Bethel, AK: Woman charged with murder in stabbing death of Bethel man

A Bethel woman is charged with murder in the stabbing death of a man in the Southwest Alaska city early Monday.

Bethel police say Brenda Lee Evans, 43, stabbed Charles Beaver, 63, multiple times in the chest. A police officer found Evans covered in blood, kneeling over Beaver about 5 a.m. Monday, according to the officer's affidavit filed in court.

Evans told officers she had earlier left the home, at 207 Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway, to get Beaver a cigarette and noticed a fire in the entryway of another building nearby, the affidavit says. She claimed to have put out the fire and returned to Beaver, whom she found dead and tried to revive.

But witnesses told police a different story.

Two people said Evans, who apparently left the home the night before, told them she and Beaver were arguing, and Beaver wanted to throw her out of the home, according to the affidavit.

"Evans told the two that she would get in the house and that she would kill Beaver if she had to," the court papers say.

A neighbor told police Evans knocked on his door early the next morning, before Beaver's body was discovered. He said Evans told him there was a fire in his entryway. She was throwing snow on it, according to the affidavit.

The neighbor smelled fumes but couldn't see any fire, the court papers say. He told police Evans said, "The next time I tell you there's a fire, you better listen!"

An officer found fresh blood in the neighbor's entryway and evidence that someone had tried to start a fire there, according to the affidavit. The court papers say that after her interview with police, Evans was taken to the Sobering Center. A short time later, she went to her sister's house.

Evans' sister told police Evans confessed killing Beaver. She confessed again during a secretly recorded telephone conversation with her sister, in which Evans said she stabbed Beaver multiple times and said she told others what she'd done, the affidavit says.

While taking Evans to jail, an officer asked her how many times she stabbed Beaver.

"I don't know. I don't think I even did," she told the officer, according to the affidavit.

Contact Casey Grove at 257-4589 or casey.grove@adn.com