If this was an episode of Criminal Minds....Evans would have been about 3 to 5 years old when he and his similar-aged sister witnessed their mother being brutally attacked. As an adult he's fallen into crime, and one day he is burgling a house when a woman and her three young children walk in the door as they return from the school run. A ton of adrenalin is released into his body, he's been rifling through draws looking for money, he demands money from the woman...she screams, he hits her and keeps on hitting her--she reminds him of his evil adoptive mother who adopted him after his mother died, so he's particularly violent with head and facial injuries. As the attack tapers down and his adrenalin levels fall off he can hear a small child whimpering, just like him and his sister after their mother was attacked. For reasons he doesn't even understand himself he scoops up the child and takes her with him. Starts driving, partly to escape police and partly to get away from what he's just done. Every now and then he looks over at the small crying child in the passenger seat crying for her mother and that she's cold and hungry, he takes off his grey hoody and puts it on her to keep warm, he doesn't know why he took her nor what he's going to do with her now...he can't take care of a child when he's on the run from the cops, and he doesn't even know anything about caring for a child his age, but for some reason he doesn't feel any desire to hurt her, so he keeps going. Then he stops for a sleep and a cop comes up to the car, he's actually relieved that he can now hand off the child to a responsible adult who's going to care for her...and the cop was kind enough to leave the car keys in the car so he'll make up an excuse to go back into the car (to get his documents) and drive off, finally alone.
I always wonder about those back stories in that show, they always seem too neat and tidy?