Crime & Safety
Fatal Shooting Outside Sarasota Store Lands Man In Prison: Police
A Sarasota man was sentenced to 35 years in prison for shooting and killing a man outside a convenience store in January 2022, police said.
SARASOTA, FL — A Sarasota man was sentenced to 35 years in prison for shooting and killing a man outside convenience store in the early morning hours of Jan. 6, 2022, according to a Sarasota Police Department news release.
Johnny Evans, 23, shot the victim twice outside Moore’s Grocery at 1993 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. way just after midnight. He drove away from the scene in his father’s 1997 Toyota Camry.
Later that day, he left Florida in a rental car and spent two months in Mississippi evading law enforcement, police said.
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He was arrested in Mississippi on Feb. 25, 2022, with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service.
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Evans had a “Stand Your Ground” hearing before Sarasota County Judge Dana Moss on July 14 of this year. She ruled to start a jury trial on July 24, but that morning in court, Evans pleaded guilty to murder for 35 years in prison, police said.
His girlfriend, Tierra Driver of Sarasota, was arrested in January 2022 and charged with accessory after the fact in connection with the shooting, police said in a 2022 news release.
Driver withheld information about Evans' whereabouts and drove him out of state, investigators said.
According to a probable cause affidavit for Driver, she rented a car about 14 hours after the shooting. It was later seen in Tallahassee. When she returned the car to the rental company, it showed she had driven more than 1,800 miles in it.
When interviewed by police Jan. 9, 2022, Driver said Evans told her that he left his car running when he went into the convenience store on Jan. 6, 2022.
As he left the store, he saw a man driving away in his car, so he pulled the man out of it, Driver told police. Evans told her that the man "was reaching behind him like he was going to pull a weapon on him, and he had to shoot him," according to the affidavit.
Driver claimed she hadn't seen Evans since early Jan. 6, 2022.
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