ANNETTA SOUTH — An Annetta South teen was arrested early Thursday morning and charged with capital murder after he reportedly called 911 and said that he had killed his mother and younger sister.

In a calm tone of voice, a man identifying himself as 17-year-old Jake Evans, who is being held in the Parker County jail without bond, described the shootings to a dispatcher during the call made shortly after 12:30 a.m., saying he had been “planning on killing” for a while.

Reader can hear the entire 911 call by clicking here.

Evans, who was instructed to turn on the porch light and walk out of the house with raised hands, was taken into custody without incident. Responding deputies found a .22-caliber revolver on the kitchen table and the bodies of 48-year-old Jami Evans and 15-year-old Mallory Evans, according to the sheriff’s office.

“What’s the emergency?” the dispatcher asks at the beginning of the 911 call recording.

“Uh, I just killed my mom and sister,” Evans says.

“What?” the dispatcher asks, and Evans repeats the statement.

During the nearly 25 minutes before deputies arrived on scene, Evans described the slayings.  

“This is really going to mess me up in the future,” Evans said. “See my sister, I told my sister that my mom needed her. She was in her room and she came out of her room and I, uh, I, I shot her. She rolled down the stairs and I shot her again. And then I went down and I shot my mom about maybe three or four times.”

He would never forget when his sister came down the stairs screaming, Evans said on the 911 tape, adding that he told her to hold still, he was going to make it go away, but that she continued “freaking out.”

“But finally she fell down and I shot her in the head, about probably three times,” Evans said.

Why Evans allegedly shot his mother and sister isn’t clear.

“We don’t have a motive,” Sheriff Larry Fowler said, adding that part is a big mystery.

Investigators are not aware of any history of mental illness, according to Fowler. “There’s no history of any drugs or alcohol. The family seems to be stable, seems to be a very nice family, well respected, well thought of.”

Asked by the dispatcher if there was a reason he was so angry with his mother and sister, Evans replied, “I don’t know. I wasn’t — it’s weird — I wasn’t even really angry with them. It just kind of happened. I had been kind of planning on killing for a while now.”

The dispatcher asked if he had been planning to kill the two of them or just anybody.

“Pretty much anybody,” Evans said.

Asked why, Evans said he didn’t know and that he didn’t like people’s attitudes, that they are very emotional and verbally rude to each other.

“I guess this is really selfish to say but to me I felt like they were suffocating me in a way,” Evans said. “I don’t know. I can’t ... Obviously, you know, I’m pretty, I guess, evil but that’s ... whatever. Sorry.”

Evans also asked not to see any of his family during future visitations.

“I assure you I definitely don’t like myself, you know,” Evans said later in the conversation. “But I’m just so freaked out by guns now. And just to let you know, I hate the feeling of killing someone. I’m going to be messed up.”

Evans reportedly lived with his younger sister and parents in an upscale gated River Creek neighborhood where the family purchased a home in 2000. His father was in Washington, D.C. on business when the shooting took place, Evans said.

“I just thought it would be quick, you know,” Evans also said. “I didn’t want them to feel any pain. That’s why I used a gun, but it was like everything went wrong.”

Another sister of Evans was away at college and was supposed to visit the following day, Evans told authorities.

He also told them that his grandparents and the oldest of his three sisters lived across the street.

The East Parker County community was left reeling by the news.

An open house held Thursday night at Aledo United Methodist Church drew a few people who knew the family, and the church provided lay ministers to talk with community members.

Jan Hudler, a member of Aledo United Methodist Church, knew Jami Evans for seven years. The two trained together to become Stephen Ministers, lay members who counsel others through times of sorrow and grief.

“She was a deeply spiritual person, and it showed in everything she did,” Hudler said. “I never heard her say anything bad about anybody. Her family was the center of her life.”

Hudler said the Evans family had recently begun attending Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish, also in the Aledo area.

“I saw her recently, and she caught me up on her family and said she missed my husband and me,” Hudler said. “She sounded upbeat. She said she was homeschooling the kids and was going to get into the Stephen ministry [at Holy Redeemer], as well.”

Hudler said she doesn’t know the rest of the Evans family well, but everything appeared to be normal.

“This was not a family this should have happened to,” she said.

Aledo ISD was hit particularly hard, where Jami Evans worked for 15 years and where both teens had recently attended.

According to district superintendent Dan Manning, Jami Evans was a former elementary school teacher and assistant principal at Stuard and Coder elementary schools between 1989 and 2004.

She worked as a substitute teacher for the district beginning in 2007.

Jake Evans was withdrawn from Aledo High School in January to homeschool, according to Manning, who also said that Evans’ sister also withdrew from the Aledo district at some point.

“This is really difficult for a lot of the staff,” Manning said, adding that everybody is in shock.

“This is a family that has been here for a long time,” Manning said.



Staff writer Judy Sheridan contributed to this report.