah, maybe. Because like we said, he'd not been great at it, right? Up until this point, he'd been caught a number of times. And he didn't get caught for the previous jewelry store robbery where they had killed the man, the owner, sleeping in the back room. So maybe you're right. Maybe he thought, hey, this worked.

Now, I had to take somebody's life, but it worked. And again, the risk reward. Sure. That all of us go through in just about everything we do, right? There's a risk reward factor. Yeah, I could eat a whole gallon of ice cream. The risk is I'm going to get fatter than I am today. But now I want ice cream.

But now I do too. Yeah. Let's get some ice cream after this is over. I just think for some people, their risk reward is so far out of whack. Oh, sure. Yeah. Because don't, don't get me wrong. He wants to rob these places. He does. He's always wanted to. He's going to continue to want to. And you could make the argument he needs to. This is the way that he survives. This is the way that he's getting his money. He doesn't have to kill anyone. But he's made the choice now that he's going to. So obviously he's weighted out to some extent, whatever extent his

brain allowed him to. And for me, I just think he came to terms with the fact that if I get caught, I'm just going back to one of the prisons I've been up before. Yeah, maybe I'll see Berkowitz again. Exactly. See my buddy Berkowitz. His next heist was a big marble bench from a cemetery in Albany, in New York. And when I say big, gives this thing weighed a thousand pounds. So, like, he had to get a crane or something. I really couldn't even find all the details of how he did it, but I do know a crane was involved. And apparently the person that he fenced it to turned him in. They're probably like, dude. The hell you want me to do with this thousand pound? I don't know how to move this thing. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Yeah. And it looks

really obvious when it's sitting out front of my store right here because we can't move it inside. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you steal a diamond, okay, pretty small, I can conceal that pretty easily. Yeah. A thousand pound marble bench. Hmm, it's nice. I'm sure it's worth a bunch of money. Yeah. But what the hell do I do with it? Very unique buyer. Yeah. Yeah, you got to find a very unique buyer. Now, one thing I haven't talked about is Evans being an informant. You know, Gibbs, he had been in jail, prison so many times that, you know, eventually, I think the authority started using him over the years to get information. Maybe this is one of the reasons why he seemingly got out so quickly on some of his

sentences. And we know that happens. We do know that happens. You know, even though he had a record a mile long, it seemed as though he was getting out pretty quickly like that record wasn't stacking up against him. We just talked about that on the Patreon episode where the guy got out of prison early because he was an informant for the FBI. Yeah.

And in that case, you know, the argument was made. Hey, if the FBI doesn't step in and get this guy out, he's not out to commit the murders. Exactly. And one of the victim's family even sued the FBI. I've said it before. You know, you are making a deal with someone who obviously has done some very bad things and most likely will go on to do bad things in the future. You know, you know who you're getting in bed with when you do these things. The problem is those are the types of individuals that get the information because they're able to get next to the person, you know, let's say who has it or who you're trying to get it from.

So when he was locked up this time, he did the same thing, right? He gave them some good information on a murder suspect who was in there with him. And they let him out in February 1994. But the other thing I think to keep in mind with Evans is, you know, authorities have no idea. At this point in time, this guy's a killer. They just think, you know, he's a low level thief. Yeah. So, you know, a little different.

Sure it is. If they had known that he'd killed a number of people already, it would have gone differently. You would hope. Yeah, I shouldn't say it would have. You're right. I hope it would, but I've been surprised. All right, Gibbs. Let's take our last break to talk about headspace.

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slash T-Cat today. Later that year in 1994, Gary broke into a locked case in a library in Woodstock, Vermont. All right. Doesn't seem like the kind of place that, you know, most people would try to break into to steal something from. So he waited until the library was closed. And I guess in this locked case,

they had a valuable, rare book. It was one of John James Audubon. Birds of America books. Yeah. Very famous. Yes, it is. Dates back to the 1800s. It's a book of lithographs of birds.

Now, some of these books are very rare. And according to the economist publication, adjusting for inflation, five of the 10 highest prices ever paid for printed books were for copies of the Birds of America. Very rare. Gibbs, some of these went for. seven, nine, $11 million.

And I know this is a book you would like because it has a lot of pictures. My favorite. I know how you like your picture books. Now, the book that Evan stole wasn't, you know, one of these really high priced ones, but it was valued at around $70,000 in 1994. That is still a very rare pricey book. It's a good payday for him. For a book.

Yeah. Yeah. He was caught, though. Right. but he was charged with a federal crime. You're breaking into a library. Not good. He was looking at 25 plus years for stealing this book.

And it would be hard for somebody to fence that, knowing that it's such a rarity. It's going to stand out more so than I got this radio or his TV. Or even a diamond or, you know, a ruby that's been taken out of the setting. Okay. Is somebody going to look at that and know for sure that that was their diamond or they're Ruby. Maybe, you know,

probably not. But this book was so specific. Like you said that, yeah, I could see where, you know, a fence might get a little nervous on something like that. Maybe like the marble bench.

Why don't you start stealing shit that I can actually do something with? Exactly. Get some, get some coins, get some gold, get some TVs, just TVs for a while, man.

So 25 years he's looking at. He made a deal to give the book back. And he wound up with 27, months instead. Still, you know, 27 months for stealing the book. That is more than some of the people we've talked about in past episodes have served for violent sexual attacks. It is. Put that in perspective. I'm not saying that he should have stolen the book, but how can you weigh the two crimes side by side and say, yeah, they seem about even. And that's why the system's a little messed up sometimes. It is. Yeah, no doubt. It's not perfect by any means, has not been perfect over the years for sure.

So he does his time. He gets out and he reunited with the one person that, you know, he's gotten his life that can help him steal. And that's Tim Rysdorf. They teamed up to commit some burglaries because, hey, man, you get you have to eat. You have to pay the rent. I'm assuming that's what they were thinking. But in October of 19. 1997, Evans shot and killed Rysdorf. His last friend. His last friend shot him with the 22. Then he chopped up his body with a chainsaw into a bunch of pieces and then buried the pieces. So you can't tell me things aren't getting easier for this guy.

And when I say easier, I mean in the terms of committing murders. Okay. I killed one friend. I killed a second partner. Now I've killed my other friend. And I'm just going to take a chainsaw and, you know, chop up his body into pieces and I'll be done with it. So he's elevated to a whole other level now. Chopping up bodies.

Choping up bodies. We know if you can kill your good friends. Probably not hard to take that next step. Yeah. Probably not. But he's on probation, right? He hadn't been out of prison all that long, federal prison. He's on on a probation.

He takes off after he kills. him Rysdorf. So police began looking for him. I think they, they also had some suspicion that, you know, he was somehow involved in this disappearance of Rysdorf. They finally caught up with him in 1998 in Vermont. But they did so with the help of Damien Cuomo's girlfriend, right? They had had this relationship for a while after he had killed Damien. So he was arrested and brought back to New York. Like I said, police definitely suspected him in the murder of Tim Reistore. But Gibbs, I don't think they had the evidence they needed. They might have thought he had something to do with it. They didn't have a body. They didn't have a murder weapon. They really had no evidence

to charge him at all. But for some reason, kind of out of the blue, Evans decided to confess. And he ultimately confessed to five murders. Michael Falco, Douglas Barry. Damien Cuomo, Gregory Jobin, and Tim Rysdor. He said he killed Michael Falco because he thought he had stolen from him. And I think he was a little worried that he was about to rat him out. He basically said the same thing about Damian Cuomo. He thought he was stealing from him as well. And I think he was probably trying to tie up a loose end.

As for Tim Rysdor, Evans relayed that he was. angry because he had found out that Tim had lied to him. I kind of foreshadowed this. And when we talked about the murder of Michael Falco, you know, I think Gary viewed Tim as the reason that he felt he had to kill his good friend Michael Falco. Because it was Tim who had told Gary that Michael had stolen from him when in fact, he hadn't. It had been Tim all along.

So when Gary found this out years later, he was pissed. And he wanted revenge. He wanted revenge. Now, he ended up having to kill his second friend to get it. Right. But it was revenge for, I guess, him having to kill his first friend is the way he must have looked at it. Like I said, it seemed to me like the guy only had two friends as far as I could tell and he

shot them both to death. He explained that Barry and Jobin were killed as part of the robberies of their stores. he helped police recover the bodies of Falco, Cuomo, and Rysdorf. And again, Gives, I cannot stress this enough, police had no evidence. They didn't know where any of these bodies were. Yeah, they needed his help. They wouldn't have been able to do anything to him if he had not decided to confess. Now, could they have put a case together later on?

Maybe. But at the time, they had nothing on him for. even Tim's murder, let alone all five. He was indicted for the murders and prosecutors said that they would seek the death penalty for the murder of Tim Rysdorf. They couldn't on the other ones because they happened before the death penalty was reinstated in New York. You know, I said it up front. Gary Evans was never going to be tried for his murders. At some point, he made the decision that, you know what, that was just something he was not going to let happen. In the past when he got caught, he would do a little stints, but this is going to be a lifetime

in prison. Or death. Or death. One of the other. You're not going to leave this time. No. No, I think you're right. I think I'm not going to say he was okay with going to prison earlier, but I think he knew

he'd do a little workout, be out in a couple years, go back to doing what he was doing. and this time he knew he wasn't going to get out. No way. One of two things was going to happen. Either he would spend the rest of his life in jail or he would be put to death. On August 14th, 1998, Evans appeared in federal court where he was sentenced to 24 months for a probation violation. The probation violation related to that book theft. Now, a lot of people might ask, well, what's that going to mean, right, to a man who's potentially, facing the death penalty, but they hadn't convicted him yet. So you could say, well, it probably doesn't mean much, but at least you got him for two years.

That's true. Regardless of what happens with this trial. You know where he's at. But the key here is that Gary Evans had no plans to spend the rest of his life in prison. He wasn't about to wait on death row until his execution. So as marshals drove him from his court appearance in a van, he made his move. And you got to see pictures of this van, Gibbs. When I think of marshals or, you know, law enforcement transporting this guy that's potentially

facing death penalty, you know, I'm envisioning some armored vehicle. Right. In my head for some reason. No, it wasn't that. It was an astrovan. A Chevy astrovan. Like, my parents had one when I was in high school. It's like, hey, Jimmy, we got a.

Get him over to the courthouse. Where's the van? Well, we don't have that today. I'll just pull up my, let me go grab my Astro. My family's van. Yeah. But I don't know if you remember those. It was essentially all windows.

Oh, sure was. I mean, one big window down the side. You've got windows in the back. And obviously, you've got windows on the, on the driver's side and passenger door. So as the van crossed the Troy Manan's bridge, Evans kicked out one of the windows and he just jumped out. It was very secure. Just like that.

Just like how hard is it to kick out a minivan? It's not a minivan, but you know what I mean? Not too long. I wouldn't call it a full size van. It was kind of an in-between, right? Yeah. I wouldn't call it a full-size. I wouldn't call it a minivan.

It was kind of a in-between. In-betweener. Called in-between van. But, you know, brace yourself up against one, one of the doors and, Kick hard, not going to be too hard. Well, let's also remember. He was a pretty strong guy. He was, he was.

And we'll put pictures up, you know, on social media. When you see this guy's back, he looked like a freaking W.W.E. Wrestler. Yeah. I mean, he really was like all triceps and what are those ones in the back? I don't have any. Trapsoids. Traps.

Lats. I don't have any of those. So I don't know what they're all called. Well, he was probably like V shape. He was. Well, you're more like a tee-pee shape. I'm inverted. Yeah, yeah.

I'm inverted from the way he was. Yeah. Thanks for kicking me while I was down. Yeah, you're welcome. But he was. He was a big dude, and he just got bigger and bigger over the years when you look at pictures of him, because he just, he must have just worked out nonstop in prison. So after he kicked out this window, he hobbled over to the side of the bridge,

because he was handcuffed and he was shackled, right, around his ankle. So he's kind of like he's got a duck walk it. The marshals chased after him and he just went over the side. Did the swan dive? I don't know if he dove or just jumped. Yeah, he did manage to get one of his hands out of the handcuffs. And this goes back to his fear of being in handcuffs. I'll talk about in a minute.

Remember I said he always had a handcuff key on him. Well, apparently that extended to being in custody as well. He was, because he got one of his handcuffs off and he just jumped over. But he landed about 65 feet below in what was said to have been about a foot of water from the Hudson River. Right. You're not going to survive that. No. And he didn't.

He died. You would have to have some knowledge about that bridge, that area when you pre-planned doing something like that. Well, this was his territory, right? This is where he had lived. This is where he'd grown up. Yeah. He had probably crossed that bridge. Who knows how many times.

He was very aware of and had a good understanding of where he was at and what this bridge was like. There's been a lot of speculation over the years about whether he was jumping to try to escape or this was a suicide. But, you know, notes found. later seemed to put really any of that doubt to rest. In several notes, he wrote, to live in a cage forever or until they can kill me after the life I've had is no life at all, only misery. I'd like it known why I can't allow myself to be imprisoned because of all the things

taken from me, all the nevers, the things I'll never experience again, all the magic moments with the girl I love. I'm in a better place now. I win. Kind of interesting how he left out all the bad stuff he did while he was out though. Oh yeah. He's not going to bring that up. He's just telling you and anybody else that wants to know that I'm in control. I'm making this decision. Yeah. It's not you. You're not going to be able to keep me on death row. Yep. This is the way that I'm choosing to do it. So again, you can go back to the I'm out of control. I'm out of control. Well, now I'm taking control.

Yep. Maybe was his thinking on top of the fact that I just don't think he was willing to sit in prison for the rest of his life or to be executed. He wanted to control his own fate and that's what he did. I think so. I do. There are other things that investigators have pointed out that prove to them this was a suicide. I've talked about the handcuff keys. And, you know, apparently he had one stuffed up his nasal cavity.

You can see x-rays of it online. It couldn't have been too comfortable. So he had this key the day he escaped, but investigators said that he only used it to free that one handcuff. It would have also unlocked the shackles. But he never took them off. Which would lead to the fact that it was a suicide. I think that's the way investigators look at it,

based on that, based on the notes. I think definitely the notes really kind of lead you to believe that he was planning to do this. He know he was going to this court appearance. He wrote these notes ahead of time. So he might now I don't know how he knew he was going to be in an astro van. But maybe he just, he had been shuffled around so much. He figured, hey, there's no security. I'll be able to get out of whatever they take me in.

Right. They also found a razor blade taped to his ankle. So I think you have to ask the question, Gibbs. What were the security protocols going on at this point in time? It's a little concerning. Yeah, we're riding around in an astro van. Yeah. This guy's got a razor blade and a handcuff key.

On his person. On his person. Yeah, we have him handcuffed and shackled, but hell, what good is that when the person has the key? You know, can we not get a wand? Can we not put him through a metal detector or something? And who knows what he had up a keyster? I didn't see anything in the autopsy or, you know, online about him keistering anything, but I know that's a big thing in prison.

Some people keester a shiv or a shank sometimes with really bad results. Yeah. You keester just for fun. Yeah. You got to stay in practice, man, in case you ever are put into prison. That's true. You never know. You never know what's going to happen.

I say keep your head on a swivel, right? You do. This kind of falls in line with that. It's a much different version. of that. Yeah. So I think as we wrap up this case on Gary Charles Evans, no doubt Gibbs that he had a horrible childhood. Was all of it true? I don't know. But some of it's been corroborated. I think it's pretty safe to say. It was a horrible childhood. But that doesn't excuse the things that he did. Doesn't mean that, you know, you can just go out and murder people or anything like that.

But I think for me, it's hard not to think that, okay, what would have happened if he would have grown up in a better environment? Would he not have most likely been a more responsible citizen? You know, that's a good debate. It is. I think it's a question you can ask. It's a debate you can have. You know, I said it in the beginning. I don't view this guy the same way that I do a Dom or a Bundy or a Gator.

I don't think he killed for the fun of it. I don't think he killed to, you know, satisfy a compulsion or a craving or anything like that. I think this guy killed because to him, he felt as though he needed to solve a problem, whether that problem was someone was stealing from him or he felt as though they were going to tell on him or he had a store owner who could identify him. Now, that doesn't make it right, obviously. To me, it's just different than the true, what I call the true serial killers that the way that I think of a serial killer. But like you said, Gibbs, I think it's a question that you can ponder. Would Gary Evans have grown up to do the things he did if he had responsible loving parents? In his case, I think maybe he could have been a little

different. I think he could have been. Now, you could ask that question about a lot of killers, but some of them come from good homes. They sure do. They're just evil. I don't know what to make of this guy. I'm not sure he had a frog demon. I'm not sure he was evil in the sense of, you know, some of these people that we think of as evil. Obviously, he was a murderer. So you could say, well, that's evil. To be such a victim of abuse at an early age by your, mom and dad. The two people in the whole world you should always be able to trust, definitely had an impact. Yeah, it had a negative impact. It didn't, there's no way it set him down the right path. Now, the question is, would he have chosen to stay on the right path if he had had parents that

put him on the right path? Does that make sense? Well, sure. Some people are set on that path. They just choose to veer off. Some people aren't set. down that path and they choose to get on it, they turn their life around and make good of themselves. I think it happens both ways. There's no way to answer the question, but it's something you can debate and talk about. But no doubt, Evans went down the wrong path. And you just can't excuse what he did regardless of what he went through. No, because we've talked about it before where other individuals have had a really shitty childhood. Yeah. Trauma, abuse. Yeah, went through similar situation, but it didn't result into being a murderer.

Yeah, I think that's the bottom line. You know, I view Gary Evans as a guy who made his own choices. I didn't see any record of, you know, severe mental illness. I didn't see anything like that in his background. I think he chose to do what he did of his own free will. And he was going to have to pay the price for that. he just chose to do something else instead of waiting for that to come. I just don't think he cared about the consequences of his action and that allowed him to carry

on doing what he did. And I think you can say that for everyone who kills. Right. They have, unless you have a severe mental impairment that keeps you from knowing right from wrong. Right. As a murderer, you know what you're doing is wrong. And you're making the decision to do it anyway.

because why? Because that's more important than the risk of getting caught. Yeah. Pure and simple. But that's it for our episode on Gary Charles Evans. Gives, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear him.

Yo, what's up, guys? I've been a listener for about going on two years now. Your podcast gets me through the day. When I'm at work, I'll put it on. When I'm just chilling at the house, I'll put it on. It's very knowledgeable. But I was wondering if you guys would ever do that, do a podcast about the McMartin preschool molestation case.

I don't really know much about it, but I'd love to know more about it. And I feel like you guys are the best people to tell me about it. So, um, uh, but anyways, love you guys. Um, what's up to my boy, Gibby. Thanks guys for everything. Yeah, I was actually, uh, reading up on that case about four months ago. Right. It's, it's a fascinating case.

I've had it on the list probably since we started the podcast. I will say this. it's going to be a tough one because of the subject matter. Sure. You know, and the charges that were levied. But, you know, it's fascinating. So I know we'll do it at some point. Hi, Mike and Gibby.

This is Becca from central Kentucky. Go cat. I just finished episode 208. You all have been a saving grace for me during the pandemic. I started listening in March when I got sent home to work from home. and I'm still home, and I listen every single day. So I appreciate everything that you all do and have continued to put out the podcast because I needed them.

I have a case suggestion. David Sparks was recently sentenced back in December 2020, actually, and this is a case of the murder of Savannah Spurlock that made national news. However, I feel like it's one of those small town. cases that kind of shook everybody in Lancaster, Kentucky. So you all might want to check that out. And again, I appreciate everything that you do, have a good one and keep your own time picking. Man, go cats. They're going to need some go. They need a lot of go, man. They're rough. This is the roughest year that I've ever had as a cast fan. I'm 46 years old. You think about burning your

blue stuff? No, never. Oh, okay. Never. But that, you know, I'll make sure that case is on the list. Hi, guys. My name is Karen Miller from Shahelk, Washington. My husband and I love your podcast, and we listen every week in our car on our long canoe. We couldn't find any guys ever covered Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer. Since we're from Washington, he's always fascinated us. And in the last two weeks, the previously unidentified girl was finally identified as a 14-year-old runway. This case has never really formally been shut because there's still two Jane Does left to identify. But we would really love to hear you guys cover it. Thank you. And thank you for everything you guys do. Big case. It is a big case. Huge case. Morf and I covered it on criminology. I know you and I will do it on true crime all the time, but it is a, it's a massive case because the victim count is just so high.

Yeah. With Gary Ridgeway. And we talked about doing it when we came up on episode 200. Yeah, we did. That was a potential for episode 200. He's also a guy that's come up in quite a few of our unsolved cases because, yeah, the guy was so prolific and you know you have these unsolved cases out on the west coast and you think well could that could be gary richway and i remember he came up during the beginning of covid when they were doing

some prison releases because they almost let him out yeah yeah mistakenly let him out or i yeah that would have been it was bizarre i don't know how that would have we had some mailbag gibbs marge and molly mccoyne send in a Harley Chip. Well, thank you. And our friend Lisa sent us in our yearly Storybrook stable calendar. Really? Yep, for 2021. So we got that going.

Well, we like that. So we appreciate that. We do. All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.