Today marks the 28th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Kristen and Katie Lisk, two Spotsylvania sisters who were abducted from their home on Thursday, May 1, 1997.
The girls’ father discovered them missing after returning home from work, discovering older sister Katie’s backpack in the front yard. There was no witnesses or signs of struggle. A massive search for the missing 15 and 12 year old turned up no results.
Five days later, the bodies of the missing teens were discovered nearly 40 miles away in the South Anna River. Both showed signs of sexual assault.
The Lisk sisters were murdered just seven months after the abduction, molestation and murder of Spotsylvania teen Sofia Silva, 16, who was taken from the front of her home under similar circumstances on September 6, 1996. Her body was found in a King George pond several weeks later.
Law enforcement initially honed in on Karl Roush, 44 of Spotsylvania and a former neighbor of the Silva family as a suspect for the killings. He was in custody at the Rappahannock Regional Jail on unrelated shoplifting charges. His involvement at one point seemed to be confirmed by a forensics report, but that determination was made erroneously, leaving investigators to eventually reach a stark realization: Spotsylvania had a serial killer.
Both cases remained unsolved after more than five years and 10,000 examinations of evidence, 1.2 million samples of DNA profiles and comparisons against more than 45,000 other open cases.
It wasn’t until 2002 and the abduction of 15-year old Kara Robinson in South Carolina that the investigation broke open. Robinson, who was kidnapped from the yard of a friend, was able to free herself and escape. Fibers found from her body matched those from the Lisk sisters’ case.
Investigators soon linked Richard Marc Evonitz, 38, to all three Virginia homicides from fibers found in a bath mat, a rug, two carpets from his home, carpet fibers from his trunk and head hair.
Evonitz never faced justice for his crimes, instead taking his own life after fleeing to Sarasota, Florida before law enforcement could take him into custody. The Washington Post reported that before his death, Evonitz confided in a family member that he “more crimes than he can remember.”
Today Sofia Silva would be 44, Kristen Lisk would be 43 and Katie Lisk would be 40 years old.
