Donald Leroy Evans, the drifter who claims to have killed more than 60 people over the course of a decade, spent nearly two of those years in and out of jail, authorities said.
Evans also spent a month in a Chicago hospital seeking help with psychiatric problems, said his uncle, Donald E. Walker. Evans checked himself out of the Veterans Administration Lakeside Medical Center in March 1984, though his psychiatrist warned "he shouldn't be on the street and that he would hurt somebody," Walker said.Evans, 34, of Galveston, Texas, told authorities he killed people in at least 20 states from the time he left the Marine Corps in 1977 up to his 1987 imprisonment in Texas for rape, said Fred Lusk, his court-appointed attorney.
If his claims prove true, Evans would be responsible for more slayings than any known serial killer in U.S. history.
A special FBI team specializing in serial killers arrived here Thursday to begin trying to verify Evans' claims.
Evans spent 31/2 months in an Oregon jail in 1982 for theft and unlawful use of a vehicle, Oregon corrections officials said. He had been sentenced to three years, but was paroled Oct. 6, 1982, and extradited to Nevada on outstanding warrants.
"Nobody here remembers anything about him," Oregon Corrections' Division spokesman Dave Schumacher said Thursday. "The charges against him were real lightweight back then."
A file on Evans at the Clark County Courthouse in Las Vegas shows he was convicted of cheating, gambling and theft in 1982 and sentenced to Nevada State Prison. His sentence was suspended, however, and he never served time in that state.
He apparently left Nevada in 1983. The court file shows there is an outstanding Las Vegas trespassing warrant for Evans' arrest.
On Feb. 2, 1984, Evans checked himself into the VA hospital, records show.
Walker said the hospital's psychiatrist called after Evans left March 8, 1984, urging the family to have Evans return.
"He told my daughter (Evans) should be back here, but he didn't have a legal right" to demand it, said Walker, who lives in Watervliet, Mich., where Donald Leroy Evans grew up.
Evans was arrested in Galveston, Texas, on a sexual assault charge on April 19, 1986, and held until he was sentenced on May 13, 1987, said Lt. Joe Gregory of the Galveston sheriff's office. Evans pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was paroled last April 18.
Evans was arrested Aug. 5 and charged with kidnapping 10-year-old Beatrice Louise Routh from Gulfport. Evans led authorities to her body on Sunday. He said he raped and strangled her in Louisiana and dumped her body in Mississippi.
He claims to have killed two women in Florida in 1985, in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale. Though details Evans provided match those deaths, police in the two Florida cities say firm links to Evans have not been established.
Evans is to be arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Biloxi on kidnapping charges. Lusk said Evans is willing to plead guilty and accept a life sentence, the maximum for kidnapping. But he has also asked for the death penalty if convicted of the killings.
Evans, held in isolation in Harrison County jail because of threats on his life, has had two visitors: a minister and a woman identified as his girlfriend from Galveston, said Harrison County Sheriff Joe Price.
Evans' father, Faye, said Thursday from Sebring, Fla., that he hadn't seen his son for more than 10 years.
"I have no feeling at all (for him)," he said. "Naturally, I feel sorry for the little girl. But I have no more feelings about her than you."