Teen’S Trial Begins In Beating Death Prosecutors Say Eby Thought Victim Had Drugs, Money

Melvin Evenson lent his last $20 to his killer minutes before the youth helped beat him to death, prosecutors said Tuesday as Daniel Eby’s first-degree murder trial opened.

Eby, then 18, used the money to send three others to the store for junk food and cigarettes. Meanwhile, Eby and a cousin pummeled the 53-year-old Evenson with a sledgehammer and baseball bat last spring inside a Fantasy Loop Road garage, prosecutors said.

The plan, according to prosecutors and Eby’s cousin, Jeremy Schmitz, was to rob Evenson of drugs and money.

“Danny Eby was coming down from his (drug) high and he wanted some more,” deputy prosecutor Rick Baughman told jurors in his opening statement. “He was convinced Mel had more. And he was also convinced for some reason he had money.

“He was going to roll, quote, unquote, Mel for his drugs and money.”

Eby also is charged with criminal conspiracy and attempted robbery.

The Kellogg teenager has pleaded not guilty to each of the crimes.

Schmitz, now 15, is serving a 10-years-to-life prison sentence after pleading guilty last November to second-degree murder. His stepfather, Clifford Hicks, also has pleaded guilty to helping the teens cover up the killing and was sentenced to a five-year prison term.

Both are scheduled to testify against Eby during the two-week trial.

Deputy public defender Brad Chapman said Eby’s presence at the garage does not mean he participated in the murder. Chapman told the jury Hicks planned the robbery because he needed money to travel to Oregon for a visit with his parole officer.

When sheriff’s detectives questioned Hicks, he pointed the finger at Schmitz and Eby, Chapman said.

“What’s going to happen if Cliff Hicks doesn’t get his way?” Chapman asked. “Who’s got two boys to take the fall for him?”

Prosecutors, however, allege Eby hatched the fatal plan early on March 25 or 26, 1997, and struck the first several blows with a sledgehammer. An autopsy determined Evenson’s skull had been shattered, his ribs broken and a lung punctured, Baughman said. It also showed shoulder wounds.

After the attack, Eby cut Evenson’s clothes off with a utility knife searching for drugs and money, Baughman said. When he found none, he sliced up the cab of Evenson’s pickup looking for booty he never found.

The cousins eventually loaded Evenson’s body into the bed of the pickup, covered it with stacks of moving boxes and abandoned the truck off Chilco Road, Baughman said.

Sandra Baum and her son found Evenson’s naked body about a year ago while retrieving boxes from the truck, which they acquired through the purchase of a moving business.

“We took both stacks (of boxes) down and saw what we both thought was a teddy bear left by (the previous owner’s) children,” said Baum, who testified Tuesday. “We looked down and discovered it was definitely not a teddy bear. We said, ‘Oh my God’ and turned around and ran back to my car.”

Detectives later collected five bags of ashes from a wood stove in the garage. State lab employees sifted fabric from Evenson’s clothes, the wire frames of his reading glasses and seven teeth from his dentures among the ashes, all of which prosecutors said is consistent with how Schmitz and Hicks said they were destroyed.

Eby has changed his story several times during interviews with detectives, Baughman said. At first, Eby claimed no knowledge of the attack, then fingered Schmitz and Hicks as the killers, before finally telling detectives he did not see who killed Evenson, the deputy prosecutor said.

“You’re going to watch a person in the hot seat squiggling and squirming,” Baughman said. “The evidence in this case will be Daniel Eby is a liar.”

Chapman cautioned jurors that the prosecution’s case is not as strong as they boast.

“The evidence will show you a whole bunch of things, if you listen carefully, that don’t make a lot of sense,” Chapman said.