That’s why, she said, when Wilder asked her to approach a girl at a mall in Gary, Ind., and convince her to come with them, Risico felt coerced to do what she was told. “All that was going through my head was, ‘How can I save her? How am I going to tell her to get away from here?'” she said. “But I just did what he said.”
Dawnette Sue Wilt, also 16, said she was enticed by a fashion show modeling offer and joined the pair in the car as they set off.
“After he was done raping her, raping me, he allowed—said, ‘You need to go take a bath,'” Risico recalled. “And while I was in the bath, I could see the lights dimming on and off, so he was electrocuting her. And she was screaming. I could hear her from the bathroom.”
To this day, Risico said her two regrets are getting in the car with Wilder and taking Wilt with them. “It was a choice,” she said. “It wasn’t mine, but it was a choice, and I had to live with that.”