Evans v. Commonwealth

Defendant, Ronald Paul Evans, was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Michael J. Soules, his four-year-old stepson. He was tried by the court sitting without a jury, found guilty of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to seventeen years in the State penitentiary.

The crucial question presented on this appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment of conviction.

The evidence shows that at approximately 11:00 p.m., on March 31, 1973, Michael J. Soules was taken in an ambulance to the emergency room of Norfolk General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on…