Gary Evans, Escape Artist and Serial Killer: CBS 6 Rewind, 2023

Name: Gary Evans, Escape Artist and Serial Killer: CBS 6 Rewind, 2023
Uploaded: 2023-02-23T00:00:00Z
Duration: 6 min 30 s
Description: A CBS 6 Albany retrospective on Gary Evans, with the state police investigator who pursued him for 13 years and 1998 footage from the Troy-Menands Bridge, where Evans escaped from a van and fell to his death. Evans does not speak.

A CBS 6 Albany retrospective on Gary Evans, with the state police investigator who pursued him for 13 years and 1998 footage from the Troy-Menands Bridge, where Evans escaped from a van and fell to his death. Evans does not speak.

Subject: Gary Evans
Recorded: about 2023
Runtime: 6:30

Content warning: Concerns five murders, including a dismemberment (stated briefly), and Evans's death in a fall from a bridge.

The Recording

This is a six-and-a-half-minute "CBS 6 Rewind" report by Liz Bishop of WRGB in Albany, New York, published in February 2023. It looks back at the life and death of Gary Evans, a career thief from Troy who confessed in 1998 to five murders and days later died after escaping from a prison van on the Troy-Menands Bridge. The report combines narration with interviews with Jim Horton, the retired New York State Police senior investigator who pursued Evans for thirteen years, and with WRGB archive footage, including eyewitnesses and a first responder at the bridge in 1998. Evans himself is not heard; his words appear only as Horton remembers them.

Historical Context

Gary Charles Evans was born in Troy, New York, in 1954. He spent most of his adult life stealing, especially antiques, and in and out of jail. Between 1985 and 1997 he killed five men: Michael Falco, an accomplice, in 1985; Douglas Berry, a Watertown coin and jewelry dealer, in 1989; Damien Cuomo, another accomplice, in December 1989; Gregory Jouben, a Little Falls coin shop owner, in 1991; and his partner Timothy Rysedorph in 1997. He was caught in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in May 1998, and confessed to the killings, leading investigators to the remains.

Circumstances of the Recording

On August 12, 1998, Evans was arraigned in Rensselaer County on murder charges. Two days later, on August 14, while being moved in a U.S. marshals' van, he freed himself with a handcuff key he had hidden in his nose, broke a window, and jumped from the Troy-Menands Bridge. He landed short of the Hudson River and died; his death was ruled a suicide. The CBS 6 report revisits the case twenty-five years later.

What the Recording Covers

The report opens with 1998 eyewitness accounts of the escape. Horton describes a letter Evans sent him with a drawing of himself flying through glass, and says the escape was planned as a suicide. The narration traces Evans's thefts, including a thousand-pound marble bench taken from the Albany Rural Cemetery, and his June 1980 escape from the old Rensselaer County Jail, when inmates threw him onto the fence. It describes his time beside David Berkowitz in protective custody, the five murders, his capture in Vermont, his confessions, and the note found after his death that ended "I win." Horton recalls Evans telling him he would not spend his life "in a cage."

What Makes the Recording Significant

The report brings together the account of the investigator who knew Evans best and the station's own footage from 1980 and 1998, including witnesses on the bridge on the day he died. It shows how the case was remembered in the Capital Region a generation later.

Archival Importance

Evans was never tried: he died before any of the murder charges came to court, so the case rests on his confessions and the investigators' accounts. Horton's recollections, recorded here, are part of that record.

Important Caveats

Evans does not speak in this video. Everything attributed to him is reported by others: by Horton, or by the narration (the "I win" note). The statements about Evans's motives and planning are Horton's interpretation.

Liz Bishop: By the end of his life, serial killer Gary Evans's rap sheet was more than 11 feet long, packed with every imaginable felony, from burglary to arson to murder. In 1998, the last desperate act of this notorious serial killer became the talk of the Capital Region for years to come. In tonight's CBS 6 Rewind, the bold final moments and evil deeds of this vicious criminal, whose laser focus in life was committing crimes and evading punishment.

Narrator: A hidden key and a broken car window.

Eyewitness: All of a sudden this guy dives out of the side window.

Narrator: And a long jump from a local bridge.

Eyewitness: He's got an orange jumpsuit on.

Narrator: And the legend of Gary Evans, escape artist and serial killer,

Eyewitness: And he was just hanging there as the van was skidding.

Narrator: was sealed forever.

Eyewitness: Made no [unclear: "qualms" / "bombs"; probably "bones"] about it. Jumped off, head first, dove right over.

Narrator: Evans always found it easier to walk a crooked line than a straight one. He was 43 years old when he died pulling off his final escape. According to some, a fitting end for a sociopathic killer.

First Responder: He was flatlined when we got [unclear: "there" / "to it"].

Reporter: Was he breathing? Was he [unclear: "aligned" / "alive"; probably "alive"]?

First Responder: No, he wasn't breathing. He was on the shore when we got there.

Narrator: Others, like the retired state police senior investigator who plotted his movements for 13 years, say it was planned.

Jim Horton: This was an escape to commit suicide. I had seen him the previous Wednesday, and he wrote me a letter, and it showed him. He was a pretty good artist, and he showed himself flying through the air with shards of glass.

Narrator: Horton says Evans was as methodical in his death as he was in his life of crime. He had dug away at his sinuses so that he could eventually insert a handcuff key up his nose. X-rays after his death show it was still lodged there.

Jim Horton: This guy could crawl through a straw to escape if he wanted to.

Narrator: While his [unclear: "time off" / "time walk"; probably "dive off"] this bridge may have cemented his name in local folklore, Gary Evans's life was a sordid collection of misdeeds and murders.

Jim Horton: He committed hundreds, if not thousands, of crimes in his, uh, you know, his 40 years on this planet.

Narrator: Rewind to Troy, New York, in the early '80s. Gary Charles Evans, son of an abusive father and alcoholic mother, had decided early in life if he wanted something, the best way to get it was to steal it.

Jim Horton: You know, for instance, he would jump on the back of the old Freihofer trucks while they were going down the road, and [unclear: "he'd" / "they'd"] steal cookies.

Narrator: For the next two decades he perfected the art of the steal.

Jim Horton: And I can't quantify how many crimes he's committed. Behind me there is his rap sheet, and that doesn't even include the murders.

Narrator: Evans apparently never met a valuable antique he didn't want to pocket. In fact, he once stole a thousand-pound marble bench from here at the Albany Rural Cemetery, and it was that fascination with antiquities that led to long stretches in jail, and ultimately his first escape attempt. In June of 1980, he was being held at the old Rensselaer County Jail on charges of possession of stolen property and parole violation when he jumped up on a picnic table in the rec area and called the bluff of a group of inmates from the Hells Angels.

Jim Horton: Gary said something like, "I bet you can't throw me over that fence," and they literally threw him, not over it, but on top of it, and he climbed over the barbed wire.

Narrator: All this playing out in broad daylight while TV crews captured the bizarre image of a bare-chested Evans crouched on the edge of the Troy library. He was eventually recaptured by police and would end up in protective custody after ratting out the Hells Angels, and the next bizarre chapter was underway.

Jim Horton: Lo and behold, who do they put him next to? David Berkowitz.

Narrator: Son of Sam. The two shared at least one hobby: they both liked to kill. They would become fast friends and pen pals for the rest of Evans's life. The 1980s were a busy, violent time for Gary Evans. In 1985 he shot his right-hand man, Michael Falco, in the head in Troy, threw him in the trunk of a car, drove to Florida and buried him in a swamp. Another accomplice, Damien Cuomo, witnessed one of the killings and was shot to death on Christmas Eve in 1989. Two of Evans's murder victims were shopkeepers killed during robberies.

Jim Horton: I interviewed him several times, and he started giving up bodies.

Narrator: By then Evans had added a fifth victim, his latest partner, Tim Rysedorph. After authorities started looking into Rysedorph's past, [unclear: "I" / "uh"; probably "he"] shot him in the head in a self-storage unit and cut him up with a chainsaw. None of those killings would be pinned on Evans until he confessed, just before his death in 1998. The year before he died, Evans stole gold cufflinks and this $6,000 gold bracelet from antique stores in Great Barrington, fenced them in Albany and went on the lam to the West Coast. Horton learned when Evans would be back in the area, and state police set up their net in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Jim Horton: And we had a canine, a Vermont trooper with a canine, and Gary sensed it and took off, and they let the dog get him.

Narrator: Once in custody, Evans wove a bloody tapestry of crime and death for investigators. He even led authorities to the badly decomposed body of Rysedorph in Brunswick. Two weeks later, they dug up Cuomo's remains in Troy. Falco's were unearthed in Fort Worth [sic], Florida. On August 12, 1998, after having been transferred to the Rensselaer County Jail from Albany for security reasons, Gary Evans was wrapped in manacles and chains and taken to court on a probation violation. But no one with Evans that day knew about the key hidden in his sinuses and the straight razor in his cheek. Horton says the killer was obsessing over the confessions that had set up a lifetime in prison.

Jim Horton: He told me more than once, "I'm not going to live my life in a cage, in prison for the rest of my life."

Narrator: And it was over the Troy-Menands Bridge that Evans's life of crime ended.

Eyewitness: So I just peered over the bridge, expecting to see somebody swimming away, and I looked down, and he's on, you know, hit the ground. He didn't make the water.

Narrator: Even in death, though, Evans had a few more surprises: an apparent suicide note found that ended with the words "I win", and a phone call to Horton from Evans's next-door neighbor.

Jim Horton: She called me up and said, "Gary had a will." I said, "OK, fine." And in the will he wanted to be cremated, and "he actually wants you to have half of his ashes."

Liz Bishop: To say that there's been enormous interest in Gary Evans's life and death is almost an understatement. Horton is involved now in an independent movie on Evans's life and his pursuit of him over those 13 crime-filled years. And to show you how aware people here were of his nefarious activities, Horton tells me that an hour after Evans died, a Troy bar was offering a drink special: Gary Evans on the rocks.

Anchor: Wow. [06:29 to 06:30: clip ends.] ---