A jury this week found the suspect in attacks at a Columbia County massage spa competent to stand trial in a potential advance in prosecutors’ nearly seven-year pursuit of justice.
Former Army captain Damione Evans, 46, was indicted for the May 21, 2016, rape, aggravated assault, sexual battery and robbery of one worker and the kidnapping and aggravated battery of another at the former King’s Spa on South Belair Road.
Evans has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was free on bond until August when prosecutors played the court a 2021 video of a naked Evans assaulting and robbing an Atlanta spa employee.
His alleged victims are particularly vulnerable, Columbia County Chief Assistant District Attorney Natalie Paine told the court, because they often are afraid to go to police. They may be illegal residents and may not speak English, she said.
“At this point this seems to be his M.O. – going to spas and attacking women,” Paine said.
Evans’ defense attorney Paul Howard called the Atlanta incident, for which Evans was not charged, a dispute over money. The spa employees were using the police to enforcement payment, he said.
Howard also raised the issue that his clients’ two alleged Columbia County victims, at one point, hadn’t been located by the court.
In a brief, he quoted former Assistant District Attorney Rex Myers, who prosecuted the case: “We have no idea where (the women) are at, where they can be found, how to find them, or whether they’re in the country at all.”
The incident preceded a crackdown on spa sex workers, and Columbia County later charged four women at two locations, including King’s Spa, with sex trafficking or prostitution. But none were identified as Evans’ victims.
The son of a retired Army colonel with mobility issues, Evans is a former boxer who has a master’s degree and owned a personal fitness business, court records state.
Evans’ previous attorney, Keith Johnson, asked for a mental evaluation and in 2018 a judge ruled Evans competent to stand trial. Prosecutors had offered a deal and Evans had agreed to plead guilty in 2021 for a 25-year sentence, according to court filings.
But in January 2022, Evans replaced attorney Keith Johnson with Howard, the former Fulton County district attorney.
Howard has filed motions that Evans intended to use insanity as a defense and deserved a speedy trial but by January 2023, hadn’t scheduled a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of Evans.
He also demanded a special jury trial on Evans’ mental competency. A Columbia County jury decided Wednesday Evans was competent to stand trial.
Columbia County Superior Court Judge Sheryl Jolly on Thursday ordered the next step, a criminal responsibility evaluation of Evans to determine if he was insane at the time of the attack.
