Unsolved murder still fresh to family, detective

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Herriman » To hear Det. Todd Park talk about the murder of Kimberly Evans, you'd think an arrest is close.

The problem is: The case has been that way for 15 years.

"This case is very fresh in my mind, and I talk with people about this case a lot," said Park, who investigates so-called "cold case" homicides for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.

"I think we have a great chance of making an arrest," Park later added.

That would be welcome news to Evans' mother, Linda Ricks.

"There's probably not a lot of anger, but there is a lot of sadness," Ricks said in the living room of her Cottonwood Heights home. "You never get over the death of a child. You try to focus on how they lived and not how they died."

Evans, a 28-year-old Sandy mother and wife, was found Jan. 15, 1994, shot in the head and murdered. Her body was inside her Jeep Grand Cherokee at the mouth of Butterfield Canyon on U-111 in Herriman.

Detectives later served a search warrant and performed gun residue tests on a Salt Lake County man who they said might have supplied Evans with drugs and taken nude pictures of her, according to a 1995 Deseret News story.

Park began investigating the case in 2005. He said the evidence indicates Evans went to the canyon mouth to meet someone, but Park won't disclose publicly who he thinks killed Evans.

Park does say whom he wants to interview.

Evans husband, Mark B. Evans, submitted to an interview with detectives shortly after his wife's murder, but has not answered questions for investigators since. He also did not respond to Tribune requests for comment.

Park said Mark Evans was "raked over the coals" by detectives in that 1994 interview and could be afraid of incriminating himself or being the target of the ongoing investigation.

Park, while still not disclosing whether the husband is his prime suspect, thinks the husband might still have valuable information that could lead to an arrest.

Park says he just needs a little more evidence to put the case "over the top." That may be an incriminating statement the killer has made or some piece of forensic evidence Park doesn't yet know exists.

"These cases are cold for a reason," Park said.

Ricks knows more than most about coping with a child's death. Her son died when he was 5 from injuries he suffered in a car accident. Seven years after her daughter was murdered, another daughter, Kelly Balentine, died from an interaction of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs.

"You can't say Kelly's death was directly related, but I think it was in that she never really dealt with all the feelings after Kimberly died," Ricks said.

When Ricks remembers Kimberly Evans, she remembers a young woman happy after her 1991 marriage and living a comfortable life in Sandy with her husband and two children. Then in September 1993, Kimberly Evans' 2-year-old daughter choked on an aspirin and died.

Ricks said Kimberly Evans fell into a depression and began using cocaine. Ricks and Park said Kimberly Evans was trying to straighten out her life in the weeks before she died.

Ricks said she thinks Kimberly Evans' former drug supplier, the man who was the subject of the search warrant, murdered her daughter, but she also wants her former son-in-law to submit to an interview. Ricks said she has never pressed him to do so, however.

She remains in contact with Mark Evans and her grandson.

While Ricks wants to see an arrest in her daughter's murder, she also emphasizes she has moved on with her life.

"You can't stay in the same position for 15 years," Ricks said.

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