A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

deliberately in the path of police bullets. Charles Whitman, shooting at hapless targets from the Texas Tower in Austin, was a mass murderer, and so was James Huberty at the McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California, and Howard Unruh in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949. Whitman and Huberty died the day of their crimes and Unruh still lives in a mental hospital.
    There is another, less known, category of multiple murder: the spree killer. The spree killer borrows certain traits from both serial killers and mass murderers and yet he is neither fish nor fowl. (I say “he” advisedly in all three groups because serial murder, mass murder, and spree murder are all male-dominated crimes.)
    A spree killer erupts suddenly, metamorphosing from a seemingly normal—even charming and successful—personality to a killing machine. Once he begins, he is a juggernaut who selects and stalks his victims day after day after day until he is stopped. His binge as a self
-
proclaimed executioner may last a week or even a few months, and, like the serial killer when he reaches
his
endgame, the spree killer begins to lose control and he takes chances that make it more likely he will be recognized and caught.
    Andrew Cunanan was a spree killer, committing murder across America in July 1997, finally exposing himself to the public when he shot designer Gianni Versace in Miami. He committed suicide in a nearby houseboat, where he was hiding out. And so was Christopher Wilder, whose crimes inspired blazing headlines in 1984—although few people remember him today. Wilder was among the cruelest—and wiliest—killers I have ever researched.

C hristopher Wilder was born in 1944 in Sydney, Australia. Early on, the blue-eyed, blond-haired boy demonstrated signs of sexual aberrance. He was involved in a gang rape at the age of fifteen, a terrible crime against a young girl. Wilder told her that if she had sex with him, he would protect her from the other teenagers who held her captive, promising her that he wouldn’t let anyone else bother her. Desperate, she agreed—and Chris Wilder laughed as he broke his word.
    Fantasies of rape enthralled young Chris Wilder. He was given therapy and even electroshock treatments in an attempt to get him to re-focus his energies. On the surface, he seemed normal, although he exhibited symptoms that bespoke an underlying obsessive-compulsive disorder. He washed his hands until they were raw, and he drank gallons of water a day—as if he were trying to cleanse himself inwardly as well as outwardly. But he kept his deviant sexual fantasies to himself.
    In his twenties, Chris Wilder was investigated after two teenagers disappeared on a lonely Australian beach, but somehow he slipped through the cracks in that country’s judicial system. He emigrated to America with no criminal record, and eventually became a naturalized American citizen. He lived an upper middle-class life on the east coast of Florida where he became a successful contractor. With a partner, Wilder built fine homes and small office buildings in Boynton Beach and Boca Raton. He himself owned a very nice house located on one of the many canals snaking into the area; it was somewhat isolated from other homes, made more so by the trees and shrubs that grew high around it.
    On the surface, Chris Wilder would seem to have been a man that single women would find attractive. He owned his own home, complete with a swimming pool, plus a thriving business, and one of his avocations was race car driving. He had a customized Porsche 911 which he drove expertly on various tracks in the area. He also had a boat. At thirty-seven, Chris Wilder was a good looking man just under six feet tall, although his hairline had receded until he had only a single stray lock on top that he combed forward to a point in the center of his forehead. He made up for the thin hair on his dome with a luxuriant mustache and well-trimmed beard. His eyes were deep blue, his features even, and his smile expansive.
    But there was something about Wilder that turned women off. Lots of them wanted to be his friend, but few accepted dates that might turn romantic. Perhaps it was a sixth sense, a gut feeling that he was a little dangerous. It may only have been that he seemed to be a little nerdy.
    In 1981, Wilder made a real effort to find someone. He joined a dating service, paying a hefty fee up front for the professional video that promised to introduce him to available women. Gazing into the