Woman ‘who begged lover, 26, to kill pastor husband now claims abuse’

An Oklahoma wife and mother who has been accused of orchestrating the murder of her pastor husband in a twisted case involving the married couple’s younger lover now claims she was the victim of prolonged emotional, psychological and verbal abuse. 

Kristie Evans, 48, was arrested in March along with Kahlil Square, 26, for the murder of the woman’s husband, David Evans, 50, the pastor at Harmony Free Will Baptist Church in Ada, Oklahoma.

Police at the time said Kristie and David Evans had had threesomes together with Square, but the wife and the younger sex partner also had a separate affair just the two of them.

Murder suspect Kristie Evans, 48 (right), claims her pastor husband, David (left), had subjected her to years of psychological and verbal abuse before he was shot dead in their bed  

Kristie (left) and her and David’s lover, 26-year-old Kahlil Square (right), were arrested in March on first-degree murder charges in connection with the pastor’s killing. All three had had threesomes together  

According to reporting by NBC News based on extensive interviews with Kristie, her grown children and other family members, the woman allegedly had suffered from a form of abuse at the hands of her husband known as ‘coercive control,’ which is defined as a pattern of behaviors used to intimidate, humiliate, surveil and control another person, ultimately robbing victims of autonomy. 

It’s mainly experienced by women and perpetrated by men in intimate relationships, and can take the form of threats; gaslighting; stalking; instituting arbitrary rules; withholding money and isolating victims from their loved ones. 

Kristie’s father, Ed Armer, told the news outlet that his daughter was trapped in an abusive relationship with no way out. 

‘She seized an opportunity to escape from her personal hell,’ Armer said.

On March 22, Square entered the Evans family’s home while the husband and wife were sleeping and shot the pastor dead in his bed, according to police.

Square then fled the scene and Kristie called 911, claiming an intruder had broken in and killed her husband. Four days later, she allegedly confessed to her daughter, Brittney Long, that she had ‘begged’ her lover to kill her father. She then went to the police and turned herself in.

Kristie and David had been together since 1991 (pictured left as a young couple) and welcomed three children. She and her family claimed her husband isolated her from her friends, kept a tight control on her spending and physically abused their sons and daughter  

According to charging documents, Kristie told detectives she had given Square the gun, a box of bullets and left the backdoor of her home open for him to enter through.

Kristie has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder. She is due back in court on Thursday. Her lawyer said they plan to argue self-defense. 

Kristie reportedly told investigators that her late husband of nearly 30 years was ‘controlling and verbally abusive.’  

Long, the pastor’s daughter, and one of their two sons, 28-year-old Zachary Evans, described their father as physically abusive. According to the siblings, he would slam the children’s heads together, lift them off the floor by their hair, and make them clean the house at night while berating them.

The abuse escalated to a point when in April 2010, the three children were placed with their maternal grandparents after reporting their father’s behavior to the police.

Kristie said her husband physically abused her, too, by holding a pillow to her face while pinning down her arms, but she never reported it to anyone because he never left marks on her.

Over the course of their marriage, David allegedly isolated his wife from her friends and kept a tight rein on her spending, which are said to be textbook coercive control behaviors.

Private Facebook messages exchanged between the couple and shared by their grown daughter with NBC News revealed that beginning sometime in 2017, David had been pressuring Kristie to bring additional people into their relationship, have group sex and make things more ‘fun’ for him in the bedroom.

According to Kristie, her devout Christian pastor husband would place ads on Craigslist seeking sexual partners, harangue her about inviting a co-worker over to their home for a threesome, and urge her to perform sex acts with other men. 

Brittney Long, the Evans’ daughter, said her mother told her she ‘begged’ her lover to shoot her father in their bed. 

During one fiery exchange in April 2020, David allegedly called Kristie a ‘frigid b****.’ 

Kristie also said her husband threatened to commit suicide if she did not go along with his sexual demands. At one point, she said her husband aimed a gun at his chin as she spoke on the phone with their daughter, reassuring her that she and her dad were fine. 

David’s mother, Jean Richardson, defended her son, saying that he was not as controlling as Kristie and her family made him out to be, evidenced by the fact that her daughter-in-law had a job outside the home, drove a car and had a credit card. 

Richardson also argued that if the relationship had been as troubled as Kristie claimed, she could have left her husband, or sought help, instead of passing a ‘death sentence’ on her son. 

Long, Kristie’s daughter, who is now married and has a young child of her own, said she does not know what ultimately prompted her mother to take matters into her own hands, but she speculated that it might have been a feeling of hopelessness.

‘My mom didn’t see an end to it,’ she told the outlet. ‘I don’t think she had it in her to continue living that way.’