Memphis, Tennessee

From the Memphis Commercial-Appeal of August 10, 2005

Victim strikes back

Forced at gunpoint to bank, man kills back-seat suspect

He said they'd gotten him two weeks ago in his front yard, forcing him to the ground with a gun and stealing $400.

But this time, 59-year-old Jacob Evans was ready.

Tuesday, the same two robbers returned, telling him to withdraw $10,000 from his bank, or die, he said. Instead, Evans deposited six bullets in one of them.

"I got prepared for them," Evans said, standing outside the Criminal Justice Center Tuesday night. "Today they acted a damn fool and came back."

Shortly after 2 p.m., Memphis police arrived at First Tennessee, at 1200 S. Third, and found one of the robbers shot to death, lying face down in the back seat of Evans's Lincoln Towncar.

About 20 minutes earlier, Evans was pulling up to his home in the 300 block of Edsel in South Memphis, when the two 20-something men came out from behind some hedges with guns, forced a friend of his out of the car and jumped in. Evans was in the driver's seat, one robber was in the front seat and another in the back.

Evans had just gotten off work at Hershey Foods, where he's a sanitation worker. He was wearing his uniform and a blue hairnet.

With guns pointed at Evans, the robbers told him to drive to a nearby bank to get some money. He told him he didn't bank there, but said he had an account at First Tennessee.

"If I didn't withdraw $10,000, they said they were going to kill me," he said.

As he was driving, Evans said he looked for police but didn't see any and tried to work out a plan. The bank's about two miles from his house.

He pulled up to the teller window and told the men he would need a withdrawal slip to get the money. The front-seat robber handed his 9mm pistol to the back-seat robber -- who already had a .22-caliber rifle -- and went inside to get the slip.

Evans noticed a security guard leaning against the bank's wall and mouthed to him: "Call police, I'm being robbed."

The robber, sitting directly behind the driver's seat, asked him what he said and Evans told him, "I didn't say a damn thing."

The man kept turning around nervously to look at the security guard, Evans said. That's when Evans reached under his seat and pulled out a .357 Magnum.

"When he turned around, I unloaded six rounds in him," Evans said. "He didn't have a chance."

Evans bought the gun in the parking lot of a gas station the day after he was robbed two weeks ago. He'd cleaned it up, putting baby oil in the revolver, so it'd be ready if he needed it.

Evans said he got out of the car and started to reload when the other suspect came out of the bank. "He took off running."

He tried to shoot that suspect too, but his gun wouldn't fire.

Someone inside the bank called 911. When employees heard the gunshots, the bank was immediately locked down and remained closed Tuesday, said spokesman Walter Dawson.

Late Tuesday, investigators were looking for the man who ran away and were working to identify the man who died, said Lt. Toney Armstrong.

After being questioned by police, Evans said they told him he was free to go.

Police said late Tuesday their investigation will be turned over to the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office, as a matter of routine.

Evans said he has only one regret. "I didn't kill the one that got away."

Tuesday night, his family drove up from Mississippi to be with Evans, who said he was happy to be alive.

"It's really not something to be proud of," he said. "But I'm happy it was them and not me."

From the Memphis Commercial Appeal of September 7, 2005

Robber's killer to serve 1 year for using gun

Jacob Evans, who gained near-celebrity status last month after killing a would-be robber, will spend the next year in prison for using a gun while on parole.

The decision, recommended two weeks ago by a hearing officer, was made official Tuesday after it was upheld by two members of the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole.

The votes by board chairman Charles Traughber of Nashville and board member Larry Hassell of Memphis mean Evans, 59, will be returned to prison at least until August of next year when his case will be reviewed again. Hassell declined to comment Tuesday.

Evans was on parole for a 1969 murder, though his supporters said special circumstances in this case should have earned him a more favorable outcome.

"I'm terribly disappointed," said Nashville attorney David Raybin, who wrote the board on Evans's behalf. "I think Mr. Evans did what he had to do to save his own life. To me it just sends a bad message when somebody can't even defend himself when they're kidnapped. I don't know what other choice Mr. Evans would have had, given that situation."

The incident occurred Aug. 9 when two men who had robbed Evans three weeks earlier abducted him at gunpoint and forced him to drive to a South Memphis bank.

While one robber went inside the bank, the second sat in the back seat guarding him with a 9mm pistol and a .22-caliber rifle.

When the back-seat gunman man, identified as Leverett Dickson, 17, was momentarily distracted, Evans pulled a pistol from under his driver's seat and shot Dickson six times. Evans later said he regretted that his gun jammed, preventing him from shooting the second robber who fled.

Alonzo Thomas, 17, who turned himself in two days later, is charged with two counts of aggravated robbery.

Authorities ruled the shooting justified, but the parole board ruled Evans had violated his parole by having the .357 Magnum, which he said he bought at a gas station parking lot for $75 after he was robbed the first time.

In 1969 Evans was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother-in-law, Ollie Lee Derdun, 54, and the wounding of two others. He was paroled after about 12 years in prison, but was revoked three times over the next 13 years for drugs or weapons violations.

He's had a better record over the past nine years and said he has tried to avoid trouble by giving up nightclubs, holding full-time jobs and paying his bills.

Evans told the hearing officer last month that he used the gun to save his life and that if required to do more prison time, "I'm just going to have to be man enough to do it."