MS Donald Leroy Evans (1957 - 1999) Killed victims between 1970 an 1991

[Richard]

Donald Leroy Evans
Born July 5, 1957
Watervliet, Michigan
Died January 5, 1999 (aged 41)
Mississippi State Penitentiary, Mississippi
Cause of death Murder
Other names Don, Donny,
Criminal penalty Death penalty
Victims 3 confirmed - Claimed more than 70
Span of crimes
1985–1991

Donald Leroy Evans (born July 5, 1957) is an American serial killer who murdered more than 15 people from 1970 to 1991. He was discharged from the United States Marine Corps in 1970. He was known for sexually assaulting and brutally killing victims at parks and rest areas across 20 states. He was a drifter, a drug addict, a convicted rapist and a white supremacist.

In 1991, Donald Leroy Evans was arrested in Louisiana for the kidnapping of a ten year old girl. He confessed to the killing and led the authorities to the girl's body. He also confessed to killing more than 60 other people in over 20 different states.

Most of the murders and rapes took place at rest stops and public parks. The authorities were originally skeptical of Evan's claims, but many of his descriptions were perfect matches to unsolved cases across Florida and Illinois. He successfully escaped the Harrison County Jail, but was recaptured a short time later.

He was tried and convicted for the kidnapping, raping, strangulation, and murder of 10 year old Beatrice Routh in 1993. In 1995, Florida authorities tried and convicted Evans for the strangulation death of Ira Jean Smith. During the trial Evan's requested a name change to "Hi Hitler."


Donald Leroy Evans

Donald Leroy Evans claimed to have murdered Randy Sellers in Kentucky in 1980. He also claimed to have murdered Kimberly McClaskey in Illinois in 1983. At the time he was on death row in Florida and was under a separate death sentence in Mississippi.

Donald Leroy Evan's execution was never carried out. He was stabbed to death in 1999 by a fellow death row inmate at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

LINKS:

American serial killer Donald Leroy EVANS

Donald Leroy Evans - Wikipedia

KY - KY - Randy Sellers, 17, Visalia, 16 Aug 1980

IL - IL - Kimberly McClaskey, 17, London Mills, 16 June 1983

Bumping case up. NCMEC no longer carries Kimberly's case in their files since her body has been found and identified. This does not mean that the case has been solved, however. Has anyone heard anything about whether or not any suspects have been charged with her murder? Any more...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Richard]

In the early 1990's, after Donald Leroy Evans had been convicted of two separate murders (Mississippi and Florida) and was sitting on Death Row, he began to confess to other murders. One of those confessions related to the 1980 disappearance of Randy Sellers, age 17, in Kentucky.

Here is a link to Randy's websleuths thread:

KY - KY - Randy Sellers, 17, Visalia, 16 Aug 1980

Randy Lee Sellers, 17, Missing 16 August 1980 from Visalia, KY Randy Lee Sellers Missing since August 16, 1980 from Visalia, Kenton County, Kentucky. Classification: Non-Family Abduction Vital Statistics Date Of Birth: September 6, 1962 Age at Time of Diappearance: 17 years old Height...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Richard]

After his Parole...

In 1986, Evans was convicted of rape in Galveston, Texas, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was paroled after only five years and returned to Galveston in 1991. Evans was not on the outside for very long, however. On August 1, 1991, the ex-convict snatched a 10-year-old homeless girl from a park in Gulfport, Mississippi. Evans raped and strangled the young girl and dumped her body. Four days later, Evans was arrested in Colorado, and, distraught over killing a child, admitted to the little girl’s murder and announced he wanted the death penalty.

After he confessed to the 10-year-old girl’s murder, Evans went on a confession spree. He told authorities that he had killed more than 70 people across 20 states while he drifted aimlessly around the United States between 1977 and 1986. Evans added that he had abducted most of his victims from rest areas and parks. Investigators were initially skeptical of Evans’ claims, as they did not want to get conned into a situation like the one that had occurred with Henry Lee Lucas in the mid-1980s. But they were still obliged to look into his story...

After a thorough investigation of Evans’ confessions, police were in fact able to tie him to the murders of Ira Jean Smith and Janet Movich, due to his in-depth knowledge of details from the two crime scenes. Both women were killed in Florida in 1985, so the investigations into their murders had long gone cold. In 1993, Evans was sentenced to death in Mississippi for the killing of the 10-year-old girl, and in 1995 he received an additional life sentence for the Florida murder of Ira Jean Smith.

On January 5, 1999, while awaiting the death penalty in Mississippi, 41-year-old Donald Evans was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate while in the shower. When he died, Evans took the true number of victims he had killed to his grave. The actual tally will likely never be known...

LINK:

The Rest Area Killer: The Brutal Crimes of Donald Leroy Evans

Donald Leroy Evans took advantage of dark and abandoned places to kill women. We may never know how many people became the Rest Area Killer's victims.

the-line-up.com

 

[Richard]

Known victims of Donald Leroy Evans​

• Ira Jean Smith (female, 38, March 7, 1985)
• Janet Movich (female, 38, April 14, 1985)
• Beatrice Louise Routh (female, 10, August 1, 1991)