Inset: Katrina Evans (McLennan County Sheriff’s Office). Background: McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas (Google Maps).
A Texas woman could face a lengthy prison sentence as her trial gets underway in a child abuse case involving allegations that she violently harmed a toddler she had been babysitting after the child misbehaved.
Katrina Lanett Evans, 34, is charged with one count of first-degree injury to a child and two counts of third-degree injury to a child, the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office said.
The case stems from alleged incidents in 2023 involving a 2-year-old girl in Evans’ care, along with Evans’ own daughters, who were 3 and 5 years old at the time, according to authorities.
Evans was taken into custody in August 2024, according to jail records. Her trial on the child abuse allegations, along with a separate retaliation charge, began Monday, McLennan County court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The state’s opening statement included an explanation that the defendant allegedly provided to Child Protective Services agents, according to a courtroom report by Waco-based CBS and Telemundo affiliate KWTX.
“When you are in a rage and just popping, you don’t know your own strength and how hard you are hitting a baby,” Evans allegedly said.
Prosecutors say Evans made the statement while trying to explain or minimize the alleged violence against the 2-year-old during potty training.
The child ultimately sustained a broken jaw, fractured bones in her wrist and hand, and bruises and scratches “from her head to her toes,” a nurse from Falls Community Hospital testified Monday.
The emergency room nurse went on to describe additional injuries to the child, including white circular scars akin to cigarette burns and a “U-shaped” bruise seemingly caused by blows from a belt buckle.
The toddler was first treated at a hospital in Marlin — a small town roughly 30 miles southwest of Waco. After that, she was transported to a children’s hospital in Temple, the nurse told the jury.
The babysitter both inflicted extensive physical trauma on the 2-year-old and failed to seek medical care for her, prosecutors say.
The lesser counts relate to allegations that Evans struck her own children on their backs, legs and ribs with switches, shoes, a metal towel rack and clothes hangers, according to law enforcement.
On Monday, the defendant’s attorney deferred making his opening statement.
The case is being tried before the 19th State District Court and will continue on Tuesday.
If convicted as presently charged, she faces upward of 99 years in state prison. Since her arrest, Evans has been detained in the McLennan County Jail on a combined $254,000 bond.
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