When it came to police work, Jim Horton was a pragmatist. He knew more about homicide investigations, larcenies and missing person cases than most cops with the same time on the job put together—and there weren’t many who would argue that fact. Working in Major Crimes for the past decade or so, however, had hardened Horton. He knew firsthand what human beings were capable of doing to one another. On some nights, he would arrive at home docile and withdrawn, beaten down by the violence he had witnessed that day, wrestling with the disgust he felt for certain criminals and the crimes they committed.
At the tail end of his career in the Bureau, Horton had been thinking about retirement lately. It wasn’t the job, he said later, but the baggage that came with it. He loved the job. The thrill of the chase. Putting “bad guys” in jail. It was everything he had thought it would be, and perhaps more. He wasn’t a perfect cop, by any means, and was the first to admit it. But he took the job seriously and had a record of arrests, convictions and awards far surpassing most other cops. Moreover, despite how some felt about his relationship with a career criminal, Gary Evans, all those years, he knew it was something he had to do for the sake of the job.
But the stakes had changed over the past year where Gary Evans was concerned. For the first time, Horton and other Bureau investigators believed Evans—who was known to use several aliases—had been involved in much more than just burglaries and a few arsons to cover up those thefts. Bureau investigators now had good reason to believe Evans had murdered at least two men, maybe more. What they needed, however, were bodies and evidence.
Thus far, they had neither.
By late 1997, forty-three-year-old Gary Evans, with his piercing blue eyes, was on the run, far away from the Capital District. Horton knew Evans would never stop stealing, no matter where he went. It was in his blood. Like an addict, he couldn’t help himself. Whether he was scaling the roof of an antique-store barn, or tunneling his way underneath a jewelry store, Evans could—Horton had always said—“find his way through a straw if he needed to.” By far, he was the most prolific serial burglar the Bureau had ever encountered—not to mention the fact that he was good at it.
There was one time when the NYSP had been called to the scene of a tripped alarm. It was in the early ’80s, shortly before Horton had met Evans. When two troopers arrived on the scene, they shone their lights into the jewelry store, only to watch Evans, as if he were Batman, drop himself from the ceiling by means of a knotted rope. As the troopers approached the front door to go into the building, they watched Evans pull himself back up the rope. Yet, after surrounding the building with several more troopers who had since arrived on the scene, there was no sign of him. Just like that, he was gone.
At just under five feet six inches, 185 pounds, Evans had built his body throughout the years into a machine, lifting weights, carving it like a Greek statue. He never drank alcohol or used tobacco or drugs, and hated anyone who did. He lived on a simple, yet disciplined, diet of cereals, breads, pasta, rice and sweets. He despised meat of any kind. Even in prison, he would trade meat for bread. As a criminal, he took pride in his work and tried to outdo himself with each crime. He spent every hour of each day planning and thinking about his next job, and how he was going to avoid being caught. He had never worked a full-time job and had told Horton numerous times he never would. Horton had even pulled some strings and found him jobs. But he’d always quit after a few days.
Horton’s last encounter with Evans was the final blow to their relationship. In 1995, Horton needed Evans to testify in a rape-murder case involving a known rapist and alleged serial murderer. Evans had befriended the guy, under the direction of Horton, after being put in a jail cell next to him, and eventually got him to incriminate himself in an unsolved murder. All Horton asked Evans to do was stay out of trouble until the trial was over.
Months before the trial, Evans stole a rare book worth nearly $100,000 and ended up with the FBI on his trail. Horton was livid. After the trial, Horton ended the relationship.
They hadn’t spoken since.