A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

toward it, lifted the trunk lid, and rummaged around inside.
    And then he half-turned and his arm shot out as rapidly as a snake striking. His closed fist hit the softness of her belly, knocking the wind out of Jill Lennox. An instant later, she felt a blow to her head that left her dizzy. Before she could gather her wits to run or fight, the man lifted her off her feet and tossed her into the trunk, slamming the lid down hard and plunging her into complete darkness. She was tossed around as the car hurtled out of the mall lot.
    After several minutes, the car stopped, the trunk lid opened and Jill rolled toward the lip of the compartment.They were out in the country somewhere, but she didn’t get to look long; he tied her hands and feet, and slipped a gag in her mouth. As the car started up again, Jill tried frantically to think of some way to call for help, but she was totally helpless.
    Although Jill Lennox didn’t know where they were when the car finally stopped, they were across the Florida-Georgia state line, about seventy miles northeast of Tallahassee in Bainbridge, Georgia. When the trunk lid opened, it was dark outside and all she could see was the blurred shape of her abductor.
    Chris Wilder was far from finished with Jill. He forced her to crawl and wiggle into a sleeping bag and he zipped it completely around her head and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Still gagged, she couldn’t make enough noise for anyone to hear her.
    He tossed her roughly onto a bed in the motel room. Desperately hoping for a chance to escape, Jill Lennox underwent a terrible ordeal of sexual sadism. She was raped and subjected to every variation of abuse that the man who held her could think of. When he was satiated sexually, she realized dully that he wasn’t done with her.
    Wilder cut the cord of the bedside lamp, and peeled back the insulation from the bare wires. Then he plugged the cord back in the wall, and holding it where
he
would not be shocked, he held the bare wires to her feet. The shocks were terribly painful, but not enough to kill Jill. He demanded that she dance and do aerobics in time with the shocks. It took him over two hours to get bored with his electric torture.
    Now, he wanted to see if Super-Glue really worked, and he drizzled a bead of the glue on the lids of her eyes and forced them closed, using a hair dryer to make it dry faster. The glue worked only too well, and Jill could barely open her eyes, but she did have a narrow slice of vision. She realized that
he
didn’t know that.
    Confident that his captive was helpless and blind, Chris Wilder allowed himself to concentrate on some television show that had grabbed his interest, pausing only occasionally to zap Jill with the power cord.
    Suddenly, Jill tugged the cord from the wall, and tripping over it, she used the slight vision she had to head for the door. He whirled and cracked her over the head with the hair dryer. She felt her head split and bleed, but she managed to get into the bathroom and lock the door behind her.
    Now, Jill freed herself of the gag and screamed until she was hoarse, pounded on the walls and the floor. When she stopped yelling for a minute to listen, she could hear him scurrying around the motel room, the click of his suitcase, and then a door slamming. Not trusting that he was gone, she waited for another half hour before opening the bathroom door.
    Jill opened the door a crack and peered out. The room looked empty. Terrified that he was waiting to surprise her, she came out further and looked around the room through the slits of her glued eyes. If she could just get her clothes on and get out, maybe she could make it to the motel office.
    She stepped all the way out of the bathroom and grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around her naked body. It was only when she reached the motel manager’s office that Jill believed that she might be going to live after all.
    One call to police brought an instant response. Jill Lennox didn’t know her kidnapper’s real name, but she had memorized his face, determined to be able to identify him if she ever had the chance. Every cop in Florida was looking for Chris Wilder, and one of his mugshots was included in the “lay-down” of eight photos shown to Jill.
    “That’s him, absolutely,” she said immediately, pointing to the picture of Christopher Bernard Wilder.
    Five young women had been abducted in less than four weeks. And all but Jill were still missing. Jill