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Elizabeth Kenyon was everything Christopher Wilder couldn’t control. This was a man investigators now believe was also responsible for the infamous Wanda Beach murders in Sydney years earlier.
At 23, the stunning special needs teacher, cheerleading coach and part-time model from New York had briefly dated the wealthy businessman before turning down his absurdly premature marriage proposal.
She trusted her instincts. She walked away.
But rejection was something Wilder never forgave.
Eight days after 21-year-old Rosario Gonzalez vanished from the Miami Grand Prix, Beth disappeared. Her family knew instantly that something was catastrophically wrong. And they quickly learnt who they believed was responsible.
A Sydney woman has since come forward with fresh information about the notorious serial killer, adding another layer to the case. Just 60 minutes after an exclusive story on the podcast launch went live on news.com.au, true crime investigators received their first new lead about Sydney’s most notorious unsolved double murder.
Investigator Andy Byrne said the woman contacted the podcast’s tip line to reveal her mother, who was 15 years old at the time of the Wanda Beach killings in 1965, was pestered at the Top Ryde shopping centre on several occasions by Wilder, who was 19 at the time.
The mall was just a five-minute drive from Wilder’s family home in East Ryde.
“He was constantly trying to get her to come with him to Wanda Beach,” the woman’s daughter revealed.
Back in the US, Beth’s frantic parents hired Miami private detective Ken Whittaker. Within 48 hours of investigating, Whittaker was convinced Beth was Wilder’s latest victim.
She had met Wilder at the Miss Florida USA pageant, where she placed fourth.
In Whittaker’s view, the evidence was damning. The timeline was clear. The connection was undeniable.
He urged Miami police to bring Wilder in for questioning immediately.
But they refused, dismissing Whittaker’s evidence and accusing the private investigator of contaminating the crime scene and compromising potential evidence.
And meanwhile Christopher Wilder kept hunting.
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“She had a way about herself to be immediately noticed when she walked into a room,” Beth’s brother Tim told Australia’s number one true crime podcast Catching Evil.
“Her smile could light up anyone’s day.”
Investigator and podcast co-host Andy Byrne told news.com.au that Beth’s loved ones watched in horror as “bureaucracy” allowed the man they believed killed their daughter to remain free.
“Whittaker was furious that critical evidence he had obtained was being ignored. He’d been a cop himself and his father ran the FBI in Miami for J Edgar Hoover,” Byrne said.
“He knew what he was looking at. And he knew that every hour of inaction gave Wilder more time to kill.”
But police refused to budge. “In their view, Whittaker had contaminated the investigation. Bringing Wilder in prematurely could compromise the case.”
Co-host Mark Lewellyn said one question haunts everyone involved: How many lives could have been saved if someone had acted sooner?
“The dysfunction wasn’t personal – it was systemic. South Florida in 1984 was a powder keg of corruption, violence, and chaos,” he said.
“Warring drug cartels controlled entire neighbourhoods. Police departments were riddled with scandal. In this toxic environment, a serial killer targeting beautiful young women could slip through the cracks.
“Especially when he looked like Christopher Wilder – wealthy, successful, white, respectable. The kind of man instinctively dismissed as a suspect because men like that didn’t commit crimes like this.”
As Whittaker and the police battled, the investigation fractured. Evidence went unexamined. Witnesses weren’t interviewed. Wilder’s movements weren’t tracked.
Beth’s family pleaded for action. They provided information, begged the police to look at the man who’d proposed marriage after a handful of dates – the red flag so obvious it should have triggered immediate scrutiny.
But nothing happened.
“And somewhere out there, Christopher Wilder was already hunting his next victim,” Byrne said.
The podcast series reveals that Wilder traveled up to New York regularly and is linked to several murders and disappearances of young women. Some of them he picked up in Florida, promising them modelling careers in New York.
Their bodies were discovered in or near water not far from Lockport, where Beth’s family owned a string of convenience stores, and still do.
Byrne says the team also interviewed two women who Wilder approached in the next town and showed them his portfolio of Beth.
They say in the interview, “when he approached us he was hunting for his next victim.”
DETECTIVE V PRIVATE EYE
Miami Dade Homicide Detective Ray Nazario:
“He fled you know, and I didn’t like that because the Whittakers shouldn’t have said what they did. Hey, this is a suspect and they just went ahead and did everything and boom, I mean, they scared the guy, you know?
Remember now, at this point I’m working a missing person case, with the suspicion that there might be foul play.
You know, I’m stubborn as hell. If I don’t see it myself I can’t tell you something. I don’t even like speculating. I had an old Sergeant in homicide that said ‘In any case, you can have as many suspects as you want. But you’re spreading yourself out like horse manure.’ He said, ‘Be sure. Don’t go, this guy is a suspect. Keep your cards close to your chest.’
So now, I’m thinking, here’s a young girl, a beautiful young girl, at the airport. Did she get there with some beau and just leave? You think of all this stuff.”
Beth’s family and Whittaker don’t allege Nazario was negligent or lazy, rather that the police were too slow to act on information he was given.
Miami Private Eye Ken Whittaker:
“I called Ray Nazario, the cop handling the Kenyon case and he said Ken, there’s no fucking evidence of foul play, what are you doing. I said I’m telling you I have an eyewitness. I’m not telling you how to do your job, you’ve been on the job for twenty-something years and I was only in for a couple of years, but I’m telling you I’ve done enough investigations, bring him in on probation violation and then say by the way tell me about Beth Kenyon. That’s the hook you bring him in on.”
Lewellyn and Byrne are convinced Wilder is responsible for the deaths of 15-year-olds Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock at Wanda Beach in Sydney in 1965. The series delves into the “irrefutable proof.”
Episode Five of Catching Evil is available from Tuesday.
Anyone who thinks they have encountered Wilder or has any information at all, is urged to contact [email protected]
Catching Evil is available on Apple.com and Spotify.
English (US)