Ball freed, Evans convicted in trial over Williamsburg man’s death

The four-day joint trial of two women accused in the May 11, 2004, killing of a Williamsburg man yielded tears of joy, sorrow, and disappointment early Friday evening as jurors delivered a split verdict after nearly five hours of deliberations.
For the family of Evelyn Ball, it was hugs, cheers, and celebration outside the Whitley County Courthouse after learning that the jury had found her not guilty on charges of murder and first-degree robbery, which could have yielded her a death sentence if she had been convicted.
By stark contrast, Loretta Evans sobbed uncontrollably after being convicted of both first-degree robbery and murder, and then receiving a recommended life sentence by the jury for a crime she swears she didn’t commit.
The family of Edgar Perkins appeared somewhat surprised after learning the jury’s verdict, and most quickly left the courtroom after learning that only one of the two women they thought was responsible for strangling the 76-year-old man had been convicted.
Ball said she wasn’t surprised by the verdict.
“The truth will stand when the world’s on fire,” Ball said quoting words one her attorneys, Brenda Popplewell, told the jury during closing arguments Friday.
“We were hopeful, and we had such a wonderful jury,” said Popplewell. “We could tell they were smart, and caring, and they listened. You could tell they really tried very hard to listen to all the evidence and all the witness. I am so grateful for the jury.”
Mark Stanziano, another of Ball’s lawyers, said he too wasn’t surprised by the verdict, noting this was the most attentive jury he has seen in 25 years of practicing law.
“If you have the right lawyer, it is the greatest system in the world,” he added.
Evans defense team was somber as they tried to console her following the verdict.
“Mom, I’m so sorry,” Evans could be heard telling her mother. She kept repeating over and over and over, “I swear to you I never hurt him. I never hurt that man.”
Prior to trial, Evans had struck a deal with prosecutors not to seek the death penalty against her if she got convicted in exchange for her testimony during the trial.
“I’m sick of being tore up over this. I’m sick of trying to fix this thing,” she could also be heard saying following the verdict.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble admits he was disappointed by the verdict in the guilt phase.
“I thought Ball was equally responsible from what the evidence pointed, and I thought the facts showed that. However, the jury didn’t, and we will abide by that,” Trimble said.
Based on the brutal nature of the crime, Trimble said he wasn’t surprised by the stiff sentence handed down.
“It was a brutal crime. I think the sentence she received was certainly consistent with the crime she committed,” he added.
Trimble said he isn’t second guessing himself over his decision to make a deal with Evans rather than pursuing a death sentence against her. The jury handed down the harshest sentence it could, life in prison for the murder, and 20 years in prison for robbery. The jury also recommended that the sentences be served consecutively, or one after the other.
“I would do it again,” he said. “I think the difficulty we had was that we would never have been able to use Evans statement in the trial of Ball, unless we had that agreement. If I had just called Ball by herself, unless I made some agreement with her, I could never have called her as a witness because she was a codefendant. This way, I got all the evidence against both defendants.”
Evans’ lawyers, public defenders Ron Findell and Roger Gibbs, declined to comment.

The crime
Perkins was found strangled to death in his Sixth Street home early on the morning of May 12, 2004, by his brother, Phillip Perkins. Edgar Perkins was known to carry a large amount of cash, and his pants pocket was found turned out and his wallet mostly emptied.
Medical examiners testified that he died of asphyxiation due to manual strangulation, and that he would have had to be strangled between one to three minutes for death to occur.
The killing is believed to have taken place the day before.
On the evening of May 11, 2004, Evans told a longtime friend, Danny Smith, that Ball had strangled Perkins after the two had gone to his trailer and Perkins made an off-color remark. Ball then hit Perkins in the head with a wine bottle, and started strangling him, Evans said.
She claimed that she attempted to stop Ball, but Ball was too strong.
Evans said that she ran out of Perkins’ home, and waited in the car. She said Ball came out a short time later covered in blood, and said she had taken the money to make people think that the motive for the killing was robbery.
Evans said the two returned to Ball’s apartment where she was also staying, and Ball ordered her to strip off her clothes, showered, and then tossed both their clothes into a bag, and threw it away in a wooded area behind her Jellico apartment.
Evans claimed Ball threatened to have her killed if she went to the police.
Smith called 911 to report the incident, and Jellico Police Chief Tony Day, who was then a sergeant, went to Ball’s apartment to question them about a man being strangled.
When asked about it, Day testified Evans told him that the two had “alibis.” While at the apartment, Day said he served Ball with a subpoena for an unrelated Campbell County court case.
Investigators found no physical evidence linking Ball to the scene of the crime, but did find three cigarette butts, that DNA testing revealed Evans had smoked.
Investigators also found no evidence of Perkins blood anywhere in Ball’s apartment, or in Evans car, which she said she drove Ball home in while Ball was covered in blood after the killing.

Ball’s alibi
During the trial, the defense called Johnna Douglas, who claimed to have been with Ball for nearly the entire day on May 11 when Perkins was believed to have been killed.
Douglas testified she was a teenager in 2004, who was still enrolled in high school, and living with her grandparents, other relatives, and an aunt and uncle, Tosha and J.P. Douglas, at a residence within walking distance of Ball’s apartment.
She said Ball and Evans would both come by the residence to visit, and she remembered Evans dropping Ball off at the residence on May 11, 2004, about 10 a.m., and Evans not picking Ball back up until about 8 p.m. that evening.
Douglas said she was sick with gall bladder problems quite a bit that year, and had stayed home that day from Jellico High School.
Douglas said she remembered Ball being there because she had lost her purse with her keys in it, and couldn’t get back into her apartment. Everyone at the residence searched much of the day for the purse, before concluding that Ball left it in Evans car, she said.
Several calls were made to the apartment and other places where they thought Evans might go, but to avail.
She said Ball’s apartment was only about a block away, and that Ball left the residence for about 15 minutes at one point to walk over there to see if she had left the apartment door unlocked, but she hadn’t and returned.
Williamsburg Police Detective Wayne Bird, who was the primary investigator in the case, told jurors that the main reasons he didn’t go to the Douglas residence to check out claims that Ball may have been there the day of the killing, include that the residence there is known to him as a place where drugs are dealt, and drug dealers usually aren’t very cooperative with police.
He said that there appeared to be no conflict between what Evans and Ball told him because Evans stated she dropped Ball off at the Douglas residence, and Ball said she might have been there that day, but didn’t know for sure.
Bird added that no one at the Douglas’ residence ever contacted him to offer up this information that Ball was there all day.
Another witness testified that she heard Evans admit to killing someone.
Sabra Higgins, who was incarcerated at the Whitley County Detention Center for several months with both women at different times before being found not guilty earlier this year, testified she heard Evans say “I’ve killed one man already, don’t make me kill somebody else,” to another inmate at the jail.
On another occasion, Higgins said she heard Evans on the phone tell her mother, “I wouldn’t even be in here for murder if that nosy &^(^& would have stayed out of my face.”
On a third occasion on a trip to the visitation room, she heard Evans make a statement to a former boyfriend, Donny Bargo who was also incarcerated.
“She told him he better not talk to Evelyn’s lawyers or she would kill him,” Higgins testified.
Higgins said she told guards about all three incidents, but she couldn’t remember who the guards were or the date the incidents happened.

Swaying the verdict
Popplewell said she thinks Ball’s taped statement to police is what swayed the verdict in her favor.
“I think Evelyn swayed the verdict,” Popplewell said. “I think when they heard her taped statement, they could see she was being very honest and candid. She just told them what she knew, and she didn’t know anything about it that is what she said from the beginning.”
The jury began deliberations about 1:12 p.m. Friday, and returned to court less than an hour later to listen again to the taped statement that Ball gave to police the day she was arrested.
Police questioned Ball several days after the killing as she was checking out of a mental health facility in Oak Ridge.
In the statement, Ball said she had been to Perkins home one time with Evans, who dated Perkins a few times, and that she thought it might have been the same day Day delivered her the court papers.
She said Perkins was looking for a housekeeper, and that he appeared to be a “nice old man.”
Ball said that when she left the residence, Perkins was fine though.
“I was trying to get a job cleaning his house. Why would I hit him?” she asked investigators. “Nobody was arguing. We were all sitting around having a good time.”
The jury began deliberations again at 2:58 p.m. after listening to Ball’s taped statement being played. At 4:45 p.m. Friday, jurors requested to again see the testimony of Ruth Ann Rogers, Evans mother, who testified last Tuesday afternoon.
The jury returned to the courtroom at 5 p.m., and watched Rogers testimony replayed on television for 14 minutes before returning to their deliberations.
Rogers testified that after she got home from work on May 11 about 4 p.m., she had several calls on her caller id from the Douglas residence, and that Ball called looking for Evans because Ball said Evans had the keys to her home.
At 6:04 p.m., the jury returned to the courtroom with their guilty verdict against Evans, and their acquittal of Ball. It took jurors about 15 minutes to recommend Evans sentence.
Judge Paul Braden scheduled formal sentencing for Jan. 8. Evans will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years in prison.

The defense
Evans lawyers called no witnesses.
Ball didn’t take the stand in her own defense, but her attorneys did call several witnesses.
Danny Smith’s wife, Sherry, testified Thursday that Evans sounded “upset” when she spoke to her husband on May 11.
She said Evans called later that evening upset that Danny had called 911 about what she had told him.
“She wanted to know why he did that?” Sherry Smith said saying she responded that Evans couldn’t tell them all that stuff and leave them wondering if someone was dying.
Smith said Evans told her she was afraid she would end up like Perkins, and that she was scared of Ball.
“I could tell in her voice she was afraid. In the end, she said it was a joke and she hung up,” Sherry Smith testified.
Darlene Ball, who used to be Evelyn Ball’s sister-in-law, testified that she lived with Ball from February thru April 2004 at Ball’s Jellico apartment.
She stayed at the apartment the weekend of Mother’s Day that year, and said she remembers Ball talking about getting a job cleaning an apartment for “Ed,” but that Ball didn’t give his last name.
Darlene Ball said Evelyn told her she got the job through Evans, and that she remembers helping Evans get ready for a date with Perkins, and saying afterwards that she wasn’t going to go out with him any more.
Under cross examination, Darlene Ball admitted telling police that Ball had a “short fuse” and that she had seen Ball attack Evans once.
Fred Elliott testified he gave Ball a ride to the Jellico Police Department the night of May 12, 2004, and that Ball told him she wanted to get the matter taken care of referring to rumors she was involved in the Perkins killing.
Bird said when he attempted to photograph bruises on Ball’s legs as part of the investigation, that she quit cooperating with police, and asked to call her lawyer, but instead apparently called Rogers looking for Evans.
Rogers came down to the police station, and asked Ball about the matter, and Ball replied, “Loretta ain’t killed nobody.”
Larry Dehus, a forensic scientist out of Dayton, Ohio, testified that based upon the evidence, there were signs of a “moderate struggle” at Perkins’ trailer, and that there was absolutely no evidence of any of Perkins’ blood being transferred to Ball’s apartment or Evans’ car.
Dewey Chambers, a distant cousin of Evans, testified he saw her at a grocery story in May 2004 after the killing, and she told him, “I might be in some bad trouble.”