Surveillance video released of suspect in deadly stabbing of DC woman found in alley

WASHINGTON - Police have released new surveillance video of a suspect in the murder of a 52-year-old woman in Southeast D.C.

Maria Evans was discovered stabbed to death Thursday morning and abandoned in an alley in the 500 Block of Oakwood Street.

The victim's son said his mother left her home on Newcomb Street at around 5 a.m. Thursday, but he is not sure where she was headed. Around 30 minutes later and about a block away, police believe she encountered a man who fatally stabbed her.

Evans' son said he heard about his mother's death after receiving a call from his uncle.

"So I called back to my uncle and asked him, 'What's going on?' He said, 'Hold on, somebody wants to talk to you,' and then I hear his wife in the background crying and I knew it was true," said Dominic Evans. "When I got the information and she hadn't been home and they said Malcolm X, I knew she was gone."

In this surveillance video released by D.C. police, you can see two people walking down Malcolm X Avenue before turning into an alley. Then the footage quickly cuts to two people leaving the same alley with one person running away and the other person, the suspect, walking back up Malcolm X Avenue toward Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

In still images taken from the video, you can get a fairly good look at the suspect. In one image, he appears to be holding something - possibly a knife.

Dominic Evans said his mother had recently left a neighborhood along Minnesota Avenue and moved in with our spouse to Newcomb Street. He said she had been battling substance abuse issues and he had begged his mother to get some help.

He thinks she may have been out looking to buy some drugs before being found in the alley off Oakwood Street.

The surveillance video indicates the murder took place around 5:38 a.m., but the woman's body was not found until just before 8 a.m.

"I just wanted her to be tired of it," said Dominic. "There is a way to submit to defeat and that is put your hands up, wave the white flag and go seek help. Not to continue to fight to lose because it is a losing battle. It is either you live a life in addiction and die or you die in the grips of it."

There have been 32 murder in the District so far this year.

If you think you recognize the suspect in the video, you are asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.