Letters from a new hampshire prison from the wrongfully convicted chad evans

I can’t recall if Kyle had a bath on the night of the 8^th. He was taking showers sometimes by then. I don’t believe with all that happened that evening he did. Typically he had one or the other every night but I may have just washed him up with a wash cloth that evening.

Pg. 127 You discovered that Kato was a female. No actually, Kato was a male. It was just another perfect example of the emotional wreck I was that evening during my police interrogation. I could not think straight. Everything was a jumble. I was worried that something might happen to Kato. If I wasn’t there Kato was going to be extra protective. He had already tried to bite my probation officer. I had Kato forever and didn’t want him hurt. I might have said "girl" the same way someone would refer to their pick up truck. “She’s got a lot of miles on her but still going strong. You can’t beat those old Chevy’s.”

I hope this helps some.

You sent a copy of the Yankees schedule for July-September 2000. I believe that you indicated that Jason Shunk said it may not have been a Red Sox vs. Yankees game. It's so hard and I am not sure if we will ever pin this down. I know I went to Yankee Stadium on several occasions. Mostly to watch the Red Sox, but I know on at least one occasion I saw them play another team. A while back when you sent me material on the Yankees I thought we may have it. I seemed to recall a game stat that you sent me that seemed familiar, it had Red Sox pitcher, Rolondo Arrojo winning like 6-1 or 6-2, I believe. It fit the rest of the criteria that we knew- weekday, somewhat close to Labor Day. I will try to check back to see if I can locate the original letter you sent it in. It's the best guess I can come up with. Have you ever sent Jeremy a copy of the summer 2000 Yankees schedule.

I am glad to hear that you spoke to Mr. Aube. I have always liked him. One of my fondest memories was of Bruce and I taking our dads down to see the first Patriots game of the regular 1997 season. We stayed overnight in a hotel, smoked cigars, and played cards the night before. It was a chance for Bruce and I to see our dads get away from the "old ball and chain" and let loose a little. Bruce and I were listening to the radio later that evening and found out that Princess Diana had just died in a car crash. That game will forever be linked with her death. I KNOW Mr. Aube is protective of Bruce's privacy but will pass the message on. Mr. Aube was even protective when my dad called once and they were very friendly. There were a number of those Sunday football games at Bruce's house when his dad was in attendance. My dad also. I helped Bruce's parents move into their current house in Barrington after they built it. Sadly, I don't believe that Bruce will contact you. It's an odd thing because he has a great moral compass and is always one for doing what is right but this case was a tough chapter in his life and I feel that he may have closed it. Bruce more than most, may be affected by a positive result in the voice stress lie detection. Not that I think he doubts me necessarily. He asked me questions and I am not sure my answers satisfied him. As you know, the cops really worked him over and things like that will make him think for a long time. Me passing the test and informing him of it, is likely to make him start reevaluating things in his mind and it will sit on his conscience.

You asked about the photo of Amanda holding Kassidy at Belmont on Friday Oct. 20, 2000. I am 99% SURE that it was Nicole that took the photo. I was working with Brandon on the other side of the house trying to dig a trench or something to lay a water pipe before the ground froze. I am pretty sure that Kyle was over with Brandon and me.

Interesting about the SCAN people and Jeff's statement. I believe I wrote about that recently and my concerns for my interview being that I was the one under the gun and therefore often had lengthy answers. It's pretty uncomfortable sitting there with police officers staring at you. They are pretty good at being silent, encouraging you to keep blabbing, even if it is filler and nonsense words.

Yes. It was me that sent you the article about Dan Dumaine, attorney Nadeau, and SCAN technology. I don't know Brian Chevalier inmate #68651 at all. He is in the Northern Correctional Facility in Berlin, NH.

In my interview I said, I had a guy that, that works for me in Rochester, he's an old, old, fellow, he's a good guy. We talk all the time and he's just talking about how man he said, "Chad, you work your ass off." He goes, "You got to stop and smell the roses along the way." His name is Arthur Johnson. He was an older, retired gentleman that I hired to be the maintenance man in Rochester when I was the restaurant manager. Probably in 1994. The quote to the police was off a bit. Arthur was a Jehovah's Witness and didn't ever swear. Arthur was a kind man of few words who in many

ways reminded me of my dad. When Arthur spoke, I was sure to always listen. One morning when I was supervising the restaurants I stopped in to the Rochester restaurant, was rushing around doing a bunch of things and quickly headed off to another restaurant. Arthur was washing windows and over heard me tell the manager that I would drop by around 7 p.m. to follow up on something when I returned to town. I walked around the parking lot with Art, checking things out and he commented on how quickly he was seeing Kyle grow up. I believe Art looked me in the eye and said, "You work really hard for the man that owns this company which is honorable. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses along the way." I thanked him and left. All the way to my next restaurant I thought about what Arthur was saying and settled on, "Don't forget to spend time with that beautiful young son and the people you love on your way to the top." I have great respect for Arthur.

Arthur was a skilled craftsman and NEVER took shortcuts. I remember soon after I purchased my house in Rochester I was having a problem with all of the upstairs bedroom doors. None of them would close. I explained the problem to Art and asked his advice on how to fix them. Art said he would swing by and look at them sometime and tell me what he though the problem was. Nicole was living with me at the time. Two days later Art showed up one morning after he had finished his job at McDonald's. He typically worked 3 a.m. to 11:30. 64 year old Arthur proceeded to pull all the doors off, one by one, removed the hinges and shaved the backside of the doors off over the next several hours until they fit perfectly. Arthur did all of this with old fashioned tools that looked like they came over on the Mayflower. This is the kind of guy Arthur Johnson is, a lot like my dad. He had a wife of many years, Jan. They were so in love. I went to their house a few times once to drop a gift certificate off to Art because he would never take money (he would need to claim cash.) and a few times to have dessert with them. Nicest people in the world. I really enjoyed seeing them together. I would have been better off if I had hung out with them more often. Maybe some off Art's calmness and outlook on life would have rubbed off on me.

You asked about my anniversary with Amanda June 2, 2001. We always did something. I'm kind of a big softy that way. I loved planning surprises and showing Amanda how much I loved her. I was always leaving Amanda little notes or gifts in her car or places she would find them. Amanda loved Rice Pudding, Cherry Pie, and Lindt Chocolates. When I was staying with her and Vanessa I was afraid that I would come to jail. (self-fulfilling prophecy?) I was really worried about what this would do to Amanda. I would sit up nights or whenever she was sleeping and write her all kinds of cards and letters. Talking about our dreams, how much I love her, how she was strong, etc. I then purchased a bunch of Amanda's favorite things, Lind Chocolates, Drake Cherry Pies, her favorite Perfume, etc. I left all of these with Vanessa who promised to give them to Amanda once a month if something ever happened to me. I just really wanted Amanda to be ok.

Back to our anniversary ... I'm not positive but I think she and I took off for the weekend and went with our friends Bruce and Michelle to their camp in Pittsburgh, NH. Either that, or we went to Springfield Mass for two days, we walked through the Basketball Hall of Fame, went to museums down there, went out to a few bars/clubs at night and rented a hotel room with a hot tub in it.

Both of these events were close to each other. We were both pretty broken up over Kassidy so it wasn't like we were having this grand time. We were just trying to live a little. I thought it would be good to get away from everything for a few days.

This reminds me. Yesterday, I wrote about the physical contacts with Amanda. After Kassidy died, things could be extremely stressful. Not only were we grieving, we were not supposed to be together, I had this impending trial and I was being blamed for killing Kassidy. I'm not sure what my point is other than to say, even with these significant stressors in our lives, there wasn't a bunch of violence between Amanda and I. I don't know, it just seems like it was made into a lot more than it was. Things between Amanda and I would last seconds. I never hit her and Amanda even told the police this, but it just seems that they were unwilling to believe anything that wasn't bad about me. It is frustrating. Yes, I know, even a few seconds grabbing at each other isn't right but I am not exaggerating and I'm confident that Amanda would agree that our play was much rougher than our disagreements.

You asked about Heather Hamilton and if I ever asked her out or something. I recall reading this

somewhere else, I believe it was in one of the letters that I wrote to Alan or something. I don't recall

doing it. It doesn't really make much sense either.

#1 I was VERY happy with Amanda. In fact, I stopped seeing 4 different girls when I first met Amanda because I was so enthralled with her. I was more attracted to those girls than I ever was Heather.

#2. Heather was Jen's boss. I don't think that I would seriously ask Amanda's sister to hook me up with someone else. Amanda would get all "nutty" if she saw me talking to another girl. I can't imagine that would go over to well at home. Although some joking must have went on. I know I would screw around with Amanda sometimes because it was occasionally funny to see her get all worked up. I recall one time while I was working at Hampton Beach Amanda was either down with my mom and mom's friend, Liz, or one of her girlfriends. Anyway, I gave her my cell phone and told her I would give her a call when I was ready to leave. And she could walk back and meet me and we would go to dinner. Well, the minute I handed her the phone, she had this "flirty look and said, "Oh goody, I've got your cell phone. Now I can listen to all your messages and make sure no other girls are calling you. Because you know, if there are, mama's cutting your balls off." (Amanda and I had this play thing where we would sometimes identify ourselves in the 3rd person as "Mama" and "Daddy.") Amanda said it in a sassy, sexy kind of way. She was flirting with me and kind of letting me know she was in charge. Even though she was fooling around, I KNEW she wasn't kidding and would listen to my messages. A while after she left, I got this great idea on how to screw with her. I had one of my female manager friends call my cell phone and ask for me. I

instructed her not to identify herself and to tell Amanda when Amanda answered, that she was supposed to meet me at the beach and then when Amanda started questioning her to hang up. At first my friend didn't want to do it but when she realized I was playing a practical joke, she was game. An hour or so later, Amanda came storming back with this look in her eyes. I went out on the side patio and she said, "What the fuck Chad. Some girl called your cell phone and said she was supposed to meet you at the beach. You're an asshole." I couldn't keep a straight face and burst out laughing. Amanda knew it was a joke then and started chasing me. I ran behind the McDonald's lot where I let her catch me, punch my arm a few times and pulled her in for a kiss. When I had my arms wrapped around her I reminded her not to mess with "daddy". This is a good example of our relationship and playful interaction.

Regarding Tristan and retraining orders. Yes, there was one in place but we never followed it. It was more of a tool for Tristan to have the upper hand. She wasn't afraid of me and we met often to exchange Kyle, etc. I had dinner with Tristan and the kids several times while the order was in effect. I think Tristan liked having it because if she got sick of me or whatever she would have the power to "remind" me that I wasn't supposed to be around her. On that night at the Kittery PD, I had called Tristan prior to going in. If we get those phone records you will see that we spoke often, with her calling just as frequently. I didn't want her to come into the police station because I remembered that it was still in effect (one month left I believe) and I didn't want to get arrested. It seems trivial now but at the time I knew that I had nothing to do with killing Kassidy. I wasn't trying to wave a red flag in front of the police and get myself arrested. "Hello, arrest me, I am within 500 feet of my wife and I am on probation"

It sounds like an interesting idea on how to present information on Kassidy's condition. Using the words from those, closest around her, during that time period seems logical. The only word of caution I will throw it just using the police interviews as the source. As you know the police investigation was limited and scope and it was pretty clear what they wanted to hear from everybody. As you have learned over the past 6 months. I had MUCH more to say than what was in my police interview. Ideally, it would be great if everyone that knew Kassidy, especially those that were around her during the last 2-4 months of her life would speak to you. I am sure that Travis would. He might not remember much right off the bat, but much like me, if he is given a question and some time to ponder it, his mind may chum out some answers.

Some of Amanda's former girlfriends could be very helpful. Crystal Martin, Emily Conley, Shannon Gagne, etc. Food for thought.

You asked about the bruise on Kassidy's foot from the curling iron at Crystal Martin's house. It is my recollection that there was still a mark there from this burn on the 8th when I gave her a bath. It wasn't exactly black and blue like a bruise. It was more of a discoloration. I guess you could call it black and blue of a different variety.

I have not responded to letter #186 yet but towards the bottom of it under the section where you are responding to my letter #146 you thought it was interesting that upon arriving at Kittery PD, Jackie Conley asked me the rhetorical question, "Oh, God Chad, what did he do to my baby?" I'll tell you something even better. Tristan may have been in the lobby to hear this but there is no doubt that Tristan was sitting there when Jackie was in the lobby talking about Jeff. Tristan contacted my attorney, Alan Cronheim, soon after I hired him and told him everything that Jackie had said. I believe Alan was trying to see if there was audio or video available of the Kittery PD lobby area, and may have been told there was none. People didn't initially think it was me until the police put it into their minds.

I hope this helps some.
July 8, 2010 (158)

You wrote about the excellent point I made to police that if I had not OFFERED to pick Kassidy up on the 8th they would have had a harder time blaming me. You asked me if I saw Kassidy or Kyle on the morning of the 8th. You are correct, I did write about it to you a while back. If it helps you at all, I believe the letter was the one where I spoke about spending time with Melissa Allard in Hampton Rte. 1 preparing for labor audit. I do recall starting my day in Rochester. I can't recall anything specific about that morning but I am fairly certain that if Kyle was there, I saw both the kids that morning before I left for work. Unless I was leaving very early, between 6 and 7 am, I usually spent a few minutes with them eating breakfast, playing, or holding one or both. If I did see Kyle and/or Kassidy on Wednesday morning it would have been very brief. I had a lot going on with my end of month meeting to prepare for on the 9th and labor audits in two restaurants the following week. In addition to my regular duties.

On page 102 I described a time Jeremy stayed with me prior to our golf outing. Jeremy stayed at our house on Sunday night so we could get an early start on Monday morning. We watched Sunday night football at Bruce's. I believe ESPN had the 8 p.m. Sunday game back then. I lived about 3 miles from Bruce. Jeremy stayed at our house and he and I left early the next morning. In an early letter you mentioned Jeremy's observation that Kassidy was in bed with Amanda and I that morning when he came upstairs. When we left the house, Kassidy had no bruises on her cheeks. When we got home, she had fresh bruises. Jen and Amanda spent the day doing a fall clean up for Jeff. Jeff watched Kassidy at his house doing some "paperwork" while the girls did the manual labor. When we returned home that evening Jeremy and I observed the fresh bruises on Kassidy's face and I showed him the black and blue butt on Kassidy and Amanda confirmed that Jeff brought her home that way on Sunday morning. Jeremy stayed at our house for a while longer visiting and then went home.

You wrote about the alleged issue of my gambling debts and my question to police where they were hearing this nonsense. You found that it was Jeff and Amanda that spoke about it. I would like to point out that it WAS JEFF that first mentioned it to the police and then they questioned Amanda. This was not the only example of where Jeff, as the first person to talk with the police, told them things about me that the police then questioned me and others about.

Another example was the head-under-faucet allegation. He told the police something like, "I don't know, you'll have to ask Amanda, she told Jen and I something about Chad holding Kassidy's head under water and that is why she is afraid of water." Amanda was frazzled though, and when they asked her about it she did a lot of agreeing. I'll try to find the original letter number that I wrote all of this to you. It was early like letter 73 or something. Maybe now that you are more familiar and have re read some things it would make more sense to you.

I hope this helps in some way.

On page 27 of my interview I said, "This was right around the time she fell out of Jeff's truck window." I believe there were several versions of how this "fall" occurred. When I saw Jeff a day or so after Kassidy's fall from the truck I commented to him how Kassidy had a couple of huge eggs on her head from this "fall" that he said she took. He said to me, "Yeah, it was crazy. I was headed out somewhere and I just set her in the cab for a second. She was walking around the cab and leaned out the window and fell out. She landed on her head, just out of my reach." It sounded careless but believable, so I never questioned it. (I am pretty sure I have written to you in the past about there being different versions of this story. Maybe you can OCR "truck" or "fall.") I think I started really questioning it a couple of weeks later when Kassidy died. Myself, Amanda, friends and family would discuss things that happened and this is one of the things that we discussed. Jeff's version to Amanda, I believe, was that the door was open, and Kassidy fell out and Jeff caught her on the way down, but not before she hit her head on the side running board of the truck. I believe it was Jeremy that asked him about it one day while at the Portsmouth McDonald's and Jeff said that Kassidy fell head first through the sliding window between the cab and the bed of the truck. And, of course,

there is Will Pierce's version. I agree with you. Falling from the truck window is much different than landing on your head from the truck seat. It adds approximately 2 feet to the distance of the fall.

You mentioned that you made a note on the website about me calling Darren to set up an Education IRA for Kassidy. You asked if I had also done this for Kyle and Brent. Yes this is correct. Actually, the accounts I set up for Kyle and Brent preceded the Education IRA that we know today. Back then it was called UGMA or UTMA (depending on company) It stood for Uniform Gift to Minors Act. It was the available method of saving for your childrens' college accounts at the time.

You asked me in this letter about throwing balls to Kyle in the house. Did we bring his wheelbarrow outside, did I ever toss hard balls? etc. I answered this ahead of time in a letter last week in much greater detail (the only benefit to being farther behind in my correspondence than my reading) in a letter last week. Yes to all questions here.

In the section where you were responding to my letter #144 you talked about Kyle's appointment schedule from 2000. The reason I brought this up is you asked several weeks ago that I might write to Tristan and ask her to contact his pediatrician and get his appointment history for 2000. You said it would be easier for her to do this (than me because I am incarcerated, therefore, some doctors may be less likely to help me.) I believe your hope was verifying that Kyle actually had a doctor's

appointment that week that Kassidy died and Amanda told the school that is why she was dropping Kyle off late. If so, it adds credibility to Kyle being sick with the flu which I believe. Myself, Amanda, and Tristan verified that he was ill, and this make it more likely that Kyle passed something onto Kassidy as I believe I described in my interview. I didn't think too much of her acting tired and sickly that week, as I was assuming she caught whatever Kyle had. Anyway, Tristan didn't respond to me and I think I was suggesting that you ask her for it. You had already had a conversation on the phone with her regarding this issue. (Amanda dropping Kyle off at Crossroad Kindergarten and telling the teacher that she had fed Kyle his snack and he was just coming from a Dr.'s appointment.)

I was waiting in the Kittery PD lobby when Jackie Conley came in. It was Robert Conley that drove her to the police station. He is Paul's brother, as Paul was out on the road, in his work, which was driving a truck. According to Amanda, Paul said, 'Wow, I was always wondering why certain things didn't add up. I understand better now."

You asked about the wart on Kassidy's finger. I feel like such an idiot that I can't remember exactly which finger and which hand it was on. I'm pretty sure it was on her index or middle finger near the middle knuckle. I know it bothered Kassidy because she was always playing with it. It was large and kind of sat off to the side of the knuckle area so it was on top of the finger but part of it was between her two fingers. I had never seen such a large wart on a child. I'm not sure when it developed on her finger, but she had it from the day I met her. I mentioned it to Amanda at least 7-8 times that she needed to have a doctor look at it, and remove it because it obviously bothered Kassidy with the amount of time she spent playing with it. In fact, I was usually mentioning it to Amanda when I saw Kassidy playing with it excessively. For example, I remember pulling her out of her high chair one night after dinner. I was washing her hands and face with a wash cloth and she immediately started playing with the wart on her finger. I called Amanda over and said, "Hey, you've really got to get this removed." She bent down, looked at Kassidy's finger, kissed it, kissed her and said, "I know, I will." This or something similar is what Amanda usually said when I made mention of getting it removed. I know Amanda intended to do it, but never made it a priority. You also asked if someone else had seen it. The thing was huge. Anyone close to her or holding her, would have been blind not to see it. I don't know if it was mentioned in the autopsy, or other medical reports.