Slain shooting suspect had been declared legally dead in 2014
A former Pennsylvania man who allegedly shot and killed two sheriff’s deputies in Maryland on Feb. 10 was declared legally dead two years ago.
Judge John Kennedy of York County, Pennsylvania, declared David Brian Evans legally dead in a probate matter after Evans’ father died, report the York Daily Record and the Baltimore Sun. The declaration of death was retroactive to 1997.
Police say Evans shot and killed a deputy in a Panera restaurant in Abingdon, Maryland, then shot and killed another deputy at a nearby shopping center. Evans was also killed in the shootout.
A civil engineer, Evans left his last known job in 1993. Evans’ sister had tried to find him with the help of a private investigator and had run notices of the court petition in the local newspaper, but was unable to find him.
Evans’ son thought he saw his father at the restaurant where he worked in 1996, but the man disappeared. Police also sought Evans later that year to question him after his ex-wife reported being shot in the neck, but the authorities were unable to find him.
Police in Florida had a couple contacts with Evans but they likely didn’t realize he was wanted for questioning in Maryland because no warrant had been issued for his arrest. Once, Evans sped from police as they tried to pull over his car. Later he turned himself in and got six months of supervised probation.
Last April, a police officer saw Evans in his car outside an office building. Evans appeared to be living in the car, and he sped away when the officer called a dispatcher about the tags, which turned out to be stolen.
Kennedy spoke with the York Daily Record about the case. “Obviously, if we’ve declared someone dead and then they surface, yeah, that’s something we don’t expect,” Kennedy said. “When I declared him dead, I felt the family met their burden, so I didn’t expect the person to appear.”
Typo corrected on March 14.
