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 was found in a picnic area at Milford Lake in Geary County, Kans., the next day.

March 29; Sheryl Bonaventura, 18, vanished from a Grand Junction, Colo., shopping mall. Still missing.

April 1; Michelle Korfman, 17, an aspiring model, disappeared from a Las Vegas, Nev., shopping mall after appearing in a fashion show. Still missing.

Sun-Sentinel staff writers contributed to this report.

April 15, 1984

Long before Christopher Bernard Wilder became the most wanted fugitive in America, he haunted the fringes of South Florida ’s modeling and fashion circles.

Investigators said Wilder was able to enter these circles through his cunning charm, smooth talk, money and most of all, his camera.

Armed with these credentials, Wilder bluffed his way into top beauty pageants and fashion shows and stalked shopping centers and beaches as a self-styled photographer and talent agent. At least one modeling agency sent him models for photo sessions.

“Wilder lurked in the shadows,” said Ken Whittaker, Jr., a 28-year-old private detective who first brought Wilder’s name to authorities. “He was cunning and smooth, very manipulative with women.”

“He was active for quite a while,” said Tom Neighbors, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s detective. “He had a nice scam he used to get close to the type of women he liked.”

A massive search for Wilder across 8,000miles of the country ended Friday when the Australian-born electrical contractor and race car driver accidentally shot himself to death while struggling with a police officer at a small town gas station in New Hampshire.

Wilder, whose journey was grimly charted by the abductions or murders of at least 11 women, appears to have led a double life: one opulent, marked by financial success, fast cars and attractive women; the other sinister, tainted by arrests, investigations and suspicions.

That is the assessment of court records and those who came to know the 39-year-old Wilder.

“As far as I knew he was a real photographer,” said a woman who met Wilder through car racing and once went to his home for a photo session. She asked not to be identified.

“I’m flabbergasted by this whole thing,” she said. ”He must have been flipped out to be doing all these things and hiding so much. He seemed like a normal, nice guy.”

The startling chain of events has had a greater impact on Wilder’s family in Australia. His mother and American-born father have gone into seclusion while a 41-year-old brother Stephen has been in the United States aiding the FBI.

“The family has been completely broken up,” said Valerie Wilder, a sister-in-law. “Life has not been easy. We are trying to live one day at a time.”

She said Christopher Wilder first came to the United States when he was one year old. He spent much of the next several years on the road, as his father, who was in the U.S. Navy, was transferred about the nation. The Wilders did not permanently return to Australia until 1959. Christopher Wilder, the second oldest of four brothers, moved back to the United States when he was 25.

“Chris was always a perfect gentleman in the way he treated me,” his shaken sister-in-law said. “My kids adored him.”

But detectives said their investigations suggest Wilder’s gentle and friendly demeanor shrouded a darker side.

“I felt he was a Jekyll and Hyde character from the beginning,” said attorney and investigator Ken Whittaker, Sr., former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami office.

Early last month, Whittaker and his son repeatedly questioned Wilder and began to suspect him in the disappearances of two Miami models. They had been hired by one of the models’ family to find her.

A week later, Wilder checked his three dogs into a kennel and embarked on an odyssey that took him from Florida to California and then back across the nation to the tiny town of Colebrook, N.H., five minutes from the Canadian border.

FBI agents suspect the macabre trek included stop-offs in at least nine cities where women were abducted or murdered.

Wilder’s neighbors on Mission Hill Road in Boynton Beach told of occasional parties, several female visitors and a racing Porsche parked atop a trailer. Lately, the car and property have been the focus of police detectives and newspaper reporters.

“It’s become a historical monument,” resident Ken Bankowski said of the Porsche.

Though investigators said the 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 1983Miss 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 5from 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.”