During the struggle, the revolver went off twice – both rounds fatally struck Wilder in the chest, ending his spree on a rural New Hampshire road. Wilder grabbed a revolver from his vehicle and attempted to fire at the officers, but one of the troopers managed to grab the fugitive. But shortly before making it to the border, Wilder was stopped by state troopers in Colebrook, New Hampshire. Wilder continued on his cross-country spree as one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitives, committing abductions and another murder as he attempted to make his way toward Canada. Michelle Korfman’s body was discovered weeks later on a southern California highway. Korfman’s car was later found at the Caesar’s Palace parking garage, but there was no trace of the young woman. Several of the girls took Wilder up on his offer, including 17-year-old Michelle Korfman of Boulder City. Wilder approached nearly a dozen fashion show contestants with offers of a modeling job, telling them to meet him at Caesar’s Palace later that day. Wilder, with his camera in hand, mingled among the dozens of teenage girls gathered for the show on the mall’s first floor. On Sunday, April 1, 1984, the mall hosted a fashion show for Seventeen magazine. Even in the 90’s, when these authors frequented the Meadows Mall in middle school, the place was a consistently bustling hub. The Meadows Mall was one of the commercial centers of Las Vegas in the mid-1980’s. This began a six-week killing spree by Wilder that would bring him through Las Vegas.
Wilder lured the young woman into his car with the promise of modeling opportunities – she was never seen again. He had developed a hobby as a photographer over the years and on February 26, 1984, he employed a new modus operandi by approaching a young woman at the Miami Grand Prix and pitching himself as a modeling agent.
Wilder was arrested in relation to several sexual assaults and rapes in Florida throughout the 1970’s, though he never served any time in prison for these attacks. Wilder already had an extensive history of violent sex crimes at the time he emigrated, which only worsened upon arriving in the United States.
Christopher Wilder, a wealthy real estate investor and race car driver from Florida, had emigrated from his native Australia to the United States in 1969 while in his mid-twenties.