Serial Killer Case Files Volume 5: Serial Killer Case Files, #5

By Robert Keller

18 Shocking True Crime Stories of the World's Worst Serial Killers. Included in this volume;
Christopher Wilder: A millionaire with a taste for murder, Wilder embarked on a month-long killing spree across America, leaving a trail of dead women in his wake.  

John George Haigh: His crimes were financially motivated, even if Haigh claimed that he killed in order to drink his victims' blood.   

Alexander Pichushkin: Pichushkin's plan was to murder 64 victims, one for each square on the chessboard. He fell just three short.

Arthur Gary Bishop: A horribly depraved pedophile, Bishop murdered five boys in Salt Lake City, Utah in the 70s and 80s.

William MacDonald: Australian serial killer known as "The Mutilator." He certainly lived up to that name.

Denis Radar: One of America's most infamous killers, BTK terrorized Wichita, Kansas for decades, before his habit of baiting the police led to his downfall.

Tsutomu Miyazaki: A necrophile and cannibal who slaughtered four little girls in Saitama, Japan, thereafter taunting their grieving parents.

Roger Kibbe: Known as the I-5 Killer, Kibbe trawled the freeways of southern California during the 1980s. Any woman he targeted was as good as dead.   
 
Plus 10 more riveting true murder cases. Scroll up to grab your copy now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Keller
• Release date: Jan 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393546818

Robert Keller

Bestselling true crime author Robert Keller first developed an interest in the subject when, as a teenager, he accidentally checked out a book from the library thinking it was a vampire novel. It was, in fact, the true story of British "vampire killer” John Haigh. Thus a lifelong fascination with true crime was born, launching a writing career than has produced more than fifty books over forty years. Mr. Keller’s works include the acclaimed Monsters series, an exploration into the lives and crimes of the world’s most deadly psychopaths.       Find out more at www.robertkellerauthor.com  

Book preview

Christopher Wilder

The Beauty Queen Killer

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On March 5, 1984, Elizabeth Kenyon, a former Miss Florida finalist, left her place of work at Coral Gables High School, near Miami. The following day, when she failed to show up for work, the school called her roommate and learned that Beth had not come home the night before. Nor had she phoned anyone to say where she was.

This was out of character, and calls were placed to friends and family that she might be with. When these calls proved fruitless, her parents began phoning local hospitals. Finally, they filed a missing person report with the Metro-Dade Police Department.

When several days passed without any news of the missing girl, Beth’s distraught father, Bill Kenyon, decided to hire a private investigator to help in the search for his daughter. The P.I., Kenneth Whittaker, began by questioning those close to Elizabeth. He reported that, while Beth wasn’t in any serious relationship, she occasionally had dinner with a former boyfriend by the name of Christopher Wilder. Kenyon was familiar with Wilder. Beth had recently told him that Wilder had gotten her a modeling opportunity.

Yet, when Whittaker contacted Wilder, he claimed that he hadn’t spoken to Beth in over a month. This was soon proven to be a lie, as attendants working at a Coral Gables gas station reported seeing her there with Wilder just days before. Beth had mentioned that they were on their way to the airport, so Whittaker conducted a search at Miami International and soon found Beth’s car.

As police were still treating this as a missing person case, Bill Kenyon decided to stake out Christopher Wilder’s house himself. At the same time, he asked Ken Whittaker to check Wilder out with his contacts in the police department. What he found was shocking. Wilder had a long history of sexual offenses.

Beth’s parent’s feared the worst. Bill Kenyon recalled a television report on another missing girl who strongly resembled Beth, with dark eyes and long, brown hair. Rosario Gonzales, 20, had disappeared from the Miami Grand Prix racetrack on February 26. Witnesses had seen her leave in the company of an older, bearded man. Kenyon knew that Wilder often frequented the racetrack and sometimes raced cars there. He felt certain that Wilder was somehow involved in the disappearances of both women. 

The fact that Wilder had lied about seeing Beth, made him a suspect. Whittaker decided to question Wilder and called on him at the Sawtel Construction Company, of which he was part owner. Wilder stuck to his story, insisting that he hadn’t seen Beth and that the attendants at the gas station were mistaken. He even called in his secretary to vouch for his whereabouts. The secretary’s responses, though, did Wilder more harm than good. When Whittaker explained that he was investigating the disappearance of Elizabeth Kenyon, she said, Ah yes, the girl whose car was found at the airport.

Except, no one knew that the car had been found at Miami International. The information hadn’t been made public. When Whittaker said as much, the secretary seemed flustered. She turned to Wilder and asked, Isn’t that where you told me the car was found?

Yes, Wilder admitted, and then went on to explain that Beth’s mother had told him about it. Later, Mrs. Kenyon would deny having spoken to him at all.

These inconsistencies in his story put Wilder firmly in the frame for the disappearance of Beth Kenyon. Police working the Rosario Gonzales case had also become aware of her connection to Wilder. Once Whittaker shared his information and also put Wilder at the Miami racetrack on the day Gonzales disappeared, they began focusing their investigation on him.

On March 13, 1984, Christopher Wilder’s 39th birthday, the Miami Herald ran an article suggesting that police were close to an arrest and that a wealthy contractor was the chief suspect in the disappearances. Reading that article, Wilder must have realized that the game was up. On March 15, he dropped his three dogs at kennels and made a substantial withdrawal from his bank account. He told his business partner that the police were preparing to frame him for a crime and that he was not going to jail for something he didn’t do. Then he hit the road, setting in motion one of the most horrific murder sprees America has ever seen.

Christopher Bernard Wilder was born on March 13, 1945, the oldest child of an American naval officer and his Australian wife. He almost died at birth. In fact, he was so close to death that a priest administered the last rites. Christopher would recover from that early scare, although he was a sickly child. Then, at age two, he had another brush with death when he almost drowned in a swimming pool. 

Wilder’s first problem with the law came when he was arrested for his part in a gang rape in Sydney, Australia. Just 17 at the time, he pleaded guilty and received probation with counseling and electroshock therapy. He’d later say that, rather than cure him, the treatment triggered fantasies of torturing women by electrocution. He married at 23, but his wife walked out on him after just eight days, apparently sickened by his bizarre sexual demands. 

In 1969, Wilder moved to the United States. He settled in Florida, set up a construction business and did very well for himself. During the property boom, he began buying and selling houses, further adding to his wealth. He had a luxurious home, sports cars, a speedboat. He began indulging his passion for racing cars and for photography. He was living the American dream. 

But trouble was never far away from Chris Wilder. In 1971, while supervising the renovation of a house, he forced a high school student to perform oral sex on him. Arrested for the crime, Wilder was later acquitted. Three years later, he picked up a girl from a shopping mall, persuaded her to go to his car under the pretense of offering her modeling work, then drugged and raped her. Wilder’s lawyers managed to plea bargain the charge down and he received only probation with therapy. 

In 1982, while visiting his parents in Australia, Wilder was arrested for abducting two fifteen-year-olds, forcing them to remove their clothes and pose for photographs, and then masturbating over them. His parents posted a substantial bail and he was allowed to return to the US pending his trial, set five months hence. The case was postponed a couple of times. By the time it eventually came to court, Wilder would be rampaging across America, and on the FBI’s most wanted list.

That final, bloody rampage started on March 15, 1984. On that day, Wilder drove away from his office at Sawtel Construction, never to return. He wasn’t just running, though, Wilder was determined to go out in a blaze of glory. By the time he was through, six young women would be dead, others injured, raped, and severely traumatized. 

On March 18, just three days after he fled, Wilder abducted Terry Ferguson, 21, from Merritt Square shopping mall in Satellite Beach, Florida. A witness reported seeing Terry in conversation with a tall, bearded man. Looking through police mug shots, the witness picked out Wilder’s picture without hesitation.

By the time Terry’s body was found, five days later, Wilder had already struck again, grabbing a 19-year-old girl from a mall near Florida State University. Fortunately, this victim escaped and was able to provide an insight into Wilder’s bizarre M.O. She said that she’d been in the parking lot of the mall when a man approached her. He told her he was a photographer and offered her $25 to pose for a couple of shots at a local park. She initially agreed, but when they reached the man’s car something told her not to go with him. She told him that she’d changed her mind. He responded by punching her in the stomach and bundling her into the vehicle.

Once inside the man bound her hands and gagged her. Then he drove away, stopping along a quiet stretch of road to force her into the trunk. After what seemed like hours of driving, they eventually stopped, whereupon the man opened the trunk, wrapped the terrified girl in a sleeping bag and carried her into a motel room. There, he made her undress and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Then he raped her twice. After a while, he produced a length of electrical cord, with a plug at one end and the wire stripped bare at the other. He plugged the cord into a socket and started shocking her. Later, he tried to superglue her eyelids shut.

All the while, the man was watching TV. He seemed obsessed by it, the victim said. When he found an aerobics program, he ordered her to perform some of the moves for him. That was when she saw her opportunity and made a dash for the bathroom. She locked herself inside and started screaming and banging on the walls, causing her adductor to flee.

As the girl related her story, police put out an all-points bulletin on Wilder’s cream-colored Chrysler sedan. They also informed the FBI, as this was now a kidnapping – a federal offense. But despite these measures, Wilder wasn’t caught. He made his way to Beaumont, Texas, where he abducted and killed 24-year-old Terry Diane Walden, a nurse and mother of two. Then, driving Walden’s orange Mercury Cougar, he snatched Suzanne Logan, 21, from an Oklahoma City shopping mall.

Wilder’s next victim was Sheryl Bonaventura, a pretty 18-year-old with dreams of being a model. Sheryl was lured from the Grand Junction Mall in Colorado. A waitress later spotted Sheryl with a man matching Wilder’s description in Silverton, Colorado. The waitress said that she spoke to Sheryl, who gave her name and said they were headed for Las Vegas. Sheryl was last seen alive on April 1.