Original subtitles

- I didn't look back. Not for a second.

I just ran.

I kept thinking, "he's gonna wake up.

"he's going to look out the window.

"he's gonna pick up the gun,

And he's gonna shoot me in the back."

But I did not care, because I knew I was out.

My name is Kara Robinson.

I was kidnapped 18 years ago.

And some days it feels like

Yesterday.

But some days, it doesn't even feel like my own life.

Feels like... Somebody else's life.

- It was the summer of 2002

Before our junior year in high school,

Our group of friends.

We were, uh... We were a fun time.

We were always together.

And my girlfriend was Kara Robinson.

I was 16 years old, and she was 15.

She was my first love. She meant the world to me.

She could light up a room with her smile.

- Kara called me daddy.

She was daddy's little girl.

Kara was a very affectionate child.

- She was always very huggy, kissy,

Squishy kind of person.

When she was little, anywhere I took her

And they're like, "she's so beautiful."

I had people that tried to get me to put her in pageants.

She didn't want to do it. She was a tomboy.

She just wanted to ride dirt bikes,

Ride horses, climb trees,

And run in the woods with her friends.

And then she found boys and cars.

- When Kara and I were dating,

We both went to white knoll in Lexington county.

And we had some mutual friends.

My best friend, heather, and Kara were always together.

- Heather had just gotten her driver's license

So they have that... that freedom

That...that you've never had before.

Kara wanted to go spend the night at heather's house.

They were going to go to the lake the next day.

And so I took her over there, and they were excited

'cause they could actually go to the lake

Without having to be chauffeured.

- Early the next morning,

We had just a regular phone call,

Hoping that she had a good day

And looked forward to seeing her later on that evening.

- I was at lunch when I got a call from heather

And, um, she told me Kara was missing.

And I was like, "what do you mean?"

She said she was in the front yard.

Now she's gone.

I said, "what do you mean she's gone?"

And she said that her and Kara had called her mom

And her mom had said, "y'all can go to the lake,

But I need you to do..." dah, dah dah.

One of the things she wanted to heather to do

Was water the flowers in the front yard.

So Kara said, "heather, you go take a shower.

I'll water the flowers in the front yard."

So heather went and got in the shower.

Kara went out and watered the flowers.

15 minutes later, when heather got out of the shower

And she went outside...

The hose pipe was laying there and it was running,

And Kara was gone.

She explained that her purse and her shoes

And everything were there... now she's gone.

Heather had called her mom and heather's mom called the police

And...and reported that Kara was missing.

Heather was completely hysterical.

She knew that Kara would not just walk away.

Called Kara's father.

We had just gotten divorced a month prior.

And he was actually in Georgia working...

And told him that Kara was missing.

- And she said, "Kara's gone."

I couldn't process what that meant.

And I said, "gone? What does that mean?

Then it dawned on me what she was talking about.

And people around me said my face just went blank white.

And I was four hours away.

Only thing I could do was get in my truck...

And come home to south Carolina.

- When I was driving to heather's house,

I just really knew that something bad had happened.

I could feel it in my heart.

- I was out working that day,

And I got a phone call from heather,

And she called and told me that she didn't know where Kara was.

And knowing Kara very well,

She definitely wouldn't have just gone

Without telling heather that she was leaving.

So I got in my car and drove straight over

To heather's mother's house.

My mind was racing, you know, a thousand miles an hour.

- Lexington county sheriff's department,

Which is our neighboring county,

Initially received the report

That Kara has been missing.

Lexington county interviewed another teenager

That Kara was with that day.

Kara's friend heather

Said that a neighbor had seen something.

So Lexington county interviewed that neighbor,

And he gave a statement.

He saw Kara get into a green trans am vehicle.

The neighbor didn't see anything unusual.

Didn't see Kara struggling.

Nothing that would concern him at that point.

You're kind of skeptical when it's a teenager

In absence of any evidence

Saying that teenager's been abducted,

Because unfortunately,

We have teenagers that run away too many times,

And then they return.

- When I arrived at heather's house,

Police were there, and they asked me

If my daughter would run away.

And I'm like, "what do you mean run away?"

Kara wouldn't run away.

Lexington county asked me for description of Kara.

I told him that she was blonde, blue eyed,

5'4", slim built.

As far as I knew,

She had on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

At that point in time, I was told by Lexington county

To go home and basically wait to see if she called me.

It was very hard for me to leave.

I was numb, in disbelief,

And you just keep thinking that she's going to call.

That she's just down the road or at a friend's house

But you know it's not.

- On the morning of June 25th, I was working the day shift

And I heard our squad room door open,

And I saw a figure go running by the squad room hallway

And called out, "can I help you?"

- I held my arm up to show him my handcuffs,

And I said, "my name is Kara Robinson.

I was kidnapped, and I escaped."

I looked in the backseat,

And there's a giant plastic storage container.

He said, "get in the container."

That was the first moment

That I thought, "I could die right now."

- Before June 25th, 2002,

I had never had anyone come into the substation

And say that they had been kidnapped.

- I said, "my name is Kara Robinson,

And I escaped my captor."

- Something that struck me immediately

Was on one of her wrists, she had a pair of handcuffs,

Looked like some type of adult novelty handcuffs.

She was very composed...

But it didn't take long at all to understand

That this was a serious situation.

At that point, I called for an investigator

So they could come out and take the case over.

- When I arrived and we walked in,

I saw a little girl sitting in a chair.

She was quite young. And as soon as I saw her,

I went to remove the handcuff from her arm.

And then asked Kara to tell me

Exactly what had happened to her.

- The morning of June 24th,

I was outside watering the flowers...

And I noticed a car on the way out of the neighborhood.

The car was a green trans-am, such a cool car.

This...I want one of these.

I kept watering the flowers,

And I saw the car come back into the neighborhood

And pull into the driveway.

A guy gets out of the car.

He said, "hey, how are you doing?"

And he said, "I have these magazines."

And then he asked me if my parents were home.

I told him this is my friend's house.

And so then he asked me if her parents were home.

I said, "no, her mom's not home right now."

At that point, the man asked me

If he could give me the magazines.

And when I said yes, he leaned in to hand them to me.

And as he was leaning in,

I felt a red flag somewhere in my head.

And the same time I felt that red flag,

I felt a gun press to the side of my neck.

And he said, "if you scream, I'll shoot you."

And he said, "you're going to come with me."

I felt a moment of terror.

But I knew I just needed to do what he told me to do.

I looked in the back seat

And there's a giant plastic storage container.

It took up the whole backseat.

He said, "get in the container."

At that point, my brain shut off my emotions.

I just went into survival mode.

I put one leg in at a time,

And then I turned around

And I was on my back and in a fetal position.

He loosely set the lid on top, and he got in the car

And he reversed out of the driveway

And drove out of the neighborhood.

I thought he was going to assault me

And that my life could possibly be at risk

If I did not take action.

I knew that I had to be my own victor

And that I had to save myself.

I had to get as much information about this person

And my surroundings as I can so that I can escape

And so that I can identify this person when I do escape.

One of the first things that I locked into my brain

Was a serial number on the container itself.

I remember like someone else took a photo,

Like a series of snapshots.

We drove for a little while,

Until I felt him pull off the shoulder of the road.

He took the lid off of the container

And he told me that he was going to restrain me

And he put a gag in my mouth.

So I just...I just like,

See the snapshot again of me

With the gag in my mouth

And handcuffs around my wrists

And a rope on my feet.

I think that the adrenaline

That was coursing through my body

Helped me to remember all of the things.

The car drove for just a couple more minutes

And he parked the car...

And he picked the container up.

And then I felt him drag the container across concrete.

And then it was just quieter and more still...Sounding.

He opened the container.

He told me that if I promised

To not scream or yell or be loud,

He would take the gag out of my mouth.

I shook my head that I would be quiet

And that was when he took the gag off.

I looked around and I noticed

We were in a living room.

There was a wall with

Some small animal cages,

Fish, lizards.

There was a guinea pig. There was at least one bird.

He told me to come with him

And we went through a door.

Inside the bedroom, there was a big blanket

Hanging above the bed with a wolf on it.

And he told me he was going to tell me

What the rules would be while I was there.

The first rule was that he would always have a gun nearby

And that I had to listen to what he said

Or there would be consequences.

He also told me while I was there

That I was going to have to call him daddy.

I just...so icky.

Like I just had like a full body, like...

Visceral reaction.

He started asking me questions and writing down the answers.

When he asked me about my boyfriend

And about my family and my friend...

"do you think they miss you?"

I...I kinda broke down a little bit into tears.

And it was...it was very real for me in that moment

That I may never get to see them again.

- When I got over to heather's the deputies asked me

If I might've had something to do with,

You know, her disappearance.

It really dawned on me that this is real.

It scared the hell out of me.

In that moment, I had thought somebody had kidnapped her.

Ripped me to shreds inside.

- When I got home, I just basically sat on the couch

And stared at the wall.

Couldn't leave, 'cause they told me not to.

You know what's going on, but you don't wanna believe it.

- In that apartment, I kept thinking about

How worried everyone must be.

And when I started crying, my abductor,

He told me to lay down on the bed,

And I could just feel panic in my whole body.

Just...my heart was pounding...

And I knew what was coming next.

- In that apartment,

I knew what this man's intentions were for me.

While I was being assaulted,

It felt like something that happened to someone else.

I kind of shut off my brain and...

Left my body.

I-I can't explain where it came from.

There was just this voice that said

My options were to do what I was told

And to escape and to survive

Or to panic, to fight,

And maybe die.

So I strong-willed myself into remaining

As calm as I could as long as I could.

I remember at one point...

There was a gun within my reach,

And I thought for...

For a moment about grabbing the gun.

And then I realized there was little chance

That I was going to win that fight.

And it reinforced a mantra

Kind of going through my head of gather information,

Wait for him to be complacent, escape.

It was just kind of...

That was just rolling through my brain constantly.

After that, we went into the bathroom

And he made me take a shower.

That's when I noticed some hairspray.

I noticed feminine hygiene products.

I noticed a hairbrush with long red hair in it.

I just remember thinking

There was a woman that lived here

In the apartment of my captor.

It just...

Feels so gross.

- Kara was reported as a potential runaway

Because they had nothing to go on that would have indicated

That she had been the victim of some sort of abduction.

There was no sign of a struggle,

No sign of any kind of violence.

And stranger abductions are by and large fairly rare.

- Lexington county entered Kara into

National crime institute center

Where we put missing persons.

- At first, they called her a runaway,

And that really pissed me off.

I feel like that was time wasted

When they could have been,

You know, out there looking for her.

At that point, one of my friends and I,

We drove around for a couple hours

Just looking for the forest green firebird trans am.

And...

It was a, you know, helpless feeling that I had.

- I was sitting on the couch with this man,

And we were just having a conversation

Like you would have with someone

That you met on a bus.

I knew that

If I was easy to get along with,

Then he would be more likely

To let his guard down. At some point.

I started asking simple questions,

And I kept locking away the things that he told me.

He told me that when he was finished with me

That he would take me somewhere that I didn't know where I was

And he would leave me there.

- When I got back from Georgia and knocked on Debra's door,

I-I w...I could tell Debra was really worried.

And you've been told what's happening,

But you can't totally process it because,

You know, it... not my little girl.

- I told him I had not heard anything from the police,

That I was still waiting on a phone call.

- They gave me the detective in charge

His phone number and name.

I started ringing his number off the hook,

But it kept going to voicemail.

I couldn't get in touch with anybody to tell me anything.

- The next snapshot

That stands out to me was...

When it was time for dinner and he said,

"you're going to have to eat

"at some point while you're here.

"just remember there are consequences

If you don't do what I tell you to do."

And I-I told him I understand.

I wanted him to think that I was going to be compliant

So that I could later escape.

And I said, "is there anything I can do

While you are making your food?"

And I...Swept his kitchen.

And I used that as an opportunity

To get close to his refrigerator

Where there were magnets that had his dentist information.

Gather information, wait for him to be complacent, escape.

And I said it over and over and over again.

This man told me that we were going to watch the news

And we were gonna see if anybody missed me

And if anybody was looking for me.

And there was nothing on the news about me.

I had only been missing a few hours at this point,

So I truly didn't expect anything to be on there.

But I still knew that without a shadow of a doubt,

My family and my friends

Had to know that something happened,

And I just wanted to get back to them.

- It was kind of useless for me

To go out and drive around on the roads

Not knowing where to go.

It feels like your hands are tied

And you want to do something,

But there's nothing you can do.

- I continually prayed

That he would protect her and bring her home.

But I thought she was gone for good.

I didn't think I'd ever see her again.

- Later that night, he took me into the bedroom

And told me that he had to make a phone call

And I was going to get in the container.

The container was on top of the bed,

And he was going to put the gag back in my mouth.

After being in the container for a few minutes,

I started to feel like I was suffocating.

I was just sobbing. I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

That was the first moment since...

I had a gun held to the side of my neck

That I thought, "I could die right now."

- I was in the apartment of my captor,

And this man forced me

To get back into the container that he took me in.

I was panicking because I could not breathe.

And when he came in,

I saw...Real anger

And aggression.

He asked me why I was making noise,

And he took the gag out of my mouth.

And I said, "I can't breathe.

I'm suffocating in here."

My heart was pounding. I was crying.

I felt that my life was about end.

And then that just kind of spun the panic

Up and up and up.

I remember when I got out of the container,

He told me he was going to give me something

For my anxiety.

And he gave me a pill and he gave me some Gatorade

And told me to swallow it.

I was assaulted multiple times,

But there were a lot of other things

That happened during that time.

We were in the living room,

And he made me sit down in front of the TV

And watch a pornographic tape

And describe what was happening.

I was 15 years old.

I was seeing things

I didn't even really know how to describe.

There were things that he asked me to do

That I didn't know how to do.

And I got emotional,

And he compromised with me on those things.

I had been so compliant about everything else.

And I really think I had gotten his trust at that point.

- I shed a lot of tears that night.

I was pacing the floors.

I repeated over and over and over, "get out.

Kara, get away."

Hoping that somehow, as a parent-child connection,

She would hear me.

- At some point, I actually did fall asleep

For a couple hours on the couch

Sitting up waiting on the phone to ring.

- Going into the morning hours,

I'd try my best to be strong.

There was a breaking down point.

I was just...just poured out of me.

It was very heartbreaking

Just thinking of a possibility,

You know, I may never see her again.

- The things that were happening to me

Were...

Any person's worst nightmare.

But during all this time,

My mantra just continued to be: Gather facts,

Make him comfortable,

Wait for him to let his guard down,

Escape...over and over and over again.

The next snapshot I remember

Was when it was time to get ready for bed.

I was wearing his t-shirt,

And he put the handcuffs back on me.

And there was a rope that was coming up from behind the bed

With a quick link c-clamp on it.

He attached that around the chain

In the middle of the handcuffs,

And he put a restraint on my right leg,

And that was attached to the foot of the bed.

I was under the influence of drugs at that point,

And I fell asleep pretty quickly.

I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed

Was there was just a sliver of early morning light

Coming through the window.

And I just instantly

Was hit with this thought,

"this is it. This is your time.

Let's go."

So I paid attention to my captor's breathing,

Steady and slow,

And so I knew it was still asleep.

I knew that the first thing I was going to have to do

Was to get my hands free.

So I tried to reach my hand around

To unscrew the quick link,

But I couldn't get my fingers on it tight enough.

So I used my teeth to unscrew it enough

That I could then use my hands and unscrew it.

And I disconnected the restraint

That was on my leg from the rope on the bed.

My biggest fear was that I was going to wake up my captor.

But I...Slowly

Just slid out of the bed to the side.

I had to slide one of my wrists

Out of the handcuffs.

I was just barely able to squeeze it out.

I, like, put my shorts on...

And then I went to the front door.

I looked at the door, and the deadbolt was locked.

The doorknob was locked,

And there were metal accordion closet doors,

And they blocked the door from opening.

So I knew that if I was going to make noise,

It had to be all the noise all at once

As I was running out the door.

My heart was beating so fast,

And I had so much adrenaline in that moment.

I put my hand on the knob.

And I know this is my moment to escape.

- I knew that I was not

Going to get another chance to escape, and...

This is the moment I had been praying for

For all those hours.

I turned the knob,

And I closed the closet door

At the same time.

I flung open the front door,

And I just ran.

My entire peripheral vision was just a blur.

I saw a car driving across the parking lot,

And I just ran straight for the car.

There were two men in the car and I said,

I was kidnapped by the man in that apartment.

And the man that was driving said,

"what do you want us to do?"

I said, "take me to the police station."

I felt like getting into that car

Was my first step back into safety.

- As Kara was presenting her story to me

About what had happened the night before,

As a father, I wanted to hit the table.

But Kara was very composed. She was a survivor.

She could go back and repeat exactly what happened.

You just have a big hole in your heart

That she had to go through something like that.

At that point, I called Kara's mom.

- I got a phone call

From Richland county sheriff's department.

And the gentleman on the other end of the phone asked me,

"is this Kara Robinson's mother?"

And I said, "yes."

- I just remember hearing him say,

"we have your daughter,"

And I could hear my mom through the phone

With tears in her voice say,

"Kara? You have Kara?"

- I said, "is she okay?" and he said, "yes."

And I could hear Kara in the background.

And they put her on the phone, and she was crying,

And she said...and she said, "mama...

Come get me."

And I said, "baby, I'm coming.

I'm coming. I'll be right there."

- While we waiting on her mother to arrive,

I asked her if she would mind riding back over there with me

If she could identify the apartment.

- He asked me if I was okay with that,

And I said I was.

- The gentlemen that brought her there told us

They brought her over from crossroad apartments.

- When we got to the apartment complex,

I realized they all looked the same.

There was no way I was going to be able

To pick out this one apartment.

- If you work these apartment complexes often enough,

There's guys in golf carts.

Those are the maintenance guys.

And maintenance guys

Usually know everything that's going on.

- While we were driving around the apartment complex,

We saw a man in a golf cart.

And I told him that this was a white man.

He was maybe 30 to 40 years old.

He lived with a woman that had long red hair.

He had animals in his apartment.

- Kara's description was integral

In making sure we were able to pinpoint

What apartment they believed we were looking for.

- The maintenance manager immediately was like,

"I know exactly what apartment that is."

- The apartment number was 301.

Once we've identified the apartment,

My next step was to get officers

To the manager's office

To find out who had leased apartment 301.

But we also needed to get Kara

Back to our substation to her mother.

- We drove to Richland county,

The substation where Kara was supposed to be.

And when we got there, I busted in the door.

And there was one police officer in there

And I told him I'm Debra, I'm Kara's mom.

I'm here to get Kara.

And he's like, "she's not here."

And I just stopped.

And I was like, "what do you mean she's not here?"

I was on the verge of being extremely belligerent,

And Kara came in the door.

She walked in the door like nothing had happened

Until she saw me.

And then she just fell apart

And became a 15-year-old child.

- While at the apartment, we know there's one way in

And one way out of that apartment.

We're not for sure

If the abductor is still in the apartment or not.

Maintenance has a pass key. We knock on the door.

Yell, "police, sheriff's office."

No one comes to the door.

- This could be a potentially deadly situation

Because you've got somebody who's, you know,

Shown the willingness to commit a crime of kidnapping and rape.

- We unlock it.

We go in, and we go in with the weapons drawn,

Because we have no idea.

In the corner of the bedroom was a foot locker.

And in that foot locker, we found newspaper clippings

Of young females, approximate age of Kara

That were abducted and killed.

- That's just not something that somebody would keep

Unless they were involved in it.

At that point,

I knew we had a possible serial murderer out there.

- When the word came out that there had been an abduction

Northwest of Columbia,

We didn't know who the victim was at the time.

We knew that she was around 15 years old...

And she had escaped from the apartment

Where she was being held.

- Once we identified the apartment 301,

We go in, and we go in with the weapons drawn,

Because we have no idea.

He wasn't in it, of course.

It didn't take three minutes to scan the apartment,

But you can see the things

That Kara had identified previously to you...

The pictures of the animals on the wall,

The small animals, the blanket.

As an investigator, you know, this is it.

Now you just need a search warrant

So you can start through it.

- The next thing that I really remember

Was being in the car on the way to the hospital

So that I could get a sexual assault examination done.

- I asked her questions in the car.

What happened? Where have you been?

Are you okay?

But being a mother of a 15-year-old child,

I really didn't wanna know.

You don't want to know

Your child's been violated like that.

- Kara's mom called me and said that she'd been found.

There was a voice sounding still a little shaky,

But I knew Kara was alive

And that was a good starting point.

- It felt like an elephant had just stepped off my chest.

It was so much relief, joy, and my prayers were answered.

But in the back of my mind,

Just what all she went through, um...

Scared me.

- While I was at the hospital, another deputy came in

And was asking me for information about my captor.

And I told them about all of the things

I had remembered from his apartment.

- She recited the dentist's name, address,

And phone number.

And then she said, "and he's married,

And his wife's got long, red curly hair."

I've never been so floored in my life.

I was like, "how do you even know that?"

Then they started asking some more pertinent questions

About what had happened,

And that's when she asked me if I minded leaving the room.

'cause she didn't want me in there.

She started just shutting me out.

I felt so heartbroken.

It became very evident to me

That the child I got back

Was not the child that was taken from me.

- When I think back on what happened,

There's very little emotion involved,

Because my body's protection mechanism

Was...To shut off emotions.

But at 15,

I just didn't wanna talk about the details

Of what happened

With the people that would be hurt by hearing it.

- Maybe I shouldn't have left her,

But she asked me to with...

Tears in her eyes,

So I did.

- When I was sitting in the waiting room,

I remember overhearing that Kara had been raped.

It's like it just sucked the life out of me.

I wanna kill him.

- By that point, we had a lot of police presence

Out at the apartment complex.

- Once the people that were leasing the apartment

Were identified,

It was very important to get a positive id

And get a photo lineup ready.

We pulled his driver's license up and we matched that

With five other people that looked like him.

One of the investigators brought the photo lineup

To the hospital, and they met with Kara

And presented the photo lineup.

- When I saw my captor's photo

In the lineup,

Without a shadow of a doubt

I knew that that was the man that had taken me.

My abductor's name was Richard Marc Evonitz.

- We put out a bolo early that morning

For Richard Marc Evonitz.

We thought he was driving a trans am at that time.

We started putting it out to everybody,

Be on the lookout for him.

- We found out he was married. So Kara was right about that.

And it was also determined by the office

That Evonitz owned a green Taurus,

And it was located in the parking lot and secured.

He was driving a firebird trans am

The day of the abduction,

But we're not going to let the Taurus go either.

At that point, there was enough there

For a search warrant.

And we entered the apartment.

Some of the things that Kara had described...

A magnetic clip on the refrigerator from the dentist,

That was there.

In the bedroom, we pulled open a nightstand drawer

And found a revolver.

Also, there were many, many sexual toys.

As we're searching the apartment,

Over in the corner of the bedroom was a foot locker.

That foot locker was locked.

Of course, they're very easily picked.

So we opened the foot locker...

And in that foot locker

Was some very disturbing things.

There were panties in it.

We didn't know where they came from.

And what was very, very disturbing

Was we found newspaper clippings

Of young females, approximate age of Kara,

That were abducted and killed in the same town,

Spotsylvania, Virginia.

- At that point, we all knew that it was probably

A lot bigger than just Kara being kidnapped.

- In the hours after Kara's abduction

While we're looking through the foot locker

Here in south Carolina,

We find these newspaper clippings of a little girl

Named Sofia Silva from spotsylvania, Virginia,

Who was kidnapped, raped,

And found deceased in a shallow creek several years before.

- In the fall of 1996, we had just started school.

It was the first week.

Sofia usually got a ride home with her best friend,

But that day she couldn't give her a ride.

So I ended up asking if I could take her home.

It was just a joyful ride home, laughing with friends.

The next morning, a mutual friend asked me

If Sofia's mom had called me because Sofia had gone missing.

I was shocked when I learned she was missing.

- The Silva family said

That Sophia was out on her front porch

Doing her homework...

And her sister Pam discovered a short while later

That her books were still on the front porch,

Her soda was still out on the front porch,

But Sofia was missing.

- Pam was in the house.

Didn't hear a car, didn't hear any kind of conversation.

- Eventually, after not being able to locate her,

They contacted the spotsylvania sheriff's office

To file a missing person's report.

- Spotsylvania county sheriff's department

Arrived on the scene, and they took a report.

In Sofia's case, she was a slim brunette,

Curly hair, athletic build.

She was a typical old 16-year-old girl.

- Sofia had a great sense of humor.

She liked to laugh. She liked to make other people laugh.

And Sofia ran track. She was very athletic.

Purple was her signature color.

It was one of the things that everybody knew

When she went missing was her purple nail polish.

- The deputy originally classified

The missing person report as a runaway.

- It was way out of character for Sofia,

And it was something that I think anybody

That knew Sofia knew was not possible.

- The next days were kind of a blur of emotion and grief.

- People at the sheriff's department

Were getting definitely concerned.

- The entire region and surrounding

Law enforcement agencies was made aware

That there was a 16-year-old girl that was missing.

The picture of Sofia was distributed

To our law enforcement and then also we were informed

That she had purple fingernails and toes.

- I prayed every night that she would just show back up at home

And it would all be over.

- After several weeks,

We received a call on October 14th in 1996.

An employee of a large greenhouse complex

In king George

Saw what appeared to be a body wrapped in blankets.

- The sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene,

Discovered the body was submerged in water.

The body was covered in two light blue moving blankets.

And was secured by abundant ropes and knots.

- The only thing I could see at the end of the blanket

Was her feet and her toes,

And I was able to see purple nail polish.

At that point, I contacted

Spotsylvania sheriff's office immediately.

I went to the autopsy the next morning,

And the medical examiner

Was able to make a positive identification

Through dental records.

It was Sofia Silva.

The medical examiner was unable to

Determine cause of death

Due to the decomposition of Sofia's body.

- I remember my mother told me to sit down.

She wanted to let me know that they had found Sofia.

She made sure that, as a 16-year-old kid,

I didn't fall apart and lose my mind

Because I don't think you can ever imagine

Something like that happening.

And it really shook this whole

Everybody-knows-your-name kind of community.

- Everyone in the community started keeping a closer watch

On what was happening with their kids.

- Nobody was going to feel safe until sofa's killer was caught.

- Here in Columbia, south Carolina,

We thought, "why are we finding this stuff from Virginia

In Evonitz's apartment?"

- That's just not something that somebody would keep

Unless they were involved in it.

At that point, I knew that if Kara hadn't escaped,

Then she'd probably been killed too.

- When I walked out of my exam,

I remember seeing my dad,

And he just walked towards me.

He didn't say anything.

And to see just the emotion

And...

The steadfastness of my dad,

And that was...

That was so heartbreaking.

- It was my job to protect her,

And I feel guilty for being out of town when it happened.

It took me quite a while to get over that,

The feeling of guilt not being here.

- It was awkward.

Didn't really know what to say, what to ask,

How to act around her.

I just knew that I needed to be there for her.

- We had a monster out there, and the emergency

Was to find him and get him arrested.

- At the same time we are searching the apartment,

And once you see the headlines you start thinking,

"we were so fortunate that Kara had escaped,

But this little girl in Virginia didn't."

And then there was another paper clipping.

Two other little girls in spotsylvania,

They had met the same fate.

- I was being briefed on how the search warrant

Was going at the apartment of Marc Evonitz.

And then the next phone call I got said

"sheriff, we got something bigger here."

They had found new newspaper clippings.

The newspaper articles had to do with two sisters

That had been abducted and found murdered in Virginia.

And this was quite some years before Kara was abducted.

We hadn't put the cases together,

But we think it's the same person responsible.

- It was like any other day for Kristin and Kati Lisk

Coming home from school on may the 1st.

They got off on separate buses

And went to the house together.

The girls would go in the house and call their father.

- That afternoon when Mr. Lisk

Did not hear from his daughters,

He called the...the family phone.

There was no answer.

- So he starts frantically calling over and over and over.

No answer. He then races home.

- When Mr. Lisk arrived home,

He discovered Kristin's book bag

And a school book in the front yard,

But he saw no trace of his daughters.

He called his wife, he called the neighbors and eventually,

The sheriff's department was called.

- When investigators come on the scene,

Everything indicated that the girls had gotten home.

The question is what happened next?

Kristin was 15, taller than Katie, who was 12.

- Kristin was on the school dance team.

Kati likes to play basketball and swim.

The sisters were described to be inseparable.

And it was uncharacteristic for them to just disappear.

- I remember thinking this is so eerily similar

To what we had just gone through

With Sofia seven months prior.

- The community came out in force

To look for these girls.

Volunteers were marching through fields.

Well over a thousand people.

It's all anybody ever talked about.

- Five days after the sisters disappeared,

Approximately 40 miles away from the spotsylvania...

A canoeist alerted the road crew

That was working on top of the bridge

That something suspicious was in south lake Anna river.

Spotsylvania county investigators

Responded to the bridge overlooking the river.

They saw two what appeared to be human bodies

Submerged in the water.

The bodies were clothed,

And divers recovered the bodies.

It was two young women

Matching the description of the sisters.

The spotsylvania county sheriff's office

Realized that the sisters had been murdered.

It was unknown at that time

Whether the girls had been smothered or had been drowned.

- Our hearts are broken, certainly, for these girls.

Our hearts are broken for these families.

- Everybody just was shocked that

In a matter of eight months,

Three girls have gone missing and ultimately been murdered.

- This is where the FBI comes in.

They began looking at the similarities

Between the sisters' disappearances

And the disappearance of Sofia Silva.

All three girls were missing their shoes.

They were missing their bras and their panties.

And the bodies were submerged in water.

The FBI lab determined

That there were distinct similarities

Between the hairs and fibers, specifically carpet fibers

That were found on Sophia Silva and Kristin and kati lisk.

Now a killer is stalking specifically young girls

In spotsylvania county.

- Spotsylvania sheriff's office,

The king George sheriff's office, state police,

And the FBI formed a task force.

They left no stone unturned.

- We examined over 12,000 leads

And offered a substantial reward.

- I felt like these girls were mine.

We all did.

You're not supposed to get personally involved

But this case, everybody on that task force

Became personally involved.

We became very determined that we're going to find the person

Responsible for these girls' abductions and murders.

- Once I received the call about the newspaper clippings

In Virginia, spotsylvania,

That kind of changed everything at that point.

In my mind, I thought Richard Marc Evonitz

Got away with at least three murders

And that he was, you know, Kara had been his fourth victim.

- After I left the hospital,

I knew that my captor had left the apartment,

And I knew that they did not know where he was

And that was about all I knew.

I definitely wanted to go home.

But I didn't want anybody

To treat me like I was made of glass.

And I didn't want to talk about this thing that happened to me.

I don't think I made it a secret,

And I feel like everyone around me

Tried their best to...

Continue business as usual.

- You would expect her to...

Break down,

But it's almost like it didn't really happen or something.

She just, you know, wanted to erase that event

Out of her life it seemed like.

We never spoke about it.

- Kara used to be very affectionate.

The child I got back was not huggy, not kissy.

That was her coping mechanism.

But it was beyond devastating.

You can't...

You can't hug your kid.

- Kara, she called me daddy before that.

She stopped calling me daddy and started calling me dad.

And I knew that had something to do

With what happened to her.

Broke my heart, but I understood why.

- I wanted him dead for what he did to her.

- The hours after Kara's abduction,

We had information that we provided

To the national center of missing persons.

That information was turned over

To spotsylvania sheriff's office.

- Our people contacted them and said,

"look, we've got a girl that's been kidnapped here,

"15 years old. She was able to escape.

"we found newspaper articles that tie into your cases.

We think it's the same person responsible."

We felt that we had a possible serial murderer out there

And we needed to catch him.

- In June of 2002, the Richland county sheriffs

Were investigating a child abduction and rape.

They had no direct knowledge of our murders

In spotsylvania county, Virginia.

- But we were able to call

The sheriff's department in spotsylvania.

And I think they were a little amazed

That here we are in south Carolina

Calling about a cold case that they had had.

- When we compared cases,

We discovered certain similarities

Between the victims.

In the Columbia, south Carolina case

Was a young girl, age 15.

She was also in the front yard in broad daylight.

And they were sexually assaulted.

The similarities were just too much of a coincide.

When we ran a background check on Richard Marc Evonitz,

We discovered he had owned a home

In spotsylvania county in 1996 and 1997...

When the lisk sisters and Sofia Silva disappeared.

- In the thousands of leads

That we looked at as a task force,

Evonitz never was on our radar screen.

- We immediately dispatched the members

Of the Silva-lisk task force

To Columbia, south Carolina.

- You know you're dealing with a very dangerous person.

We just had to find him.

- Everything after I left the hospital

Was pretty much a blur.

There were deputies and police officers

In and out of my house, and it was a whirlwind.

- I wanted to meet Kara.

Just wanted to see how she was doing

And also reassure her and her family

That we were doing everything that we could

To...to catch evonitz.

- He didn't know me, but...

He never failed to tell me how proud he was of me

And to treat me like a survivor.

And it was so impactful for me.

- You're not supposed to get emotionally involved in cases.

We...we try not to do that.

But the emotions that you have translate into you

Going out and doing your job.

- When we got to south Carolina,

We immediately went to

The Richland county sheriff's office

And reviewed some of the items

That were recovered from Marc Evonitz's apartment.

- We recovered homemade tapes

Where he videotaped himself masturbating

And fantasizing at the same time

Talking about the crimes he committed.

- We put out a nationwide bolo,

Be on the lookout for him at that point.

During the investigation,

We were able to locate Evonitz's wife.

- It was discovered that she was in Disney world

With the abductor's mother.

They had taken a nephew on vacation.

- Our investigators told his wife that what we felt,

That he was responsible for abducting Kara

And sexually assaulting her in their apartment.

The investigators wanted them to know.

Have you talked to him? Had you any contact with him?

What do you know about where he could be?

His wife's reaction was one of shock

That knew absolutely nothing about it.

- She said she had not talked to him.

The wife informed us that they were returning the next day.

At that point, they would come in and get interviewed.

- When you're looking for a fugitive,

A lot of times they go to their family members,

So that's the first place we go check.

And we were able to locate Evonitz's mother's house.

- At that time, we already knew

That she was out of town.

And when we got there,

There was the green trans am at her house.

When we see the car there, we think, "okay, maybe

He's gonna come out of that house guns a-blazing."

When we searched the mom's house, no one was home.

He wasn't there.

And we didn't find anything in the house

That was relevant to the case but the car.

We secured the car and then we found out that the car

That he used to abduct Kara was...was his mom's car.

The next day, Evonitz's family came in

And met with our investigators.

- We learned that Marc evonitz

Had a dysfunctional upbringing.

At age 12, he was involved in burglaries.

He was using drugs.

He was making obscene telephone calls.

- We found out he was in the navy.

He had an ex-wife in California.

She provided a lot of information

About the sexual activities that he engaged in.

- He was spurred by themes of bondage,

Abductions,

Blindfolding, handcuffing...

Inflicting punishment on the victims.

- We realized at that point

That he had kept that from his wife,

That she wasn't party of it

Or had any information about it whatsoever.

Evonitz's sister was very reluctant to cooperate with us.

But as we continued to talk to her,

She felt like she needed to give us information.

Evonitz's sister had a conversation with him

While he was on the run and he had told her

That he'd done some terrible things.

And then she told us he was a motel in Orangeburg,

South Carolina, which is about an hour from Columbia.

We couldn't get there fast enough.

- We used a passkey to open the door.

- He wasn't in the room.

- The sister told me he was in a ford escort at that time.

We learned the ford escort belonged to his wife.

The escort wasn't in the parking lot either.

We were going to find him regardless how long it took.

- At that time from the family,

We found out he had a sister in Orlando.

We talked with his sister, and she acknowledged

She's going to meet him at a ihop.

An FBI agent in Orlando was notified.

Communications were set.

He had the local law enforcement people ready.

When evonitz drove through the parking lot,

He got a little bit hinky that law enforcement

May be there and took off.

- We received word that they saw him.

That they saw the car. They tried to stop him.

- There was a high-speed chase

That went as far as 120 miles an hour.

- Sarasota police department officers

Blew out his tires with a spike strip.

A k9 officer approached from the front.

As the dog approached...

Evonitz took a 25-caliber pistol out.

- It's about as high alert as you can get,

So you gotta prepare for the worst so you're ready.

- On June 27, 2002, Richard Marc evonitz

Was surrounded by police officers

From the Sarasota police department.

And as the police canine dog began to bite and attack him,

Evonitz placed that pistol in his mouth

And discharged his weapon...

Killing himself immediately.

- Had a completely different ending

Than what we had hoped for.

But Kara was safe, and the bad guy was dead.

- Two days after I escaped,

I found out that my captor had killed himself

And I was really, really angry.

I just wanted him to sit in a courtroom across from me

And look in my eyes

And know that picking me

Was the greatest mistake he ever made.

- Even though he was dead,

We gathered additional evidence

To help with our case here in Virginia.

We later matched some of the hairs and fibers

Found inside Richard Marc evonitz's apartment

In Columbia, south Carolina

To our spotsylvania county victims.

- Marc evonitz also had a green ford Taurus.

I dusted the interior of the trunk lid

And was able to identify some fingerprints.

We sent the entire deck lid to the FBI laboratory.

The results of their examination was...

They were the fingerprints of Kristin lisk.

- I remember getting that phone call

And I'm going, "that's divine intervention."

- It really locked down that case.

- I don't think I had

The emotional maturity

To comprehend what it meant to be the only survivor

Of someone

Who killed other girls.

He would have killed me

If I would not have escaped his apartment that day.

And he very well could still be out there,

And he very well may have killed other girls.

- Kara never really showed any emotion after it happened.

But a couple months later,

Kara was curled up,

And she just kept saying,

"I should have been dead. I should have been dead."

- Kara's mom, she told me, "Chris, just be strong

'cause Kara, she's going to start pushing people away."

And sure enough, I was pretty much

The first person she pushed away.

And, you know, ultimately, you know,

It ended Kara and I's relationship.

I just felt absolutely devastated

'cause it's like I just lost

One of the most important things to me.

- I would say the 15-year-old me loved him

As much as I had ever loved anyone.

I was heartbroken.

But I just focused on being a survivor.

A couple of months following my escape,

I was able to go to Virginia

And meet with the families of the three girls.

And that meant so much to me.

- Richard Marc evonitz took a light from this community

In all three of those girls,

But we might never have had closure

In the way that we do now

Without Kara and her will to survive.

- We gave the $150,000 reward to the most worthy person

I could think of, and that was Kara Robinson.

- After meeting Kara that very first time

And such a unique story of survival

And being a warrior...

We did stay in contact. She went off to college.

And she just one day said, you know,

I'd like to work with kids.

- I went to work at the sheriff's department.

And I went to the academy

And I became a school resource officer

Because I could help kids.

- She was gonna do everything she could to be a survivor

And then to watch her all these years still be that survivor.

- Your one mission in life when you are a parent

Is to protect your child

At all cost.

Sometimes you can't do that.

But the one thing that you can overcome is death.

Kara's living proof.

- What happened to her doesn't make her.

It empowers her. And so, I'm proud of her for that.

- Today, I look at Kara and I'm just absolutely amazed

With how far she's come to turn something so negative

Into a positive to help other survivors.

She's helping other people that need it.

- My life today is crazy,

Chaotic, and wonderful.

I have a wonderful husband.

I have two amazing little boys.

And I want my boys to know

What a strong woman looks like.

I thought for a long time being a survivor

Meant that I wasn't affected by what happened to me.

And it took me over 15 years

To even realize it's okay to feel feelings.

And it doesn't mean that I'm any less strong.

I don't give that man the power

To even say that he took anything from me,

Because my life truly would not be what it is today

If it weren't for what happened to me.