By Pat Hammert/Staff Writer

An apparent break in the case of an unsolved murder committed in El Reno 21 years ago might lead to charges being filed against a suspect that state law enforcement has been tracking for the past two years.

The cold case on 95-year-old Clarence F. Evans, a wheelchair-bound retired railroader, has been under reinvestigation by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation since 2003.

Information has been turned over to Canadian County District Attorney Cathy Stocker. Corliss Collins, Evans’ granddaughter, has worked tirelessly to keep the case alive. The “cold case” investigator fixed on the suspect two years ago.

“Our family has been notified … there is forensic and circumstantial evidence pointing to this suspect and we are so excited about this new development …” she said.

In a quiet neighborhood in El Reno, her grandfather was brutally killed on Mother’s Day in 1985 by an intruder who stole $1 from a table beside the elderly man’s wheelchair.

The attacker grabbed a kitchen knife to silence his victim, stabbing him 30 times, according to the medical examiner. Some stab wounds were noted on the palms of Evans’ hands where he had tried to ward off his attacker.

Stocker said she would be making a decision within the next month on whether to file charges against the suspect.

“What I can tell you is we’ve received a report from OSBI and, more recently, additional information, but as yet, we haven’t made any decision,” she said. Stocker said she wants to make sure she has a case that is solid and that will convict.

“As you know, when criminal charges are brought and in the event someone is formally charged, you can’t ever file again on the same case against the same person,” she said.

Collins, a former El Reno resident, said her family is “holding our breath” awaiting Stocker’s decision.

“We have gone through 21 years of agony waiting for justice to be carried out because of this unspeakable and heinous crime against our loved one. I hesitate saying any more because everything is at such a sensitive stage,” she said.

She said her grandfather’s 85-year-old daughter, who lives in California, rallied from a serious illness when told of the news that a suspect had been pinpointed.

“Our whole family can’t thank the OSBI enough for spending, not hours, weeks or months, but years doggedly pursuing new leads, going over mounds and mounds of old records and reinterviewing old witnesses as well as interviewing new witnesses in the case.”

“It is also a blessing that such technological advances have been made in forensic science, which has allowed the evidence to be re-examined — something that would have been impossible to be done a decade ago,” she said.

The case might remain unsolved, but not unexplained. Police believe the burglar was simply looking for money and that he killed the elderly man for $1.

It was a quiet neighborhood of 1930s-type bungalows along a tree-lined street, and little has changed since then. In July 2003, the OSBI named the case as one still “solvable.”

Collins has her own theories about her grandfather’s violent death that coincide with those of Robert Hicks, the El Reno police chief at that time.

A midnight prowler had broken into more than 100 homes that year — someone he said who was very familiar with the area. Someone who intended to pilfer and steal and who knew certain people would be in church services or away from home for various reasons. Hicks even speculated the perpetrator lived in the neighborhood.

Unheard and unseen, the burglar had broken into the house through a rear window. The police chief called the killing especially heinous because the handicapped, elderly victim obviously put up a struggle.

“That’s what makes this so senseless,” Hicks was quoted at the time. “About all he could do was slide off the bed into a wheelchair. There was no reason in the world to harm him.”

Two file cabinets at the El Reno Police Department are filled with the investigation of the Evans case.