Jury convicts Troy man in wife’s killing

Jurors deliberated for less than six hours delivering their verdict to County Judge Jennifer Sober determining that Evans killed his wife, Georlasia B. Evans, 30, on Jan. 15, 2021.

An order of protection barring Evans from being with his wife was in place at the time.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Matthew Hauf, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant District Attorney Spencer Lane, theorized that Evans used the cloth belt to strangle his wife outside her home on 104th Street in Lansingburgh between and midnight and 8 a.m. Evans, who claimed that he found his wife’s body after another person had choked her, drove her lifeless body to Samaritan Hospital in Troy followed by his mother, whom he had contacted and who was unaware of how Georlasia Evans had died, Hauf said.

Eric Galarneau, the attorney for Evans, had argued that someone other than his client carried out the murder. Prosecutors’ evidence, however, included the discovery of Evans’ DNA inside of the belt and on ligature marks on the victim’s body.

And Evans had sent a message from his wife’s cellphone to his daughter admitting that he “choked the s–t out of her,” referring to his wife.

Sentencing is set for late June. Evans faces 25 years to life in prison.