Crime Beat

a need to meet and socialize on a more wider basis than I’ve been,” Wilder said. “I want to date. I want to socially meet and enjoy the company of a number of women.”
    When asked what his objectives for the future were in the three-year-old tape, Wilder said, “Hopefully meeting the right person. Somebody with depth, somebody with some background specifically to themselves. Somebody that I can feel comfortable with.”
    Wilder discussed his contracting business, his hobbies of car racing and water skiing and his dislike for “barhopping” as a means of meeting women.
    “Barhopping is not and never has been one of my greater joys,” he said. “I’ve reached the point where I can’t go to Big Daddy’s and feel comfortable.
    “I’m a little out of that category,” he added with a laugh.
    The version of a reserved and good-natured Wilder captured on the videocassette seems a contrast to the man authorities across the country suspect him to be.
    Wilder, who investigators believe fled from his Palm Beach County home in mid-March following the disappearances of two Miami models, was charged Friday with the murder of Suzanne Wendy Logan, a 21-year-old Oklahoma City woman who disappeared March 25 from a shopping mall.
    The victim’s body was found the next day in a picnic area at Milford Lake in Geary County, Kans.
    Wilder “very definitely is our man,” said Geary County Deputy Sheriff William Deppish. The warrant listed bond for the elusive fugitive at $2 million.
    Officials said Wilder became the prime suspect because Mrs. Logan’s murder was similar to the other disappearances and the murder fits into the path and time frame of the fugitive’s alleged trek west.
    “We suspect Wilder because of the way he operates, tying a women’s wrists with duct tape, bruises about the wrists and body and long knife wounds in the back,” said John DiPersio, Geary County undersheriff.
    “The time schedule and the geography make him a prime suspect,” said Max Geiman, FBI special agent in Kansas City, Mo.
    Positive identification of Mrs. Logan was made Thursday through dental records. A fisherman had discovered her body partially hidden beneath the low branches of a pine tree on the banks of Milford Lake near Junction City. An autopsy showed she had died of one stab wound to the back.
    FBI officials in Washington this week said that if Wilder is responsible for the murders and disappearances he is sought for, then it would be a classic case of sexual serial murders. Wilder was placed on the Ten Most Wanted list faster than any other fugitive before.
    Agents said Wilder approaches young women in shopping malls and identifies himself as a photographer. He comments on the woman’s appearance and potential as a model, and then tries to persuade her to accompany him for a photo session.
    In separate incidents since 1980 in Palm Beach County and Australia, Wilder has been charged with abducting and assaulting young women after presenting himself as a model photographer. He is wanted on a kidnapping warrant for the Australian case and for violation of probation in the local case.
    The massive search for Wilder began in late March after FBI agents connected the kidnapping and rape of a Florida State University student with two earlier disappearances from the Miami area.
    After fleeing his Boynton Beach home authorities believe he headed west and is suspected of leaving several disappearances and murders in his wake:
• Feb. 26; Rosario Gonzalez, 20, a part-time model, disappeared from the Miami Grand Prix. Still missing.
• March 3; Elizabeth Kenyon, 23, a part-time teacher and model, disappeared from Miami. Her car was found abandoned at the airport. Still missing.
• March 18; Theresa Ferguson, 21, an aspiring model, disappeared from a Merritt Island shopping mall. Her body was found three days later in an isolated creek near Haines City in Polk County.
• March 20; a 19-year-old Florida State University coed was abducted from a Tallahassee shopping mall after a man identified as Wilder offered her $25 an hour to pose for pictures. She escaped from a Bainbridge, Ga., motel where she told authorities Wilder had tortured and raped her. Wilder was charged with abduction.
• March 23; Terry Walden, 24, a nursing student, disappeared from Beaumont, Tex. Her body was found in a canal outside the city three days later.
• March 25; Suzanne Wendy Logan, 21, a housewife, disappeared from Oklahoma City, Okla. Her body