A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

the thousands of square miles with lakes, rivers, mountains, and endless barren prairie lands. Sheryl could be anywhere. As much as her family hoped that she was somewhere safe having a heedless adventure, they knew in their hearts that she was dead.

    Chris Wilder’s terrible killing spree continued unabated; he was clever enough to move on before local authorities even realized he had entered their jurisdictions. By the time the pathetic bodies were found, he was somewhere else, searching for his next victim.
    Seventeen-year-old Michele Korfman was as guileless a target as anyone could be. She was very pretty and very young as she parked the new car her father had given her at the Meadows Shopping Mall in Las Vegas. It was April Fool’s Day, an ironic date in retrospect for a beauty contest. Michele and many other young women were excited about the competition. Some, like Michele, came to the mall alone, but a lot of them had their mothers chaperoning.
    The man who approached at least four of the girls who waited to compete seemed innocuous enough. Later, when they were asked to describe him, there wasn’t much they could remember: “middle-aged . . . not much hair—but a short beard.” “He had a soft voice, and nice blue eyes.”
    The man asked all of the girls basically the same thing. He was a fashion photographer and he was looking for models. He had a portfolio of photographs he had taken of beautiful women, and he showed it to the pretty teenagers. He had a very expensive camera in a leather case. He promised the potential models a good fee up front and, more important, the chance to be seen by top modeling agencies.
    Even so, three of the girls shook their heads; they didn’t want to leave the mall and go with him to his studio. He didn’t seem angry or disappointed at their reluctance. Rather, he had returned to his seat on a bench near the stage, watching the contest with interest. One of the mothers in attendance was taking pictures as her daughter strode confidently across the stage, and without realizing it, she captured the “professional photographer’s” image in several frames. He may have been unconcerned; he was probably unaware that she had taken his picture.
    When the beauty contest at the Meadows Mall was over, the man lingered. Several people saw Michele Korfman talking to him, and then the two of them headed slowly toward an exit. Nobody took a picture of that; it didn’t seem important.
    Michele looked a lot like Cindy Crawford. Like Terry Ferguson who had been seen leaving a mall on Merritt Island, Florida, two weeks before, Michele had long thick hair and she usually posed for pictures with an unsmiling, sexy look on her face. Like Terry and the other girls who had been led away from bustling shopping malls, Michele had perfect features. She
would
have made a wonderful model.
    And then Michele Korfman, the darling of her daddy’s eye, a girl with everything to live for, was gone. And another family was left to search and to live with agonizing doubt. All authorities really knew—or
believed
—was that Michele had not left of her own volition. Her prized car, in perfect condition, was found a few days later in the parking lot behind Caesar’s Palace.

    Chris Wilder left Las Vegas and Michele was with him at least part of the way. By the fourth of April, Wilder was alone again, and still driving the stolen Cougar. Since he had just made the FBI’s Ten-Most-Wanted list and lawmen all over America were looking for him, he had had incredible luck. His mugshots were on the wall of every post office in the country. That did not mean, however, that young women intent on shopping in a mall or in attracting enough attention to get a modeling contract would see it, or remember it if they did see it. By this time, Chris Wilder must have felt invincible.
    The FBI attempted to warn as many potential victims as possible by releasing the eight-minute videotape he had made for the dating bureau. His image flashed across television screens in every state, the image of an almost shy man with a slight speech impediment, a man who was lonely for female companionship and had resorted to this awkward method of matchmaking.

    And apparently, he was
still
lonely. That sounds like a bad joke and an odd thing to say about a ruthless killer who had systematically destroyed eight young women and left another physically and psychologically maimed, but it is perhaps the only way to explain the way he