US Serial Killer Suspect in Australian Murders

Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 16, 2018 17:19:43 GMT -5

Serial Killer Christopher Wilder Suspect in Australian Murders

CRONULLA, New South Wales, Australia – New light has been cast on one of Australia’s most infamous unsolved crimes – the Wanda Beach murders. Sunday Night (an Australian TV program) has named a man who was at one time on the FBI’s Most-Wanted list. Christopher Bernard Wilder, known in the United States as “The Beauty Queen Killer,” abducted and raped at least 12 women, killing nine of them, during a six-week cross-country crime spree in 1984. Wilder lived in Australia from birth until 1969 and was residing on Sydney’s northern beaches at the time of the Wanda murders.

Police files from the 1960s reveal Wilder was named as an official police suspect in the murders of Marianne Schmidt (above right) and Christine Sharrock (left). Retired Detective Inspector Ian Waterson was in charge of the Wanda Beach cold case and believes Wilder is the number one suspect in one of the nation’s most baffling crimes. “In my mind, it would have to be Christopher Wilder because there are so many signs to this guy that point to his sexual deviancy, his propensity for violence and [he] was around in Sydney at the time, hung around the beaches,” Waterson said.

On a summer’s day in January 1965, Marianne and Christine, both 15, disappeared. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave in the sand dunes at Wanda Beach. Despite countless theories and leads over the past five decades, the “Wanda Beach Murders” remain one of Australia’s most infamous unsolved cases 53 years later

Sunday Night has revealed how Wilder escaped police scrutiny even though his own wife had mentioned his name to police. Wilder married in 1968, but his wife left him after one week because of his violent nature. Police took months to follow up the lead and missed the opportunity to interview Wilder before he immigrated to America in 1969, at the age of 24, and settled in south Florida. His case file is marked “Suspended.” The Schmidt family was never informed about Wilder during police investigations.

In the United States, Wilder would begin on a path of horrific crimes that became increasingly brutal and brazen. In 1984, a bloody six-week manhunt ensued as Wilder crossed the country kidnapping, assaulting, raping and murdering young women before being shot and killed in a showdown with state troopers in New Hampshire.

Sunday Night interviewed a number of former police officers in Australia and the US who all believed Wilder would be a very strong suspect in the Wanda murders because he lived in Sydney at the time.

Bert Schmidt, Marianne’s younger brother, told Sunday Night the family was never told about the Wilder lead. “That’s crap – what did the cops do?” he wanted to know. “Wife goes to the cops and the cops do nothing for eight months. I just can’t believe that – that’s ridiculous.”

In a 2016 interview, Hans Schmidt, Marianne’s other younger brother who is an Innisfail photographer, told The Cairns Post he doubted police would ever catch her killer. “Find the guy and I’ll pull the trapdoor myself,” he offered. He was just 13 at the time of the murders. “I don’t believe they will solve the crime. It has been too long now,” he added. “But obviously, some people know the perpetrator because you’re not going to keep this a secret to that extent.”

In 2010, Marianne’s sister, Trixie Falzon, said in a magazine interview that the murders “left a hole in my heart that I’ve never gotten over. I’d ask her killer, ‘Why did you do it?’ They were innocent young women,” she continued.

NSW police are using new scientific techniques which may finally bring some closure to the Schmidt and Sharrock families. A police spokeswoman urged anyone with information that could help solve the crime to come forward. “As with all unsolved homicides, we continue to appeal for information from the public,” she said.

Source: The Illawarra Mercury, June 12, 2018.