A woman who was married to a serial killer has opened up about her experiences, including the red flags she overlooked.
Learning about serial killers is a morbid fascination that many of us have, which is why true crime podcasts do so well.
One thing that often gets questioned is how the killers get away with their crimes for so long, especially while living a seemingly normal life.
Well, a woman who was once married to serial killer Richard Evonitz has shared the chilling moment she realized she had married a man who preyed on and murdered teenage girls.
Bonnie Lou Gower, who was a teenager herself when she married Evonitz in 1989, recently recounted her harrowing experience in a series of TikTok videos.
Evonitz, the older brother of Gower’s classmate, was eight years her senior.
Throughout their eight-year marriage, Gower said she encountered numerous red flags, including Evonitz's controlling behavior and a suspicious question about fleeing the country around the time several local girls went missing, according to the New York Post.
“Looking back at that, that seems kind of crazy but at the time I thought he was just stressed out about work, because it was a huge transition for him to get out of the military and move to Virginia and start a new life and try to get a job,” Gower explained in one of her videos.
She added that she plans to write a book about her terrifying ordeal.
The couple's relationship had been tumultuous from the start, but Gower remained committed to her marriage vows.
While Gower did not detail physical abuse, she described how Evonitz controlled various aspects of her life, including restricting her from attending college, working, making new friends, and even controlling her weight.
“He really limited the amount of money I was allowed to spend on phone calls to my family,” Gower recalled.
“Not having a lot of friends or anybody who I could talk to about my relationship — I really didn’t know how different it was from the average marriage, and I really didn’t have anybody to bounce things off of and find out what was normal, which I think was probably exactly what he wanted.”
In 1996, in Spotsylvania, Virginia, where the couple had relocated, Evonitz abducted and killed 16-year-old Sofia Marlene Silva. Her body was discovered a month later in a roadside creek.
Seven months later, Evonitz abducted and murdered 15-year-old Kristin Michelle “Kristi” Lisk and her 12-year-old sister Kathryn Nicole “Kati” Lisk from their front lawn. He sexually assaulted and strangled both girls before dumping their bodies in a river.
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Around this time, Evonitz began exhibiting erratic behavior and one day asked Gower if she would leave the country with him.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean? What the hell? Why would you ask me that?’” Gower recalled. Evonitz brushed off her concerns, claiming he had a rough day at work and wanted to ensure she would stay with him through thick and thin.
Gower has not yet finished sharing her story, but she revealed that she eventually divorced Evonitz and remarried before his crime spree ended in 2002.
Evonitz's final known victim was 15-year-old Kara Robinson, whom he abducted at gunpoint from her South Carolina home.
Robinson managed to escape while he slept, leading to a manhunt for Evonitz. He fled and eventually took his own life in Florida after admitting to his sister that he had committed "more crimes than he could remember."
Authorities believe Evonitz may have been responsible for other crimes, including at least one other murder, prior to his marriage to Gower.
“It’s taken a lot of time. It’s been 22 years, and I have to say that at this point I’m doing pretty well with it. It definitely has its moments where it comes out in my current relationship and, or in my relationships over the last several years, obviously,” Gower said. “Talk about trust issues.”
