Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of kidnapping, sexual assault, rape, child abuse and murder that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Today's episode features some crimes that are still officially considered unsolved. But we've included the version of events that the evidence indicates is most likely.

Thirty eight year old Christopher Wylder leaned against his Porsche, watching the other drivers speed around the racetrack the day before he had entered the Miami Grand Prix. But it wasn't the action on the track that drew Wylder back. It was something else.

Wilder shifted his attention to one of the promotional models working the sponsor tense. He thought 20 year old Rosario Gonzalez had beautiful auburn hair. Wylder got in his Porsche and checked the clock. The girls were just about to take their lunchtime break. As if on cue, Rosario waved goodbye to the other models and trotted across the parking lot towards her car.

Wilder's heart beat faster. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

Wylder idled his car up next to Rosario and leaned out the window to chat. He said that he'd noticed her the day before and thought she was beautiful. Rosario quickly flashed her engagement ring, but Wilder assured her he wasn't propositioning her for a date.

He was offering her a job in addition to being a race car driver. He was also a photographer. As proof, he pointed to his professional camera on the back seat. With his help, Rosario could be on the cover of fashion magazines around the world. All she had to do was get in the car.

Wylder flashed a handsome grin and promised to have her back in time to see the next race.

Convinced, Rosario opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. Wylder put the car in gear and drove out of the lot, but they didn't return after lunch or even later that afternoon. Rosario would never be seen or heard from ever again.

Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original fun podcast. Every episode we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers today will tour the life of Christopher Wylder, also known as the Beauty Queen Killer.

I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone.

You can find episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll cover how Christopher Wylder went from an innocuous child to a brutal serial killer.

Next time, we'll follow Wylder as he embarks on a cross-country killing spree across the U.S.. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. We often imagine monsters lurking in the darkness, waiting for the perfect time to strike, but the worst monsters, the real monsters, walk amongst us in the light of day. Nowhere is truly safe, not a brightly lit shopping mall or even a crowded racetrack.

And real monsters will use your own ambitions against you with friendly grins and empty promises. The lure you in by offering you everything you've always wanted fame, fortune, a modeling career. And just when you think you're going to get it, they'll take everything from you, including your life. One of those monsters was Christopher Bernard Wild Terror, born during World War Two in Sydney, Australia. While just first moments were traumatic during the delivery, Wilders struggled to breathe and doctors feared that he would die.

A priest was rushed into the room to read Wylder his last rites. Miraculously, after being prayed over, the baby's vital signs began to improve before long Wylder was in the clear. Of course, Wylder doesn't remember his first brush with death, but he did claim to remember the second. When Wylder was two years old. He nearly drowned. Some accounts say that he fell into a pool, others that he was at the beach. Either way, the incident had lasting effects on Walter's health.

He suffered from convulsions and fainting spells for the next few years.

The convulsions were painful and arguably affected Wilder's mental health. These were his formative years. He wanted to be strong, like his father, who was a war hero. But growing up sick made him feel helpless and weak. He couldn't wait to grow up and be a strong adult. But as he started to age, these fantasies evolved into something darker. He didn't just want to be strong, he wanted to be powerful. And perhaps in Wilder's young mind, he associated power with dominance because in these new fantasies, wylder pictured himself hurting people.

Despite these disturbing thoughts, Wilder's childhood was actually a pleasant one, his parents, a U.S. naval officer and an Australian woman, were in a healthy relationship and provided Wilder a stable middle class life in Sydney.

He was an average student who attended good schools, held dual citizenship in both America and Australia. But instead of using these privileges to better himself, Wylder became spoiled and entitled.

In his early teens, Wylder reportedly avoided his responsibilities at home and at school, spending most of his time hanging out with friends and drinking on the beach.

Wilder was a popular presence. They're no longer considered sickly. He started surfing and developed an athletic build. Girls took notice, and as his confidence grew, he learned how to be charming and funny. On the outside, Wylder had succeeded in becoming the strong person he had always wanted to be.

But inside, he was still harboring dark thoughts, and his fantasies of dominance became more sexualized. He had noticed the girls at the beach, but instead of imagining taking them on a date, he fantasized about raping them.

Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.

As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks.

Greg Wilder's worrying fantasies about sexual violence were early indicators of his later killings.

Criminology professor Dr. Scott Bond states that serial killers program themselves in childhood to become murderers through a progressively intensifying loop of fantasy. That means that the more wilder fantasized about violent sexual acts, the more he normalized them.

And once those violent sexual fantasies felt natural to him, he imagined increasingly escalating violence. Potential serial killers can go through this cycle for years before ever attacking their first victim. Although Wilder's loop had just begun, he was already having difficulty keeping his burgeoning sexual urges in check.

So he started acting on them. In the early 1960s, when Wylder was 15 or 16 years old, he started sneaking out of the house, but Wylder wasn't meeting up with friends or taking joyrides. He was prowling his suburban neighborhood in search of attractive women.

And when he found one likely another teenager, Wylder would follow her home and wait.

He would watch them through their windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of them naked.

One night, a concerned neighbor spotted wylder and called the police. But when the authorities arrived, they let Wilga go with only a warning. The lack of punishment proved to wylder that there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. So he started imagining what else he could get away with.

Around 1963, when Wilder was 17, he went to the beach with a couple of his friends there. They surfed and drank alcohol. Eventually, Wylder decided that they should find a girl to talk to. The boys walked on the beach until they found a 13 year old girl sitting alone in the sand. At first they were friendly, offering the girl alcohol and telling her she was pretty.

But when Wilder sat down next to her, the young girl got nervous and tried to leave. Wilder drunk on alcohol and entitlement, grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. He dragged the young girl behind a sand dune. Then his friends watched as Wilder raped her when Wilder was done. He walked away as if nothing happened. The 13 year old managed to find help and reported the incident to police since Wilder was known in the area. He was quickly arrested.

At the trial, Wilder's parents came to his defense and argued for leniency. They said he was a good kid with a bright future ahead of him. The judge agreed. Wilga was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to undergo counseling.

At counseling, Wylder admitted that he had violent fantasies concerned. A doctor reportedly ordered him to undergo a more extreme treatment.

Electroshock therapy wylder hated the treatments. They made him feel helpless and out of control. And instead of curing him, they only fueled his dark fantasies. He started to imagine himself tying up young women and shocking them.

It was obvious that the counseling had failed wylder. Now it would only be a matter of time before his fantasies overtook him and forced him to act.

The only question was when and where. It's possible those questions were answered in 1965 at a place called Wanda Beach, about 18 miles south of Sydney.

On January 11th, a pair of 15 year old girls, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, were brutally attacked while walking together on the beach.

The best friends were assaulted and stabbed to death. Their bodies were found the next day, buried under a few inches of sand.

The tragic crime, which was widely publicized, shocked the beachside communities around Sydney and led to one of the largest investigations in Australian history. It's important to note that the Wanda Beach murders are still unsolved, and Christopher Wilder's involvement has never been proven. But in the late 1960s, he was listed as a suspect. By that time, life had returned to normal on the beaches around Sydney, memories of the murders had faded. Parents, children and young girls who lived in the area let their guard down as they returned to the area to relax.

And Wylder, now 21, also returned to his old haunt.

According to Duncan McNab, author of The Snapshot Killer. It was around this time that Wylder met a 20 year old schoolteacher who will call Jane Wilder noticed Jane and her 15 year old sister walking on the beach. Wilder struck up a conversation with them and asked the sisters to join him. The next day, charmed by the handsome man with the American accent, they agreed. The following day, Wilga was a gentleman. He showed Jane and her sister his favourite surf spots and the best places to swim after they stayed in touch.

Eventually becoming good friends, Wylder and Jane grew closer and started to date. But she noticed that Wilder's eyes never strayed far from her teenage sister.

As time passed, the girl's father noticed two. When he confronted Wylder about eyeing Jane's sister, Wylder assured him that he was only interested in Jane.

But other incidents followed. At a dinner party at Jane's house, Wylder got angry and punched through a window. Another time, he flirted with Jane's mother when they were alone. But Wilder's disturbing behaviour didn't dissuade Jane from continuing the relationship.

Then, in February 1968, against the wishes of her parents, Jane and Wylder got married. But they would not live happily ever after.

In fact, according to most accounts, the union wouldn't even last a week. As soon as Jane moved in with Wylder, he started acting out his repressed fantasies. Wylder forced Jane to have sex multiple times a day, often in painful positions.

And if she refused, he beat her. But the misery didn't end there. Jane believed Wylder wanted her dead.

On two occasions, Jane lost control of her car because it had been drained of brake fluid. Another time she woke up to the smell of gas. When she got up and found the stove turned on, she saw wylder waiting outside. It didn't end there.

On multiple occasions, Wylder called Jane's sister and offered to take pictures of her suspicious. Jane started going through his belongings. Jane reportedly found a briefcase hidden in a dresser drawer. Inside were photos of women posing nude for him.

After a year of dating and a week of marriage, Jane had finally reached her limit. She packed a bag and left for good.

But when Jane arrived at her parents house, she didn't want to talk about her failed marriage. Instead, she told her mother that based on Wilders violent behaviour, she believed he was responsible for the Wanda Beach murders.

The next morning, Jane and her mother called the police and told them about their suspicions. It was a long shot, but they figured any information would help police promise to question wylder.

But when they arrived at Wild Joe's apartment, they found it empty.

After hearing that police wanted to talk to him about the Wanda Beach murders, Wylder panicked like a man desperate to keep a secret wylder packed his bags and disappeared into the night.

Coming up, Wylder flees Australia. Listeners looking for something a little spooky to dig into, then check out the Spotify original fun podcast, Superstitions, every Wednesday explore the varying beliefs people around the world fear and follow in this eerie new series. Each week step inside stories that illustrate the horror, weirdness and truth behind humanity's strangest codes of conduct.

Why do black cats represent witchcraft? What's the point of carrying a rabbit's foot around with you? And how come certain films seem colourist and others don't? Each new episode of Superstitions presents a story that unlocks the mysteries of unorthodox traditions and surreal phenomena.

They may seem mystical or illogical or completely insane, but then again, do they follow the podcast series Superstitions Free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts?

Now back to the story. In 1969, 24 year old Christopher Bernard Wylder went on the run. His wife, Jane, told police that she believed Wylder was responsible for the Wanda Beach murders. She didn't have any hard evidence involving the murders. However, due to Wilder's prior rape charge, they listed him as a suspect. When Wylder learned that he was a suspect, he panicked before police could question him. He packed up his camera, boarded a plane and left the country.

When the plane touched down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Wylder stepped off and looked around. In a way, it was a lot like his old home, sunshine and beaches. But Wilder didn't want to make the same mistakes here that he had in Australia. He genuinely wanted to start over. Skilled in construction.

Wylder found plenty of work at the time. Florida was going through a building boom and opportunities were abundant. So much so that a few years later, Wilder was able to start his own contracting business.

Almost immediately.

It was successful and the money allowed Wylder to live lavishly. He bought a large house with an indoor swimming pool, a luxurious boat and flashy cars.

But what Wylder couldn't buy was peace of mind. Desperate to suppress his violent urges, Wilder tried hard to distract himself. He entered his sports cars into racing tournaments, surfed and hosted dinner parties at his home. Considered a Playboy wylder went on dates to fill his nights. But the more wylder tried to hide his violent side, the stronger it got. Eventually, Wilders fantasies overwhelmed him against his better judgment. He got out his old camera and started taking pictures of women again.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist specializing in sex offenses, studies the overwhelming urges felt by some serial killers.

He states that in these particular cases, the intensity of the craving is too painful not to satisfy it.

Berlin explains that the urges felt by killers like Christopher Wilder are more of an obsession. They wake up fixated on them and go to sleep the same way.

In these cases, it's only a matter of time before those obsessions become reality. Killers experiencing these obsessions will move incrementally. For instance, they may imagine themselves stabbing someone, then unable to shake the thought. They'll buy a knife next. They'll carry it without intending to use it until one day they do.

But instead of a knife, Wylder wielded a camera back in Australia, Wilder's favorite place to approach teenage girls was on the beach in Florida, 26 year old Wylder discovered a better place to go.

The local mall in the 1970s, the mall was considered a safe enough place for teenagers to hang out without their parents. It was these innocent, naive teenage girls that wylder targeted as they searched for the perfect outfit.

Wylder stalked them using his camera as a prop wylder pretended that he was a modeling agent. He told the unsuspecting teens that they were perfect for an upcoming job he was casting.

Although most of the girls were wary of Wylder, some of the more impressionable young women agreed to let him photograph them. They found themselves in a frightening situation.

Wilder lured young women away from the mall to a more scenic and isolated setting. There, his tone changed as he photographed the girls. He demanded they take off their clothes. Most of them suddenly realizing they were alone, were too afraid to say no.

When some of the teenagers complained to police, Wilder was arrested. But while he'd been arrested for sexual assault in Australia, his criminal record in the U.S. was relatively clean. Instead of jail time or even probation, Wylder was ordered to pay a small fine for disorderly conduct. Once again, Wylder had been let off the hook. There was nothing left to dissuade him from acting on his powerful urges.

In the late 1970s, a family hired Wilder to help out with their home renovations. While on the job, he found that they had a teenage daughter.

The 31 year old wylder managed to lure her into his truck. Then he forced her to perform oral sex on him.

After Wylder released her, the student told her parents what he had done. They called the police and Wilder was arrested for sexual battery.

It appeared that the law had finally caught up with Wylder.

During questioning, Wylder reportedly admitted to frequently masturbating to the thought of raping young girls, but Wylder defended his actions.

He blamed his crime on his underlying anxiety problems while alleging that the encounter had been consensual despite all the evidence for reasons unknown. The jury acquitted wylder.

Wylder left the courtroom feeling relieved, but the close call had rattled him. Something about being locked up in a jail cell scared him.

Perhaps it reminded him of how he felt during electroshock therapy, powerless and weak.

Regardless, it may have been at that moment that Wylder decided he would never go to prison no matter what.

That didn't mean he would stop attacking young women. It only meant that over the next four years he would purrfect his methods. In 1980, 35 year old wylder drove his pickup truck to the Palm Beach mall, grabbed his camera and walked inside.

Wilder took his time skulking around the mall, waiting for an opportunity. He noticed two teenage girls shopping in the back of a store with a charming grin. Wylder approached the girls. He flashed a fake business card that said he was a modeling agent and told them it was their lucky day.

Wilander claimed that he was shooting a magazine ad for a pizza restaurant. He told the two girls that he wanted them to be in it to sweeten the deal.

Wilder told them he'd pay them seventy five dollars, each excited by the prospect of becoming real models. The teenage girls readily agreed, while during the girls drove to another mall nearby.

There, he snapped a couple of photos of them standing next to a pizza place.

After they finished the shoot, Wylder bought each girl a slice of pizza and offered to drive them back to the other mall.

But when they got back to his pickup truck, Wylder suddenly remembered something. He sent one girl back into the mall on a fake errand, leaving him all alone with the other teenager. When Wylder bought the girls pizza, he sprinkled drugs over one girl slice now where she sat in the truck, she felt dizzy and laid down on the bench seat while she was drugged, Wylder raped her.

We're not sure exactly what happened next. But what we do know is that wylder eventually let the teenager go and his plan to go undetected backfired because afterwards she reported the rape to police.

Once again, Wylder was arrested as the police cuffed him. The fear of ending up behind bars returned at the trial.

Wilder was convicted of sexual assault, but shockingly, the judge declined to issue him any jail time. Instead, Wilder received five years of probation and sex therapy.

The failures of justice didn't end there. Wylder manipulated a sex therapist into believing he was making progress. He managed to obtain a travel permit from the courts, claiming that seeing his parents would help his treatment.

The courts agreed. And on December 6th, 1982, Wilder packed his camera into a bag and boarded a plane to Sydney, Australia.

But when he landed, he didn't go see his parents. Instead, he rented a car and drove to a place called Manly Beach, seven miles north of Sydney.

Their 37 year old wylder took his camera and walked through the crowd, searching for the right girl to meet his needs. He didn't have to wait long.

Wylder noticed a 16 year old girl named Fiona Parsons getting out of her father's car as her dad drove away. Wylder approached her with a friendly smile, using the same spiel he had in America.

Wilder told Fiona that she had the perfect body for modeling. He bragged that he could make her famous to show that he was serious. He offered her 100 dollars.

Fiona believed every word as she imagined herself becoming a famous model. Wylder led her to a secluded part of the beach. There, he told her to lay down on the sand and smile for the camera.

It didn't take long for Wilder to get aggressive. He demanded that Fiona take off her clothes and pose in a variety of sexual positions.

Fiona complied.

Eventually, Wilder realised that Fiona wasn't doing what he said because she feared him. She was doing it to please him.

He wanted to see what else she could do for him. So he asked her to help him find another model to photograph.

Fiona agreed, and together they walked down the beach. Eventually, a beautiful teen girl sitting in the sand court Wilder's eye.

He told Fiona exactly what to say and sent her over following while disorder's, Fiona told the girl that she was a model and that wylder was her agent. Fiona explained to the girl that she could be a model to.

All she had to do was let Wylder take some photos of her put at ease by someone her own age. The teenager agreed wylder, eager to be alone with a girl, told Fiona to wait for them to get back while they were gone. Fiona thought about leaving, but something inside made her stay a short time later.

Fiona saw the other girl walking down the beach crying. When Fiona asked her why, the girl said that Wildheart forced her to take off her clothes. He had photographed her and then abruptly left.

Fiona's heart raced in her chest as she ran down the beach looking for wylder when she realised he was gone. Fiona didn't feel relieved.

She felt abandoned. Fiona was proof that with the right approach, Wilder was capable of manipulating young girls into doing whatever he wanted. But while Fiona may have been an extreme example, she wouldn't be the last.

Three weeks later, on December 28th, 1982, Wylder returned to Manly Beach as he walked in the sun, he saw two 15 year old girls hanging out with their friends while deer approached them and using the same methods that he had with Viona, tried to lure them away from the group.

He wanted to take the two girls to a more isolated spot to photograph them.

The girl's friends pleaded with them not to go. But like Fionna, they were blinded by Wilder's tactics. After he offered each girl 75 dollars, they agreed. But as Wilder and the two girls drove away, the group of friends got a description of his car.

Wilder drove the girls to a secluded part of the beach, where his demeanor quickly changed. Like Fiona, he ordered them to take off their clothes and pose in sexual positions, frightened by the sudden shift in wild just personality.

The two girls did, as they were told.

As Wilder continued to take photos of the two girls, he worked himself into a frenzy, feeding off their fears, unable to control himself any longer. Wilder told the girls to get into the car.

Wilder drove the terrified girls back to his hotel room. There, he tied them to the bed and threatened to hurt them if they screamed. Then he sexually assaulted them for hours.

Meanwhile, back on the beach, the girls friends waited for their return, worried that something bad had happened. They found a police officer.

A perceptive officer must have remembered a report three weeks prior of a man taking photos of a teenager on the beach. They radioed for the other units to be on the lookout for Wilder's car.

A patrol officer driving by a hotel spotted the car in the parking lot cautiously. They approached Wilder's room and knocked on the door. A disheveled wylder answered.

He immediately confessed to having taken the photos and claimed to have thrown them away.

After searching his room, the police found his cameras, but no film. Once he'd admitted to each of the girls allegations, the officers arrested Wilder. Finally, he'd get the punishment he deserved.

Up next, Wilder returns to Florida and begins his road trip of death now back to the story. In 1982, 37 year old Christopher Bernard Wylder was arrested in Australia for kidnapping and sexually assaulting two teenage girls less than a month after his arrest, Wylder arrived at court for his committal hearing as he listened to the charges.

He appeared calm and extremely confident.

So much so that wylder insisted on returning to the U.S.. Astonishingly, the judge sided with him and granted Wylder release with a bond of 400000 dollars while his father, who had always supported his son, no matter the charges, paid for his release while his passport was returned.

He immediately boarded a plane to leave the country once again.

The judicial system had failed to put wylder behind bars. But instead of feeling invincible, as he had when he was younger, Wilder realised the walls were closing in.

Not only did he have a court date set in Australia that he couldn't miss, but his urges were becoming less controllable as his plane took off. Wilder realised that the only way to stay out of trouble was to stop getting caught. That meant keeping his victims quiet permanently.

In 1983, shortly after Wylder arrived back home in Florida, he went for a drive in his white El Camino on a quiet neighborhood road.

He noticed two sisters, aged 10 and 12, walking down the sidewalk while just stopped his car next to the girls and waved them over when the sisters got close.

Wilder pulled out a gun and ordered them to get in the back seat, too scared to run. The two girls did, as they were told.

Wylder then drove the girls west a little outside of the city to an uninhabited part of the county. There, he pulled over and told the sisters to get out.

Wilder threw a tarp down on the marshy grass and told the girls to lay down. Then, amidst the swarming mosquitoes, he beat and raped them.

The wilder was never tried for this crime. Available evidence has made detectives close to the case certain of his involvement.

Obviously, Wilder's violent urges were out of control, and as time passed, they only got worse. Criminology professor Dr. Scott Bar-On has spent years studying these uncontrollable urges.

He states that a serial killer may not even understand his compulsion to kill, but it is both undeniable and uncontrollable when the urge arises. So when Wilder stopped his car next to the two sisters walking on the sidewalk, he felt that he had no choice but to abduct them.

A year later, Wilders urges became so strong that he started acting on them much more frequently in 1984, when Wilder was 38.

He entered his Porsche into the Miami Grand Prix. There he saw a 20 year old woman named Rosario Gonzalez working as a promotional model, knowing she would be there.

The next day, Wilder returned to the racetrack with his camera. When Rosario went on break, he reportedly approached her and asked her if she was serious about becoming a model wylder, allegedly convinced Rosario that he was not only a race car driver, but he was also an entertainment agent.

Rosario couldn't believe her luck and believed this was her big break. Wilder told Rosario that they needed to go somewhere scenic to take the photos. He opened the door and told her to get in. That night, Rosario's parents demanded to file a missing persons report on their daughter. It was so out of character for Rosario not to call them that they were certain something had happened to her. Surprisingly, the police started their investigation right away, questioning people who were at the track that day.

But it was too late while Rosario's body has never been found.

It's widely believed that Wylder killed her shortly after leaving the track a week later, on March 5th, Wylder saw a woman he'd once dated, 23 year old Elizabeth Kenyon, filling up her car at a gas station. Elizabeth was a Miss Florida finalist and former Orange Bowl princess. She worked as a teacher for emotionally disturbed students and had hopes of returning to modeling shortly before Wylder had proposed marriage. But she turned him down partly over their 15 year age difference.

The rejection stung Walter, so when he saw her at the gas station, he likely became enraged.

Elizabeth would have been surprised to see Wylder pull up in his gray Cadillac, but she wouldn't have been scared. The two must have remained friends after their breakup because, according to a. At the station, they appeared cordial and relaxed, but soon after Elizabeth was reported missing after weeks with no progress in the case, Elizabeth's family hired a private detective.

He tracked down the gas station clerk who remembered seeing Elizabeth talking to Wylder. The investigator was surprised Wylder had claimed that he hadn't seen Elizabeth for weeks.

The investigator went to the police station and looked up Wilder's arrest record.

The long list of sexual assaults on Wildhorse rap sheet sent a shiver down the investigator spine. From then on, Wylder was the main suspect.

But the police insisted that they still did not have enough evidence to act, possibly fearing wylder would flee for Australia. One officer leaked what information he had to the press.

And on March 16th, three days after his 39th birthday, Wylder opened up a copy of the Miami Herald.

Although the article didn't name him personally, it did report that a wealthy Australian sports car fan was suspected in the disappearances of Rosario Gonzalez and Elizabeth Kenyon. There was no doubt about it.

They were talking about him. Wylder felt the walls closing in. Back in Australia, his court date for kidnapping and sexual assault was quickly approaching. And now in Florida, he had been connected with two disappearances. It was time to get out of town.

But first wylder had to get rid of any evidence that might be in his house for two solid days. He scrubbed it from top to bottom, disposing of anything that could link him to a crime, even his precious photographs.

Then he packed his best camera equipment into the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker and sped away.

Wilder had finally admitted to himself he was a monster. He had also given up on the idea that he would ever return home. Understanding that this was a one way ticket, Wylder decided to go on a cross-country killing spree, one that would allegedly start that very same day, March 18th, 1984, Wylder drove two hours north to Merritt Island.

He used his Chrysler into the back parking lot of the Merritt Square Mall.

He grabbed a camera from his trunk, calmly walked inside and started hunting.

He saw a 21 year old girl named Teresa Ferguson shopping as wylder approached her, he likely pulled out a wad of cash like he'd done so many times before. Wylder offered some of it to Teresa in exchange for some modeling work.

Teresa agreed to step out to Wilder's car to look at his portfolio as they walked across the parking lot. Wilder's heart beat fast in his chest.

He kept talking to Teresa, hoping she wouldn't notice how secluded they were while door opened the trunk of his car.

As Teresa looked inside at all the camera equipment, Wylder forced her inside.

Wylder drove Teresa to an empty marshy area known as Cannavaro Groves. He pulled over next to some tall grass. Then Wylder wrapped his hands around Teresa's throat and strangled her when he was sure she was dead. He rolled her body into the swamp.

Meanwhile, Theresa's stepfather was frantically searching the mall for her. He found her car in the parking lot, but there was no sign of Teresa as he called police for help. Wilder was also making his own call for help to a tow truck company.

Wilder's car was stuck in the soft sand near the marsh. A tow truck arrived not long after Teresa had gone missing from the mall. The driver pulled Wilder's car back to the road.

Wylder thanked him and continued on his deadly cross-country trip, the last trip of a monster in search of as many victims as he could get.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with Part two of Christopher Wilga story. We'll follow his bloody trek across America and see how the law finally caught up to him.

For more information on Christopher Wylder, among the many sources we used, we found the books, The Snapshot Killer by Duncan McNab and Christopher Wylder The True Story of the Beauty Queen Killer by Jack Rosewood.

Particularly useful to our research, you can find more episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from podcast for free on Spotify.

Will see you next time. Have a killer week.

Serial Killers is a Spotify original from podcast executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler Sound Design by Michael Motian with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Bruce Kittridge.

This episode of Serial Killers was written by Adam Boland with writing assistants by Abigail Canon, fact checking by Annibale and researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea. Would Serial Killers stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson. Bad omens, good fortune, pure luck. Take a closer look at what you believe in and follow the Spotify original faux pas, caste superstitions, new episodes, Air Weekly every Wednesday. Listen free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.