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Detectives seek links to 1993 killing

 
Published July 4, 2002|Updated Sept. 3, 2005

Hernando detectives are investigating whether a 38-year-old man who shot himself during a standoff with Sarasota police last Thursday might have been linked to the murder of Jennifer Odom in 1993.

Richard Evonitz, 38, who was wanted in the kidnapping and rape of a 15-year-old South Carolina girl, killed himself while surrounded by 15 Sarasota police officers. Detectives in Spotsylvania, Va., are investigating whether Evonitz killed three girls in 1996 and 1997.

Evonitz joins a long list of possible suspects in the killing of Odom, a 12-year-old girl who disappeared from her bus stop in Pasco County and was found six days later in southeast Hernando.

Also, Hernando County joins a growing number of law enforcement agencies wondering whether Evonitz may have been responsible for their unsolved homicides.

"At this point, everything is very preliminary," said Lt. Joe Paez of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

Hernando detectives have no evidence yet that Evonitz ever set foot in the county. They are exchanging information with investigators in Virginia and South Carolina.

They know that Evonitz was stationed aboard the USS Koelsch in 1987 at the Mayport Naval Station near Jacksonville, about 180 miles northeast of Hernando County. Also, they know that Evonitz was charged in 1987 with committing a lewd and lascivious act in the presence of a child in Clay County.

Evonitz told investigators then that he had the problem of masturbating in front of girls, and that when he felt the urge, he would drive around looking for young, short girls with brown hair, according to reports from the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

A task force of FBI agents and detectives from South Carolina and Virginia is working to construct a time line of Evonitz's whereabouts during the last 15 years, said FBI spokesman Lawrence Barry of Virginia.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday that he did not yet know where Evonitz had lived in Florida other than the navy ship. Nor did Capt. Michael Timm of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office.

A recent search of Evonitz's apartment contained newspaper clippings and some handwritten notes about the death of two Spotsylvania girls, who were sisters, authorities said. Before Evonitz shot himself, he confessed to his sister that he had killed someone, authorities said.

Cathy Nahirny, the supervisor of the case analysis division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia, said on Wednesday that she had traced Evonitz to addresses in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Illinois and California, but she said she could not release exact addresses because of the ongoing investigation.

Navy spokesman Lt. Whitney DeLoach said he had requested Evonitz's file to see his exact service dates and assignments but did not yet have the information. Even so, he said, he likely could not or would not produce the dates of when Evonitz was in port, where his stops were or when he took vacations.

This is not the first time Hernando detectives have worked with colleagues in Spotsylvania.

In 2000, they heard about an 11-year-old girl who was abducted while waiting for a school bus by a stranger driving a pickup truck. The girl escaped and provided a description of the suspect, but Hernando detectives never found a link between that case and the killing of Jennifer Odom in 1993.

Paez said investigators will continue investigating Evonitz. The Sheriff's Office has no DNA evidence in the Odom case, Paez said, so linking a suspect will be difficult.

_ Jamie Jones covers law enforcement and courts in Hernando County and can be reached at 352-754-6114. Send e-mail to jjonessptimes.com.

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