My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia HardstarkThis week, Georgia covers The Beauty Queen Killer and Karen tells the story of The Tipster.
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Nice, Hello, and welcome.
My favorite murder that is Georgia hard Star, that is Karen Kilgareff. So we just got back from south By Southwest in Austin, Texas, Texas. Thank you to iHeart for bringing us out there for the festivities and the iHeart Awards, which is so much freaking fun and awesome to see all these Like when do you see other podcasters. Never, We're always in tiny rooms alone.
We got to hang out extensively with Payne Lindsay. Always a pleasure, just one of the great it's such a cool, fun friend.
Yes, and Sabrina as well, of course, they're so fun to hang out with.
And Sabrina's from Two Girls, One Ghost, Yes, yes, yeah, which is so fun.
Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome.
It was very nice and you may have heard already. We actually won an award, which I've told Georgia this and many people since it happened. We were genuinely so shocked that we were not prepared none, And every time people say that when they accept an award, I'm always so grossed out at like, of course you thought of something to say no, and normally.
We do like okay, real quick, if we're gonna win. We're gonna say I think this, think this person, think that person, blah blah blah.
Great.
And then Joe Mangianello was up there for the first award and it's our category and I was like, oh, no, what if we and then he announces our name.
Yes, I just didn't know what to do. I had no idea what to do. Georgia leans over to me and goes, you have to talk like that and then grabs my hand and pulls me because I was still looking at the thing, like wait, what Like it was just genuinely surprisal and surprising, not sure what I said.
You did great. I just stood there in the daze and I'm so embarrassed and horrified by it and me too.
Yeah, I mean this is podcasting, this is being perceived in podcasting. Yeah for sure.
Yeah.
But it was a very very lovely experience and we met so many Murderinos all across Austin. Yeah, it was really lovely to be kind of out and about and get to talk to listeners. Yeah.
It really was, Like I feel like it doesn't happen as much anymore in La because it's so la and everyone's kind of over over it, sure, yeah, like over running into people they like kind of know, but Austin, man, you guys are here for it and we appreciate you. Callen stopped us and said, like the most like the thing that makes me feel so good about like the message I send and like legacy about this podcast. She goes because of you guys. You inspired me to get botox and a nice husband. And I was like, well, fucking shit, I'm done.
Your work is done here all I wanted. Yeah, And then we went to Chicken Ship Bingo at the Sea Boy Bar, which is one of the coolest experiences and one of the best live bands I've genuinely ever seen.
That was a fucking random four o'clock like banger that was like the most fun I had in a long time. Chicken Shit bingo. I keep saying, it's exactly what it sounds like, and then people are like, I don't know what it sounds like. Yeah, but it's really just a bingo board and a chicken and we're whatever number of the chicken shit's on your raffle ticket, you matches, you win the money.
You win the pot of however much people paid for tickets that time. It's brilliant. And we met Kelly there, Yes, and Kelly hung out with us a little bit and we got to talk to her, and at one point this made me laugh the hardest. She was telling us like when she lived in New York and she used to listen in New York her life, and then she goes and then I kind of had to stop listening anyway, I live here. And it was so hilarious because she wasn't saying it like yeah it was was not lodging a complaint in any way. It was kind of like, I don't need to listen to that anymore. And we were like, good help me. I am moved on. Yes, okay, it's been a while.
Yeah, yeah, you can do that nine years.
Yeah. Invited back in and back out any time you want. Absolutely. Yeah. So thanks you guys for coming up and saying hi and being nice to us. It's really a lovely experience.
Yeah, so good.
Did I ever get to tell you? And I'm sorry to take up extra time. Did you know that I met Kyle McLaughlin the night of the awards at that after party. No, okay, I'll do this as fast as I can.
Oh my god.
We get to the after party. Yes, I kind of have to fight to get in, which was hilarious. Yes, I did yell the words, but we won at the doorman, which is kind of embarrassing humiliating, but we got it. Yes, and lovely, amazing party. But everybody in our group basically went and got in line for the bathroom because everyone had to go to the bathroom except for OKK took care of it before. So I was standing there and I was like, I need to put my coat and my purse down. We had been at this location before, so I'm like, oh, I'm going to hide it behind that couch. So I went over to this couch and there was a woman sitting there with long blonde hair, and I shoved my stuff basically behind where she was sitting on the couch, and I looked her. I said, do not steal anything out of my purse. All note was you, and she starts laughing and talking to me. I go, you can steal the coat because I bought it off TikTok, and I shouldn't have even bought it in the first place. We start talking about stuff like that and not and basically not over consuming. Yeah, come to find out she's the producer of Kyle McGlaughlin's podcast, Oh my God, I introduced myself. Then she was like I know, and I saw congratulations whatever, and then she says that I'm like, oh my god, Georgia was so excited to meet him last year, and she we take a healthie yes, and she goes, well, wait here, he's going to be right back and he would love to meet you guys. So I was like checking down that hallway to see who was coming out of the bathroom, and I'm like, I'm going to stand here until you guys come back. Seat we can hang out with Kyle McLaughlin. He walks up immediately just starts, hey, Hi, how are you did you win? Blah blah blah. Because he was there and I got to talk to him, and I got to tell Kyle McGlaughlin that my friend who helped me, my brilliant friend, stylist Okara Banks, who is the best, helped me find my like dress for that night. And I told Kyl McLachlan that I told her my style icon is Audrey Horn. I see it from Twin Peaks.
I totally as soon as you started to say that, I was like, oh yeah, I see it.
I tell him that same and it was like that man is the greatest.
Ye, he's such a lovely man. I'm honestly so glad he didn't find me because I had some drinks.
Would you would you've maybe snuggled up into.
His yack a little bit, would have probably like like held him like.
A baby a little bit kind of a plus weekend, Yeah, that we got to have totally well, all right, back to work?
Should we do this? Let's get back to work. Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media, and hey, here are some highlights.
Okay, as you might have heard, but if you haven't, you need to know. Last week we sat down with Hannah Smith and Patia Eaton, who are the hosts of our newest true crime podcast, The Knife. The Knife premieres next Thursday, March twenty seventh, but you can follow them right now on Instagram and Blue Sky at The Knife podcast. Of course, please go over to The Knife on Apple Podcasts or the iHeartRadio app wherever you listen, and go follow them and get ready because on March twenty seventh, you're gonna hear a brand new, incredible podcast from the makers and old host of the Opportunist. It's one of my favorites. Huge, I'm so excited about this. Yeah.
And then on Ghosted, Ros welcomes Permanently Stone comedian Doug Benson your old friend, to discuss all things paranormal. And hey, guess what if you missed it last week?
I me.
Georgia Hardstar was the guest on the episode of Ghosted. So please go back and listen to that if you feel like it.
Yeah, please do. This week on That's Messed Up, Lison Kara breakdown SVU season six, episode fifteen, which was entitled Hooked, and they dig into the mysterious murder of actor Bob Crane. That's a good one. Also, we know you guys love trasure, and we found some gems in the exactly Right warehouse. We have got here's the thing, koozies. We've got murdering no sweatshirts. We have sweatshirts that tell you not only to stay out of the forest, but also to keep going. We are bossy and we want you to get your merch while you can go to the exactly rightstore dot com.
And finally, we have some really exciting news if you're a listener of this podcast. We're going to officially invite you to become a watcher of this podcast because My Favorite Murder is now officially on you doo but yay, but.
Yes, the Exactly Right Network has its own YouTube channels, so you can watch full episodes of My Favorite Murder. You can watch full episodes if I said No Gifts, ghosted with Roz Hernandez, all the Nick Terry MFM animated episodes. There's all kinds of stuff over there, so head on over.
And they're trasures And once The Knife premieres on March twenty seventh, they'll be putting out video episodes two, so it'll be like a big watch party with all of your exactly Right friends. We're so excited about this channel, been working on it for a while and here she comes.
Yeah, it's the future of podcasting.
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All right, So I am first, and I have a heavy hitter that I personally didn't really know about that everyone should know about this case.
It's fucking wild.
It should be as notorious as Ted Bundy's horrific crime spree, and in fact, this story also takes place in Florida around the time that Ted Bundy was active. This is the story of a truly horrific serial killer, slash spree killer. It's kind of debated on what to call him. He targeted models and young girls under the guise of scouting them for modeling work, which we've heard of before. He ultimately led the FBI on a nationwide manhunt that lasted nine days and whose victim count is still being debated today. This is the story of the Beauty Queen Killer.
You know I'm talking about I don't think so. This is so wild.
So I was watching this documentary It's called The Beauty Queen Killer Nine Days of Terror, and the documentary is basically an interview with a survivor a couple survivors of this killer and the story of it, and it just unfolds and it's unbelievable.
Wow.
And the other main sources for the story are reporting from the Miami Herald and the Oklahoma and the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So it's April eleventh, nineteen eighty four, and we're at the South Lake Mall in Maryville, Indiana. A sixteen year old girl named Don is filling on application in a store for a job, and she's approached by a girl, a teenage girl who's around her same age. This blonde haired, blue eyed teen asked Don if she would like to model in an upcoming fashion show at the mall. And I think a big thing like to know and understand, especially for our younger listeners, is how central the MA was to our lives back then. Yes, like there was no like TV was live. If you didn't watch it, or you weren't rich and had a fucking VCR, you didn't see it. Yes, you went to the mall and that's where you socialized. That's where you got a job, that's where you shop, that's where you spent all of your free time with your friends.
That's right. And also just nineteen eighty four, it's such a weird thing. But in the San Francisco area, the brand a Spree would put out catalogs and use local girls as models, right, And that was like this big thing that everyone knew about. This was a very strange time in America where like you were as a young girl supposed to try to be a model, no matter how tall you were, what you looked like, what your background was, and your body type was gouted.
You know, like it actually could happen that you can be in local fashion shows be like a model. These things did happen back then, and kind of it was an opportunity for a lot of young women.
An opportunity and kind of like the ultimate compliment as as to like one of many things you could be, right, things weren't really, that wasn't the messaging. So it's like it was like someone coming up and saying, I deem you a Disney princess.
You're the most beautiful you must Yeah. It is a very time and place kind of a thing.
Yeah.
So, while Don is talking to this teenager who approached her, a man walks up to both the girls and it seems like he and this girl who approached Don seem to know each other. They're friendly. The man introduces himself as a photographer who knows about the upcoming fashion show. It's like, so it sounds kind of legit. And there were a lot of fashion shows in malls at the time that were like sponsored by whatever big you know, Macy's or whatever their store was there, or sometimes like you know, fashion lines and magazines would actually have mall fashion shows and local girls would walk in them. Right, So he says that he'd like to shoot some photos of Don now she's available. He says, they just need to go to a nearby warehouse to get close for the shoot. And so Don is like, this is legit. This like other girls with him making it seem real, this guy does seem legit. He does seem on the level. So the three of them head to the parking lot. They go to Don's car, and Don and the photographer get in the car, and the other girl who had approached her gets in their old car and starts following them. But once they reach the car, the photographer pulls out a gun and points at to Don. Immediately, he makes her get in the car and give him the keys, while the other girl who had approached her gets into a different car and follows them. Don has just been abducted by a man who was wanted in multiple murders and inductions already across the country, who has come to be known by the media as the Beauty Queen Killer. So that was in April of eighty four. We're going to go back to February twenty sixth of nineteen eighty four, and we're in Miami. Miami is the center of this busy modeling scene at the time, with lots of girls with big hair and high cup bikinis. They're shooting local commercials print ads like it is happening for a lot of these women. And among the legions of very young and beautiful women who call Miami home, there is twenty year old former Miss Florida contestant Rosario Gonzalez. Rosario had been born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States as a child with her family, and on February twenty sixth, Rosario has a gig as a spokes model at the Miami Grand Prix. Her job is to hand out samples of aspirin to people attending the race on behalf of a pharmaceutical company. And like those are paid modeling gigs, these are the kind of gigs that these girls are trying to get. You know, it is legit in some way.
Right.
She's been picking up as many jobs as she can because she's engaged and she and her fiance are saving up for furniture for the house they're going to move into, but Rosario still lives at home at the time, and her parents expect her back some time around five pm. She always calls if she's going to be late, and so when the evening wears on and they don't hear from her, the Goodzales family knows something is wrong. Shortly after they report her missing, Rosario's car is found near the racetrack, presumably where she parked it, having gone to the racetrack that day. On March third, after Rosario has been missing for about a week, police release a composite sketch of a man that multiple witnesses say they saw walking with Rosario after the race. He's about five foot eight, he's white, in his thirties. He has a mustache. And then, about a week after Rosario goes missing, on March fifth, another aspiring model, a woman named Beth Kenyon, also disappears. So Beth is twenty three years old, and by all accounts, she's this amazing young woman. She works at Coral Gables High School as a special ed teacher, and she coaches the cheerleading team. She's beloved by her family and friends and everyone the Kenyan family is immediately worried when Beth doesn't show up, as she's a reliable person, and they quickly become frustrated with the police when they don't seem particularly motivated to find Beth, despite the fact that this is the second young model to disappear in Miami in a very short time span. But it doesn't seem like the two are linked in the minds of the police. And let's not forget that there's like a drug war going on in Miami at the time, and the police are more concerned with that than a missing young, beautiful woman.
Right Yeah.
And there's also not a lot of communication between jurisdictions. There's like fax machines and phone calls and that's it. So it's just kind of a shitty time and place. So the Kenyan family hi are a private investigator named Ken Whittaker. Within a day or so of Beth disappearing, they had the means to do that, and they immediately did. And here's the part that's going to make you angry and make us all want.
To rip our hair out.
By day three, this private investigator has figured out who took Beth.
He knows he.
Talks to her roommate and her coworkers. He finds out that Beth's car had been acting up and they all knew where she planned to take it to get serviced. So the private investigator goes to the service station. The people there say that Beth had been there that day, the day she disappeared, and that she had been with a man, and the private investigator Ken brings a photo album of Beth's to the service station, asks everyone to look through it, and everyone zeros in on a guy in a photograph in her photo album. That was the guy she was with the day she disappeared. It's a picture of Beth at her racetrack, and they point to the man standing next to her in the picture. I remember the racetrack thing. Yes, So this man is thirty nine year old Christopher Wilder, and the private investigator is alarmed when he finds an extensive criminal record of violent sexual assault dating back many years.
I'm just already getting mad and assuming that I'm just gonna like demand you tell me the things you're about to tell me, but you're gonna tell me anyways, I'll just listeny.
I mean, there isn't a well, you'll see, let's talk a little bit about this awful man.
Christopher Wilder.
He's born on March thirteenth, nineteen forty five in Sydney, Australia. He's the oldest child of an American naval officer and an Australian native. He grew up in Australia from his teenage years on. I kind of can't tell exactly what's going on, but he has sometimes he has an Australian accent. Sometimes he does, and it kind of seems like he can turn it on and off. I mean, this is just it's classic and its early adolescents. He begins peeking through windows and then by the age of seventeen, he's arrested for the rape of a girl on a Sydney beach. He pleads guilty to the offense and receives a year of probation with counseling and electuro shock therapy. In nineteen sixty nine, now in his twenties, Christopher Wilder left Australia and heads to Florida after avoiding some charges for sexual deviant accusations.
So he splits he's just fleeing his record essentially exactly.
So he gets to Florida and you know, this is the late sixties, early seventies. He works as a contractor, also an amateur photographer and a race car driver as well. So he's not particularly handsome, but he dresses really well. Maybe that Australian accent comes into play sometimes and gives him an air of respectability that maybe he didn't deserve. But he looks like a typical eighties dude, like someone my mom would have dated back then for sure. Yeah, and he hangs out with the right crowd that lends him legitimacy that actually tricks these women into trusting him as a modeling scout because he does have access to the.
Modeling world because of his photography.
Yes, and he had been hired by the Miss Florida USA pageant to take photos of the models. So when he comes up to them after the photo shoot and is like, here's my card. I could really like, I would love to take photos of you. I could make you famous. I could be your manager. There's no reason for them. But it's not some rando. It's this guy who has been hired to do this.
By basically a like modeling machine of a beauty pageant. Right, And they don't vet those photographers. They don't God.
So when I decided to do this, Alejandra and Ali, my researcher, let me know that some of these stories sound really similar to the one that I told in our book that happened to me where I was like eighteen or nineteen and trusted a regular at the cafe I worked at and got in his car and went with him to take He said he was a photographer. He was a photographer. He showed me his work. It was gorgeous. He took me to a secluded location, and I realized that I needed to do what he told me at the time, and so, you know, I complied with what he demanded. And so I just want to make sure we're making it clear that this is so common and this is so I don't know what to say, but just that I understand.
Yes, And it's kind of a setup. It's a setup in a way where what you're being asked as a young woman is can you please meet these cultural requirements of beauty? And then people are going to come around you and be like, hey, I officially deemed that you did that, and therefore let's capture that and show it to other people. And since that is a drive that, depending on how you were raised or what you are around, like that's a huge accomplishment, especially in southern California, where it's just like, yeah, you made it like this, this is really something. Nobody's sitting there going, hold on, I need to figure out why I'm not going to do this right. You're going, Oh my god, my dream's coming true. I get the ultimate reward here.
And it's not really Like my sister's a photographer and she took photos of me all through high school. It wasn't weird to me to be like, oh, I'll model for you. And then suddenly you find yourself in a situation that you realize you made a big mistake and you don't know how to get out of. And I honestly think that this person who took me out to take photographs of me at the time had nefarious intentions and somehow I was able to get away, Yeah, you know, not unscathed. But so I just I get it. I get this in a weird way, and it like does trigger some old things of like the shame. But then when I read about these girls, I don't blame them in any fucking way whatsoever. So why should I feel shame about it as well. You know, it's like something you did when you were young and not well.
Also, don't punish yourself for being trustful of people who tell you to trust them, Right, that's that kind of thing of like we all have to learn lessons like that as we grow up. Everyone learns them the hard way and it's a best disappointing. Yeah, and that kind of risk, that's just growing up a woman in our culture, and all other women understand that. And I think there was a time where it was used against us, or our own shame was kind of like weaponized. We would use it against each other.
Well, yeah, wait until the end of the story, because it fucking comes into play, and I just have the hardest time. I have the hardest time with the ending of the story because it's just so ugly.
So he's gotten his papers from the Miss Florida Beauty context. Hey, you can trust this guy. Don't worry about this official photographer exactly.
And he's very suave. He's manipulative. He owns a Porsche and a speedboat and a nice house where he hosts fancy parties where everyone goes to them. You know, it's like that false sense of I know you, you're part of my pack and you're safe. That's just luring and it's just grooming. It's what predators do.
Also, if you have money, I think there's for a long time the belief of, like, if you had money and a good job, that meant you would never do something like that. Totally, it's insane, Totally.
Later, manyone will come forward with stories of photoshoots that became non consensual and led to sexual assault. And in fact, after one sexual assault charge by a teenage girl, a psychiatrist said that Wilder should be forced to undergo supervised treatment, but the Florida jury acquitted him in that case. It's maddening. There are multiple opportunities to punish this person and to for this time gone a different.
Way, forbid that his career be effected.
Right, Yeah, right, he's a man of fucking the community.
Yeah.
So back to this private investigator. When he tells Beth's family about this man, they already know him because it turns out Beth had met him when she competed in that Miss Florida USA pageant two years prior, and they had it's hard to tell, they kind of started dating or maybe he was more interested than she was. So at the same time as this is going on, as Beth is missing, her family hears a news report about another missing model, Rosario Gonzalez from earlier, who also had competed in that same pageant as Beth two years earlier, and they're like, this is too coincidental that two models from the area are missing. And the private investigator speaks to Christopher Wilder twice, once at his home and once at work, and so the private investigator gives Christopher Wilder's name to the Miami police at some point. It's unclear exactly how long the police wait to go to Chris House to question him, but by the time they do, it seems a little like they dragged their feet on it. By the time they do, the story of the two missing models becomes linked in the media, and Christopher's name is eventually brought into the story, and so it seems like he realized the jig was up and fled knowing that they were after him.
I also wonder, sorry, just to make this side comment, that if the first missing woman was Cuban, right, then there's obviously, yeah, a racist issue.
Rosario Gonzalez she's not right looked forward, and the news isn't as they're not going to.
Be as reactive as a white model.
Right, the media cares less? Yeah, right, And so this alerting him to the fact that they're all onto him. His realization that he's going to get caught, seems to set him off on an absolutely horrific spree that I don't know how we haven't heard of, this nine day spree that's going to blow your fucking mind. And I try to get a hold of my mom to talk about it because comes all the way to La Oh my god, but I don't know if she knows anything about it anyways. So, surprisingly, and like maybe showing how cocky he was that he wouldn't get caught, Wilder stays in Florida at first, He doesn't leave the state, even though he knows the authorities are after him. On March fifteenth, three days after Ken the Private Investigator, last makes contact with Christopher, he ends up in Daytona, Florida, and we know that a fifteen year old girl named Colleen Osborne disappears at Daytona Beach that same day. Christopher has never been officially linked to Colleen's disappearance, but friends who were with her say a man at the beach offered her one hundred dollars to photograph her, and Collings's body is found about three weeks later. Three days later, on March eighteenth, Christopher abducts a twenty one year old woman named Teresa Ferguson who goes by Terry from a mall on Merritt Island, which is just south of Daytona. So we actually backtracks closer to Miami, like this guy has no fear while Colleen's murders only suspect to be linked to Christopher Wilder as well, investigators are sure that he's responsible for Teresa's murder. Her body is found five days later in a swamp not too far from Tampa, on the opposite coast from where she was abducted, and her body is found with a rope tied to her neck and feet. But before her body was found, Christopher Wilder abducts another young woman. This is on March twentieth, two days after Teresa's abduction, and it's in Tallahassee, the capital city and where Florida State University is. So this young woman is named Linda Grover. She's a nineteen year old student at Florida State, and we know everything that happens to her and what she goes through because Linda survives. Linda is in a department store shopping for an anniversary gift for her boyfriend when Wilder approaches her multiple times and is like bugging her and doing his normal spiel of like you should be a model, let me take photographs of you. I have connections. He's wearing a suit, like a three piece suit. He's well groomed. He's a gold watch and a diamond pinky ring, which is kind of his signature. His camera on him, you know, which is like so creepy that you're like, look, I'm a photographer walking around. Anyone could put a fucking camera on. It's like DJ headphones. It's like that doesn't mean you're fucking DJA, right.
And well, but it's just such an innocent time, like you todding. It's just like that is only a professional photographer would be walking around with such a nice camera.
Right, And this is also the time and place where like Adam Walsh as a five year old was kicked out of a mall for loitering and got kidnapped. Yeah, and disappeared, like that's just what happened.
Then people did not know what was It was the beginning of the right of this era of awareness.
You'd still hope that Ted Bundy had at least because I think in seventy nine is when his spree in tallahassee right happened. So you'd think that they would be a little more on edge and aware that these young college girls are going missing and are being found murdered.
But I mean, like again, like you're saying that means people would have to be connected communicating.
Right, So, but Linda Grover is like, now, dude. She politely declines his offer a couple times and they part way. She's not interested. Then, at about three point thirty that afternoon, she's out walking to her car and she realizes that Christopher's following her out. It turns out he parked right next to her because he had watched her enter the mall from the parking lot, so he was orchestrating this from beginning. He asked her one more time to look at some covers that he shot, kind of to show that he's legitimate. He opens his trunk, takes out a briefcase, and then When he opens a briefcase, Linda sees an Australian passport and then suddenly Christopher punches her multiple times and throws her in the backseat of the car.
Oh my god, I know.
He gags her, He covers her eyes, ties her up, and puts her in the trunk. He then drives about four or five hours to a motel in Bainbridge, Georgia, which is close to the state line. Essentially, I'm not going to get to into the details, but if you watch the documentary they tell you more. He tortures and sexually assaults her, and at one point he even attempted to super glue her eyes shut, but she was able to keep her eyes open and it didn't work. And then this fucking badass breaks away from him, runs into the motel bathroom in the same room, locks herself in and starts banging on the walls and screaming to get the attention from the people who were in the motel room.
Next door, which is just brilliant.
Yes, Like, you're panicked, you're being tortured, and you have the wherewithal to do such a thing.
It's incredible.
Yeah, And this scares Christopher enough to flee, and so Linda is able to run to the front desk and the police are called and she's able to give the police a detailed description. And by this point authorities realize they're looking for this one man because she's able to describe him that pinky ring, the photographer, the mall, all of that stuff, the passport at the Australian passport. She's able to give them an information that now the FBI are called in.
Thank god, well not yet, okay, but amazing job, Linda.
Amazing job Linda. She also identifies him from a photo like wow. The FBI are finally called in in a nationwide manhunt for Christopher Wilder is on, but unfortunately they're just following in his footsteps. They are trying to track him down, and he's one step ahead of them the whole way. Christopher drives along the Gulf Coast all the way to Beaumont, Texas, and on March twenty first, just one day after abducting Linda, just one day later, he approaches a twenty three year old mother and nursing student at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas named Terry Walden about modeling. She turns him down, but Christopher stalks her and abducts her two days later, like he fucking stalks her from where he had tried to get her to come with him, And so that's on March twenty third. Terry's body is found three days later. She had been raped and stabbed to death, and that same day, March twenty third, is when the FBI publicly announces that they have mounted a man hunt for Christopher, but over the next few days, this news appears mostly in Florida newspapers, not nationwide. So Chris steals Terry's car and drives to Oklahoma City, and there he abducts a twenty one year old named Suzanne Logan. On March twenty fifth, just two days after Terry's abduction. This guy is on a berserker spree.
It's the long, slow build to now this is the end, and he knows it.
So Suzanne's husband and parents report her missing to the police, but the police tell them she's probably just decided to take off, despite the fact that there's really no reason to think this, and the FBI is already engaged in an active manhunt for this man, and Suzanne has also disappeared from a shopping mall. So it's unclear if the police in Oklahoma City are unaware of all of this, which is totally likely for the time, or if they just failed to make the connection. But by this point the story is in the newspapers all around the country, so who knows why. So Wilder drives Suzanne almost two hundred miles away to Newton, Kansas, keeps her alive overnight in a motel room, and into part of the next day, they eat breakfast in a restaurant together. And this is how like cunning he is that he's able to take these women into public places and still control them. Yeah, I mean he must have been terrified, horrifying, Yeah, person exactly.
Yeah.
Christopher then drives her ninety miles farther north into an area near Junction City, Kansas, and there he stabs her to death and her body is found about ten days later. So then, on March twenty ninth, Christopher abducts an eighteen year old named Cheryl Bonaventura from a mall near Grand Junction, Colorado. Over the next two days, the two are seen multiple times together, looks like they're on this crazy drive, and then Christopher checks into a motel in Page, Arizona, and Christopher kills Cheryl around March thirty first, and her body is found near the Arizona Utah border in May. So then Christopher heads to Las Vegas. I mean, this guy's going across the fucking country.
Yeah, which also if I'm very curious now how those timelines overlap, because that is what Ted Bundy did in the other direction. Now later if he knew that, of just like, just keep crossing those right state lines and they won't be able to track you as well.
He definitely later they realize studied some serial killers for sure, so possibly improbably, And so he heads to Las Vegas, and unbelievably, despite the manhunt being wildly reported, Okay, fucking wait for this, he attends a modeling contest at a mall being held by seventeen magazine as a photographer as a model photographer, and that's on April first. It's a competition, and he targets a seventeen year old named Michelle Korfman and ultimately kills her, and her body is found on May eleventh at a highway rest area in southern California, but she's not identified until about a month later. But there's a photo of him at the mall watching the models. It's it's him. He's not disguised, maybe he has a thicker beard or something, but like I.
Wonder if that the gal. It's the But it's also that kind of thing of like they think it's a man hunt where they're like, we need to check the motels on the highway type of thing. Who what idiot would go to exactly the place where everyone would think he would be absolutely okay.
So now the next abduction leads the spree in a whole different direction, and this is a direction that will baffle the media and the public, who, of course, at the time had no issues with victim blaming and had it in their heads how a perfect victim would and should act, and when the victim doesn't, they go for her. So on April fourth, three days after Michelle's abduction in Las Vegas and almost a month before her body was discovered, a popular friendly teenager, sixteen year old Tina Rizzico from Torrence, California, is at a local mall called the Delama Fashion Center. So Tina's feeling out a job application at the Hickory Farm Store when Christopher approaches her with the same story he's given all the other girls. And Tina is beautiful too, so it's not out of the question that she'd be approached near Los Angeles to model. He says he's a photographer and that he thinks she has potential to be a model, and that he'd like to photograph her to show to his contacts at a modeling agency. That she recognizes the name of the modeling agency as well, Soto have to fucking be with them. He can even make cards. Let's say that he's from that modeling agency, you know. Yeah, and he's like, we could do the shoot right now. So Tina, pretty blonde who is mature for her age, she's sixteen, but kind of world wary after having had a chaotic childhood. She's flattered, but she feels a little uneasy, but she pushes down that uneasy feeling and they walk out of them all together and get in Christopher's car. And this is the person who is most centrally interviewed in the documentary The Beauty Queen Killer. Yeah, and it's just it's so moving. I highly recommend it because she's just the survivor that had to do what she had to do. And is still coming to terms with it in a way that we can feel empathy for her in a way that I don't think she could feel for herself in some ways. And it's really heartbreaking, Tina says later quote, this is the one point that I regret every second of my life, every day I got in the car with this perfect stranger when all the bells and whistles were going off in my head. Why didn't I listen to my instincts. Why didn't I listen to the voice in my head? Don't get in a car with a stranger.
Because we are Tata's women to constantly question ourselves and doubt ourselves and how dare you stand up for yourself? And that's ugly, And don't be rude, don't be rude, be pretty and feminine and quiet and do what men want to do. That's fair. That's how we're all raised to this fucking day, especially back then.
Yeah, and then it says Tina notices that the car smells weird. And in our book, I wrote about getting in his car and suddenly going, oh fuck, because there was a rip in the ceiling of the car. It was messy and nasty, and I suddenly was like, oh, I don't know this person at all. And immediately as we're driving away from the cafe, just all my alarm bells were going off, and I was like, you have to get through this. You fucked up, you know. So she didn't fuck up though, No, I didn't.
I didn't.
Okay, you're right, yeah, And that's that's so important, I think. Is that like it was a time and place then, but it happened to me as well, not that long ago, twenty years ago, I guess. So she is uneasy, but she still pushes through that feeling. He drives her up into the mountains into a aa like same Santa Monica Thuga Mountains is where he took me. He starts photographing Tina and posing her in different ways, and he has her turn her back to him to kind of pose, and when she turns back around, he's pointing a gun at her. In the moment, Tina wonders if she should run or scream, but she doesn't think anyone would hear her, so she decides that her best shot is to go along with everything he makes her do. He makes her take her clothes off and takes more photographs. He then rapes her and then has her get back in his car, And when they get back in the car, Christopher tapes her eyes shut and puts sunglasses over the tape. He starts driving Tina across the country, stopping at motels along the way. At each motel, Christopher he basically takes the cord from the lamp and peels it apart and uses it to give her electric shots.
God so he tortures.
Her and rapes her at various motels. He threatens her with a nine piece of gun as I said as well, and he has her sleep handcuffed, and they actually go into restaurants, and she says, the entire time she's sitting next to him, he has a gun under his coat pointing at her, and he is like, I will shoot you if you try to do anything. The entire time they're in the car driving, he has his hand on the gun pointed at her like there's no escape, no, and we all that's like part of it is like why didn't you jump and roll? And why didn't you She start screaming, and it's like, who knows how much this guy told her about what he's already done, probably at least enough to scare her to know that he will do anything, and he's capable of anything, you know.
So the collersion part of this is the is what everyone should be talking about, Yeah, not why why didn't you do this? And that? Why are men allowed over and over again to do things like this and get probation, to get off, to get acquitted to all these things? The questions are the wrong fucking question totally. They're the easy has questions to ask, and it's questions that have answers that no one's listening to when the answers come right, and they're the wrong questions absolutely.
So Tina says that throughout this ordeal, when they're together, she maintains an affectless demeanor. She doesn't react, she doesn't show any emotion. Even when he's hurting her. She complies. So by April tenth, Christopher and Tina are in Maryville, Indiana, near Gary, Indiana. And this is where the story started when the teenager approached the pretty girl at the mall. Remember, and at this point Christopher has had Tina at gunpoint and torturing and raping her for a week. So she's under his command. And this is a sixteen year old girl at the mall in Maryville, Christopher and Tina going together. He points out Dawn and tells Tina what to say. Tina says that she tries to think of some way to warn Dawn, but she is so scared and broken down at this point that she can't even figure out a way to do that without getting killed. She thinks the moment she starts screaming or says anything, he's going to shoot her. And he probably would. Yeah, when you hear the rest of the story, Okay, okay, So Don agrees to go with them. Don gets into her car with Chris driving it, and Tina, the girl had been abducted, gets into the other car. And even then she doesn't try to escape. She knows that he's a race car driver, remember that, and she thinks that if she tries to get away from him, he will be able to stop her, run her off the road, he'll shoot her. She doesn't think she can get away. I mean, she is she's a child, she's brainwashed at this point, She's.
A brainwashed, tortured child and victim entirely.
It's awful and it's terrible, and I feel so much for down the other victim and she's interviewed in this documentary as well. To this day, she's still understandably like can't wrap her head around it, and it seems like can't forgive. And I totally understand that, but it's just it's bigger than anything that we can wrap our heads around. Ever, because we've never through it, we probably never will fucking knock on wood, so we can't judge, you know.
I mean well, And also the idea that somehow the point is supposed to be forgiveness among the victims.
Oh, it's like, you don't have to.
Everyone is on their own trajectory. They have to get to the place they need to be however they want to. And again let's focus on animals that need to be in cages. Yeah, and walk around the planet while everyone else makes excuses. Yeah.
So eventually, the three of them, they ditch one of the cars and they end up at a motel that evening, and both of the girls are raped and tortured with the electric shocks.
It's monstrous.
The next day, Christopher turns on the TV in the motel and he sees himself on the news, and the two kidnapped teenagers see as well that people are looking for them, and it seems like this freaks him out, and this is a turning point in his spree, Like he has no control at this point, he fucking knows it's kind of a yeah. So he gets everyone to the car and he drives the teenage victims to western New York into a remote area. It's just all over the country. There's like no rhyme or reason to it, which is probably why it was so hard to fucking track him, because meanwhile, the cops in Torrance in southern California, everyone thinks he's still in southern California.
They're looking for him.
There those FBI bulletins he's on the FBI Most Wanted list at this point. Those are all happening in southern California. Meanwhile he's in like upstate New York. Yeah, okay, and this is just horrific. So he drives him to a remote area in western New York. He leaves Tina from Torrance's sixteen year old in the car. He takes the keys, and he takes Dawn into the woods off the road, so Tina's alone in the car. This is the point where people are like, why didn't you take off why didn't you run? Why didn't you? Yeah?
Exactly. It just stop asking fucking questions like that, where it's like, unless you have been tortured for two weeks straight as a sixteen year old, why are you pretending this is an normal situation?
And it's a remote area, where would she fucking run to? She was like, there's no coverage, there's no where I can go. So he takes Don off into the woods and he tries to kill her by suffocating her, but Don fights back, and so he stabs her twice in the chest and then flees back to the car and he and Tina drive away. Tina later says in this documentary that she is sure that he had just killed Don and that his demeanor had changed. She was clearly like freaking out, and she's like, I'm next, Yeah, this is about to end. He's going to kill me, just like he had just killed Don. Don is alive. Don survives the stabbing. She's laying there, having been stabbed twice. She thinks about her family and tells herself she just needs to at least try to get to safety for them. She ties her jeans around the stab wounds on her chest and somehow is able to make it to a road and flags down a passing truck driver. Driver takes Don to the hospital. She's seriously injured. She had been stabbed in the lungs. He had tried to stab her in the heart, but stabbed her in the lungs, and she was still able to get herself up and go get fucking help for herself. Which is crazy because Christopher tries to come back around. He was worried she wasn't dead. He comes back to try to kill her twenty minutes later, So if she hadn't gotten herself up and moving, he would have come back.
And killed her.
Jesus Chrasy, I know, I know. So Don is able to give the FBI a lot of critical information. They know all these cases or linked. They know that's the same man that's that they've been looking for. But as I said, they'd been still focusing their search around southern California, and so now they know he had crossed the country.
She tells them that Tina from.
Torrens is still alive and that he's using her to get other victims. And she tells them that he said he's heading for Canada. So now they kind of have like an area of where he might be. So Christopher hears on the radio that Don has survived and the FBI are closing in on him, and this ultimately precipitates his next and final murder. It's just so heartbreaking. So it's April twelfth. Christopher of ducks a thirty three year old woman named Beth Dodge in the parking lot of the mall. We're still in western New York at this point. He's like frantic and has given up the modeling pretense. He simply needs a car, a new car, because he knows they're looking for him. Beth had a gold Pontiac Firebird, which is crazy that he picked such a distinctive car. Dude, like, pick a fucking Corolla.
He's out of his mind, right.
He approaches Beth, he pulls out his gun and makes her get into the car and drives it away with Tina following, And it's like, why couldn't you have just left her there and taken the car? This s guy is a monster, that's why.
Yeah.
He takes Beth to a remote area again with Tina following in the car, and as she's watching, Tina's watching from the other car. He has Beth get out of the car and shoots Beth in the back, killing her, and Beth leaves behind her husband and a four year old daughter, who, as an adult, is interviewed in this documentary as well.
All right, what next?
This is just inexplicable. Christopher then drives Tina, who had kidnapped from Torrance and raped and tortured across the country. He drives her to Logan International Airport in Boston. He walks her up to the ticket counter, buys her a ticket to Los Angeles, gives her like a thousand dollars in cash, and then leaves her at the airport.
Yeah, so the idea in his mind is now you can go home and I'll pay for it.
And then just what and here's some extra cash for the I don't even think he said anything like that. He was just like, here's some extra cash for the ride.
And did he think she would continue to be kind of under his spell?
Like the way she'd bet feel like her compliance for survival must have told him something else about her, you know, like that, Yeah, she would have been complicit. I guess you have to imagine where her brain is, because she's like, this is a trick. This isn't going to happen. She's sure he's about to come back. She gets on the plane, she takes the overnight flight, sleeps on the plane. There's multiple stops, she doesn't say anything to anyone. She gets off the plane in La in the morning and gets into a cab. And she also was saying at the time, like, I didn't think they were really looking for me. I wasn't totally sure her mom was unstable. She was like she might not have even like said I was missing.
And she's been in a living hell, So all of normal life is gone for her, right, and she's just adapting to this weird, hellish world.
The morning before, she saw him shoot an innocent woman in the point blank in the back. Like the disassociation going on there is fucking real, and it's a powerful tool, and it was working for her, and she kept going with it.
And also she just like, get home, just get on the plane, get home, stay within yourself, like yeah, yeah.
And the next thing that she does is totally scrutinized by the media. And I'll never be able to explain it because I'll never be in a situation exactly like this. She is in the cab in La and she's like, I haven't changed my clothes in over a week, So she asked the cab driver to take her to a lingerie store so she can buy new underwear and change. We have to assume that this girl is going on fumes. She's not thinking this through.
Or if you had been through something that horrible and raped repeatedly, you would want those underwear eyes of you. And you're not going to a lingerie store, right. You are not making it that choice. You're saying, new underwear there and I need to go get them, totally the end. So she's the framework of that is disgusted.
It's so creepy too, because she goes there and it seems like she tells the store clerks who she is, and because everyone was looking for her at that point, like she was a missing person, and it was like all the news they recognized her, and there was like footage from that time in the documentary where they're like, yeah, she was here and then she took off. And I think it's an important thing to point out and for us to know about Tina is that she did not have a very stable home life. In fact, as I said, it was chaotic. She had experienced childhood sexual abuse, her mother had been a drug user, she had seen her mother overdose, her mother hung out with bad motorcycle crowd all through her childhood, and so she will later say that she basically learned how to survive horrific things as a child, and she thinks is what ultimately kept her alive. Because Chris's m O is that he likes scaring women and having them beg for their lives, and when Tina didn't do that, because she already knew kind of how to disassociate and comply, he must have seen her differently than other victims somehow. Yeah, so her trauma saved her, saved her in a really twisted way and informed how to react to these situations, which is so sad.
But also it's as sad as it is hopeful, I think, Yeah, because the things that happened to you. No one wants bad things to happen, but there are skills and coping mechanisms that come from those bad things that absolutely benefit your life later on. Yeah, they really do. Yeah.
So, after the lingerie store, Tina then goes to her boyfriend's house, and which is really telling that she doesn't go to her home because her boyfriend's family were kind of more of a steady presence in her life than her own family were at the time. They know who she's kidnapped by. They think she's dead. She gets out of the cab and they are all like what, They're shocked and of course elated to see her, and she takes a shower and then they convince her to go to the police. I think she's just like going forward in her mind and they're like, okay, here we go. So in the weeks following Tina's return and when her story and don survived story becomes known, Tina will sometimes be referred to as an accomplice, and the media really wants to pin this on her and make it seem like she was complicit, And the whole thing is she was a willing accomplice, a sixteen year old girl.
The patriarchy was super strong back then, they were doing it. And once again, just that idea of like, of that whole story, Yeah, that's she's the one I'm talking about totally. The lead character in the story is not her, Yeah, it's him.
Yeah.
And that's what happens every time.
Yeah, and through This whole ordeal with the media and the public put her through is so ugly. Hopefully it wouldn't happen today her full name is made public. There's all sorts of speculation over her behavior before and after the kidnapping. It's all scrutinized on the news. Reporters are hounding her and her family. But the sixteen year old girl who has been held captive and abused repeatedly for ten days. Thankfully the Torrance Police, and this is unexpected and kudos for them. They make a hard stance that Tina is a victim and nothing more, and they have press conferences saying she is a victim. That is, you know, she has nothing really on her side. And I honestly am like, what was amazed by that? And I shouldn't be moved that they're on her side, but I was.
I mean, it's not it wasn't common at all. It certainly isn't expected from a police force totally. Like, so that's pretty mind blowing.
Yeah, back to the same day. Tina had come home on April thirteenth, after Christopher dropped her off at the airport, he makes his way all the way up to a town called Colebrook, New Hampshire, a small town. It's about a fifteen minute drive from the Canadian border where he's headed. He stops at a gas station to ask directions to the border, and just so happens that two state troopers are driving by the gas station at the moment, and he has a fucking gold thunderbird, remember, and everyone's looking for him at this point. Yeah, of course the troopers see him, they see the car, and they get out and confront him. There's brief struggle, and Christopher lunges into the car for his gun, and there he uses it to shoot himself. The bullet also injures one of the troopers, and Chris is able to shoot himself one more time and he dies by suicide. The trooper ultimately recovers and in the weeks and years following Christopher Wilder's death, he is linked as a suspect to multiple other disappearances, and many other women come forward saying he sexually assaulted them. And I of course went to our Gmail, my favorite murder Gmail, and looked up his name and everything, and there are just pages of murderino's telling their own story about having met him or been approached by him Murderingo is telling their mom's story, their grandma's story, like multiple emails, and I couldn't even pick one because they were all the same.
It's kind of a thing and I have never known. I think when you started talking about Tina's story and the part that was happening in southern California, Yeah, I was remembering like maybe a forensic file, yes, but it told it in this kind of opposite way totally.
It's like a vague like I know some of the circumstances, but the spree, like I don't remember hearing that at all. Yeah, Okay, here this is a part that, of course that I'm fascinated by because it's about a cold case. It comes out that right before this spree happened, Wylder had gone back to Australia to visit his parents, and while there he had abducted two teenage girls from a beach by telling them he was a modeling scout, and then he had sexually assaulted them and forced them to take photos with their clothes off. They went to the police. He was arrested, but he was bailed out by his parents, and it was like a three hundred and fifty thousand dollars bail, so clearly they were putting the money up for him, and he was allowed to return to Florida to wait for his trial, which was repeatedly postponed. Now, if that case sounds familiar, it's because it's eerily similar to the infamous Australian Wanda Beach murders which I just mentioned recently, in which to fifteen years old Sydney girls were killed in nineteen sixty five and there are reports that they were last seen with a teenage boy, which would have lined up with Christopher's age and his time in Sydney. And it's never been solved, and it's one of the most notorious cases in Australia. It's the first episode of the podcast case File, So light up. Oh yeah. The remains of Rosario Gonzalez and Beth Kenyon, the first two women to be reported missing in South Florida, have never been found. And that is the story of the Beauty Queen Killer, the women whose lives he cut short, and the women who survived him.
Unbelievable.
I mean, it blew my mind researching the story.
Yeah, I was just I can't believe it. I know. Wow, great job, Thank you. Amazing thank you and amazing honesty. I know that was probably very hard and very triggering as you read this.
Yeah, thank you.
I mean it's important for other people to hear you're that you know and like know that everyone, especially when you're a teenager, makes the kinds of mistakes that you thoroughly regret in all kinds of ways. And if you've already gone through pain about the mistake itself, torturing yourself about making a mistake is what my therapist likes to call the second arrow, and it is that's the kind of thing you have to watch out for because you already suffered, You already suffer. You don't need to suffer more because you're a human being. It's not fair. Yeah, thank you.
I tried looking up this photographer like while I was doing it, because somewhere out there there's unconsenting topless photos of me and he's out there somewhere and I couldn't find anything.
It's just it's chilling. Get me ripping on my nail polish.
I know that's what I do when I was stressed.
I've literally twisted this paper cliff into.
This that gel nail like that is that this was intense.
Unbelievably, but also it's so really good job, Jordan, thank you. All right, Well, it's gonna be tough to follow that. Sorry, No, I mean that's huge. But the theme of this episode is moniker killers, and I think when we learned we were going to do this theme, we were like, oh, how are there any that we don't know? And we both learned that there are and this one Marin found and again it happened in northern California. So I'm like, what kind of job am I doing as a supposed true crime enthusiast if I don't know this story? So it begins in the mid eighties in Redding, California, a town in central northern California, about one hundred and fifty miles northeast of San Francisco and one hundred and twenty miles south of the Oregon border. Have you been to Redding? No, Reading is like far away Sacramento. It's like, if you're in Sacramento, you drive three mi maybe four hours up the five ish.
It's rural.
It's way up there and out there.
Wow.
Okay, So but a lovely little kind of community. Yeah, probably you hate it if you're a teenager. But you have it, you move back later. Yeah. So it's May of nineteen eighty five and a forty eight year old woman named Avril Whedon my husband's last name. It's your husband's last name. Weird. Avril's reported missing by her mother, Yula. Yula desperately tries to track her daughter down, but weeks pass, no one hears from April. This is completely out of character for her and of course very concerning for her family and her friends. Then three months later, on August eighth, a woman named Shirley Landrath is fielding calls for Shasta County's Secret Witness Program, which is a local tip line where people can call in anonymously and report information they might have on active investigations. Kind of like the local writing version of Crime Stoppers. That's cool. Yeah. So Shirley Landreth is a single mom in her fifties who has run this answering service for this tip line for twelve years. It's a job that means a lot to her. Shirley suffered the tragic loss of her child in a house fire, so she began to channel her grief into doing what she could to better her community. So beautiful, So for twelve years, Shirley's been answering calls to the Shasta County Secret Witness tip line, But on this August day, when the phone rings and she picks it up, something is off. The caller tells Shirley that he knows where Avril Wheaton is, but before he's willing to share those details, he wants to know more about the Secret Witnesses reward for that information. But for surely there's something very unsettling about this exchange, because she's certain she's heard this man's voice before when he has called in with a different tip, also about April's case. And so what begins as a missing person's investigation is about to unravel into something much darker, and this tip line will be at the very center of it all. This is the heroic story of tip line operator Shirley Landreth and the hunt for a Northern California serial killer fuck. The main source used today is illegal filing from the Supreme Court of California, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. As I said, the theme of the show is Moniker Killers, but I'm holding it because of the story got it. So it's August eighth, nineteen eighty five, my sister's seventeenth birthday. Oh shit, and Shirley Landrath is on the phone with a man she believes has called into the Secret Witness tip line before. Phone records will later reveal that this man, who will refer to now as the tipster, did reach out to the tip line two months prior, on June nineteenth, my mother's birth. How fucking weird? Is that? So creepy? And in the beginning they were like, and this all begins in May, so I was like, fifty, I may love it. So it isn't just the caller's voice or the rushed way he speaks that's familiar to Shirley because in that first call, he also asked about the amount of money he would be receiving for information on April's case. Only when that dollar amount was confirmed, which was two hundred and fifty dollars, did he give what he claimed were directions to Averril's body. Shirley passed that information along to the police, but it didn't result in anything. They didn't find anything when they followed those directions, so the tipster did not get a reward. So now on the second call, he is not holding back. The tipster wants to make one thing clear to Shirley upfront. He knows for a fact that April's dead, but he says he is not responsible. He then gives Shirley exact directions to the location of April's body, and Shirley makes a particular note that the man gives these directions in meters, not feet. Interesting so then before he signs off, the tipster Shirley that he's willing to give more information about April's case, as well as six other unsolved murder cases in Shasta County, as long as the tip line comes through with his reward money quickly. Then he hangs up. Shirley is unsettled by this call. She immediately reports the tip to police, But this time, when investigators follow the tipster's directions, they do lead directly to Avril Whedon's body, exactly where the tipsters said she would be. An autopsy will later reveal that Avril had been beaten and strangled to death, and because this information did lead officers to finding her body, Sureley arranges for a prompt and discrete drop off of the tipsters two hundred and fifty.
Dollars do a little investigation first place.
I mean, this is how it worked, where it's like you're not going to get anonymous tips on active cases if you start, you know, turning it back on people. Oh sure, but okay. So police have been investigating April's missing case for months, and her mother, Eula, reported that since she had gone missing on May twenty third, Eula had called Avril's house several times, hoping to find her daughter there, but every time the only person that was home was a twenty seven year old man named Robert Maury who goes by Bob and Morey was April's tenant who had been renting one of her spare rooms. He had recently been dishonorably discharged from the Army for smoking pot, and now he worked sometimes as a landscaper and sometimes as a flower arranger. He also became increasingly annoyed at Eula every time she called completely bizarre and inappropriate, at one point telling her quote, how the hell am I supposed to know where April is? So when Yula reported her daughter missing to the police, a detective named Dave Mundy was put on the case. So Mondy began interviewing everyone to Avril, including a male friend that last saw her on the back of Bob's motorcycle, so Bob seems to corroborate this. He can't remember the exact day of this motorcycle ride, but he tells detectives that he dropped Averril off at a local telephone booth while he drove to a different location to buy weed. Bob claims he didn't want Avril to come to a drug deal with him, but he says that after he made that deal, he went back to the phone booth, picked her up, and they went home, and that's the last time he saw her. So now it's August twelfth, just days after police recovered Avril's body. At the secret Witness tip line, the phone rings again. When Shirley answers, she hears the same voice. It's the tipster. He tells Shirley that he's ready to share more information on Avril's case in exchange for more reward money. When Shirley tells the tipster that he could speak directly with Detective Dave Mundy, he refuses. Instead, he announces that he'll call Shirley back and answer the detective's questions through her. Playing detective is far beyond the scope of Shirley's job, but she agrees to this arrangement. She just wants to keep him talking, so the two settle on a reward amount for the tipster's participation and the call ends. Shirley immediately calls Detective Mondy and tells him what is happening. Three days later, on August fifteenth, the tipster calls back into the tip line as promised, and Shirley asks him questions on behalf of Detective Monday, and in response to these questions, the tipster basically tells Shirley that Abril had been murdered over a drug related dispute. He claims she was killed with a nylon clothesline before being dragged into the woods where her killer then hit her with a rock to make sure she was dead. Before ending the call, the tipster gives Shirley specific directions, once again using meters where police can find the rock that was used to strike April. He also shares that he has even more information, but he's only going to call back after he receives the reward money for this newest tip. Shirley sends this new tip over to the police and once again arranges for the tipster to pick up his reward at a designated drop off point. So meanwhile, Detective Monday is zeroing in on Bob Moray. He's the prime suspect in this homicide, but Monday doesn't have much physical evidence to go on. Bob is admittedly the last person to see April alive, and he's also acting very, very strangely. And then, three months later, in November of nineteen eighty five, this is six months after April first went missing, Morey calls the Reading Police Department and hints that he knows more than he's letting on, but he's not willing to share his information unless he gets something in exchange. Specifically, Bob tells an officer that he wants legal protections not just in this murder case, but in an unrelated investigation involving stolen property. So, without promising anything, the officer tells Maury that he'll see what he can do, and then, of course, the next day, Detective Monday follows up on that. He calls Bob back, and Bob tells the detective that a friend of April's coincidentally the same man who had last seen April on Bob's motorcycle is the one who strangled her to death with the rope. Bob claims that he actually witnessed this friend carrying out the attack, and that he'd been forced to help dispose of April's body at gunpoint. So a month later, and so that'll makes sense of like the anonymous tipster aspect of it is because the people who know real details and real crimes can be associated. So a month later, on December tenth, Bob and Detective Monday have another conversation. This time Bob tweaks a few key details. He now adds that April's friend had forced him to hit April with the rock, suggesting Bob himself dealt the fatal blow in her murder, but under duress. But as Bob speaks with Monday, the detective notice is something odd. Bob always relays the distances in meters, not feet, so they're basically putting together that this is the same person the tipster and Bob Mundy. So now it's the fall of nineteen eighty six. More than a year has passed since April's body was first discovered. The detectives are no closer to bringing charges against anyone in connection with this murder. There is no evidence against Bob Moorey. Everything is not coincidental, circumstantial, thank you, circumstantial. But they are chasing leads they've gotten from statements the people in April's life have given, like her parents, neighbors, and Bob Moorey himself. And while police are convinced Bob is withholding information and might even be involved, they simply don't have the evidence needed to secure a conviction. Then, on September eleventh, nineteen eighty six, the phone at the Secret Witness tip line begins to ring. Surely answers once again, and she immediately recognizes the voice on the other end. It's the tipster. Shirley hasn't heard from him in about a year, but his voice is unmistakable, and this time the tipster's focus is not a murder. Instead, he claims to have information about a local burglary. Shirley processes the tip and the caller hangs up. But a couple weeks later, the tipster calls back, and this time he tells Shirley that he wants immunity in April's case. It's unclear what he thinks Shirley can do here. We don't know exactly how Shirley responds to him on the phone, but the call ends and months pass with no new correspondence. So now it's August of nineteen eighty seven. Two years have passed since the tipster first called into the tip line, and a year has passed since Shirley last heard from him. Meanwhile, the police are still trying to figure out who killed April. Then on August eighth, so to the day my sister's birthday, the tipster calls into Secret Witness once again. This time he tells Shirley that he can reveal the look of a missing woman that he identifies as Gretchen Olsten, but before he does, he wants to know how much the reward money will be. Shirley wants to keep him talking, so she reassures him that he will get money as long as his information helps investigators solve an active case. The phone call ends, and then days later, on August seventeenth, the tipster calls back. This time he shares much more information. He says Gretchen was killed over a month ago, and then he gives the exact directions to her body. During this call, the tipster makes it clear that he wants his reward money handed over before an autopsy is conducted. He also tells Shirley that once he picks up his reward, he will leave an envelope behind for investigators, and inside it he will leave a piece of paper with Gretchen's killer's identity written on it. So almost every call with the tipster so far has unsettled Shirley. He speaks in a very pushy, specific kind of harsh tone. He's like, very rushed, sounds very panicked. She knows his voice, of course, you know, like the back of her hand at this point. Yeah, But because this information has always proven to be valuable, Surely is becoming convinced she's talking to someone who's directly involved in these murders, and she wants to keep him talking. She does something that she would normally never do as the operator of an anonymous tip line. She decides she needs to record a few seconds of her next phone call with the tipster in case it's needed in a future trial. Essentially, very smart, very smart, and Surely doesn't have to wait long because within hours of their conversation about Gretchen Olsten, the tipster calls back asking whether the police have found her body. Yet, as Shirley explains, they haven't found anything yet. She manages to get a couple of sentences of this conversation and recorded, and now the tipster's voice is captured for the record, and as we were just saying during your story, but in a much smaller, dumber way, recording a phone call in the mid eighties is difficult to say the least, like, what are you using one of these guys from school like a super completely holding up this to do this?
Now, everything is manual, everything.
Is clunky, not easy to do, but she did it. What Shirley didn't know was while she was capturing this man's voice on the phone. That same day, based on the tipster's information, officers do find a woman's body, and it's clear that she has been murdered. What is not clear as her identity. Detectives soon conclude that the name the tipster gave, Gretchen Olsten, is a fake name. An autopsy will later reveal that this unidentified woman was sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death, and, as promised, the five hundred dollars reward is placed in an un envelope and left at a designated spot for the tipster to anonymously pick up, and as he promised, the tipster picks up the reward and leaves his own envelope behind for police. But when the police take that envelope and open it up, they find that it is empty. There is no reveal from the tipster, but the envelope is kept and collected as evidence. So it's around this time that a woman comes forward to report that two months earlier, in June of that year, she had been raped, and she names Bob Morey as her rapist. The woman says Bob picked her up on his motorcycle under the pretense that he was taking her to a party, but then he pulled into a remote wooded area and sexually assaulted her. As he tried to strangle her, she was so sure that Bob was going to kill her, but then he didn't. He just took her home. She was so terrified she didn't immediately report the attack. When telling investigators about the location of her assault, the woman describes the exact same area where police found the body of basically Jane Doe, not Gretchen Olsten, but the Jane Doe that they found based on the tipster's information. Here's an infuriating sentence. It is unclear why, but Bob Morey is not taken into custody after the survivor of his violent sexual assaults comes forward and names him jes Christ. So now it's September, I mean, this is just kind of well, just the theme. The theme is time and place that the time in place is the eighties. Yeah, not a pretty time. So now it's September fifteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Surely still at work at the tip line, the phone rings. She picks it up once again. It's the tipster. This time he asks about reward money in the case of a missing twenty year old local woman named Don berry Hill. Dawn was last seen on June twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, on the back of an unidentified man's motorcycle. People, including Don's mother, saw her with this man, but they don't know who he is. Police learned that Don had told a neighbor she was going to buy some pot with a guy named Bob.
I mean.
So, Shirley confirms that the reward amount for this case is five hundred dollars, but the tipster now tries to play hardball over that amount. He hangs up. He calls back repeatedly. He's trying to negotiate with her. Surely has real reason to believe the tipster will have information that will lead to police finding yet another body, So to keep him talking, she actually gets secret witnesses permission, like the association that put this tip line together. She gets permission to bump up the reward to twelve hundred and fifty dollars Jesus, and with that the tipster starts talking. He tells Shirley where they'll find Don's body, again, relaying distances and meters. Then he denies any involvement in her death. At one point, the tipster seems paranoid, so Surely calmly reaffirms to him that the line is anonymous and that quote she could not recognize a person's voice since she talked to so many people every day. Good for her end quote. And then I just wrote you're allowed to lie to liars. That's the rule, total and murderers. So, using the tipster's information, police are able to locate the remains of Don berry Hill. She's found in the same area where both the body of the Jane Doe was recovered and where the survivor of Bob Morray's sexual assaults reported being attacked. Investigators are now convinced that Bob Moray is responsible for the murders of at least three women, Avro Whedon, Don berry Hill and their Jane Doe, as well as the rape of one survivor, But before they charge him with any of these crimes, they want to confirm their suspicion that Bob Mourray is the tipster. So for this Detective's turn to Shirley Landrath, who's just set up yet another discreet drop off for the tipster reward money. But she's very ethical as the operator of an anonymous tip line, she very much believes in the importance of the integrity of it. Okay, so she doesn't try to find his name. But someone at the Secret Witness tip line we don't know who shares the drop off point for the tipster's latest reward. Nice you get him on a technicality, Thank you. Can you give me all my words on this episode? Please soon. Detective Mondy, who is already actively tailing Bob Moray, watches as Bob arrives at and then exits the designated building where the reward money has been left for the tipster, and with that it's confirmed that Bob Moury is the tipster. But when officers confront him about picking up the tip money, he admits to knowing quote all kinds of girls end quote who have gone missing, but denies ever murdering anyone.
Yeah, I know all kinds. What are you fucking talking about?
What are you talking about, Bob? Two weeks later, on October fourteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Shirley receives a call at the Secret Witness tip line. Once again, it's the tipster, but this time he's pissed. He would like to speak with the tip line's higher ups to complain about this breach of anonymity.
He wants to talk to the manager.
He would like to cairn it up with the manager about how he's been treated poorly.
As reporting all these murdered women, being paid for the information that only he knows about murdered women.
I hate him. Yeah. He even threatens to print ten thousand flyers shaming Secret Witness for failing to protect his identity.
Ah, I think everyone would be fine with.
That, yeah, flyer it up full. Yeah. Shirley tells him that she'll see what she can do. She knows she's playing the game. She knows exactly how to play this man. Then she contacts her colleagues at the tip line and the police, and they all together come up with a plan. They're going to pull in another Secret Witness employee who will meet Bob Morey to hear out his concerns while trying to get more information out of him, their ultimate goal being getting him to help them identify their Jane Doe. At this meeting, Bob can't seem to help himself. After some like questioning, he reveals that he knows where to find the Jane Doe's purse, but that he wants money for that information.
He thinks he's smarter than everyone else.
Right, They always do, They really do. They always do, and in this way where it's just like you think you basically figured out a way to get paid for your drugs or whatever it else it is you're doing totally. But also it's that part of I don't know if it's always psychopaths or but that they have to talk to police like it's part of the it's part of the yes that they want to be known. They want people to talk to them about it, it's what makes them special totally. He wants money for the information about where Jane Doe's purse is. He also wants help getting a few traffic to gets taken care of. Dude. When the secret witness staffer tells Bob everything he wants to hear, Bob shares exact directions to the location of Jane Doe's purse and police immediately find that purse and the driver's license inside, which identifies the Jane Doe as thirty year old Belinda Joe Stark. She was last seen in June, around the same time Dawn was reported missing and when the survivor of Bob's sexual assault reported being attacked. Incredibly, Bob Maury, no longer an anonymous tipster and probably a serial rapist and killer, collects the reward for his information about the purse.
Stop it stop okay you think.
You don't get the only frustrating story about how fucked things are and work and continue to care. By this point, police have collected some solid evidence. It's mostly thanks to Bob himself, who's arguably maybe the dumbest person on the planet. All the investigators have Bob's fingerprints that are all over Belinda Joe's purse, as well as all over the envelope left by the tipster at the drop off location. They also show a blanket recovered near Belinda Joe's body to two of Bob's former roommates, who confirmed that it looks identical to one he used to have at his home.
This is giving me like remember the movie River's Edge. Yes, it's like giving me like vibes of that. Yeah, you know, yes, kind of like scumbag that's doing stuff around town and people kind of stupid getting away with him because it's the eighties.
On November sixth, nineteen eighty seven, investigators arrest Bob Maurray and charge him with the murders of Avril Whedon, Belinda Joe Stark, and Don berry Hill. He is also charged with rape. When this case goes to trial, witnesses testify to seeing Bob with these women before they disappeared, and some even tell the court that Bob admitted to murdering women. A former co worker test that Bob Morey once told her quote, listen, bitch, I have killed before, and you'll be just one more. I'm going to snuff you out.
Oh my god.
End quote so it's nice because these days you could turn around and report that as a co worker of this person. But the key witness in this case is Shirley Landreth. Over the past three or so years, Shirley has spoken on the phone with the tipster somewhere around twenty times, and she has processed his disturbing, ultra specific tips that successfully lead to the recovery of three bodies and repeated reward payouts. By this point, Shirley has revealed her recording of the tipster's voice to investigators. They've listened to it, compared it with Bob's own voice, and determined it is the same man. It fits into the prosecution's narrative that Bob carried out these murders himself, which is how he had these tips in the first place. When Shirley takes the stand, she tells the court that she believed the tipster is Bob Mourray, pointing out the similarities in their words like meters instead of feet, and the tone of voice. She says, quote, the speed of the speech, the pushiness of it, the way certain words are grouped together, the abruptness of the way he terminates conversations.
How scary that the whole time though, she goes home from work and he could know who she is.
You know what I mean. Yeah, it's not a big place. I wouldn't sleep at night if I were her, I'd be so scared. It would be really scary. Bob Moray never admits to any of the crimes he's charged with, and he brags that no jury would dare convict him. But if there's one thing we know about Bob Morury, he's dumb. He has found guilty of rape and murder and to this day remains on death row at San Quentin. Now known as the Tipster Killer, he is thought to be responsible for other unsolved murders in Shasta County. Definitely, because Bob is never confessed, we do not know his motive, but it has been theoretic is that he liked playing games with the police through those tips. Reports very on how much Bob Morray collected from the Secret Witness tip line, but we do know it was somewhere around a few thousand dollars, which would be around eight thousand dollars in today's money. He used it to buy, among other things, a new motorcycle, but thanks to Shirley Landreth and her work at the Secret Witness tip Line. She trusted her gut, she kept him talking, and she did that write up until his arrest. A few years after the trial. A reading newspaper features a story about Shirley Landreth and her deep commitment to the community via her involvement in Bob Moorey's case, but it also talks about her participation in local food drives, screening programs for sick children, and more. In the article, she's quoted as simply saying, I like to help people. Oh my God. Shirley Landreth passes away in nineteen ninety four at the age of sixty two. She had cancer. Today, the Secret Witness tip Line of Shasta County still exists, and just like Shirley Landreth, its current operators are committed to keeping callers anonymous. It takes very special circumstances like a suspected serial killer repeatedly calling in for months for that to change. As Detective Monday once told reporters, quote, it's secret witness, not secret suspect, damn. And that's the story of a serial killer known as the Tipster Killer and Shirley Landreth, the tip line operator who helped take him down.
I mean, Ken, we get a made for TV movie immediately.
Yeah, that's incredible, isn't that good?
Yeah? I had never heard of that.
Yeah I had either.
That's just so sad, I mean, and then he was getting money from it, which just feels so dirty.
Yeah. Ugh.
Wow.
And this is exactly why we've decided to bring fucking horay back, because we want to end this on a cheery note, not just here. So we're doing fucking horays again. You guys, just send us what your fucking horay is, like, the good thing happening for you this week, this month, this year, this life, the thing that you're excited about, looking forward to, or have had happened to you or happened to other people, or just things are happy about.
And you can.
Comment on our social media or email it to us, or do whatever the fuck you know, yell it into the sky. You can hashtag it fucking horay the end. That was so much information, Jesus, that.
Was a lot.
Okay, you have one.
I I go ahead.
Okay, this one's called fucking horays. Are we still doing these?
Yeah?
Hey, podcasters, I'm not sure if we're still doing fucking horays. But maybe this is just for myself to have a record to look back on bad days. I turned thirty in five days, and although I dread the Big three to zero, my high school self and even my twenty five year old self would be so proud of the person I have become and how far I've come from where I was and where I could have been, which I fucking hear you from growing up surrounded by drugs, suss ass people and not always loving home. I am making it in this world day after day and looking back only a little other than the fond memories, I've beaten the statistics of a poverty stricken drug using jailbird shell of a person like the people I.
Grew up around.
And for that, I say fucking hooray. Stay sexy and listen to Joe Dirt when he says keep on keeping on and life's a guard and dig it because that mullet wearing dude is right, Kelsey. Yeah, shout out to someone that means a lot to me that I grew up with and went through the same crazy shit.
Kelsey.
We beat the statistics and grabbed life by the balls. To Kelsey, so I E and euy Are you serious? I swear.
Oh they're best friends were life. Oh, Kelsey, I love it.
I'm so proud of you guys. And I heard this, like, you know, one of those fucking quotes on social media. It's like no one is cheering for you harder than your childhood self. Who's watching you from the sidelines now going that's right?
Hell yeah, you're doing it. Hell yah, you're doing it. Hellya Okay and Kelsey congratulations. All right, here's this one. It says, hey, howdy, hey, ladies with Izzy. After owning our house for not even a full year, our basement flooded during a twenty four hour long power outage caused by a tornado. Jesus, picture me home alone with a bowl from the kitchen, baling water out of the basement like it was a sinking boat. Sadly, it was all in vain, and we ended up with a foot of floodwater in our basement for roughly eighteen hours. Everything was trashed. How is this a fucking horay, you may ask, because after fighting like hell against the water and having our basement look like an absolute war zone for four months, we finally got our drywall replaced. The carpet and pad were a total loss, but it feels good to finally be taking our basement back. Fucking horay for home ownership, even the really shitty parts. Stay sexy and for the love of God, get a sump pump with a battery. Back up Ashley with an eye.
Oh my God, Like, I need to listen to that because our basement has flooded.
Multiple buckings. Go get that.
I'm gonna that's good advice.
So scary, so surviving that, getting through it and.
Still having a fucking horay even though it's like, Yeah, that's the way to live your.
Life and being grateful for what you have. Yeah, send us your fucking hoorrays and stay sexy and don't get murdered.
Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
This has been an exactly right production.
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Our editor is Aristotle oce Vedo.
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
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