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Journey of a spree killer

Chris Wilder was a sadistic psychopath behind a disarming smile
By David Cocksedge

THE SPREE KILLER, states author and crime expert Ann Rule, is not quite a mass murderer or serial killer. “He erupts suddenly”, she writes, “metamorphosing from a seemingly normal – even charming and successful – personality into a killing machine. Once he begins, he is a juggernaut who selects and stalks his victims day after day until he is stopped. His binge as a self-proclaimed executioner may last a week or even a few months, and, like the serial killer when he reaches his endgame, the spree killer begins to lose control and takes chances that make it more likely that he will be recognized and caught.” Spree killers are always male, and Christopher Wilder was such a man.

Wilder was born in 1944 in Sydney, Australia and early on, the blue-eyed, blond haired youth demonstrated signs of criminal behavior. He was involved in a gang rape at the age of fifteen, and in his twenties, he was investigated by local police after two teenage girls disappeared on a lonely beach. Wilder somehow slipped through the clutches of Australia’s judicial system and emigrated to the USA with no criminal record. He became a contractor and formed a successful business with a partner on becoming a naturalized American citizen. The company built homes in Boyton Beach and Boca Raton in Florida, and Wilder himself lived in a spacious house on one of the many canals in the area. He owned a customized Porsche 911 which he often raced, and also sailed his own speedboat. Trim with a neat moustache, he was surely a perfect catch for any female.

Except that there was something about Wilder that turned women off. He had many dates, but no woman wanted to get romantically involved with him. Perhaps it was a sixth sense; a gut feeling that he was dangerous; or perhaps that he seemed to be a little “nerdy”. Like the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy (executed in 1989), Wilder was however always polite and generous, and soon had a good platonic relationship with Beth Kenyon, a ravishing local beauty of 22 who admired his good taste and excellent manners. But when he proposed marriage to Beth, she politely turned him down. Wilder took the rejection in good grace, though inwardly he was devastated. He had buried his secret fixations for most of his life, and by the age of 39, he was an expert at hiding them.

On 26 February 1984, he raced his Porsche in the Miami Grand Prix and it was from there that pretty Rosario “Chary” Gonlalez (20), employed at the track as a model, disappeared. Witnesses reported that she had last been seen in the company of a man resembling Wilder. This man had expensive photographic equipment, and was obviously a professional photographer attending the event. Or perhaps he was just posing as such.

Then, on 5 March, Beth Kenyon also went missing. Her Chrysler convertible was found in the car park at Miami International Airport on 11 March, but her name was not listed on any outward flights for the previous three days. When Florida police questioned him, Wilder said that he had not seen Beth for almost two weeks. Told that he had been seen with her on 8 March in Coral Gables, he said that was not possible since he had been working in the Boyton Beach area that day. But he knew that her car had been found at the airport – information that the police had not released. Metro detectives now began a full-scale investigation of Christopher Wilder. He had pleaded guilty to charges of sexual battery of a teenage girl in West Palm Beach in 1980, and then violated his probation by flying to Australia. There he had kidnapped and assaulted two teenage girls.

He had been arrested the next day, but Australian authorities released him on $376,000 bail that his parents had posted. He then flew back to the USA, after promising that he would return for his trial, scheduled for April 1984. But Florida police still had difficulty obtaining a warrant to search Wilder’s house without probable cause, and whenever he was questioned, he was always helpful, polite and unruffled - a real “cool customer”. But Wilder was beginning to crack. He checked into a Daytona Beach motel on 15 March, and wandered the beach alone, stopping to talk with young women he met there. Fifteen-year-old Colleen Orsborn went missing on the beach that day. It is not certain that Wilder was involved or responsible; but she (or her body) has yet to be found.

When the ‘Miami Herald’ ran a front-page story about a race car driver who was suspect in the disappearance of both Beth Kenyon and Rosario Gonzalez, Wilder was finally spooked. He withdrew savings from his bank account, kenneled his three guard dogs, purchased a 1973 Chrysler New Yorker car, and drove away from his home forever.

Now he was on a murder spree and able to indulge his obsession: slender young models that crowded amateur model shows in the malls of America. Wilder was immaculately dressed, carried expensive photographic equipment and fake business cards that identified him as a representative of a model agency. And he knew that would-be models and starlets are made vulnerable by their own ambition.

Wilder abducted beautiful Teresa Ferguson (21) on Merritt Island the next day. A truck driver responded to a distress call to tow a driver out of a sand trap along a local road known as a lover’s lane. The man said his trunk was locked and he didn’t have a key – in fact, the body of Terry Ferguson was inside. The truck driver pulled Wilder’s Chrysler out of the sand, and the latter paid him, drove off and checked into a Cocoa Beach motel using his partner’s name and credit card.

On 20 March, Jill Lennox* (19), another beautiful and slender blonde was kidnapped by Wilder at the Governor’s square Mall in Tallahassee. Introducing himself as an agent for a studio, he politely “chatted her up” before knocking her out and tossing her into the trunk of his car. He then drove to Bainbridge, Georgia, where he gagged and tied Jill before slipping her into a sleeping bag. He checked into a motel to which he carried his victim from his car under cover of darkness. In the motel room, Jill was raped and brutally assaulted. Wilder then tortured her with electric shocks. He cut the cord of the bedside lamp, and peeled back the insulation from the bare wires. Then he plugged the cord back in the wall and held the bare wires to her body. The shocks were terribly painful, but not enough to kill. Then he Super-Glued her eyes shut, using a hair dryer to help the glue set. But Jill had a narrow slice of vision, and when Wilder was watching TV, she suddenly leapt up and locked herself in the bathroom, where she freed herself of her gag and screamed for help. Alarmed at the noise, Wilder swiftly packed his things and fled. Jill staggered to the motel manager’s office, where she sobbed out her ordeal. She was bruised and severely traumatized, but had bravely cheated a painful death.

Police were swiftly on the scene, and Ms Lennox immediately identified Wilder’s image from a “laydown” of eight mug shots. A federal warrant was issued for his arrest. It was now clear that Wilder was a sadistic sociopath, who derived pleasure from his victims’ pain, and then killed them. The next day, Terry Ferguson’s body was found in an isolated creek in Polk County, more than 100 miles from where she had disappeared. She had been savagely beaten and then strangled.

On 22 March Wilder traversed the southern borders of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, putting miles between himself and the Florida authorities. By now the FBI was also after him, and he was surely on borrowed time. That evening, he pulled off US Highway 10 and checked into a motel in Winnie, Texas. In Beaumont, Texas, the next day, he captured Terry Diana Walden (24) a married mother and obviously Wilder’s type – blonde, slim and beautiful. Her naked body, bound tightly with rope, was found three days later in a local canal. An autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed three times in the breasts and then left to bleed to death.

Then on 25 March, Suzanne Wendy Logan (20) was abducted from Pen Square Mall, Oklahoma. With Suzanne helpless in his trunk, Wilder had driven up I-135 to Newton, Kansas. There he checked into a motel with thick walls where he beat and tortured her. A fisherman found her naked body on the shores of Milford Lake. Ms Logan’s long blonde hair had been cut, and she had been bitten on both breasts before being fatally stabbed.

His next victim was Sheryl Bonaventura (18), a leggy “cowgirl” type in skin-tight jeans and knee-length boots that he met in Rifle, Colorado. With Sheryl, however, he adopted the romantic approach, and she apparently fell for his charms. They checked into a motel in Page, Arizona on 30 March as a married couple. From there, they drove together to Las Vegas, where she disappeared. In Vegas, Wilder next abducted Michele Korfman (17), a Cindy Crawford look-alike, at the Meadows Shopping Mall. Her body was finally identified at the LA County Morgue on 15 June. By 4 April Wilder was on the FBI’s Ten-Most-Wanted list and lawmen all over the United States were looking for him.

That day, Wilder met Toni Lee Simms* (16) at a delicatessen in Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles. He offered her $100 to pose for some pictures on Santa Monica beach and then abducted her at gunpoint – Wilder had by now purchased a .357 magnum revolver. But Toni was so submissive that she somehow soothed the crazy spree killer. She withstood the rapes and beatings passively and was eventually so brainwashed by Wilder that she became his slave.

When they drove into Gary, Indiana on 10 April she helped him to abduct Carrie McDonald (16) at the West Lake Mall. But Carrie was a survivor. A tractor mechanic rescued her two days later in woods near Penn Yan, New York State where she had been stabbed and left for dead. As she recovered from her wounds in hospital, she identified Chris Wilder from mugshots. The spree killer had gone from Florida to Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Olakhoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, then back to Indiana and Ohio. Now he was somewhere south of Lake Ontario between Buffalo and Syracuse, New York. And police were shocked to learn from Ms McDonald that he had an accomplice with him, known as “Toni”. This young girl, said Carrie, had also been subjected to beatings and electric shocks by her sadistic abductor.

Wilder next used his female slave to help him kidnap Beth Dodge (33) for her flashy 1982 gold Pontiac Firebird at Victor, NY. He held Beth at gunpoint whilst Toni drove the Pontiac to a deserted gravel pit. Wilder then walked Ms Dodge further into the pit where he shot her in the back. It was a cowardly, senseless killing – all he needed was her car, and he did not have to kill her for that. But Wilder was by now dangerously out of control. But with hundreds of police officers looking for him, he amazingly remained able to kill his victims and then slip out of state lines undetected. Beth Dodge’s body was discovered just hours after her brutal slaying. At least for her it had been a quick death.

Wilder next drove to Logan Airport in Boston, where he gave Toni some cash to buy herself a ticket to Los Angeles. Then, amazingly, he left her and drove away. Toni took a “red eye” flight to Los Angeles, and eventually told her incredible story to Torrance Police. With a distinctive vehicle and the FBI looking for him, Wilder’s spree was surely coming to an end. He attempted to kidnap a 19-year-old girl in Wenham, Massachusetts the next day, but she luckily escaped. Wilder then crossed into New Hampshire and drove west to Colebrook, only eight miles from the Canadian border. It was 13 April 1984.

He stopped for gas there and was spotted by two New Hampshire State Troopers who instantly noted the gold Pontiac sporting false New York license plates. Leo ‘Chuck’ Jellison and Wayne Fortier watched Wilder as he walked from the cashier’s booth. He certainly fitted the description of the wanted driver of the Firebird, but he was awfully calm and assured for a man who had to be one of America’s Ten Most Wanted felons.

But when they approached Wilder, he suddenly turned and ran for the Pontiac, drawing his magnum as he fled. Jellison, a sprint champion at college, swiftly gave chase and leapt on Wilder as he reached the door of the car, bringing him down. Both men struggled on the concrete before a loud gunshot boomed out. Jellison fell back injured as Fortier ran to assist his partner whilst keeping his own handgun trained on the suspect. Then came another explosion. Wilder had shot himself through the heart. Chuck Jellison had been critically injured by a bullet that had been slowed down – but not stopped – as it passed through Wilder’s body front to back and then penetrated the brave trooper’s chest as he grasped the fugitive from behind in a bear hug. The round missed Jellison’s liver by an inch. Had it hit him in the liver, he would have bled to death before medical help arrived. Colebrook policemen and state troopers from Vermont and New Hampshire quickly arrived, and an ambulance team took Jellison away for emergency surgery.

The sad remains of Sheryl Bonaventura were discovered in Utah on 3 May 1984, but the bodies of Beth Kenyon, Rosario Gonzalez and Coleen Orsborn have yet to be found. As he was still living in his Florida home when they disappeared, it was speculated that Wilder, using his speedboat, may have weighed down and dumped the bodies of Beth and Rosario in the ocean at night. Frustratingly, one of America’s most brutal and sadistic spree killers never appeared in court to answer for his many crimes.

A forensic pathologist who examined Chris Wilder’s body determined that the first round had been a fatal wound – he had fired into his own chest to commit suicide. The second shot had probably been the result of a muscle spasm in the dying man’s hand. But with that .357 bullet Wilder had blown his own heart to pieces – fittingly, perhaps for a man whose savage cruelty to women suggested that he had no heart.

(*: Not her real name)

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