A Cleveland woman was killed while walking her dog. 4 years later, a man has been charged with murder
A suspect has been indicted on multiple counts of murder in the death of Sheila Wallace, a Cleveland woman who was shot and killed while walking her dog in 2019.
Wallace, then 58 years old, was struck twice by gunfire in the head and chest at around 7 p.m. in McGowan Park, where she regularly walked the dog, according to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor. Authorities pronounced her dead at the scene, after the suspect and another man supposedly with him at the time had fled.
Wallace's "horrendous murder shook the Bellaire-Puritas community to the core," said county prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley in a statement announcing the indictment last week, noting earlier that "Sheila Wallace was not and will not be forgotten."
A grand jury returned the indictment for the suspect, identified as DaJuan Evans on multiple charges. Evans, who was 18 years old at the time of the deadly shooting, faces one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder and two counts of felonious assault, according to the indictment. He will be arraigned at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center "at a later date," the prosecutor's office said.
Investigators say video evidence taken on the night of Wallace's killing, Jan. 17, 2019, showed Evans walking toward her in McGowan Park with another man. They crossed paths with her before Evans turned around and fired four shots, two of which hit Wallace. Both men then fled.
In April that same year, a gun used in an unrelated shooting was linked to the shooting that killed Wallace using a national database that tracks ballistics evidence. Authorities say further investigation linked that gun to Evans.
"For four years, our community has sought answers to the senseless homicide of Sheila Wallace," Cleveland City Councilman Brian Kazy said in a separate statement responding to the indictment. "I am elated that this first step in bringing justice to the victim and her family has been taken."