A message arrived in 2024 that Bonnie Lou Gower never expected: "I hear we have something in common." It came from Kara Robinson Chamberlain, a woman who had been kidnapped 22 years earlier by Gower’s former husband, serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz. Instead of ending in confrontation, the message began an unlikely friendship between a killer’s ex-wife and the survivor who helped expose him.
Evonitz has been linked to the deaths of three teenage girls in Virginia in the 1990s: Sofia Silva, 16, killed in September 1996, and sisters Kristin and Kati Lisk, aged 15 and 12, killed in May 1997. Silva’s murder happened while Gower and Evonitz were still married, yet none of it came to light until 2002.
The escape that exposed him
In June 2002, Chamberlain, then 15, was watering flowers outside her home in Columbia, South Carolina, when Evonitz pulled up, held a gun to her neck and forced her to go with him. He took her to his apartment and assaulted her over 18 hours. When he fell asleep, she bit through a clasp on her handcuffs and untied a leg restraint.
Chamberlain ran from the property and flagged down a passing car, which took her to a police station. Her information led officers to the apartment, but he had already fled. On June 27, police tracked him to Sarasota, Florida, where he was found dead by suicide.
Days later, FBI agents knocked on Gower’s door in California while she was baking a cake for her sons. She had since remarried and had children. "I was shocked, I could not imagine that he would be capable of hurting anybody," she said.
The signs she now sees
Gower met Evonitz, a friend of her brother, when she was 11 and he was 20. They started dating when she was 14 and married in August 1988, a month after her 17th birthday. Because he was in the Navy, they moved often before settling in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
Looking back, she says the warning signs were there. He was controlling and often commented on her looks and weight. She once found a Polaroid of a teenage neighbor tanning and a trunk full of pornography. When she raised her worries, he waved them away. "He would always put it back on me that I was the one with the issue," she said.
From viral video to friendship
Gower kept notes about what had happened, and in 2024 she decided to turn them into a book. Her two sons, now influencers, encouraged her to post videos to promote it. One described her part in a "Put a Finger Down" challenge, a trend where people share bizarre stories to see who can relate. It went viral and has more than 40 million views.
That is how Chamberlain, now 39 and an advocate for crime victims, found her. She has a touch of dark humor, she explained, and felt the situation was absurd, so she decided to send an absurd message.
The two have since become close friends, bonding over their experiences and a shared passion for supporting victims. Their conversations have convinced them that Evonitz may be responsible for other cold cases in the area. His sister has said he told her he had "committed more crimes than he can remember."
Their story is now the subject of a documentary, The Serial Killer Connection, which has premiered on Investigation Discovery. Two more episodes arrive this week, and the series will then stream on HBO Max. "When have you ever seen a family member of an offender and a victim come together and work together for a united cause?" Chamberlain said.
Image credit: FBI
Source: Daily Express US
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