We love the Christmas holidays, for the most part (those of us who are lucky to be off work that is). But by the end of them, the bickering between our children makes the return to the routine of school very welcome. Here are eight things your kids will almost certainly fight about over the […]
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Tadhg Fleming and his wife Alannah have been a couple long before his online stardom, but she doesn’t appear in many of his videos. However, just because she doesn’t appear much in his viral social media videos doesn’t mean she isn’t supportive of his career. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Alannah, who has […]
The post Tadhg Fleming praises ‘supportive’ wife Alannah and reveals their one rule for baby Rae on social media appeared first on RollerCoaster.
TK MAXX is selling a posh face cream scanning for 80 per cent less than Harrods, who previously flogged it for £200.
Rodial Rose Gold Moisturiser is a “luxurious youth cream, enriched with 24 carat gold technology, white rose fresh cells and vitamin c”.
Customers can buy the 50ml product directly from Rodial’s website for £110, marked down from £200.
As stated on Roial’s website: “The powerful blend of innovative ingredients reinforced with anti-ageing superstar vitamin c works to deeply hydrate whilst visually redesigning face structure.
“Wrinkles look softened, skin’s elasticity and firmness are enhanced, contours are defined resulting in a visibly youthful glowing lift.”
Or, customers can nab the item for just £39.99 from TK Maxx.
Shoppers can save £160 with this 80 per cent discount, plus there’s still time for it to arrive before Christmas.
And the savings don’t stop there – TX Maxx has around 46 Rodial items on its website.
Customers could get their hands on Rodial’s Vitamin C Brighten & Renew Deluxe Set (65ml) for 77 per cent less than it’s repeat purchase rate.
The set includes four pieces, as listed below:
Instead of paying £84 for the product, customers can nab it for just £24.99.
The set is meant to provide a vitamin c glow by means of a face masks, facial drops, and a light facial cream.
And if that wasn’t enough, another Rodial product marked down by a hefty amount on TK Maxx’s website is the Pink Diamond Cleansing Balm.
This 100ml balm “delivers a luminous glow” as it’s diamond powder infused.
It also contains almond oil, rice bran oil, and vitamin e.
The product was selling for £45 but now it can be yours for 71 per cent less, at just £12.99,
Start by shopping in your local store on the right day, which, according to one ex-worker is a Tuesday or Thursday.
Dale O’Keeffe told The Sun this is when items that are already in clearance are reduced further.
The former staff member said Fridays are worth a punt too as this is when stores are at their fullest ahead of the weekend rush.
Dale said most TK Maxx shops twice a year have a “final clearance” as well – which sees massive reduction on clearance stock.
The two periods are usually around two weeks long and tend to come in January and July.
Dale said he would see items that started out at £40 reduced to as little as 30p.
Dale also advised shoppers check out the home furnishings section where you can find some serious hidden treasures.
Plus, he said heading to bigger stores like the Bullring in Birmingham or Trafford Center in Manchester, could see you snap up “Gold Label” items.
These are essentially the biggest designer items, reduced by hundreds of pounds.
SUN Savers Editor Lana Clements explains how to find a cut-price item and bag a bargain…
Sign up to loyalty schemes of the brands that you regularly shop with.
Big names regularly offer discounts or special lower prices for members, among other perks.
Sales are when you can pick up a real steal.
Retailers usually have periodic promotions that tie into payday at the end of the month or Bank Holiday weekends, so keep a lookout and shop when these deals are on.
Sign up to mailing lists and you’ll also be first to know of special offers. It can be worth following retailers on social media too.
When buying online, always do a search for money off codes or vouchers that you can use vouchercodes.co.uk and myvouchercodes.co.uk are just two sites that round up promotions by retailer.
Scanner apps are useful to have on your phone. Trolley.co.uk app has a scanner that you can use to compare prices on branded items when out shopping.
Bargain hunters can also use B&M’s scanner in the app to find discounts in-store before staff have marked them out.
And always check if you can get cashback before paying which in effect means you’ll get some of your money back or a discount on the item.
KELLY CATES is set to QUIT her Sky Sports role to become a host on Match of the Day, according to reports.
She will become one of three presenters on the country’s flagship football show after Gary Lineker steps down at the end of the season.
THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY..
The Sun is your go to destination for the best football, boxing and MMA news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheSunFootball and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheSunFootball.
IF you’re still adding festive touches around your home, Dollar Tree has just the thing.
Shoppers have heaped on the praise for a budget-friendly buy that “screams Christmas.”
Dollar Tree customers can pick up a Decorative Christmas Plush Gnome for $3 each.
The beloved character is available in a variety of stores but it’s unlikely you’ll find a better deal than this one.
Each tiny gnome measures 16 inches in height.
They are available in a variety of looks, including a classic Santa suit, reindeer antlers, and elf ears.
“Nothing screams Christmas more than short, adorable, bearded men scattered about your home,” said the manufacturers.
Similar decor is available from Michaels, though each gnome will set you back $13.99.
The “whimsical holiday decor” from Dollar Tree is available in a total of eight styles.
You can customize each gnome, changing their clothes and other features such as their ears.
Manufacturers recommend mixing and matching to create your own unique “stout, chubby icon.”
Each gnome is weighted with sand to keep them in place, making them easy to display.
The Christmas gnomes received an average rating of four stars from customers.
They shared their experiences with the product in the Dollar Tree review section.
“I bought 10 of these yesterday to give as door prizes for the Christmas party and am going back to get more!” wrote one shopper.
They added that the gnomes are “beautiful for the price!”
“Precious and great quality!! I would highly recommend buying these,” said another person.
Despite the name of the store, Dollar Tree recently added items that cost more than $1 to its inventory.
Most items at the store cost no more than $1.25, but items in the Dollar Tree Plus section cost up to $5.
Dollar Tree introduced Plus aisles to 100 locations in 2019 as part of an effort to diversify its products.
By 2022, Dollar Tree had added the items to over 1,500 locations.
“We believe testing additional price points above $1 for Dollar Tree products will enable us over time to expand our assortments, introduce new products and meet more of our customers’ everyday needs,” president and CEO Michael Witynski said in a statement.
“Our brand promise is that customers get great value for what they spend at Dollar Tree. We will continue to be fiercely protective of that promise, regardless of the price point.”
“Beautiful Gnomes! Absolutely love them! Great price!” commented a third buyer.
“These are so cute. Everyone loves them. Great value and just a cute decoration,” wrote another Dollar Tree customer.
“Adorable Christmas gnomes. Very well made and an amazing value for the money,” said one shopper.
“Lots of detail that you would expect to pay at least double the price. Highly recommend.”
“These are adorable gnomes for the holidays. I love them,” agreed another commenter.
THE ‘Angel of Death’ security guard with a “grudge against migrants” faced life in prison today after gunning down five men in northern France.
Paul D, aged 22, was in custody in a police station in Dunkirk following a gun rampage close to a makeshift camp full of men, women and children hoping to reach Britain on small boats.
Two Iraqui Kurds from the settlement at Loon-Plage, a suburb of the port city, were murdered on Saturday night, just after Paul D killed his former boss.
Transport company chief Paul Dekeister, 29, was gunned down in front of his wife and other family members at nearby Wormhout.
An investigating source said: “The killer arrived at the Dekeister’s farmhouse at around 3pm on Saturday and killed Mr Dekeister infront of his family.
“Mr Dekeister had employed the suspect in a security capacity, and was involved in a dispute.
“After the killing, the suspect got into his car and made his way to the area around the migrant camp at Loon-Plage.
“It is thought that he had a grudge against the migrants living along the coast, and wanted to settle some scores.”
Paul D, a Dunkirk born French national, saw the two Kurds standing by the side of a road, close to the camp, and shot them both at point-blank-range.
“He left them no chance of survival,” said the source, who identified the men by their first names as Marc, a father of two, aged 33, and Aurélien, who was 37 and also married with children.
Both were in a service vehicle belonging to the Eamus Cork Security security company, which assists the police in patrolling the coast.
They had a dog with them at the time, and the animal was unharmed.
All those killed received “precise shots to the head, suggesting the killer had a lot of experience with firearms,” said the investigating source.
Special forces police were called to a camp on the Mardyck Road soon after 4pm on Saturday afternoon after early reports of ‘a lone gunman killing people,’ said the source.
All the shootings took place within less than an hour of each other, he added.
The man then drove some eight miles to the coastal town Ghyvelde, and turned himself into gendarmes at around 5pm, before confessing to all five murders.
Four weapons were found in Paul D.’s car, and he was the legal owner of a Smith and Wesson 44 Remington rifle because he was registered as a hunter, said a gendarmerie spokesman.
Confirming the arrest, a spokesman for Ghyvelde gendarmes said the man ‘was not known to police,’ suggesting he had no previous criminal record.
On Sunday, the Dunkirk prosecutor opened an investigation into a quintuple murder, saying Paul D. faced life in prison.
David Calcoen, the Mayor of Wormhout, said: ‘I am stunned by what has happened. ‘I cannot understand how this could have happened.’
Identities of migrant victims were not immediately released, said Eric Rommel, the Mayor of Loon Plage.
FEARS have grown following mystery “drones” flying over the US as Donald Trump calls for them to be shot out of the sky.
Hysteria and conspiracy theories has swept the country as multiple sightings have been made over homes and military bases.
Firefighters have been ordered to wear hazmat suits to protect themselves from the mysterious flying objects.
Lawmakers and residents have questioned the source of these mystery devices but officials have been left stumped.
The FBI has been unable to confirm who or what is behind the apparent drone descent while Trump lashed out at President Joe Biden for his silence.
Trump launched his scathing attack on Biden and offered his solution to the problem, in a post on Truth Social.
“Mystery drone sightings all over the country,” the President-elect wrote.
“Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so!Let the public know, and now.
“Otherwise, shoot them down!”
The Pentagon and FBI has claimed there is no threat to the public but have been unable to explain the bizarre phenomena.
Suspected drone sightings have been reported in multiple East Coast states including New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
The worrying unidentified flying objects have even been spotted above a space site in California and a military air base in Virginia, near Washington D.C.
A sighting was even reported at the Trump-owned Bedminster golf course, in New Jersey.
A Trump advisor issued a warning based on a growing conspiracy theory.
Charlie Kirk, 31, a conservative political activist claimed the sightings could be linked to a Project Blue Beam conspiracy.
‘WE ARE F****D. THE DRONES ARE PROJECT BLUE BEAM,’ Kirk wrote in a X post.
Drone sightings have been reported all across the East Coast since they were first seen in Morris County, New Jersey, in mid-November.
mid-November.
Some of the locations where the drones were reported include:
“LOOK FOR VIDS OF THEM TRANSFORMING FROM BALLS OF LIGHT TO PLANES WHEN FILMED TO SEE FOR YOURSELF.
“THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT INVESTIGATING. THEY ARE DOING THIS. WHATEVER YOU SEE IN THE COMING DAYS IS NOT GOOD.”
The Project Blue Beam conspiracy claims officials are attempting to implement a new worldwide religion with an Antichrist at it’s head.
This theory, which gained prominence in the 1990s, alledges technology would be used to mimic a supposedly miraculous or supernatural event to get people to follow an Antichrist.
A New Jersey mayor fueled panic after he revealed his fire department was briefed by state officials to wear hazmat suits in case these mystery objects crash down to earth.
Belleville Mayor Michael Melham revealed the shock update on Friday.
“That guidance does say two different things: First of all, if there is a downed drone in our vicinity, we are immediately to call the bomb squad of our county,” Melham said on Fox News.
“And second, our fire department has been instructed to make sure they wear hazmat suits.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy also called on Biden to be more proactive on this issue.
He said: “New Jersey residents deserve more concrete information about these UAS sightings and what is causing them.
“I respectfully urge you to continue to direct the federal agencies involved to work together until they uncover answers as to what is behind the UAS sightings.”
Jeff Van Drew, a Republican Representative of New Jersey, accused the Pentagon of hiding the truth about the mysterious drones from the American public.
An Iranian ship was reportedly spotted off the New Jersey shore, day before the apparent drone sightings happened.
Van Drew launched a wild claim that these mystery objects were being sent from the supposed Iranian vessel, citing “high sources”.
“Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones,” Van Drew said.
“That mothership is off… the East Coast of the United States of America. They’ve launched drones into everything that we can see or hear.
“And again, these are from high sources. I don’t say this lightly.”
The congressman echoed Trump’s statement and called for the flying objects to be “shot down”.
The Pentagon refuted Van Drew’s claims and said there was no evidence of an Iranian vessel.
New Jersey’s senator Andy Kim did not discount the current drone theory after his drone finding mission with cops.
Kim and local police investigated the puzzling unidentified objects as he shared his own theory.
He believed some of the reported sightings from the public could have been planes.
Despite this, the senator has not dismissed growing fears around possible drones flying across the country.
“I don’t discount others that may have seen actual drone activity, and not all I saw is fully explained by flight paths, but much of it was,” he wrote on X.
“We have a lot of distrust in politics/government right now, and we need federal gov to respect the right for the public to be informed.”
ASSAD’S chemical attack victims have revealed the horrors of “burned bodies” while prison survivors have forgotten their own names as the hunt is on for the tyrant’s puppet thugs.
In the 53-year-rule of the Assad’s, Syria was shut off from the rest of the world – but now the heinous crimes committed under the brutal regime are finally being brought to light.
Death was a regular occurrence in Syria, specifically in a region called Ghouta.
This was an opposition-held area on the outskirts of Damascus, where in 2018, Syrian jets flew and rained chemicals over innocent people in one of its towns, Douma.
Two yellow cylinders were dropped from an air force chopper and went crashing through the top floor of one apartment building while the other landed on a balcony.
The people of the town had adjusted to the deafening sounds of relentless airstrikes – but had been less familiar with the hissing of chlorine gas that escaped the canisters.
In the regular air raids evil Assad ordered over the town, the people looked to find shelter in basements.
But as killer chlorine is heavier than air, the gas sank down through the storeys and below buildings into two basements.
At least 43 people choked to death from the heinous gas attack, with their blistered bodies found to be blue and black when civil defence workers tragically recovered them.
The last rebel group that were fighting in the Douma region surrendered to the regime a day after the gas attack.
Douma has silently grieved for six years following the inhumane assault, but after the spectacular fall of Bashar al-Assad last week, victims are finally able to tell their stories.
One man called Abdulhadi Sariel, 64, lived on the opposite side of the street from where the chlorine cylinders crashed through.
He said his family only survived because they stayed on a higher floor – but one of his daughters still suffers from respiratory problems because of it.
He told the Observer: “No one in that basement came out alive.”
“Their bodies turned to black, their clothes went green and were burnt, they crumbled and stuck to their bodies.”
Abdulhadi even described how the victims clothes “looked like wood,” stressing just how strong, deadly and inhumane the attack was.
He added: “We threw out all of our clothes but [you can still see the effect] on the curtains.
“We can escape the bullets and the tanks, but chemicals travel through the air. We were afraid, children were afraid.”
The Syrian government allowed OPCW investigators to visit Douma a few weeks later, but threatened to kill survivors if they told visitors the truth on what had happened.
Instead, residents like Abdulhadi were told to say that people had died from inhaling smoke and dust – not the raining chemicals.
He explained: “The commanders said ‘if you say a word other than what we tell you, we will kill you’.
“But I always kept the curtains [as evidence] for this moment, when the truth would come out.”
Since Syria spiralled into years of bloodshed under Assad’s regime in 2011, at least 300,000 people have been killed and 100,000 have gone missing.
Aside from being killed in heinous gas attacks or killed on the streets by Assad’s soldiers, citizens would disappear, taken from their homes – presumed to be detained in one of the tyrant’s brutal prisons.
Now the dynasty has spectacularly fallen after Islamist rebels led by Hayat al Tahir al-Sham (HTS) captured key cities in the country, the prisons have been opened and the surviving detainees released.
But the atrocities of the jails have become unveiled, with tortured bodies and piles of clothes discovered at the hellhole sites.
Thousands of mothers, fathers, siblings and grandparents have poured through the doors of hospitals to see the survivors, hoping to find their missing family members.
But this is proving to be devastatingly hard as the prisoners from the jails are so physically and psychologically traumatised they don’t know who they are.
Syrian citizens have been arguing amongst themselves over patients and whether they are their relatives.
Meanwhile the freed inmates can’t even confirm their own identity due to what they have been put through.
The Sunday Times visited a Damascus hospital where a doctor said a group of five or six men had been brought in from the infamous Sednaya prison.
All had endured such physical and psychological trauma that half of them didn’t know who they were.
One young man could only tragically refer to his prison number: 27.
Dr Muaz Ataya said: “He didn’t remember his name.
“They have no names in the prison. They have only numbers.”
Meanwhile another patient couldn’t even utter any words – terrified of being subjected to the kind of torture he endured while locked up if he spoke.
Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and severe beatings from guards, it’s claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
A human iron press was even discovered that was allegedly used to crush prisoners to death in Sednaya – unveiled in videos shared by rebels as they liberated prisoners.
They also found dozens of red rope nooses used for mass hangings in an execution room.
Other disturbing accounts say the mass hangings occurred once or twice a week on a Monday and Wednesday – chillingly in the middle of the night.
As some family members continue to remain hopeful their relatives are alive, some have been met with the horrific reality that the bodies of loved ones could be in a morgue.
Horrifying images shows a morgue filled with the brutalised bodies of Bashar al-Assad’s final torture victims.
Family members have had to queue to see the bodies of tortured inmates to determine if any of them could be their missing loved ones.
Syrian citizens are captured in line to see the bodies with their hands covering their noses – protecting themselves from the stench of death.
The bodies found are believed to be some of the last torture victims under the tyrant’s brutal regime, CNN’s Clarissa Ward reports.
One woman, who couldn’t find her missing mother, brother, or husband, is seen in footage wailing as she throws her hands up in despair.
A doctor is captured desperately helping heartbroken people to find their loved ones, a lot of whom are showing pictures of who they’re looking for.
Footage shows him unzipping body bags while mothers, fathers and siblings howl with grief.
By Annabel Bate, Foreign News Reporter
SEDNAYA Prison – otherwise known as the Human Slaughterhouse – was a military prison near Damascus, Syria.
Operated by the government of Syrian Arab Republic, the hellhole prison was used to hold thousands of inmates that were civilian detainees, anti-government rebels and political prisoners.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that an overwhelming 30,000 detainees were horrifically executed under the Assad regime in Sednaya.
Guards would use torture as a killing technique, as well as have mass executions.
Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and sever beatings from guards, it’s claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
Other disturbing accounts say the mass hangings occurred once or twice a week on a Monday and Wednesday – chillingly in the middle of the night.
The unbelievable practices, which human rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were authorised at the highest level of the Syrian government under Assad.
The doctor points towards the bodies and says: “Take a look, this is the crime of the regime.
“Even in the Middle Ages they didn’t torture people like this.”
The corpses are currently only identifiable by number – proving the overwhelming amount that were recovered when the rebels stormed Assad’s inhumane prisons.
Meanwhile another man points out by the state of the corpses clothes, suggesting they may well have been detainees at the infamous Sednaya prison.
Not everyone will be given the closure of their loved ones deaths, as Assad’s military intelligence burnt documents and destroyed hard drives before fleeing from the rebels.
But the tyrant’s soldiers didn’t reach a thick book found in the hellhole Sednaya prison however, containing thousands of names of the dead.
A heart-wrenching 29,000 names were counted in the pages and were reportedly tracked over the course of a few years.
And now Assad’s secret files, said to be “bigger than Nuremberg”, have been unveiled as the hunt for the perpetrators begins.
The race is on to track down tyrant Assad’s puppets who inflicted his reign of terror in Syria.
While Putin concocted the plot to smuggle Assad and his family out of Syria and personally granted them political asylum, thousands of the tyrants military and security officials are fleeing too.
But the evidence that holds the cold-blooded murderers accountable has been kept throughout the years in a stack of brown cardboard boxes behind a locked door top-secret office in a European city.
The 406 boxes seen by The Sunday Times contain more than 1.3 million documents that could land Assad and his henchmen in prison with lifetime sentences.
The archives have been kept for over a decade by 61-year-old Canadian lawyer and war crimes investigator Bill Wiley.
Wiley’s organisation is the Commission for International Justice and Accountability that’s funded by the British, German and US governments.
The lawyer has had a team of Syrians on the ground taking life-threatening risks to garner evidence before smuggling it out the country.
They used various means of transports disguised as different professions to get the shocking files to a safe place – with some team members kidnapped or even killed.
Wiley said: “This is the most documented repression in history.
“Like the Nazis but with computers.”
And like the Nazi regime it was, with Assad’s father Hafez who ruled brutal power from 1970 to 2000 is believed to have been advised in various torture methods by a former Nazi, Alois Brunner.
The sick Brunner found refuge in Damascus after serving as deputy to the Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.
The papers go through 50 years of the regime, containing details of imprisonments, executions, disappearance, sexual abuse and torture as well as chemical strikes on citizens.
Wiley said that from the documents it’s clear that “Assad was directing things” but believes that he will not escape his crimes.
The lawyer added: “It may take time but two weeks ago who would have believed Assad would be out of power and fleeing.
“The world has changed and everything is possible.”
IF you’re still in the market for a Christmas tree, look no further because Dollar Tree has got you covered.
Shoppers can now pick an artificial tree for the price of a cup of coffee.
So if you’re still on the hunt for the perfect tree but don’t want to break the budget, it may be time to pay a visit to your local Dollar Tree.
The Un-Lit PVC Christmas Tree is currently available for just $5 from the chain store.
And it comes in two different colors so you can pick whichever matches your home best.
Shoppers have the choice between a traditional green or a bright white look.
The artificial tree measures four feet and has a 23-inch diameter, making it ideal for smaller spaces.
“Transform your home into a winter wonderland with this Un-Lit Artificial Christmas Tree,” manufacturers said.
The budget-friendly Christmas tree has received an average rating of 4.7 stars out of five from customers.
They shared their thoughts on the item in the comments section of the site.
“I got two of each color, I really wish I would have gotten more,” wrote one shopper.
“Next year I’m getting an entire case.”
“Awesome if you want a tree in your room, if you want a small tree or are on a short budget [it’s] perfect,” said another customer.
They summed up the budget buy as the “best fake tree in the world.”
“I bought this Christmas tree to prepare my room for the Christmas season and beat my family’s best-decorated room for under $35,” commented a third person.
“It added so much coziness and Christmas joy to my room.
“I would DEFINITELY recommend this tree, it is very full and mind-blowing to be sold for only $5!
Despite the name of the store, Dollar Tree recently added items that cost more than $1 to its inventory.
Most items at the store cost no more than $1.25, but items in the Dollar Tree Plus section cost up to $5.
Dollar Tree introduced Plus aisles to 100 locations in 2019 as part of an effort to diversify its products.
By 2022, Dollar Tree had added the items to over 1,500 locations.
“We believe testing additional price points above $1 for Dollar Tree products will enable us over time to expand our assortments, introduce new products and meet more of our customers’ everyday needs,” president and CEO Michael Witynski said in a statement.
“Our brand promise is that customers get great value for what they spend at Dollar Tree. We will continue to be fiercely protective of that promise, regardless of the price point.”
“My family did not believe me when I told them it was only $5; they even got themselves one!
“My favorite is the white tree; it looks great with gold ornaments.”
“These Christmas trees are AMAZING for just $5,” agreed another Dollar Tree fan.
“We plan on buying them for all of our preschoolers for our Christmas event.”
“They look so nice!! And for $5??? You can’t beat that!” said one buyer.
GAGGED, handcuffed and her legs bound with rope, tears sprang to 15-year-old Kara Robinson’s eyes as she desperately scoured her captor’s flat trying to figure out an escape plan.
The school girl had endured unimaginable suffering – forced into a car at gunpoint, then sexually assaulted and tortured for 18 hours by evil rapist and kidnapper Richard Evonitz, 38.
If that wasn’t bad enough, she would have been even more petrified if she’d known Evonitz was already a serial killer – responsible for the rape and murder of at least three other young innocent girls previously.
The odds were undoubtedly stacked against her.
However abducting brave Kara, now 38, would prove to be Evonitz’s downfall, as she would miraculously escape and consequently bring an end to the monster’s reign of terror.
And how she did it was also remarkable.
Putting aside her terror and panic, Kara memorised even the tiniest details to help identify her attacker, even remembering the serial number on the inside of the plastic container he had forced her into.
For Kara it was a chance encounter on June 24 2002 that changed her life as she knew it.
She’d spent the night at her best friend Heather’s house, and they had plans to go to the lake that day after completing some chores.
Kara started to water the garden while Heather took a shower.
However when going out into the garden Heather discovered the hosepipe was still running – but there was no sign of Kara.
Speaking on Hayu documentary, Escaping Captivity: The Kara Robinson Story, Kara’s mum Debra says: “I was at lunch and I got a call from Heather and she told me Kara was missing. She said she was in the front yard and [then was] gone.
“Heather was completely hysterical. She knew Kara would not just walk away.
“When I was driving to Heather’s house I just really knew something bad had happened. I could feel it in my heart.”
Recalling the events of that morning, Kara says: “I was outside watering the flowers and I noticed a car on the way out of the neighbourhood.
“It was a green trans am – such a cool car. I kept watering the flowers and I saw the car come back into the neighbourhood.
“A guy gets out of the car. He said ‘hey, how are you doing? I have these magazines’ and then he asked if my parents were home.
“I told him this was my friend’s house… and said her mum’s not home right now.
“At that point the man asked if he could give me the magazines.
“When I said yes he leaned in to give them to me and as he was leaning in I felt a red flag somewhere in my head.
“At the same time… I felt a gun press to the side of my neck.
“He said ‘if you scream I’ll shoot you. You’re going to come with me’. I think I felt a moment of terror but I knew I just needed to do what he told me to do.
“I looked in the back seat and there’s a giant plastic storage container. He said ‘get in the container’.
“At that point my brain shut off my emotions. I just went into survival mode.”
Heather called her mother, who reported Kara, who lived in Lexington County, South Carolina, missing to the local police.
Once in the car, Kara was trapped inside the storage container, unable to see where she was being taken – but she knew her life was in danger.
Kara says: “I thought he was going to assault me and that my life could possibly be at risk if I did not take action.
“I knew I had to be my own victor and that I had to save myself.
“I had to get as much information about this person and my surroundings as I can so that I can escape and so that I can identify this person when I do.
“One of the first things I locked into my brain was a serial number on the container itself.
“We drove for a little while [then] he took the lid off the container and he told me that he was going to restrain me and he put a gag in my mouth… handcuffs around my wrists and rope on my feet.”
September 9 1996: Evonitz abducted Sofia Silva, 16, from the porch of her home.
Her body was found a month later.
May 1 1997: Evonitz abducted sisters Kristin Michelle Lisk, 15, and Kathryn Nicole Lisk, 12, from their front garden.
Their bodies were found five days later.
June 24 2002: Kara is kidnapped and held captive and repeatedly assaulted for 18 hours by Evonitz, but miraculously escapes.
June 27 2002: After a high-speed chase Evonitz shoots himself, dying immediately.
August 2002: Spotsylvania County Sheriff Ronald Knight announces that Evonitz was responsible for the crimes.
Once they arrived at Evonitz’s flat, he snuck Kara in under the cover of darkness.
Kara recalls: “He opened the container and told me if I promised not to scream or yell he would take the gag out of my mouth.
“I looked around and noticed we were in a living room.
“There was a wall with some small animal cages, fish, lizards. There was a guinea pig, there was at least one bird.
‘He told me to come with him and we went through a door. Inside the bedroom there was a big blanket hanging above the bed with a wolf on it.
While I was being assaulted it felt like something that happened to someone else. I shut off my brain and left my body.
Kara Robinson
“He told me he was going to tell me what the rules were going to be while I was there.
“The first rule was that he would always have a gun nearby and I had to listen to what he said or there would be consequences.
“He also told me while I was there I was going to have to call him daddy.
“He started asking me questions… When he asked me about my boyfriend and about my family and my friends… I kinda broke down a little bit into tears.
“It was very real for me in that moment I may never get to see them again.”
Over the course of 18 hours, Kara was held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted at the hands of her captor.
She says: “When I started crying my abductor told me to lay down in the bed and I could just feel panic in my whole body.
“I knew what was coming next. I knew what this man’s intentions were for me.
“While I was being assaulted it felt like something that happened to someone else. I shut off my brain and left my body.
“After that we went into the bathroom and he made me take a shower.
“That’s when I noticed some hairspray, I noticed feminine hygiene products. I noticed a hairbrush with long red hair in it. I just remember thinking there was a woman that lived here.”
She was right – however at that time his wife was on holiday at Disneyland with his mother – and had no idea the man she married was a monster.
Kara knew she had to play a strategic game if she was to get out of this alive, saying: “I knew that if I was easy to get along with he would be more likely to let his guard down at some point.
“When it was time for dinner… I said ‘is there anything I can do while you’re making your food?’ and I swept his kitchen.
“I used that as an opportunity to get close to his refrigerator where there were magnets that had his dentist information.
“Gather information, wait for him to be complacent, escape. I said it over and over again.”
Later that night he took Kara into the bedroom, and made her get back into the container while he made a call.
She says: “When I got out the container he told me he was going to give me a pill for my anxiety.
“I was assaulted multiple times but there were a lot of things that happened during that time.
“He made me sit down in front of the TV and watch a tape [with explicit sexual content] and describe what was happening.
“I was 15 years old. I was seeing things I didn’t really know how to describe. There were things he asked me to do I didn’t know how to do.
“The things that were happening to me were any person’s worst nightmare.”
Early the next morning, Kara was finally gifted her chance, and was able to free herself from the restraints used to tie her to the bed.
She says: “I opened my eyes and the first thing I noticed was there was just a sliver of early morning light. I just instantly was hit with this thought – this is it, this is your time, lets go.’
“My biggest fear was I was going to wake up my captor.
“I slowly just slid out of the bed to the side. I put my shorts on, and went to the front door. My heart was beating so fast. I put my hand on the knob and I [knew] this is my moment to escape.
“I just ran. I saw a car driving across the parking lot and I just ran straight for the car. There were two men… I said I was kidnapped by the man in that apartment [and] I said take me to the police station.”
Arriving at the police station, Kara says: “I held my arm up to show him my handcuffs and I said ‘my name is Kara Robinson, I was kidnapped and I escaped my captor.”
The police took Kara back to the apartment complex, and based on all the information she had gathered, the block’s maintenance manager was able to help identify which flat she’d escaped from.
However, by the time authorities arrived, Evonitz had fled to Florida, calling his sister and confessing to killing someone and committing “more crimes than he can remember.”
I was really, really angry. I just wanted him to sit in a court room across from me and look in my eyes and know that picking me was the greatest mistake he ever made.
Kara Robinson
Inside his apartment, police found sex toys, a revolver and a locked chest containing underwear and newspaper clippings about the unsolved murders of three girls.
Sofia Silva, who disappeared from her front porch in September 1996 aged 16, and sisters Kati, 12, and Kristin Lisk, 15, who were abducted from their home.
Sofia’s remains were found a month later in a creek, while sisters Kati and Kristin’s bodies were found in a nearby river.
They’d been raped then murdered, each missing their shoes and underwear and neither case was solved – until Kara’s abduction.
Forensic evidence found at the crime scenes matched evidence found inside Evonitz’s home, and two of Kristin’s fingerprints were also discovered inside the trunk of Evonitz’s car.
Police tracked Evonitz and after a high-speed chase Evonitz then shot himself, dying immediately on June 27 2002.
Upon hearing about his death, Kara says: “I was really, really angry. I just wanted him to sit in a court room across from me and look in my eyes and know that picking me was the greatest mistake he ever made.”
Finally, in August 2002, Spotsylvania County Sheriff Ronald Knight announced that Evonitz was responsible for the other murders.
One officer recalls: “We recovered homemade tapes where he filmed himself masturbating and fantasising at the same time talking about the crimes he committed.”
For her help in solving Silva and the Lisk sisters’ murders, Kara received $150,000 in reward money, and met the families of the victims.
“It was one of the most important things that’s ever happened to me,” she previously told People magazine.
“Because it brought home the importance of what I did. Because I felt like, ‘Wow, I’m actually giving these families something that they never would’ve gotten without me.’
“Just the closure of knowing that the person responsible for their daughters’ [deaths] is no longer here.”
