MOTHER DENIES ROLE IN CHILDREN'S DEATHS

POLICE SAY SHE ADMITTED SETTING FATAL FIRE

PAGELAND, S.C. - Four years ago, around the time Susan Smith drowned her sons, another mother in South Carolina was accused of killing her children.

Early one morning, Florence Robinson Evans left her mobile home for a few minutes while her three young children slept inside.

Suddenly, she says, she spotted brutal flames engulfing her single-wide. The fire popped the windows out. The walls crumpled, the roof fell.

``I tried my best to get my babies out of there,'' said Evans, 31. ``They're all I had to live for.''

But police tell a different story. Investigators say she poured kerosene under the bed, set the fire and killed 5-year-old Brittany, 4-year-old Michael and 2-year-old Miesha.

Florence Robinson Evans either did the most terrible thing a mother can do - or had it done to her.

For four years now, she's had to absorb the loss of her babies while waiting for her day in court. Free on bond, this mother accused of killing her offspring spends her time baby-sitting nieces and nephews.

In the next two weeks, the truth may finally emerge, when Evans goes on trial on charges of murdering Brittany, Michael and Miesha.

This week, Evans walked over the charred remains of her mobile home and pointed to where Brittany, Michael and Miesha used to play under the pear tree. She pulled dog-eared photos out of her purse and recalled giving birth, braiding their hair, teaching them to spell.

And then, as children's voices echoed faintly through the woods, she recalled the day she lost her kids.

It was March 4, 1994, seven months before Smith drowned her two sons in Union, 100 miles away. But unlike the Smith case, which became a national story after Smith claimed her children were abducted, few outside Pageland paid attention to the accusations against Evans.

That morning, around 9:30 a.m., Evans says she walked next door to her father's pink-brick house to get some Tylenol for Miesha, who had a fever.

A few minutes later, she says, she spotted the fire.

``I got weak at the knees, and I ran to the trailer, and tried to get the back door open,'' Evans said. ``But I got weak, and I ran around the front, and I started pulling the tin off my trailer, and I said, Somebody please help me get my babies out of there, I can't get my babies out.' Next thing I know, smoke was in my lungs. I was on the ground when I came to.''

As smoke soared above the trees, a half dozen neighbors ran over. They tried to open the door, but it was hopeless.

By the time firefighters arrived, about 15 minutes later, the home - and the children - were lost.

Chesterfield County Coroner Bob Robeson found the children's badly burned bodies on a twin bed, huddled tightly.

A report by Chesterfield County Chief Deputy Ronnie Huntley said there was a ``strong scent of kerosene'' in the bedroom, but no space heater. Investigators say they found no evidence of anyone else being on the property.

Ten days after the fire, on March 14, 1994, Evans was charged with three counts of murder. The warrants say the charges are ``supported by sworn statements of defendant, who set fire to paper and used flammable liquid to accelerate the fire.''

Prosecutors won't disclose what Evans said in the statements, or say what they believe her motive was. Evans' attorney, Burnie Ballard of Pageland, wants the statements excluded from the trial. A judge will likely decide next week whether they are admissible.

When asked this week what she told police, Evans said she didn't confess. ``All I could do was just sit there and cry,'' she said.

Evans and her family say they believe three men who bore a grudge against her father set the fire, but they wouldn't elaborate. ``I don't think it's right for them to be out there,'' she said. ``They should be paying the price.''

As for the charges against her, Evans said, ``They accuse me of taking my babies. That's something I could never do. They were all I had to live for.''

Prosecutors have declined to comment on what they believe Evans' motive was.

After Evans was arrested, a judge initially denied bond and ordered a mental evaluation. The S.C. Department of Disabilities and Special Needs determined Evans had a ``mild range of mental retardation,'' but found her fit for trial. After four months in jail, Evans was released on a $10,000 bond.

The case has been delayed in part because Evans' original attorney, Jay Hodge of Cheraw, was elected solicitor in 1996. The S.C. Attorney General's Office took over the prosecution, but at a hearing last month Judge Marc Westbrook discovered that for the past two years no one knew who was in charge of Evans' defense. He assigned Ballard to the case.

The case has taken so long that folks in Pageland barely remember it. But four years ago, the deaths - and the mother's arrest - stunned this town.

``We couldn't sleep around here for a while, I'll tell you that,'' said Annie Chambers, one neighbor who ran to the scene.

Pageland, a town of 2,600 just south of the N.C. border, is best known for its annual Watermelon Festival and the Eagles football team - which, as signs at both ends of town proudly proclaim, won a state high school championship in 1989. The main road, S.C. 9, is lined with Baptist churches and cemeteries, and shops hawking used clothes, used furniture and used tires.

Evans grew up with her six sisters and four brothers in the pink house on Boyd-Evans Road, three miles south of Pageland, just past Joy Ray Barnyard Junque.

Her mom died when she was 16. The Robinson family pretty much kept to themselves, though they were friendly with others in the Boyd-Evans community.

Emma Blakeney, who lives across the street and went to school with Evans, said Evans was a shy student who mostly hung out with her brothers and sisters. Blakeney saw Evans the night before the fire, walking home with her kids. Evans pulled her kids to the side of the road, then waved and smiled.

``Knowing her in the community, knowing her in school, she's not the kind of person I would think would be capable of murdering her children, unless she had some kind of mental breakdown,'' Blakeney said. ``I haven't talked to anyone who thinks she could have done it.''

After her mother died, Evans took a job sewing T-shirts and sweatshirts. She quit after marrying a co-worker, Michael Gene Evans, in 1988. They separated in 1992. He couldn't be reached for comment.

Ever since the fire, she's carried photos of her children with her. This week, while standing over her home's remains, she pulled out a photo of Brittany, sitting by a couch pillow, and laughed: ``I made her smile. I remember that. I said peek-a-boo, and she smiled.''

Everywhere Evans went, her kids went, too, friends and family say. She spoiled her kids, as much as a mother on Aid for Families for Dependent Children could. ``I miss cooking for them, I miss buying them clothes, I miss seeing them playing, I miss watching them from the porch,'' Evans said. ``I miss reading the Bible to them, I miss hearing them call me mama.''

Evans wishes she could have more kids, but she can't. Her tubes were tied after Miesha was born via Caesarean section, because the doctor told her another pregnancy would be too dangerous. ``Every time I see a baby, I have to hug them and hold them and kiss them,'' she said. ``If I hadn't had no C-section, I'd have a handful more.''

For the past four years, she's spent most of her time helping out family members, picking their kids up from school, baby-sitting for her 17 nieces and nephews. ``I love them to death,'' she said. ``I treat them like they were mine.''

A minister's daughter, Evans carries tapes of gospel music in her purse, such as the Rev. F.C. Barnes and Sister Janice Brown singing ``The Lord Will Fix It for Me'' and ``When It Rains, It Pours.'' She goes to Tiny Grove Holy Sanctified Church on Sundays for services and on Tuesdays for Bible study, because ``there are words in the Bible I don't understand.''

And she prays before bed, just like she taught her children to do.

The night before they died, just like every night, her kids knelt by their beds, clasped their hands together and prayed:

``Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.''

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