Against Their Will

by Nigel Cawthorne

  The day after he had fled from Bainbridge, Georgia, Wilder was in Beaumont, Texas. Twenty-four-year-old student Terry Walden told her husband that she had been approached by a bearded photographer between classes and asked to pose for him. Two days later, the young mother visited a local shopping mall where Wilder had been approaching young women, asking them to model for him. They had all turned him down. When he saw Terry he approached her. Again she refused, but he followed her to her car.

  Although the parking lot was busy, Wilder knocked Terry out with a blow to the head and bundled her into the trunk of her car. The abduction took place in full daylight. He drove her to a secluded spot where he sealed her mouth with duct tape and tied her up with a nylon rope and the cord from a Venetian blind. Then he tortured her with a knife, stabbing her forty-three times in the breasts. He did not rape her. Rather, he seems to have enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of inflicting pain. The knife fractured two of her ribs and eventually punctured her heart and lungs. She bled to death. He made off in her car. Three days later, her body was recovered from a canal.

  That same day, the body of twenty-one-year-old Suzanne Logan was found floating in Milford Reservoir, near Manhattan, Kansas. A married woman from Oklahoma City who studied modeling and fashion, she had been approached in a shopping mall in Reno. Again, Wilder hit her in the face and bundled her into the trunk of his stolen car. He drove her to an inn and smuggled her into his room. He cut off her hair and raped her. Then he shaved her pubic hair and bit her breasts.

  He turned her onto her stomach and began stabbing her. The torture continued into the following day, when he eventually administered a fatal blow above her left breast. Then he dumped the body where it would be found within the hour.

  By now, the FBI was in hot pursuit and posters began appearing in shopping malls warning women about men who approached them purporting to be photographers. Wilder drove to Denver, then on to Rifle, Colorado. He doubled back to Grand Junction where, at midday on March 29, he approached a young woman, saying he was a photographer and giving her his business card. She refused to pose for him.

  A couple of hours later, he approached eighteen-year-old Sheryl Lynn Bonaventura. This time, his MO seems to have changed. They were seen together having a meal in a restaurant in Silverton. They said they were on their way to Las Vegas. Sheryl insisted on giving the waitress a lot of information, including her name. The waitress noticed that Sheryl was very nervous.

  Wilder kept Sheryl alive for the next two days. Tortured with a knife then shot, she eventually died on March 31. Her naked body was found at the foot of a tree in a scenic spot in Utah five weeks later.

  On April 1, Wilder was photographed at a fashion show sponsored by Seventeen magazine at the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas. He approached nine of the miniskirted teenage models. Eight of them agreed to meet him back at Caesar’s Palace to discuss a modeling assignment. But seventeen-year-old Michelle Korfman left with him, ostensibly to see his portfolio in the parking lot. He took her to a downtown motel, where he beat her, raped her, and tortured her with electric shocks. Her body was found in California the following month and identified on June 15.

  Three days later, he abducted Tina Risico in Torrance. After surviving several days of torture, she signed a pact with the devil and agreed to become his accomplice. On April 10, Tina approached sixteen-year-old Dawnette Sue Wilt in a shopping mall in Merrillville, Indiana, introducing herself at Tina Marie Wilder. She offered Dawnette a sales job and introduced Wilder as the manager of the store. They asked Dawnette to accompany them to the parking lot to sign some papers.

  Once there, Wilder pulled a gun and pushed Dawnette into the back of the car and tied her up. Then he raped her while Tina drove around looking for a motel. They rented a room near Akron, Ohio, where Wilder gagged Dawnette with duct tape, raped her repeatedly, and tortured her with electric shocks. The next day, Dawnette was tied up in the trunk of the car, while they drove to Syracuse, New York. There, Dawnette was raped and tortured again, while Tina looked on silently, on pain of death.

  The following morning they saw Tina’s mother on TV, begging for the safe return of her daughter. The newspapers were full of stories about Wilder, and the video he had filmed for the dating agency in Florida was being shown on the networks. Wilder told his two captives that if they tried to escape or did anything to draw attention to themselves, he would kill them. He also said that the police would never take him alive. Then he bundled the two women into the car and sped off.

  While he had become strangely attached to Tina, Wilder decided to get rid of Dawnette. He tried suffocating her by pinching her nostrils, but she shook herself free. So he got out a knife. She begged him to shoot her rather than stab her, but he found using a knife more satisfying. He stabbed her twice, then dumped her body on empty land outside Rochester.

  But Dawnette was not dead. She managed to wriggle free of her blood-soaked bonds and stagger to a nearby highway, where she was spotted by a passing motorist who drove her to a hospital. Meanwhile, Wilder was beginning to have doubts about whether he had actually killed Dawnette and decided to go back and shoot her. When he reached the place where he had dumped her, she was gone.

  Realizing that Dawnette might identify the car, Wilder decided that they needed another one. He saw a Pontiac Trans-Am he liked in the parking lot of Eastview shopping mall near Victor, New York, and carjacked the owner, thirty-three-year-old Sunday school teacher Elizabeth Dodge. While Wilder and Dodge drove out to some nearby woods, Tina followed in the other car. Wilder then shot Elizabeth Dodge, leaving her body in a gravel pit, and took off with Tina in the Pontiac.

  As Wilder was determined not to go to jail, he knew he was likely to meet his end in a gun fight with the police. He did not want Tina with him when that happened, so he stopped at Boston’s Logan Airport and bought Tina a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. He gave her a generous handful of spending money and walked her to the gate. While she headed down the skyway to the plane, she still half-expected a shot in the back. When she arrived in L.A., she was in such a distressed condition, she decided she could not face her family or the police. Instead, she took a cab to her favorite lingerie store. After what she had been through, she felt dirty and she had not had a change of underwear for nine days. She purchased several items, and then she told the manager that she was the missing girl everyone was looking for.

  But Wilder was not done yet. Just hours after bidding Tina farewell, he spotted a nineteen-year-old woman standing by her vehicle at the roadside near Beverly, Massachusetts. Wilder offered her a ride. When she got in, he pulled a gun on her and told her to keep quiet. But when he slowed down as he was approaching a red light, she jumped out and made a run for it.

  Heading for Canada where he had friends, Wilder stopped at a gas station in Colebrook, New Hampshire, just eight miles from the border. There he was spotted by two state troopers, Leo Jellison and Wayne Fortier. When they approached Wilder, he retreated to his car and armed himself with a .357 Magnum. Jellison grabbed Wilder from behind. In the scuffle, Wilder’s gun went off. A bullet entered his chest and came out of his back, hitting Jellison in the ribs and lodging in his liver. A second bullet hit Wilder in the heart, killing him.

  Jellison was seriously injured, but made a full recovery and returned to duty.

  After Wilder’s death, more victims have been attributed to him. On January 16, 1981, seventeen-year-old Mary Opitz disappeared from the Edison Mall in Fort Myers, Florida. She was last seen heading to the parking lot. A parcel she was carrying was found near her car. No trace of Opitz has ever been found. Eighteen-year-old Mary Hare disappeared from the same parking lot on February 11. Hare’s badly decomposed body was found in Lehigh Acres, Florida, fifteen miles away. She had been stabbed in the back.

  The skeletal remains of two unidentified women were found near properties owned by Wilder in 1982. On July 6, 1983, teenage model Tammy Leppert disappeared from a parking lot in Cocoa Beach, Florida. She was thought to ha
ve been three months pregnant when she went missing. Nineteen-year-old Melody Gay was abducted from the graveyard shift of a 7-Eleven in Collier County, Florida, on March 7, 1984. Her body was found dumped in a canal three days later. Then on March 15, fifteen-year-old Colleen Osborne went missing from the bedroom of her home in Daytona Beach. Wilder had been seen propositioning potential “models” in the area the same day.

  After Wilder’s autopsy, the pathologist Dr. Robert Christie got a telephone call from a man purporting to be from Harvard University, asking for Wilder’s brain. The caller explained that they wanted to see whether there was any abnormality that might explain his pathological behavior. The body was cremated and the ashes sent to Wilder’s parents, while the brain was preserved. However, no one came to collect it and Harvard’s medical school denied making any such request. Wilder left an estate of $2 million.

  The authorities briefly considered prosecuting Tina Marie Risico for aiding and abetting Wilder in the abduction of Dawnette Wilt and Elizabeth Dodge, but a psychological assessment confirmed her own account that she was an unwilling participant in those crimes.

  Chapter 15

  Sharon Marshall—Identity Unknown

  IN NOVEMBER 1983, A MAN calling himself Warren Marshall arrived at Forest Park High School in Georgia with his fifteen-year-old daughter. She had an IQ of 132 and an impressive report card. She had done especially well in math at other schools in the state. But the man purporting to be her father said that he wanted her to move schools because he was not happy with the advanced classes she was being offered.

  Marshall explained that he was a painter by trade and a single father. Sharon’s mother had died when Sharon was a child, and he had raised her himself. She was a good girl, studied hard at school, went to church on a Sunday, and looked after her daddy. She also presented herself well, and Forest Park offered her a place. Marshall accepted on his daughter’s behalf. The next day she started at her new school.

  Sharon Marshall was pretty with shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She became popular at school and was soon elected to the student council. The following June, she was sent to a summer leadership workshop on the campus of Berry College in Rome, Georgia. There she met Jennifer Fisher from Stone Mountain, and they became close friends. After the end of the week-long program, Jennifer asked Sharon for her phone number so they could stay in touch. Sharon said that she could not give it to her, so Jennifer gave Sharon her number and Sharon promised to call.

  When several days had passed and there had been no call, Jennifer decided to take matters into her own hands. Perhaps Sharon had lost her number. Jennifer was determined not to lose touch with her new friend. She went through the paperwork she had brought home from the student council camp and found a directory that listed Sharon Marshall’s number. She called it. Sharon answered. But instead of being happy that her friend had called, she sounded angry. Sharon wanted to know how Jennifer had gotten her number.

  Jennifer could hear a male voice in the background. He, too, wanted to know how Jennifer had got the number. Sharon insisted that she had not given it to her. Then, abruptly, the phone was slammed down. Jennifer could not make out what had happened.

  Five minutes later, the phone at the Fisher home rang. Jennifer answered. It was Sharon. She apologized for what had happened before, explaining that her father was upset. Sharon was not supposed to give their number out. Then, for the next hour, the two girls talked.

  The next day, Jennifer called Sharon again. This time a man answered. He said he was Warren, Sharon’s father, and this time, he was quite pleasant. He even invited Jennifer to stay over some night. Nothing came of the vague invitation for some time, but in August, Sharon was invited to come spend the night at the Fishers’ home, a four-bedroom mock-Tudor in an upmarket residential area. Warren brought her over in his beat-up pickup.

  When he met Jennifer’s parents, Marshall complimented them on their home. He asked Mr. Fisher to think of him if he ever needed any painting work, and gave him his business card.

  The next time Warren brought Sharon over to the Fishers he asked to speak to Mr. Fisher privately and tried to borrow money from him so that he could buy materials for a job. Fisher refused. Warren asked to borrow money again the next time he brought Sharon over. This time, he explained that he had been in a motorcycle accident a few years before but, even though he was in pain, the state would not help with the money for his medical treatment. As Sharon had lost her own mother, Mrs. Fisher did her best to stand in for her. But she noticed that Sharon experienced mood swings. When the topic of Sharon’s father came up in conversation, Sharon grew nervous and started to stutter. Mrs. Fisher pried no further, but her husband made it clear that, under no circumstances, would Jennifer be allowed to stay over at the Marshalls’.

  However, when the invitation was extended, Mr. Fisher was out of town. Jennifer begged her mother to let her go and, eventually, Mrs. Fisher gave in. But when she drove Jennifer over to Sharon’s house, she was not pleased. The Marshalls lived in a rundown neighborhood and the house was surrounded by weeds. Mrs. Fisher did not even get out of her car when she dropped Jennifer off.

  Inside, the house was no better. On a wall above an old sofa, Jennifer saw a photograph of a woman. Sharon said that it was a picture of her mother, Linda. Jennifer also noticed that none of the rooms had doors, only curtains that hung across the doorways. She saw into one room where there were stacks of videotapes. No one was allowed in there Sharon said.

  That evening, on the way to have dinner in a nearby restaurant, Warren told Jennifer that she was very pretty. Then Warren suggested they go down to Peachtree Street to make fun of the prostitutes there. Sharon pointed out that the prostitutes were now on Stuart Street, but she just wanted to go eat.

  After dinner, Warren said that he was going to take the girls dancing. At fourteen, Jennifer had never been to a club. It was not something her parents would allow. Besides, she said, she did not have anything appropriate to wear. That was no problem; Sharon would lend her something.

  Back at the Marshalls’ house, they went though Sharon’s wardrobe. It was full of lingerie—tiny G-strings and crotchless panties. Jennifer settled on a pink minidress and Sharon donned a miniskirt with an off-the-shoulder blouse. Then they did their hair and put on makeup. Warren voiced his approval.

  Jennifer did not like the look of the seedy club. It was clear that she and Sharon were underage, but Warren had a word with the doorman and they were allowed in. Warren left the two girls on the dance floor. Sharon’s sexy dance moves attracted a crowd of scruffy-looking men, mostly in their late thirties and forties. They wanted to dance with Jennifer, but she waved them away.

  At midnight, Warren took them home. As they were getting ready for bed, Jennifer asked Sharon about the lingerie in her wardrobe. Sharon said her father bought it for her. Then, with Sharon standing there naked except for a small pair of white panties, Warren burst in. He was holding a gun. There were tears in Sharon’s eyes. Jennifer fainted. In the morning, Sharon apologized for her father’s behavior, saying he was just kidding around. The incident was never mentioned again.

  At school, Sharon excelled. She got top marks in class and signed up for the Air Force ROTC, math and computer clubs, and the Future Business Leaders of America, and she was the secretary of the junior prom committee. However, her extracurricular activities were always curtailed because she had to go home early. She said she had to be home at 4.30 p.m. to cook and clean for her father. She often appeared inappropriately attired, as if dressed by someone else who had no fashion sense. While Warren turned up to watch Sharon drill ROTC cadets, he did not put in an appearance at other school functions. He only appeared at one parent-teacher meeting, where he volunteered the information that Sharon’s mother had died from cancer. Sharon maintained that her mother had died in a traffic accident.

  Although she was a friendly, outgoing girl, Sharon did not develop any close friendships at school. None of her classmates h
ad been to her home. Sharon read voraciously and loved intellectual conversation, but anything personal or concerning her past was out of bounds. Often, when they spoke on the phone, Jennifer was conscious that Warren was listening in the background, monitoring his daughter’s conversation. Sometimes he even butted in. He often asked Jennifer to come and stay again, but Jennifer knew not to go back there. Nevertheless, they stayed in touch and Sharon often stayed at the Fishers’.

  One Saturday in the spring of 1985, the Fishers arrived home after a trip to the mall to find Warren’s pickup in their driveway. Inside the house, Warren was asleep on the couch. Sharon was sitting nearby with tears in her eyes. Warren awoke complaining about his back. When they had arrived at the house, he said, he was suffering such intense pain that he needed to lie down. He found that the garage door was open and let himself in.

  As Warren continued his explanation, Jennifer led Sharon upstairs. The Fishers liked Sharon and did not want any unpleasantness with her father, so they said nothing. But they could not understand how he had got into the house. The doors had been locked. The alarm was on. After he and Sharon left, they checked the house, but nothing was missing.

  In June 1985, Sharon Marshall scored 1230 on her SATs and set her sights on Georgia Tech, though she could have gone to any college that she chose. She was seen as an all-around outstanding student. She began dating a football player named Jason Anderson. But when they went out, they always seem to have been accompanied by her father.

  Fortunately, Warren could not attend the junior prom, and Sharon and Jason seized the opportunity to spend time together in Jason’s car in the parking lot—to the disapproval of the teacher in charge. Soon after, the couple broke up. That meant she had time for Jennifer again. But Jennifer had not done well on her exams, so her parents strictly limited her time for socializing.