Evans Pays His Respects To a Long-Lost Friend

At the trial, Mary Evans declined to invoke the Fifth Amendment to protect her son, a minor, from testifying.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

"I was just trying to do what was right and tell Demetric to tell them what he knew," Mary Evans said, "because if I lost a child I would want the same thing. I know Demetric was afraid to talk about it, and maybe he didn't know what people might do to him, but I'm glad he did."

On the witness stand he answered a litany of questions about how the day unfolded, if he believed there had been any malicious intent involved.

"The hardest thing of the whole situation was of course losing a friend, but also having to testify against another friend," Evans said.

That testimony marked one of the few times Evans has gone into detail about the incident. Even now, he rarely speaks to his wife or closest friends about it. He rejected counseling, and internalized his emotions. "I really felt like I didn't need it," Evans said. "I felt like that would make things worse by continuing to talk about it. I just wanted to put it behind me, and I think my decision benefited me."

Said Mary Evans: "As far as getting over it, Demetric never really opened up with me about it, and I didn't really push him too hard. But I do think after his friend got shot it changed him to where he hung around different people. One thing about Demetric, he always handled things his own way."

Still, the lust for gossip about the shooting was nonstop. Evans said he never experienced nightmares, but the persistent whispers and taunts at school were troubling.

"That was the rumor at school: 'Oh, he's gonna kill you next, man. You're next Demetric,' " Evans said. "And you're so young at the time and in the back of your mind you're like, 'What if this is for real?' It starts to mess with your mind and it's hard to get through."

All three families still reside in the same neighborhood. Evans sees the shooter occasionally when home -- he dropped out of school but still lives nearby -- and hugs Crittenden's parents when he runs into them, but they do not speak of the past ("I don't want to continue to bring up pain," he said). Mary Evans has normal social contact with the other parents.

"They're my neighbors and we all get along," Mary Evans said. "I don't think they have any problems with us, just at the time it was really hard for everyone. But they know Demetric told the truth and he didn't have anything to do with it. Other than that, he never really did talk about it much, and I didn't either."

A Role Player

At 17, Evans decided to go away to college and chose the University of Georgia, where he reveled in his newfound obscurity, but wore No. 92 to honor Crittenden. On the field, he endured a series of coaching departures, was not a regular starter and had no set position. "I got lost in the shuffle," Evans said, overshadowed by the three first-round picks on that dominant defensive line -- Richard Seymour (sixth overall in 2001), Marcus Stroud (13th overall in 2001) and Charles Grant (25th overall in 2002).

"He was like our ace in the hole," said Seymour, a star with the New England Patriots and one of Evans's closest friends. "Wherever we needed him to play, he could come in and get the job done, and he never got flustered or frustrated with his role. He always had a resilience to him. You can stack the odds against Demetric and you would never know what he may be dealing with, because he's always the same guy all the time, whether in good times or bad."