As mourners laid six year-old Justin Evans, Jr. to rest, the Milwaukee Police Department announced the arrests of two persons of interest in his murder on July 22nd.
News/Talk 1130 WISN has learned the names of those two persons of interest and that charges against the two in connection with Justin's death are still pending. Because the two have not been formally charged, News/Talk 1130 WISN is not identifying them, but can confirm that both have extensive criminal records that indicate that both are drug dealers.
And, in what can be best described as a shocking but sadly unsurprising twist, News/Talk 1130 WISN has learned that at the time of the shooting one of the two suspects could have (and perhaps should have) been in prison on three drug charges, but wasn't. Instead, he was allegedly in Justin's neighborhood near 23rd and Nash on July 22nd and allegedly with a group of people that fired into another group, striking Justin with a fatal shot.
Suspect A, the uncle of Suspect B, is 32 years old. He has been in trouble with the law since almost literally the moment he turned 18 (and very likely before that, but juvenile records are sealed and therefore unavailable).
Just a few months after his 18th birthday, Suspect A was cited for disorderly conduct. Two months after that, in January of 2004, he was arrested and charged with the manufacturing and delivery of cocaine, a Class G felony punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Suspect B was released from custody on bail, but was arrested for bail jumping that June. In spite of this, prosecutors reached a plea deal with him on the cocaine charge and Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Wagner sentenced him to 30 months, but stayed that sentence (meaning that it was not imposed), and Suspect B ended up serving just seven months in jail with Huber work release privileges.
Two years later, in February of 2006, Suspect B was arrested for being in possession of a firearm. Interestingly enough, he chose not to plead guilty and instead went to a jury trial. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison plus five more on extended supervision; a fair sentence given his criminal history.
In 2013, after he had been released from prison and while he was still on extended supervision, Suspect B was arrested again for possession of cocaine as well as marijuana. He reached a plea deal and was sentenced to a year and a half in prison plus another year and a half of extended supervision.
After he was released, he was cited for speeding twice last year, but managed to avoid arrest until a few days ago. His lengthy record, however, suggested that it was only a matter of time until he re-offended, as it is clear that Suspect A is a hardened drug dealer.
It also seems likely that Suspect A brought his 23 year-old nephew, Suspect B, into the drug trade. Like Suspect A, Suspect B’s brushes with the law began almost the moment he turned 18—in fact before he turned 18. In January of 2011, he was arrested for driving on a suspended license.
That October, he was arrested as party to the crimes of recklessly endangering safety and discharging a firearm at a vehicle or building, but those charges were dismissed on a prosecutor’s motion, likely because it was determined that someone else Suspect B was with was actually the one who was firing a gun when they were arrested.
A few months later, in March of 2012, Suspect B was charged in Ozaukee County with two counts of manufacturing or delivering heroin, a Class F felony punishable by up to 12 and a half years in prison. In other words, Suspect B could have been sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, but he reached a plea deal in which Ozaukee County Circuit Court Judge Sandy Williams dismissed one of the charges against him and sentenced him to six years on the other. However, she immediately stayed that sentence and Suspect B ended up serving just a year in jail.
Had Judge Williams not stayed the six year sentence, it is very likely that Suspect B would still have been in prison on July 22nd and thus unable to allegedly be present when Justin Evans, Jr. was murdered.
Making this case even more stunning was the fact that at the time of Suspect B’s conviction, he had another pending heroin possession case in Milwaukee County. In fact, his arrests—in two different counties—occurred about two weeks apart in October of 2011. He was arrested in Ozaukee County on October 6th, 2011 but freed on bail. Naturally, he went right back to selling heroin and was arrested in Milwaukee County on October 21st, 2011. He pleaded guilty to a Class F felony (again punishable by up to 12 and a half years in prison), but Milwaukee County Judge J.D. Watts sentenced him to just 12 months, which were served consecutively with his Ozaukee County sentence, meaning that while Suspect B could have spent 37 and a half years in prison, he ended up serving just two and a half years.
Had he served just 20% of that maximum sentence, he would have been unable to allegedly return to the drug trade and accompany his uncle in allegedly firing at a rival dealer but instead killing an innocent six year-old boy.