An Ohio father charged with the murder of his newborn daughter has a prior conviction for assaulting his infant son in circumstances described as strikingly similar.
Christopher Evans, 35, was arrested in Cincinnati on Thursday, five days after his daughter was discovered unresponsive at their home, the Cincinnati Police Department said.
The baby, 24-day-old Naomi, died from her injuries the following day, Sunday.
Following Naomi’s death, a GoFundMe fundraiser was created by someone identified as Chris Evans. The Daily Mail said it contacted the crowdfunding platform in an effort to establish whether the organizer is the same person as the suspect.
The fundraiser states: ‘As Me (Chris,& My Wife Grace) go through this very, VERY difficult loss of our Beautiful Princess/Sleeping Beauty Baby Girl Naomi.
‘We just need some extra money for funeral arrangements for our Baby Girl Naomi…thanks for your donations if your able to donate we really appreciate it.’
Evans faces charges of murder, felonious assault and child endangerment. He remains held at the Hamilton Justice Center on a $2 million bond.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Daily Mail, detectives alleged that Evans used ‘means of physical force significant enough to cause massive head trauma resulting in a skull fracture and bleeding to the brain’ in the alleged killing of his daughter.
Naomi Evans died on September 6 after being found unresponsive at her home. Her family appeared to set up a fundraiser for funeral costs after her death.
Her father, Christopher Evans, has been charged in connection with her death and bowed his head during a court appearance on Friday.
Prosecutors connected Evans to a disturbingly similar case from 2015 involving his son, who was three weeks old at the time.
Investigators said in court on Friday that the boy had the ‘exact same injuries’ as his sister, adding that there were: ‘Horrific facts that seem to be repeating themselves.’
‘Please do not let him be around any more children,’ the prosecutor said, local NBC affiliate WLWT reported.
A detective who testified in court corroborated that the two cases had ‘shocking similarities.’
Evans pleaded guilty to assault and child endangerment in 2017. He was sentenced to prison but spent most of his time served on house arrest.
He attempted to appeal his conviction, but the Twelfth District Court of Appeals affirmed the judge’s decision a year later.
In that case, Evans’ infant son was found unresponsive with a blue face and lips in his home in October 2015.
Naomi was just 24 days old when she was killed and died a day after being admitted to the hospital
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A fundraiser was set up by a man with the same name as the accused asking for donations to support Naomi’s family
Police responded to the home on September 5 in response to reports of an unresponsive child. Naomi died in the hospital five days later
He was caring for his son while his wife and the child’s mother were running errands. When she returned, she noticed bruising on her child’s face, a swollen lip and neurological injuries, according to the Appeals Court’s decision.
The infant was rushed to an emergency room and later transferred to a children’s hospital, where doctors found he had a brain bleed, retinal hemorrhages and fractures in his legs.
Hospital staff suspected child abuse, and an investigation was launched. Evans told detectives with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office that he had been ‘bouncing the baby too hard’ with a force of ‘8 out of 10.’
He also confessed to throwing his son into the wood-framed changing table, which injured the infant’s head, according to court documents.
During a jury trial, the infant’s mother testified that Evans was ‘stressed out daily’ and his new job made him ‘very angry and upset.’ She added that the family was strained financially.
Evans claimed that his confession to detectives was a lie that he felt forced to say. His attorney filed a motion to suppress the statements to detectives, arguing that he was not read his Miranda rights, but the motion was denied.
He served time at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and was released in 2024, according to prison records.
Evans, 35, was arrested a few days after his daughter’s death on charges of murder, felonious assault and child endangerment
Evans was also arrested and convicted on charges of assault and child endangerment in 2017 after his son was injured
Evans’s next court date for the current case involving his daughter is set for September 21.
His attorney argued at his last court appearance that finding evidence in shaken baby cases is difficult.
‘There is significant scientific literature that suggests that there is some foundational reliability problems with the whole science of diagnosing child abuse, versus just taking a look at this as an injury,’ the attorney argued, according to WLWT.
‘There’s also well-documented bias in the medical community with an innocent injury with a white family is treated as an innocent family, with a minority family it’s treated as child abuse.’
The case is expected to be heard before a grand jury for formal charging within the next 10 days, Sharon Coolidge, a spokesperson for the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office, told the Daily Mail.
Evans’s attorney’s contact information was not immediately available for comment.