Crime Beat

cross-country rampage of rape and killing has stopped with Wilder’s death, many mysteries surrounding the man remain unanswered.
    Joseph Corless, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Miami, said the bureau will continue to investigate Wilder’s past for possible links to other unsolved disappearances.
    “We are not eliminating anything,” said Detective Neighbors.
    Some of Wilder’s movements in recent years have already been documented.
    Wilder was captured on film at the 1983 Miss Florida pageant in Fort Lauderdale. Pageant officials said last week that a review of videotape taken during an Oct. 1, 1982, media day at the beach shows Wilder among about a dozen photographers. The tape was turned over to the FBI.
    Elizabeth Kenyon, 23, a part-time teacher and model who disappeared March 5 from Miami, was a finalist in that pageant and possibly met Wilder there. She is still missing and authorities said Wilder is a suspect in her disappearance.
    “He was at the pageant and he represented himself as a photographer for Pix magazine from Australia,” said Grant Gravitt, one of the pageant’s producers.
    Blaine Davis, media coordinator for the pageant, said Wilder presented a media identification card but it apparently was not checked with the Australian magazine for authenticity.
    “Normally, with a magazine from Australia, I wouldn’t check,” Davis said. “He did present some credentials that were acceptable at the time.”
    In Australia, Pix officials said there is no record of the magazine ever employing Wilder or purchasing photographs from him.
    More recently, in what the FBI termed a “close call,” a 20-year-old Fort Lauderdale model was forced to turn down an invitation Feb. 23 to pose for Wilder when she couldn’t arrange transportation to his Boynton Beach home.
    The young woman, who talked on condition that her name not be used, said a photographer told her Wilder had seen photos of her, was “dying to meet her” and wanted to take her photograph for a beer advertisement at the then upcoming Miami Grand Prix.
    “When Wilder called later that night, he said he was doing a Budweiser commercial and wanted to do a shoot in his garage, with a car he was going to race the next day,” the model said. “I thought that was strange, taking pictures in a garage. But since my photographer recommended him, I didn’t think any more about it.”
    The model said she decided against the trip when her parents, fearing something was “not right,” refused to lend her their car.
    “I called Wilder back and told him I couldn’t make it,” she said. “He seemed upset and wanted me to take a cab. But when I said no, he asked me to meet him the next day at the race. I told him I was busy.”
    Aspiring model Rosario Gonzalez disappeared from the Miami Grand Prix on Feb. 26. The 20-year-old woman is still missing. FBI agents said Wilder is a suspect in her disappearance.
    “The FBI told me I was lucky,” the Fort Lauderdale model said. “They said it was a close call. I’m still shook up about it.”
    Ted Martin, the photographer who attempted to set up the “shoot” between Wilder and the Fort Lauderdale woman, said he believed Wilder was a legitimate photographer. He had met Wilder at a fashion show at the Cutler Ridge Mall two years ago.
    “I spent my time professionally with him,” Martin said. “He was very into the business.”
    Investigators don’t know how many other young aspiring models were unlucky enough to cross Wilder’s path.
    Detective Neighbors said he is suspected in a 1979 rape case. A 17-year-old girl reported at the time that she had been approached on the Lake Worth beach by a man claiming to be a talent agent for a prominent modeling agency in Fort Lauderdale. After luring the girl to his car, the man took her to a secluded area west of West Palm Beach and raped her. Neighbors said the woman recently told detectives her abductor was Wilder.
    Investigators suspect Wilder used several aliases, business cards and ploys to lure young women to photo sessions where he would attempt to seduce them or rape them.
    “There is evidence of different names and cards he would flash,” said Neighbors. “That is part of his M.O. He had quite a line.”
    William Silvernail, who operates the Blackthorn modeling school in West Palm Beach, said Wilder approached his agency in 1981 as a freelance photographer looking for work. He didn’t get any work, but Silvernail suspects Wilder