Christopher Wilder’s murder spree began on February 26, 1984, in Florida and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada, and California, as well as attempted abductions in Washington and New York, before he was killed in a confrontation with police. Christopher Bernard Wilder was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on March 13, 1945, to a U. S. naval officer and an Australian mother.
He nearly died at birth, and at the age of two, he nearly drowned in a swimming pool. Wilder raped a 13-year-old girl on January 4, 1963, while accompanied by two other young men, both of whom denied involvement in the actual assault. Wilder was sentenced to probation and later claimed to have received electroshock therapy. This therapy may have exacerbated Wilder’s violent sexual tendencies.
However, journalist Duncan McNabb claims that there is no evidence that Wilder received electroshock therapy and that the story of his near-drowning was made up by Wilder himself. Wilder married in 1968, but his wife left him after only a week. He immigrated to the United States in 1969 and lived in an upscale home in Boynton Beach, Florida, where he was successful in real estate while developing an interest in photography. Wilder faced various sexual misconduct charges from about 1971 to 1975.
He eventually raped a young woman he had enticed into his truck by pretending to be a photographer for a modeling contract. This was to become his modus operandi during his subsequent crime spree. Despite multiple convictions, Wilder was never imprisoned for any of these crimes. Wilder was charged with sexual offenses against two 15-year-old girls he forced to pose naked while visiting his parents in Australia in 1982.
His parents posted bail, and he was allowed to return to Florida to await trial. But due to court delays, his case was never heard, as the eventual initial hearing date of April 1984 fell after his death. Wilder began a bloody six-week cross-country crime spree in the United States in early 1984. He left in his wake eight murder victims, all female.
The first attributed to Wilder was the murder of Rosario Gonzalez, who was last seen on February 26, 1984, at the Miami Grand Prix, where she worked as a spokesmodel. Wilder was also in the area. On March 18, Wilder abducted 19-year-old Elizabeth “Beth” Dodge from the Merritt Square Mall in Merritt Island, Florida. She was last seen alive there.
Wilder forced Dodge into her own car, a rust-colored 1981 Mercury Cougar, and drove her to a nearby canal, where he sexually assaulted and killed her. Her body was discovered on March 23rd at Canaveral Groves. Wilder’s next victim was 19-year-old Linda Grover of Florida State University, whom he kidnapped on March 20th from the Governor’s Square Mall in Tallahassee, Florida. He transported her to Bainbridge, Georgia, where he assaulted her in the mall parking lot after she declined his offer to photograph her for a modeling contract.
He wrapped copper wires around her and passed an electric current through them. He beat her when she tried to flee, but she escaped and locked herself in the bathroom, where she began pounding on the walls. Wilder fled in his car, taking all of Grover’s belongings with him. Terry Walden, a 23-year-old wife, mother, and nursing student at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, was approached by Wilder about modeling on March 21st.
She turned him down, but two days later, on March 23rd, she ran into him again, and he kidnapped her. Wilder stabbed her to death and disposed of her body in a canal, where it was discovered on March 26th. Wilder kidnapped 21-year-old Suzanne Logan at the Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City on March 25th. He drove her 180 miles north to Newton, Kansas, and then drove to Milford Reservoir, 90 miles northeast of Newton near Junction City, Kansas, where he stabbed her to death.
Wilder then drove to Las Vegas with a stop in Durango along the way. They were spotted at the Four Corners Monument on March 30th, after which Wilder checked into the Page Boy Motel in Page, Arizona. Wilder shot and stabbed Bonaventura to death near the Kanab River in Utah on March 31st, but her body was not discovered until May 3rd. Michelle Korfman, a 17-year-old aspiring model, vanished from a 17 magazine cover model competition at the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas on April 1st.
Wilder was photographed stalking her during the competition. Her body was discovered near a roadside rest stop in Southern California on May 11th and was not identified until mid-June using dental X-rays. Wilder photographed 16-year-old Tina Marie Rizico near Torrance, California, on April 4th before abducting her and driving her to El Centro, where he assaulted her. Wilder apparently believed Rizico would be useful in assisting him in obtaining additional victims, so he kept her alive and took her with him as he traveled back East through Prescott, Arizona; Joplin, Missouri; and Chicago, Illinois.
Wilder had been on the FBI’s list of the top 10 most wanted fugitives since the second week of April. On April 10th, he and Rizico traveled to a remote area, where he attempted to suffocate her before stabbing her twice and abandoning her. Wilder was able to wrap a pair of jeans around herself and call for assistance. Charlie Larson, a truck driver, drove her to Soldiers and Sailors Hospital in Penn Yan.
Wilder had returned to the spot where he had left her to ensure she was dead. He became terrified when he realized she had fled. Rizico survived and recovered at Soldiers and Sailors Hospital after Dr. John F.
Flynn performed life-saving surgery on her. She informed local authorities that Wilder was on his way to Canada. Wilder forced 33-year-old Beth Dodge into his car at the East View Mall in Victor, New York, and had Rizico follow him in Dodge’s Pontiac Firebird. Wilder shot Dodge and dumped her body in a gravel pit after a short drive.
Rizico then drove the Firebird to Boston’s Logan Airport, where he purchased her a ticket to Los Angeles. Wilder then proceeded north, and in Beverly, Massachusetts, he attempted but failed to abduct a woman at gunpoint. Wilder stopped at Vic’s Getty service station in Colebrook, New Hampshire, on April 13th to ask for directions to Canada. Leo Jellison and Wayne Fortier, two New Hampshire state troopers, approached Wilder, who retreated to his car to arm himself with a Colt Python .
357 Magnum. Jellison was able to grab Wilder from behind, and two shots were fired during the scuffle. The first bullet struck Wilder, passing through his back and into Jellison. Wilder was hitting the ground.
An arbitrator ruled that the after-tax balance of Wilder’s estate should be divided among his victims’ families.