| For Immediate Release Case # 04ZF0051
July 22, 2008 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
MAN FOUND GUILTY OF STABBING AND
MURDERING WOMAN IN TRAILER NEAR
CHURCH AFTER SEXUAL ASSAULT
SANTA ANA – A man was convicted today of sexually assaulting, stabbing and murdering a woman in a trailer across from a church after meeting her when she got off a train in Fullerton. Steve Carl Evans, 61, Fullerton, was found guilty by a jury of special circumstances murder during the commission of attempted rape and the commission of sexual penetration with a foreign object by force, attempted forcible rape, and sexual penetration by foreign object by force. The sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon was found true. Evans is a second striker with a prior 1983 conviction for forcible rape. The District Attorney is seeking the death penalty in this case. The penalty phase of the trial is scheduled to begin Thursday, July 24, 2008, at 9:30 a.m. in Department C-42, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.
At approximately 1:00 a.m. on Aug. 19, 2003, Evans met Jeannette Elias, 24, after she got off a train in Fullerton. The defendant did not know the victim. He took Elias to a travel-trailer where he had been living in Fullerton, which was parked on a lot adjacent to a church. Evans sexually assaulted the victim and attempted to rape her before stabbing her over 22 times with several different knifes, including a meat cleaver and a butcher knife. He then left the victim’s body in his trailer and fled to his parents’ La Mirada home.
Officers contacted the defendant the day of the murder at his parents’ home. Officers discovered the victim’s body that day in Evans’ trailer. The victim was found fully clothed, but there was evidence of sexual assault. Elias’ hard plastic driver’s license was found folded into fifths inside her vagina and DNA from Evan’s saliva was found on the victim’s breasts.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting this case.
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