FIRST EPISODE:
The Nightmare Begins
A Mother's Last Goodbye
March 4, 1984. A Sunday like any other – until it wasn't.
Frances Ferguson watched her 21-year-old daughter Terry get ready for a routine trip to the mall. Something felt wrong. Call it mother's intuition, but Frances couldn't shake the unease creeping up her spine as Terry walked out the door for the last time.
"I didn't want her to go to that mall," she says, her voice still heavy with the weight of a mother's intuition. "I had an uneasy feeling. I just didn't want her to go there."
Two days later, Terry Ferguson was dead. Murdered by Christopher Wilder – a monster who had been killing for two decades.
In the premiere episode of Catching Evil, Frances breaks her silence in a raw, unflinching interview. She reveals the final moments she shared with Terry, the daughter who lit up every room she entered.
"She was mesmerisingly beautiful, but not to her,"*Frances recalls. "She never thought she was good-looking. She'd say, 'Oh, Mom, why can't I have blue eyes and blonde hair?' She never thought enough of herself, yet she thought maybe through modelling, she'd be somebody special."
The aspiring model had dreams bigger than her small Florida town. Every Sunday morning, Terry and her boyfriend Dan would meet at the Blueberry Muffin restaurant, sharing breakfast and planning their future together.
Terry's final message to her mother was scrawled on a torn piece of her paycheck: "Wake me up at 10." Those four words now represent the last tangible connection between mother and daughter.
"This man comes up to her saying 'Oh, you're beautiful, I'm gonna take pictures of you, just come out to the car' - and that was the last of her,"* Frances says.
Wilder shattered that future in an instant.
But Terry's story is just the beginning. Our investigation has unearthed evidence that will rewrite everything you thought you knew about Christopher Wilder.
The wealthy businessman and race car driver had perfected his deadly game: charm young women with promises of modelling contracts, then unleash unspeakable horrors. Eyes glued shut. Electric shock torture. Brutal beatings. For twenty years, he'd been hunting across two continents – Australia to America – leaving a trail of broken families in his wake.
Coming episodes will reveal:
- Newly discovered victims in other states
- Cold case connections authorities failed to make
- Surviving witnesses speaking out for the first time
- Police missteps that let a killer roam free for decades
Frances Ferguson's courage in sharing Terry's story isn't just about remembrance – it's about justice. For Terry. For the other young women whose names we're only now learning.
The hunt for truth starts now.
Some stories demand to be told. Some truths refuse to stay buried.
Terry Ferguson wanted to be a model.
Wilder, born in Australia, was a keen surfer
Forgotten Voices
They had dreams. They had futures. And then, they were gone. Stolen by the monster known as Christopher Wilder. Their names should have been etched in history, their stories told—but instead, they faded into the shadows, forgotten by a world that moved on too quickly. Not anymore.
We are here to give a voice to the voiceless, to remember the girls who never made it home, the ones whose laughter was silenced, whose dreams were stolen. This platform is a monument to them, ensuring they are never just another statistic or cold case. We want the world to remember who they were, what they could have been, and what was taken from them.
But remembering isn’t enough. That’s why we’re putting a share of our revenue directly to charities supporting victims of violence in America and Australia. These organizations fight for justice, provide support, and help survivors rebuild. This isn’t just about the past—it’s about making damn sure this never happens again.
This is Catching Evil.
CASEFILE FACTS
Terry Ferguson, 21, went missing from Merritt Square Mall, a short drive from Cocoa Beach, Florida, on Sunday, March 18, 1984.
The autopsy on her body, found three days later in Polk County, near Haines City, revealed Wilder had beaten her ferociously with a tyre iron and then strangled her to death.
Terry suffered bruises to her head and face and cuts to her left ear. Her feet were bound, and there was a rope attached to her right wrist and around her neck. She had most likely strangled herself trying to escape.
There was no evidence of sexual assault. Wilder was positively identified by a witness in the vicinity of the abduction, and a second witness, a tow truck driver, was contacted by Wilder to pull his vehicle from boggy sand on a remote state road.
The driver had no idea when he was hooking up a chain to the back of Wilder's car, that Terry was in the trunk fighting for her life…slowly being strangled by the rope around her neck.
'I DIDN'T WANT HER TO GO TO THAT MALL' - MOTHER'S CHILLING PREMONITION BEFORE HER DAUGHTER MET A SERIAL KILLER
Theresa Ferguson's mum reveals final moments, haunting notes and how she found peace after 40 years of grief
Frances Ferguson will never forget that terrible feeling in her gut as her beautiful 21-year-old daughter walked out the door. "I didn't want her to go to that mall," she says, her voice still heavy with the weight of a mother's intuition. "I had an uneasy feeling. I just didn't want her to go there." But Theresa, known to everyone as Terry - a vivacious, funny, and aspiring fashion model - headed to Merritt Square Mall anyway on that fateful March day in 1984. It was the last time Frances would see her alive.
The nightmare began when Terry failed to come home.
When her boyfriend Dan arrived back from a trip away, asking where she was, Frances knew something was terribly wrong. "That doesn't make any sense," Dan said. Together, they raced to the mall and found her red Pontiac still in the parking lot - but Terry was gone, lured away by serial killer Christopher Wilder posing as a fashion photographer.
The stunning brunette, who turned heads everywhere, had always been painfully insecure. At just 115 pounds, she'd stare at herself in the mirror, complaining about her "thunder thighs" and wishing for blonde hair and blue eyes. "She was mesmerisingly beautiful, but not to her," Frances recalls. "She never thought she was good-looking. She'd say, 'Oh Mom, why can't I have blue eyes and blonde hair?'"
That crippling insecurity made her the perfect victim.
A letter Frances discovered years later - written by Terry but never given to Dan - revealed her daughter had decided to pursue modelling professionally. "She was gullible," Frances admits. "She never thought enough of herself, yet she thought maybe through modelling, she'd be somebody special. This man comes up to her saying 'Oh, you're beautiful, I'm gonna take pictures of you, just come out to the car' - and that was the last of her."
Two friends were supposed to accompany Terry that day, but fate cruelly intervened.
One got injured the day before, and another was hungover from college partying with examinations looming. Frances only learned this devastating detail recently. "It was all meant to be," she now believes, her Catholic upbringing replaced by a deeper spiritual understanding.
The family had always communicated through funny notes left on the refrigerator.
Terry's final message to her mother was scrawled on a torn piece of her paycheck: "Wake me up at 10." Those four words now represent the last tangible connection between mother and daughter - a bittersweet reminder of their playful relationship that was built on laughter and love. Terry was "high energy, always running in and out of the house" with "a great sense of humour." But beneath the surface lay a serious soul. Frances remembers her daughter once saying ominously, "I'm never gonna be 45" when Frances celebrated that birthday. "I said, of course you are. She said, "No I'm not."
"The beautiful "dancing fool" came alive on dance floors across town.
Young men would whistle and stare as mother and daughter walked through malls together. "I used to say, 'Oh Terry, look at them looking at me,' and someday you're gonna get all this too," Frances laughs, showing where her daughter inherited her humour. Forty years later, the hatred for Christopher Wilder has transformed into something unexpected - complete forgiveness.
"I hated his guts," Frances says. "But now? I don't have any hate toward him at all. He was playing a role - an evil, horrible role - but he's gone now." Instead of dwelling in darkness, she chooses to think about his family and the horrible time they endured, too.
Frances refuses to "re-read that lousy chapter" of her life story, choosing instead to honour her daughter's memory through joy rather than pain. The dancing fool who lit up every room lives on in her mother's radiant memories - not in the nightmare that claimed her.
Frances with a photograph of her beloved daughter Terry, one of Christopher Wilder's early victims.
Frances Ferguson's book about her daughter Terry.
SHOPPING MALL KILLER:
'I COULD HAVE SAVED MY FRIEND'S LIFE'
Survivor reveals chilling near-miss with serial killer Christopher Wilder - just minutes before he lured her high school friend to her death
Penni Pierce still gets shivers thinking about the day in March 1984 when a stranger approached her at the candy counter in Merritt Square Mall. The 19-year-old, working at a nearby records store, had no idea she was staring into the eyes of America's most wanted serial killer.
"He asked if I was a model," Penni recalls, rolling her eyes at the memory. "I probably even rolled my eyes back then, too." Christopher Wilder, smooth-talking and calm, offered her modelling opportunities in Fort Lauderdale and invited her to his yacht with her girlfriend. But something didn't feel right. There were no spidey senses - he was just some guy trying to pick up women at the mall," she says.
Penni rejected his advances three times before tearing up his business card and returning to work.
What she didn't know was terrifying - Wilder was on a deadly hunting spree.
Just 30 minutes before approaching Penni, the predator had been at Canaveral pier, offering two girls in bikinis $250 to pose in fur coats. When they laughed him off, he panicked and raced to the mall, desperate for his next victim. Within minutes of approaching Penni, he would succeed.
Terry Ferguson, Penni's high school classmate and aspiring model, fell for his photographer routine and left with him. She was found murdered days later.
Survivor's guilt haunts Penni four decades later. "My biggest regret is not calling security," she says, her voice breaking. "Maybe if I'd said 'Hey, there's some guy claiming to be a photographer,' things would have been different." When Wilder's face appeared in newspapers after his death, Penni's blood ran cold. That distinctive tuft of hair - she'd never forgotten it. "I told my mom, 'That's the guy who approached me.'"
The revelation that her split-second decision saved her life while her friend perished creates a burden she still carries today. "It's sickening knowing you talked to someone with that kind of evil," she reflects.
Penni Pierce was a High School friend of Terry's. Wilder tried to lure her away from the mall just before he took Terry (below)
Above, Jeniffer Beals in her famous leg warmer pose for the movie Flashdance. Middle, a headshot of the actress from the movie, and on the right, a photo of Terry Ferguson, who looked very similar to the film star. Wilder had seen the movie six times, and there is little doubt Terry's resemblance to the actress would have made her a prime target for the obsessive killer.
Terry's Mom Frances reading her book that is dedicated to her daughter. who held a secret dream to become a fashion model
This heartbreaking letter (left) could have saved Frances Ferguson's marriage if onle she would have discovered it sooner.
After her daughter Terry was abducted and murdered by Christopher Wilder, Frances believed her husband Don, the local police Captain and Theresa's stepfather, didn't love her as deeply as she did.
Frances felt she was grieving alone for their daughter, and she walked out on the marriage and moved to Georgia, losing touch with her husband and a lot of her friends.
Years later, after Don's death, Frances found this letter he had written to a detective in Australia just over a year after Theresa was murdered.
He wrote how much he loved his daughter with his whole heart and just wanted the detectives' help to understand more about Wilder.
Frances says it broke her heart to read the letter and realise how much she had misjudged her late husband.
On the day she was abducted, Terry left her mother a note on the refrigerator door as was her habit: “Wake me up at 10:00, Love Terry.” It is the last note she left, and Frances considers it an everlasting gift of love.
Terry left the house to go to the mall wearing Frances' blouse. she had a habit of borrowing her Mom's clothes. As her daughter walked out to her car, Frances says a funny feeling hit her in the pit of her stomach.
"Theresa’s eyes almost popped out of her head when the fashion photographer said he thought she had lots of potential. She immediately agreed to go to his car to check out his portfolios.
When she realised his car was parked right next to hers, she laughed at the coincidence. The photographer said he’d like to do a quick shoot with her at a nearby beach for a local surfing store.‘It won’t take long, and I will bring you straight back to your car,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘If you come with me, we can chat on the way about your modelling career, I have so many contacts in the industry that could help you.’
Theresa didn’t even think twice, all those lessons from her stepdad about accepting lifts from strangers forgotten, her head full of how her modelling dream was about to come true."
Book extract The Pretty Girl Killer courtesy of Penguin Random House
The first episode of our investigative podcast Catching Evil is a chilling ride from start to finish. Long-time journalists and now podcast hosts and true crime investigators, we have spent eight years peeling back the layers of Christopher Wilder, the charismatic, handsome race car driver who transformed into one of America’s most prolific and terrifying serial killers.
But this is so much more than a gripping account of a historical murderous rampage.
Wilder’s brutal reign of terror, which left a trail of young, beautiful victims across the United States, has haunted law enforcement for decades. But we have dug deep into his crimes, interviewing survivors, the families of victims, FBI agents, and homicide detectives - unearthing shocking new details that are re-igniting cold cases and rewriting criminal history.
