REMEMBERING SHEILA

Sheila Marie Evans was only three years old when she died on January 18, 1993. At three, Sheila was still completely dependent upon the adults around her. She should have been protected in her own home and safe with the people entrusted to care for her. instead, Sheila endured prolonged physical and sexual abuse before suffering the injuries that ultimately ended her life. Her death became a capital murder case that would continue through the courts for more than two decades. But before Sheila became the victim at the center of court decisions, appeals and a death sentence, she was a little girl. And what happened to her should never overshadow the fact that Sheila deserved an entire lifetime she was never given.

SHEILA’S STORY

Sheila lived in Akron, Ohio, with her mother, Fae Amanda Evans, and her siblings. At the time, Fae was dating Ronald Ray Phillips, who was also the father of Sheila’s infant half brother. The abuse Sheila suffered was not confined to the day she died. Medical evidence later established that Sheila had been repeatedly sexually assaulted. Phillips admitted sexually assaulting Sheila before January 18 and admitted physically abusing her. Approximately two days before Sheila’s death, she suffered a severe injury to her abdomen. The injury interrupted the blood supply to part of her intestinal tract. The damaged tissue began to die, leaving part of her intestine gangrenous. Medical testimony established that during this period Sheila would have been suffering intense pain, vomiting and difficulty eating. Then came the final assault. On the morning of January 18, 1993, Fae left the apartment with her infant son for a routine doctor’s appointment. Sheila and her younger sister were left in Phillips’s care. While Fae was gone, Phillips brutally assaulted Sheila. He beat the three year old in her head, face and abdomen, threw her against walls and dragged her by her hair. He also sexually assaulted her. When Fae returned home, Sheila did not respond when called. Sheila was found lying motionless on her bed. She was pale and cold. Emergency help was called. Paramedics transported Sheila to Akron Children’s Hospital. She arrived without a pulse and was not breathing. Doctors managed to restore a pulse and rushed her into emergency surgery. Inside Sheila’s abdomen, surgeons discovered catastrophic injuries. Part of her intestine was perforated and gangrenous, and she was suffering from severe infection and internal injury. Doctors tried to save her. They could not. Sheila died later that day from the devastating blunt force trauma to her abdomen. The autopsy documented the extraordinary extent of the abuse Sheila had suffered. Her little body was covered with more than 125 bruises, many inflicted within hours of her death. Evidence also showed that she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted.

THE FAILURE TO PROTECT SHEILA

Ronald Phillips was the man who inflicted Sheila’s fatal injuries, but the criminal case also examined the responsibility of the person who should have been Sheila’s first protector: her mother. Fae Evans was not convicted of personally inflicting the injuries that killed Sheila. She was convicted because she failed in her legal responsibility to protect her daughter. Evidence presented in Fae’s case showed that Sheila had suffered extensive injuries before the final assault that killed her. The abdominal injury Sheila sustained approximately two to three days before her death would have caused significant suffering. Her condition included symptoms that medical testimony indicated would have involved severe pain, vomiting and an inability to eat normally. Sheila also had numerous bruises and evidence of repeated abuse. Yet she remained in an environment where Phillips had access to her. On January 18, Fae left Sheila and her younger sister alone with Phillips. While Sheila was in his care, he delivered the final brutal assault that ended her life. The courts ultimately determined that Fae’s failure to protect Sheila constituted child endangering and contributed to the circumstances resulting in her death.

JUSTICE FOR SHEILA

Ronald Ray Phillips and Fae Amanda Evans both faced criminal prosecution following Sheila’s death. Phillips was indicted for aggravated murder and multiple offenses involving the physical and sexual abuse of Sheila. A jury convicted him, and he was sentenced to death. For more than two decades, Phillips challenged his conviction and death sentence through state and federal courts. His conviction and sentence remained intact. On July 26, 2017, more than 24 years after Sheila’s murder, the State of Ohio executed Ronald Ray Phillips by lethal injection. Members of Sheila’s family witnessed the execution. Afterward, her family gathered to remember the little girl whose death had begun the decades long legal process. Fae Evans was prosecuted separately for failing to protect her daughter. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.

Ronald Ray Phillips

Relationship to Sheila: Mother’s boyfriend
Convictions: Aggravated murder, rape and felonious sexual penetration
Sentence: Death
Sentence carried out: July 26, 2017, by lethal injection

Fae Amanda Evans

Relationship to Sheila: Mother
Convictions: Involuntary manslaughter and child endangering
Sentence: Up to 30 years in prison

FOREVER REMEMBERED

For more than twenty years after Sheila died, courts continued to speak her name. Her name appeared in trials, appeals, judicial opinions and arguments over the death sentence imposed upon the man who murdered her. In 2017, Sheila’s family gathered again. This time, after Phillips’s execution, they released balloons in memory of the little girl they had lost more than two decades earlier. Sheila would have been an adult by then. That is perhaps one of the cruelest measurements of everything taken from her. She should have grown from the three year old little girl in those photographs into a school aged child, a teenager and eventually a woman with the freedom to decide what her own life would become. She never received that chance. Sheila endured things no child should ever experience, but the abuse inflicted upon her does not define the value of her life. Sheila Marie Evans was here. She was three years old. She mattered. And decades after her death, her family was still saying her name. So will we. Abuse Angels remembers Sheila Marie Evans. Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.