Inset: Jeffrey Evans (Broward County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Home in Coral Springs, Florida, where he allegedly assaulted his wife, who later ended up dead in a canal (Google Maps).
A Florida man is behind bars after his wife was found dead in a canal near their home following an argument over infidelity.
Jeffrey Ernest Evans, 43, is not currently facing charges in the death of his wife, Jessica Evans. Rather, he stands accused of domestic violence battery after she told him she cheated on him because she suspected he did the same, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit. Jeffrey Evans called 911 shortly before 9 p.m. Monday to say his wife was having a “mental break” and needed help at their home in the 9900 block of NW 15th Court in Coral Springs, cops wrote.
A few minutes later, dispatchers received a call from a neighbor who said he heard a woman screaming “My husband is trying to kill me!”
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Cops responded to the scene and found the woman’s body floating face down in a nearby canal. She was later pronounced dead.
After receiving his Miranda warnings, the husband told cops that he and his wife began arguing the previous night after she accused him of infidelity. She left and did not come home that night. He said she returned the next day and told him she got revenge by cheating on him, the affidavit stated. On the night of her death, she apparently tried to wrestle away her husband’s laptop so she could search for evidence of his cheating.
This led to a scuffle and she fell on the ground, cops said. The defendant said he thought things had cooled down and they were moving on. He said they went into the bedroom together, and that he stepped out of the room for a moment and she was gone when he returned.
Jeffrey Evans went outside and found her running between two houses across the street yelling “Help! He’s going to kill me!” the affidavit said.
He tried to restrain her and take her back inside but “realized it would appear to an outsider that he was the ‘aggressor’ in this situation” since she was yelling about him, cops wrote. He said that he ran back inside and called 911.
The investigation remains ongoing. Cops have not yet released the cause and manner of death.
He remains in the Broward County Jail on a $1,000 bond.
