Man sentenced to life after pleading guilty to killing 9-month-old

By WLOS Staff

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    HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — A Waynesville man who admitted to killing a baby in his care will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Dylan Brian Green, 25, pleaded guilty Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, to first-degree murder for the July 18, 2019, death of 9-month-old Chloe Evans.

District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch says Green faced a possible death penalty if a jury convicted him.

“It was a difficult decision to accept a plea,” Welch said. “This was an innocent child at the beginning of her life viciously and senselessly killed.”

The district attorney’s office said if the case had reached the death-penalty phase, jurors would have faced questions about Green’s intellectual capacity. School records for Green indicated he had an IQ in the 60-70 range, according to officials. North Carolina law defines “significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning” as an “intelligence quotient of 70 or below,” and a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibits the death penalty for intellectually disabled defendants.

Prosecutors added that the baby’s paternal grandmother also requested that Green get life in prison.

“We think it’s a just resolution,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Jeff Jones, who co-prosecuted the case with Kate Robinette, said in a news release.

Attorneys say Evans died of blunt force trauma, and a medical examiner also found a ligature mark around her neck. They say Evans’ biological mother had gone to work, leaving Green as the child’s caregiver. He was the sole person in the home when her injuries occurred.

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