Sounak Sengupta
Investigation Discovery’s ‘Obsession: Dark Desires: The Salon Stalker’ takes the viewers through the story of an alleged serial stalker Christopher Lynn Wirfs, who ended up shooting Makaela Zabel-Gravatt, in Boise, Idaho, in September 2015. Makaela appeared on the show, recounting the horrors she faced and how she survived the months of harassment and the fatal attack.
Who is Christopher Wirfs?
Christopher “Chris” Lynn Wirfs was a former truck driver in North Dakota who allegedly had some prior minor criminal background as a teenager. According to the show, he served a short stint in prison for breaking into cars but was striving to turn a new leaf in life in 2013. He met Makaela Zabel-Gravatt, a local hairdresser in Boise, Idaho, at a gym in 2013, and the latter claimed he wanted to take her out on a date. Unfortunately, she was engaged and scheduled to marry her fiance, Travis, in late 2013, and the mother of four children with him.
Hence, she politely declined his offer but asked him to drop by her salon for a haircut anytime. Chris took her up on her offer and showed up at her salon. The two quickly became friends, with Chris prattling about his “foolish acts” as a teenager and how he was turning around his life and trying to make a decent living. He told her about the long journeys, a part of his job, and how he slept in the trucks. Over a couple of years, he was a loyal customer of Makaela, never failing to show up once every 4-6 weeks.
Chris offered Makaela a consoling shoulder when the latter’s marriage ended in 2014, and she separated from Travis. As she started living with her mother, he started texting her, and by May 2015, they went out on a date. According to the show, he took her to an expensive restaurant and gifted her a chain, showering her with praise. When he came to her birthday, he surprised her by telling her he had resigned from his job and started living with his mother to stay close to Makaela.
According to Makaela, she was uncomfortable with the pace things was moving. However, he showed his alleged true colors on a date with her when he started reacting aggressively in public, engaging in abuses, and even initiating a fight. He also screamed at her when she tried to stop him from making a scene. When she returned home, she was determined to end the relationship as she was visibly shaken and afraid to see a side of Chris she had never known. Little did she know the horrors that lay in front of her.
The episode showed how Chris started harassing and stalking her, continuously calling her on her and her mother’s phones and sending threatening and vulgar text messages. He even showed up at her home and workplace unannounced, demanding she could not cut him off so easily. Makaela claimed she tried to take help from law enforcement but to no avail. Chris continued to harass her and even threatened Travis once, as per local news reports.
Christopher Wirfs is Imprisoned Today
The stalking and harassing came to a vicious end when Christopher “Chris” Wirfs, then 36, shot Makaela twice in her backyard when she returned home from work on September 12, 2015. She was rushed to the hospital, where she survived her wounds. The authorities almost immediately arrested Chris for the shooting. The prosecution painted him as a dangerous man who served as a threat to the community. He had allegedly threatened and stalked previous girlfriends dating back to 1997.
His defense counsel defended him by stating he suffered from mental illness and had intentionally stopped taking his prescribed medication at the time of the shooting. However, the judge refused to offer any leniency, stating his mental illness was partially self-induced. In May 2016, Chris pleaded guilty to felony aggravated battery, as enhanced by felony use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a crime and felony stalking in the first degree.
On May q8, 2016, the Idaho district court imposed a unified twenty-five-year sentence, with five years determinate and a consecutive determinate five-year sentence, respectively. According to official court records, Chris, 42, continues to serve his sentence at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Pinal County, Arizona. His inmate records state he would not be eligible for parole before 2040.
Read More: Where is Makaela Zabel-Gravatt Now?
