Wilbert Lee Evans

At trial, Evans apologized for the murder of Truesdale, testifying on the stand, "I didn't have no [sic] intention to shoot anyone. I'm sorry."[7] During his trial and on death row, Evans insisted that Truesdale's shooting was an accident and that he unintentionally shot Truesdale while trying to shoot his handcuffs.[4] Other officers who pursued Evans after Truesdale's shooting disputed Evans's contention that it was an accident. One testified that when he and another officer caught up to Evans, Evans pointed the gun at them and pulled the trigger, but it misfired.[8] Evans also claimed that his desire to run was impulsive, testifying during the trial that "[he] ended up with a hold of the gun and [he and Truesdale] were tussling. [Evans] was trying to shoot off the handcuffs" when he struck Truesdale by accident. An employee with the sheriff's department conducted an internal investigation during which he interviewed other inmates and concluded that Evans's escape was planned, and that he intended to leap from a window when he thought his handcuffs would be removed in the courthouse.[8]

On April 18, 1981, a jury of eight women and four men deliberated four hours before convicting Evans of capital murder in the shooting of William Truesdale.[9] They had the choice of pursuing a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty, and they recommended the death penalty. On June 1, 1981, Circuit Court Judge Wiley R. Wright formally sentenced Evans to death, stating that the jury served as "the conscience of the community" and that "their verdict had to be given great weight." Immediately after the trial, Evans's attorney stated he would file for a new trial; in the meantime, Judge Wright initially scheduled Evans to be executed on September 1, 1981.[10]

Most of Evans's appeals were based on procedural errors and prosecutorial misconduct during his trial. In Virginia, to secure a death sentence against a defendant, it was necessary to prove that the defendant would pose an ongoing threat to society if they were to remain alive. The prosecutor in Evans's case, Alexandria Commonwealth Attorney John Kloch, argued in favor of a death sentence by showing the jury documentation that Evans had seven prior convictions. The documents motivated the jury to recommend the death penalty for Evans. In 1982, while Evans was on death row, his attorneys discovered that most of the convictions never occurred and that a computer error multiplied the number of convictions Evans had on his record, while other supposed convictions never made it to trial because their charges were dropped prior; further memos showed that Kloch was aware of the errors but used them to his advantage anyway.[1]

On March 28, 1983, Virginia admitted error in Evans's sentencing. The same day, Virginia Governor Chuck Robb signed legislation providing the state with the ability to re-sentence Evans. The previous law, decided in the 1981 Supreme Court of Virginia case Patterson v. Commonwealth, would have required Virginia to reduce Evans's death sentence into a mandatory and automatic life sentence, but the new law overrode Patterson and made it possible for Evans to receive another death sentence.[11] In a hearing on April 12, 1983, Kloch admitted that he knew the evidence he used against Evans was falsified.[11] Evans's attorneys criticized the delay in Virginia officials admitting error in Evans's case, arguing that the state intentionally delayed the admission of error in Evans's case so that it would be affected by Robb's re-sentencing legislation.[1]

In February 1984, Evans was granted a new sentencing hearing before a different jury from the one that had sentenced him to death. The second jury heard evidence that prosecutors did not introduce in the first trial to justify Evans's dangerousness to society, including accusations that Evans murdered a man in North Carolina in 1978 during a dispute over a card game. Evans never went to trial for that alleged murder.[1] The second jury re-sentenced Evans to death. In September 1983, a judge affirmed Evans's second death sentence, ruling that the prosecutors and state attorney general's office had not participated in intentional misconduct by waiting until the new law overriding Patterson went into effect before they admitted error in Evans's case.[11]

On May 31, 1984, six death row inmates escaped from Mecklenburg Correctional Center. Evans attended initial planning meetings for the escape months prior, but he eventually stopped and did not ultimately participate in the escape attempt.[12] He and fellow death row inmate Willie Lloyd Turner remained behind, and while Turner helped some of the escaping inmates to break out of the prison, he and Evans also saved several prison staff members' lives during the escape, protecting them from other inmates who wanted to rape and murder them, like the Briley Brothers. Evans said he originally stood against a wall and stayed out of conflict until he saw inmates strip, bound, and begin sexually assaulting a nurse, at which point he stopped them and convinced them that it would be more difficult for them to negotiate for clemency if they harmed the guards they took hostage.[8][13] One unidentified guard stated in a published report a few days after the escapes, "I owe my life, as do all the other [guards], to [Wilbert] Evans and [Willie] Turner."[14] One of Evans's attorneys, Jonathan Shapiro, told the press, "This kind of behavior needs to be rewarded because it was the right thing to do. It's also right as a matter of policy to put the message out in putting down prison uprisings."[14]

The widow of Evans's murder victim criticized efforts to paint Evans as a hero. As Evans's attorneys attempted to use his intervention in the escape attempt as evidence of his heroism and lack of future dangerousness, Truesdale's widow told a reporter, "I don't want this man, whether he lives or dies, to be a hero. He is not a hero. He is not a martyr in our lives."[15] Truesdale's widow also questioned Evans's motives for protecting the guards, accusing Evans of engaging in a "ploy, to save the people to help save himself," although Evans's attorneys, a former administrator for the Virginia Department of Corrections, and a criminology professor from Virginia Commonwealth University who once worked as a corrections official insisted that Evans's motive did not matter, that "a life saved is a life saved," and rewarding Evans with mercy for his good behavior would provide encouragement for other inmates to improve their own behavior.[8]

Governor Robb and the state prison director conducted an investigation into the prison escape; their investigation considered the roles Evans and Turner played in the escapes and protecting prison workers. Shapiro requested that the state parole board and Robb commute Evans's death sentence to life based on his role in protecting prison workers; Evans's legal team argued that his role in protecting guards during the prison escape demonstrated that he did not pose a future threat to society.[14]

Evans's execution was ultimately scheduled to take place in October 1990. U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr. granted Evans a last-minute stay of execution on October 14 to hold a "minitrial" to investigate the claims that Evans protected guards during the Mecklenburg escape. Evans's attorneys also sent Governor Douglas Wilder 29 pages of poetry, essays, and songs Evans had written while on death row, as well as contests he entered and awards he had been granted for his poetry. Multiple corrections officials sent pleas on Evans's behalf to spare his life.[4] The state attorney general's office protested the delay, stating that it was the role of the jurors and the governor to respectively dictate what sentence an inmate got and whether it should be commuted. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately agreed with the attorney general's office and overruled Merhige's delay, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Evans's case.[2][5]

In an interview the day of his execution, Evans apologized to Truesdale's family and expressed regret for Truesdale's murder. He said he wanted Truesdale's surviving family members to read his poetry to see how much he had changed and started caring about others while awaiting his execution. He also expressed regret for the crimes he had committed in his youth. He donated his poetry to the NAACP so they could use the proceeds to help impoverished youth in inner city neighborhoods. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Evans's final appeal at 7:30 pm that night, and Governor Douglas Wilder made no comment or gesture to commute the sentence, stating that he would only comment further if he decided to commute Evans's sentence. Wilder never commented, allowing Evans's execution to move forward.[2][5]

Wilbert Evans was executed on October 17, 1990. Before he was led to the electric chair, he pocketed a copy of a plea on his behalf written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in which Marshall called Evans's imminent execution "dead wrong" and said Evans's execution proved that the Supreme Court could not guarantee "that given sufficient procedural safeguards, the death penalty may be administered fairly and reliably." Marshall, a death penalty opponent, was the only Supreme Court Justice to vote against the decision to turn down Evans's appeal. Evans wrote on his copy of Marshall's dissent, "Please bury this with me."[1][2]

At least three media witnesses at Evans's execution from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Virginian-Pilot, and The Alexandria Journal reported that after Evans received the first jolt of electricity, blood poured from his eyes, mouth, and nose.[3][16] NPR and The Virginian-Pilot later called Evans's execution "one of the worst in Virginia's history."[1][3] Virginia's prison chaplain Russ Ford, who witnessed Evans's execution, stated that he believed Evans's execution amounted to torture.[16] Ford wrote in a recollection of Evans's execution that witnesses were audibly and visibly disturbed by the appearance of Evans as blood streamed down his chin, onto his shirt, and onto the floor where it pooled. Evans was pronounced dead at 11:09 pm after two shocks.[2][16]

Following Evans's execution, Virginia prison officials offered multiple explanations for what happened, including that Evans may have suffered a nosebleed from the pressure of the electricity striking him, that the mask that concealed his face was too small and applied pressure to his nose, and that Evans's last meal caused hypertension. One prison official posited that Evans suffered pain during his execution, stating, "Well, that's possible. When you touch a circuit, you're going to feel a little something."[16] The Virginia Department of Corrections insisted that Evans's execution went according to plan, with one prison official stating that authorities were certain the electric chair had functioned as intended because "there was no need to administer any additional surge of electricity; the machines involved operated properly," and offering that "different people react [to the electricity] differently."[16]

Willie Lloyd Turner, who had helped Evans protect corrections officials during the Mecklenburg death row escape, was executed by lethal injection on May 25, 1995.[17]

In May 2011, the Alexandria Adult Detention Center was formally renamed the William G. Truesdale ADC, in honor of Evans's victim. Later the same day, Truesdale's son was sworn in as Alexandria's new sheriff's deputy.[18]

On January 19, 2023, National Public Radio released photos, documents, and tape recordings of four executions in Virginia's electric chair: those of Richard Lee Whitley in 1987, Alton Waye in 1989, Richard T. Boggs in July 1990, and Evans. The tapes once belonged to a former corrections official who privately donated them to the Library of Virginia, Virginia's state library, in Richmond, in 2006; within the library, they were marked as "restricted."[3] The tapes demonstrated Virginia corrections officials' unpreparedness during the four executions. The documents also contained a photograph of Evans which was taken fewer than three hours before his execution, showing him standing and facing the photographer with his head cleanly shaved. NPR noted that the corrections official who verbally dictated the progression of events during Evans's execution neglected to mention his bleeding, although her voice broke and she stammered during the time the bleeding would have taken place.[3]

On May 11, 2023, NPR released further documentation surrounding Virginia's execution process; this further documentation included additional photographs of Evans, also taken within three hours of his death, as he stood in different poses and positions from the ones released in January. NPR stated that each photo depicted Evans as "he scratches his chin, raises his eyes, turns on his side and slumps his shoulders." The documents also contained information on and photographs of Earl Clanton (executed in 1988) and Buddy Justus (executed in December 1990).[19]