Vernon Lee Evans (born October 11, 1949)[1] is a contract killer convicted for murdering two witnesses scheduled to testify against the leader of a drug gang.
In 1984, he was convicted and sentenced to death together with drug kingpin Anthony Grandison for the 1983 murders of Susan Kennedy and David Scott Piechowicz.
David Piechowicz and his wife Cheryl (Susan Kennedy's sister) had been scheduled to testify against Grandison at trial on federal drug charges.
[6] On December 31, 2014, Evans' death sentence was one of four commuted to life without parole by outgoing governor Martin O'Malley.
The operation was ended when it came to light; Governor Martin O'Malley called it an "infring(ment) on citizens' rights to free speech or public assembly.