Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (24 page)

But he remained deeply dissatisfied and when he was 24 he emigrated alone to America, arriving in the country with a suitcase and a little cash. He rented a flat in Florida and soon married – but the marriage only lasted eight days, after which his wife left him because of his sadistic desires. She’d also found a trunk in his car filled with photographs of girls wearing only bikini bottoms and she’d found women’s clothes which he’d apparently been stealing from washing lines. Even at this stage there was the suggestion of transvestism, a trait which would remain with him throughout his life.

The divorced Wilder lived off his wits for the next few years, doing odd carpentry jobs in the neighbourhood and running a topless bar. It was a hand-to-mouth existence which improved markedly when he met up with a building contractor and jointly set up a construction business. The two men landed several extremely well-paid contracts to build a village, and were soon employing dozens of men.

Eventually, on paper at least, Christopher Wilder was a millionaire and he went on a spending spree. He invested some of his earnings in real estate, installed a swimming pool in his house, bought himself a speedboat and several top-of-the-range cars. He increasingly left the day-to-day running of his business to his business partner, preferring the playboy lifestyle instead.

He also became a racing driver, something which further endeared him to young women. Not that the six-foot, attractive Australian needed cars to act as an aphrodisiac, as females were already drawn to him. But lots of consensual sex doesn’t make a disturbed man happy – after all, many rapists are married men with one or more mistresses.

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Further sexual offences

For the next few years, the Australian behaved inappropriately with numerous American teenage girls but he avoided the attentions of the authorities, perhaps because he appeared to be so contrite afterwards and because young girls tend to blame themselves for unwanted sexual activity. (Later, police would take statements from 60 teenagers who reluctantly admitted to being sexually humiliated by the superficially charming millionaire.)

Oral rape

On 10 January 1976, he committed his second
reported
rape, though by then he’d molested dozens of young girls, often forcing them to reveal their breasts and perform oral sex on him. Carrying out some building work for a family in Boca Raton, he got to know their attractive 16-year-old daughter over several days. Wilder had been feeling depressed and anxious, but now his predatory nature had a whole new focus and he turned on the charm. He established that she was looking for secretarial work, lied and said he could drive her to a suitable job.

The excited teenager got into his pickup truck carrying a spare blouse with her as she planned to go on to her boyfriend’s house to socialise. Realising he had an excuse to ask her to undress, Christopher Wilder suggested he pull over and she could change into the prettier blouse for her interview. But when he stopped the truck, he shook her hard and slapped her face. Telling her that she must do what he wanted, he tore off her clothes.

Wilder forced the terrified girl to both fellate and masturbate him, then – his sadism temporarily sated – came to his senses and asked her if she wanted him to drive them both to the 202

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Christopher Wilder

police station. Fearing that he’d kill her if she said yes, she promised not to tell anyone and he cheered up markedly and dropped her off at her boyfriend’s house.

The victim didn’t tell the police until three months later, at which stage Wilder was arrested. Interviewed by a psychiatrist, he wept copiously and admitted that he was terrified of going to jail. The psychiatrist noted that he had severe conflict concerning his heterosexual role in society and that he had a problem with male authority figures and couldn’t identify with them. He felt hostile towards people who tried to control him and acknowledged that he didn’t feel love.

Wilder admitted that he fantasised about rape though he knew it was wrong and it was clear that he saw his environment as essentially hostile. He seemed unaware that he was the one with the hostility and that he was projecting it onto others, people who invariably meant him no harm. The therapist noted that Wilder was ‘tense, fearful and apt to experience emotional upheavals which result in complete loss of intellectual controls’.

Insightfully, he added ‘he is not safe except in a structured environment and should be in a resident program geared to his needs’.

Sadly, a second psychiatrist was more of an optimist and concluded that the rapist was ‘not dangerous to others’. This doubtless influenced the court.

Christopher Wilder went to trial for the oral rape of the 16-year-old, but the jury found him not guilty, possibly because she’d changed her blouse in front of him and hadn’t reported the assault for several months. A typical sociopath, he made no changes to his behaviour, refusing to enter therapy and continuing to harass young girls. Sociopaths seldom learn from their mistakes and often believe that they are omnipotent. Wilder had these traits and he also had strong sadistic desires, making him doubly dangerous.

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Drug rape

On 21 June 1980, he posed as a television photographer and told a young Tennessee girl that he was making a pizza advert.

In fact, he’d drugged the pizza which he gave her to eat. When she began to lose consciousness he led her to his truck where he fondled her breasts and persuaded her to remove her blouse.

The confused young girl asked if this was part of the advert and Wilder said that it was, but as he stared at her naked breasts he became visibly aroused. Belatedly realising what he had in mind, she tried to resist his advances but he viciously raped her. However, she managed to note his licence number and he was arrested the next day.

Unfortunately – because the drugged girl had voluntarily removed her blouse and the drugs had left her system – the charge was lessened to sexual battery and he was only given five years probation and ordered to undergo outpatient therapy.

During his probationary period, his probation officer thought that Wilder was making progress, but in reality he continued to pose as a photographer and attempted to lure young women to his truck and home. He gave some of these women, and a number of prepubescent children, a hypnotic drug then photographed them when they went into a trancelike state, photos he kept as souvenirs of his dubious power.

Years later, police would find these disturbing photos hidden in his studio and would marvel that he’d gotten away with so many crimes for so long. And Wilder himself knew that his interest wasn’t healthy, telling a female friend that this photography was a sickness that he felt compelled to repeat again and again.

Transvestism

Wilder also joined a dating agency, telling the interviewer that he worked too hard and needed to socialise more. He added 204

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Christopher Wilder

that he didn’t like bars and wanted ‘someone with depth’. But the 36-year-old said that potential partners mustn’t be older than their early twenties, so it was clear he needed someone that he could control. He even gave the impression that he missed his homeland, a homeland he had fled with little more than the clothes on his back when he was 24.

In the same time frame, the building contractor had women’s lingerie delivered to the house and was seen wearing women’s panties, something he’d done for many years.

Wilder now began to disappear for two to three days at a time

– and when he returned, acquaintances noted that he looked badly shaken. He told them that he was having blackouts and couldn’t remember what he’d done. This might have been true or it could have been his attempt at establishing a mental health defence for future court appearances – after all, he was still committing sexual assaults and rapes (and possibly murders) and experience had shown him that he’d eventually be caught.

Another Australian sex offence

Two and a half years later – on 22 December 1982 – Wilder struck again whilst in Australia visiting his parents: doubtless returning to the scene of his unhappy childhood was emotionally painful.

Approaching two 15-year-olds on a New South Wales beach, he introduced himself as a fashion photographer and offered them work. He photographed them on the sand, then forced them into his vehicle and drove them to a deserted park where he made them remove their clothes. Wilder angrily demanded that the naked and weeping girls pose pornographically for him whilst he snapped away with his camera. He also indecently assaulted them both. He was arrested and was only allowed to return to America when his parents posted $350,000 bail.

Back in Miami, the increasingly sadistic millionaire continued to make lots of money. Superficially his life was going well as he’d made many female acquaintances for whom he threw 205

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regular late-night parties. He also set up a photographic studio in his garage and found numerous young women willing to pose nude for fortune and fame. But he had such low self-esteem that he couldn’t enjoy the proceeds of his business. He despised himself and deep down he despised everyone else.

Another oral rape

But abusing young girls temporarily made him feel better about himself, and on 15 June 1983 he approached a ten-year-old and a 12-year-old girl at Boynton Beach City Park and abducted them at gunpoint. He drove them to a forest and made both of them fellate him before he drove them back to the park. Wilder got away with this crime as it was only after he was a fugitive almost a year later that his photograph was shown to the girls, who immediately identified him.

The Collector

Wilder could have had numerous consensual girlfriends, but what he really wanted was total ownership of a young woman.

His favourite book was John Fowles’ classic
The Collector
, and he owned several copies and had underlined various paragraphs.

Ironically, Fowles’ book is about freedom and about the importance of rising above a dysfunctional childhood. The anti-hero, Frederick Clegg, has been raised by a small-minded aunt who has coached him to see every event in terms of ‘nice’

and ‘disgusting’. He leads a very restricted life.

But a pools win enables him to give up work and buy a house, whereupon he kidnaps an art student called Miranda whom he has admired from afar and keeps her in captivity. He doesn’t touch her – his dream is that he ‘kept her captive in a nice way’

to inspire her love.

But Miranda cannot love him and is understandably disgusted by his hobby of collecting butterflies, explaining, ‘I’m thinking 206

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Christopher Wilder

of all the butterflies that would have come from these if you’d let them live.’ Later she urges, ‘You’ve got to shake off the past… You’ve got to be a new human being.’ And finally she begs him to live seriously, to
use
his life.

Having read – not even studied – a book such as
The
Collector
, the healthy response is to become more open and less judgemental, to try to be all you can be. But sociopaths like Christopher Wilder (and serial killer Leonard Lake, who also cited it as his favourite book) only see the warped satisfaction of owning another human being, and, unlike Frederick Clegg, they sexually assault and deliberately kill…

The rst murder

Christopher Wilder’s personality continued to disintegrate as his work, social life and consensual girlfriends gave him no pleasure. He adored his three red setter dogs and gave generous donations to Save The Whale and to a charity which rescued seals, but his love of animals wasn’t enough to stop him carrying out his homicidal desires.

On 26 February 1984, he was hanging around the Miami Grand Prix track when he saw attractive 20-year-old Rosario Gonzalez giving out aspirin samples. She’d previously modelled for him after other race track meetings so had no reason to be apprehensive when he offered her further work.

From Christopher Wilder’s viewpoint, Rosario was everything he wasn’t – happy, focused, engaged to be married. He was about to ruin that happiness and that of her caring family.

We may never know exactly what he did to the Florida beauty contestant after he abducted her, as her body has yet to be found. But Wilder had access to numerous construction sites where a girl could have been held and abused before her corpse was quickly concreted over.

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The second murder

Less than a fortnight later – on 5 March 1984 – Wilder had the urge to kill again. This time he contacted a former girlfriend, 23-year-old Elizabeth Kenyon. They had dated briefly two years before and he had asked her to marry him but she had gently declined. Elizabeth was 17 years his junior and not ready to settle down, though she had remained his friend.

But privately Wilder never forgave a rejection and now he phoned the intelligent and community-spirited young teacher and arranged for them to meet. They did so – then she disappeared.

As is usual when an adult goes missing, the police refused to treat it as more than a missing persons case, but her determined father hired a team of private investigators who soon uncovered the fact that she’d been seen at a gas station with Christopher Wilder and that he’d also known the missing Rosario Gonzalez.

Hoping to put pressure on the police, the private detectives leaked a ‘Racing Driver May Be Linked To Missing Girls’ story to the local paper. Though it didn’t mention Wilder by name, he recognised that the authorities were on to him, put his dogs into kennels, wiped his house free of every single fingerprint and prepared to flee the state.