Over two decades ago, Kara Robinson Chamberlain was abducted in broad daylight. At the time, she was only 15 years old, hanging out with a friend, when a random man approached her in her front yard. She was abducted and held for hours. When she escaped, no one believed her.
Abduction of Kara Robinson
On June 24, 2002, Robinson was in the front yard of her best friend’s house in West Columbia, South Carolina, watering the plants when she was approached by 38-year-old Richard Evonitz, who disguised himself as a door-to-door salesman wearing a button-down shirt with jeans and a baseball cap.
“He said, ‘Are your parents home?’ and I said, ‘Well, this isn’t my house. This is my friend’s house,’ ” Robinson recalled. “And he said, ‘Okay, well, what about her parents, are her parents home?’ And I said, ‘No, her mom’s not home right now.’ “
Evonitz pulled out a gun and pointed it at her, threatened her life, and forced the teenage girl to get into a plastic container that sat in the back of his car. He pulled over once to restrain her with handcuffs and placed a gag in her mouth before proceeding to his apartment. From there, Robinson began carefully detailing their trip in her head, down to the last turn.
Preparing For Escape
Robinson was held captive in his apartment for 18 hours, where she was tied up, tortured, and sexually assaulted. Despite the situation, Robinson remained stoic, plotting her escape. She repeatedly told herself, “Gather information, wait for him to be complacent, escape.“
When her captor fell asleep, she freed herself from the restraints and tiptoed to the front door, removing the locks, and taking off in the direction of the parking lot, where she ran into two men who graciously took her to the Richland County 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 in 2022. “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.’ ”
“Fear barely even kicked in … the human will to survive and the survival mechanism really just can’t be underestimated,” she said.
Hunting a Serial Killer
Because of Robinson’s bravery and her quick wits, she escaped with enough information to lead the police back to her captor’s apartment. Unfortunately, Evonitz was gone by the time they arrived, but after two days, they tracked him to Sarasota, Florida.
An intense police chase ensued, and Evonitz ended up running over spike strips laid out on the highway, ending his run. In a cowardly act to avoid facing the repercussions of his atrocious actions, he shot and killed himself as the police closed in.
Previous Crimes
Authorities recovered evidence from his apartment that linked him to three other teenage girls’ abductions in Virginia: Sofia Silva, Kati Lisk, and Kistrin Lisk. Their ages ranged from 12 to 16, and all went missing in the mid-1990s.
“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 said in 2022. “This was something else. This was actually a serial killer.”
While on the run from police, Evonitz allegedly confessed on the phone with his sister to committing “more crimes than he can remember,” and murdering more victims than known. However, police were never able to link him to any other kidnappings or murders.
Kara Robinson Now
Despite the harrowing and horrifying events Robinson endured, she managed to persevere and turn her life into something more meaningful than she could have ever imagined. She began a career in law enforcement, starting in high school, working part-time at the local sheriff’s department.
She went on to graduate from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy and worked as a school resource officer with the same agency that investigated her case. She investigated child abuse and sexual assault cases and became a victim’s advocate until her children were born.
Robinson decided to leave her work behind and focus on spreading “hope and encouragement to other survivors.” She began speaking on podcasts and social media and appearing in documentaries.
“I always knew that what happened to me was something that happened so that I could help other people,” Robinson said in her 2022 interview. “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, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
