|
|
|
| Fri, Nov. 20 - - Mobile - RSS | |
|
|
As Evonitz's portrait emerges, reasons still elude
The last days of Richard Marc Evonitz. A portrait slowly emerges of the suspect in the Lisk-Silva slayings.Date published: 7/7/2002
About the story This report was written after dozens of interviews with law-enforcement officers, neighbors, former associates and South Carolina residents who had come into contact with Richard Marc Evonitz. The reporter retraced Evonitz's route on the day of the abduction and gleaned additional information from government and law-enforcement records. COLUMBIA, S.C.--She was gone. Escaped. Richard Marc Evonitz knew what that meant. So he grabbed some essentials from his garden apartment, jumped into his silver 1996 Ford Escort and left. Evonitz also took along a cell phone and his .25-caliber pistol. It was Tuesday morning, and the man police suspect killed three Spotsylvania County girls in the late 1990s sped off into his final days. Until then, his plan had gone smoothly. Evonitz had waited until his wife and mother had left town for Disney World--an exciting vacation for Hope, his 20-year-old wife. He had taken Monday off. Alone, the 38-year-old Evonitz had borrowed his mother's green Pontiac Firebird and tossed a large Rubbermaid storage container into its trunk. It fit better in the Pontiac than in his compact Escort. He then drove out past Columbia's airport to a subdivision off Old Barnwell Road. The subdivision could be Anywhere, USA. Tidy, manicured lawns and flower plots mark the boundaries of the little plots. Most of the homes are small ranch-style houses--but the neighborhood is clean and bright. It may have reminded Evonitz of similar subdivisions in sprawling Spotsylvania County, where police say he had cruised many times, years ago. This neighborhood differed from his old Virginia haunts only in the occasional palmetto tree and the white, sandy soil of South Carolina. He saw her; she was watering flowers. Young, brown-haired, slightly built. The way he liked them. He pulled up and pretended to be a magazine salesman. She believed him, and started leafing through some magazines he'd brought. He pulled his .25, held it to her throat and led her to the Pontiac's trunk, where he forced her to fold herself into the Rubbermaid box. He slammed the trunk lid and drove off. No one had noticed.
Date published: 7/7/2002
|
 |
|||
|
|||
