Drug Addict to be Charged in Somers Home Invasion

A 52 year-old crack addict with an extensive criminal record is expected to be charged this week in connection with a home invasion in Somers that left the elderly homeowners with serious injuries, Kenosha County Sheriff Dave Beth said Monday.

Daniel Evans was tracked down last week after investigators recovered the couple's stolen cell phones from a location in Somers, then got their hands on surveillance video from a nearby camera that included images of a stolen vehicle that the suspect had been driving, according to Beth. Investigators located the vehicle in a trailer park near Carthage College, then waited for the driver to emerge. Once he did, a chase ensued, which ended in the parking lot of a funeral home off of 22nd Ave. and Highway K-R Friday afternoon.

The home invasion victims, an 84 year old man and his 83 year-old wife, are recovering from their injuries, which included a pair of gunshot wounds that the man suffered when he confronted the burglar who had entered his home through an unlocked breezeway.   

Beth said Monday that the victims were randomly targeted, and that the suspect had tried but failed to enter other homes in the neighborhood earlier in the evening. 

Evans purportedly has confessed. He'd been released from prison just last February, and appeared to be living in an insect-infected trailer with his girlfriend and the woman's baby. 

Beth had no qualms in telling reporters Monday that Evans--who hasn't even been formally charged let alone convicted--should be sent to prison for the rest of his life because of the nature of the attack. Yet Beth acknowledged that drug abuse fuels most burglaries, and that something needs to be done about the nation's drug problem. "It's something that we as a nation really have to get a handle on because we're losing way too many people," Beth said, adding that the problem crosses demographic boundaries and isn't confined to inner cities.    

Other than the cell phones, the only other thing Evans allegedly wound up taking from the couple's home Oct. 27th was Halloween candy, Beth said. 

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