Over the course of several weeks in 1984, Christopher Wilder traversed the country terrorizing women.
Wilder, who became known as the “Beauty Queen Killer,” was linked to the serial sexual assaults and murders of several women.
But not every person he encountered was killed. One, who was 16 years old when she was abducted by Wilder in California, lived to tell the story of how she stayed alive despite her brush with the vicious killer.
Tina Risico talks about her frightening experience in the upcoming episode of People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer. Titled “Surviving the Beauty Queen Killer,” the episode airs Tuesday, June 30, at 9 p.m. Eastern on ID.
In an exclusive clip shared with PEOPLE, Risico says Wilder, who had already killed multiple women, electrically shocked different parts of her body after tying her up in a motel room.
“It felt like a good 30 minutes of him electrocuting me,” Risico recalls. “The electrocution definitely made my body jolt but it didn’t shake me to react, ’cause that’s what he was looking for, a reaction.”
Risico further says she was sexually abused throughout her childhood and that those traumatic experiences taught her how to survive similar situations.
“I knew how to be a survivor,” she says. “He had to have been surprised … He wasn’t getting any rise out of me. I am the first girl out of how many, so many, that’s never reacted to him.”
Also featured in the clip is psychiatrist Dr. Roland Summit, who said Risico’s lack of a reaction to the shocks prevented Wilder from living out his fantasy of “being in total control.”
“She just didn’t play his game,” Summit says. “She was already playing hers.”
Wilder was ultimately killed by authorities following an expansive manhunt.
The People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer episode “Surviving the Beauty Queen Killer” premieres June 30, at 9/8c on ID and will stream on HBO Max.
