#16: He Got Away With It. Until One Ominous Friday the 13th

Full Episode Transcript

He moved through cities like a shadow at dusk—never staying long, never seen twice, always just far enough ahead of the questions being asked.

He didn’t force his way in. He didn’t follow women down dark alleys or smash his way through locked doors. He walked right up to them in broad daylight. On sidewalks. In parking lots. At gas stations and outside shopping malls. Places that felt safe. Familiar. Places no one was watching too closely.

He spoke softly. Confident, but never threatening. He had a way of making people stop and listen. Sometimes he said he was a photographer. Sometimes he worked in fashion or beauty or advertising. Sometimes he just asked for directions.

What he said didn’t matter. It was how he said it.

He made it feel ordinary.

And once the conversation started, it didn’t take long before it ended in silence.

The first report came out of Miami—a young woman who left for a promotional job and never came back. Two weeks later, another woman vanished just a few miles away, her car abandoned near a high school where she used to teach. In Texas, a teenager disappeared from a shopping center in the middle of the afternoon, her purse still in the car, keys in the ignition. In Kansas, another woman didn’t return home after stopping to fill up her gas tank.

Different names. Different cities. Different police departments. None of them talking to each other. None of them connecting the missing threads.

The disappearances were treated like separate stories. Missing persons. Cold trails. Unsolved cases. Families left waiting by the phone. Hoping. Guessing.

He didn’t leave evidence. He didn’t need to. His weapon wasn’t a knife or a gun—it was control. Patience. Precision. He picked the moment, created the opening, and slipped through it before anyone could react.

He moved fast, but not recklessly. That’s what made him so hard to catch. He was careful. And in his wake, he left only the absence of what had been there before.

Then, everything would come to a sudden halt.

On a friday the 13th.

Coley Wilder was a nineteen-year-old Navy man from Birmingham, Alabama, when he enlisted in 1939. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked. He survived, continued his service, and was later stationed in Australia, where he met June Ducker, a young woman from Sydney. The two married in April 1944.

Just under a year later, on March 13, 1945, their first of four sons was born in Sydney. They named him Christopher Bernard Wilder.

The war in Europe would end just two months after his birth. The Pacific theatre would close a few months later, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Christopher’s arrival into the world was anything but easy. He was born prematurely, and doctors believed he wouldn’t survive the night. A priest was summoned to perform the last rites—an unusual gesture for a family without ties to the Catholic Church. His parents kept vigil, preparing themselves for the worst. But the child survived.

Years later, when interviewed by psychiatrist Dr. D.G. Boozer in 1977, Wilder denied this near-fatal experience. He also claimed he’d never suffered serious illness, accidents, or episodes of unconsciousness.

Records, and media accounts, tell a different story.

In April 1946, the family left Australia. Coley remained in the Navy, and the family relocated often—living on American naval bases in Norfolk, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, and for a time in the Philippines. In sessions with his later therapist, Dr. Bush, Christopher recalled these years as disjointed. He claimed he was sent to the U.S. at age one and didn’t see his parents again until he was three.

Despite this distance, and the nature of military life, there were no known signs of abuse or neglect. His upbringing was relatively stable and financially secure.

But even as a young child, Christopher Wilder was no stranger to death.

One day, playing at the beach near Sydney, he disappeared while swimming. When he was pulled from the surf, he was unconscious—his small body limp and waterlogged. Lifeguards managed to revive him. His friends had assumed he was dead.

Media reports later claimed he nearly drowned in a backyard pool at the age of three and slipped into a coma. But once again, Wilder would go on to deny this version of events, telling Dr. Adelson that it never happened.

What did happen, consistently, were fainting spells. Episodes that continued throughout his youth.

As he grew older, Wilder’s behavior began to shift. He became impulsive. Detached. And increasingly indifferent to the suffering of others—particularly women.

His early life contained no obvious signs of violent influence. Yet the presence of multiple near-death experiences, coupled with recurring neurological symptoms, led some experts to question whether this could have played a role in shaping his psychological profile. A child who believed himself indestructible. A young man who believed the rules didn’t apply.

That belief would have consequences.

Christopher’s brothers Stephen and Rick were born by the late 1950s as the family returned to Sydney after their father's retirement from the navy. They settled in Ryde, near June’s relatives where Coley built a home. To outsiders, they appeared competent, if perhaps "a bit soft" but Coley demanded military formality within the household – "Yes, sir" or "No, sir".

Dr. D.G. Boozer’s 1977 assessment noted Christopher was "closer to the mother who was warm, too easy and gave them whatever they wanted." A dynamic already hinting at indulgence and blurred boundaries.

Christopher attended Epping Boys High School. Academically unremarkable, he preferred the baseball diamond to the classroom. His IQ tested at 104 – squarely average. His preference for American baseball over cricket or rugby made him conspicuous, an exoticism he’d later weaponize. At fifteen, a disappointment: he failed his Intermediate Certificate and left school. His father blamed "confusion" with the Australian system. Christopher started a carpentry apprenticeship, diligently saving wages. By seventeen, he’d bought his first car: an off-white, four-door Morris Minor. A symbol of his independence.

His younger brother Stephen, recalling him years later in 1984, painted a conflicting picture: "blond, good-looking, a good athlete," possessing a "classy" American aura. Yet beneath the surface: "a very nervous person, very edgy, a very big nail biter... never calm and cool. Except," Stephen noted with unsettling precision, "when he was picking up girls."

But the cracks in this suburban facade were appearing much earlier. The first documented signs pointing towards a terrifying future emerged in Christopher’s early adolescence. Between the ages of eleven and thirteen, he was caught window peeping in his own Sydney neighborhood. Neighbors reported him to the police. The outcome was a little more than a scolding before being handed back to his parents. Authorities in the late 1950s dismissed it casually: "boyish exuberance and sexual experimentation." His parents, noted for sheltering him, ensured he escaped meaningful punishment. This incident, seemingly minor to the authorities of the time, opened a door. A dark corner of his psyche, once glimpsed, began to fester.

Then, on January 4th, 1963, a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, the simmering darkness erupted violently. Christopher Wilder, his Morris Minor, and two younger friends were at Freshwater Beach. They lured a thirteen-year-old local girl into the car. What began as an attempt to coerce her into consensual sex rapidly descended into brutality. When she refused, they threatened her, physically overwhelmed her. All three boys took turns raping the young girl. Afterwards, they abandoned her on the beach, discarded. She immediately reported the crime.

Wilder was arrested. Held for eight days at the Albion Street Children’s Shelter. Released on bail. Later, he would weave a tale for his psychologist – claiming unwilling participation in a "gang rape" and undergoing court-ordered "electro-shock therapy." The records tell a different story. Electroshock was neither ordered by the court nor recommended by the assessing psychiatrist. It appears to be part of a mystique Wilder cultivated, a narrative of victimhood and extreme treatment.

At sentencing, his father took the stand. He leveraged his war record, his commitment to family, his church attendance. He painted a picture of a good boy led astray. The prosecution and the judge were swayed. The probation officer suggested Christopher was "drawn into the offence by his associates." On June 13th, 1963, now legally an adult at eighteen, Christopher Bernard Wilder received a twelve-month suspended sentence with a good behavior bond. His punishment was further sex education. His siblings remained largely in the dark, recalling it vaguely as a "beach thing." The two younger boys received slightly harsher, yet still lenient, sentences. Decades later, one of those boys, burdened by guilt, recalled Wilder specifically "turning nasty" when the girl refused him at the quarry. This brutal assault wasn't just a crime; it was a chilling blueprint. It revealed planning, a specific modus operandi – luring, coercion, violence, abandonment.

Christopher Wilder’s parents had spent years hoping their son would change. They had seen him in trouble before—disturbing behavior, brushes with the law—and still, they believed that with the right support, he could turn his life around. His father helped him secure work. Both parents encouraged him to settle down, to marry, to lead a respectable life. In 1968, it seemed they’d finally succeeded. Christopher Bernard Wilder got married.

The narrative most often repeated is that the marriage lasted only a few weeks. But that version is wrong. The truth is more painful. It lasted for a year—long enough to inflict lasting damage on the young woman he married.

Her mother would later recall that she’d often seen Wilder in fits of violent rage. The signs were there early. But her daughter stayed with him.

In the first weeks of marriage, things seemed ordinary. The sex, she said, was “quite normal.” That didn’t last. Soon, the same disturbing traits Wilder had shown years earlier—the ones that led to his arrest in Freshwater—reappeared. His wife later said, “Chris started getting real crude. While we were having sex, he would say, ‘I want you to hurt me. I want you to scratch me.’”

He became relentless—demanding sex three times a night. When she cried, he would beg her not to, speaking in what she described as a “real funny sort of voice.” He insisted on having sex during her menstrual cycle. When she refused, he would become furious. “Sometimes he slapped me or got me around the shoulders and shook me real hard,” she said. Afterward, he would go into the bathroom and remain there for nearly an hour, the shower running the entire time.

His demands escalated. He wanted anal sex—at the time, still illegal in Australia, carrying a sentence of up to fourteen years in prison. His wife resisted. But she was frightened. Isolated.

She also made disturbing discoveries: photographic equipment, nude photos of unknown young women, photos of them posing in her bikinis and dresses, stolen from her drawers.

Then came the incidents that chilled her beyond the bedroom.

There were moments in their marriage that, at the time, may have been written off as unfortunate coincidences. But looking back they seem anything but accidental.

In mid-1968, his wife was driving to work when her car’s brakes gave out. She managed to avoid a crash. But when the car was inspected, it was found to be completely out of brake fluid. That, in itself, was strange. The car had been well maintained. And Wilder, who had a strong grasp of mechanics, had been checking it regularly. Her family found the situation troubling.

Two weeks later, another incident. This time, it was the steering. It failed without warning. She lost control of the vehicle and ran off the road. Again, she wasn’t hurt. But the coincidence of two serious mechanical failures in such a short space of time—both involving components that Wilder would have known how to access—was hard to ignore. At the time, the couple had been arguing frequently. She suspected he was seeing other women.

Then came something even more disturbing.

In October that same year, Wilder’s wife was lying in bed when she detected a strong smell of gas. It was overpowering. When she got up to check, she noticed the windows in their unit had all been shut—unusual for their routine. In the kitchen, one of the gas jets on the stove had been left on. Christopher Wilder was outside the house. When she asked if he could smell the gas, he said he couldn’t.

She and her family would later report these incidents to police.

To this day, there is no definitive proof of intent. But given what he was capable of, how calculated and cold he could be—it’s difficult not to draw chilling conclusions.

Wilder also turned his predatory gaze on his wife’s younger sister. In August 1968, employing a "photographer/modeling scam," he tried to lure her to a supposed photo shoot. It was only thwarted when the sister and her mother saw through his disguise.

But the pattern continued. In November 1968, Wilder sexually assaulted an eighteen-year-old nurse. He used the modeling scam again, then threatened to publish nude photos he’d taken to coerce compliance. The nurse reported him to police in February 1969. She gave a detailed statement. But, facing the prospect of a trial, she was unwilling to testify and without her testimony prosecution faltered.

His wife, now fully aware of the danger and warned by police, left him for the final time in February 1969. Christopher Wilder was on the radar of Sydney police for serious sex offenses. His opportunities in Australia seemed exhausted. The net, however primitive by modern standards, was tightening.

And so, in 1969, Christopher Bernard Wilder leveraged his dual citizenship. He left Australia. He emigrated to the United States. The technology for rapid international police communication was limited. Inquiries moved slowly. The door to immediate Australian justice closed behind him as he boarded that plane. He slipped away, carrying his dark compulsions, his honed methodology, and the terrifying potential for escalation, across the Pacific. A predator, already molded by violence and leniency, entering a vast new hunting ground.

Christopher Bernard Wilder stepped onto American soil in 1969, leaving behind a trail of shattered lives and near-misses with Australian justice. He arrived in Florida, a state bathed in relentless sunshine, promising anonymity and opportunity. To the outside world, his early adulthood would project an image of burgeoning success, a self-made man. But beneath this carefully constructed facade, the darkness nurtured in Sydney was intensifying, evolving, and finding terrifying new expression across two continents.

Florida welcomed Christopher Wilder with open arms. He plunged headfirst into the sun-drenched hedonism of the state – the beaches, the parties, the casual encounters. But Wilder wasn't just playing; he was building. With shrewdness and relentless drive, he amassed a small fortune. He bought cheap land, riding the wave of Florida's 1970s real estate boom and founded two lucrative contracting companies. This fortune funded a carefully curated image: a beachfront home, boats, motorcycles, and, crucially, high-performance sports cars. He even entered the competitive world of car racing, a part-time profession that burnished his image as a successful, daring entrepreneur.

Yet, behind the gleaming paintwork of his sports cars and the facade of his waterfront success, the predator remained active, hunting in the Florida sun. The 1970s became a chilling prelude for Christopher Wilder – a decade marked by a series of sexual assaults where serious consequences consistently eluded him. Victims, traumatized and intimidated, often found the prospect of testifying too overwhelming. Authorities, sometimes dismissive, sometimes hampered by evidentiary hurdles, frequently deemed his acts not severe enough to warrant harsh punishment.

Shortly after he settled in Florida in 1969, he resumed a pattern that had already become familiar. He approached a young, attractive nurse with the same well-rehearsed line he’d used before. He claimed to be a professional photographer. He said he was looking for fresh faces to help launch into modeling careers—and that he could take photos for free.

The woman agreed. She even consented to pose nude, something that may have seemed less taboo in the context of the so-called sexual revolution that was unfolding across the United States at the time.

But once Wilder had the photos, the tone changed. He threatened to release them unless she agreed to have sex with him. She refused. And unlike many others, she went to the police.

She reported the incident, detailing the threat and his coercion. But this was 1969, and the authorities weren’t inclined to take her seriously. Without hard evidence, her account was dismissed. Officers suggested it might have been a lover’s quarrel—or perhaps, they said, the woman had simply “got more than she bargained for.”

No charges were filed. No further investigation was made. Wilder was free to continue.

And he did.

The pattern was fully established now. In 1971, down in Pompano Beach, he enticed two teenage girls with the same photography scam. This time, an arrest followed – for soliciting. But justice was fleeting. When the terrified girls refused to testify, the charges were dropped and he walked away yet again.

Later that same year, another arrest: this time for forcing oral sex on a teenage girl. And once more, the outcome was the same. Faced with the ordeal of court, the victim withdrew. Charges dropped. Wilder remained free.

By 1974, emboldened by his impunity, his assaults escalated. He met another teenage girl, dangling the familiar lure of fame. But the promise turned predatory. He drugged her. He raped her. This time, perhaps due to the violence or the drug, prosecution did follow. But, convicted under older, far more lenient guidelines, Christopher Wilder received only probation. A violent rape, met with nothing more than a judicial slap on the wrist.

Then came Boca Raton, 1976. Charged with sexually assaulting a sixteen-year-old girl he'd lured using a fabricated story. In court, facing the accusation, Wilder adopted a mask of contrition. He admitted to the assault, projecting an image of remorse for the jury. But was it genuine? Or just another calculated move?

This pattern – the lure, the assault, the escape – defined his Florida years. Each near-miss, each dismissal, each lenient sentence, wasn't just a failure of the system; it was fuel for a predator growing ever more confident, ever more dangerous.

This 1976 case brought psychological scrutiny. Dr. Edward Adelson assessed Wilder. His conclusion was that Wilder was not a "mentally disordered sex offender," "not dangerous to others." He recommended only structured treatment. Dr. D.G. Boozer, however, held a "very different view." Boozer found Wilder "not altogether reliable," profoundly "self-centred," and noted his "reality ties are virtually non-existent and at best tenuous." Boozer’s chilling diagnosis: Wilder was a "mentally disordered sex offender" and "not safe except in a structured environment."

Despite Boozer’s stark warning, the jury deliberated for only fifty-five minutes and he was acquitted. The court record simply noted the charges as "dismissed." Christopher Wilder walked free once again, his wealth, charm, and the system’s failures shielding him.

During this turbulent decade, Wilder maintained a long-term relationship with a woman named Nola. They lived together for roughly eight years in the early to mid-1970s. To Nola, initially, Wilder seemed a "workaholic." Their sexual relationship struck her as "very normal." But cracks appeared. She discovered caches of photographs – young women in swimsuits, their telephone numbers scribbled on the back. It revealed his "sleazy hobby," his secret life of affairs.

Nola became a keen, if horrified, observer. She noted how he "lies smoothly and well." She saw his vanity, his fastidiousness. Most tellingly, she described his unsettling habit: "not looking people in the eye but rather looking beside and beyond them when talking to them." He was, she realized, a "watcher not a participant" in social settings. And she identified his deepest dread: his "greatest fear in life would involve incarceration in a penal institution."

By the late 1970s, Christopher Bernard Wilder stood at a terrifying crossroads. He possessed significant wealth, social standing, and a predatory methodology refined over years. He had evaded meaningful punishment time and again. The psychological assessments were starkly divided, but one warned unequivocally of his danger. He was a watcher, a manipulator, a man whose greatest fear was capture. The stage was set. The Sunshine State’s darkest storm was gathering, and Christopher Wilder was its eye.

The acquittal in 1976 wasn’t an endpoint for Christopher Wilder; it was a green light. Emboldened, he continued to weave his destructive path through Florida’s sunlit landscape. The predator, shielded by wealth, charm, and systemic failures, was growing bolder, more calculating, and more dangerous.

In Australia, Christopher Wilder had always leaned into his American accent—using it to set himself apart, to appear worldly, different, interesting. In Florida, he did the same thing—but in reverse. Now it was the Australian accent he played up. He used it the way he used everything else: as a tool to attract attention, to draw people in, to disarm. Australia was having a moment in the American imagination, especially after the 1979 release of Mad Max. The film’s gritty, dystopian style struck a chord, and suddenly, being Australian carried a certain cachet—dangerous, edgy, exotic.

Wilder understood that appeal, and he used it. Every bit of his life was curated to feed an illusion.

He was involved in three businesses: Rainbow Equipment, Sawtel Electric, and Sawtel Construction. All of them were run from a nondescript office in a builder’s yard on NE Third Street, Boynton Beach. Despite his reputation for chasing women, the walls weren’t plastered with photos of models. Instead, they showcased his public obsession: motor racing.

His business partner, Zeke Kimbrell, told the Los Angeles Times in 1984 that Wilder's entire persona was performative. He moved with confidence, wore flashy leather jackets, and sported oversized rings he claimed were diamonds. But they weren’t. They were cheap zirconia, bought for show. Kimbrell said, “He wanted to be something he wasn’t.”

The two men met in 1976. At the time, Wilder was working as a carpenter, and Kimbrell was managing large construction projects. Though they went into business as equal partners, the arrangement was far from balanced. Kimbrell told People magazine that Wilder was useless on a job site. “Chris was no contractor,” he said. “The SOB didn’t know how to change a lightbulb.” While Kimbrell handled the actual work, Wilder drifted through the days—more interested in appearances than results.

It wasn’t just his work ethic that raised questions. Kimbrell accused him of siphoning money from the business, alleging that Wilder often visited job sites ahead of schedule, collecting cash payments from clients behind his partner’s back. When Kimbrell followed up with an invoice, he’d learn the client had already paid—directly to Wilder. Kimbrell believed the stolen money was being sent back to Australia, where Wilder’s father was flipping properties with it for profit.

As a tradesman, Wilder was neither skilled nor reliable. But he knew how to turn a profit. He made clever, calculated investments—buying run-down properties with low-deposit, long-term loans, sprucing them up, and selling them quickly. It wasn’t flashy, but it worked.

By this time, Wilder’s live-in relationship with a woman named Nola had ended. Still, the two remained close. They’d meet up at dog shows and continued speaking regularly by phone. In 1979, Nola moved to New Hampshire. That same year, Wilder made his first trip back to Australia in a decade.

There was no trouble at the airport. No one flagged his name. No one questioned his presence. The technology of the time – primitive border controls, sluggish international data sharing – meant his significant criminal record went unflagged. He walked back into Sydney unnoticed. It was a reconnaissance mission.

He stayed only briefly with his parents at their home on Rene Street in North Ryde, then quietly boarded a return flight to Florida. His past remained undisturbed. For now.

In 1980, Wilder was back in a Florida courtroom. The charge was sexual battery. His method chillingly familiar, yet evolving. He conned two teenage girls with the siren song of modeling stardom. But this time, the trap snapped shut with added cruelty. He plied one victim with LSD-laced pizza, drugging her before the assault. He raped her. Facing the evidence, Wilder played the system. He plea-bargained the charge down to attempted sexual battery. His sentence was Five years probation and an order to see a psychologist, Dr. Ginger Bush. Records show Wilder attended these sessions diligently, playing the compliant patient… but it was a performance, another mask.

October 1st, 1982. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The glittering stage of the Miss Florida USA pageant. Among the finalists was Beth Kenyon, a 23-year-old special education teacher radiating poise and promise. As the judging concluded, a figure moved through the crowd. Christopher Bernard Wilder, the successful Florida businessman, spotted her. He approached, deploying a weapon he knew disarmed many: his Australian accent. Introducing himself as a photographer for the prominent Australian magazine Pix (sometimes recalled as P7x), he spun tales of an itinerant childhood. He was charming, persistent. He persuaded Beth to dinner. Over subsequent meetings, the charm offensive continued. He spoke of taking her to Australia, of making her "a princess." He even proposed marriage. But for Beth Kenyon, despite their friendly, regular contact, there was no romantic spark. She politely declined his proposal. To Beth, he was an eccentric, perhaps overly keen acquaintance. She couldn't know she was brushing against a gathering storm.

Late 1982. The pressure in Florida, the constant need to hunt, perhaps a desire to reconnect with old haunts – or old vulnerabilities – prompted a decision. Wilder decided to visit his parents, Coley and June, who had retired to Sawtell, a quiet town on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. There was still the matter of his Florida probation. On November 22nd, 1982, he stood before Judge John E. Boon. He sought permission to travel. Permission was granted. The system, once again, facilitated his movement.

December 6th, 1982. After brief stops in San Francisco and Hawaii, Christopher Wilder touched down in Sydney. He was back on Australian soil. The lag in technology, the gap in international criminal records, meant he arrived unnoticed by the authorities who should have been watching.

The lapse was immediate. December 7th, 1982. Less than twenty-four hours after landing, Wilder was back on Manly Beach. Camera in hand, he wasn't capturing scenic vistas; he was prowling for a young, attractive female target. He found one: Phionna Parsons, sixteen years old. He approached her, weaving a new alias: "Larry Kidanski" from "Group Three Productions," claiming association with the legendary Australian modeling figure, June Dally-Watkins. His questions turned intimate, invasive. He threatened her with a non-existent lie-detector test. He gave her $10, demanding she buy a specific outfit. When she refused to help lure other girls, he revealed his true power dynamic: he showed her a gun. Phionna, terrified but resourceful, reported the encounter to her father. Together, they went straight to the Manly Police Station. Later, Phionna would pick Wilder’s face from a photo album with chilling certainty.

The alarm was sounded. December 9th, 1982. The Manly Daily newspaper published a stark warning: "Avoid photo pest police warn girls." The article described a photographer stopping young girls, urging anyone with information to contact Detective Sergeant Geoff Shelley. The net, it seemed, was tightening.

Unfazed, or perhaps driven by escalating compulsions, Wilder flew back to Sydney on December 27th, 1982, arriving in the evening. He collected a reserved 1982 Ford Falcon sedan from Avis – registration MBF 389. He checked into Room 1114 at the four-star Top of the Town motel in Darlinghurst. A base of operations.

December 28th, 1982. Tuesday. Manly Beach again. The prowl resumed. Wilder, now using the alias "David Pearce" and claiming to represent the Barbizon Modeling agency, approached two fifteen-year-old girls. The promise of modeling careers, the lure of fame. It worked. They got into the Ford Falcon. But vigilance existed. Three boys, observing the interaction, felt uneasy. They followed the car, diligently noting the registration number: MBF 389.

Wilder drove the girls back to Room 1114 at the Top of the Town. Inside, the promise curdled into nightmare. He forced them to pose nude. He sexually assaulted one of them. He threatened to expose the photos if they talked. To maintain control, he made them write down their names and phone numbers. A trophy list.

Traumatized but defiant, the girls reported the assault to the Blacktown Police Station later that same day. Crucially, they had the car registration. Police traced it swiftly back to Christopher Wilder and confirmed his location at the Top of the Town. Confronted in his room, Wilder initially tried charm, then crumbled into a performance of shame. He admitted taking photographs, claiming he’d discarded the film out of guilt. He confessed to making the girls undress and to masturbating in front of them. Christopher Wilder was arrested. His clothing, his cameras, were seized. Film found in his possession contained images of pretty young women – potential future targets or past victims. His fingerprints confirmed an arrest twenty years prior in Australia, though the critical link to his extensive US criminal record remained frustratingly unmade.

The magistrate saw the danger. At the end of December 1982, he ordered Wilder remanded in custody. No return flight to Florida. No New Year's Eve celebration. Christopher Wilder saw in 1983 locked in a cell at the Manly Police Station. Australia's "get tough on crime" stance meant he was staring down the barrel of serious prison time. The meticulous facade of the Florida businessman had cracked wide open on a Sydney beach.

Facing this abyss, Wilder activated his final safeguard: his parents. Coley and June Wilder, despite everything, once more intervened. They posted an astronomical $350,000 bond for his release, awaiting trial and he briefly went back to Florida, returning to Australia in August 1983 for his committal hearing as required by his bail conditions. He appeared in Manly Court on August 4, 1983. Following this hearing, which was adjourned until April 3, 1984, Wilder again returned to Florida. This was, in fact, his last physical return to Australia

He absconded from his bail. He vanished, boarding a flight back to the United States, leaving Australia – and his parents' fortune – behind forever.

Back in Florida, Wilder resumed his life with minimal disruption. He discussed the Australian arrest with his business partner, Zeke Kimbrell, casually dismissing it as a misunderstanding. He claimed the girls were older—around twenty, he said—and brushed it off as a “big screw-up.”

Instead of laying low, Wilder continued to immerse himself in motor racing, a passion that had grown stronger in recent years. He drove a black Porsche 911, number 52, and raced competitively across multiple states. On March 19, he competed as a co-driver in the Sebring 12-Hour Race, finishing 27th out of 84 entries. On April 10, he drove in the Road Atlanta race in Georgia, finishing 26th. Later that year, on November 27, he competed in the 3-Hour Daytona race, placing 40th. Despite the police investigation and looming court proceedings in Australia, Wilder remained publicly active and visible.

In May 1983, Robyn Melanie Adler, a 22-year-old woman from Florida, vanished without a trace. Wilder was never charged in connection with her disappearance, but investigators listed him as a possible suspect. The timing, geography, and victim profile aligned closely with his known behavior.

One month later, on June 27, Shari Lynne Ball, aged 20, disappeared from her home in Boca Raton, Florida. Days later, she called her boyfriend from a truck stop in Virginia, saying she was on her way to New York. That was the last anyone heard from her.

In early July 1983, Tammy Lynn Leppert, an 18-year-old model and beauty queen, disappeared from a convenience store in Merritt Island, Florida. Wilder’s name surfaced again. He was considered a person of interest. Witnesses said Leppert had been approached by a man posing as a film producer, a method consistent with Wilder’s pattern.

That same month, Wilder escalated. In Boynton Beach, Florida, he abducted two young sisters, aged 9 and 12. He took them to a secluded area, sexually assaulted them, and—breaking from his usual behavior—drove them back to town afterward. The girls told their parents, and a report was filed. Forensic testing carried out years later confirmed the attacker’s identity. Semen recovered from the scene matched Wilder’s blood type and DNA. It was one of the rare cases where physical evidence clearly tied him to a violent sexual offense.

He resumed sessions with Dr. Ginger Bush, a psychologist he had seen in previous years for sexual compulsions. During these sessions, Wilder described feelings of deep depression and uncontrollable urges. He confessed to masturbating while fantasizing about domination and violence. He also offered disturbing and often implausible accounts of his past, including claims of childhood trauma, gang rape, and electroshock therapy—accounts that could never be verified and were likely fabricated to manipulate or elicit sympathy.

By late 1983, Wilder’s behavior remained predatory. At the Banana Boat bar in Boynton Beach, he met Lisa Maxwell and Lori Bath, both 19. The trio shared drinks, and Wilder invited them to his house on Mission Hill Road. Lori accepted. Once there, he attempted to impress her with displays of wealth and charm, but when he made unwanted advances, Lori declined to stay the night. She returned to the bar. It was another encounter that did not escalate. But others wouldn’t be as lucky.

By early 1984, Christopher Bernard Wilder’s private world had turned into a slow-motion collapse. Though still attending therapy with Dr. Ginger Bush, his thoughts and behavior were spiraling. In a January session, he described his frustration over a failed New Year’s Eve encounter—he had bought a dress for a woman who refused to wear it, refused his company. To deal with the rejection, he hired a sex worker and later told Dr. Bush it had been the closest he’d come to acting out violent urges toward a photographic subject. He claimed to cut off all contact with women that month, supposedly to protect others from his aggression.

In February, the pressure of his looming legal problems in Australia was mounting. He confided to Dr. Bush that he had again resorted to hiring sex workers, admitting he'd been violent with one of them. On February 18, the body of an unidentified young woman was found in Davie, Florida. She had been strangled. Her appearance and the location matched Wilder’s usual victim profile, and though the link remains speculative, investigators believe she may have been his first murder victim.

That same month, on February 26, Wilder was at the Budweiser Miami Grand Prix. He raced his Porsche again and finished 17th in a field of 30. That day, twenty-year-old Rosario Gonzalez disappeared from the event. She had been distributing promotional aspirin samples near the track. Wilder had met her before, and it’s believed he used the familiar lure—modeling opportunities, a portfolio shoot—to gain her trust. She was never seen again. No body was recovered.

Two days later, Wilder met with Dr. Bush and denied any knowledge of Rosario’s disappearance. On March 5, another young woman vanished. Elizabeth Kenyon, a 23-year-old special education teacher and former Miss Florida finalist, was last seen at a Shell station in Coral Gables. She had previously dated Wilder, who had proposed to her. She declined, but remained in occasional contact. A gas station attendant later confirmed that Wilder had been with her that evening, paying for fuel with a twenty-dollar bill. Her car was found abandoned. Her body never was.

In his March 6 session, Wilder told Dr. Bush he had a cut on his hand from breaking up a dogfight. He also asked if there had been any news about Rosario Gonzalez. Four days later, he contacted Dr. Bush again, upset that Beth Kenyon’s family had hired a private investigator who was looking into him. On March 11, two investigators went to Wilder’s home in Boynton Beach. They found the house unusually clean—sterile, almost. The Porsche was in the garage, visibly damaged. On the next day, Wilder left multiple messages on Dr. Bush’s answering machine, increasingly paranoid and agitated, convinced he was under surveillance.

On March 15, 15-year-old Colleen Orsborn disappeared in Daytona Beach. She had reportedly been approached by a man offering money in exchange for modeling photos.

The following day, journalist Edna Buchanan published a piece in the Miami Herald connecting the disappearances of Rosario Gonzalez and Beth Kenyon. The article included details of a man driving a Porsche and living in Boynton Beach. Whether it was fear or something else, Wilder reacted decisively. He began cutting ties. He shuttered his photography business, boarded his dogs, and cancelled his plane ticket to Australia. He told his business partner, Zeke Kimbrell, that he was being framed. They met behind a pizza shop, where Wilder was crying, panicked, saying he would never survive in prison. He asked Kimbrell for his credit cards and said he planned to flee to South America.

—

On March 18, 23-year-old Terry Ferguson disappeared from the Merritt Square Mall on Merritt Island. She, too, was interested in modeling. The next day, Wilder was seen on a bank surveillance camera in Tampa. On March 20, 19-year-old Linda Grober, a student at Florida State University, was abducted from Governor’s Square Mall in Tallahassee. She was forced into Wilder’s car at gunpoint and taken to a motel across the Georgia state line. There, he beat, raped, and tortured her. At one point, he superglued her eyelids shut. But Linda managed to fight back—jabbing him in the eyes, locking herself in the bathroom, and screaming until Wilder fled.

On March 21, Terry Ferguson’s body was found in a stream near Lake Alfred, Florida. She had been beaten and strangled. Her wrists, feet, and neck were bound with rope.

By March 22, Wilder was in Louisiana, swapping out license plates. There were reports that he attempted his modeling ruse on a woman in Lafayette, but she declined. That same day, the FBI issued a warrant for his arrest, following the interstate nature of Linda Grober’s abduction. The next day, a national alert went out. Agents warned law enforcement agencies across the country: Christopher Bernard Wilder was armed, dangerous, and likely suicidal.

That warning hit close to home for one detective. Tom Neighbors, whose wife had monogrammed Wilder’s racing suits, recognized the name and told her to keep a gun handy. When the FBI searched Wilder’s home in Boynton Beach, they found a hidden room behind a false wall. Inside were restraints, sex aids, and what they described as “torture equipment.”

That same day, Terry Diane Walden, a 23-year-old nursing student, was last seen on the Lamar University campus in Beaumont, Texas. Her body was found dumped near a lake. She had been stabbed to death. Wilder took her 1981 Mercury Cougar and continued west.

On March 24, he used Kimbrell’s ID to check into a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma City. The following day, 20-year-old Suzanne Logan disappeared from the Penn Square Mall. Her body was later found in Kansas, stabbed and bound. Her pubic hair had been shaved, and investigators matched the knife wounds to one of the blades Wilder carried with him.

March 26 brought Wilder to Denver. He checked into the Viscount Motel and, the next day, purchased a 357 Colt Trooper revolver in Aurora, adding to the arsenal he was assembling on the road. He relocated to another motel in Wheat Ridge, near the outskirts of the city. On March 28, he bought gas in Vail, then checked into the Red River Lodge in Rifle, Colorado.

The following day, 18-year-old Sheryl Lynn Bonaventura disappeared from the Mesa Mall in Grand Junction. Like the others, she was drawn in by Wilder’s offer of a modeling career. Over the next two days, she was held captive, raped, and tortured. He used electrical shocks and knives. On March 31, her body was found in a remote area of Utah. She had been shot and stabbed.

By now, Wilder’s pattern was clear, it was a rampage.

—

By April 1984, Christopher Wilder had been on the run for weeks. From Florida to California, through the Midwest and now into the Northeast, his path was marked by coercion, rape, torture, and death. Each victim followed the same pattern—young, female, lured by promises of modeling opportunities. His manipulation was effective. His violence, escalating. His control, complete.

On April 1st, 17-year-old Michelle Korfman was competing in a modeling contest at the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas. She was seen speaking with Wilder shortly before her disappearance. Photos from the event captured him in the crowd, focused on Michelle with a look described later by an investigator as "pure predator." When Wilder vacated his motel room days later, investigators found a blow-up doll, a dildo, and other paraphernalia he’d left behind—objects that hinted at ritualistic behavior. Michelle’s body wouldn't be found for weeks.

That same week, on April 3rd, Wilder checked into the Proud Parrot Motel in Lomita, California. He used a false name, fake car registration, and paid in cash. The same day, thousands of miles away in Australia, a court in Manly convened without him. Wilder had failed to appear for his committal hearing on multiple sexual assault charges. He had jumped his bail. His barrister offered little explanation, only that "certain things" had developed in the United States.

The next day, Wilder abducted 16-year-old Tina Risico from a mall in Torrance. He introduced himself as “David Pearce” from “Barbizon Modeling,” offered her a portfolio shoot, then drove her to a remote location, pulled a revolver and a knife, and began what would become a week-long ordeal. He kept her in a motel in El Centro, where she was beaten, raped, and electrocuted with cords.

By April 5th, Wilder was watching television with Tina when a news report interrupted their routine. It was the FBI’s national press conference. His name, face, and crimes were now broadcast across the country. Old mugshots were shown. The FBI described him as “armed and extremely dangerous.” Wilder quietly stood up and shaved off his beard.

With the manhunt intensifying, Wilder began using Tina as cover. She was allowed to drive, a tactical move to avoid detection. Police were looking for a man driving alone. Tina, conditioned by trauma and violence, did as she was told. When she disobeyed or hesitated, she was punished—burns, shocks, humiliation. Over the next several days, they passed through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Always staying in cheap motels. Always paying in cash. Always moving.

In Indiana, on April 10th, Wilder abducted 16-year-old Dawnette Wilt with Tina's help. Dawnette was tricked into thinking Tina was a fellow teen looking for work. She was forced into the back seat of a stolen Mercury Cougar, blindfolded, restrained, and taken to a motel in Ohio. There, Tina was made to watch as Wilder raped and tortured the girl with electrical shocks.

The next day, they were in New York State, checked into another roadside motel. Wilder assaulted Dawnette again, telling her he planned to trade her for drugs in New York City. The abuse was now mixed with unhinged paranoia. On April 12th, as the group drove north into the rural Finger Lakes region, Wilder forced Dawnette to swallow sleeping pills, then dragged her into the woods. There, he assaulted her, stabbed her repeatedly, and left her for dead. But Dawnette survived. Bloodied and mutilated, she crawled to a nearby road and was found by a passing driver. She gave authorities their next lead. But Wilder had already vanished.

Later that day, in Victor, New York, he abducted 33-year-old Elizabeth Dodge at gunpoint from a mall parking lot. Tina followed behind in the Mercury. A few miles outside town, Wilder pulled over, ordered Dodge out of the car, and shot her dead. Her body was left on the roadside.

Wilder switched vehicles again, forcing Tina into Dodge’s gold Pontiac Firebird. They drove through the night to Boston. At Logan International Airport, in the early hours of April 13th, Wilder bought Tina a one-way ticket to Los Angeles using a stolen credit card. He handed her the ticket, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Say hi to the law.” Then he watched her walk away.

She was met by FBI agents shortly after landing. The information she gave them would complete the final pieces of the puzzle.

Wilder, now alone, drove north toward Canada. Just hours after releasing Tina, he attempted one final abduction in Beverly, Massachusetts. The intended victim—a 19-year-old woman—fled before he could pull her into the car. Witnesses saw the license plate and called police. It was Elizabeth Dodge’s stolen Firebird. Authorities now had a precise location. They knew the vehicle. They knew he was close.

Wilder crossed into New Hampshire, continuing toward the Canadian border. He reached the small town of Colebrook by early afternoon. At Vic’s Getty gas station, he stopped to refuel and asked about border crossing requirements. As he was speaking to the attendants, two New Hampshire state troopers—Leo “Chuck” Jellison and Wayne Fortier—spotted the stolen Firebird from across the street.

The troopers approached quietly. Wilder noticed them but didn’t run.

When they stepped into the parking lot, he made his move—bolting for the driver’s side door. Trooper Jellison intercepted him. A struggle began over the Colt Python 357 revolver Wilder kept on him at all times. In the chaos, Wilder managed to wrest the gun free.

Then, instead of aiming at the officers, Christopher Wilder turned the gun on himself.

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through his chest and exited out his back, striking Jellison in the leg. A second shot was heard moments later. It too came from Wilder’s revolver. He was already dead.

By the time paramedics arrived, the gas station was crawling with officers. Wilder’s body was found slumped beside the car. His “kill kit”—a duffel bag filled with cords, tape, knives, and photos of victims—was discovered in the back seat. The spree was over.

Trooper Jellison survived his injuries. The town of Colebrook, quiet and remote, became the temporary epicenter of a national news event. Reporters and camera crews flooded the area. But for law enforcement, it was over. For the families of the murdered, it wasn’t.

But the killing had stopped.

And the man who carried it out—manipulative, methodical, and increasingly unhinged—was gone.

Christopher Bernard Wilder’s death on friday the 13th of April, 1984, in the small town of Colebrook, New Hampshire, brought an abrupt end to the largest manhunt in FBI history at that time. Yet, the conclusion of the chase was only the beginning of another kind of investigation—one focused on uncovering the full extent of his crimes, locating potential victims, and offering a measure of closure to those affected.

Wilder’s body was transported to a funeral home in Boynton Beach, Florida, where a brief service took place. The gathering was small, consisting of about a dozen attendees, including his brother Stephen and his former business partner, Zeke Kimbrell. For Kimbrell, the service was bittersweet. Mourning a man who had committed such horrific acts felt impossible. Wilder was cremated, and his ashes were handed to Stephen, closing the final chapter of his life.

The immediate aftermath of Wilder’s death brought relief to law enforcement officers and the families of his known victims. With him gone, no more harm would come at his hands. Yet, his sudden death also sealed many questions that would never be answered. Wilder took with him the full truth of his motives, the total number of his victims, and whether he should be definitively classified as a serial killer or something else entirely.

This distinction remains debated among experts. Traditionally, a serial killer is someone who murders three or more people over time, with distinct "cooling off" periods between each killing. While Wilder did kill multiple victims, his pattern often involved moving with his captives, rarely pausing long enough to establish clear breaks. His behavior more closely resembled a spree killer—someone who commits multiple murders in a relatively continuous sequence without cooling off. His cross-country odyssey shares similarities with known spree killers like Charles Starkweather and Andrew Cunanan. Until further victims can be definitively linked, Wilder is often categorized as a spree killer.

Despite that he earned a popular nickname, something also commonly associated with serial killers: “The Beauty Queen Killer”. This moniker was earned by Wilder as a direct result of his bloody rampage across the United States in the spring of 1984, which left at least nine women dead and three others brutalized. His modus operandi of approaching unsuspecting women under the guise of being a fashion photographer and luring them with promises of modeling careers, before torturing, raping, and killing them, led to this specific designation.

Some victims remain missing to this day. Rosario Gonzalez’s body was never found. Her parents clung to hope, creating a small shrine in her memory. Her sister recalled how her parents virtually stopped living for years, holding an annual Mass in Rosario’s name. Elizabeth Kenyon’s fate remains equally uncertain. Despite skepticism from local authorities, her family pushed for FBI involvement. Her mother died young, overwhelmed by grief. The family placed her name on a mausoleum and named a plaza and road after her, holding on to the hope that one day they might learn more.

Colleen Orsborn’s body was only positively identified in 2011 through advances in DNA technology, years after her disappearance. Theresa Ferguson’s remains were recovered days after her abduction, but decomposition delayed identification. Her stepfather, Don Ferguson, expressed relief that Wilder was dead, though he lamented that Wilder had taken the answers to many other missing girls’ fates with him.

Several survivors played critical roles in piecing together Wilder’s crimes. Linda Grover escaped his grasp and provided a positive identification, cementing the FBI’s involvement in the case. Forced to leave the country under protection, she lived with frustration at her lost freedom but later saw her survival as a second chance—an obligation to live a life that honored those who did not make it.

Tina Marie Risico endured unimaginable abuse, manipulated by Wilder’s control and suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. After Wilder released her in Boston, she contacted authorities and was granted immunity. The trauma haunted her, yet she admitted a grim relief in Wilder’s death, hoping it would ease the burden on the victims’ families and herself.

Dawnette Wilt’s survival stands as nothing short of miraculous. Brutally assaulted, stabbed, and left for dead, she crawled to safety and was rescued by a passerby. Her courage and resilience helped narrow the search for Wilder and saved lives. The town of Penn Yan embraced her, offering support and even arranging private transport to return her and her family home as she recovered.

Christopher Wilder’s death ended a spree of terror that spanned thousands of miles and left scars that remain decades later. While law enforcement gained closure, the true scale of his crimes and the depth of his darkness continue to haunt those left behind.

In the years following Christopher Wilder’s death, authorities in the United States and Australia continued to investigate cold cases that bore striking similarities to his known crimes. There was a prevailing belief among investigators that Wilder’s spree in 1984 was only a fraction of his true body count. His sadistic tendencies and extensive travels suggested a far more comprehensive trail of victims than the nine confirmed.

One of the most haunting possible connections reached back to 1965, to the Wanda Beach slayings in Sydney, Australia. Two young women, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, had been murdered in a case that remained unsolved. Wilder became a prime suspect. Among the chilling evidence was a knife discovered in Wilder’s “kill kit” after his death, resembling a partial blade found at the Wanda Beach crime scene. A witness description from the time also bore an unsettling resemblance to an age-regressed photo of Wilder. Unfortunately, critical DNA evidence from the case had been lost, leaving the possibility unresolved.

In Florida, where Wilder had spent much of his time, several cold cases were reviewed for potential links to him. Two women, Mary Hare and Mary Opitz, both brunettes fitting his preferred victim profile, had disappeared from Fort Myers in 1981. Near Wilder’s property, skeletal remains of two unidentified females were found in 1982, one showing signs that her fingers had been deliberately removed, suggesting a disturbing familiarity with her killer.

Another case involved Shari Lynn Ball, an aspiring model who vanished from Boca Raton in 1983. Her remains were discovered years later in upstate New York and identified through DNA, with authorities estimating a ninety-five percent likelihood that Wilder was responsible. Tammy Lynn Leppert, a beauty queen and actress, also disappeared in 1983 from Merritt Island—the same city where Wilder abducted Theresa Ferguson. Although Leppert’s family initially filed a lawsuit against Wilder, they withdrew it after his death, doubting his involvement.

In Broward County, a Jane Doe was found strangled in a canal near Miami in early 1984, mere days before Wilder’s confirmed spree began. Authorities strongly suspect she was his first victim of that year’s killing spree. Melody Gay, abducted from a convenience store and found dead in a canal shortly after Elizabeth Kenyon’s murder, is also believed to have been killed by Wilder.

A Jane Doe discovered in San Francisco in 1984 drew some suspicion toward Wilder, though Tina Marie Risico’s account of their travels complicated the timeline and route.

Wilder’s financial estate also became a subject of scrutiny. Initially valued at $1.3 million, later reports reduced that figure considerably. At his death, he left property worth around $181,000, including a home in Boynton Beach appraised at just over $78,000, to a woman with whom he had lived for eight years. Several families of victims sued his estate, but the compensation awarded was minimal compared to claims. Most victims received about $28,000, Beth Dodge’s family was granted $30,000, and Trooper Jellison was awarded $2,000. Suzanne Logan’s father was vocal about his indifference to money, focusing instead on ensuring that Wilder’s relatives did not profit from his estate.

Psychological profiles painted Wilder as a deeply disturbed and dangerous man. Beneath the charming, successful exterior hid a sexual sadist who derived gratification from torture and murder. Experts highlighted traits consistent with psychopathy—an absence of empathy, inflated ego, pathological lying, and manipulative behavior. His infamous “kill kit” included electrical devices designed for torture and a serrated knife, tools that revealed his calculated cruelty. Wilder’s obsession with John Fowles’s novel The Collector, a story about a man who kidnaps women as trophies, reflected the warped mindset that guided his crimes. This fixation paralleled other notorious killers such as Leonard Lake and Robert Berdella.

His ability to evade capture for years was aided by loopholes in the law, his dual citizenship, and poor communication between agencies across continents. Countless chances to apprehend him were missed, allowing him to continue terrorizing victims.

Ultimately, Christopher Wilder remains remembered as a merciless predator, a man whose violence left an enduring mark on the lives he shattered. His story stands as a stark warning about the deceptive nature of some criminals and the long-lasting pain inflicted on those who survive and those left behind.