Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@bonnielouwriter/FBI
Topics: Crime, Sex and Relationships, Social Media, TikTok, True crime, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Crime, Sex and Relationships, Social Media, TikTok, True crime, US News
A woman has revealed how she found out her partner was a serial killer.
In sixth grade, Bonnie Lou Gower ended up living next door to one of her 'close' friends, who had an older brother in the Navy. She ended up getting to know him, 'had a crush on him' and they started dating when she was 16.
In a series of videos posted to her TikTok page from Tuesday (4 June), Gower explained by the time she was 17, her friend's brother was 25, but her family 'felt comfortable' with the age gap given they already knew his family.
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"Things moved really quickly and before I knew it he asked me to marry him," she continues. Gower said yes before the pair married in August, 1988 and moved to Maine.
She added: "And everything was fine at first, honestly, I was happy to be married and I had this probably a pretty immature fantasy about what married life meant."
But in the years that followed, Gower's relationship with her husband - who's name is Richard Evonitz - would break down.
Soon into their marriage, Gower says Evonitz 'very quickly took charge' assigning her with cooking and cleaning duties.
Gower 'worked really hard to please him' and notes she was 'happy to do that' because she loved him, but within the 'first month' she says 'things began to shift'. She says Evonitz would 'pick' on her about her weight, telling her she was 'fat'.
The first year of their marriage continued to be 'rocky' but 'by the summer of 1989' the pair set out on a new adventure, where 'everything seemed really fun and romantic' at first but things quickly 'shifted' again, Evonitz restricting how much Gower told people about their problems and 'limiting' her calls to her family.
In November 1992, Evonitz left the military, they moved to Virginia and Gower noticed him having 'a lot of mood switches'.
"One day he came home he was really frantic, he was just very anxious and beside himself and he came in the door and asked me: 'If I asked you to fly out of the country with me, would you do it?'"
At the time, Gower thought he was just 'really stressed out about work' and the transition out of the military and their move - which Evonitz had really 'sold' to her, despite her family being in San Diego.
Evonitz was out of work for 'about six months' and he 'fell into a bit of a depression,' becoming more 'moody' and talking about 'smoking pot' - something Gower disagreed with but felt unable to talk to anyone about it.
The pair both ended up getting jobs and started saving to buy a house - but ultimately their relationship broke down and by the time Gower was 25 they had divorced.
And five years later, Gower - who had remarried and had two children - made a horrifying discovery when the FBI showed up at her door.
The author, writer and blogger says they told her Evonitz was a serial killer 'who murdered three girls' - 'one of which while you were still married' - and she found out 20 years later he was 'actually murdering people' before they even got married and 'throughout' their entire marriage.
Indeed, in 2002, shortly before Evonitz killed himself while surrounding by police, Richland County, S.C., Sheriff Leon Lott reported, as per the Washington Post, Evonitz admitted to killing someone and committing 'more crimes than he can remember' to his sister.
He was being investigated for the abduction and rape of 15-year-old Kara Robinson in Richland County, South Carolina and the deaths of at least three teenage girls in Spotsylvania County, Virginia and was suspected for being involved in several other murders.
UNILAD has contacted Bonnie Lou Gower for comment.