Christopher Wilder: "The Beauty-Queen Killer" Pt. 2

Welcome back!  Today we explore the first half of Christopher Wilder's rampage of across the country and his first three murders.

There's plenty of dispute over exactly how many people Wilder killed.  After his capture and subsequent incarceration, a variety of murders, rapes, and missing persons cases were attributed to Wilder, though he was not convicted for them.  I will not be discussing these cases here today, but rather the first four victims of his cross-country spree.  In total, Wilder was ultimately tried for his attacks against ten women, two escaping with their lives.  We'll explore the harrowing story of one of the survivors today.

The following is divided into sections for each of Wilder's victims.  Remember to take your time, as part of my job is trying to humanize Wilder's victims, and thus these articles may be emotionally exhausting.  Each story, whether detailed or vague, is heavy enough in its own right.

Murders in Miami:  Rosario Gonzalez and Elizabeth Kenyon

Rosario Gonzalez

It all began on February 26, 1984 with the disappearance of Rosario Gonzalez.  At the time Gonzalez had been employed at the Miami Grand Prix as a model, handing out free samples of aspirin, and was acquainted with Wilder.  The 20-year-old had actually been present at a previous race when Wilder had placed 17th, winning $400.  On the day of her disappearance, Wilder was a contestant at the track.  Later, around noon, she was seen leaving with a man who matched Wilder's description.  She was never seen again.  Her body was never found.

What connection existed between Wilder and Gonzalez previous to her disappearance varies between accounts.  In the book Human Monsters, David Everitt claims that Gonzalez had posed for a book cover during a photography session with Wilder.  With aspirations of a modelling career, and a previous run in the Miss Florida contest, it seems reasonable that Gonzalez might have taken Wilder up on such an offer.  In other accounts, the relationship between Gonzalez and Wilder is that of extremely casual acquaintance: Wilder raced at Gonzalez' place of work, they had run into each other a few times.

Considering that Wilder matched the description of the 'older man' Gonzalez was last seen leaving the race-track with, he was considered one of the first suspects in her disappearance.

Elizabeth Kenyon

Next came Elizabeth (Beth) Kenyon.  At 23, she taught 'emotionally disturbed' children at the Coral Gables High School, south of Miami.  But, like Gonzalez, she had aspirations of a career in fashion modelling.  In fact, Kenyon had been a finalist in the Miss Florida contest of 1982, and won the title of Orange Bowl Princess.

On Monday, March 5th, Elizabeth Kenyon disappeared.  The day previous, she had visited her parents in Pompano Beach, a weekly ritual, and her father had noticed bruises on her arms and legs (according to Bruce Gibney in his book The Beauty Queen Killer).  Kenyon had brushed off her father's questions, explaining the marks as the result of breaking up a schoolyard fight.  She went to work on Monday, and then was never seen again.  On Tuesday, the school called Kenyon's roommate to check on her whereabouts, and her roommate informed them that Elizabeth had not come home on Monday.

Parents and colleagues called around, trying friends and hospitals, desperately attempting to find anyone who had seen Kenyon since Monday afternoon when she left her job.  Eventually they filed a missing person's report.  After several days with no response, Bill Kenyon, Elizabeth's father, hired a private investigator to try and track down his missing daughter.  The investigator uncovered the fact that among several other casual dating relationships, Kenyon sometimes had dinner with a former boyfriend, a photographer, by the name of Christopher Wilder.

Kenyon had said that Wilder had been a gentleman on their first date.  Unlike other photographers, he hadn't asked her if she would pose nude for him.  After a few more dates, though, Wilder had made a more intense proposal: that of marriage, which Kenyon had turned down.  Two years hence, they had remained friends.  When the investigator asked Kenyon's parents about the various boyfriends, it turns out that Elizabeth had mentioned Wilder the Sunday just before she vanished.  It seems Wilder had offered her a modelling job, making good money.

However, when Wilder was contacted, he claimed not to have heard from Kenyon in a month.

As the other two men dating Kenyon were ruled out, it seemed that the case was coming to a dead end.  That is until another one of Kenyon's former boyfriends stopped at a local gas-station to show Elizabeth's photo around.  Surprisingly, two of the gas-station attendants said they had seen Kenyon on Monday afternoon, the day of her disappearance.  According to the witnesses, Kenyon had stopped by for gas and was seen leaving with a man easily identified as Christopher Wilder - saying they were heading toward the airport.  Kenyon had given no indication that she planned to take a trip, but when authorities searched for her: they found Kenyon's car in the airport parking lot with no trace of Elizabeth in sight.

On March 16, the Miami Herald ran a story how a Boynton Beach racecar driver was wanted for questioning in the disappearance of two local women.  On March 17, Wilder went on the run.  He tearfully told his partner in the construction firm that he "not going to jail", dropped his three dogs off at a kennel, and drove north out of town in his '73 Chrysler.

Indian Harbor, FL:  Terry Ferguson

Terry Ferguson

Two hours north of Boynton Beach, Terry Ferguson, 21, disappeared from a shopping mall in Indian Harbor, Florida.  This sandy coastal area, a series of beaches developed along Florida's barrier islands guarding against the Atlantic, is south of Cape Canaveral.  

On March 19th, Ferguson had been seen at several stores in the Merritt Square shopping mall.  Her stepfather found her car in the parking lot.

An hour after Ferguson was last seen at the mall, Christopher Wilder called a tow-truck.  He had gotten his Chrysler stuck along a state road near Canaveral Groves.  It was a lovers-lane on the mainland near where I-94 meets Rt. 528, a deserted stretch of sandy road.  Wilder was alone; claimed he had gotten lost.  He paid for the tow with his partner's stolen credit card and continued on his way.

On March 23rd, Terry Ferguson's body was pulled out of a snake-infested canal in Polk County, FL.  She was identified by her dental records.

 Indulge the following geographical speculation: It seems that after abducting Terry from the mall in Indian Harbor, Wilder had driven north up the coast to Cape Canaveral, then taken a left on 528.  His first attempt at finding a secluded location on the state road near Canaveral Groves was thwarted by nature.  It is unclear whether Terry Ferguson was dead or alive in his trunk at this point, but it certainly was not where her body was dumped.  After getting his car removed from the sand, Wilder continued along 528, west, until it turned into I-4, eventually entering Polk County where he dumped Ferguson's body.

Tallahassee, FL to Bainbridge, GA: The Co-Ed Who Escaped

*Warning: The following contains a particularly brutal account of torture and some sexually explicit content.

Florida State mascot: The Seminole

On March 20, a 19-year-old Florida State student was lured away from a Tallahassee mall.  When a man approached her, saying he was a photographer looking for a model, saying she had a fresh face, saying that he'd pay her $25 dollars for less than an hour's work, she had no idea of the hellish ordeal she was in for.

Saying that she only had to accompany him to a nearby park, Wilder lured the woman to his car.  At the last minute, her instincts told her to get out of there, and she declined the job.  Wilder punched her hard in the stomach, hit her in the face, and pushed her into his car.  With the wind knocked out of her, she didn't have a chance to recover before Wilder had the car on the road, driving fast.

Soon, Wilder stopped in a wooded area.  He bound her hands and covered her mouth with duct tape.  A little further down the road, Wilder stopped again and moved the woman to the trunk.  She laid there for hours.  Eventually the car stopped, Wilder removed her from the trunk, wrapped her in a blanket, and carried her into a motel room.  They had arrived in Bainbridge, Georgia.

In the motel room, Wilder ordered the woman to strip naked.  He said that if she did not remain quiet that he would kill her.  He shaved her pubic hair.  He put a knife to her groin to see how she would react.  He masturbated next to her.  He made her perform sex acts and then raped her twice.  The whole time, the woman said, Wilder was also watching television.

She hoped this would be the end of it.  Sadly, this was only the beginning of Wilder's entertainment.  At this time, he produced an electrical cord that had been cut in the middle and fashioned with an on/off switch.  He attached the ends of two copper wires to the girl's feet, and proceeded to shock her.

After this was over, he attempted to superglue her eyes shut.  He forced them closed and with an applicator applied the glue.  He used a hairdryer to try and harden the glue faster, but did a poor job.  The woman was still able to see through small slits in her eyelids.

Wilder then turned the TV to an aerobics show and ordered the woman to get up and dance like the women on screen.  Mostly blinded, still hooked to the electrical cord, she complied.  When she didn't perform to Wilder's standards, he would shock her into obedience.

Eventually, Wilder seemed to loose interest with his victim, becoming mesmerized by the television.  At this time, the woman made a move toward the bathroom.  Wilder came at her, using the hairdryer to hit her in the head, screaming that he would kill her if she tried to escape.  But she fought him.  Struggling, she made it to the bathroom and locked him out.  One of her eyes gouged and bleeding, she turned to the wall that separated her room from the neighbor's and began to pound and scream at the top of her lungs for rescue.

In the bedroom, she heard fumbling and then the slamming of the door.  She hoped Wilder was gone.  She waited a half hour before venturing out, wrapping a bed sheet around herself, and making it to the motel's office in search of help.

The sheriff sent out an APB for all patrol cars to be on the look-out for a cream-colored Chrysler, and alerted the FBI.  Unfortunately, nobody spotted Wilder's car.

He made it all the way to Texas.

In our next installment (I'm having to space these out, woof), we'll get to the psychological foulness of what Wilder did to Tina Marie Risico, his other kills, and how he met his end at the hands of the police.

-Joanna

Christopher Wilder: "The Beauty-Queen Killer" Pt. 1

Wilder at a Las Vegas fashion show.

You know what we haven't covered here yet?  Serial Killers!

Now, we've certainly written about murders, death, and mysterious goings-on, but we haven't actually broached the subject of serial killing directly.  Mostly, this has been because there are so many, many amazing and creepy true-life things to discuss and we just haven't gotten around to serial killers.  

Before we begin, I would like to offer a few words about serial killer content and how I plan to cover it.  

#1: You know, sometimes you just don't want to read about human beings being raped and murdered.  I totally get that.  Please feel free to continue on and read something that makes your life happy.  I, personally, like to look at pictures of opossums if I'm having a bad day.

A magical-looking all-white 'possum named Snoopy.  You're welcome.

#2:  If you're fascinated by serial killers, good!  Here's where I'm going to explain what I'm up to.  If you fall into this category, you're probably an odd duck like myself and have spent A LOT of time reading or watching content about serial killers.  After a while, all the stories start to sound the same.  An endless litany of young women with forgettable names, kidnapped, brutalized, and left in shallow graves.  Killers that lack a particular flair or gimmick quickly begin to sound like lesser-known baseball players having their batting averages recited.

And that bothers me.  Serial killers are scary because of their reality.  The statistics-based numbing of their stories feels wrong.  It seems to make the deaths of their victims meaningless.  I want to find a way to reverse the trading-card feel of serial killer discussion.  And, mind you, there are several talented true crime writers out in the world who do a great job at this.  But, there's only so many books one can research and write.

Therefore, I plan to cover serial killers that haven't broken into the collective consciousness.  Perhaps, like Joe Metheny, their crimes verge on the strange and comical in a way that people don't believe at first, and thus are laid by the wayside.  Or, perhaps their kill-counts aren't very high, or their methodology mundane.  I want to revisit the stats of their crimes and find what is chilling, interesting, and ultimately humanizing about their stories.  This may make these blog posts emotionally exhausting, but I feel like there's value to doing this.

One of the main ways that I intend to do this is by focusing heavily on the killer's lives BEFORE they began murdering.  I believe that a comprehensive understanding of the background that led up to the killer's crimes is extremely useful.  It gives context to their kills, and perhaps might help us come to terms with the horrors they wrought.  And, just maybe, by showing that these killers are human, we can also remember that their victims were human too, not merely the names, dates, and school photos they are reduced to by the endless litany.

To start, I've picked Christopher Wilder.  (Who isn't particularly obscure in serial-killer circles, I know, but bear with me: I'm easing into this.)

Background

Christopher Wilder

Christopher Wilder was born in 1945 in Australia to an American naval officer and an Aussie.  He almost died at birth, and later almost drowned to death at the age of two.  At the age of three, he went into convulsions in the back of his parents car and had to be resuscitated.  

In 1962 (or 1963, I'm not sure why records aren't clearer on this date), he plead guilty to participating in a gang-rape at a Sydney beach.  Despite the violent and sexual nature of the crime, the seventeen-year-old Wilder received one year of probation with a provision for mandatory counseling.  At this time, he underwent a course of electroshock therapy.

A few years later, in 1968, Wilder married.  His wife left him after one week.  She complained of sexual abuse and left Wilder after finding someone else's panties and photos of nude women in a briefcase in Wilder's car.  

In November of 1969, Wilder used nude photographs of a nursing student to extort sex from her.  The student complained to the police, but the charges were dropped when she refused to testify in court.

In 1970, he emigrated to the United States, settling in Boynton Beach, Florida (just south of West Palm Beach).  There, Wilder found success in the construction and real estate business, collecting a small fortune.  He lived in a mansion.  He was described as being handsome and well-tailored, taking ski-trips in Vail and driving race-cars for fun.  Living the playboy dream, Wilder was quoted in a 1981 dating-service video (think OKCupid for an earlier age) as saying that he "want[ed] to date and enjoy the company of women, women with depth.  I'm looking for a long-term relationship, but not marriage."  

It was during this time that Wilder took up his fascination with photography.  Moving from the possession and use of nude photographs, Wilder now began to take them himself as a means of exploiting women.  Along with a jacuzzi, his house featured a private photo studio.

In 1971, Wilder was picked up in Pompano Beach for soliciting women to pose nude for him.  He bargained down to a plea of disturbing the peace, and was let off with a small fine.  

In 1977, Wilder coerced a female high-schooler into performing fellatio on him, threatening to beat her if she refused.  He was jailed, and confessed the crime to his therapist.  But, such a confession was inadmissible in court, and Wilder was later acquitted.

In June of 1980, Wilder escalated further, his modus operandi developing.  On the 21st, he lured a teenage girl into his car.  He claimed to be a photographer and promised her a modelling contract.  He then drove her to a rural area where he raped her.  He plead guilty to attempted sexual battery and got five years probation with court-ordered therapy.  

In December of 1982, while visiting his parents in Australia, Wilder was charged with another photography-based crime.  He kidnapped two 15-year-old girls from a beach in New South Wales, and forced them to pose for him.  His parents paid his bail of $350,000, allowing Wilder to return to America, and court delays prevented the case from being heard until after Wilder's death two years hence.

After his death, two girls from Boynton Beach (aged 10 and 12) identified Wilder's mugshot as the man who had kidnapped them.  In June of 1983, Wilder had abducted the girls from a park, taken them to some nearby woods, and forced them to fellate him.   

Throughout the year of 1983 there are numerous kidnappings, disappearances, and murders that have been connected to Wilder posthumously.  

At the age of thirty-eight, Chris Wilder greeted 1984: the year of his cross-country killing spree.

Thoughts

Before Christopher Wilder ever killed anyone, he was clearly a serial rapist.  As we'll see in Part II, Wilder's killing spree is the stuff of nightmares, especially his treatment of Tina Marie Risico.  But prior to ever picking up a knife, Wilder left a string of ruined lives in his wake.  I think it's important to note the background that led up to Wilder's spree in early 1984.  Instead of throwing around the facts of Wilder's early life in a vague and dismissive way, looking at them closely allows us to understand his spree in context.

For example, we can already see that Wilder has a thing for young girls and the power that comes from photographing them.  We see his penchant for kidnapping as a means of exerting control over his victims.  And with the incident in 1980, it's clear that Wilder was already working out his story for how to lure women into his web (with lies about modelling contracts).  The groundwork was laid long before Wilder transitioned from kidnapper/rapist into murderer.  His spree was not just the dark consequence of a man suddenly snapping, but the logical progression of a life of sexual violence.  

One can't help but look on in despair at the number of times Wilder was caught and allowed to get away with his crimes before 1984.  I wonder what effect this might have had on his thoughts in preparation for his murders.   I also wonder at how many other individuals have slipped and slid through the legal system, never developing into killers, but nonetheless wreaking a trail of destruction.  Or, if not for his murderous rampage, would Wilder ever have been brought to justice?

And since I'm on the topic of hypotheticals, a look at Wilder's life before his last year also gives us plenty to chew on in terms of brain damage.  It's very common for serial killers to have experienced some manner of brain damage or head injury early in life.  While this is obviously not the only predictor for becoming a murderous psychopath, it certainly crops up in a lot of case studies.  In Wilder's case, it seems his brain underwent plenty of stress in his early years.  From the possible oxygen deprivation due to his drowning, and the under-reported incident of his seizure in his parents car, it seems something dire was going on with Wilder's brain.  Others have theorized about what kind of heinous effects his course of electroshock therapy might have had on his mental development, but I squint at this.  Firstly, he participated in a gang-rape BEFORE undergoing the treatment.  Secondly, electroshock therapy has enough of an undeserved bad reputation that I don't feel content piling on.  At any rate, it is interesting to note these incidents and faff about the unknowable condition of Wilder's brain, and whether it caused him to do what he did.

Further, we can speculate about what Wilder's fascination with photography indicated.  It seems pretty plain to me that Wilder got off on having power and control over women.  What kind of power did he feel when looking at his photographs?  What was it in the activity of photographing women that fulfilled him so?  And how was this psychological relationship different from other famous photographers like BTK?  Much to ponder...

In Part II, I'll tell you all about Wilder's murders and the girl that got away.  Stay tuned next Monday!

-Joanna