This episode of "On The Case" is both a sad tale but at the same time an inspirational one. In 1996, Richard Evonitz kidnapped a teenage girl from a small town in Virginia. Her body was found weeks later, dumped in water and badly decomposed.
The police zeroed in on the usual suspect, a local man who certainly looked the part, especially when fibres that appeared to link him to the victim were found. He was held on an outstanding warrant while the authorities built a case against him. His innocence was demonstrated in a shocking fashion the following May when not one but two underage girls – sisters - were kidnapped and murdered from the same county.
The trail went dead, and Evonitz may never have been caught or even suspected had he not kidnapped 15 year old Kara Robinson in Columbus, South Carolina five years later. He held her prisoner in his apartment overnight, raping her repeatedly, and would doubtless have murdered her at some point but fell asleep with Kara handcuffed to the bed. Incredibly she managed to slip her wrist out of the cuff, free her feet, and half dressed, flee from the apartment barefoot, flagging down a car.
The two men inside took her to the police station where she related her tale. By the time the police turned up at his apartment, Evonitz was gone. He was tracked to Sarasota, Florida where after a car chase he put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger saving the cost of multiple trials and a great deal more anguish for grieving parents. Evonitz would eventually be linked by compelling forensic evidence to the three murders above, and it is likely he committed others.
Of all the contributors to this documentary, Kara Robinson stands out. In her lengthy interview she said she felt cheated that Evonitz had taken the easy way out because she wanted to sit across from him in the courtroom and make him realise "I was the biggest mistake that he ever made", a lesson many self-styled "survivors" of sexual assaults would do well to heed.
