Richard Marc Edward Evonitz (July 29, 1963 – June 27, 2002) was an American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist responsible for the deaths of at least three teenaged girls in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and the abduction and rape of 15-year-old Kara Robinson in Richland County, South Carolina. Evonitz has been suspected of other murders, and confessed a number of crimes to his sister shortly before committing suicide.[3]
Richard Evonitz | |
|---|---|
.png) Driver's license photo distributed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office. | |
| Born | Richard Marc Edward Evonitz July 29, 1963[1] Columbia, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | June 27, 2002 (aged 38) Sarasota, Florida, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Suicide by gunshot |
| Occupation(s) | Manager of Jiffy Lube, sonar technician in United States Navy, salesman, air compressor company employee |
| Spouse(s) | Bonnie Lou Gower (1988–1996) Hope Marie Crowley (1999–2002)[2] |
| Conviction(s) | Lewd exposure (1987) |
| Criminal penalty | Three years of probation |
| Details | |
| Victims | 3–6+ |
Span of crimes | 1987–2002 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Virginia, others possible |
Early life and career
Richard Evonitz was born on July 29, 1963, at Providence Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, to Joseph and Tess Evonitz. He had two siblings, Kristen, born in July 1968, and Jennifer, born in March 1971. The family was dysfunctional. His parents separated when he was a baby, and again when he was 12. They officially divorced in 1985. Richard's father was an alcoholic who frequently passed out after drinking. He also frequently belittled his family, calling them "morons" and "peons". His father drowned Richard's dog in front of him. When Richard was only six years old, Joseph attempted to drown him. Later, Richard's wives would claim that he experienced nightmares about his father.[4]
Jennifer Evonitz later described her childhood as follows; "We lived in a prison, Joe was a very controlling person. He wanted us to make straight A's. If we didn’t we were stupid. It was all about power and control. 'You'll get an A or you'll get a beating.' I see him as a sadistic man. I know I saw the pleasure in his face out of making us miserable."
After graduating from Irmo High School in 1980,[2] Evonitz worked briefly as the manager of a Jiffy Lube, before joining the United States Navy. He then served as a sonar technician and received a Good Conduct Medal before being honorably discharged after eight years of service.[5] Following his stint in the Navy, Evonitz worked steadily at businesses that sold compressors and grinding equipment. Unable to keep up with bills following a divorce, he filed for bankruptcy in 1997. He had a house foreclosed in 1999 after a failed business venture. At the time of his death, Evonitz had been working at an air-compressor company since moving to South Carolina a few years earlier.[5][2] Women at work avoided him because of his misogynistic attitude and anger management issues.
Criminal history
Assaults
On January 3, 1987, Evonitz pulled up beside Kelli Ballard, 15, in his car in Jacksonville, Florida and exposed himself and masturbated while she walked her 3-year-old sister down the street. The following day, Evonitz was seen following Kelli and her mother in a mall parking lot. Kelli and her mother took down his license plate information and alerted the police. He was arrested a month later when his ship returned to port. He entered a plea of no contest and was sentenced to three years' probation.[6] Evonitz told the police that he "had a problem masturbating in front of girls." Evonitz was also suspected of a 1994 abduction and a 1995 rape in Spotsylvania, Virginia.[5]
Murder of Sarah Cherry
On July 6, 1988, 12-year-old Sarah Margaret Cherry was abducted while babysitting at a home in a rural part of Bowdoin, Maine. Several days later, Cherry's body was found hidden in a wooded area. She had been bound with rope, sexually assaulted with birch sticks, stabbed, and then strangled with a scarf.[7][8] On March 18, 1989, Dennis Dechaine was convicted for the murder. However, Dechaine has filed a number of appeals, maintaining that he is innocent, and the circumstances surrounding his conviction remain controversial.[7][9]
Evonitz served as a sonar technician aboard the USS Koelsch which was based in Portland, Maine from May 8, 1988, to May 31, 1989, while the ship was undergoing a refit at the Bath Iron Works facility. Deirdre Enright, the founder of the University of Virginia Law School’s Innocence Project, has linked Evonitz to Cherry's murder due to similarities with his modus operandi.[10] Evonitz had access to a white Toyota Corolla similar in description to a vehicle sighted near where Cherry's body was found and he was known to have frequently visited Brunswick Naval Air Station commissary, thirteen miles south of Bowdoin. DNA evidence recovered from Cherry's body was unable to be compared to Evonitz's profile due to being deemed insufficient. Dechaine remains incarcerated at Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine.
Route 29 Stalker
At 7:30 a.m. on March 2, 1996, 25-year-old Alicia Showalter Reynolds left her Baltimore, Maryland residence to drive to Charlottesville, Virginia.[11] At 6 p.m., Alicia's car was found abandoned along a highway near Culpeper, Virginia. Witnesses later came forward to police saying they had seen Alicia along Route 29 talking to a man with a blue pickup truck on the side of the road. Her body was discovered in a wooded area fifteen miles to the southeast of where she had gone missing on May 7, 1996. Although the cause of death has not been released, investigators believe that she had been murdered.[12]
On September 22, 1996, the burned remains of 20-year-old Anne Carolyn McDaniel were discovered by sportsmen exercising their dogs just ten miles from where Reynolds' body was found. McDaniel, who had cerebral palsy, was last seen leaving a group home for mentally and physically disabled adults in the town of Orange on September 18, 1996, trying to hitchhike along Route 29.[13] Authorities believe Evonitz may have killed McDaniel after discovering scribbled directions to Reynolds' dumpsite in one of his footlockers.
Lisk-Silva Murders
On September 9, 1996, Evonitz abducted 16-year-old Sofia Marlene Silva from her home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, after returning from school near Loriella Park. She was last seen doing her homework on her front steps and was taken without an apparent struggle or any witnesses. Her decomposed body was found a month later in Birchwood Creek off State Route 3 in King George County.[14] She was wrapped in a white cover and her pubic hair had been shaved off.
On May 1, 1997, Evonitz abducted sisters Kristin Michelle "Kristi" Lisk, 15, and Kathryn Nicole "Kati" Lisk, 12, from their front lawn on Block House Road in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Both were last seen getting off their respective school buses. Their father came home from work later to find no sign of his daughters except Kristin's book bag lying discarded in the front yard. After sexually assaulting them, Evonitz strangled the sisters and dumped their bodies in the South Anna River. Their bodies were found five days later.[15]
Abduction of Kara Robinson
On June 24, 2002, Evonitz abducted 15-year-old Kara Robinson from a friend's yard in Columbia, South Carolina. He got out of his car and approached her, pretending to offer her some "pamphlets." After she said her friend's parents were not home Evonitz held a gun to her neck[16] and then forced her into a plastic bin. He took her to his apartment, raped her, forced her to smoke marijuana, and tied her to his bed. After watching the evening news about her abduction, he tied her to a homemade wooden apparatus to spread her legs. Robinson was then able to free herself while Evonitz was asleep, escape, and identify her abductor to the police using information she was able to find on Evonitz's fridge.[17] However, Evonitz had fled after finding Robinson gone.
The police determined that the fibers from the furry handcuffs on Kara's wrists were also found on the bodies of Silva and the Lisk sisters. Kristin Lisk's handprint was also lifted from the inside of Evonitz' car trunk.[18] In addition, in his apartment police found nude photos of young girls, hundreds of pornographic images and videotapes of children on his computer, including one of him molesting a young girl and another of him masturbating to Polaroid photos of other children. There were also a large number of girls’ underwear which have never been linked to any individual.
Capture and death
On June 27, 2002, Evonitz called his sister, Jennifer, admitting to having committed "more crimes than he can remember," and told her to meet him at an IHOP in Jacksonville, Florida but she instead called the police and turned him in. Later that day, Evonitz was surrounded by police on Bayfront Drive in Sarasota, Florida. He was urged to surrender peacefully but after a police dog was released, Evonitz shot himself and was declared dead at 10:52 p.m.
Media
Evonitz's case is featured in an episode of the show Deadly Sins titled "Insatiable". On February 11, 2023, Lifetime released a television film called The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story. The film starred Katie Douglas as Kara Robinson, Cara Buono as Debra Robinson, and Kristian Bruun as Richard Evonitz. Elizabeth Smart served as an executive producer. YouTube personality Anthony Padilla also interviewed Kara.[19]
See also
References
Further reading
- Into the Water, Diane Fanning (St. Martin's, 2004)