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For years, Bonnie Lou Gower shared her life and a bed with a man she believed she knew completely. She never imagined that her husband was capable of murder.

Richard “Marc” Evonitz was living a hidden double life—one that eventually revealed him as a serial killer who targeted young girls.

One of his victims was a 16-year-old girl who was killed while Evonitz was still married to Gower.

Decades after Evonitz’s crimes were exposed, Gower is looking back at the warning signs she missed. She is doing so alongside a young woman who survived an encounter with him.

In Investigation Discovery’s true-crime docuseries “The Serial Killer Connection,” Gower meets Kara Robinson Chamberlain, who survived 18 hours of captivity and torture before escaping Evonitz. Together, they examine whether he could be connected to additional unsolved cases.

Since discovering the truth about her former husband, Gower has been haunted by one central question.

“When I initially learned about [his crimes] and told people, honestly, their first response was, ‘Well, obviously you knew. How could you not have known?’” Gower told News Media.

“That was my very first question to the FBI: ‘How could I not know this? How could I not know I was sleeping next to somebody for eight and a half years who was doing this?’ And, of course, they assured me there was no way I could have known.”

With the perspective of time, Gower said there were details she now realizes she never questioned.

Whenever Gower left town to see relatives, Evonitz told her he had to remain behind for work. She later learned that he had actually taken time off during those same days.

“One of the reasons he never came with me was because he said he was working,” Gower said.

“Then I found out he had actually taken off work on the days I was out of town. But at the time, I wasn’t concerned at all about leaving him behind. I was simply going to visit my family. It definitely makes you reconsider everyone and everything, and whether you can trust what people say or do.”

Gower met Evonitz in South Carolina. Eight years older than her, he was the older brother of one of her friends and returned home whenever he was on leave from the U.S. Navy. As she got to know him, Gower developed a crush on him. When she was 16, Evonitz asked her on a date.

They married in August 1988, when Gower was 17 and Evonitz was 25.

“You think you know who you are when you’re 17, but I really don’t think I did,” said Gower. “I don’t think I had a handle on that. And I was relatively sheltered. I was very naïve, very trusting, taking everything at face value. I think he knew that.”

During the marriage, there were moments when Gower suspected Evonitz was being unfaithful. Whenever she questioned him, Evonitz told her it was all in her head. She believed him. But as the relationship progressed, Evonitz began isolating her from friends and family as they moved around the country, from Maine to San Diego to Virginia.

“No one ever thinks that their significant other is going to be a serial killer,” Chamberlain told News Media. “I think worst case, and this is something that she expressed to me, he was having an affair. No one ever thinks your spouse is out murdering someone.”

“He kept that part of himself very tightly controlled and didn’t show it to the people he was closest to.”

The marriage began to unravel after Evonitz left the Navy. Gower said financial pressures fueled growing tensions between the couple, while Evonitz became prone to mood swings and what she described as “rages.” He also frequently criticized her weight. Behind closed doors, Gower was also uncomfortable with his interest in bondage, according to the docuseries.

Even as the marriage reached its breaking point, Gower said she still didn’t see Evonitz as someone capable of hurting her. Walking away, she said, was a decision that came after years of mounting unhappiness.

When Gower made the decision to leave the marriage, Gower said her fear was for him, not herself.

“I was concerned for his safety when he said he was going to take the gun and kill himself,” Gower recalled. “I never feared for my own life.”

Even after she finally walked away, Gower said Evonitz had left her questioning whether she had any justification for doing so.

“When I left, I felt like I was leaving for no real good reason,” she said. “[But] I wasn’t happy.”

According to Gower’s TikTok, she and Evonitz were married from August 1988 until January 1997. Multiple reports indicate that their divorce was finalized in 1998. Years later, Gower would learn just how much she hadn’t known about the man she left behind.

On June 24, 2002, 15-year-old Chamberlain was at a friend’s home in South Carolina when Evonitz pulled into the driveway. The stranger approached her with pamphlets and asked if her parents were home. Then, he held a gun to her neck and threatened to shoot her if she screamed. He forced Chamberlain into a dark storage container in his car.

At Evonitz’s apartment, Chamberlain was repeatedly sexually assaulted. He restrained her to a bed. After hours of torture, Chamberlain managed to free one of her hands from a pair of handcuffs with her teeth, unclip a leather leg restraint and quietly bolt out the door as Evonitz slept. As she took off, Chamberlain encountered two men who took her to a police station.

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Chamberlain led officers back to her captor’s apartment. But when investigators arrived, Evonitz had escaped. Police tracked Evonitz to Sarasota, Florida, but as they closed in on him, Evonitz died by suicide. He was 38.

Once investigators began digging into Evonitz’s past, Chamberlain’s abduction proved to be only part of the story. Evidence recovered from Evonitz’s South Carolina apartment, former Virginia residence and vehicle linked him to three unsolved murders.

On Sept. 9, 1996, Evonitz abducted 16-year-old Sofia Silva from the front steps of her home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, where he and Gower had been living. Her body was discovered about five weeks later in neighboring King George County.

Then, on May 1, 1997, sisters Kristin “Kristi” Lisk, 15, and Kathryn “Kati” Lisk, 12, vanished after returning home from school. Both girls had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Their bodies were discovered five days later in the South Anna River.

Notes discovered by investigators indicated that Evonitz already had his eye on other potential victims, News Media previously reported.

It would be months after Chamberlain’s abduction that Gower learned of her ex-husband’s other victims.

“It felt like it wasn’t real at all,” Gower admitted. “It felt like this was something that happens in the movies. This wasn’t real life. It was very hard to believe that he could hurt anybody. He had never hit me or physically abused me.”

Now, Gower and Chamberlain are looking to Evonitz’s past for answers about whether there could be other victims.

Gower has helped piece together a timeline of Evonitz’s movements during their marriage, providing investigators with dates, locations and old calendars as potential cold cases are examined.

“Of course, he wasn’t always where I thought he was,” said Gower.

Chamberlain, meanwhile, has been investigating whether Evonitz could be responsible for other unsolved crimes, examining cases dating back to the 1980s and tracing his movements during his years in the Navy and in the decades before her own abduction.

“I genuinely think that there is a level of escalation that we see between an indecent exposure [incident] and then three homicides in approximately nine months and then a break before me that is unexplainable to me,” she said.

“Everything’s possible and nothing has been confirmed,” Chamberlain stressed. “It’s a frustrating place to be, but I will not stop searching.”

One potential key to finding answers is DNA.

While investigating cases for the docuseries, Chamberlain said she learned that Evonitz’s DNA profile was not in CODIS, the FBI’s national DNA database. However, she said authorities in Spotsylvania County still have a blood sample that can be provided to law enforcement agencies seeking to compare his DNA with evidence from other cases.

Chamberlain said she hopes Evonitz’s DNA can ultimately be entered into CODIS, allowing for broader comparisons with evidence from unsolved crimes.

“I genuinely believe that there’s no way he only murdered three girls and kidnapped me,” she said. “I don’t think that there’s a world in which that’s true.”

While making the docuseries, Gower learned that Evonitz had kept a photograph of her when she was just 11 years old — years before they began dating — hidden behind another framed picture of her. Gower said it was not a photograph she had taken with her when she left home and that she never knew Evonitz possessed it.

“It’s disturbing enough that he would have 11-year-old me in a picture behind something,” she said.

Decades after learning the truth about the man she married, Gower said she is still trying to make sense of it.

“I don’t think you ever make sense of it,” she said. “There’s no tidy little box to put it in to make it make sense.”

“I’m still grappling with it. I’m still processing.”

An urgent recall has been announced for packaged smoked salmon sold across six states after regulators raised concerns about possible contamination with a potentially dangerous bacterium.

Krasnyi Oktyabr Inc., a New York-based company, is voluntarily recalling its frozen Starfish Seafood Premium Cold Smoked Norwegian Salmon because it may contain Listeria monocytogenes, the bacteria responsible for listeriosis.

The affected product comes in 8-ounce (227-gram) vacuum-sealed plastic packages sold under the Starfish Seafood brand.

The recalled salmon was distributed in New York, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Consumers can identify it by lot number D080-148.

The recall began after the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets detected the potential contamination.

No illnesses have been linked to the product so far.

Krasnyi Oktyabr Inc. is a wholesale distributor rather than the product’s manufacturer. The salmon’s listed country of origin is Latvia.

The company is working with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, has contacted affected customers and asked them to stop using or distributing the salmon. Those customers have also been instructed to notify anyone who may have received the product.

The recall follows another Listeria-related action involving the same company. On Monday, Starfish Seafood Trio — a combination of cold-smoked salmon, halibut and trout — was removed from store shelves over similar contamination concerns.

The FDA is advising anyone who purchased the recalled salmon not to eat it. Customers should return the product to the store where it was bought.

Officials have not determined how the smoked salmon may have become contaminated. Listeria can spread through contact with contaminated soil, water, decaying plant material or animal manure.

Krasnyi Oktyabr Inc.’s seafood trio was recalled Monday because of concerns that it may also have been exposed to Listeria.

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That action covered 8-ounce (227-gram) vacuum-sealed plastic packages sold under the Starfish brand. The products were distributed in New York, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The trio can be identified by lot number D139149161-153 and carries an expiration date of December 1, 2027.

The company has not said how the seafood mix may have come into contact with Listeria. No illnesses were reported in connection with that recall either.

Many foods can harbor the bug, but it is usually found in unpasteurized milk, soft cheeses and ready-to-eat foods, such as pre-packed sandwiches. 

Cooked shellfish, cured meats and fish, including sushi and pre-cut fruit, are also a risk.

While most of the 1,250 Americans infected with listeria each year recover on their own, the infection can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms.

It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

About 250 Americans die of the infection each year, which can occur if the infection spreads beyond the gut and affects the central nervous system.

Drivers may want to keep a closer eye on the road.

New Jersey officials are cautioning commuters about heightened white-tailed deer activity as the animals enter their annual mating season.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said Friday that motorists should be especially alert during the morning and evening commute, when bucks are more likely to cross roads while pursuing does.

Known as the “fall rut,” New Jersey’s peak deer-mating period typically runs from mid-to-late October through the middle of December, according to the agency.

“Collisions with deer pose a very serious safety threat and can cause significant damage to vehicles and possible loss of life,” Dave Golden, assistant commissioner of NJDEP Fish & Wildlife, said in a warning.

Golden urged drivers to remain vigilant, adding that motorists should learn the steps they can take to lower the risk of hitting a deer.

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The danger could increase after daylight saving time ends on Nov. 1, officials said, as reduced visibility makes deer harder to spot along busy roadways.

With more commuters traveling during the darker morning and evening hours, drivers may find themselves on the road at the same time deer are most active during the rut, raising the likelihood of crashes.

About 25,000 vehicle accidents involving deer are reported in New Jersey each year, according to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

New York sees an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 deer-related crashes annually, according to the New York State Department of Transportation, which recently launched a public awareness campaign.

To help avoid a collision, officials recommend slowing down, watching for “Deer Crossing” signs and using high beams when driving at night, when appropriate.

New Jersey’s white-tailed deer population has grown to troublesome levels in many suburban communities. Gothamist reported that roughly 100,000 deer are now estimated to roam across the state.

Alex Murdaugh’s defense is taking a “high-risk” gamble on new DNA testing as it seeks evidence pointing to another possible killer, a prosecutor argued, citing the defense’s own expert.

Judge Debra McCaslin sided with Murdaugh’s attorneys over prosecutors’ objections Friday, approving additional testing of swabs from Maggie Murdaugh’s cellphone and clippings collected from beneath her fingernails. The process is expected to consume nearly all of the remaining testable material. McCaslin said due process requires defendants to have “a meaningful opportunity to present a full and complete defense.”

Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and their son, Paul, at the family’s Moselle property in Colleton County. The South Carolina Supreme Court later overturned those convictions, ruling that former Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill improperly influenced the jury.

His retrial is set to begin April 5, 2027. Murdaugh has continued to deny responsibility for the killings.

The defense plans to hire Othram to perform a Y-STR test. The technique isolates DNA from the Y chromosome, allowing analysts to develop a profile from a male contributor when female DNA is more abundant in the sample.

Murdaugh’s lawyers say all three samples contain unidentified male DNA and want to determine whether the material came from the same man. Defense attorney Phil Barber said the results could exclude certain people as contributors and might offer ancestry information. However, the test cannot distinguish between men who share the same paternal lineage.

The defense estimates that the testing will take about 90 days.

Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor, described the proposed analysis as “high risk” and said it was unlikely to produce meaningful evidence.

“When we talked to their expert, he said, yeah, that’s pretty much a sole source sample. This would be high risk and unlikely to generate anything, and [it] appears that that’s the case, because when we got back the quantification from [Othram], it’s goose eggs on the Y chromosome,” Waters said.

Barber acknowledged that the unidentified male DNA could have an innocent explanation but said its repeated appearance justified further investigation.

“Maybe it’s different male DNA. Maybe it’s the same. Maybe it’s red herrings … But as we keep progressing from one hand to two hands and now the phone, you know, it’s starting to look less and less like a red herring,” Barber said. “If you have an unknown person under both her fingernails and throwing the phone out the side of the road after she’s murdered and it’s not him. I mean, that’s extremely important to the defense.”

Both sides acknowledged that performing the test would leave too little material for any future testing during post-trial proceedings. Murdaugh agreed to proceed despite that consequence.

“To perform the test, there is enough to perform the test, but there’s not enough to perform the test and then have enough left over,” Barber said.

“My client just informed me that he will waive that,” Barber said, referring to any post-conviction retesting.

Former prosecutor Joshua Ritter told News Media that the strategy could backfire. He said the defense might have been better served by leaving the DNA untested and using the unknown male profile at trial to create reasonable doubt.

“They could make an argument, hey you found samples, it was unknown male DNA. That DNA did not come back to our client, correct? There’s somebody else out there who could potentially be linked to this crime,” Ritter said. “Now, unless it comes back that it’s a person who does have some reason to be suspicious, they’ve got a problem because if it comes back to a person with a rock solid alibi or a person with an innocent explanation as to why their DNA would end up underneath her fingernails, they’ve foreclosed any argument that they could have made.”

“It’s one of those situations where sometimes it’s better left unknown for the defense, but they seem to be determined to try to figure out who that DNA belongs to,” he added.

Murdaugh is due back in court on Nov. 13.

News Media reached out to Murdaugh’s defense team for comment.