[2] Evans stayed ahead of law enforcement officials briefly by stealing a car and fleeing to Mississippi.

[2] He tried to remain inconspicuous in the Gulfport area, but soon committed the crime for which he would receive the death penalty: the rape and murder of 10-year-old Beatrice Louise Routh on August 1, 1991.

[2][3] Evans seized the homeless girl from a Gulfport park and sexually assaulted her, before strangling her to death and dumping her corpse in a rural area.

[2] Arrested soon afterward, Evans confessed to abducting the girl, and he was remanded to a federal prison in Colorado on kidnapping charges.

The authorities were originally skeptical of Evans's claims, but two of his descriptions were perfect matches to unsolved cases across Florida.