By Barrett J. Brunsman
Cincinnati Enquirer
February 23, 2010
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100223/NEWS0107/302230036/Minister+couldn+t+get+teen+off+his+mind
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| Christopher Evans, a former youth minister at a Clermont County church, was found shot to death Monday, hours after he pleaded guilty to sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct involving a 15-year-old girl. |
BATAVIA TWP. – Police said a former youth minister at a Clermont County church fatally shot himself Monday, just hours after he pleaded guilty to sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct involving a 15-year-old girl.
Christopher E. Evans, 39, was free on his own recognizance but due back in court Tuesday for a new bond hearing because prosecutors had obtained letters he wrote to the victim despite the judge ordering him to not contact her.
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"I can't live without you," Evans wrote in one of the letters. "If you stop and think about everything that I have lost over you, you would see where I am coming from."
Evans wrote in another letter that he hoped to marry the girl, who is now 16, if the judge didn't sentence him to prison.
"I think about God up in heaven looking down on us and telling Jesus that our relationship is the way a relationship should be," Evans wrote Feb. 17. "You have showed me that age doesn't matter. ... Your love makes me crazy."
A sheriff's deputy patrolling the Slade Road entrance to Harsha Lake at East Fork State Park at 11:15 p.m. Monday discovered a man in a truck who apparently killed himself with a shotgun blast to the face.
The truck was registered to Evans, said Lt. Randy McElfresh of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
The county coroner's office confirmed the identity Tuesday after the man's fingerprints were compared with those on file for Evans, McElfresh said.
The ranger station parking lot in Batavia Township where the body was found is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said John Gillespie, law enforcement manager for East Fork State Park. The area doesn't usually close at night.
Evans faced up to 50 years in prison at a sentencing scheduled for April before Judge Victor M. Haddad of Common Pleas Court in Batavia. He also faced a fine of up to $100,000.
Evans said little during the Monday hearing at which he pleaded guilty to five counts of each charge. At one point, he bowed his head and wiped tears from his eyes with a handkerchief.
A full-time minister at Saltair Church of Christ on Ohio 222 in Tate Township for more than two years, Evans expressed suicidal thoughts to others after his arrest and had access to weapons, according to court records.
"He is a broken man," Brother Bob Wickline, senior minister of the church, told The Enquirer after Evans was arrested in December.
Evans had been acting as a parent to the girl, Assistant Prosecutor Bill Ferris told the judge.
She had lived with Evans, his wife and their children on Pitzer Road in Tate Township, Wickline told The Enquirer.
Evans began a sexual relationship with the girl in July. It continued until authorities were notified Dec. 7, Sheriff A.J. "Tim" Rodenberg said.
Evans was youth minister to the congregation of about 400 people from November 2007 until December of last year. He recently moved to the Macon area of Brown County.
After serving any prison time Haddad might have imposed, Evans would have been required to register as a sex offender with local police every 90 days.
Contact: bbrunsman@enquirer.com
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