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Home » Where Is Kara Robinson Now? All About Her Life 23 Years After Her Shocking Escape from a Serial Killer
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Where Is Kara Robinson Now? All About Her Life 23 Years After Her Shocking Escape from a Serial Killer

Jack BogartBy Jack BogartJun 24, 2025 7:54 am4 ViewsNo Comments
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Where Is Kara Robinson Now? All About Her Life 23 Years After Her Shocking Escape from a Serial Killer
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NEED TO KNOW

  • Kara Robinson was kidnapped by Richard Evonitz in June 2002
  • She escaped after 18 hours in captivity, and a police search ensued for Richard
  • Today, Kara is a married mom of two who is an advocate for other survivors

On June 24, 2002, Kara Robinson Chamberlain’s life was changed forever.

The South Carolina teenager was in the front yard of a friend’s house when she was kidnapped at gunpoint in broad daylight by Richard Evonitz. Despite being forced into a plastic container, held captive in Richard’s apartment and repeatedly sexually assaulted, Kara managed to remain calm and focused on plotting her escape.

Over the next 18 hours, Kara repeated three things over and over in her head: “Gather information, wait for him to be complacent, escape.” And that’s exactly what the 15-year-old teenager did: She memorized as many details about her captor as she could (from the magnets on his fridge to the caged animals he owned), disarmed him by offering to clean his apartment and waited for him to let his guard down.

When Richard eventually fell asleep, Kara freed herself from her restraints and ran. “Fear barely even kicked in … the human will to survive and the survival mechanism really just can’t be underestimated,” she told PEOPLE in 2022.

Kara didn’t just escape, though. With the information she had gathered about her captor, the teenager was able to lead police back to Richard’s apartment, where they uncovered evidence that linked him to three additional abductions of teenage girls in Virginia. However, those cases all ended in murder.

“At that point, bells really went off in our heads that we just didn’t have a kidnapping of Kara Robinson,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told PEOPLE in 2022. “This was something else. This was actually a serial killer.”

So where is Kara Robinson now? Here’s everything to know about how she escaped the grips of a serial killer and what her life looks like 23 years later.

What happened to Kara Robinson?

During the early afternoon hours of June 24, 2002, 15-year-old Kara was watering plants and bushes in the front yard of her best friend’s house in West Columbia, S.C., when a Pontiac Trans-Am pulled into the driveway.

A man wearing jeans, a button-down shirt and a baseball cap exited the car and approached Kara, offering her some “pamphlets.”

“He said, ‘Are your parents home?’ and I said, ‘Well, this isn’t my house. This is my friend’s house,’ ” Kara told PEOPLE in 2022. “And he said, ‘Okay, well, what about her parents, are her parents home?’ And I said, ‘No, her mom’s not home right now.’ ”

The man, later identified as 38-year-old Richard Evonitz, then walked toward Kara and revealed a gun. He pressed it to her neck and forced her into a large storage bin that was in the back seat of his car.

Richard drove Kara to his apartment, stopping along the way to restrain her with handcuffs and place a gag in her mouth. But during their journey, Kara paid close attention to the details — including how many turns he took, the serial number on the plastic container and what radio station he listened to — in the hopes it could save her life.

How long was Kara Robinson held hostage?

Deputy Sheriff Kara Robinson (right) was the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony of the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy held at Dodd Auditorium at the University of Mary Washington on Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 15, 2010.

Richard held Kara hostage in his cluttered apartment for 18 hours. According to The Washington Post, Richard lived with his second wife, who was visiting Walt Disney World at the time of the kidnapping.

During her captivity, Richard terrorized Kara, repeatedly sexually assaulting her and restraining her to a bed. After hours of torture, she was able to free one of her hands from a pair of handcuffs with her teeth and unclip a leather leg restraint at the foot of the bed while Richard slept.

Kara tiptoed to the front door, unbolted two locks and then took off for the parking lot, where she encountered two men who took her to the police station.

“I know he has the gun right beside him, and he’s going to see me running, and he’s going to shoot me in the back — that’s all I could think,” she told PEOPLE. “And I was like, ‘You know what? It doesn’t matter because I’m out, and at least someone will be able to find him.’ My body was scared, but my brain was like, ‘Okay, we’re just about business. We’re doing this.’ ”

What happened to Kara Robinson’s abductor Richard Evonitz?

Richard Marc Evonitz

After Kara made it to the police station, she was able to lead officers back to Richard’s apartment, thanks to the observations she made while in captivity. However, by the time police arrived, he was gone.

On June 27, 2002, after two days on the run, police tracked Richard to Sarasota, Fla. A high-speed police chase ensued and ended with Richard running over spike strips on the highway. As police and a police dog closed in, Richard shot and killed himself.

What other crimes was Richard Evonitz linked to?

FBI Lab Director Dr. Dwight E. Adams, right, explains some of the forensic evidence recovered from Richard Marc Evonitz's South Carolina apartment during a news conference Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2002, in Spotsylvania, Va.

In Richard’s apartment, authorities found evidence that linked the Navy veteran to the unsolved murders of three girls: Sofia Silva and sisters Kati and Kristin Lisk.

The girls, who ranged in age from 12 to 16, all went missing in the mid-1990s from Spotsylvania County, Va. Richard kept newspaper clippings about their abductions in a locker in his apartment, and authorities later found both fingerprint and DNA evidence connecting him to the crimes, The Washington Post reported.

“It was one of the most important things that’s ever happened to me,” Kara told PEOPLE about helping solve the Spotsylvania murders. “Because it brought home the importance of what I did.”

She continued, “I felt like, ‘Wow, I’m actually giving these families something that they never would’ve gotten without me.’ Just the closure of knowing that the person responsible for their daughters’ death is no longer here.”

Additionally, while running from the police, Richard reportedly called his sister and confessed to killing more than three people and committing “more crimes than he can remember,” according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department via The Washington Post. Despite this claim, police have not publicly linked Richard to any additional murders or kidnappings at this time.

Though his family members stated that Richard idolized serial killer Ted Bundy, Richard’s first wife, Bonnie Lou Gower, revealed in a series of TikToks that she had no indication her former husband was a serial killer. Gower, who married Richard when she was 17, said that she even asked the FBI how there were no warning signs during their more than eight-year marriage.

“Their answer to me was that serial killers are usually sociopaths, and sociopaths are really good at compartmentalizing,” Gower said in a TikTok video. “So, it’s really easy for them to hide things.”

She continued, “In fact, if I had seen signs, then he wouldn’t have been a sociopath, and he probably wouldn’t have gotten away with the crimes the way that he did.

Where is Kara Robinson now?

Kara Robinson and family

Kara was inspired to pursue a career in law enforcement after surviving her abduction.

In high school, she worked part-time over the summers doing administrative work for the sheriff’s department. After graduating from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, Kara went on to work as a school resource officer and an investigator on child abuse and sexual assault cases, according to her website.

But after becoming a mother (Kara has two sons and a daughter with her husband Joe Chamberlain), she left her work in law enforcement and turned her efforts to spreading “hope and encouragement to other survivors.” For Kara, that meant telling her story of survival through documentaries, podcasts, social media and more.

In 2019, Kara participated in a 90-minute Lifetime special, Smart Justice: The Jayme Closs Case, with five other survivors to lend support to Closs, a Wisconsin teen who escaped her captor that same year.

Following the special, Kara then worked with kidnap survivor Elizabeth Smart to make a documentary about her own ordeal for Oxygen. The documentary, called Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story, was released in 2021. A Hulu film about Kara’s abduction and escape, titled The Girl Who Escaped and starring Katie Douglas as Kara, debuted in 2023.

Kara is also active on TikTok and Instagram, and hosts a podcast, Survivor’s Guide to True Crime, with Kimberly Corban, who survived a sexual assault in 2006, per her website.

“I always knew that what happened to me was something that happened so that I could help other people,” Kara told PEOPLE in 2022. “I knew that if I wanted to help people, I needed to tell my story in a way that I was proud of.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.



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