Opinion ID: 2654917
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Murder of Charlie Evans

Text: Appellants‟ trial revolved in large measure around the fate of Charlie Evans, a witness to the Columbia Heights shootings. Evans was last seen alive at around 11 p.m. on August 26, 2006, in the company of appellant Jenkins, and when Evans was shot and killed on Varnum Street in Northeast Washington three hours later, a vehicle linked by the government‟s investigation to Jenkins was observed leaving the scene. The prosecution called three witnesses who saw Evans and Jenkins together on the eve of Evans‟s death. Macey Robertson, Paul Brown, and Vanessa Thomas testified that they were with Evans that night at a parking lot near 14th and Euclid Streets, Northwest, drinking and smoking marijuana, when Jenkins and another 4 man drove up in a red or burgundy SUV.1 Evans walked up to the SUV to speak with Jenkins. As the parking lot was under surveillance, their meeting was captured on a videotape that was shown to the jury. Jenkins exited the vehicle and he and Evans made plans to buy PCP. While they were conferring, the SUV drove away. Before Evans left the parking lot with Jenkins to procure the PCP, he told Brown he did not feel safe and did not want to go with Jenkins alone. Brown was not interested in accompanying them, however, and eventually, at around 11 p.m., Evans and Jenkins left by themselves on foot. Brown, Robertson and Thomas did not see Evans again. A fourth government witness, Michael McNeill, testified that at around 2:00 that morning he heard squealing tires and a gunshot outside his house on Varnum Street. Looking out, he saw a dark-colored SUV drive off. McNeill went outside and found Charlie Evans‟s body lying in the street. Investigators subsequently compared tire tracks left on Varnum Street with the tires on a burgundy-colored SUV belonging to Jenkins‟s parents. An FBI examiner testified that one of the tires had tread design features that were 1 The identity of Jenkins‟s companion was not established. Brown testified at trial that the other man was Ronald Jenkins. In the grand jury, however, he testified that the man was someone named “Jeremy.” 5 consistent with these tracks. Jenkins‟s mother testified that Jenkins had access to this vehicle.