Christopher Wilder

Christopher Bernard Wilder (March 13, 1945 – April 13, 1984), also known as the Beauty Queen Killer and the Snapshot Killer, was an Australian-American serial killer who abducted at least twelve young women and girls, killing eight of them during a six-week, cross-country crime spree in the United States in early-1984. Wilder's series of murders began in Florida on February 26, 1984, and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada and California, with attempted abductions in Washington and New York. Wilder victimised attractive young women, most of whom he would entice by promising to take their pictures. After subduing them, he would torture and rape them before shooting, stabbing with a knife, or strangling them to death. Two or more of his victims were electrocuted using a makeshift electrical cord. After being named a suspect in the disappearances of his first two victims, both of whom were women he knew and whose bodies were never found, Wilder began to target random women; many of whom were abducted from shopping malls. Wilder accidentally killed himself during a struggle with police in New Hampshire on April 13, 1984. Since his death, Wilder has been suspected in the additional rapes, murders and disappearances of many other women, including the unsolved 1965 Wanda Beach Murders in his native Sydney as well as the suspected murder of missing 18-year-old beauty queen Tammy Lynn Leppert. The 1986 made-for-television movie Easy Prey dramatises Wilder's crimes. Early life and criminal history Christopher Wilder was born on March 13, 1945, in Sydney, New South Wales, the oldest of four sons to an American father, Coley Chapman Wilder (August 27, 1919 – January 29, 1992), a naval officer, and an Australian mother, June Wilder (née Decker; June 18, 1925 – April 26, 1986). Wilder nearly died at birth, and reportedly almost drowned in a swimming pool at the age of 2. On January 4, 1963, at age 17, Wilder raped a 13-year-old girl in the company of two other young men in a Freshwater quarry, both of whom denied being involved in the actual assault. Wilder was sentenced to probation, and claimed later in life that he also received electroshock therapy. It has been suggested that this therapy aggravated Wilder's violent sexual tendencies.