An Oklahoma woman accused of asking her lover to murder her pastor husband after enduring years of what relatives and experts described as a deeply abusive relationship pleaded guilty to the crime Monday, her attorney said.
Kristie Evans, 48, “understands there has to be accountability for her actions, and she’s prepared to serve whatever sentence is handed down,” the attorney, Joi Miskel, said. “But at the same time, she wants the court and the public to know the reasons behind her actions.”
Although Evans faces a potential life sentence, Miskel said that she “at least now has some control and say so in her life that she didn’t have before — as twisted as that may sound.”
Tara Portillo, the Pontotoc County prosecutor handling the case, said she was barred from discussing it until after Evans is sentenced.
Her sentencing hearing, where Miskel said relatives are expected to speak about the abuse, is scheduled for Aug. 9 and 10.
Evans was charged with first-degree murder in the March 22 killing of David Evans, her husband of nearly three decades and the pastor of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church in Ada.
Authorities said Kristie Evans “begged” a then-26-year-old man who she and her husband had been having a threesome with to kill him, according to a probable cause affidavit released after the murder.
A lawyer for the man, Kahlil Square, said Monday that his client was still pleading not guilty to the charge. The lawyer, Tony Coleman, said Square would likely “hold” this “position” until after sentencing.
David Evans’ mother, Jean Richardson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In interviews from jail, Kristie Evans said her husband repeatedly pressured her for years to participate in threesomes.
A review of four years of private Facebook messages between the couple provided to NBC News showed him pressing her to perform sex acts with other men, deriding her as a “frigid bitch” for failing to hook up with other swinger couples and demanding typed statements that detailed their sex life.
She described him as financially controlling and physically abusive in ways that never “left a mark.” During an exchange one month before his murder, after Kristie Evans threatened divorce, she said her husband held a .357 revolver to his chin as she talked to their daughter over the phone — an apparent effort to control how she discussed the separation.
Some relatives said they were aware of some abuse. Kristie Evans' father called her scheme an "escape from her personal hell." David Evans' mother said she didn't know about it, but blamed Kristie Evans for not doing more to seek help if her son had been abusive.
"She could have gone to a new city or a battered women’s shelter,” she told NBC News last year.
Experts who weren’t involved in the case said it appeared to be a “classic case” of coercive control, a form of abuse that has often been misinterpreted or minimized by authorities.
Evan Stark, a social worker and researcher who coined the term, compared the abuse to a hostage situation, where men use strategic and oppressive tactics aimed at “controlling the whole space.”