But federal judges and defense attorneys confirm that Henry was so concerned about Volunteers of America that his pretrial officers declined to recommend the Baltimore facility for months after the April 2007 escapes were discovered.
Founded in 1896, the nonprofit Volunteers of America Chesapeake employs more than 500 people to operate 23 human services programs, including the Baltimore halfway house. Chesapeake CEO Cecilia Griffin Golden declined to comment about specific cases, including Evans'. "It's a legal issue and I can't discuss it," she said.
Court records show that escapes from the facility have been a long-standing problem.
Johnny Lashawn Gamble, a 24-year-old shift supervisor, was accused of taking money from inmates and letting them leave temporarily between November 1998 and April 1999. Prosecutors also charged Gamble with accepting payoffs so male and female inmates in February 1999 could spend time in private together, in violation of halfway house policy.
The charging documents spelled out another scheme in which Gamble accepted money from inmates for altering records connected to their required urine samples and the samples themselves. Some inmates at the halfway house were required to provide periodic urine samples to detect drugs or alcohol in their bodies - and could face a return to prison if those tests turned up positive.
Another supervisor, David Tariq Parker, 30, of Baltimore, was also accused of accepting money from an inmate who left temporarily and without permission.
Both men pleaded guilty in spring 2000. Gamble received two years' probation with six months of home detention, and Parker received three years' probation.
Court records do not identify the inmates who escaped or whether they committed new crimes while they were out illegally.
Residents at the motel-like facility are generally allowed to work and attend appointments during the day but are supposed to stay in at night. Internal records show that supervisors appear to do room checks throughout the night, logging inmates in and out, but the halfway house residents are never locked down.
Evidently Evans didn't follow those rules.
On April 28, 2006 - two days after Parks was shot - Victor Caldarola, the program director at the Volunteers of America Comprehensive Sanction Center (CSC) warned Evans in writing that he had failed to find a job and risked returning to prison.
