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Christopher Wilder's awful odyssey appears to be over and remains unexplained. Spotted by state troopers, Wilder shot himself, but the bullet passed through his body and wounded a police officer. Wilder then fired again, this time killing himself. We are gratified that the killings will stop. However, our investigations to locate the missing women will continue.
This is Deborah Roberts, co-anchor of 2020. Here on the 2020 podcast, we've been bringing you The Beauty Queen Killer, Nine Days of Terror, a new true crime series streaming on Hulu. In this bonus episode, we're going to go deeper into Christopher Wilder's history before he abducted Tina Risico on his cross-country murder spree.
Wilder victimized women across two continents over three decades. We'll learn how he perfected his con getting women to trust him. I literally thought it was my fault the whole time. I wanted this. I wanted to be a model. Is this what you have to do, right? I didn't want to tell anybody. What stories from three of his earlier victims reveal about Wilder's escalating power and control?
And we're going to hear from a former detective turned journalist who investigated how Wilder got away with it for so long. There are so many times in Wilder's career that he could have been stopped, but it didn't happen. That's the great sadness of this. This is a bonus episode before The Spree.
Duncan McNabb is an Australian journalist whom you first heard from in the series. Duncan first came across the story of Christopher Wilder a few years ago when he was digging around for a new story to tell. And he was struck that this notorious sex offender had come from Australia in the 1960s and he'd never heard of him. An appalling criminal who just disappeared into history.
McNabb's first career was as a police detective, and he managed to track down a retired detective who remembered Christopher Wilder. He'd been on his trail since back in the 60s. I mentioned Christopher Wilder. He said, oh, you mean that bastard, the photographer? And a long list of expletives followed. They really wanted to nail him, but they just couldn't get the evidence.
McNabb eventually pieced together Wilder's prolific criminal history and published a book called The Snapshot Killer, the shocking true story of serial killer Christopher Wilder from Sydney's beaches to America's most wanted.
Wilder had grown up in a suburb of Sydney, and McNabb found his rap sheet began when he was a teenager. So Wilder used to lurk on the beachfronts. And in those days, kids used to hang out on Australian beaches, you know, getting milkshakes, playing pinball. And Wilder was very much part of this culture. Wilder was obsessed with cars and bought his first at age 17. McNabb says that gave him some power over younger teens when they'd go cruising.
Wilder had got a couple of young boys, young tearaways, I suppose, not bad kids, they're just a bit socially disadvantaged. He'd met up with them at the beach. He'd offered to take them for a drive and would they bring along a 13-year-old girl in their clique. So they hopped in the back of Wilder's car and they drove off. Now, Wilder had planned this because he drove not along the beaches as they were expecting. He drove inland and drove to a deserted quarry up in the hills just behind the beaches and
You had to know it was there. You wouldn't come upon it by accident. So obviously it showed that Wilder was planning his first major crime. He took them up there. He then raped the girl. The two young kids in the front of the car were terrified. They reckon they should have done something but didn't know what to do. And Wilder, being older and very dominant, very forceful, got away with it.
It was 1963. McNabb says reporting a rape in that era could be very tough on victims. They'd be subjected to a no-holds-barred cross-examination where their sexual histories could be torn apart in a courtroom. Despite all this, Wilder's 13-year-old victim did come forward.
The girl was made of very stern stuff. She told her parents what had happened. The parents took her to the police. She stuck with the story. She didn't take a backward step at all, so she's a bloody brave kid. Police ended up arresting the two boys, then coming for Wilder. McNabb says Wilder's parents were horrified. They apparently had no idea what their son had been up to.
His dad was a talented carpenter who built their house, and his mom raised four boys, Christopher being the youngest. The parents set out to defend him.
Wilder has the benefit of a very competent lawyer and they also bring in a parole officer who says, Christopher's probably led astray by these two young ragamuffins. Not quite right. And then they bring in a psychiatrist who says that Wilder is a perfectly normal bloke, nothing terribly wrong. I don't think he'll re-offend.
There was a kind of boys-will-be-boys dismissal of the seriousness of the allegation. Australian authorities dropped the rape charge, and Wilder pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of sex with a minor under 16 and was released on bond. McNabb says it would set up a pattern. Wilder was rarely caught, and if he was, he slipped through and escaped the toughest consequences. He would grow bolder.
Wilder cooked up a story for himself to lure young, beautiful women. The bait he used was flattery and deception. Remember how he told Tina Risico she could earn big money if she posed for him as a model? It was in Australia that Wilder first came up with this con. McNabb says he honed his technique over decades, learning how to gain the trust of girls and women who wanted to believe this dream.
He purported to be interested in photography. He had a decent looking camera. He had business cards printed as he progressed, saying he was a talent agent and photographer, blah, blah, blah. And his routine would be pretty much, would you like to be a model? Would you like to be in fashion? I can help you. I'm a photographer. I have the contacts.
In Sydney there was a nationally famous deportment school, the June Daly-Wadkins School. So he would go up to some of his victims and say, "And by the way, I work with June Daly-Wadkins." Immediately the threshold drops. That natural reticence drops away from the kids. So they're thinking, "This guy might be just on legit. Here's a chance I can't afford to knock back." And that's how he was so successful with his stalking and luring of young girls.
In the late 60s, there was a string of unsolved rape cases along the beaches in Sydney. Police were stumped. Then, in early 1969, a nursing student reported a man who asked her to model. He's then taken her to a sports ground, into the toilets, and sexually assaulted her. And also taken photographs of her, which he threatens to give to her mother.
McNabb says the nursing student was able to provide Wilder's driver's registration number to the police. She didn't want to be dragged through a rape case, though, so she refused to provide testimony. Without a witness, police couldn't charge Wilder. But McNabb says her intel finally gave police a suspect in these rape cases. Officers paid Wilder a visit. The cops did something I think they should be very proud of. They decided whilst they didn't have a winnable case,
They were certainly going to make sure that Christopher Wilder got the scare of his lifetime. They carted him off to the police station and Wilder admitted having sex but suggested it was consensual, which is complete rubbish. They also went looking for the photographs that he allegedly had but apparently the camera didn't have any film in it. A complete con job.
By this time, Wilder was 23 years old and married. He'd met a pair of sisters at the beach and pursued the younger one, who wasn't even yet 16. Their father steered him towards the older daughter, and Wilder married her. According to McNabb, Wilder continued to prey on women, and the marriage was abusive.
She starts realising that Wilder puts utterly horrific demands on her. He's a weird combination. He's quite sadistic and cruel, but at the same time, he wants to be scratched and beaten by her. She then finds out he's also having affairs. She also finds a stash of photographs, not terribly well hidden, where he's photographed young girls about her age in various positions using her underwear.
When police hauled Wilder in for questioning in that rape case involving the nurse, they told his wife what they suspected her husband had been up to. McNabb says Wilder's life in Australia then starts to implode.
He can sense an edge to get away from things. He's not Albert Einstein, but this rat cunning of an extraordinary level. He knows how to navigate the system. He knows what he can get away with. So Wilder walks away a free man, but he knows the cops have got his cards marked. Christopher Wilder needed to get out of town. Sydney had got a bit too hot for him. He knew the detectives really, really wanted to lock him up for something. Around about May 1969, Wilder fled to Florida.
Wilder was able to move to the U.S. because his father was an American citizen, so he had dual citizenship. He settled in Florida, where his father's family was from, and found work as a carpenter. McNabb says he first shows up on American law enforcement's radar in 1971. He's picked up by police after coercing two teenagers into posing nude. The girls go to the police, and Wilder is charged with soliciting.
Wilder pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and escapes with a $15 fine and an order to pay $10 in court costs. In 1976, he faces more serious charges. He's accused of raping the daughter of one of the families where he was doing some carpentry work.
He offers her a lift. She thinks he's trustworthy. Obviously, she knows him. She's seen him around. He sexually assaults her. Then at the end of the sexual assault, suggests that she's got a problem with it. He'll take her to see the sheriff. This is this bizarre Wilder thing of saying, oh, yes, I give up. Yes, it was terrible. I shouldn't have done that. I'll do the right thing by you now. What a load of rubbish. The girl reported to her parents what happened. Wilder was arrested and went to court.
The judge orders psychiatric assessments. A psychiatrist assesses him saying, you know, he's not such a bad bloke, nothing problematic, should be let loose in the community, blah, blah, blah. But a second psychologist came to a completely different conclusion. I think the term was a dissociated sex offender under Florida laws and should be in residential care with a program dealing to his needs. Bottom line is he needs to be in a mental institution permanently.
The sad thing about all that is that the case resumes and for reasons that I couldn't find the documentation, the case was dismissed. So despite the fact that Doctor reckons he should be in a mental institution for quite some time, Wilder walks out of court a free man, another opportunity missed. And instead, he's just back on the beachfront with his camera and his cards. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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Wilder found work as a photographer and zeroed in on beauty pageants. These were places where he'd easily meet the young, beautiful girls he liked to target. We were out on the Fort Lauderdale beach and all the girls were standing to take pictures. Norrie was a contestant in the Miss Florida USA pageant in October of 1982.
One of the photographers that had permission to be there was Christopher Wilder. He was taking photographs, had his credentials on, very professional at the time. He was walking around, speaking to the girls, handing out his business card. He was very charming, for sure. You know, good looking in his own way, very complimentary. His eyes were very convincing when he would speak to you.
One of those moments he came to me and gave me his card. "Look me up," he said, "I'm a famous photographer. You're beautiful. Are you interested in modeling?" And I said, "Yes." You know, it's always been a dream for me. He said, "Well, I have a lot of connections, and when this is over, we'll set up some photo shoots, and I'll connect you with the right people, and, you know, you're definitely going to go places." Of course, being 19 years old, that meant a lot to me. I thought, "This is going to be it. This is my opportunity." So very convincing, for sure.
Nori scheduled her first photo shoot with Wilder in 1983. It was the year before his killing spree would begin. Wilder wanted to photograph her at his home. Nori was a little nervous about this, so she didn't go alone. I brought my mother.
And my brother and my cousin were both law enforcement. All three of them went with me. They were introduced to him. He was very charming with all of them, telling my mom, she's going to do great things. She's going to be a famous model. It's okay if she goes to college, but that's not her future. My brothers checked out the house. He lived in a very beautiful house with a pool. So that was my first time at his home was with my family.
Wilder passed Norrie's family's inspection, so she made an appointment for her next photo shoot at Wilder's home and showed up by herself. I didn't tell them, but it didn't seem like a risk to me because I was convinced that he was going to do great things for me. I didn't think there was anything unusual about going and photographing with this professional photographer that had all these connections. So at the time, it didn't seem like a dangerous thing to me.
In the days after that session, when Nori talked on the phone with Wilder, she recalls that things began to get a little strange. He would ask me about my weight. He would ask me about the size of my thighs, so measuring thighs, which I thought was very unusual. He would like you to repeat, like, who owns you? And then you would say Christopher Wilder, so I would have to repeat it.
It didn't feel right when I would hang up after talking to him or seeing him. I always felt like, should I have done that? Why was he asking the question? Maybe this is part of it. You know, very naive and not knowing how to respond to something like that. And in fear that if I didn't respond that way, he wouldn't call me back or I'd never hear from him again. And then I'd lose the opportunity of what I thought was going to be this career.
It wasn't long before Wilder's mask of professionalism began to slip and Norrie began to question his story. He didn't seem to be a very good photographer. There was a room that he used for photographing the models. And the backdrop was like a wooden closet. And then that was what you would stand up against when he would take pictures.
I didn't think they were very professional in comparison to pictures that I had taken prior to that. The lighting wasn't right. Anyone could have taken those pictures. They were very unprofessional. I thought maybe those pictures weren't great, but maybe there were going to be others in the future that were going to be better. And Wilder's promises about Norrie's career weren't coming true either.
Nothing was happening as far as any advancement in my career, what he called my career. I didn't see great pictures. He never really introduced me to anybody. Kept saying he had connections or someone saw me when I was modeling, but I never really got introduced. So it was all a bunch of lies. So by the summer of '83, I stopped taking his calls. I really cut him off because I just thought this is a waste of time. I really started to doubt who he was at that point.
Norrie cut off contact with Wilder and thought that was the end of it. 20-year-old Rosario Gonzalez is a computer science student at Miami Dade Community College and a part-time model. Her parents haven't heard from their daughter since Sunday morning when she went to work at the Grand Prix. Norrie knew Rosario through their modeling. When Rosario went missing, my brother came and told my family, my parents and myself that
He recalls receiving a call from Wilder for me. There was a race coming up in February and that he wanted me to participate and it would be a paid job. So he left the message with my brother and my brother did not give me the message. He just forgot. It was Rosario who agreed to model for Wilder that day.
It was very chilling to think, was his intention for both of us to be there? Was his intention for me to be there? I never returned the call because I never got the message. Nori had managed to get away. Rosario would be the first victim in Christopher Wilder's crime spree. Wilder's tactics were growing more aggressive.
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Hi all, Kate Gibson here of The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson. This week we talked to Whoopi Goldberg about lots of things. But one of the things we talked to her about is how as a science fiction and graphic novel fan, she never saw herself on those screens or on those pages growing up. I mean, I didn't realize that part of me until I watched Star Trek. And I saw it because I love sci-fi.
And for some reason, it never occurred to me that I was missing until I was present. You're not going to want to miss this episode of The Bookcase from ABC News. In the months leading up to his 1984 killing spree, Christopher Wilder was escalating his hunt for female beauty and experimenting with how much he could get away with. 14-year-old Dawn was an easy target.
I met Christopher Wilder while I was doing a fashion show in South Florida. I was 14 until I hit three. - She dreamed of becoming a jet-setting supermodel like Iman or Brooke Shields, who were gracing magazine covers in those days. - You know, at the time, Cheryl Teague was a big deal and, you know, Sports Illustrated and all those. It was just an inspiration that, you know, that I had. And I remember at 14, starting to blossom a few after middle school.
Dawn was beginning to get a foothold in modeling, doing fashion shows at a local store. It was a spring line that we did, and it was just in the middle of the mall. I had the little sweater tied around my shoulders, and we would go out into the mall and do poses, and they would match me up with the guy who was wearing the same kind of clothes that I was. I remember it being a little chaotic, but it was fun. Like, I enjoyed doing it.
It was at one of these events that she met an older man who seemed very interested in her career. He walked up. My mother was there because I couldn't drive. And he came up and he said, you're very beautiful. And I said, okay, thank you. And he goes, I'd like to talk more about being your manager and your photographer. And I said, okay, well, he goes, well, we'll talk after the show. Wilder was eager to begin working with the high school student immediately.
I remember him wanting to make an appointment to come to the house and show us his portfolio, which was basically he tore up magazine pictures and put them in a portfolio and had business cards made up, of course. Within a couple of weeks, he started to say, I need to get done in a photo session. We need to get this progressing quickly.
After that first meeting supervised by Dawn's mother, Wilder and Dawn began working together privately. That was when Dawn says Wilder's demeanor changed.
He was aggressive. You know, this is what we're doing. This is, I'm going to control this. It was definitely a control thing. I don't think he wanted anyone questioning what he was doing, when he was doing it or how he was going to go about it. The next time he picked me up to go to a mall because he wanted to buy me clothes and shoes, just super odd. Cause I remember none of it matched, but I guess for the pictures that he wanted, one of the dresses was very little girlish, you know, pink, simple, like green and light blue.
He had me wear that with some stiletto heels, black. It's such a vivid memory because it was such a weird outfit. And I remember thinking, this is, what is this that I'm wearing right now? And I didn't, you know, you don't question it when you're a kid like that. But I think it's just all part of that mind manipulation that he had.
Wilder scheduled photo shoots at his home. Dawn says his demands for these shoots were couched as professional requirements, but weren't anything she was used to. He would tell me not to wear a bra under the dress because he wanted it to look very natural. And underwear. He didn't want me wearing underwear under the dresses. So it's definitely fetish things going on now that I know. His demands weren't limited to wardrobe choice.
When I was modeling and taking pictures, he was taking photos of me. He said, get more aggressive, spin around, you know, turn your head or, you know, look at the camera more aggressively. He wanted that like anguish kind of look. But yeah, it was always in the car. Get aggressive, get aggressive. And then that's when it would turn sexual. The car rides home with Wilder became downright terrifying for 14-year-old Dawn. So this is the part I haven't really talked about. So he would pull over in parking lots and tell me to get aggressive with him sexually.
And he would pull his pants down and just ask me to do different things. And as a kid, because I was, I would start out trying to wrap my head around what he's asking me to do, because obviously I wasn't familiar with any of the things he was asking me to do.
I did say no. I mean, he never, he did not rape me, but it was always this sexual thing, especially after the first visit to his house, we would stop in parking lots and that's what he would do. I would make him so angry because I would stop and say, no, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. And I literally see the veins popping out, you know, cause he was kind of balding and popping out of his head. And I was,
I was so scared in a way because the anger, it was somebody like, especially when there's sexual tension and he was obviously aroused. And then I would just say, no, like, I'm not doing this. I can't do this. This is just take me home. And he would get so angry. And I remember thinking back, obviously, like, oh my gosh, like I was literally in this guy's car making him so angry and not knowing what to do. Just literally just shaking because I was so scared.
He would drop me off, wouldn't go in the house, and I would just go home. Wilder grew increasingly territorial over her, insisting she comply with his bizarre demands, like a requirement to write him daily letters telling him everything she was doing. And he wanted to control her relationships with boys. At that time, I was dating someone, and Christopher said, you're not allowed to date anyone, you're mine.
You're completely mine. That's when I shut down. That's when I was like, okay, this is not right. I'm not doing this anymore. And apparently I had talked to my mom a little bit about it. And that's when he started threatening her. Like, hey, I am her manager. I am her photographer. This is what we're doing. And I don't know if he ever talked to my mother again after that. But I said, no, I'm not writing any more letters. I'm not doing this. I'm not seeing you anymore. And eventually I
stop the communication with him. Dawn was finally able to cut contact with Wilder for good. She counts herself lucky that her interactions with him didn't escalate any further. Looking back at it, it's beyond crazy that he didn't do more. Of course, I didn't know his history at the time. But knowing that and knowing how angry I made that man, and he didn't do anything else. Obviously, we know that some girls didn't make it through this.
And it's just bizarre to me that he had so much control and was able to do this to so many people. Dawn had dismissed her fear and confusion. She pushed down her feelings and rationalized his disturbing behavior as the downside to modeling that probably all the pros had to endure. I didn't tell anyone about it at all. No one.
Not my mother, not my sisters, not my friends. I literally thought it was my fault the whole time. I wanted this. I wanted to be a model. This is what you have to do, right? I didn't want to tell anybody. I was too embarrassed. So embarrassed that I should have known better, right? 14. And that's been my whole life. Like, gosh, I should have known better. I should have called the police. And, you know, I still live with that.
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Wilder spent months luring Don and Nori with his modeling con. But by the summer of 1983, with his cross-country murder spree drawing nearer, he began refining his methods, using physical force in an attempt to gain control over his targets faster. Maria spent one single terrifying evening with Wilder. She was also 19, like Nori.
Maria was working at a department store when Wilder approached her. He pretended he was on the job, too. He approached me while I was at work, and he said the name of the company that he worked for. It was a modeling agency, and he said he wanted me to model for him and wanted me to try on some clothes. I said, you know, sure, that sounds awesome. I can meet you after work.
And he said, no, he says, I want you to go with me right now. I really was a little bit confused at first. He kept talking and he said he had seen me earlier during the day and he went up to speak to my boss and he actually had meetings with her for the last hour. And she gave me the approval because you work for me now and you need to listen and do as you're told and you need to go with me. That's how convincing he was. I was 19. I was young. I was naive. So I believed him. Why?
I walked out the front doors of the department store, walked down to another department store. He had me try on some clothes. Maria was afraid of getting into trouble, so she quickly went back to work. But she did agree to meet up with Wilder at a restaurant across the street after her shift ended. I met him there after work, and we went inside for just like five minutes, and he said he needed to make some phone calls later.
And I said, "Well, why can't you make the phone calls here?" And he said, "It's too noisy." He said, "We need to go across the street so I can use the payphone." And it took a little bit of convincing on his part to get me to go in his car, but I did. And we then went across the street to a shopping plaza, and he got on the payphone and had me walk up and down the sidewalk while he was on the phone.
and he said he wanted to see how I walked and see if he could, you know, make improvements. But at one point I got close to where he was on the phone and I could hear it making a like a dial tone noise. Clearly he was not on the phone. He was just pretending.
After Wilder finished at the payphone, he brought Maria to a different bar and began buying them both drinks.
I really think he was trying to get me, you know, inebriated. I was ordering strawberry daiquiris because I knew I could drink those and it wouldn't really affect me. Well, at one point I went to use the restroom and when he came back out, he had finished his drink
And there was just a tiny little bit in it of, it was Kahlua and cream, which I don't like at all. And he insisted that I finish his drink, like very forceful. And I said, no, I don't like it. No, I'm not drinking it. And my speculation is maybe he had spiked it. So then we got up and left that bar and got back into the car.
In the privacy of his car, Wilder began steering the conversation towards more and more invasive topics. Asking me a lot of sexual questions, like if my boyfriend and I had sex and if we did, how often. And he asked me, yeah, like if we do different positions and even asked if I was on birth control pills. Just kind of sexual questions he was asking me was uncomfortable.
Seemingly undeterred by her discomfort, Wilder brought Maria to a nightclub with a dance floor and a swimming pool. There, he tried to push her boundaries even further. We actually went out to the pool.
And he was splashing water on me and on my shirt. He said, you told me from the beginning this wasn't any nude modeling. And then through the night, he was trying to get me to take my shirt off, and I refused. When Maria refused to undress for him at the pool, Wilder let her back inside, telling her it was time to practice her model walk. According to Wilder, the club had recording equipment set up in an upstairs office where he'd be watching and filming her.
I had two shirts on. He wanted me to open the shirt so the tank top showed, walk very slowly with my head up high across the dance floor, and then go outside and meet him. And he would be down in about 15-20 minutes. So instead of doing that, I pulled my second shirt closed, I crossed my arms and put my head down and just kind of ran across the dance floor. And then I went outside and I waited for him.
I was going back and forth, like, should I just call somebody to come pick me up, you know, because I don't believe this guy is legitimate. But then the other part of me is like, well, what if he is legitimate and I'm going to blow this opportunity and this dream that I have? You know, young, naive, and wanted to believe the best in him and wanted to believe so much that it was legitimate. Maria remembers waiting for more than half an hour for Wilder to return.
When he comes back, he was very different. He was very, very agitated, very aggressive, very angry. He just kind of told me, "Get in the car." I asked him how I did, and he says, "Oh, you did great. You do as you're told. Listen to me. Get in the car." So I did, and then that was the end of that conversation. We drove around for a little bit, and he's asking me all those questions again.
and still trying to get me to take my shirt off and he wanted to see how I was built and I said no. And so then he said he was going to blindfold me because he wanted to see how I would react under pressure. He says, "Modeling, you're going to have a lot of pressure and I need to see how you're going to respond." So then I got really scared, very nervous, very anxious myself, but I did it. I let him blindfold me.
And he made me lay my head down on the seat so I couldn't see where we were going. And he made me promise him I couldn't see out of the blindfold. Keeping women blindfolded, increasing their terror, and rendering them powerless was a technique Wilder would use extensively on his spree. Maria remembers lying in the car while Wilder drove to his next destination.
He got me out of the car and made me promise again that I couldn't see anything, but I could see out of the bottom part of the blindfold. As we're walking, I kind of lift my head up and look down a little bit, and I could see that we were at what I believe was a hotel because there were rooms lined up in the lighting.
And when I saw that, I got really scared and I turned around and started to run and pull the blindfold off. He ran after me, physically grabbed me, picked me up and carried me to the car and kind of like threw me and yelled at me to keep my head down. And then when he ran around and got in the car, he held my head down. About five minutes of just driving around with him yelling and screaming.
very angry. He told me that I just blew the biggest opportunity I would ever have and asked why I did that. And I said, "Yeah, I was nervous. I was scared." I think it was at that point where I was so scared that I told him that he needed to take me back to my car and that I was done. Again, said, "You need to do as you're told and listen to me. You need to take your shirt off. I need to see how you're built."
I said, "No." He says, "I'm not taking my shirt off." I said, "I've told you that." And then I got insistent. I said, "And you need to take me back to my car now." And he did, thank God. He took me back to my car. He let me out. And he's yelling and screaming at me the whole time. And that I would never work in this town again. And that I was going to lose my job at the department store. When I was far enough away, I just yelled back at him as he's yelling at me. I says, "I don't care." I said, "I think you're full of..." And you know what?
Maria's boyfriend was waiting for her in the parking lot. She told him she was meeting up with a new photographer after work, and he'd waited by her car for hours to make sure she returned safely. My boyfriend actually got out of his truck and ran after him, but Christopher flew out of the parking lot really fast. So I remember getting into my car, and I was just shaking all over, like just trembling with fear and anxiety.
I think I was crying because I was so scared. I was just so relieved to be back home and feel safe. Although I didn't feel 100% safe because I didn't know if he was going to come back for me or what was going to happen. Maria was able to escape from Wilder, physically unharmed but badly shaken. She came away feeling embarrassed that she hadn't managed to get away sooner. Obviously, I told my boyfriend and I did tell my parents that
I don't think I told too many other people because I was kind of embarrassed of what I had done, that I had stayed with him for that long and that I was that naive to stay with him, to spend that many hours with him.
Before Wilder's cross-country murder spree of 1984 when he abducted Tina, he was testing out what he could get away with. He chose trusting young girls and women who believed he could help them with their modeling careers. And he escalated his demands, pushing their boundaries, asking them to undress, be sexual with him, even kidnapping some like Maria, who he blindfolded in the car.
But Norrie, Don and Maria were able to get away in ways Wilder's later victims couldn't. There were so many times in Wilder's career that he could have been stopped, but it didn't happen. That's the great sadness of this.
Journalist Duncan McNabb says it's impossible to know how many women Wilder hurt in the 1960s in Australia and in the 70s and 80s in the United States. When a few brave victims did come forward, authorities didn't seem to properly grasp this perpetrator's danger or have the goods to lock him up. He managed to get away with almost everything. It's a story of law enforcement and judicial failures across two countries.
over a period of almost 30 years. Sometimes it's a failure because a witness was too terrified to come forward. Fair enough. By the time Wilder went on his killing spree and abducted Tina, he was a master of manipulation and force, and few lived to tell. Wilder became the FBI's most wanted man. Forty years later, his name is nearly forgotten. McNabb has a theory.
Walter had disappeared off the radar, and I think one of the reasons was because most of his victims didn't survive. As one FBI agent said to me, wherever he went, someone died. But the other reasons, too, is that a couple of women who did survive his attacks didn't speak. They spoke to the authorities, and that was it. And so the case for want of someone to talk to disappeared. Until Tino Risico.
Forty years after her harrowing ordeal, Tina decided to share what actually happened during those nine days she was held captive by Christopher Wilder. Nori, Dawn, and Maria, along with the loved ones of Elizabeth Kenyon and Beth Dodge, spoke too.
In sharing their stories, they reveal that despite the horror that Wilder left in his wake, tenacity and empathy towards the other survivors is the true legacy of this story. The Beauty Queen Killer, Nine Days of Terror is produced by Ample Entertainment and 101, the makers of Yellowstone for ABC News Studios. This bonus episode was produced by ABC Audio. This is Deborah Roberts. Thanks for listening.
Hi all, Kate Gibson here of The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson. This week we talked to Whoopi Goldberg about lots of things. But one of the things we talked to her about is how as a science fiction and graphic novel fan, she never saw herself on those screens or on those pages growing up. I mean, I didn't realize that part of me until I watched Star Trek. And I saw it because I love sci-fi.
And for some reason, it never occurred to me that I was missing until I was present. You're not going to want to miss this episode of The Bookcase from ABC News.
