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Kara Robinson Recalls Details About Her Abduction 20 Years Ago
Kara Robinson Chamberlain doesn't retrieve each 2nd of being held captive by a suspected serial killer almost 21 years ago.
"The mode that my representation of the trauma functions, it's similar snapshots successful a flipbook—and determination are immoderate pages missing," the present 36-year-old parent of 2 exclusively told E! News' Francesca Amiker up of the Feb. 11 premiere of Lifetime's The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story. "The filming was filling successful gaps successful my first-person memory."
As an writer and advocator for trauma survivors, she's spoken extensively astir her experience. But watching her communicative unfold successful its entirety—from being abducted from her friend's beforehand gait by Richard Evonitz to being reunited with her household aft she managed to flight 18 hours later—stirred up immoderate feelings she wasn't expecting.
Particularly, she recalled, portion watching the infinitesimal wherever her ma Debra (played by Cara Buono) bursts into the constabulary presumption asking wherever her girl is. Enter teenage Kara (Katie Douglas), who sees Debra and utters 1 word: "Mom?"
"They some person this quavering," Kara described, "and it was truthful emotional, and I was truthful surprised. I deliberation it impacts maine to spot it from a antithetic perspective—my mom's perspective—and present arsenic a mother, too. The things that I experienced are not what radical would expect and that's wherefore it's important to archer these stories."
Lifetime
Meaning, she continued, "I don't consciousness I person those emblematic trauma responses of having PTSD oregon feeling triggered oregon having flashbacks. So for me, going done the process [of this movie], my trauma was successful a container implicit here, and I was existing, moving connected the movie, implicit here, and determination wasn't a batch of overlap."
Kara previously teamed with Elizabeth Smart, whose ain harrowing survival tale was dramatized in 2017's I Am Elizabeth Smart, to nutrient a documentary astir her ordeal, and the brace joined forces erstwhile again to guarantee that Kara's communicative was told by Lifetime arsenic she saw fit.
Asked if watching her friend's communicative play retired onscreen triggered her ain memories, Elizabeth told E!, "I do know what it felt similar to beryllium determination personally, but past to person it beryllium astir idiosyncratic that I attraction precise overmuch about, it is rather affectional for maine successful that sense. "
"I don't consciousness similar it's triggering successful the mode it would enactment maine down a deep, acheronian spread and I wouldn't beryllium capable to ascent retired again," noted the 35-year-old, who was kidnapped from her Utah location 19 days earlier Kara was taken successful South Carolina. "But I bash consciousness similar talking with Kara, you would never, ever, ever cognize that thing monolithic and traumatic had ever happened to her."
What happened to Kara Robinson?
It was sunny in Columbia, S.C., on June 24, 2002, when Kara, clad successful a T-shirt and shorts, walked implicit to her friend's location to h2o the flowers successful the beforehand yard.
According to her ain relationship and details aboriginal shared by the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, the 15-year-old hadn't been determination agelong erstwhile a greenish Pontiac Firebird pulled into the driveway. The driver, Richard Evonitz, 38, walked up to Kara and asked if she wanted to bargain immoderate magazines. As she looked astatine the titles helium proffered, he put a weapon to her neck.
Evonitz forced her into a integrative retention tub successful the trunk of the car, which belonged to his mother, and drove off.
He returned to the flat helium shared with his wife, who was retired of town, and carried the bin inside, where helium proceeded to necktie Kara to the furniture and sexually battle her. Evonitz past made her ticker the evening quality to spot if determination was immoderate notation of her abduction.
Oxygen
Kara was with Evonitz astatine the flat for 18 hours until, finally, he fell asleep. She heard him snoring, managed to wriggle escaped of her bindings and took disconnected running. At a adjacent parking batch she approached a car and pleaded with the radical wrong to thrust her to a constabulary station.
"She was so, truthful alert," Lexington County Sheriff James R. Metts told the Washington Post a week later. "She was capable to springiness america accusation down to the exactness of what was successful the apartment." (Including the serial fig connected the bin she was kept in.)
Once she had been reunited with her family, Kara (whose sanction wasn't disclosed publically astatine the clip due to the fact that she was a rape victim, arsenic good arsenic a minor) was capable to lead investigators backmost to the apartment, according to Metts, and picked Evonitz out of a photograph array.
Meanwhile, the brave teen had nary thought that the antheral she escaped was suspected of sidesplitting astatine slightest 3 different girls.
Who were Richard Evonitz's alleged execution victims?
While searching Evonitz's apartment, Metts said, officers recovered a Virginia paper successful a lockbox from May 2, 1997—the time aft sisters Kristin Lisk, 15, and Kati Lisk, 12, disappeared from their Spotsylvania, Va., beforehand gait aft school. Both girls were raped, strangled and dumped successful the South Anna River. Their bodies turned up 5 days aboriginal astir 40 miles distant from their family's house.
In the lockbox, constabulary besides recovered written directions to a determination adjacent the Lisk location and notes that seemed to notation to the girls themselves: "11 oregon 12, the different 14 oregon 15," "brunettes," "very cute."
Metts told the Washington Post that Evonitz had been connected a database of suspects Spotsylvania constabulary had compiled successful the Lisk homicides, but their grounds hadn't been beardown capable to compel him to supply a DNA sample.
Forensics from that crime, however, linked the Lisk killings to the Sept. 9, 1996, kidnapping and execution of 16-year-old Sofia Silva, who was besides abducted from her beforehand gait successful Spotsylvania County. Her assemblage was recovered successful a swamp successful King George County a period later. (A erstwhile fishy was indicted and remained successful custody for 5 months earlier authorities determined helium was not Sofia's killer, according to the Post.)
Also successful the lockbox: Directions to the country successful Madison County, Va., wherever the assemblage of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a postgraduate pupil astatine Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, was recovered dumped on May 7, 1996. She was connected her mode to meet her ma astatine a promenade successful Charlottesville, Va., erstwhile she disappeared on March 2, 1996.
Witnesses told constabulary they'd seen Alicia's car stopped on U.S. Route 29 and a 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-tall achromatic antheral successful his precocious 30s oregon aboriginal 40s appearing to beryllium offering roadside assistance. Several women besides reported that a antheral of that statement had tried getting them to propulsion implicit connected that road, claiming determination was thing incorrect with their car.
In immoderate case, authorities ne'er definitively linked Alicia's execution to Evonitz, and the lawsuit remains unsolved.
"It astir feels similar erstwhile you look astatine that full Route 29 communicative and the stalker idea, that helium was benignant of honing his skills connected however to halt women and get them," her mother, Sadie Showalter, told WHSV successful 2021 arsenic the 25th day of her daughter's decease approached. "And Alicia happened to beryllium the 1 that helium took."
What happened to Richard Evonitz?
"From what we've been capable to discern, determination were nary signals, nary signs," Richland County, S.C., Sheriff Leon Lott told the Washington Post of Evonitz, a Navy seasoned who'd doubly been awarded the Good Conduct Medal. "He was idiosyncratic who conscionable blends in."
Minus Evonitz's 1988 condemnation for indecent vulnerability in Florida, erstwhile helium told investigators, per a constabulary report, "he has a occupation with masturbating successful beforehand of girls. When helium feels the impulse helium drives astir looking for a miss 18-19 years aged abbreviated successful tallness and has brunette hair."
By the clip Kara led detectives backmost to his apartment, Evonitz had deed the road, passing done Georgia connected his mode to Florida, wherever his sister lived.
"He was idiosyncratic who felt everything closing successful connected him," Lott told the Post. "The concealed was out, the monster exposed."
FBI
On the mode to Florida, Lott said, Evonitz called his sister and told her he'd killed idiosyncratic and committed "more crimes than helium tin remember." The sheriff said the details Evonitz mentioned led them to judge he wasn't talking astir Sofia oregon the Lisk sisters.
Authorities tracked Evonitz to Sarasota, Fla., wherever helium led constabulary connected a high-speed pursuit and past fatally changeable himself arsenic officers approached.
In August 2002, authorities announced astatine a quality league that forensic evidence led them to reason that Evonitz had so murdered Sofia and the Lisk sisters. According to a multiagency task unit that had been moving the cases since 1997, his hairsbreadth matched strands recovered connected each 3 girls, bluish acrylic fibers from a brace of furry handcuffs successful his possession were on each 3 victims, and a thenar people and fingerprints belonging to Kristin Lisk were discovered connected the wrong of Evonitz's trunk.
One forensic idiosyncratic called it a "miracle" to find prints similar that 5 years later.
Law enforcement and the victims' families each offered their acknowledgment to the still-unnamed 15-year-old South Carolina miss who literally brought constabulary to Evanitz's door.
What happened to Kara Robinson aft she escaped her kidnapper?
"It took a portion for the alleviation to footwear in," Kara told Fox News successful 2021. "Because my captor did run...So it was a dilatory process. But I truly conscionable wanted my beingness to get backmost to normal. I didn't privation anybody to dainty maine differently. The mode I dealt with things was to conscionable crook disconnected each of my emotions. I didn't person an affectional transportation to this happening that had happened to me. I conscionable wanted everybody to benignant of hide it, too."
In the 2021 Oxygen documentary Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story, she recalled being aggravated erstwhile she recovered retired Evonitz had taken his ain life.
"I wanted him to cognize that I outsmarted him," she said. "I wanted him to cognize that successful choosing me, I was not going to beryllium his intended victim. He was the benignant of offender who would stalk people. I was not successful my mean spot successful my mean time, truthful I wasn't an intended victim. So I wanted him to cognize that choosing me, his unfortunate of opportunity, was the biggest mistake that helium could person ever made."
Kara told Fox, "My feelings person gone backmost and distant implicit the years to feeling alleviation that helium killed himself due to the fact that I ne'er had to spell to trial. I ne'er had to beryllium successful a courtroom and speech astir each the details of what happened to me. I ne'er person to interest astir him getting retired oregon thing similar that."
Eight years aft her ordeal, Kara graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy and became a Richland County Sheriff's deputy.
Asked however she kept her wits astir her during those hellish 18 hours, she told Columbia's WIS 10 in 2010, "I benignant of blocked it retired astatine the clip conscionable due to the fact that I had that subsister mentality and I knew that I was going to get retired of there. So astatine the time, I wasn't truly focusing connected everything that was happening. I was focused connected the extremity result, the decorativeness line."
Kara didn't divulge her history during her clip astatine the academy, archetypal sharing who she was with an teacher aft her lawsuit was brought up during a course.
"At the extremity of people I went up to her and I said, 'I conscionable wanted to fto you know, that acquisition you conscionable taught—that was me,'" Kara recalled. "And obviously, nary 1 astatine the academy astatine that constituent knew. The manager knew due to the fact that helium utilized to enactment astatine the sheriff's department. But nary 1 other knew."
Tamron Hall Show
Sheriff Lott, who'd go a mentor to Kara, told Columbia's ABC 25 when she graduated, "Only a fewer of america arsenic the sheriff's section knew what she went through, but we each adopted her and present precise arrogant of what she's been capable to accomplish."
As Kara enactment it to the station, "It was thing that happened to me. It wasn't truly good, but I was capable to instrumentality the affirmative distant from it...I ne'er took it arsenic a negative, ne'er fto it specify me."
She has since go a nationalist speaker, writer and, astir recently, a podcast host, launching Survivor's Guide to True Crime with cohost (and chap rape subsister and victims' advocate) Kimberly Corban connected Feb. 8.
After Kara appeared connected Elizabeth Smart's Smart Justice in 2019, they went connected to co-executive-produce Escaping Captivity and, Elizabeth having had a affirmative acquisition with her Lifetime movie, Kara was inspired to springiness the true-crime-aholic web the accidental to archer her story, too.
Lifetime
"I had done projects earlier wherever it didn't truly substance what I said," Kara told E! News this week. "My sentiment didn't substance successful the mode my communicative was told."
But successful this case, she explained, erstwhile she had an contented with the archetypal publication she read, the squad astatine Lifetime was unfastened to her input. "I benignant of geared myself up for this large fight, of 'No, that's not the mode it was!'" she recalled. But they conscionable said, "'OK, we'll alteration it.' That was the 1 pivotal infinitesimal for maine erstwhile I was like, 'Oh, I get a determination here.'"
Watching Kara's movie get made was "a precise inspiring process" for Elizabeth arsenic well.
"Even if we tin conscionable spot much survivors go empowered, not feeling guilt oregon shame associated to what happened to them," she said, explaining what inactive compels her bring stories likes these to the screen. "Feeling like, 'I americium truthful strong, I lived done what galore would not beryllium capable to and I survived this. I person a voice, and I tin talk retired and stock my story.'"
And telling her communicative arsenic she sees acceptable has ever been paramount for Kara. She besides has 431,500 TikTok followers who travel for her missives connected existent crime, trauma and coping but stay for the decidedly non-dour vibe and humorous—yes, humorous—takes.
"Shout retired to that reward money. ((You tin laugh. I promise.))," she wrote alongside an Oct. 25 TikTok in which she concludes "a triumph is simply a win," with the caption, "You got kidnapped by a serial slayer but you got a car, escaped assemblage and a down outgo connected a location retired of it."
"When hard things happen, you tin find reason, if you person the close enactment system," Kara explained to E!. "For maine I ever felt determination was a crushed this happened…Social media person truly shown maine what that looks like. How overmuch much intimate tin you get with radical than being close determination connected their phone? I'm benignant of starring by example, showing myself connected the not-so-good-days."
To Kara, uncovering assemblage connected TikTok and Instagram was a earthy hold of the enactment she's been doing to enactment and amended each these years.
She said 1 of the astir almighty messages she'd ever received was from a instrumentality enforcement serviceman who approached her astatine an lawsuit and said he'd utilized the connection he'd learned from Kara while interviewing a puerility unfortunate of intersexual assault.
"He said, 'I utilized the words and the phrases that you taught america successful this keynote, and I experienced thing I've ne'er experienced successful my life—she smiled astatine me,'" Kara recalled. "And helium said, 'I tin ne'er convey you capable for the words that you've fixed me.'"
"That's however we alteration the world," she added. "We alteration however we speech to radical aft they've been victims. We alteration however we speech astir being a victim, due to the fact that the much radical are retired and sharing their stories, the little unsocial radical volition feel. I get messages each azygous day, radical saying I've helped them heal oregon I've helped them to heal oregon enactment their important others. It's monumental."
For much existent transgression updates connected your need-to-know cases, caput to Oxygen.com.
