TikTok/FBI
In a series of viral videos, Bonnie Lou Gower reflected on the moment she learned her ex Richard Evonitz was "murdering people" before and throughout their marriage, while survivor Kara Robinson Chamberlain details her escape after being kidnapped at 15.
The ex-wife of Richard Evonitz and a woman who escaped after being kidnapped both opened up about their personal experiences with the serial killer.
The FBI has linked Evonitz to the murders of three different women, as well as the kidnapping of then-15-year-old Kara Robinson, before he died by suicide in 2002 -- after Robinson escaped capture.
In her first TikTok ever, Evonitz' ex-wife Bonnie Lou Gower shocked others on the platform with her story.
"Put a finger down if you were married at 17, divorced by 25, remarried, had two children and then 5 years later, the FBI showed up at your door to find out that your first husband was a serial killer who murdered 3 girls, one of which while you were still married," she said in the footage.
"Then 20 years later found out that he was actually murdering people before you were married and throughout your entire marriage," she then claimed.
The video has racked up 25 million views, with viewers leaving comments like, "Bonnie I have to admit, none of my fingers are down. but pls go on," "Girl my finger isn’t down but my jaw is," and "bonnie, you're alone in this one."
After her first post took off, she followed it up with two additional videos -- both of which she began by saying, "Story time about how I was married to a serial killer."
Admitting there was "a lot to unpack here," Gower first explained how she and Evonitz met, saying he was the older brother of a friend she had in the sixth grade. She claimed he began flirting with her when she was 16 and asked her out when she was 17; he was 25 at the time.
"Honestly, that probably sounds like a really red flag. My family, their biggest red flag was that he was a lot older than me," she said, adding that they also felt comfortable with him because they all knew his family.
"Things moved very quickly and before I knew it, he asked me to marry him. Honestly, that sounds crazy, except that my life was really chaotic at the time. When he asked me to marry him, I jumped on it, because it was really the best thing I had going for me," she shared.
In a third video, she spoke a bit about their marriage -- saying "everything was fine at first" after they tied the knot in 1988 and moved to Maine. She said she was "happy to be married," while he "very quickly took charge and let me know what my responsibilities were supposed to be as a wife."
"To clean the house, take care of all the cooking, and he was in the military, so the lessons on how to properly launder his uniforms. I took all of this in and worked really hard to please him. I was happy to do that because I loved him and wanted to make him happy," she explained.
"Probably in the first month, things began to shift. He started picking on me about my weight, I had gained about 10 pounds and he started telling me I was fat and I needed to join Weight Watchers. If I cheated on my diet, he would tell me you're going to wind up being fat like your mother," Gower continued. "Up until this point, I felt pretty good about things overall. As time went on, I was regretting my choice of getting married, but I had made a commitment and I believed in that commitment in marriage and that it's forever and you have to work on it."
She ended the video by saying "marriage was definitely not what I thought it would be," promising to tell more in another video in the future. Gower also said she's written a book about her life and is looking for a publisher and agent.
Gower's video also seemed to bring quite a few viewers to Kara Robinson Chamberlain's TikTok account. Robinson, who was 15 when Evonitz abducted and sexually assaulted her in 2002, has been very open about her experience for many years on the platform -- but answered a few frequently asked questions again this week.
"When I was 15 years old in 2002, I was kidnapped out of my friend's front yard by a man who told me he was handing out magazines. He used that as a guise to get into my personal space, put a [gun] to my neck and kidnap me," she explained in a new video.
"He held me captive for 18 hours. He took me in a plastic container in his car. That was 18 hours where I was [sexually assaulted] multiple times, until I was able to escape. He went on to go on the run for a couple of days and un-alive himself at the end of that," she added.
According to the FBI, Evonitz fled to Sarasota, Florida, where he committed suicide after being surrounded by law enforcement authorities. Because of his death, a trial and conviction for his crimes wasn't possible. Per authorities, a search of his residence uncovered forensic evidence "identifying Evonitz as the offender responsible" for the deaths of Sofia Silva, 16, in 1997 and sisters Kristen and Kati Lisk, 12 and 15, in 1997. Before his death, he allegedly told family members he had committed "more crimes than he can remember."
When asked how she was able to remember so many details about her ordeal, which helped authorities identify and track Evonitz at the time, Chamberlain said it was her "trauma response" to the situation. "My trauma response was to stay calm and gather information," she shared.
"I wanna be very careful to remind people that my ability to escape was part of my trauma response. I was able to stay calm and collected and appease my captor so that I could make him feel safe enough to sleep," she said in another video. "When I escaped, it was when he was asleep the next morning. I was handcuffed, I had to use my teeth to loosen the clip that connected the handcuffs to the bed, slide out of the bed and get my things together. The key, for me, was to stay calm. That's not always an option for everyone."
She also explained that she "disassociated pretty heavily" after her abduction, telling viewers she "didn't realize that I was impacted until many, many years later." She added, "Fun!"
Chamberlain said she's also often asked about the boyfriend she had at the time of her kidnapping, as many who saw the Lifetime movie about the crime wondered what happened to him after her escape. "We broke up about four months later because trauma and teens, It doesn't lend itself to successful relationships," she shared. "He is now married, has a son, I married someone I met in law enforcement."
She also assured viewers that both the Lifetime movie, The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story, and the documentary Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story were both "fairly accurate" as she was heavily involved in the production of both. "I had essentially full control on how the products ended up looking," she said.
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