Thomas Lawton Evans Jr., 38, learned that he would be spending the rest of his life in a certain way. Although his middle name contains the word ‘law,’ Evans Jr. doesn’t know the first thing about following it. Last February, Evans Jr. was charged with assaulting mom Brittany Todd at her home in Johns Island, South Carolina, kidnapping her 4-year-old daughter Heidi before driving her to Alabama.
Evans then raped the 4-year-old girl before she was rescued a few hours later. While in court, prosecutors then reported how Evans had confessed that he had murdered his 38-year-old girlfriend Sharon Nannette Hayden just days before he assaulted Todd and kidnapped her daughter.
Evans Jr. learned his fate when he received his sentencing. After pleading guilty, the judge sentenced him to three life terms in prison.
The harsh sentence felt right for US District Court Judge David Norton because the South Carolina man’s crimes were the worst he had ever witnessed during his 30 years on the bench.
“This was random, brutal and senseless,” Judge Norton said. “He’s a sorry, excuse for a human being, get him out of here.”
Evans admitted his crimes last September, pleading guilty at the time. He told the gruesome details about how he kidnapped and transported the 4-year-old child across state lines before engaging in aggravated sexual assault and abuse on the little girl.
The prosecution struck gold when Evans admitted he killed his girlfriend (pictured above) just a few days before he went ballistic, assaulting Todd and kidnapping her daughter. Evans claimed that he and his girlfriend were fighting inside their Spartanburg County Home when he took a knife and stabbed her. He revealed all the intimate details of the murder to the FBI. She tried to flee the home after being stabbed and escaped as far as the wood. There she collapsed. He assumed he had killed her. However, her body was never recovered, and he has not been charged with her murder.
However, the crimes he admitted to committing just days later earned him three life sentences in prison.
In court, Todd faced off with Evans because she wanted to speak in defense of her four-year-old daughter.
“Nothing in my life runs the same in my family like before February 13,” she said.
Evans followed Todd into her home in Johns Island where he “brutally assaulted” her. He left her tied to the bed with severe injuries.
During the attack, Brittany Todd’s daughter Heidi and two-year-old son hid in the upstairs bedroom. Evans did not struggle to find them. When he did, he took the young girl with him.
With her secured in the trunk of his car, he drove from South Carolina through Georgia to Alabama where he was later arrested in Riverside County but not before he was able to commit a heinous act of child rape.
After the assault, mom Brittany underwent numerous surgeries to fix her face, which cost $361,000.
“I couldn’t care for my kids for four months,” she told Evans in court.
