Jerome Blake, 15, of Massaponax remembers that former neighbor Richard Marc Evonitz, now a suspect in the Lisk-Silva murder cases, didn't socialize much when he and his wife lived in this South Fork Court home (background) in Spotsylvania's South Oaks subdivision. ram Visit the Photo Place

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Neighbors: Man kept to himself

Keith Raba had cookouts and dinners with Richard Mark Evonitz, never thinking he might be a serial killer.

By KELBY HARTSON CARR
The Free Lance-Star

Date published: 7/1/2002

Keith Raba and his wife used to have cookouts with next-door neighbor Richard Marc Evonitz, never realizing they might be dining with a serial killer.

"We were good neighbors with each other," Raba said yesterday. "This has come as a total shock to my wife and I. I would have never thought."

Evonitz killed himself Thursday in Sarasota, Fla., following a high-speed chase. Police had tracked him down after he abducted a 15-year-old South Carolina girl at gunpoint Monday evening, then took her to his home and raped her repeatedly. Police said she escaped Tuesday morning after Evonitz fell asleep.

Authorities are investigating whether Evonitz also committed three high-profile Spotsylvania County murders--those of 16-year-old Sofia Silva in September 1996 and two sisters, Kristin Lisk, 15, and Kati Lisk, 12, in May 1997.

Raba said investigators visited him and his wife at home Wednesday and questioned them about Evonitz.

Raba and his wife moved to South Oaks subdivision near Massaponax in February 1996. He said Evonitz and his wife, Bonnie, moved into the Spotsylvania neighborhood soon afterward.

Although the two couples were friendly, Raba said Evonitz wasn't close to other neighbors.

"He wasn't very outgoing in the neighborhood," Raba said. "He didn't talk to everybody."

Jerome Blake lived a few doors down from Evonitz and said he never spoke to him.

"He was just one of those people you never really see," said Blake, now 15. "Maybe once or twice a week, you might spot him coming home. You'd never really see him outside in his yard."

Blake said all the neighbors he has spoken to are shocked by the news. "Everyone's just like, 'Wow. Who would have known?'"

Now, in hindsight, Raba believes there were subtle clues about Evonitz. When the two couples talked politics, Evonitz argued vehemently against the death penalty. He harshly criticized the criminal-justice system as being too tough.

"Obviously, we know why now," Raba said.

Evonitz would have turned 39 today. His wife, a hairdresser, was "a lot younger than he was," Raba said. "She was just barely above drinking age."

Bonnie disappeared while the couple lived next door, Raba said. He said Evonitz told him she had met someone else over the Internet and moved to California.

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Date published: 7/1/2002