‘I escaped a serial killer at 15 years old… picking me was the greatest mistake he ever made’

A WOMAN who escaped from a serial killer after she was kidnapped at just 15-years-old said that picking her was the “greatest mistake” he ever made.

Kara Robinson, 35, shared the horrifying 18-hours she was held captive by killer Richard Evonitz in a new true-crime documentary Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story.

OxygenKara Robinson has opened up about her horrific ordeal in a two-hour documentary[/caption]

Kara was 15-years-old when she was abducted

.Richard Evonitz took his own life after Kara escaped from his home[/caption]

In 2002, Kara was watering flowers by herself in her friend’s front yard in the middle of the day when a man pulled up into the driveway.

The strange man asked the then 15-year-old Kara if he could give her some magazines.

“He leaned in to hand them to me,” she recalled in the two-hour special.

 “As he was leaning in, I felt a red flag somewhere in my head, and the same time I felt that red flag, I felt a gun pressed to the side of my neck. 

“He said, ‘If you scream. I will shoot you.’”

Evonitz forced Kara into a plastic storage container in the back of his car.

While in the container she starting building information about her captor which included memorizing the serial number of the box.

“At that point, my brain shut off my emotions,” she said. “I just went into survival mode.”

Kara was driven to Evoitz’s apartment where she was drugged and repeatedly sexually assaulted.

“In that apartment, I knew what this man’s intentions were for me,” she said.

“While I was being assaulted, it felt like something that happened to someone else. I kind of shut off my brain and left my body.”

Kara recalled how she studied everything about her abductor and his belongings as she lay in his room with her hands tied and her ankles bound.

SURVIVE OR PANIC

“I can’t explain where it came from, there was just this voice that said my options were to do as I was told and to escape and to survive or to panic, to fight, and maybe die,” she said.

“So I strong-willed myself into remaining as calm as I could for as long as I could.”

At one point, Kara remembered that there was a gun nearby but she thought twice before realizing that “there was little chance I was going to win that fight”.

The next morning, as Evonitz slept in a bed beside her Kara managed to free herself from the restraints and ran out of the house.

Outside she managed to flag down a car and had the two men take her to Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

Evonitz fled to Florida after he realized Kara had escaped but thanks to her testimony, police were able to track him down.

After he was surrounded by police during a chase, Evonitz took his life at age 38.

Evidence from his apartment linked Evonitz to the abductions and murders of three girls – Kati Lisk, 12, Kristin Lisk, 15, and 16-yer-old Sofia Silva.

Investigators also discovered the notes in his apartment that contained the addresses of other young girls as well as their descriptions.

“I wanted him to know that I outsmarted him,” Kara said.

“I wanted him to know that in choosing me, I was not going to be his intended victim.

“I was not in my normal place in my normal time, so I wasn’t an intended victim.

“So I wanted him to know that choosing me, his victim of opportunity, was the biggest mistake that he could have ever made.”

After her ordeal, Kara went on to graduate from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy and began working with Richland County Sheriff’s department as a school resource officer.

Looking back, the mum-of-two said her story is one of hope.

“Even the negative things that happen to us, we get to choose if that’s something that’s going to define us, or if it’s something that’s going to refine us,” she said.

“It’s about choosing your path forward, taking that power back into your own hands, and taking your life back.” 

The 15-year-old managed to free herself from her restraints just 18 hours after she was kidnapped

Kara as a teenager with her dad

instagram/@kararobinsonchamberlain/The mum-of-two went on to graduate from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy[/caption]