The caretaker arrested in September 2024 for the physical beating of a non-verbal adult resident at a North Eastern Services residence in Vernal was sentenced in 8th District Court this week. Kayla Jeanine Evans was convicted of 2nd Degree Felony Intentional Aggravated Abuse of a Vulnerable Adult for the actions that took place. According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause, a woman called 9-1-1 after seeing a young man across the street covered in blood and sobbing. She ran over and asked who had hit him. The young man is nonverbal but pointed at a female who ran across the street towards them who was later identified as Kayla Evans. The complainant explained to officers that the young man did not appear to be throwing a temper tantrum and hurting himself as was claimed but instead acted and looked like someone had hit him. The caretakers’ version of events told to the officers broke down when an audio recording taken at the time of the physical abuse was given to investigators. On the audio, the noise of the wood hitting the head of the victim is heard multiple times before Evans and a second caretaker can then be heard laughing. After Evans was told about the audio recording she eventually admitted she had hit the victim with the dowel. At the hospital, officers observed that the victim had multiple bruises and injuries on his face, neck, chest, and fresh welt marks on his side. During this week’s sentencing, Evans’ attorney said the incident was out of character for Evans and asked for the chance to be on probation. Kayla Evans personally declined to make any comment. The state read a letter from the victim’s parents that emphasized the permanent mental, emotional, and physical scars that their nonverbal Autistic son still has and asked that the judge not be lenient. The judge condemned Evans actions before delivering the sentence. The sentence of 1-15 years in Utah State Prison was suspended. The judge placed Evans on probation with AP&P for 48 months and imposed jail time of 210 days with credit for 2 days. She was ordered to report to Uintah County Jail by 6pm on January 9th.
