Beauty Queen Killer: The 1984 Spree, Victims, and Open Cases

The Beauty Queen Killer was Christopher Bernard Wilder, an Australian-born construction millionaire and amateur race car driver living in South Florida who murdered at least nine women and girls during a seven-week rampage in 1984. Wilder used a fake photographer persona to approach young women in shopping malls and public spaces, promising modeling careers before abducting, sexually torturing, and killing them. His spree covered roughly 8,000 miles across eight states and involved 12 known victims between February and April 1984, ending when he was shot with his own gun during a struggle with police near the Canadian border in New Hampshire. He was 39.

How He Lured Victims

Wilder’s approach rarely varied. He wore cameras around his neck, told young women they were beautiful, and offered them work through a fake modeling agency.¹ The pitch worked because he looked the part: he was wealthy, well-dressed, and confident, and he targeted places where aspiring models would expect to be scouted, including shopping centers and racetracks. Once he had a victim’s trust and had lured her to his car, he pulled a gun.

Investigators later found a room in his Florida home outfitted as a torture chamber, containing chains, gags, and restraints.² During the 1984 spree, he tortured captive victims with knives and electric shocks.

The 1984 Spree and Its Victims

The rampage began in the last week of February 1984 and lasted 47 days. On April 5, the FBI added Wilder to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.³ The 12 known victims, in the order they were taken:⁴

Rosario Gonzalez, 20, disappeared February 26 after visiting the Miami Grand Prix racetrack. Her body has never been found.
Beth Kenyon, 23, a former Orange Bowl princess, vanished March 5 in South Miami. Her body has never been recovered.
Colleen Orsborn, 15, was kidnapped in Daytona Beach on March 15. Her remains were found in Orange County but not identified for 27 years.
Theresa Wait Ferguson, 21, was abducted from Cocoa on March 18 and found strangled four days later in Polk County.
Linda Erica Grober, 19, was abducted in Tallahassee on March 20, beaten, raped, and tortured. She survived.
Terry Walden, 24, was found stabbed and bound in an irrigation ditch three days after her March 22 abduction in Beaumont, Texas.
Suzanne Wendy Logan, 20, was taken from Oklahoma City on March 25 and found beaten and stabbed near Milford Lake, Kansas.
Sheryl Lynn Bonaventura, 18, was abducted in Grand Junction, Colorado, on March 29. Her body was found about a month later along the Kanab River in Utah.
Michelle Korfman, 17, disappeared from Las Vegas on March 31 or April 1 and was found in Los Angeles County on May 11.
Tina Marie Risico, 16, was abducted April 4 in Torrance, California, and held captive for nine days. She survived.
Dawnette Sue Wilt, 16, was abducted April 10 in Gary, Indiana, and stabbed and left for dead. She hailed a passing car and survived.
Mary Beth Dodge, 33, was taken from a shopping center in Vernon, New York, on April 12 and shot point-blank in the back.

Nine Days With Tina Marie Risico

Risico’s captivity is the most extensively documented stretch of the spree because she lived to describe it. She was 16, applying for a job at a Hickory Farms store in the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance when Wilder approached her with the modeling pitch. Over nine days he sexually assaulted and tortured her using a knife and electric shocks.¹

On the seventh day, he forced Risico to help him recruit Dawnette Sue Wilt in Gary, Indiana, using the same fake-agency ruse. Risico was present when Wilder raped Wilt, then shot, stabbed, and left her in the woods. She then witnessed Wilder abduct Beth Dodge in New York and shoot her in the back after stealing her gold Pontiac Firebird. After the Dodge murder, Wilder drove Risico to Boston’s Logan Airport and bought her a plane ticket home to California. She described her survival as calculated submission: “I never screamed. I never retaliated. I succumbed… I’m gonna survive in playing this game.” She went to police on her return; investigators questioned her closely about whether she had been an accomplice and concluded she was a victim.¹

How the Spree Ended

On April 13, 1984, two plainclothes New Hampshire state troopers spotted Wilder at a gas station in Colebrook, near the Canadian border. When they approached, Wilder reached into his glove compartment and retrieved a .357 magnum revolver. Trooper Leo Jellison grabbed him in a bear hug. During the struggle, the gun discharged twice.⁵

Both shots hit Wilder. Pathologist Dr. Robert Christie concluded they were fired almost simultaneously, struck about a centimeter apart, and obliterated his heart. Christie ruled the shooting accidental, occurring as Wilder tried to turn the gun on Jellison rather than as a deliberate suicide.⁶ One bullet passed through Wilder’s body and struck Jellison in the ribs; the trooper was hospitalized in stable condition.⁷

A Long Record Before 1984

Wilder had been arrested for sexual violence since he was a teenager. In 1962 he was arrested in Australia for gang rape as a teenager, served a short jail term, and received probation with court-ordered therapy that included electroshock treatments.⁸ In 1969, he was arrested in Australia for raping an 18-year-old trainee nurse he had lured with a fake photography job; the case was dismissed after the victim’s mother stopped her from testifying. That same year, his then-wife Christine and her family told police they suspected him in the 1965 Wanda Beach double murders of teenagers Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, but Wilder left for the United States in May 1969 before police interviewed him.⁹

In Florida, the arrests continued. He was fined $25 in Pompano Beach in 1971 for trying to persuade girls on the beach to pose nude. A Boca Raton jury acquitted him of raping a 16-year-old in 1976 after his defense argued that his truck’s stick shift made intercourse impossible; he later admitted guilt to a psychiatrist.⁸ In 1980, he drugged a 16-year-old girl with LSD and raped her after meeting her at the Palm Beach Mall; he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted sexual battery and received five years’ probation from Judge John Born.¹⁰

In December 1982, while still on that probation, Wilder was arrested in Australia for sex crimes against two 15-year-old girls. When he returned to Florida in January 1983, he was charged with violating his probation. Judge Born set bond at $1,000, and his defense attorney repeatedly postponed the probation-violation hearing by pointing to the pending Australian trial. Wilder remained free for 14 months.¹⁰ In 1983, while out on that bond, he abducted and sexually assaulted two sisters, ages 10 and 11, in Boynton Beach. The girls gave police detailed descriptions and led officers to the crime scene, but Wilder was not identified as the attacker until after his 1984 killing spree ended.¹¹

Suspected Victims and Open Cases

Investigators think the confirmed count understates Wilder’s crimes, and several cold cases remain under active review.

Tammy Jo Alexander was found dead in 1979 in Caledonia, New York, and not identified until 2015. She was wearing a jacket from “Auto Sports Products, Inc.,” a detail that drew investigators’ attention because of Wilder’s involvement in auto racing.¹²
Shari Lynne Ball disappeared from Boca Raton in 1983 and was found four months later in western New York. New York State Police cold case investigator Christopher Weber said Wilder’s involvement “absolutely cannot be ruled out.”¹²
Tammy Lee Leppert, an 18-year-old aspiring actress, vanished from Rockledge, Florida, in 1983. Her mother filed a civil suit against Wilder in 1984 alleging he had met Leppert on the set of the movie “Spring Break” and traveled to Brevard County to photograph her. The suit was dropped after Wilder’s death.¹²
The remains of an unidentified woman were found in 1982 on land Wilder owned in Loxahatchee, Florida. The remains have since been identified, and the connection to Wilder remains under investigation as of May 2025.¹³

In Australia, the 1965 Wanda Beach murders remain officially unsolved. In 2007, the New South Wales Police’s Justice Project named Wilder as its primary suspect and said all other suspects had been ruled out. Investigators Mark Llewellyn and Andy Byrne have publicly identified him as the likely perpetrator, pointing to his proximity to the area, his history of violence against young women, and witness descriptions matching his appearance at 19. A bathing costume containing the killer’s semen was signed into a police laboratory and has since gone missing.⁹

In May 2024, Hulu released the three-part docuseries “The Beauty Queen Killer: 9 Days of Terror,” featuring the first public account from Tina Marie Risico, then 56. The series drew renewed attention to Wilder’s crimes and prompted investigators to revisit possible links to open cases across the United States and Australia.¹

1
ABC News. Survivors of Serial Killer Christopher Wilder Speak for the First Time
2
New York Post. Florida Model Reveals Beauty Queen Killer Christopher Wilder’s Haunting Warning
3
FBI. FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive No. 385 – Christopher Bernard Wilder
4
Palm Beach Post. Florida Serial Killer Christopher Wilder’s Rampage of Murder Across U.S.
5
New York Times. Authorities Unsure of Motive in Series of Women’s Deaths
6
UPI. Christopher Wilder Died From Two Accidental Shots
7
Washington Post. Object of Manhunt Fatally Shoots Self
8
UPI. Wilder’s Criminal Past Dated Back to 1962
9
New York Post. Identity of Infamous Beauty Queen Killer Revealed by Australian Investigators
10
Palm Beach Post. Christopher Wilder: Palm Beach County Judge Unleashed Serial Killer
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Yahoo News. Survivor of Boynton Beach Abduction by Christopher Wilder
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Fox 13 News. Serial Killer Christopher Wilder May Be Tied to Other Unsolved Florida, New York Killings
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Palm Beach Post. Serial Killer Christopher Wilder Suspected in Unsolved Florida Deaths