Tacoma woman pleads for help in solving father’s murder. ‘You would want answers, too.’
TACOMA – Speaking to a room of Tacoma police detectives and news reporters Thursday, Porche Evans described in unflinching detail the moments after her father was fatally shot in November 2020 outside her Eastside home.
She recalled the terrible phone call in the middle of the night, the screams and the barefoot run in her nightgown as she went to try to help her father, 55-year-old Gregory Evans. It’s been nearly two years since he was killed in a seemingly unprovoked attack, and police don’t have answers. With little to go on, the case has frustrated detectives. Porche Evans said it has been a nightmare.
“You clean up the blood, you clean up the other parts of the body, and it’s terrible,” Evans, 30, said. “And then you have to live on that street. And every day, I go by where my father was killed, and every day I have to think about how we don’t know who did it.”
Tacoma Police Department detectives are hoping renewed coverage of the cold case will lead to someone coming forward with information. Tips can be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers online at www.tpcrimestoppers.com or by calling (800) 222-TIPS.
“We’ve followed all the leads that we’ve had,” detective Ashley Robillard said. “No one appears to be coming forward. Someone knows, and they’re not talking.”
The Nov. 27, 2020, drive-by shooting happened as Gregory Evans stood outside a friend’s car shortly after midnight making plans for the evening. In surveillance video, a car pulls beside them at about 12:20 a.m.
“Hey what’s up dog,” a person in the car says.
A gunman then fires multiple times, fatally striking Evans in the torso and hitting his friend in the knee.
The vehicle was described by the injured man as a 2011-14 silver or light gray Dodge Charger. Detectives said the people inside the car were described as three Black men in their early 20s. One was a light-skinned man with long hair in a ponytail. Another was described as a darker-skinned man with twists in his hair.
Police believe the Dodge had some kind of sticker or emblem above the driver’s side front wheel well. In pixelated images, it is almost impossible to make out.
“My hope is that someone recognizes the car or the suspect description, maybe recognizes the voice that you’ll hear on the video,” Robillard said.
The shooting could have been a case of mistaken identity, detectives said. Robillard said Evans’ father and his friend were getting ready to go to a casino that night.
Gregory Evans and his family are longtime Tacoma residents, his daughter said, but the murder has left her feeling paranoid and unsafe. Porche Evans has taken measures to protect herself, but she said she was speaking out Thursday because she wants closure for her family, including her 15-year-old sister, and because she doesn’t want her father to be forgotten.
“I remember whenever someone would do something nice for him he’d be like, ‘For me? For me?’ And so that’s what I’m doing for him,” she said.
Gregory Evans could light up a room with a smile and make anybody laugh, his daughter said. He loved the Seattle Seahawks, and he and his daughter used to watch them together all the time. She struggled to say what it’s like not having her father here to cheer with her as the new season begins.
“Somebody knows this car, someone knows the muffler,” Evans said. “Be brave. Be courageous. Because if that was your family, you would want answers, too. You would want justice.”