Hilton Head Island bubble wrap killer found guilty in ‘nightmare scenario’

A man accused of killing his girlfriend by suffocating her with bubble wrap in 2014 at the Hilton Head Island home they shared has been found guilty.

Nick Evangelista, 56, was found guilty and sentenced to 45 years in prison Thursday at Beaufort County Courthouse, according to a 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office news release.

Evangelista was charged with murder after he killed Rebecca Melton, 55, on Aug. 26, 2014, in their St. Andrews Common condominium in Palmetto Dunes.

Evangelista then stole Melton’s Jeep and fled the state. He was later arrested in Pensacola, Fla. According to 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone, Evangelista told Florida authorities he killed Melton and reiterated that to officers during an interview.

Melton’s body was found on Sept. 4, 2014, after coworkers had not heard from her in several days, according to the Solicitor’s Office. Evangelista was on the run until Oct. 1, 2014.

“It takes three minutes to five minutes to make someone stop breathing with bubble wrap,” Solicitor’s Office prosecutor Hunter Swanson said. “The sheer violence of the act and the vulnerability of the victim in her naked and unarmed state made it a horrible act and a nightmare scenario.”

Swanson shared excerpts from a journal — found in Evangelista’s vehicle when he was arrested — with the jury. He wrote that he “took the life of a good and beautiful person,” and that his abuse had been “verbal only, never physical” until that point when he “became something in the end” that he “couldn’t control.”

Testimony in Evangelista’s murder trial began Tuesday after his bond was denied in October 2014 after Beaufort County Circuit Court Judge Carmen Mullen said she believed Evangelista posed a flight risk and was a danger to the community.

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 7:35 PM with the headline "Hilton Head Island bubble wrap killer found guilty in ‘nightmare scenario’."