Grandmotherly Woman Admits to ‘Torso’ Slaying

Saying she has been hounded by a terrible secret, a grandmotherly domestic worker from San Diego has shocked police by confessing to the gruesome, unsolved killing of her husband 18 years ago in Miami, where parts of his dismembered body were found floating in Biscayne Bay.

Betty Ruth Evers, 55, was arrested after papers were filed Wednesday in Miami circuit court connecting her with the 1967 slaying of Henry Everett Evers, 59. Dade County authorities say they will forward the case to a grand jury within three weeks for formal charges.

Evers’ confession, police said, was a “bizarre” twist in what was once Miami’s most celebrated crime. The turn of events came suddenly when the gray-haired woman, who had been living in the San Diego area in recent years, walked into the Hollywood, Calif., police station 12 days ago, sat down and calmly said she had killed her husband.

“This caught a lot of people by surprise,” said Michael Cornely, assistant state attorney in Miami now in charge of prosecuting Evers. “As of 1970 or so, this investigation was dormant . . . . All of a sudden, she walked into LAPD and said, ‘I done it!’ ”

“She looks like a 55-year-old grandmother,” added Cornely. “She doesn’t look like Charles Manson’s mother . . . . She looks like someone who would serve you pancakes at International House of Pancakes.”

Cornely said he believes Evers killed her husband, who owned a machine shop in Rhode Island, because he threatened to leave her and take their three children. In a statement filed in Dade County circuit court Wednesday, Evers called the shooting an accident. Cornely said she only admitted to the shooting, and said she told him she paid hitchhikers $500 to dispose of the body.

In the court statement, Evers said she accidentally shot her husband eight times with a .22 caliber gun--once in the back, seven times in the front--when he started toward her during an argument and she tripped backward over a chair. But a new, companion statement filed Wednesday and given by Evers’ daughter, now 32, said Evers shot her husband as he was walking away.

The killing of Henry Evers, nicknamed the “torso” murder, generated headlines when seven pieces of his shot and charred body were found in Biscayne Bay on June 3, 1967. The left hand was missing, and police were stymied until Evers, then 37, stepped forward after more than a month and identified the body of that as her husband.

At the time, Evers, who was living in southwest Miami, implicated a friend in the slaying. But a grand jury declined to indict the friend because of discrepancies in statements gathered by police, including one by Evers’ 14-year-old daughter, who said she witnessed the killing.

Miami police were unable to find any further evidence, and the “torso” killing was retired to the “cold case section,” where unsolved crimes lie dormant. Despite the lack of evidence, Miami police said Wednesday that they always suspected Evers in her husband’s death, which she discussed at length with newspaper reporters.

“If I said I did it, I’d destroy my children,” she told the Miami Herald in a May, 1969, article. “I’d ruin their lives. People would tell little Susan that your mother shot your daddy. She would never forgive me.”

Since then, Evers has served five years in an Alabama prison for violating parole on a forgery charge, and has been crisscrossing the country, landing domestic jobs. In Hawaii, an invalid accused her of stealing 23 savings bonds in April, 1983. A year later, Evers apparently settled in San Diego.

In San Diego, Mary Marko said she hired Evers briefly in 1984 to care for her elderly father, who owns a mobile home in a trailer park on Black Mountain Road. The family fired Evers after two months because they said they discovered she was leaving their father to drive around in his car.

Jan Johnston said she also hired Evers to live with her elderly mother later in 1984. At first, Johnston said, the family was impressed with Evers, especially with her “excellent” cooking.

But soon the enthusiasm waned.

“She was not taking very good care of my mother,” Johnston said.

In August, Evers announced she was quitting her job, but asked the Johnstons if she could purchase their 1977 Pontiac sedan. At first, she tried to buy the car with a check, but when the couple refused, she startled them by returning to their home a few days later with 17 crisp $100 bills, Johnston said. A problem with transferring the title kept the deal from being consummated, state records show.

Despite the show of money, Johnston said, Evers left a trail of financial problems.

“She had given my mother’s address for her new checks,” said Johnston. “I tell you she wrote checks all for food. Ralphs. Vons. Mayfair. Safeway. You name it, every food place. And gas, for buying gas. They bounced all over the place. I felt so bad for all these stores. I started writing and telling them, and then I just gave up.”

Evers’ last employer, San Diego police say, was a 73-year-old invalid. They say Evers took the woman’s car on June 24 and drove up to the Los Angeles area. Four days later, on June 28, she walked into the Hollywood station, asked for a homicide investigator and sat down at the desk of Detective C.M. Harris.

At first, Harris said, he was a bit skeptical about Evers’ story.

“We’ve heard some pretty wild tales here and found out later on, that’s what they were: pretty wild tales,” Harris said. “By the same token, you just don’t run them out of the front door. It always has to be investigated to see if it is true.”

Harris said he became convinced of Evers’ determination to confess to the killing.

“Obviously, it wasn’t a spur of the moment type thing,” Harris said. “She had been thinking about this for some time, I had felt. She wanted to get it off her chest.

“When she came in that night, she said, ‘Put me in jail. I want to be put in jail. I want to pay for my mistakes.’ ”

At first, Harris said he could not comply with her wish. He called to verify the details of the killing with Miami police, but there was only a skeleton crew on the evening shift. The Hollywood detective said he had no alternative but to ask Evers to return to the police station early the next week.

Before Evers returned to the Hollywood station July 2, Harris verified the gruesome background details about the “torso” murder with Miami detectives. That still wasn’t enough to justify an arrest, however.

Then Evers confessed something else. She explained that she was driving a stolen car. Harris said he ran a check, discovered it was true, and immediately arrested her for auto theft.

“That gave her a place to stay, because at that time she had no place to stay,” said Harris. “And obviously, we could keep an eye on her until Miami detectives could come out here to talk to her.”

Miami police arrived in Hollywood the next day, and Evers volunteered to return to Florida, they said.

“After 18 years of causing her family grief, having various family members not tell the truth on her behalf, and her suicidal tendencies as of late, and with her remorse, it was time to confess,” Cornely said.

Despite her contention that the killing was an accident, Evers says she is ready for punishment for what happened 18 years ago.

“I have been told by the police that during her statements that she steadfastly insisted no attorney represent her because she wanted to plead guilty and get this thing over, and that’s a quote,” Cornely said.

In the luggage Evers brought with her to the Miami jail, she packed a copy of “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” a novel in which a woman and her lover plot to kill her husband.