‘Shouldn’t have been a 2nd time’: Cape Cod man facing attempted child sexual assault charges again

YARMOUTH, Mass. — For the second time in three years, a Cape Cod man was in court facing charges of attempted sexual contact with a child.

Police say that Ryan Evans, 27, of Yarmouth, attempted to assault a 5-year-old child on Tuesday at Peter Homer Park, just after youth soccer games concluded. Evans is accused of luring the child to a secluded area behind the restroom building. But when he attempted the assault, the child screamed, scaring Evans away,

Despite a manhunt of the area, Evans was not found until Wednesday evening during a traffic stop.

Evans first faced attempted child sexual assault charges in 2021. A judge committed him to a mental health facility then without bail. But about six months later he was released to home confinement with his parents.

Since then, the court dropped the home confinement to a curfew -- then extended the curfew to allow Evans more free time.

Across the street from Barnstable District Court stood a woman holding a cardboard sign made out of a Hefty garbage bag box. Whitney Henry was there to protest the fact that Ryan Evans was not confined to a facility or prison.

He should have been locked up the first time,” Henry said. “There shouldn’t have been a second time.”

Henry said she lived in the neighborhood where the 2021 attempted assault occurred.

“From my understanding he had broken into a house and gone after a small child,” she said. “I’m just disgusted and I want people to know his name, because this shouldn’t have happened.”

Henry, who has two children of her own, feels for the parents and the child involved in the alleged assault.

“He has now traumatized two children in the town I grew up in,” she saiud. “I’m disgusted and I just want the parents of these children to know that somebody cares... somebody is mad.”

Evans made a brief appearance Thursday morning in Barnstable District Court, but the judge ordered a mental health evaluation -- to be completed by the end of the day. And it took all day, with the examiner concluding that Evans was not competent to stand trial -- that he suffered from intellectual disabilities that could not be fixed with treatment. She also said Evans did not appear to have a mental illness -- such as depression or psychoses.

The judge ordered Evans to undergo a 20-day evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital. The case will continue on July 30th.

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