Christopher Wilder, born in Sydney but living in Florida, was arrested just after Christmas 1982 at the then glamorous Top Of The Town hotel in the Cross. He was charged for abducting and sexually assaulting two teenage girls, with his crimes against them spanning from Manly Beach to his Kings Cross hotel room. These two girls weren’t the first victims and many would follow.

The hotel was Wilder’s preferred home base on his trips back to Australia to visit his parents. The hotel’s elegant Four Stars restaurant and International bar with spectacular city view were places the Porsche driving playboy wanted to be seen in, and the Cross by night offered the seedy charms he relished. By day, Wilder stalked teenage girls on Sydney beachfronts, posing as a photographer and offering the prospect of a modelling career. But what the arresting police didn’t know - thanks to a major bungle - waa Wilder was a strong suspect for the terrible Wanda Beach Murders back in 1965 - still unsolved.

Wilder was given bail and due to return to Sydney for face court in April 1984, but didn’t make it. At the end of February that year, with a prison sentence looming and rapidly deteriorating mental health, Wilder went on a homicidal rampage from Miami to Los Angeles then to a remote corner of NE USA where he died in a skirmish with police. On that appalling trip he abducted, sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered. The FBI had him at number one on the Ten Most Wanted - ‘wherever he went someone died’ said the agent in charge.Sadly, with Wilder’s long history, he could have been stopped, but wasn’t.

Forty years later, other probable Wilder victims are being identified. Duncan wrote a book about Wilder back in 2019 and Wilder is the subject of a US documentary soon to be released.

Join Brandon and Duncan in a story about a man once described as the worst serial killer in modern history

Tickets are $25 and include a cocktail on arrival.