Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Colleen Orsborn

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

In March of 1984, 15-year-old Colleen Orsborn skips school for a day on the beach but never returns home. Her case was connected to the infamous serial killer, Christopher Wilder, and it took 27 years for her family to find out that Colleen had been located just weeks after she went missing and was near them all along. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-colleen-orsborn/    

Hi, Crime Junkies, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And you guys, this week is our 30th birthday. Like, if you guys have been paying attention, Britt and I have the same birthday. We are about to turn 30 this week. But not only is it our 30th birthday, it is Crime Junkies' first birthday.

I cannot believe we're still alive, like, for both reasons. I can't believe we've been doing this for a year, 52 weeks. And this is episode number 60, 60 regular episodes, 28 Patreon episodes. It has been a whirlwind. It's been crazy. I hardly remember any of it. I haven't slept in a year.

No, definitely. But we love you all so much for faithfully listening and telling all of your friends and family about us. So if you want to give us a birthmas present, make sure to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening right now. And tell a friend about us today. Or mention us on your favorite social media app.

We literally could not be here without you. And if you want to celebrate with us or at least with me, make sure you come to our New Year's Eve party, even though Britt won't be there. I can't make it. But I hope that you will FaceTime with me, Ashley. And I can see all of our awesome fans. Oh my god, for sure.

I'm loving the messages on social media where people are like, oh, I wish I lived in Indiana. Like, that's never been said in the history. No one has ever wished to be in Indiana more than Christmas Eve for crime junkie podcasts, New Year's Eve party. But get your tickets now. We're almost sold out.

You can find the link to tickets on our Facebook page or our Instagram bio. Now let's stop talking and get to the reason that you have tuned in every single week for a year. MUSIC Brett, today's story takes place March 15th, 1984 in Daytona Beach, Florida, a place much warmer, much sunnier than where we are at right now. On this day, a Thursday, a young girl named Colleen has slept in. She lives in an apartment with

her mom near the beach and she has siblings but they're much older and they don't live with them and her parents are divorced so it's literally just Colleen and her mom. So Colleen's mom Francis had recently gotten a new job so on this Thursday morning she's like frantically running around trying to get ready for work and she's super annoyed that Colleen is sleeping in again. She's missed the school bus, her mom doesn't have time to take her or she's gonna be late for this new job and plus they had just talked about stuff like this. Colleen had been skipping school recently and her and her mom had had a big

argument about her truancies. She could not believe that she was doing this again so her mom literally woke her up and said listen I am leaving you some bus money it is your responsibility to get yourself to school now since you missed the bus and you better make it there. But that would be the last time that Colleen's mom would ever see her or know her whereabouts. When Francis got home from work that evening the first thing she noticed was that the bus money was still on the counter and naturally her first reaction is she's pissed like Colleen skipped school again. I literally told her how many times

but it's 1984 and she can't call her and I'm sure she would have liked to track her down but she probably didn't have the first clue where to start so instead she has to wait. She thinks that she has to come home eventually because when Francis looked in her room it appeared that the only items missing were beach items just her bathing suit and some flip-flops. She clearly didn't plan on being long because even her apartment keys were still inside and her change purse that she keeps her money in was still inside so her mom figured she probably just went down to the beach we just live blocks away and

she's gonna be home. But the minutes turn into hours and night eventually falls and then a new day comes with still no word or sign of Colleen. Please tell me her mom called the police. Not quite yet that morning Francis asked Colleen's older sister to come help her look for her. She's starting to get a little bit worried and her sister had the same kind of fear overtake her when she saw her sister's room. Everything was there like things a normal teenage girl would take if she was planning on running away or even being gone longer than a few hours. Her makeup's all there, her money's all there but where is Colleen? So

they spend this first day kind of looking around the area don't see her when another day passes with no Colleen they decide to start tracking down her friends. They find this list of names and numbers in Colleen's bedroom that is posted to her wall and they call every single one but with each call they make their concerns mount higher and higher. No one has seen her, no one is with her and no one knows where she has been the last two days. Now after hearing this from all of her friends the people her mom assumed that she would be with this is when they go and try and report Colleen's disappearance to the police.

But the police say give it a couple of days if she's not back in another 48 hours then we can start really investigating and looking for her. Now the family doesn't want to wait though they feel like something is wrong so they start right away just like making up flyers the same day distributing them around the beach near the apartment where Colleen lived and this gave the family something to do with their nervous energy but it didn't actually result in any actual leads. You know they have a picture of Colleen and she's young she's beautiful she's blonde and this is like spring break time it's

March and Daytona Beach everyone is young beautiful blonde with bathing suit. So finally 48 hours later this is now four days after Colleen was last seen sleeping in her bed by her mother police take an official missing persons report on Colleen but in taking that report Colleen's mom mentions that Colleen has run away in the past. No! I know and this is something that she lived to regret because she said saying that somehow she thinks influenced how the investigation is handled because really as soon as that was said police treated her like a runaway. Yeah they completely discount the danger. Yeah they took the

report but they filed it away waiting for Colleen to just come home but Colleen never would. Francis blamed herself a lot and then there were times when she thought maybe she did run away maybe if Colleen hadn't have grown up in a home where her parents fought so much maybe if they hadn't have ended up divorced maybe if they could have made her happier like all these thoughts going through her head maybe maybe maybe she wouldn't have left if in fact she left and this is a thought that her mom went back and forth with constantly wanting to believe that she left by choice because the alternative was so much worse

but she also knows in the back of her mind deep down that if Colleen had chosen to leave she would have been back by now or at the very least she would have made some kind of contact with her friends or family. As time passes a little over two weeks to be exact the reality starts to become clear to Francis and to the police as well who start actively investigating Colleen's disappearance. Just as they are opening an investigation the police get a really intriguing call from the FBI. They're tracking a serial killer named Christopher Wilder. He has made the FBI's 10 most wanted list and they're giving police a

heads up because they tracked his movements and they realize that he had checked into a motel in Daytona Beach on the day that Colleen disappeared. A motel not far from where Colleen lived and then he quickly checked out the next morning at 5.05 a.m. That doesn't seem like a lot of time right? I mean when you think about it it's a whole day for him to be in Daytona and just because she went missing that day doesn't mean he would have had to have killed her that day too and I should probably tell you a little bit more about Christopher Wilder for you to understand his MO and why the FBI thought police should know about him.

His earliest known victims were two 15-year-old girls in Australia. He was actually out there visiting his parents when he got charged for forcing the two young girls to pose nude for him. He was let out on bail and allowed to return to the States, Florida specifically, to await his trial which kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed and unfortunately so because something seemed to snap in him by February of 1984 when he started a six-week crime spree that would span the entire United States and leave multiple families destroyed in his wake. Now keep in mind the month he starts this is just one month before

Colleen went missing. Wilder's reign of terror in the United States started with a 23-year-old aspiring model named Rosario Gonzalez who was working the grand pre-event in Miami and Wilder was also in attendance. Little is known about how he kidnapped Rosario or what he did to her or where she is because her remains have still never been found. A week after Rosario goes missing Wilder's girlfriend at the time also vanishes. Because they were in a relationship all signs pointed back to him as the perpetrator and police go on a manhunt looking for him but he is just one step ahead and before they can track him

down he has already claimed another victim. That seems like a lot of crimes in like a pretty short amount of time right like a three girls in a week or something? Yeah I would love to kind of find somebody to dive into the psychology of this perpetrator because it really does seem like he just snapped one day like when you hear this whole story of how he spends these six weeks it is literally like overnight he decides that he is going to abduct rape and kill women and he doesn't even take a break like we've talked about multiple serial killers and usually there's like months or even years sometimes. And some

escalation they start small and kind of graduate into this really horrible person if you will. Right and with his are like within days so his third victim was 21 year old Teresa Ferguson. She was believed to have been kidnapped on March 18th and we know this because her body was actually discovered on March 23rd. Because she was found it was easier for police to recreate her last movements and they believe that she was abducted by Wilder at a shopping mall. Before Teresa was ever actually found another girl went missing from Florida and this girl he abducted 19 year old Linda Grover

is how we learn so much about Wilder's MO and Linda's story is insane and we only know her story because she actually escaped from him and here is what she tells police. Linda was at a mall in Tallahassee Florida where Wilder approached her and he said that he was a photographer. He had a super nice looking camera. He seemed to fit the part. He said that she was just absolutely gorgeous. He could make her famous. He would even pay her for some photographs if she would go with him to a photo shoot.

So he lures her to his car and makes up some excuse about not having his portfolio and that he like I need you to go somewhere with me to get them. And when she hesitates for a little bit he ends up attacking her knocking her unconscious and when she awakes they're driving in the middle of nowhere and little did she know they have crossed state lines into Georgia and when he notices her waking up he immediately pulls over the car in the secluded area where no one is around to see. He pulls her from the seat pops the trunk open

shoves her inside where he binds her with tape and tells her if you try to escape I will kill you. He then takes Linda to a motel and does something so terrifying that I have never heard before this case. He ties her to the bed and then he super glues her eyes shut. What? Isn't that like one of the most horrific things you've heard? I know what I'm gonna have nightmares about now. Yeah I don't know why to me like that stood

out so strongly and we cover a lot of crazy stuff. You can't see me but my eyes are so wide open right now. Yeah but I don't want to blink. So I don't want to blink because they might stay shut oh my god. He super glues her eyes shut he has her tied to the bed for hours he rapes her and he tortures her with devices he's made from items in the motel room. Linda knew that this wasn't going to end with her making it out alive so somehow some way Linda breaks free from her restraints

and she runs to the bathroom where she began screaming for help banging on every single wall making as much noise as she could to get anyone's attention. Now Wilder knew he was in trouble he couldn't afford to have anyone find him in there with her and he didn't have time to get Linda out of the bathroom. He had been defeated so he grabs his things and he fled. Linda is eventually saved and she explains to police this ruse of him abducting women by pretending to be

this photographer and what he is doing with them once he has possession of them. And this is when the FBI begins a national manhunt for Wilder. They knew he had already crossed state lines once and they were confident that he was going to do it again. The next day did you hear me? The next day he is already in Texas hunting for another victim or should I say shopping for one because he is back at a mall. He tries this scheme on a couple of women

this I'm a photographer you're beautiful but no one is biting. Now in particular he tries on a woman named Terry. She is a 23 year old wife and mother who has zero interest in this mall creeps promises of modeling fame. So she rebuffs him like all of the girls before her that day and that day he just totally strikes out. But not two days later Wilder runs into Terry again and when he tries the second time she turns him down a second time. But this time he's not taking no for an

answer. He follows Terry to her car and as she's getting in he forces her into her own car and abducts her. Terry's body would be found days later having been stabbed to death and left in a canal. But Wilder wasn't done he next went on to Oklahoma and abducted a 21 year old named Suzanne Logan who he raped and tortured then drove out to Junction City Kansas where he stabbed her to death. After Suzanne's murder the FBI

gets their first legit credible lead on this guy's trail. They knew Wilder had been using a stolen credit card and they were tracking his purchases but this is back in the 80s. Credit card validations weren't instantaneous we only have that now because of the internet. Back in the day they used to have to call in and validate purchases that were over like a certain amount of money. Now up until this point he was either making really low level purchases that wouldn't require this or he was making higher

purchases but they weren't calling to validate till the next day and that's why the FBI was always like one step behind him. But this one time the FBI gets lucky. Wilder checks into a Colorado motel late at night and the hotel's more expensive than normal over $100 for that night and for whatever reason boredom, curiosity, doing his job well the clerk decides to call in and validate the card right then. When he calls in he's told there's a flag on the card and he would need to call this other

number right away so that other number rings to the FBI who mobilize and they were there by like the very early morning hours. They surround the room and make a dramatic entry only to find that Wilder for whatever reason had departed the motel very early in the morning before they got there. No. Yes and the same day that they try to apprehend him on March 29th was the same day that he took

another victim captive, 18-year-old Cheryl Bonaventura. He spent days with this victim. They were even seen together in public in Utah and Arizona before he shot her and stabbed her in Utah and left her body there to be found. By this point the FBI has contacted mall managers across the country warning them of this predator. They're saying listen this guy could literally pop up anywhere we think he's heading west but he can be anywhere at any time in any mall be on the lookout for

some guy like trolling for girls saying he's a photographer with a fancy camera. But one mall the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas didn't listen. In fact they essentially set out bait for him holding a 17 magazine cover model competition. His absolute perfect hunting ground. So of course he shows up camera in tow looking so in place. All of these girls are there trying to become models. It's rational to think that a model scout would be there. So Wilder chats up a few girls but he really

focuses in on one particular girl 17-year-old Michelle Corfman. She had driven 25 miles to be at this competition and it was her very first one. She was super nervous a little uncomfortable so she told her family not to come which I totally get because sometimes performing for strangers is so much easier than performing for like people you know. Definitely. Yeah so she wanted to like do this on her own and Wilder gives her the same old line. I think you're gorgeous I can make you a model.

So after the competition she is seen changing and then leaving with him and then her body ends up being discovered on April 1st and honestly do you want to know one of the creepiest things in this specific case? You've already told me one of the creepiest things I've ever heard but our listeners will probably want to know so go ahead. Yes so agents are just steps behind him of course as they've been this whole time so of course they get there like shortly after she goes missing they know he was there and as soon as they arrive

agents are asking everybody to turn over any pictures that they were taking that day so photographers give them all this film and there is the creepiest picture of Christopher Wilder just staring up at Michelle while she's on stage like I don't even know how to describe it like she is prey and it is absolutely chilling. Oh my god Ash I'm looking at this picture right now and we're gonna post it on our website but it is eerie full body chills one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.

Yeah I mean it's so weird to look at that and know what he has to be thinking and what he has to be planning and what happens next and what happens next it's after Michelle's murder that the FBI add Christopher Wilder to their 10 most wanted list and his face is plastered everywhere you would think that this might slow some people down but not Christopher Wilder he cannot control whatever it is brewing inside of him a day after he's added to the list another woman goes missing this time it's 16-year-old

Tina Marie Reciko she was at a mall applying for a job when she was approached by Wilder with the offer of modeling making some quick cash and he even offers her a hundred dollars up front on the spot so she willingly goes with him to this park and he said you know this is a great area to take pictures the natural light is perfect this time of day it makes you look beautiful and he's snapping away snapping away everything seems legit until he pulls a gun on her and he takes her captive and does what he did to so many other women he beats her

he rapes her he tortures her but this time he doesn't kill her for whatever unknown reason he develops an attachment to Tina and he forces her to stay with him and act as his accomplice as he abducts other women when they travel across the country together by this point Wilder is making his way back east and with Tina's help Wilder abducted a 16-year-old girl from right here in Indiana her name was Donna Wilt Wilder raped her several times while forcing Tina to continue driving

further east somewhere in New York Wilder stops the car takes Donna into the woods where he attempts to suffocate her and then he stabs her twice leaving her for dead but she doesn't die she is able to get help and she gives the FBI a lead to Wilder's movements she says that he's heading back east and his apparent plan is to go to Canada after Donette Wilder would claim only one more victim a 33-year-old woman named Beth Dodge and seemingly he did this

just to take her car she was the first victim that he didn't sexually assault or beat or torture Wilder just shot her and left her in a gravel pit was he just panicking and looking for a way out it seems odd that this is deviated so much from what his pattern has been I don't know for sure but I think something in him knew that it was all coming to an end and the police were closing in because not only does he just kill Beth and take her car but he does something wildly unexpected

after keeping Tina for days Wilder drives her to the Boston airport buys her a ticket home to Los Angeles and lets her go free what with another living witness the FBI are able to focus their search even more make more of an effort to target specific areas with his picture and on April 13th two New Hampshire state troopers recognize Wilder at a gas station and as they confront him he tries to go to his car and get his gun and some kind of scuffle ensues and Wilder ends up being shot dying on the

scene oh my god and correct me if I'm wrong but all this happened in the span of like six weeks right yes this was like I said just a crazy reign of tear one of the craziest I've ever heard of so to bring this back to our original story of Colleen Orr's born's disappearance the police in Daytona get notified of Wilder's presence in the area as he's being put on that 10 most wanted list but before he was killed in that scuffle with state troopers

now when police get notified knowing more about Wilder and his MO makes their ears perk up because they get this lead from one of Colleen's classmates who was near the beach that day the Colleen went missing she said that a man had approached her from his car and he's like hey come here and come closer and he tells her you know you have model good looks you're beautiful I can make you famous and this girl actually let him take a couple of pictures of her there on the beach but when he offered her a hundred

dollars for more pictures if she would come with him she got a really bad feeling and didn't want to get in his car now this girl said after she rebuffed him he drove off and was last seen turning on to Colleen's street they do a photo lineup with this girl and she picks out two pictures that she believes could have been the guy that approached her and one of them was Christopher Wilder now one day after police take this testimony from this girl

is when Wilder is shot and killed and yes it's great that he is no longer out there he's off the streets he cannot attack women but there's no justice well and for Colleen's family or for the families of his first two victims Rosario and Elizabeth their bodies have never been found and the answers could have died with Wilder as to where they are what happened to them it's just still a big question mark as the FBI tried to wrap up Wilder's investigation after his death they make an official list of women linked to him

and although the timing is right and there seems to be some evidence pointing to it Colleen's name doesn't make the list now six days after his death as Daytona police still try and work their missing persons case there is a discovery a body is found in Ocala National Forest one of the detectives on Colleen's case had collected some evidence from her room like nail polish a curling iron with some hair stuff like that and he sends some of the hairs from the curling iron off to be

tested against this body that was found the police also tell the medical examiner hey Colleen had broken an arm two years ago and there should be some evidence of that on the bones so they have the hair they have this bones and they compare but they don't seem to be a match just to be extra sure they asked Colleen's sister to look at the clothes that this victim was found in this victim was found wearing wrangler blue jeans tan canvas shoes with blue trim tan underwear with a brown trim

and a black t-shirt that said here comes trouble and she also had this white or cream beach shirt or maybe it was a night shirt that said have you kissed your child tonight but Colleen's sister makes it official no these were never Colleen's she doesn't recognize any of these items whoever this woman was whoever this girl was is still unidentified to this day her case was ruled a homicide but without a name police don't have a starting point to begin the investigation

she was a young woman somewhere between 17 to 20 around five foot or five one with reddish brown hair 10 days after this Jane Doe is found another body is discovered fishermen find it in an area behind disney and they see a human knee sticking out of a small shallow lake there was nothing on the body that could be identified and the medical examiner said the girl had been dead between 10 and 14 days which fit with Colleen's timeline and this victim was about 15 years old she was about five three 110 pounds which again

all fits with Colleen's description so since the medical examiner already had the hair from the curling iron they already had the info about her broken bones the comparison got a lot quicker and they find out that no this is not Colleen either this is another Jane Doe laid to rest in Florida with no name with no justice and Colleen's family goes on for years without answers in fact Colleen's mother Francis ended up passing away five years after Colleen's disappearance never knowing what happened to her

in 2001 Colleen's case was reinvigorated when a note arrived to Colleen's brother from somebody in New Hampshire confessing to murdering Colleen now this person said he was dying he was begging for forgiveness and he even gave a location in Florida where he said the family would find Colleen's body but after some investigating it was found to be just a really cruel hoax oh that's so sick I don't know why people do stuff like that after this the case goes dormant again for another

10 years until Colleen's sister gets a call it is now 2011 and it's a newspaper reporter phoning asking hey do you remember that second Jane Doe that was found way back in 1984 well did you know that they're looking into it again as possibly being Colleen what this was brand new news to Colleen's sister so she goes to the internet where she finds web sleuths and girl I think we have both gone down love me some web sleuths yeah we have both gotten lost in a web sleuths rabbit hole it is a black hole

that you can fall into for hours or days weeks months yeah but she finds this thread with people questioning why was Jane Doe number two really ruled out and this independent artist even did a composite drawing for what they thought Jane Doe number two would look like and Colleen's sister said she was stunned it could have been a hand drawing from a picture of Colleen it was so similar so now she's even questioning it like they rule her out too quickly why why was it again that they ruled her out

and a couple of weeks later Colleen's sister gets a call and it's from the new medical examiner Dr. Garivalia who actually has tv show at the time called Dr. G medical examiner I loved that show it was so good so apparently when she took over as the county's medical examiner she made it her mission to give as many of the Doe victims back their names as possible and it being so many years later she had DNA on her side this time so she took this Jane Doe's DNA and submitted it to a national database which turned up a hit to match Colleen's sister

her sister had submitted a sample years ago just in case a situation like this arose now they had to do a second test just to confirm but 27 years later it was confirmed that that second Jane Doe found back in 1984 just weeks after she went missing was Colleen and Colleen was finally able to be brought home and put to rest I'm so glad there was at least a tiny bit of closure but how was this missed for so long so human error I think the two things that they were using to compare it wasn't dental records it

wasn't DNA back then they had hair from a curling iron and they had that broken bone that they were comparing to well when they collected the hair from the curling iron it didn't have root well not even that it didn't have root Colleen's family said there are like five girls or friends like in and out of this house all the time all using the curling iron so they even told police when they collected it like this might be a bad sample because there's so many people that uses it could be anyone right so most likely and again they

weren't using DNA to test it was like under a microscope comparison so either it wasn't compared properly or it was not the right hair and I was gonna say I would venture to say when we were about that age your mom's hair straightener had mostly my hair in it for sure and so the other thing that they were using so you know they had two methods hoping that one would catch an air well the second one they were like okay Colleen has this broken bone instead of doing an x-ray on the Jane Doe the medical examiner back then

just relied on a report that said that all bones were normal so he didn't actually go looking for that break and that's how it was missed oh my god this is so devastating that her family didn't have answers for so many years but it's also kind of scary it is but it's good to know that someone is at least like trying to right the wrongs and give these people names and give these families some kind of closure it is always so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there are people out there

who don't have names someone has to be missing them surely someone remembers them in life why aren't they being connected to their loved ones and cases like this give me hope and it reminds me why it's so important for the public to keep talking about these cases and keep asking questions about these cases most of the time medical examiners and police get it right but you guys we're all humans too and it's good to double check why did we rule out this girl so long ago now

that there's new technology can we go back can we double check it's so important to support groups like Namus and the dough network who are doing this kind of work the lords work and i can't stop thinking about that first jane dough in her wrangler jeans and her here comes trouble t-shirt she has or at least had family somewhere and i hope someone is still pushing for her and looking for her but as for Colleen the police do believe that she was one of Christopher Wilder's victims the circumstances are just too convenient

too similar to his other crimes although she still has not been officially listed as one of his victims and i don't think there will ever be a way to officially link the two well happy birthday britt happy birthday ashley i hope you have a great week everyone and happy birthday crime junkie and happy birthday crime junkie you guys all need to follow us on social media at crime junkie podcast on instagram and at crime junkie pod on twitter and make sure to go check out our blog post for this episode so you

can see that super creepy picture and you guys don't forget if you are in the midwest and you don't have new year's eve plans come hang out with me celebrate crime junkies first year i'm gonna be wearing so much sequin and dancing my face this episode of crime junkie was researched written and hosted by me with co-hosting by brit praywatt all of our editing and sound production was done by david flowers and all of our music including our theme comes from justin daniel

crime junkie is an audio chuck production so what do you think chuck do you approve