Witness in Iron Range woman’s 1986 rape, murder faces heat during cross-examination

VIRGINIA, MINN. – More than a decade after Nancy Daugherty was found dead in her home in Chisholm, Minn., a local law enforcement official sat down for another formal interview with Brian Evenson, a longtime person-of-interest in the cold case.

Evenson already had been through this process upwards of seven times.

“You know, the human mind is a strange thing,” he said on the 1998 recording, played in part Friday morning at the St. Louis County Courthouse. “And I’ve often wondered, ‘Geez, did I wake up in the middle of the night, drive over there and kill her, go back to bed and not know it?’ ”

This is where defense attorney JD Schmid dove into his cross-examination of Evenson on the key witness’ second day on the stand.

Evenson, 69, isn’t on trial for Daugherty’s murder. But he is at the crux of Michael Allen Carbo’s alternate perpetrator defense in a retrial born of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision that Carbo, who was found guilty in 2022, should have been allowed to point to Evenson the first time around.

Daugherty was 38 when she was found dead in her bed in July 1986, a victim of strangulation and rape. Evenson long was eyed as a suspect but was never arrested or charged — no one was until advances in genealogical technology led investigators to Carbo.

Schmid said in opening statements this week that this proves only that Carbo, who was a student at Chisholm High School at the time, had sex with Daugherty on the night of her death — not that he killed her.

Evenson told Schmid that when he made the statement questioning his own involvement, it was a “casual remark” to former Chisholm Police Chief Scott Erickson, whom he had worked with on an ambulance crew. It was not a confession, Evenson said.

It’s a framing Schmid poked at. The police chief was in uniform; the interview was recorded, and Evenson had been asked all the official questions at the start, including his address and phone number. He had been told he was a person of interest.

“How many of your casual conversations start this way?” the defense attorney asked.

Evenson had spent time with Daugherty on her last night alive. He had plans with her the next day and became uneasy when she didn’t answer her door that morning. There were other uncharacteristic signs, too. Her curtains were closed, her door locked, an area in the backyard matted, her keys lay in the grass.

Because Daugherty’s neighbor and law enforcement also were at Daugherty’s house, Schmid questioned the way Evenson took the lead that morning. Evenson suggested the keys should stay in the grass because they might be evidence. He led the men down the hall to Daugherty’s room. He used a wad of tape to turn on the light to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Then he pulled back the bedsheets to reveal Daugherty’s body.

By then, he had gone into “crime scene mode,” Evenson told the jury. Working on an ambulance crew, he said, he had been trained in navigating such scenes.

Schmid spent much of Friday’s cross examination on Evenson’s relationship with Daugherty. Evenson had continued a regular, albeit lopsided, written correspondence with her, sometimes reminiscing, sometimes admonishing her for not writing. He called her. He invited Daugherty to move in with him and bring her kids.

Evenson was also attentive to the investigation: His interviews came willingly; he freely offered hair and saliva samples; he made sure law enforcement knew when he moved. At one point, he asked whether he was still a suspect.

Evenson said he did not have to be subpoenaed to appear in court this week.

He also admitted sending strategy to prosecutors in an effort to “blindside” the other side in the retrial. But he said he didn’t know the defense would have access to his message.

“Do you like blindsiding people?” Schmid asked.

Through it all, Carbo has sat quietly near a courtroom wall at a table with his attorneys. He hasn’t spoken since the first day when he stated his name and birth date. He has been dressed in a suit coat and dress shirt, with thin-framed black glasses. He has a shaved head and a puff of white goatee.

Evenson was emotional at the end of his time on the witness stand.

“Her dying has been the worst event of my life,” he said.

Asked by prosecutor Christopher Florey whether he missed Daugherty, he began to cry. He took a long pause before answering quietly that he does.