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Christopher Wilder: The 'Beauty Queen Killer'

Jun 16
3 min read

Updated: Jun 25

In the spring of 1984, a wealthy, charming photographer with an Australian accent crossed the United States in a frenzy of abduction and murder, leaving a trail of victims through more than a dozen states in just six weeks. Christopher Wilder, the 'Beauty Queen Killer', used his camera and his easy manner to lure aspiring young models, then assaulted and killed them. By the time his spree ended, at least eight women were dead. Out of respect for the victims, this account avoids graphic detail.

Wilder's case is a stark portrait of how charm and the promise of opportunity can be weaponised against the hopeful and the trusting.

Christopher Wilder: The 'Beauty Queen Killer'

Key Facts at a Glance

Full name: Christopher Bernard Wilder
Born: 13 March 1945, Sydney, Australia
Known as: The Beauty Queen Killer
Victims: At least 8 women, across the US (1984)
Method: Lured aspiring models with the promise of photo shoots
Died: 13 April 1984, during a struggle at his arrest

A double life of wealth and violence

Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1945, Wilder emigrated to the United States and built a comfortable life in Florida as a successful businessman and amateur racing-car driver. He projected the image of a prosperous, sociable man. But behind that façade lay a long history of sexual offences in both Australia and the United States stretching back to the 1960s, in which he repeatedly used photography as a pretext to approach young women.

The spree begins

In February 1984, Wilder's offending escalated into murder. His earliest victims included women he knew, and once he was named as a suspect in their disappearances, he fled and began targeting strangers. Over the following weeks he travelled thousands of miles across the country, abducting women — many from shopping malls — by posing as a photographer or talent scout offering modelling opportunities.

A nationwide manhunt

As bodies were discovered and more women vanished across multiple states, Wilder became the subject of an intense, coast-to-coast manhunt, and he was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list. His mobility — constantly moving, crossing state lines, changing locations — made him extraordinarily difficult to pin down, even as the scale of his crimes became horrifyingly clear.

A survivor's ordeal

Among those he abducted was a teenage girl, Tina Marie Risico, whom he seized from a California mall and held for days. In a harrowing turn, she ultimately survived, and decades later spoke about the terror of those days. Her survival, and the accounts of other women who escaped him, helped document the methodical cruelty of his crimes and keep the focus on the people he targeted.

The end in New Hampshire

Wilder's spree ended on 13 April 1984 in Colebrook, New Hampshire, near the Canadian border. Confronted by state troopers, a violent struggle over a gun ensued, and Wilder was shot and killed. The circumstances — whether the fatal shots were the officers' or self-inflicted in the chaos — have been described in varying ways, but the result was the abrupt end of one of the era's most frantic killing sprees.

An unfinished tally

Because Wilder died before he could be tried, and because some of his victims' bodies were never recovered, the full number of those he killed remains uncertain, with at least eight confirmed and others suspected. His case is frequently studied as an example of the 'travelling' predator who exploits mobility and a disarming persona.

Behind the lurid nickname were real young women, many of them chasing a dream of modelling, who trusted a friendly stranger with a camera. Remembering them, and the survivors who lived through his attacks, matters far more than the fascination with the man who hunted them.