All Bill ever wanted, he told me, was for his former friend Gary Evans’ complete story to be told. He saw Evans’ criminal life as a byproduct of the sexual, emotional and violent abuse Evans suffered during his formative years. Bill doesn’t want people to think that it excuses Evans’ five murders; but for Bill and his family, it does explain how and why their friend ended up the way he did. Taken in full context, Bill believes that Evans’ story can help people understand the mind of the serial killer.
As for that cache of Evans’ belongings Bill once had, today they’re all gone. They exist no more.
“I have no idea where everything is,” Bill said, “just the way I like it. I gave it all to [the authorities] and never saw any of it again.”
I have my own copies!
Chapter 13
ACCORDING TO GARY EVANS, THE RELATIONSHIP between him and Son of Sam ended when Evans called Sam “David Bezerk-o-witz” one day while they were lifting weights.
I have to hand it to Evans: I like that nickname for Berko.
“He got really pissed,” Evans said later, “and we never spoke again.”
Evans came up with a rather bizarre theory regarding Sam’s pedigree. He claimed a news article he’d read once about Sam claimed the infamous serial killer was “really adopted, and his name at birth was . . . are you ready? Richard Falco, son of [Michael Falco’s parents]! I almost shit reading that! I haven’t said anything to him because that’s personal and I don’t want him catching an attitude at me.”
Michael Falco was Gary Evans’s first victim. Evans shot Falco in the head and buried his body in Florida. Investigators wouldn’t find it for fifteen years.
Asked later about the connection between David Berkowitz and the Falcos, Investigator James Horton said, “I do remember [Evans] telling me that. But I didn’t take it any further. I really had no reason to at the time. It was meaningless to what I was doing with Gary. And, to be honest, it was one of those Gary statements that just seemed to be so far out there, I didn’t put much credence into it.”
The moment Evans and Sam stopped being friends proves how fragile the mind of a serial killer is, not to mention how the ego dictates behavior. Sam could take a lot of things and, one could argue, used Evans for food, friendship, reading materials, protection, and Lord knows what else. But when it came to insulting his intellect, thus perhaps holding up a mirror and forcing Sam to think about what he had done, it was too much. As a researcher, a serial killer expert who has studied murderers for over a dozen years, I can say that the insult was a strike to the character that Sam had built up over the years while incarcerated. By character, I mean like in the movies, or in a novel. The persona Sam had spent years chiseling out for himself in prison. Sam had an identity. Sam had erased the killer he was out of his mind and perhaps believed, like a lot of convicted murderers, that the person who committed those crimes was someone else. Sam saw himself as a new man by the time he met Evans—not the evil killer America had branded him. Evans reminded Sam that he could never escape from that monster percolating inside of him. Evans knew, perhaps better than most, that once you killed another human being, you had crossed a line in humanity that you could never come back from. Evans had a saying, “Nothing this evil ever dies.” He sent a photo of himself once to James Horton with those words on it.
Evans meant it. And to his credit, unlike Son of Sam, Gary Evans never ran away from who he was.
Crime expert, television personality and star of “Dark Minds,” investigative journalist M. William Phelps is the national bestselling, award-winning author of twenty nonfiction books. Winner of the2008 New England Book Festival Award for I’ll Be Watching You, Phelps has appeared on CBS’s “Early Show,” truTV, The Discovery Channel, Fox News Channel, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” The Learning Channel, Biography Channel, History Channel, Montel Williams, Investigative Discovery, Geraldo At Large, USA Radio Network, Catholic Radio, Ava Maria Radio, ABC News Radio and Radio America, who calls him “the nation’s leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” He is one of the principal stars of the hit Investigation Discovery show “Deadly Women,” now airing its fourth season. He’s written for the Providence Journal, Hartford Courant, the New London Day, and has been profiled in such noted publications as Writer's Digest, New York Daily News, Newsday, Albany Times-Union, Hartford Courant, Connecticut Magazine, Advance for Nurses magazine, Forensic Nursing, and New York Post. He has also consulted for the Showtime cable television series “Dexter.”
Phelps lives in a small Connecticut farming community. Jane Friedman’s company Open Road Integrated Media has a deal with Kensington Publishing Corp. to market Phelps’s true crime e-books, published by Kensington’s Pinnacle imprint. Check out his profile, including a look into his personal life, at Open Road’s website.
Beyond his true-crime work, in 2008 Phelps published a highly acclaimed narrative nonfiction biography of Revolutionary War patriot Nathan Hale: NATHAN HALE: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy (Thomas Dunne Books), which was optioned for film by Warner Bros. On April 1, 2010, THE DEVIL’S ROOMING HOUSE, about Arsenic and Old Lace famed serial killer Amy Archer-Gilligan, merged Phelps’s two careers: crime and history. In December 2011, Phelps published THE DEVIL’s RIGHT HAND, an epic history of the Sam Colt legacy and a vicious murder committed by Sam’s brother John Colt.
“Dark Minds” was created by Phelps; it is a unique blend of his personal journey into true crime (his sister-in-law, five months’ pregnant, was murdered), and his obsessive quest to find not only his sister-in-law’s killer, but to find what drives serial murderers.
Photo Archive II
About the authors
M.William Phelps
CRIME WRITER AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST M. William Phelps is the author of twenty-five nonfiction books and a serial killer thriller, The Dead Soul. He has conducted dozens of interviews with experts in the fields of serial killers and criminal psychology, regularly communicates with several incarcerated serial killers, and has dedicated his working life to unraveling the mind of the serial offender. He consulted on the first season of the Showtime series Dexter, has been profiled in Writer's Digest, Connecticut Magazine, New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Suspense Magazine, and the Hartford Courant, and has written for Connecticut Magazine. Winner of the New England Book Festival Award for I’ll Be Watching You and the Editor’s Choice Award from True Crime Book Reviews for Death Trap, Phelps has appeared on nearly one hundred television shows, including CBS’s Early Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s The View, TLC, BIO Channel, and the History Channel.
Phelps created, produces, and stars in the hit Investigation Discovery series Dark Minds, which focuses on unsolved, cold serial killer cases, now in its third season; and is one of the stars of ID’s Deadly Women. Radio America called him “the nation’s leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” Touched by tragedy himself, due to the unsolved murder of his pregnant sister-in-law, Phelps is able to enter the hearts and minds of his subjects like no one else. He lives in a small Connecticut farming community.
Gregg Olsen
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, GREGG OLSEN HAS demonstrated an ability to create a detailed narrative that offers readers fascinating insights into the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances.
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, Olsen has written nine nonfiction books, nine novels, a novella, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child.
The award-winning author has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel. He has also appeared on Dateline NBC, William Shatner's Aftermath, Deadly Women on Investigation Discovery, Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Today Show, FOX News, CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, CBS 48 Hours, Oxygen's Snapped, Court TV's Crier Live, Inside Edition, Ex
tra, Access Hollywood, and A&E's Biography.
In addition to television and radio appearances, he has been featured in Redbook, USA Today, People, Salon magazine, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times and the New York Post.
The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year by the ILA and Starvation Heights was honored by Washington's Secretary of State for the book's contribution to Washington state history and culture. His Young Adult novel, Envy, was the official selection of Washington for the National Book Festival.
Olsen, a Seattle native, lives in Olalla, Washington with his wife, twin daughters, three chickens, Milo (an obedience school dropout cocker spaniel) and Suri (a mini dachshund so spoiled she wears a sweater).
Also by M. William Phelps
Perfect Poison
Lethal Guardian
Every Move You Make (The Gary Evans book mentioned in this ebook)
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Murder in the Heartland
Because You Loved Me
If Looks Could Kill
I’ll Be Watching You
Deadly Secrets
Cruel Death
Death Trap
Kill For Me
Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of America’s First Spy
The Devil’s Rooming House: The True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer
The Devil’s Right Hand: The Tragic Story of the Colt Family Curse
Love Her to Death
Too Young to Kill
Never See Them Again
Kiss of the She-Devil
Murder, New England
Also by Gregg Olsen
NONFICTION
Abandoned Prayers
Starvation Heights
Cruel Deception (aka, Mockingbird)
If Loving You is Wrong
A Twisted Faith
Bitch on Wheels (aka, Black Widow)
Bitter Almonds
The Deep Dark
If I Can’t Have You (with Rebecca Morris)
Notorious USA: Bodies of Evidence (with Rebecca Morris)
FICTION
A Wicked Snow
A Cold Dark Place
Heart of Ice
Victim Six
Closer than Blood
Fear Collector
The Bone Box (novella)
Envy
Betrayal
Run
Shocking True Story
Don’t miss Bodies of Evidence, Notorious USA’s first box set and New York Times bestselling collection about the criminals from our neck of the woods (the Pacific Northwest). Like all of our collection, Bodies of Evidence is available as an eBook on most formats, as well as in paperback and as an audio book.
If there’s a notorious case from your town you’d like us to write about – contact us.
[email protected]
[email protected]
Don’t miss The Killing Kind...
M. William Phelps delves into the background of Hembree's victims, bringing readers into their lives in intimate detail. With exclusive information from detectives and prosecutors, Phelps reconstructs the chilling clues that led to Hembree's arrest, and the media sensation surrounding his trial, mistrial, and ultimate conviction.
MADNESS, SEX, SERIAL KILLER: A Disturbing Collection of True Crime Cases by Two Masters of the Genre Page 13
