A woman who survived being kidnapped by a serial killer at 15 escaped by outsmarting his every move, she explained.
Kara Robinson, now 35, from Columbia, South Carolina, said she studied her captor's every move before plotting her escape.
She spent 18 hours held captive by Richard Evonitz after she was abducted from the front of a friend's house.
Kara had been watering flowers in her friend's garden in 2002 when a man pulled up onto the driveway and asked if he could give her some magazines.
Evonitz leaned in to hand the magazines to Kara while at the same time placing a gun to her neck telling her "If you scream, I will shoot you."
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He then forced Kara to get into a plastic container in the back of her car.
But Kara said choosing her to kidnap was his "greatest mistake" as she immediately began making note of details and information - including the plastic container's serial number.
She added: "At that point, my brain shut off my emotions. I just went into survival mode."
Kara was driven to his apartment where she was handcuffed and bound before being drugged and repeatedly raped for 18 hours.
The brave teen said she managed to shut her brain off to the harrowing reality at what was happening to her and focus on how she was going to survive and escape.
Kara went on: "In that apartment, I knew what that man's intentions were for me and while being assaulted, it felt like something that happened to someone else. I kind of shut off my brain and left my body."
She went on to memorise details of his apartment and belongings, including what kitchen magnets he owned to the strands of red hair in his hairbrush.
At one point during the nightmare ordeal, Kara said she was in arms reach length of a gun, but thought twice before making any sudden movements.
She said: "I thought for a moment about grabbing the gun and then I realised there was little chance I was going to win that fight."
Instead, Kara kept gathering information - telling herself she would wait to make a move when he became complacent.
The morning after her kidnap, Kara was able to free herself from her restraints while Evonitz slept alongside her.
After bolting through his front door, she flagged down a car and before being driven to Richland County Sheriff's Department.
After helping to identify her attacker, who fled to Sarasota, Florida, twisted Evonitz killed himself after a police chase.
Kara told Fox News she was left a "little angry" at his taking his own life instead of facing justice, adding: "My feelings have gone back and forth over the years to feeling relief that he killed himself because I never had to go to trial"
It later emerged how Evonitz was a serial killer, with an investigation revealing he had abducted and murdered Sofia Silva, 16, in 1996 and Kristen Lisk, 15, and her sister Kati, 12, in 1997, while living in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
