Sofia Silva & Kati Lisk Sisters

On September 9, 1996, 16-year-old Sofia Silva was abducted from the front yard of her home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia while waiting for the school bus. Her body was found approximately five weeks later along a rural road. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered.

On May 1, 1997, sisters Kati (15) and Kristin Lisk (12) disappeared from outside their home in nearby Spotsylvania County. Their bodies were found five days later in the South Anna River in Hanover County. Both had been sexually assaulted and murdered. The proximity in time and location to the Silva case immediately suggested a connection.

The cases terrified the Spotsylvania community and sparked one of Virginia's largest investigations. In June 2002, a kidnapping survivor in South Carolina identified her abductor as Richard Marc Evonitz, a 38-year-old man who had lived in Spotsylvania during the time of the murders. When police located Evonitz, he fled and died by suicide during a police chase in Sarasota, Florida.

After Evonitz's death, DNA evidence linked him to the abduction of the South Carolina girl. Investigators found evidence at his former Spotsylvania residence connecting him to the Silva and Lisk cases, though direct forensic links were complicated by the condition of the victims' remains. While Evonitz is considered the prime suspect, the cases remain technically open because he was never charged or tried.