The Postcard
A Sunshine Comic Series postcard. The artwork was by Bob Wilkin, and the card has a divided back.
The term 'Big Pots', meaning people of prominence and importance, was popular in the earlier half of the 20th. century, but appears to have fallen out of favour in recent decades.
The card was posted in Colwyn Bay on Friday the 5th. July 1957 to:
Mr. A. Smith,
Newsagents Shop,
286 Manchester Road West,
Little Hulton,
Walkden,
Manchester.
The message on the back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Alan,
Having a nice time at
Rhos-on-Sea. It is a very
nice place, and the
weather has been glorious
so far.
It has rained in the night
two or three times and
cleared up by morning.
We are sunbathing on
the beach today Friday.
Hope you are enjoying
yourself.
Misses Bromelow".
Donald Evans
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 5th. July 1957 marked the unfortunate birth in Watervliet, Michigan of Donald Leroy Evans. He was an American serial killer who murdered at least three people from 1985 to 1991. He was known for confessing to killing victims at parks and rest areas across more than twenty U.S. states.
Donald Evans' Crimes
Evans was convicted of his first crime in Galveston, Texas; this was the rape of a local woman in 1986. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but served only five. After his parole in 1991, he returned to Galveston, and took work as a desk clerk in a motel, but was discharged after parole officials objected to a convicted sex offender working in a motel setting.
Evans then found steady employment aboard a fishing boat, but eventually faced a new arrest warrant when a former girlfriend filed a complaint to police about threats of violence.
Evans stayed ahead of law enforcement officials briefly by stealing a car and fleeing to Mississippi. He tried to remain inconspicuous in the Gulfport area, but soon became embroiled in the crime for which he would receive the death penalty: the rape and murder of 10-year-old Beatrice Louise Routh on the 1st. August 1991.
Evans seized the homeless girl from a Gulfport park and sexually assaulted her, before strangling her to death and dumping her corpse in a rural area. At trial, the medical examiner testified that the girl was conscious, and could feel pain throughout her day-long ordeal.
Arrested soon afterward, Evans confessed to abducting the girl, and he was remanded to a federal prison in Colorado on kidnapping charges. On the 16th. August 1993, a jury trial in Mississippi convicted Evans of sexual battery and murder. Three days later, the same jury refused an option to grant him life imprisonment, and sentenced him to the death penalty.
The Incarceration and Death of Donald Evans
While in custody, Evans claimed responsibility for killing more than 70 people in 22 different states. He claimed that most of the murders and rapes took place at rest stops and public parks.
The authorities were originally sceptical of Evans's claims, but two of his descriptions were perfect matches to unsolved cases across Florida. In 1995, Florida authorities tried and convicted Evans for the 1985 strangulation death of Ira Jean Smith.
Evans successfully escaped the Harrison County Jail in June 1993, but was recaptured a short time later, hiding in a dumpster. Evans was stabbed to death at the age of 41 on the 5th. January 1999 by a fellow death row inmate at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Sunflower County, while in the shower. (... Showers are dangerous places in prisons, especially for abusers of children).
Donald Evans' Known Victims
Evans' known victims were:
- Ira Jean Smith (female, 38, 7th. March 1985)
- Janet Movich (female, 38, 14th. April 1985)
- Beatrice Louise Routh (female, 10, 1st. August 1991)
