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| Database Helps Convict Pa. Inmate of 1998 Murder |
| By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
| Published: 04/14/2003 |
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Based partly on DNA evidence, a judge recently found a former Morningside man guilty of first-degree murder in the October 1998 slaying of a McKeesport woman. The case, unsolved for years, was cracked with the help of a state law requiring convicts of certain crimes to submit samples for a statewide computerized DNA database. In a nonjury trial, Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman found Kevin E. Worlds, 33, guilty in the slaying of Liane Evans, 21. She was found dead of multiple stab wounds in her Crawford Village apartment. Worlds, also convicted of rape and burglary, faces a mandatory life sentence without parole when he is sentenced June 12. Worlds was serving a sentence of 20 to 40 years in state prison when he was charged with Evans' slaying. In 1999, Worlds was convicted of robbing and assaulting another woman at knifepoint. Allegheny County homicide detectives for the first time last year were able to access the newly developed Combined DNA Index System, a database of convicts' DNA samples. Semen samples found at the scene of Evans' murder matched with samples taken from Worlds after his 1999 conviction. Worlds testified that Evans consented to have sex with him after he met her outside her apartment as she returned home from a birthday celebration with her friends at a local bar. He said he was drunk from six or seven 40-ounce bottles of beer and had smoked about $200 worth of crack cocaine. He said he was 'paranoid' because he had not paid for the drugs. Assistant Public Defender Christopher Patarini argued that the slaying amounted to third-degree murder because Worlds had not planned to kill Evans. Worlds testified that he panicked when he heard a knock at Evans' door and, when she tried to answer it, pulled the knife and began stabbing her. He said that he feared the drug dealers to whom he owed money had come for him. Evans' boyfriend, called to the witness stand by Assistant District Attorney Mark Tranquilli, testified that he spoke on the telephone several times that evening with Evans and that they agreed to meet at her apartment after she returned from the bar. He is believed to be the person who knocked at Evans' door while Worlds was still there. The attacks on the two women occurred within two years of Worlds having been paroled by Cashman in 1997 after he served part of a sentence for simple assault and theft. |
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