Dylan Eason

Ok, I will give you guys a little bit of a break on the neighbor murders. However, almost all of my cases come from television shows and this one comes from the series Evil Lives Here. The episode was titled My Son should Die in Prison. It was told from the perspective of Jon Eason. Jon's son from a previous marriage, Dylan, along with his friend Isaiah Churchwell were accused, and later convicted, of murdering Jon's wife, Cynthia.

Much, well pretty much all, that you will hear here involving Dylan's childhood came from the television show as I found little in my research. And, because of the “sensational” point of view that Cindy was murdered by her own step-son there is not as much about Dylan's accomplice. To add to that Isaiah Churchwell was the foster son of a prominent Burlington Colorado couple but in 2011 another foster son of the couple, Joshua, had gone missing and his body was later found in a suitcase. That case is unsolved but with the two cases intertwining anything about Isaiah really just pulls up things about Dylan or Joshua aside from one small article.

According to the show Dylan had a sibling and as I recall it was a brother, but I cannot be certain. His father was an agricultural pilot meaning basically he flew over farm areas and the like. His work would take him out of town/state often. It was indicated on the show that when Dylan's parents divorced Jon moved away from the area that they lived in. At some point Dylan's mother called his father to tell him that Dylan had had some sort of outburst and had pulled a knife. As I recall he was fairly young, maybe close to ten, at that point. Jon openly admitted that there was hostility between him and his ex-wife and he indicated that he believed at the time she may have been being overly dramatic. Jon then took custody of Dylan and little more was said about his mother and sibling from that time on the show. I also found nothing in my research that talked about his mother or sibling.

In 2011 Jon met Cindy online and they began a relationship. There was some indication that at some point she lived in the Kansas City area and I got the impression that she then moved to Burlington Colorado where Jon lived. The couple married in May of 2012 and while Jon still worked as a pilot, they owned a veterinary clinic together as Cindy was a veterinarian. It seems that she fit in well in the area and became well known and loved for her work. In the meantime Dylan was living with them and continued to have issues. At some point Dylan and a friend had stolen Cindy's vehicle and in the process had an accident. Jon openly admitted that the pushed Cindy to press charges against Dylan. Like many parents of troubled children he thought Dylan needed to learn a lesson.

Throughout his teen years Dylan continued to get in trouble and was seemingly in and out of a juvenile home. When he was eighteen rather than finish high school he dropped out. According to Jon he was not happy with this decision but since there was little he could do he insisted that Dylan get a job. Like many young men at that age who are convinced they are adults and can make their own decisions about their lives Dylan decided it was time to move out of his father's home. He did not have a job, or really a place and spent the next year apparently staying on this or that friends couch.

During that year Dylan would visit Jon and Cindy periodically and Jon would now say that they began finding things missing after a visit from Dylan. He says they confronted him a few times but did not really get an answer or a result. It was Jon's belief that Dylan was stealing from them for money for drugs. In late April of 2016 Jon was out of the state working. While Jon was gone he received a phone call from Dylan that he would later say was strange. Dylan asked Jon where he was and how long he would be gone.

On the morning of April 29, 2016 Jon would receive a phone call from the Burlington police. They informed him that they had gotten a phone call that something may have happened at his house and they needed permission to enter. He of course told them that they could and the officer stated he would call Jon back when he knew something. Jon waited for hours and was unable to reach Cindy. At some point he called the officer back at the number that had called earlier and Jon would later say that while the phone was answered no one spoke but he could hear a lot of yelling and commotion in the background which worried him even more. Soon he received a return phone call telling him that he needed to rush home as his wife had been found dead in their home.

Cindy had been found in her bedroom and it was said to be a rather gruesome scene. It was later determined that she was first punched and “knocked out” before she was beaten to death with a crowbar. There were items in the home that were missing but it was not made clear whether the home was ransacked.

My research repeatedly said “right away” or “immediately” a tip was given to the police that led them to at least Dylan. It is not clear who or what that tip was, nor is it clear what evidence that investigators had against nineteen year old Dylan and his twenty-four year old friend, Isaiah Churchwell. The men were charged with first and second degree murder, aggravated robbery and first degree burglary. Both of them were potentially looking at the death penalty and Jon Eason was rooting for it.

Isaiah would end up pleading guilty to second degree murder and aggravated robbery. On October 12, 2016 he was sentenced to serve fifty-two years. According to the Colorado Department of Corrections website he is eligible for parole in September 2053. Their website is not particularly great as it does not say what the charges are so when it showed that in December of 2017 Isaiah had another case that added a year to his time I was unable to determine what that surrounded.

Dylan decided to take his case to trial. It is unclear whether the prosecutors had decided to go ahead and seek the death penalty. As I stated earlier I am unclear exactly what evidence was available in this case. I never came across any appeal papers and most of the articles I found revolved around first the arrest and later Dylan's ultimate conviction. His trial began the end of February in 2017 and after two weeks and nearly an eight hour deliberation the jury returned with a verdict on March 9^th. Now, I was a bit confused at the verdict. I first read that he was convicted of second degree murder and aggravated robbery and ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However I found something else that indicated he had also been found guilty of first degree murder and first degree burglary. Digging a bit deeper I do believe the latter revelation was true. As I stated earlier the Colorado Department of Corrections website is not a great one, but I was able to determine that in April of 2017 Dylan was sentenced on four charges. He received of course the sentence of life without parole but he also received sentences of thirty-two years and eighteen years. Strangely the fourth sentence said 0 years. But, I can only assume that all of these were from the crime of the murder against Cindy Eason. Like Isaiah, Dylan also had another sentence given after this. In March of 2018 he was sentenced to an additional four years but again I cannot determine what was the reasoning. I can only assume that both this sentence and the additional sentence that Isaiah received have something to do with their conduct in prison.

I mentioned early on there was little to no more talk about Dylan's mother in the television show after there was the discussion about Dylan going to live with his father. I never heard or saw anything mentioned about her in my research. In fact, there was a notation made that said no one spoke on Dylan's behalf at his sentencing. Jon has still openly said that he believes his son should have received the death penalty and that he has had no contact with him. He stated that even people in his family believed he was being too harsh towards Dylan in that aspect, Jon stands by his feelings.