Bonnie Lou Gower has opened up on TikTok about her ex-husband, serial killer, and rapist Richard Evonitz, and what Gower has to say will make you think twice about ever going on a date again.
Evonitz, suspected of raping at least four teenage girls, and murdering at least three of them, died by suicide in 2002 before police could take him into custody. In her first post, Gower — Bonnielouwriter on TikTok — plays the finger game: Put your finger down if you were married at 17, she says, and divorced by 25, a common enough experience, one might expect.
But then, Gower says that five years after her divorce, the FBI showed up at her door, saying her ex-husband killed at least three girls, one of whom he murdered while they were still married. Twenty years after that, Gower says she found out Evonitz murdered girls before their wedding, and throughout their relationship.
Gower says she is seeking an agent and publisher for a book. Her TikTok series has attracted millions of views and comments — so listen up, true crime publishers, podcasters, and Netflix documentary producers, your next harrowing true crime story may have arrived.
Gower met Richard Evonitz through his younger sister
In a subsequent TikTok post, Bonnie Lou Gower explains she met Richard Evonitz through his younger sister. Gower admits, as a young girl, she had a crush on her friend’s older brother, and when she turned 16, Evontiz, who was in his mid-20s, asked her out. “That probably sounds like a red flag,” Gower says. But her family knew the Evonitz family, and gave their consent. Before long, Evonitz proposed, and because her life was chaotic at the time, “I jumped on it. It was really the best thing I had going for me,” Gower says.
Gower was happy at first
At first, Gower’s marriage to Richard Evonitz was happy, she says in a follow-up post, but within about a month things began to shift. Evonitz verbally abused her about her weight, and soon, Gower said she regretted her decision to get married. But she tried to work things out.
In the third TikTok installment, Gower explains that in 1989, about a year into their marriage, Evonitz — who was in the military — was transferred to San Diego, and she went with him. At that time, Evonitz became more controlling, Gower says. He told her to get a job, but he also demanded she be home when he got off work. He also didn’t allow her to talk to anyone about their marital problems. Still, Gower and Evonitz found some semblance of peace, until Evonitz left the military. “Then, everything shifted again,” Gower says.
Richard Evonitz’s post-military life
Fast forward to 1992, when Richard Evonitz has left the military. Bonnie Lou Gower says in her fourth update that Evonitz started having mood swings when he left the service. One day, she says, he came home frantic and anxious. According to Gower, he said, “If I asked you to fly out of the country with me, would you do it?” Confused why he would ask her that, Gower finally said she would, and looking back, “That seems kind of crazy,” she says.
By then, Evonitz and Gower had moved to Virginia, where the sixth chapter picks up. Out of work for about six months, Gower says her ex fell into a depression. “His personality was different,” she says, and he started smoking pot. Evonitz had been arrested in 1987, two years before he married Gower, for exposing himself to a teenage girl in Florida, and given three years probation. Gower says he told her he was drunk, and that the young girls saw him naked, and that he had since turned his life around after seeking addiction treatment.
The truth about the 1987 conviction
In part six, Gower says she didn’t find out the truth about the 1987 conviction until 2002, when she learned Evonitz was a serial killer. Evonitz was not just blackout drunk and naked for some reason when he exposed himself to the teenager — a farfetched version of the story, Gower admits, but she was just 16 at the time, so she believed him — he had followed and touched himself in front of a 15-year-old girl and her 3-year-old sister.
Gower has promised a part 7, but to date, she has shared an update on what it was like when she found out what Evonitz had done, in 2002, five years after they divorced. By then, Gower was in a new relationship and had two children, so it took some time for her to process what she learned. When she did, however, she later sought mental health treatment for PTSD, which manifested itself in panic attacks, and had trust issues.
Authorities believe Evonitz abducted, raped, and murdered several women while Gower and Evonitz were married. In a separate Q&A post, Gower says she never suspected that her husband of eight-and-a-half years was a killer. The FBI told her, she says, that sociopaths can compartmentalize. “Looking back on my life through this new lens, certainly things stand out in a different light,” Gower adds. But still, there was nothing about their marriage that would make her suspect he had committed such brutal crimes.
These days, Gower says she’s doing well. “Most people are good people,” she says. “You can’t live your life in fear.”
Kare Robinson has also shared her story
Richard Evonitz’s crimes were exposed in 2002, when Kara Robinson, a 15-year-old girl he abducted and raped, escaped and contacted the police. No one knows for sure how many women and girls Evonitz killed. Evonitz reportedly told his family members before he died that he committed “more crimes than he can remember,” according to The Washington Post.
Around the same time Bonnie Lou Gower updated TikTok on her marriage, Robinson — now Robinson Chamberlain — shared how she escaped. Handcuffed in Evonitz’s apartment, she made her move while he was asleep, and she credits her ability to stay calm to a trauma response.
“I had to actually use my teeth to kind of loosen the clip that connected the handcuffs to the bed and then slide out of the bed, get my things together. So I think the key for me was to stay calm, and that’s not always an option for everyone,” Robinson Chamberlain said in her TikTok post.
