On December 29, 1989, the life of 27-year-old Damien James Cuomo came to a violent end. For years, his disappearance from Watertown, New York, was shrouded in mystery, with initial assumptions being that he had fled to evade a burglary warrant. The truth, however, was far more grim. Cuomo, a male, was entangled in a criminal ring involved in burglaries and robberies, a dangerous association that would ultimately cost him his life.
His partner in crime was a man named Gary Evans, a career criminal and serial killer. The two had been arrested together in March 1989, after police discovered a trove of burglary tools in their vehicle, but they were released due to a lack of evidence. Their criminal activities continued, including the robbery and murder of a 63-year-old shop owner, Douglas Berry, in Watertown on September 8, 1989. Evans was the one who shot Berry during the robbery. As the year drew to a close, Evans's paranoia grew. He began to fear that Cuomo, who was reportedly experiencing depressive episodes, might inform on him to the authorities.
This fear culminated in Cuomo's murder on December 29, 1989. Evans lured his associate, handcuffed him, and then shot him three times in the back of the head with a. 22 caliber firearm. He then wrapped Cuomo's body in a shower curtain and a blanket, bound it with rope, and buried it in a pre-dug hole behind an apartment building in Troy, New York, concealing the makeshift grave with topsoil and brush. Soon after, Evans left for Florida with his girlfriend in an attempt to appear as though nothing was amiss.
For nearly a decade, Damien Cuomo's fate remained unknown. The break in the case came in 1998 when Gary Evans, in custody for other crimes, confessed to a string of murders, including that of his former accomplice. On June 24, 1998, he admitted to killing Cuomo and led investigators to the shallow grave in the woods where he had hidden the body. The recovery of Cuomo's remains finally brought a measure of closure to a case that had long been a painful mystery. Evans, the man responsible for at least five murders, would not face a trial for Cuomo's death. In August 1998, while being transported by U.S. Marshals, he managed to free himself from his shackles, kick out the window of the transport van, and leap to his death from the Troy-Menands Bridge.
