A blue and gold plastic lawn chair crowds the moss-infested front porch of the house that 18-year-old Ashley Evans once shared with her mother. Balanced precariously on the chair is a cracked flowerpot, from which dirt spills into its well-molded seat. No one answers the door at four in the afternoon, but a Volkswagen sedan is parked in the narrow side-yard.
This mostly black, lower-middle class neighborhood is one of the wealthiest in South Jamaica, Queens. Three blocks away, city buses screech past government housing projects, dilapidated churches, and liquor stores. But on this block of 160th Street, birds chirp over the sound of screaming teenagers in the distance. A block away, they practice tennis, baseball, softball and cheerleading in navy shorts and gold tee shirts in the athletic field behind August Martin Educational Complex—a fortress of a public high school with a decaying column-lined façade.
Ashley Evans, until January a cheerleader in her senior year at August Martin, should have graduated five months from the day that she and six other teenagers, including her boyfriend Rudy Fleming, allegedly accosted Nicole duFresne and her friends on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Instead, she will likely join the statistical ranks of the 800 other future dropouts that currently attend. According to the New York City Department of Education website, approximately 51 percent of August Martin’s student body graduates in four years, which is just below the average 53 percent graduation rate for a New York City public school.
Evans was arrested on February 2, and pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon during her arraignment at the State Supreme Court in Manhattan. If convicted, she will spend a minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison.
Meanwhile, Evans’ neighbors are still shocked and confused by her involvement in the shooting.
“Ashley was not one of the kids that you’d expect to get in trouble,” said her next-door neighbor, Augustina Mitchell. “I’d see her and her friends practicing cheers out front all of the time, and she’d always wave hello.”
Evans, a wiry adolescent with straight black hair framing her swollen, yellowed face, appeared no older than 14 when she was led into the Manhattan Criminal Court in handcuffs for a hearing on March 31st. Alongside Servisio Simmons, 21, and Rudy Fleming, 19, her lanky arms jutted awkwardly out of a bubble gum pink collared shirt. Her eyes, vacant and fixed straight ahead throughout the hearing, flickered momentarily as she caught the gaze of her mother before being led out of the courtroom.
Evans was charged with second-degree murder but her lawyer, Michael Dreishpoon, said he is trying to arrange a plea bargain. The defendants are next scheduled to appear in court in May.
Evans described her version of the shooting in detail upon being questioned by police after her arrest. According to police reports, she said that the robbery was instigated when she tried to hit a passer-by after her friends made fun of her and 14 year-old Tatianna McDonald for not picking enough fights. She also said that the shooting was accidental. These statements were filed in court during her March 1st arraignment.
“She is pretty miserable... I’m sure she plays the chain of events over and over in her head,” said Dreishpoon. “She has nothing else to do.”
Evans recalled noticing duFresne, her fiancé Jeffrey Sparks and another couple walking towards them.
“They were extremely happy, so that made me even angrier,” she said in her statement.
She said that she tried to hit one of them, but that the group turned away. Fleming then followed and yelled at them to stop, hitting Sparks in the face with his gun.
According to the statement, Fleming grabbed one of the women's purses and threw it to Evans and McDonald, who removed a cell phone and some money. DuFresne then turned back and confronted Fleming.
According to Evans' statement: “She pushed him twice, shouting, ‘You got what you wanted!’” Fleming allegedly pushed duFresne back, “as if to warn her,” Evans said, but “she came at him again, pushing him, causing his foot to get caught in the snow, and the gun went off.”
Evans fled to her father’s house in Cheltenham, Md the day after the shooting, where police later took her into custody on February 2nd.
Evans’ lawyer would not comment on her statements, but said that her involvement was unintentional and described her as a cooperative, typical teenage girl.
“I can say with certainty that Ashley is very sorry for what she has done,” he said. “She would like to apologize to the family of the victim.”
Because all three defendants will be tried together, Dreishpoon expects the trial to drag on for several months. During the March 31st hearing, Rudy Fleming’s lawyer Dennis Murphy took himself off of the case, but not before suggesting to Judge Bud Goodman that his client would benefit from another psychiatric evaluation before next week’s hearing.
In the meantime, Evans waits in jail at Riker’s Island and looks forward to weekly visits with her mother.
“She is pretty miserable... I’m sure she plays the chain of events over and over in her head,” said Dreishpoon. “She has nothing else to do.”