Gary Evans spent most of his adult life stealing antiques in upstate New York and New England, and much of the rest of it in prison. In the summer of 1998, after police in Vermont caught him on a theft warrant, he confessed to killing five men. Three of them, by his account, were his own partners in burglary, and two were shopkeepers. None of the killings had been pinned on him until he talked.
He was never tried for any of them. The Newtown Bee, a Connecticut weekly, reported that he had been indicted for three of the murders and was awaiting indictment on the other two. In August 1998, while U.S. marshals were driving him across the Troy-Menands Bridge, he got out through a window of the van and went over the side. He was 43. Jim Horton, the New York State Police senior investigator who had followed him for years, said afterward that the escape had been planned as a suicide.
Evans came from Troy, New York. WRGB, the Albany CBS station, described him in a 2023 retrospective as the son of an abusive father and an alcoholic mother who learned early that stealing was how he would get what he wanted. Horton told the station that as a teenager Evans would ride on the backs of Freihofer bakery delivery trucks and help himself to cookies.
He spent the next two decades getting better at it. WRGB reported that his taste ran to valuable antiques, and that he once carried off a marble bench weighing about 1,000 pounds from Albany Rural Cemetery. Thefts like that brought long jail terms. By the time of his death, according to The Newtown Bee, he had 15 felony convictions and 22 arrests on his record.
In June 1980 he made an escape that television cameras caught. Evans was being held in the old Rensselaer County Jail in Troy on charges of possessing stolen property and violating parole, WRGB reported. In the recreation yard, by Horton's telling, he climbed onto a picnic table and dared some Hells Angels inmates to throw him over the fence. "I bet you can't throw me over that fence," Horton quoted him as saying. They did, and he went up the barbed wire and away.
It happened in daylight. Television crews filmed him, bare-chested, on a ledge at the Troy library near the courthouse, and police took him back into custody. Afterward, WRGB reported, he informed on the Hells Angels and was placed in protective custody.
In prison, Horton told WRGB, Evans was put next to David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam." "Who do they put him next to?" Horton recalled. The station reported that the two became close friends and remained pen pals for the rest of Evans's life, and that they were said to share an interest in bodybuilding.
Everything known of the killings comes from Evans's own confessions in 1998. None was ever tested in court.
The first, he said, was Michael Falco, an accomplice WRGB described as his right-hand man. Evans confessed to shooting him in Troy in 1985 and taking the body to Florida. Falco's remains were later recovered in Florida after Evans told investigators where to look.
In 1989, according to WRGB's account of his confession, Evans shot and killed the owner of a secondhand shop during a robbery, and Damien Cuomo, another partner, saw it happen. Afraid that Cuomo would talk, Evans shot him too, on Christmas Eve 1989, by the station's account. In 1991, WRGB reported, he shot and killed another secondhand shop owner during a robbery.
The Little Falls Historical Society attributes to Evans the killing of Gregory Jouben, a 36-year-old Little Falls resident, the owner of a jewelry and coin store in the city, on October 17, 1991.
The last of the five was Timothy W. Rysedorph, described by The Newtown Bee as another Troy man and by WRGB as a friend and occasional partner of Evans's in theft. WRGB reported that Evans, afraid Rysedorph would inform on him, shot him in 1997. "Shot him in the head," Horton told the station, describing what Evans had told him.
In WRGB's account, fear that a partner would talk lay behind two of the killings, Cuomo's and Rysedorph's. No reason was given for Falco's.
The trail that led back to Evans began with jewelry. In 1997, WRGB reported, he stole gold cufflinks and a gold bracelet worth about $6,000 from antique stores in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, sold them in Albany, and left for the West Coast.
Capt. John Byrne of the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation told The Newtown Bee that Evans was charged with stealing antique jewelry in Massachusetts and selling it in Albany. State Police had been looking for him over a string of burglaries in New England, the paper reported. After his arrest he also confessed, according to the Bee, to breaking into a group antiques shop in Great Barrington twice and then setting it on fire.
He had a history in Vermont as well. In 1994, The Newtown Bee reported, he was charged with stealing a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America from a library in Woodstock, Vermont, and with burglarizing a group antiques shop in Quechee.
Horton learned when Evans planned to come back to the area, WRGB reported, and State Police set a trap for him in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. "Gary sensed it and took off," the station quoted. A Vermont trooper's police dog caught him. The Newtown Bee gave the date of the arrest as May 27, 1998.
In custody, Evans began to talk. "I interviewed him several times and he started giving up bodies," Horton told WRGB.
He led investigators to the remains of the three partners, the station reported. Rysedorph was found first, in Brunswick. About two weeks later Cuomo's remains were recovered in Troy. Falco's were found in Florida.
The Newtown Bee reported the total: five men, three of them his accomplices in burglary and two of them shopkeepers. By the end of the summer, the paper reported, he had been indicted for three of the murders and was waiting to be indicted on the other two.
Horton said Evans was preoccupied by what he had confessed and told him more than once, "I'm not going to live in a cage for the rest of my life."
On the day of his death Evans was being moved by U.S. marshals. WRGB reported that he was on his way to the Albany jail for a hearing; The Newtown Bee reported that he was being taken from the Albany courthouse back to the jail in Troy, where he was being held. Either way the route crossed the Hudson on the Troy-Menands Bridge.
He was in manacles, chains and handcuffs, guarded by four marshals, WRGB reported. None of them knew that he had a handcuff key hidden in his sinuses and a straight razor in his cheek. The Newtown Bee reported that, though shackled hand and foot, he broke a window of the van and jumped.
An eyewitness interviewed by WRGB in 1998 described a man in an orange jumpsuit going out the window as the van skidded, and going over headfirst without hesitation. "He made no qualms about it," the witness said. The witness had expected to see him swim away. "He didn't make the water," the witness said. WRGB reported that he was found in about 12 inches of water. The Newtown Bee put the fall at 65 feet.
X-rays after his death showed the key still in his sinuses, according to WRGB. "This guy could crawl through a straw to escape if he wanted to," a veteran investigator told the station.
Horton was sure from the start that Evans had meant to die. "This was an escape to commit suicide," he told WRGB. He said Evans had written to him the previous Wednesday, and that Evans, who could draw, had sketched himself flying through glass. In Horton's view Evans was as methodical in his death as he had been in his crimes.
He had left a suicide note for his lawyer, which was read after his death, The Newtown Bee reported. According to WRGB, an apparent suicide note ended with the words "I win."
There was one more instruction. Evans's next-door neighbor called Horton, the station reported, to tell him that Evans had left a will. "In the will he wanted to be cremated, and he wants you to have his ashes," the neighbor told him.
Because Evans died before any trial, no court ever ruled on the killings he described. What is known of them rests on his confessions and on the remains he led investigators to.
By March 2023, when WRGB revisited the case, Horton had retired from the State Police after following Evans for 13 years.
The killings. Evans was never tried, so none of the five killings is a proven murder in law. They are his confessions, and the attributions of the investigators and outlets that reported them.
The shopkeepers. WRGB did not name the two shop owners. The Little Falls Historical Society names Gregory Jouben as the man killed in Little Falls on October 17, 1991. The owner killed in 1989 has not been publicly named.
The date and details of the bridge death. Accounts differ. WRGB gave the date of the transfer as August 12, 1998; The Newtown Bee reported that he jumped on August 21. The Bee said he was being returned from the Albany courthouse to the Troy jail; WRGB said he was being taken to the Albany jail for a hearing. The Bee reported a 65-foot fall into the Hudson; WRGB reported that he was found in about a foot of water.
Escape or suicide. The jump took place in the course of an escape from custody, and no court or inquest finding was reported. Horton, who had followed Evans for 13 years, called it an escape made in order to die.
June 1980: escapes from the old Rensselaer County Jail in Troy with the help of Hells Angels inmates; recaptured the same day on a ledge at the Troy library.
1985: Michael Falco is shot in Troy, by Evans's later confession.
1989: a secondhand shop owner is shot during a robbery, by Evans's later confession; Damien Cuomo is shot on Christmas Eve, by WRGB's account of the confession.
October 17, 1991: Gregory Jouben, 36, is killed in Little Falls (killing attributed to Evans by the Little Falls Historical Society).
1994: charged in Vermont with stealing a copy of Audubon's Birds of America from a Woodstock library and with a burglary in Quechee.
1997: Timothy W. Rysedorph is shot, by Evans's later confession; Evans steals gold cufflinks and a gold bracelet in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, sells them in Albany and goes west.
May 27, 1998: arrested in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Summer 1998: confesses to five killings and leads investigators to remains in Brunswick, Troy and Florida; indicted for three of the murders.
August 1998: dies after going off the Troy-Menands Bridge while in U.S. marshals' custody (August 12 per WRGB; August 21 per The Newtown Bee).
March 13, 2023: WRGB broadcasts and publishes a retrospective on the case.