The story of Ted Bundy
During the spring and summer of 1974, police in the Pacific Northwest were in a state of panic. College women across Washington and Oregon are disappearing at an alarming rate, and law enforcement has little clue who’s behind it. Six women were abducted in just six months. Janice Ann Ott and Denise Marie Naslund disappeared in broad daylight from a busy beach at Lake Sammamish State Park, causing panic in the area.
But the first case of the most frequent kidnappings also got a real break. On the day Ott and Naslund disappeared, many recalled being approached by a man who unsuccessfully tried to lure several other women into his car.
They told the authorities about an attractive young man who was wearing a sling (an arm used to suspend a broken arm, etc.) and had his arm hanging from it. His vehicle was a brown Focus Wagon Beetle and he called himself Ted.
After this description was released to the public, four people who identified the same Seattle resident as Ted Bundy called the police. These four include one of Bundy’s girlfriends (Elizabeth Kloffer), his close friend (Ann Rule), one of his colleagues, and a psychology professor who taught Bundy.
But the clues the police received didn’t add up to Ted Bundy, who thought a law student with no criminal record as an adult was unlikely to be a criminal. So they ruled out that possibility.
This type of fortune benefited many times throughout the murderous career of Ted Bundy, one of history’s most notorious serial killers, who killed at least 30 victims in seven states in the 1970s.
He made fools of everyone – the policemen who didn’t suspect him, the guards at the prison he escaped from, the women he assaulted, his wife who married him after he was caught.
As Bundy himself once stated, ‘I’m the coldest-hearted son of a bastard you ever met.’
Ted Bundy’s Childhood
Ted Bundy was born in Vermont in the Pacific Northwest. His mother was Eleanor Louise Cowell and no one knew who his father was. Embarrassed by his daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, his grandparents raised him as their own child. Throughout his childhood, he thought his mother was his sister. His grandfather regularly beat Ted and his mother, and when Bundy was five years old, they ran away with their son to live with cousins in Tacoma, Washington. There, Ted’s mother, Eleanor, met and married hospital cook Johnny Bundy, who formally adopted Ted Bundy and thus the name Bundy. He later told a girlfriend that Bundy didn’t like his stepfather, and Ted said he wasn’t very nice and didn’t make much money.
Because Bundy gave conflicting accounts of his early years to different biographers, little is known about the remainder of Bundy’s childhood. In general, he may have had a normal life plagued by dark fantasies that affected him strongly – although it is not clear how deeply it scarred him.
Reports by others are similarly confusing. Although Bundy described himself as prowling the streets at night to stalk women, many who remember Bundy from high school don’t seem to want to think of him as such.
College years and his first attack.
Ted Bundy graduated high school in 1965 and then attended the nearby University of Puget Sound. He spent a year there before transferring to the University of Washington to study Chinese. It was during this period that he fell into a romantic relationship for the first time. Her name was Diane Edwards (note that Diana is not Diane). She bore a striking, uncanny resemblance to some of the beautiful women he later murdered. Sometimes, Diane Edwards is referred to by the pseudonym Stephanie Brooks or referred to as Marjorie. Her full name was Diane Marjorie Jean Edwards. She was from Burlingame, California. Bundy first met Diane, also known as Stephanie Brooks, during her junior year of college.
Brooks graduated in the spring of 1968 and left Washington for San Francisco, and Bundy followed her. That summer he won a scholarship to study Chinese at Stanford University. He wanted their love to last.
But Brooks had other ideas. She thought Bundy was directionless and unsure of himself, and suspected he had lied to her more than once. It is believed that she understood his thieving nature. She couldn’t see how he would fit into her life, so she ended the affair, urging him to go back to the University of Washington.
He briefly dropped out in 1968, but quickly re-enrolled as a psychology major. During his time out of school, he visited the East Coast, where he first learned that the woman he believed to be his sister was actually his mother.
Then, back at the University of Washington, Bundy began dating Elizabeth Klopper, a divorcee from Utah who worked as a secretary at the campus’s school of medicine. (Later, Clopper was among the first to report Bundy to police as a suspect in the Pacific Northwest murders.)
Among the four people who named Bundy to police was former Seattle police officer Ann Rule, who met Bundy around the same time they were both working at Seattle’s Suicide Hotline Crisis Center.
In 1973, Bundy enrolled in the University of Puget Sound Law School, but stopped attending classes after a few months. Then, in January 1974, the disappearances began.
Ted Bundy’s first known attack was not an actual murder, but rather an attack on 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a University of Washington student and dancer.
Bundy’s first victim – Karen Sparks
Bundy’s first sexual assault was on January 4, 1974. He broke into the apartment of University of Washington student Karen Sparks while she slept and brutally beat her with a metal bar before sexually assaulting her. Although she was in a coma for 10 days following the attack, she survived. Lived with permanent disabilities ever since. In addition to being Bundy’s first victim, Sparks is one of the survivors of his attacks.
Bundy’s second victim – Lynda Ann Healy
On January 31, 1974, Ted Bundy kidnapped 21-year-old Linda Ann Healy from her home in Seattle’s University District. Thirteen months later, investigators found part of her lower jaw in a landfill on Mount Taylor.
Bundy’s third victim – Donna Gail Manson
On January 31, 1974, Ted Bundy kidnapped 21-year-old Linda Ann Healy from her home in Seattle’s University District. Thirteen months later, investigators found part of her lower jaw in a landfill on Mount Taylor.
Bundy’s fourth victim – Susan Elaine Rancourt
On April 17, Suzanne Rancourt disappeared while on her way to see a German-language film in Ellensburg.
Bundy’s fifth victim – Roberta Kathleen Parks
On Monday, May 6, 1974, serial killer Ted Bundy kidnapped college student Roberta Kathleen Park from Oregon State University in Corvallis. Nine months later, a search party found Bundy’s skull and jaw at Mount Taylor’s burial site.
Bundy’s sixth victim – Brenda Carol Ball
In the early morning hours of June 1, 1974, Brenda Carol Ball became Ted Bundy’s fifth official murder victim. Bundy abducted her on the premises of a bar called the Flame Tavern. He strangled her to death and dumped her body on Mount Taylor.
Indications
By this time, the detectives had a rough idea of the killer.
- The victims are white girls with black hair.
- The missing girls are aged between 17 and 22.
- Many of the girls were college students.
- All the raids were done at night.
- He was good looking and drove a Volkswagen.
- He has black hair and is seen wearing a sling on some occasions.
- He approaches them like a wounded man for help.
- Most of the girls wore blue jeans. (That one point wouldn’t have given any lead in this case, since normal jeans are 90% blue.)
- Many of the missing girls had some form of psychological problems.
(Later crimes show that Ted Bundy later violated all of these facts. He killed a 12-year-old boy. He left the night and killed two other people in broad daylight. He disguised himself as a policeman and a firefighter and carried out his crimes later.)
Bundy’s seventh victim – Georgann Hawkins
June 11, 1974 Georgeann Hawkins was kidnapped from an alley near a Washington fraternity house. Ten days later, Jorgen Hawkins was added to the list of missing women, having disappeared somewhere between her boyfriend’s apartment and her own sorority house in Seattle.
Bundy’s eighth victim – Janice Ann Ott
At Lake Sammamish State Park, Washington, where thousands of people were present, Bundy approached Janice Ott, asking for help loading a boat into her vehicle, and drove away in her Volkswagen. No one has seen her since.
Bundy’s ninth victim – Denise Marie Naslund
On the same day, Denise Nasland was abducted by Bundy from the same location on the same day as Janice Ott.
investigation
The authorities were shocked and unable to comprehend that two victims had been abducted four hours apart in broad daylight. No evidence was recovered from the scene. Law enforcement and volunteers searched the lake and surrounding area of Sammamish State Park, scuba divers scoured the lake floor, repeatedly interviewed potential witnesses, arrested and questioned local sex offenders and recent parolees, but turned up no leads. .
How can two women disappear in front of thousands of witnesses?, that too in broad daylight? An estimated 40,000 people visited Lake Sam that day in response to an event sponsored by Rainier Beer and a local radio station. What kind of killer would have the nerve to ‘hunt’ victims in broad daylight in front of thousands of witnesses?
At that time everyone was on high alert because of the kidnappings going on in the area and it was unlikely that any of the missing people had committed suicide. When all this happened, the locals were terrified.
When Mrs. Ott, 23, disappeared from Lake Sammamish State Park on July 14, she rode into the park on a bright yellow bicycle. County police made this sketch of the bicycle she had. The police believed that finding the bicycle would provide clues to Mrs. Auty’s disappearance. A $150 reward was announced for returning the bicycle. Also at that time Mrs. Ott’s parents offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to Mrs. Ott’s whereabouts.
Just 48 hours after two young women went missing, a state highway worker pulled his truck over to an old logging road to eat lunch. As he rolled down the window, he smelled something rotten. Curious, he got out of his vehicle and walked a few feet through the bushes, where he found something rotten. He thought it was the bloated, rotting carcass of a deer. He returned to his truck and found another place to eat lunch.
On Monday, July 22nd, the Seattle Times published a sketch of a man named ‘Ted’ who spoke to the young woman who disappeared from Lake Sammamish last week. It was drawn according to the testimony of the witnesses. Around eight people saw him on both the 2 occasions. Not only that, he said the name Ted. The police doubted whether the name he gave was genuine. No killer ever calls out his true name?
King County detectives, finally coming up with a detailed description of the suspect and his car, posted lookout notices throughout the Seattle area. A composite sketch was printed in local newspapers and broadcast on local television stations.
Elsie Hammons, age 36, and Elsa Rankin, age 71, were hunting near an old logging road north of the old Sunset Highway about four miles from Lake Sammamish. They went to Hammons Forest, where he found a human skeleton and a hairless skull. They hurried back to the jeep, talking to two teenagers on the way there. At first, no one believed them, then the four went with them to the site, they were shocked by the scene, and suddenly no one laughed. Few of the bodies remain. ‘We found clumps of black hair,’ he said later. ‘ It looked fresh and shiny … about two feet long.’ (It was Denis Naslund’s hair.) The authorities were immediately notified and they collected about 400 pieces of evidence.
‘We literally found a graveyard, a killer’s lair,’ Keppel said.
Some blonde hair was found at the site, but Janice Ott’s skull was missing. Got a jaw. Additionally, the remains of a third female skeleton were recovered, but its skull was missing. (Although law enforcement did not know who it belonged to at the time, it was later revealed that the third set of bones were those of Jorgen Hawkins, who went missing from the University of Washington on the night of June 12, 1974.)
In the first half of 1974, young women were disappearing at an alarming rate in Washington state, but it wasn’t big news in nearby states. At the time, police and media believed the killer was specifically targeting college girls in the Seattle area. Utah was a city more than 800 miles away. Detectives believed the killer was focusing his efforts on Seattle, and at the time were hesitant to connect him to the disappearance of Roberta Kathleen Park in Oregon. As a result, the citizens of Utah felt no concern. In their minds, this was a Washington problem.
But that was about to change.
On September 2, 1974, Ted Bundy left Seattle and moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah School of Law.
Bundy’s tenth victim – Nancy Wilcox (Nancy Wilcox)
On October 2, 1974, Nancy Wilcox left her school to buy a pack of chewing gum. Some people near the school report that they saw Nancy in the passenger seat of a yellow Volkswagen bug shortly after she left the school. That was the last time anyone saw any sign of Nancy.
Bundy’s eleventh victim – Melissa Anne Smith
On October 18, 1974, serial killer Ted Bundy kidnapped 17-year-old Melissa Smith from Midway, Utah. Melissa was the daughter of Midvale Police Chief Louis Smith. She was a very cautious girl.
Midvale itself was a small Mormon town, very quiet, and although her father worried about his children and taught them to be safety conscious, Melissa had no fear in their familiar, uncrowded place.
Melissa’s murder occurred sixteen days after Nancy Wilcox disappeared from the nearby town of Holladay.
Bundy’s twelfth victim – Laura Ann Aime
Although he doesn’t know exactly where Laura is or where she’s going, Ted Bundy thinks she’s been kidnapped in his Volkswagen Beetle. At the time, Bundy lived in Salt Lake City, about 30 minutes from Lehi. Investigators say Laura’s assailant beat her, raped her, and then strangled her to death. In 1989, serial killer Ted Bundy pleaded not guilty.
Bundy’s 13th victim – Carol DaRonch
The Kidnapping and Escape of Carol DeRonge
After 6:00 p.m. on November 8, 1974, eighteen-year-old Carol DaRonch parked her car in the southwest lot of Fashion Place Mall to visit her cousins. She was a very striking girl, with large hazel eyes, long dark hair, and beautiful lips. She was staying at home and working for the Mountain Bell Telephone Company.
The mall opened 2 years ago and was a popular hangout for the youngsters of Murray town. While at the mall, she spent some time talking to some cousins, after which she went to Walden’s Books to buy a book.
She was looking through some books when she was approached by a young man claiming to be a police officer. He was dressed as a police officer, introducing himself as Officer “Roseland”. And there was an overcoat.
He asked if she had parked near Sears, and she said she had.
He asked for her license number and she showed it to him.
Someone tried to steal her car and asked her to come and see if anything was missing
She didn’t even think then how the young man had found Carole DaRonch.
Then there was a situation that made her think he was a security guard or a police officer. So she quietly followed him out of the building.
When they got to her car, everything seemed normal. At that moment she felt that he wanted her to lean into the car and look closer. But she was not up to it.
When she said that nothing was stolen, he insisted that she go to the police substation opposite the mall to report that nothing was missing.
Reluctantly, she accompanied him to the building he mentioned. (It was actually a laundromat) but he insisted it was a police substation. He knocked on the door of the laundromat, but when he got no response he told Carol they would have to go to the main police station several miles away.
Carol becomes suspicious when he asks her to get into his Volkswagen Beetle instead of a police car. Moreover, the vehicle had no number plate. But then she did not understand the thought of a policeman driving a vehicle without a number plate.
When asked if he could show any proof that he was the police, he quickly took a badge out of his pocket and showed it to her. (He put it back in his pocket before she could figure out what it was.)
She was relieved to see the badge. She got into the car. He managed to trick her into thinking he was a policeman in mufti.
Everything was scattered on the ground inside the car. The door on her side had no handle. The recliner of the cushion on the back seat of the car was torn. Also, when she approached the vehicle, she noticed rust on the front and side of the door.
When she got into the vehicle, she smelled alcohol. Then she became more suspicious. When he told her to put on her seatbelt, she refused to put it on and tried to jump out of the car; But by that time he drove away. Instead of going towards the police station, he drove the vehicle in the opposite direction. He was going along a side road. After half a mile he stopped near an elementary school; Then a handcuff tried to put her down.
She strongly objected. He was only able to handcuff one hand. ( Elsewhere it is said that both handcuffs were put on the same hand. ) She kicked and scratched his navel. ( She had sharp long nails. ) His body was cut in many places.
When he was unable to handcuff himself, he pulled out a gun. ‘I’ll blow your head off,’ he shouted. But that was not enough to stop her. She was horribly afraid and facing him as if hysterical. She thought her parents would never know what happened to her.
During the struggle, the door opened and she fell on the wet ground outside. She jumped up and started running, then he came out of the same door with a crowbar to attack her. Again they went to war. All her nails were broken. But luckily he didn’t manage to hurt her. She noticed his dead eyes. At that time, a vehicle came along. She was able to stop the vehicle while escaping from him. At that time, the handcuff was still hanging from one of her hands. There was an elderly couple in it. They took her to the police station.
There she gave a statement and was able to provide a partial description of his vehicle. But no one called “Roseland” worked there. The police were immediately dispatched to the spot where Daronj had fought for her life an hour earlier, but the madman had long since disappeared.
A few days later, a blood group was obtained from the girl’s coat. Police speculated that his blood was on Daronch’s coat after he was stabbed with nails during the attack. For the police, she was the real witness who could describe the serial killer. Karen Sparks, who was first attacked, did not know who attacked her due to her head injury.
(After 40 years, another young woman also revealed the story of her escape from the attack at that time. By that time, Bundy was devastated. If they had revealed it then, many young women would not have lost their lives.)
Bundy’s fourteenth victim – Debra Jean Kent
It is believed that Bundy, who tried to attack Carol DeRonge, escaped from there, then came to the parking lot of the school where the play was taking place at night, somehow lured Debbie Kent to his vehicle, then beat her on the head with a crowbar and carried her away in a car. In a recent revelation, Bundy confessed to her murder. He did not provide any further details.
Bundy’s fifteenth victim – Caryn Eileen Campbell
Karen Campbell, who was spending time with her future husband and his children at the Wildwood Inn in Colorado, is believed to have been abducted by Bundy in the corridor on her way to her room to pick up a magazine. This incident took place on January 12, 1975. About a month later, a few miles from where she disappeared, a hiker found the man’s naked body lying a short distance from the road.
Theodore Robert Bundy appears on the police’s list.
It is natural for readers to wonder why Bundy was not caught by the police after all this. Here are the reasons for that.
1) He used to commit murders in different states.
2) Since the body was not disposed of like a normal murder, there was no possibility of obtaining evidence from the corpses.
3) All the missing girls were thought to have left home or gone with boyfriends depending on the social situation of the time.
4) There was no regular sequence between the time of disappearance and the time when the bodies were found, i.e. the fifth missing person’s body was found first, the first missing person’s body was found at random, many bodies were unidentifiable, and the police were slow to realize that the hands of a serial killer were behind them.
5) There were other similar serial killers during that period. So the clues leading to the murders were misleading for the investigators.
6) There was no evidence directly linking Bundy to the case. That is, he always wore gloves. Nothing was recovered from his hand from the spot. No weapon was recovered. Even when he was drunk, Bundy’s attention to subtle things like this made it difficult for investigators to see a connection between all the cases. Moreover, the investigators did not get the exact spot of when and where he did the knocking. Since both time and place are mysterious, it was not possible to define “the present person who was in that place at that time”.
7) Bundi covered long distances that people hesitate to drive even today with good roads and sophisticated vehicles. Carrying that and often a dead body, it was not a common sense thing to do. But as far as Bundy was concerned, his victim was like an object of his possession, and these distances did not faze him.
8) Usually sex offenders raped their victims and killed them to destroy evidence, but the corpses were for Bundy. Therefore, he was able to kill his victims without making any noise and put them in the vehicle with ease. All it took was a single blow to the head, and because of this the presence of blood was absent and the scene was barely discernible. Even the reason for killing was questionable.
In November 1974, Elizabeth Klopfer contacted King County detectives a second time to talk to them about her fears that her boyfriend, Ted, might somehow be involved in the young women’s disappearances. In December, Bundy went on a skiing trip to Aspen, Colorado over the Christmas period, and Elizabeth decided to share her suspicions with the Salt Lake City County Sheriff’s Office. As a result, Ted Bundy’s name was added to their list of suspects. At this time, investigators in Washington were studying a long list of people with prior criminal histories and people tipped off by the public. One such name was Ted Bundy, who drew considerable suspicion from detectives at the King County Police Department.
Bundy’s 16th victim – Julie Cunningham
Julie Cunningham, 26, was last seen on March 15, 1975 in Vail, Colorado. Bundy played an injured skier on crutches as Julie made her way to the restaurant. He asks her help to carry his boots to the car. They also had friendly talks with each other. As they approached the car, Bundy, as he always did, headbutted her, put her in the car and drove off. Her body is yet to be found.
Bundy’s seventeenth victim – Denise Lynn Oliverson
On the afternoon of April 6, 1975, a month after Julie Cunningham’s disappearance (Bundy’s previous victim), she got into a verbal argument with her husband and is believed to have gone to her parents’ house on her 10-speed yellow bicycle, enraged by the argument. Denise was reported missing on April 7, and her bicycle was soon found under a viaduct (railway overpass) not far from her home. Serial killer Ted Bundy confessed to Oliverson’s murder shortly before his 1989 execution. He allegedly kidnapped her, put her in his car and strangled her near the Utah state line. He drove the car about five miles west of Grand Junction. He says her body was dumped in the Colorado River.
Bundy’s 18th victim – Melanie Cooley
Melanie Susan Cooley was last seen on April 15, 1975, when she was on a field trip near Nederland High School. On May 2, her body was found by road maintenance workers on Twin Spruce Road near Coal Creek Canyon. He was found frozen and fully clothed. ” Her hands were tied in front with a yellow nylon string. She was wounded by a stone; A dirty pillow cover was wrapped around her neck. She died of head injuries and suffocation. Her face was also attacked several times with stones. A contact lens is lost. The body was in a very bad condition. It had been at least two weeks when the body was found.
Bundy’s Nineteenth Victim – Lynette Dawn Culver
On May 5, 1975, Lynette left Alameda Junior High on her lunch break. She hadn’t told anyone about skipping school, although it was common for Lynette to skip class. It is not known where she went that afternoon, but a few hours later someone saw her boarding a bus at Hawthorne Junior High. The two middle schools are about a mile from each other. The bus went to Fort Hall, about ten miles north of Pocatello. It is not known why Lynette went to Fort Hall. This is the last evidence of Lynette. No trace of Linnet has yet been found. Police are still treating it as a cold case.
Bundy’s 20th victim – Susan Curtis
Susan Curtis was riding her bicycle from Bountiful to Provo, Utah, to attend a conference at Brigham Young University. She cycled 50 miles. June 27, 1975 was the first day of the conference. That night she attended a formal ceremony intended to open conference proceedings. She wore a floor-length yellow dress for the occasion. She was last seen going to her room after telling some friends she was going to brush her teeth because she had braces on her teeth. Her room was a quarter of a mile from the hall where the party was held. She has not been heard from since.
Bundy’s twenty-first victim – Shelley Kay Robertson
On Monday, June 29, 1975, Shelley Robertson disappeared. For months no one knew where she was. The summer passed without a word, and they began to realize with horror that the beauty had not gone anywhere by herself. She was last seen by friends on June 30, they said, and on July 1, a policeman noticed her at a gas station with someone in an old truck. In late August, two engineering students were hiking near Berthoud Pass in the mountains outside Golden. They found Shelley’s naked, decomposed body in a mineshaft, then bound with duct tape. Little is known about her death. The cause of death could not be ascertained as the body was decomposed. Shelley was 24 years old when she died.
Arrest and imprisonment
On August 16, 1975, at 2:30 a.m., Sergeant Bob Hayward was patrolling an area outside Salt Lake County when he saw a suspicious-looking tan Volkswagen Bug pass him. He knew the neighborhood and almost all of the residents well enough that he had no recollection of ever seeing a tan Volkswagen there before. When he put on his lights to get a better view of the Volkswagen’s license plate, the Bug’s driver turned off his lights and sped away.
Sergeant Hayward immediately began to follow the vehicle. The car sped through two stop signs and finally pulled into a nearby gas station. Hayward stopped behind the reckless driver. The man got out of the car and watched as the police approached the car. Hayward asked the young man for his registration and license. He gave them to the police.
When asked why he was driving so late, Bundy replied that he was at the Redwood Drive-In to see the Towering Inferno and was on his way home when he lost his way. By then two other policemen had come up behind the tan Volkswagen. Hayward noticed that the passenger seat in Bundy’s car was missing.
Three officers searched the vehicle with Bundy’s permission as it was seen in suspicious circumstances. The tools they found were strange. The car contained a black duffle bag, a crowbar, a flashlight, a ski-mask, a pair of gloves, rope, a pair of handcuffs, wire, a screwdriver, an ice pick, strips of cloth, large green plastic bags, and a pantyhose mask. When asked why the handcuffs etc., Bundy’s reply was that when he was in law college, he was studying how to arrest criminals. Ski mask is also said to prevent cold. But the police officers, who had seen many criminals, had an idea of what the above properties might be used for. At the time they weren’t entirely convinced that he was the serial killer they were looking for, but in light of recent events, they had some doubts. They immediately arrested Bundy on charges of theft. Maps of various locations, brochures of various ski resorts, bills for his filling up of fuel at various locations, etc. were recovered from the glove compartment of the vehicle. All these became evidences that he traveled through those places. He received fuel bills etc. at several places. All these became evidences that he traveled through those places. He received fuel bills etc. at several places. All these became evidences that he traveled through those places.
Shortly after Bundy’s arrest, police began to trace the connection between Carroll Daronche and his attacker. The handcuffs found in Bundy’s car were the same make and brand used by her attacker, and the car he drove was similar to the one she described. Additionally, the crowbar found in Bundy’s car was identical to the weapon used to threaten Carroll in November. They began to suspect that Bundy was responsible for the kidnapping of Melissa Smith, Laura Aim and Debbie Kent. There were too many similarities between the cases for the police to ignore. However, they knew they needed more evidence to support their case against Bundy.
A few days later on August 21, officers searched Bundy’s apartment and found various brochures from the area where some of the women were missing, but they failed to search the building’s utility room at the time. (Years later, he revealed that some of the worst evidence of his crimes was contained inside a shoebox – Polaroid photographs of his victims, which he later destroyed and disposed of). He could not be detained because there was insufficient evidence. So Bundy was released on his own recognizance, but Bundy was under 24-hour surveillance.
On October 2, 1975, Carroll Daronche was asked to participate in an identification parade at a Utah police station. Investigators weren’t surprised when Carroll singled him out as the attacker out of the seven. Next, when asked to pick the person seen wandering the auditorium the night Debbie Kent disappeared, the theater director who saw Bundy that day, and a friend of Debbie Kent’s, chose him from the next parade. Bundy was released from the Salt Lake County Jail on November 20 on $15,000 bail, raised by family and friends.
Although Ted repeatedly maintained his innocence, the police had already identified their man. Immediately, investigators began a full investigation of the man they knew as Theodore Robert Bundy. Investigators Jerry Thompson, Ira Beal, and Dennis Couch flew to Seattle to interview Liz Klopper. She told investigators she was willing to provide any information to help their investigation.
More people came forward with information about Bundy, including an old friend who remembered seeing pantyhose in the glove compartment of Bundy’s car, and more eyewitnesses identified him from Lake Sammamish. When investigators looked into his transactions, they found that he had bought gas at many of the places where the young women had gone missing. Another friend revealed that Bundy saw his arm in plaster when it was not broken. Meanwhile, Bundy maintained his innocence. But other states were now waiting to get a grip on Bundy.
Trial 1976
He spent his freedom with Elizabeth Clopfer at her place, preparing for his upcoming trial in February of the following year. Elizabeth wrote in her book, “There were questions we didn’t ask each other through our unspoken agreement. What I told the police; He didn’t ask me why, and I didn’t ask him about his criminal connections.”
That November, about 30 detectives and other officials from Utah and Washington met with investigators in Colorado to exchange information on missing-person cases with officials from five states. Everyone present was convinced that Ted Bundy was the man they were looking for in connection with the murdered and missing women, and they began making every effort to prove his guilt in those crimes.
Bundy’s trial began on February 23, 1976, and he sat quietly in the courtroom, thinking he would be found innocent of the charges.
Carole Daronche took a strong stand. (His life had begun to go downhill from the day he met Carol DeRonge. She later traveled across the states to testify against him in several subsequent trials.) She recognized her kidnapper again in the courtroom. He recounted his ordeal of sixteen months ago. When asked if she could identify her attacker, she pointed to Ted Bundy, who described himself as “Officer Roseland.”
He had to admit that Albi had no idea where he was when she was attacked. But he denied ever seeing Daronjh. The judge went through the case files over a weekend.
On March 1, the judge, Stuart Hanson, found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the kidnapping charge and sentenced him. On June 30, Ted Bundy was sentenced to one to fifteen years in prison with the possibility of parole.
In prison he underwent a psychological evaluation, which found that he did not have a mental disorder or any personality disorder, and that no sexual deviation was considered. Psychologists concluded that he had a strong dependence on women and was afraid of being humiliated in relationships.
While incarcerated at the Utah State Prison, investigators began looking for more evidence linking him to the murders of Melissa Smith and Karyn Campbell.
Meanwhile, while Bundy was out on bail, he sold the Volkswagen to a teenager. The police were also watching. They took the car into custody. They reckoned there could be more evidence in the car. Bundy gave the vehicle a quick clean before selling it. But FBI specialist Robert Neal conducted a careful examination. Some conclusive evidence was obtained from it. Biological evidence from three different victims was found in Bundy’s vehicle.
Bundy was the only link between the three as it was astronomically unlikely that they would match Caryn Campbell’s samples, finding hairs that matched the samples.
The impressions on Caryn Campbell’s skull were identical to those made by the crowbar recovered from Bundy’s vehicle the night of his arrest.
On October 19, 1976, a guard searched Bundy in the prison print shop and found a fake Social Security card, a sketch of a driver’s license, a road map, and an airline schedule. The above were items that would be useful for a jailbreak, and upon seeing this, Bundy was immediately transferred to a maximum security prison.
On October 22, Colorado police charged Bundy with Campbell’s murder. He was eventually transferred to the Garfield County Jail in Colorado on April 13, 1977 to stand trial for the murder of Karin Campbell.
During his preparation, Bundy came to disagree with his lawyer. Bundy decided his lawyer was incompetent and ineffective. He then dismissed his own lawyer and decided to plead the case himself. (The incident can be seen as a combination of ignorance, overconfidence, and arrogance, although it would not have been possible to make any changes except to increase or decrease the time of his death.)
He was released from jail and allowed to use the Pitkin Courthouse Library as he was defending himself. Being chained to his hands and feet disturbed him. He kept complaining about it. Finally permission was granted to remove them. In short, he was completely independent in the library. The library was on the second floor.
Escape June 6, 1977
On June 6, Bundy escaped by jumping out of a second-story window of the court’s library. He hid among the trees before the guards saw him. He changed his prison clothes outside and walked out of the city in the casual clothes he was wearing inside. He had injured his ankle in the jump. It was an escape he had planned for some time.
Aspen police quickly set up roadblocks around the city, yet he knew to stay within the city limits for the time being, and lay low. Saint tracking bloodhounds and 150 searchers were dispatched to catch him. Police have launched a nationwide search. However, he managed to avoid them for days.
On the first day I had to sleep in the rain. The next day he left the roads and went up into the mountains and into the forest. There he stole food from a camp of poachers and ate it. One of their rifles was also stolen. He slept in that abandoned camp. The next few days he lost his way in the forest and wandered for two days. With no food, cold, and pain in his legs, he decided to leave Aspen at any cost.
On June 12, 1977, he went out on
the road and stole a keyed car, but ended up in front of two police officers. They lifted him by the hand. He was wearing glasses at the time. He also had a bandage on his nose to avoid recognition. But that would do nothing to hide the brutal criminal who rocked America.
From then on, he was ordered to wear handcuffs and leg irons while doing research at the library in Aspen. However, Bundy was not the type to tie up.
Back at the prison in Glenwood Springs, Bundy began devising a new escape plan. He was given a detailed floor plan of the prison, and other inmates gave him a hacksaw blade. Over the next six months, he collected $500 in cash from visitors, drug smuggling, and money from his girlfriend, Carol Ann Boone. He did this because he did not want to suffer without money if he jumped out like before. He made a hole in the ceiling of his cell while the other prisoners were taking a shower, but he could barely fit through it. So he reduced his food intake and thus lost about 16 kg. Next he started trail running. He climbed up through the hole several times and tried to jump out. No one noticed any noise at this time. It was a huge mistake. By passing through that hole he could reach the jailer’s room.
Bundy started work on December 31, 1977, when everyone was celebrating New Year. He first arranged the law books he had brought to study in his room on the bed and covered them with a blanket. At a glance, it looked like someone was sleeping under the covers. Then he crawled through the hole to the ceiling and entered the jailer’s room. Since it was New Year’s Eve, the jailer was absent. He put on his clothes from the jailer’s closet and coolly walked out of the jail through the front door. No one knew this information. It was fifteen hours later that the authorities learned about Bundy’s escape. By then he had reached Chicago by plane.
The Florida Murders (1978)
On January 7, 1978, Bundy arrived in Tallahassee, Florida. He rented a room at the inn under the pseudonym Chris Hagen. He told the landlord that he was a student. This gave him the freedom to roam the campuses of Washington, his old haunt.
Now free in a place where nothing was known about his identity or his past, Ted Bundy was comfortable in his new environment at nearby Florida State University, where he wandered around the campus and took occasional classes unnoticed. During that time he tried to stay out of crime and find work. But he could not get any job as he could not show any identity. And stealing credit cards like old times. They also used them to buy food.
He spent the rest of the time in his apartment watching stolen TV. On Jan. 12, Bundy stole license plates from a 1972 Volkswagen camper near Dunwoody Street. An orange Volkswagen Bug belonging to Ricky Garzanetti was then stolen from 529 East Georgia Street.
The Chi Omega sorority house at the University of Florida was quiet on the evening of Sunday, January 15, with most of the residents either out or in bed early.
Bundy entered the sorority house around 2:45 a.m., beat and injured 21-year-old Margaret Bowman with an oak stick, and then strangled her with a stocking.
Then 20-year-old Lisa went into Levy’s room, knocking her unconscious and breaking her collarbone. One of her nipples was ripped off, she was bitten on the bottom, and Claire then sexually assaulted her with a hairspray bottle and strangled her with a stocking.
After moving into a nearby bedroom, he attacked 20-year-old Kathy Kleiner, breaking her jaw and injuring her shoulder, before hitting 21-year-old Karen Chandler, who broke her jaw in three and lost several teeth.
At this time, Bundy saw the headlights of a car dropping off the housekeeper, Nita Neary, and ran out of the house. These attacks were heard by several other girls in the house who informed the matron of the residence and informed the police that someone had broken into the residence.
Then Karen Chandler rushed out of her room and into the hallway, bleeding from a head wound, to find Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman dead in bed with fatal injuries. Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner suffered life-changing injuries but survived.
Ted Bundy fled the scene and went to a basement apartment eight blocks away, where he launched his final attack, this time on 21-year-old student Cheryl Thomas.
She was found lying diagonally across her bed. Her face was purple with bruises and she was writhing in pain almost unconscious to the sight. She was hit across the head, her jaw was broken, her shoulder bone was dislocated, and her skull was fractured in five places. Police found a semen stain and a pantyhose mask with two hairs on her bed.
Cheryl Thomas suffered the most fatal injuries that night, leaving her permanently deaf and unable to walk. So those injuries affected her ability to dance. He was hospitalized for a month. After these murders at the Chi Omega sorority house, Ted Bundy went completely into hiding.
On February 5, he stole a white Dodge van from the Florida State University media center and drove from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. A few days later on February 8, 14-year-old Leslie Parmenter was approached by Bundy as she was waiting to be picked up by her brother.
Bundy told the girl he was ‘Richard Burton’ from the fire department and asked her if she went to a nearby school. Leslie’s father was the chief of detectives for the Jacksonville Police Department, and he told her many times not to talk to strangers. So she soon began to feel uncomfortable, and it seemed strange to her that an off-duty fireman was wearing plaid pants and a navy jacket.
Luckily her brother arrived at that time and told her to get in the car. He then followed the man and gave his father his license plates.
The next day, February 9, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach disappeared in Lake City, Florida. Her teacher had forgotten to take her purse and they told Leach to go to the building next to the school to get it. Bundy stopped her on her way back with the purse and a witness saw it. But he thought some angry father was dragging his daughter into the van from school.
The next day, Bundy’s name was urgently added to the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list, and a $100,000 reward was announced for information leading to his capture. He revisited the Dunwoody Street crime scene where Cheryl Thomas was attacked at 10:45 that evening.
On February 11, he attempted to break into a Toyota vehicle not far from the Chi Omega sorority house, but was spotted by a policeman. But he survived.
That evening, he had his last meal at Chez Pier in the Adams Street Mall, where he enjoyed French food and wine, using one of the stolen credit cards to pay.
During the last few weeks of his freedom, Bundy increased his shoplifting and wallet theft and began drinking heavily. He was sinking into despair and was no longer in control of his own actions as he had been.
He overspent the stolen credit cards on clothes, especially socks.
He was now wanted across the United States for murders in Chi Omega, and a witness had seen his white van in the Kimberly Leach kidnapping. So that van was abandoned by Bundy. He immediately stole an orange Volkswagen. The Volkswagen was more comfortable to drive.
On February 15, 1978, Officer David Lee was on patrol in West Pensacola when he saw an orange Fox Wagon Bug driven by Bundy at 10:00 p.m. Knowing the area well and knowing most of the residents, he knew he had never seen the car before, and he knew it was stolen only by looking at the license plates. He immediately switched on his headlights and started chasing the suspect vehicle. He started running as fast as he had done in Utah, followed by the officer and the chase continued, however this time he stopped suddenly.
Officer David Lee ordered Bundy out of the car and told him to lie down with his hands in front of him, but instead of laying down with his hands down, he pushed the officer away and tried to run away. The officer then shot him. He fell to the ground pretending to have been shot.
As the officer approached him, he was attacked again and both men grappled with Lee’s pistol, but he was soon able to subdue Bundy and handcuff him. Officer Lee did not know the identity of the man he had just arrested and he then heard the prisoner say ‘I wish you would kill me’. Little did the police officer know that he had recaptured Ted Bundy.
and 21 credit cards stolen from that stolen vehicle; Three FSU student IDs; The police also recovered the stolen television set. They also found the clothing he was wearing in the name of Richard Burton of the Jacksonville Fire Department. Bundy was taken to the police station, where authorities soon discovered his identity.
During interrogation he remarked to his interrogators, ‘I’m the most cold-blooded son of a bitch you’ve ever seen’.
After nearly eight weeks of searching, Kimberly Leach’s body was found. On April 7, 1978, her remains were found in a pig sty at Suwanee River State Park. She is believed to have been raped before the murder, but the cause of death could not be determined due to the extent of her decomposition.
Florida Trials (1979 – 1980)
In June 1979, Bundy went on trial for the Chi Omega murders and attacks. It was to be held in Miami and was a nationally televised trial in the United States covered by reporters from around the world. Despite having five court-appointed attorneys to handle his defense, he decided to represent himself again. His misunderstanding of his own abilities, hatred, mistrust, etc. caused his defense strategy to be completely mishandled.
During the trial, several witnesses confirmed in court that Ted Bundy was the man seen at the Chi Omega home the night of the murder. Nita Nyari came home early in the morning and recognized the man she saw as Bundy.
Incriminating forensic evidence was also left at the crime scene, namely the bite wounds on Lisa Levy’s buttocks. Forensic odontologists Richard Soviron and Lowell Levine took impressions of Bundy’s teeth and matched them with his bite marks.
On July 23, 1979, the court adjourned for deliberations and spent nearly seven hours deciding that Bowman and Levy were guilty of the murders. He was convicted of assaulting Thomas, Kleiner and Chandler, two counts of burglary and three counts of attempted first-degree murder. He showed no emotion when he heard the verdict.
The judge, Edward Cowart, sentenced him to 196 years in prison and the death penalty for the brutal murders. In short, Cowart said, ‘these murders were certainly heinous, brutal and diabolical. He is exceedingly wicked, shockingly evil and vile.” Although the court sentenced him to death, Cowart was impressed by Ted Bundy’s effort to act in his own defense, commenting in his final words, “You were a brilliant young man. You would have made a good lawyer and I would have liked you to practice before me, but you have gone the other way”.
Microfibers from Ted Bundy’s clothing were also identified as matching those found on Leach’s body. On February 10, 1980, after an eight-hour deliberation, the court found Bundy guilty of Kimberly Leach’s murder and sentenced him to death by electrocution for a third time.
Execution (1989)
On January 24, 1989, hundreds of people gathered outside Stark Prison in Florida, anxiously awaiting Ted Bundy’s final moments. Many held up placards reading “It’s Friday Ted,” while others wore T-shirts with slogans such as “Fri-Day.”
Ted Bundy was taken to the execution chamber shortly after 7:00 a.m. and placed in the electric chair known as “Old Sparky.” His last words before putting the black hood on his head were to his defense attorney Jim Coleman and his minister Fred Lawrence, “Jim and Fred, I want you to give my love to my family and friends”.
The executioner switched on and his body tensed and rose from his chair for a moment. A minute later, when the power was switched off, his body settled back into the chair. A doctor then checked his pulse and he died at 7:16 am. Loud cheers erupted from the crowd as his body was carried out in a white ambulance. His body was taken to Gainesville, where it was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Cascade Range of Washington State, in accordance with his wishes, at an undisclosed location.
Footnote: Of the many events in Ted Bundy’s life, only the most essential are briefly described here. It does not detail the names of girlfriends Elizabeth Kloffer, Diane Edwards, Ann Rule, and Carol Ann Boone, as well as the many people he is suspected of killing and who escaped his clutches. Some of the omissions in the article include the detectives interviewing Bundy to capture the Green River serial killer Gary Ridgeway, the revelations of Bundy’s murders, his relationship with his last wife, Carol Ann Boone, and the fact that Bundy fathered a child.
