Lifetime’s ‘The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story’ is ripped from the headlines, but is it based on a true story? Here’s what we know about the real story behind the Kara Robinson movie, and where Kara Robinson is now.
This weekend’s ripped from the headlines movie is The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story. The new Lifetime movie stars Katie Douglas (Ginny & Georgia) as Kara Robinson, a teenager who escaped from her kidnapper’s apartment and then used information she gathered to lead the police to where she was being held captive. The movie comes from executive producer Elizabeth Smart, herself a survivor of a kidnapping whose story made its way to Lifetime in the television movie I Am Elizabeth Smart.
As with many Lifetime movies, The Girl Who Escaped proclaims to be based on true events — but what really happened to Kara Robinson? Here’s what we know.
Yes, The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story is based on a true story.
In West Columbia, SC on June 24, 2002, 15-year-old Kara Robinson was watering plants in her friend’s front yard when a car pulled up. Out stepped a man in his late thirties offering to hand out a pamphlet. He asked Robinson if her parents were home, and when she responded that this was her friend’s house and her friend’s mother was not around, the man pulled out a gun and forced her into a storage bin in the back seat of his Trans Am.
Robinson immediately started to commit details of her kidnapping to memory, including the radio station he listened to, cigarettes he smoked, and how many turns the car made on its way back to the kidnapper’s apartment.
