What I think happened.
Scenario 1:
"Elizabeth" is the mother of his daughter.
Evans kills his wife in-between June-October, the known time "Elizabeth" was last listed as his wife.
FEB 1980- Evans is arrested for worthless checks and lists spouse as Elizabeth, and referenced having a 2 year old and a 6 month old
The 2 year old is their daughter and the 6 month old is their infant that he either kills when he kills his wife or abandons. Maybe it is a boy and he has only had girl victims that we know of, so he has nothing to do with a son. Maybe two child would be too much for him.
He does his grieving single father routine with his daughter and meets a single mom with two children who are the Allenstown victims.
The relationship is brief since isotopes suggest they were together for a couple of months. Maybe he meets her at Bear Brook State Park where she's renting the apartment above the store he did work on.
They are killed between June 1980 (Last mention of wife)- early 1981 (when he met Denise).
Scenario 2:
"Elizabeth" is the adult Allenstown victim.
Evans kills the mother of his child in the late 70's. Maybe the relationship ended and he killed her, which is the reason I think he killed most of his victims, because they wanted to leave and he had abandonment issues likely resulting from his childhood.
Plays his grieving single father routine and meets "Elizabeth" who has an infant not far in age from his daughter
or she is pregnant much like Denise was when she met Evans. They get married in the late 70's (no earlier then late 1979 due to the children's ages) and blend their family.
FEB 1980- Evans is arrested for worthless checks and lists spouse as Elizabeth, and referenced having a 2 year old and a 6 month old
I believe the 2 year old is Evan's daughter and the 6 month old was Elizabeth's child.
Now I haven't forgotten about the 5-10 year old found with the adult victim.
I personally believe that the oldest child is the adult victims younger half-sister. And she is potentially why Evans ultimately decided to kill them.
The situation I'm seeing is that "Elizabeth" and her half-sister's mother passes away sometime in 1980 and the mother was the primary guardian of the 5-10 year old and maybe her father was deceased or not in the picture. Her older sister takes her in because of lack of family, or family members living elsewhere. This could be why they were never reported missing. The mother could have been the only family they had or were close to.
Reasons that Evans may have seen the oldest child as a problem:
- Evans either starts molesting his wife's sister and she found out.
- He becomes concerned that she was school age and had to soon be enrolled in school.
- Maybe they had to fill out paper work to become her legal guardian so she wouldn't have to go into foster care and Evans didn't want that paper trail leading directly to him.
- Her age was a concern to Evans not only because of school but because she was old enough to expose him to someone and be believed. (teachers/ school counselor/ friend/ friend's parents/ neighbors, etc.)
I think another contributing factor to their deaths may have been that three children was too much for Evans to handle and especially considering his wife had an infant. Evans may have been the breadwinner until the child was older so she could work too. Having a baby sitter may be risky for him, they may find something out and become suspicious when they call to babysit and there no longer is children to watch. He could have told them that he and his wife divorced and she took the children though, which is what I think was his explanation of their disappearance to everybody who may have asked.
I don't think he intended on killing the two youngest at first. I think he wanted to do his single dad routine again, but there was a reason he decided to not use them. Maybe a 6 month old was not something he wanted to deal with. He needed someone at home to watch them while he was at work. I think with Lisa he kept Denise alive a while. When Lisa was a little older he worked in RV parks and neighbors like
Katherine Decker watched her while he was working.
Reasons I think he decided to kill the youngest victims:
- Maybe the two girls went ballistic after witnessing the murders, that's traumatic at any age.
- They were two young for him to deal with himself especially since he worked.
- He used his real name when he had his daughter and that name was on her birth certificate and he didn't want that connection to him. It was too risky, maybe he kidnapped her after he killed her mother and the family was searching.
- His daughter was so terrified of him after the fact that he took that as rejection. I think that's why Evans killed his wife's/grilfriends, they wanted to leave him.
- She was old enough to talk, and was saying things like "daddy killed mommy!"
I wanted to give the victims names, even though it's not their real names. They don't even have a nickname like Cali doe, so I just wanted to do it. I just thought it would be symbolic.
Allenstown victims:
20's, Adult- "Elizabeth" but I think she went by another nickname, like a middle name, and this was her legal name.
5-10 year old- "Stephanie" Elizabeth's half-sister
2-4 year old- "Lisa" Evans daughter
1-3 year old- "Michelle" or "Nicole" Elizabeth's daughter
