In late September, HBO Max announced the titles that will be on their streaming platform this month — and one of them has a disturbing story.
The new Investigation Discovery docuseries, The Serial Killer Connection, is one of the newest documentaries out there for true crime lovers. Divided into three parts, the series follows survivor Kara Robinson Chamberlain and Bonnie Lou, the ex-wife of serial killer Richard “Marc” Evonitz, as they form an unlikely friendship.
United by shared trauma, the two women team up to retrace Evonitz’s movements, investigate whether he is tied to other unsolved cases, and look through his personal archives of photographs and notes. The docuseries, which airs on Wednesday, also includes never-before-heard testimonies and family secrets by Evonitz’s sister, alongside interviews with law enforcement and other victims’ families.
The next sections of this article include details about suicide, sexual assault, rape, murder and kidnapping that some readers may find disturbing. People affected by sexual violence can contact RAINN at 800-656-4673 or visit their website for more information.
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Evonitz kidnapped, assaulted and murdered multiple young girls before Chamberlain was able to escape in 2002, leading authorities to him. He was responsible for the deaths of at least three teenage girls in Spotsylvania County, Virginia and the kidnapping of Chamberlain in South Carolina, when she was just 15 years old.
The South Carolina native kidnapped, stalked, assaulted and even killed multiple teenagers and young adult women during the late 1980s and 1990s. His first recorded victim was 15-year-old Kelli Ballard, to whom he exposed himself and masturbated while she and her three-year-old sister were taking a walk in Jacksonville, Florida. The following day, Kelli’s mom noticed that he was following them around the mall parking lot and she called the police.
He also reportedly found many of his victims on Route 29, a highway in Virginia that has an unusually high number of cases of young women disappearing in the middle of the night. Witnesses saw Alicia Reynolds, who was 25 at the time she went missing, talk to a man who could have been Evonitz in the early morning of March 2, 1996. Two months later, her body was found in the woods. Upwards of 20 women reported to police that decade that a man in a blue pickup truck had attempted to pull them over. Though it was never confirmed that Evonitz was stalking and killing these ladies, many assumed it was him because he was living in Virginia at the time.
During the 1996-1997 school year, Evonitz kidnapped, assaulted and killed three girls: Sofia Marlene Silva, 16, and sisters Kristin and Kathryn Lisk, who were 15 and 12, respectively. Silva was taken from the front steps of her home on Sept. 9, 1996, and her body was found a month later in Birchwood Creek. A few months later, in May, the Lisk sisters were getting off their school buses and were kidnapped by Evonitz. He strangled the sisters after sexually assaulting them, dumping their bodies afterward in the South Anna River.
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The abduction of Kara Robinson
On June 24, 2002, Evonitz abducted Chamberlain, whose name was just Kara Robinson at the time, when she was just 15 years old. She was leaving a friend’s house in South Carolina when Evonitz got out of his car and approached her, pretending to offer her pamphlets. When she said her friend’s parents weren’t home, he held a gun to her neck and forced her into a plastic bin. He took her to his apartment and raped her, then forced her to take Valium and tied her to his bed. While he was asleep, Chamberlain was able to free herself, escape and identify her abductor to the police.
Three days after Chamberlain escaped, he called his sister, Jennifer, and admitted that he had “committed more crimes than he can remember” and insisted they meet at an IHOP in Jacksonville. Instead, Jennifer called the police and informed them what he told her. Later that day, cops surrounded his home in Sarasota, Florida. Police urged him to surrender peacefully, but instead, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. He was 38 years old.
The documentary
The Serial Killer Connection isn’t the first time Chamberlain’s story will be portrayed by the media. In February 2023, Lifetime released a television film called The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story, which starred Katie Douglas as Chamberlain, Cara Buono as Debra Robinson, her mother and Kristian Bruun as Evonitz. The movie was produced by Elizabeth Smart, who was also abducted at the age of 14.
Chamberlain believes she survived her 2002 abduction to bring hope, encouragement and strength to other victims and survivors. Using her background as a former law enforcement officer and child abuse investigator, she works to reform victim support and advocate for proper resources.
“My purpose was to let families have the mic and show what law enforcement has done,” Chamberlain told Fox News. “We want people to have the information they need, so they can come forward with anything that could be helpful.”
Lou, who was married to Evonitz from 1988 to 1996, was not aware of his double life as a serial killer. The two married when they were just teenagers, and she experienced severe social isolation, financial control and behavioral red flags during their time together. Before their relationship ended, he asked Lou to flee the country with him, and she declined. They divorced six years before Evonitz killed himself. In 1999, he married Hope Marie Crowley, who was also unaware of his double life.
Lou and Chamberlain met and connected through social media, and began searching for other victims and answers for other families affected.
“When Kara Robinson Chamberlain and Bonnie Lou realized that they were connected by the darkest chapters of their lives, they transformed that unimaginable trauma into purpose,” Jason Sarlanis, President of ID, said in a statement reported by Broadway World. “A deeply personal journey for the two of them, ID follows Kara and Bonnie as they harness the collective power of online communities and internet sleuths to investigate new leads into the crimes of the serial killer who changed both their lives forever.”
The Serial Killer Connection airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on ID and streams on HBO Max, and is produced for Investigation Discovery by Talos Films.
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