Ted Bundy
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Ted Bundy

Executed for Assault and Murder

TED BUNDY
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Updated October 2024
Posted October 2023

Ted Bundy Wanted Poster
Ted Bundy Wanted Poster
1978

Interstate Flight - Murder
Wanted by FBI
Theodore Robert Bundy

  • Aliases:
    • Rex Bundy
    • Ted Bundy
    • Ted Cowell
    • Theodore Robert Cowell
    • Theodore Robert Nelson
    • Bundy
  • Description
    • Age: 31, born November 24, 1946, Burlington, Vermont (no supported by birth records)
    • Height: 5'11" to 6'
    • Weight: 145 to 175 pounds
    • Hair: dark brown, collar length
    • Build: slender, athletic
    • Eyes: blue
    • Complexion: pale/sallow
    • Race: white
    • Nationality: American
    • Occupation: bellboy, busboy, cook's helper, dishwasher, janitor, law school student, office worker, political campaign worker, psychiatric social worker, salesman, security guard
    • Scars and Marks: mole on neck, scar on scalp
    • Remarks: occasionally stammers when upset; has worn glasses, false mustache and beard as disguise in past; left handed; can imitate British accent; reportedly physical fitness and health enthusiast.
  • Criminal Record
    Bundy has been convicted of aggravated kidnapping.
  • Caution
    Bundy, a college educated physical fitness enthusiast with a prior history of escape, is being sought as a prison escapee after being convicted of kidnapping and while awaiting trial involving brutal sex slaying of woman at ski resort. He should be considered armed, dangerous and an escape risk.

A federal warrant was issued on January 5, 1978, at Denver, Colorado, charging Bundy with unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution for the crime of murder (title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1073).
If you have information concerning this person, please contact your local FBI office. Telephone numbers and addresses of all FBI offices listed on back
Identification order 4775
January 31, 1978

Ted Bundy Wanted Poster

TED BUNDY Ted Bundy was recaptured on February 9, 1978
He was tried and convicted on June 25, 1979, for assault and murdering members of a sorority at Florida State University and February 7, 1980, for the murder of a 12-year-old girl.

He exhausted his appeals and was executed on January 24, 1989.

Ted Bundy

WIKIPEDIA Theodore Robert Bundy
November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989
An American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown.

Bundy often employed charm to disguise his murderous intent when kidnapping victims, and extended this tactic vis-a-vis law enforcement, the media and the criminal justice system to maintain his claims of innocence. His usual technique involved approaching a female in public and luring her to a vehicle parked in a more secluded area, at which point she would be beaten unconscious, restrained with handcuffs and taken elsewhere to be sexually assaulted and killed.

To this end, Bundy typically simulated having a physical impairment such as an injury in order to convince his target that he was in need of assistance with something, or would dupe her into believing he was an authority figure. He frequently revisited the bodies of those he abducted, grooming and performing sex acts on the corpses until decomposition and destruction by wild animals made further interactions impossible. He decapitated at least 12 of his victims, keeping their severed heads as mementos in his apartment. On a few occasions, he broke into homes at night and bludgeoned, maimed, strangled and/or sexually assaulted his victims in their sleep.

In 1975, Bundy was arrested and jailed in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in several states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, Bundy engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults in Florida, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in 1978. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two trials, and was executed at Florida State Prison in Raiford on January 24, 1989.

Ted BundyA Sadistic Sociopath
Biographer Ann Rule characterized him as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death and even after." Bundy once described himself as "the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet", a statement with which attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, agreed. "Ted", she wrote, "was the very definition of heartless evil."

Modus Operandi
Bundy was an unusually organized and calculating criminal who used his extensive knowledge of law enforcement methodologies to elude identification and capture for years. His crime scenes were distributed over large geographic areas; his victim count had risen to at least 20 before it became clear that numerous investigators in widely disparate jurisdictions were hunting the same man. Bundy's assault methods of choice were blunt trauma and strangulation, two relatively silent techniques that could be accomplished with common household items. He deliberately avoided firearms due to the noise they made and the ballistic evidence they left behind. He was a "meticulous researcher" who explored his surroundings in minute detail, looking for safe sites to seize and dispose of victims. He was unusually skilled at minimizing physical evidence. His fingerprints were never found at a crime scene, nor any other incontrovertible evidence of his guilt, a fact he repeated often during the years in which he attempted to maintain his innocence.

All of Bundy's known victims were white females, most of middle-class backgrounds. Almost all were between the ages of 15 and 25 and most were college students. He apparently never approached anyone he might have met before.

Confirmed Victims
The night before his execution, Bundy confessed to 30 homicides, but the true total remains unknown, and Bundy occasionally made cryptic comments to encourage speculation. He told Aynesworth in 1980 that for every murder "publicized", there "could be one that was not." When FBI agents proposed a total tally of 36, Bundy responded, "Add one digit to that, and you'll have it."

1974

  • Karen Sparks (age 18)
    January 4: Bludgeoned and sexually assaulted in her bed as she slept in the University District; survived but the extent of her injuries resulted in permanent brain damage.
  • Lynda Ann Healy (age 21)
    February 1: Bludgeoned while asleep and abducted from her basement bedroom in Seattle, Washington and was then decapitated and dismembered post-mortem; mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975.
  • Donna Gail Manson (age 19)
    March 12: Abducted while walking to a concert at Evergreen State College; body left according to Bundy at Taylor Mountain site, but never found. However, there is speculation that the partial remains of an unidentified female discovered near Eatonville, Washington on August 29, 1978, could have belonged to Manson. Remains and clothing were reportedly destroyed on May 10, 1985, before a positive forensic identification could be made.
  • Susan Elaine Rancourt (age 18)
    April 17: Disappeared after attending an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975. Both had been severely fractured.
  • Roberta Kathleen Parks (age 22)
    May 6: Vanished from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975. She had been bludgeoned to death.
  • Brenda Carol Ball (age 22)
    June 1: Disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien, and was last seen in the parking lot, talking to a man with his arm in a sling; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975. Her skull had been fractured.
  • Georgann Hawkins (age 18)
    June 11: Abducted from an alley behind her sorority house; skeletal remains identified by Bundy as those of Hawkins recovered at Issaquah site. Hawkins remains listed as a missing person.
  • Janice Ann Ott (age 23)
    July 14: Abducted from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight and was last seen leaving the park with Bundy who had asked her for assistance with putting his sailboat on his car; skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site in 1974.
  • Denise Marie Naslund (age 19)
    July 14: Abducted four hours after Ott from the same park and was last seen walking towards the restrooms; skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site in 1974.
  • Nancy Wilcox (age 16)
    October 2: Last seen riding in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle near her home in Holladay, Utah after going out to buy a pack of gum; body buried according to Bundy near Capitol Reef National Park, 200 miles (320 km) south of Salt Lake City, but never found.
  • Melissa Anne Smith (age 17)
    October 18: Vanished from Midvale, Utah after leaving a pizza parlor to walk back to her home; body found nine days later on a hillside in Summit Park, Utah. Her head had been severely beaten with a crowbar, and her body had been battered before death.
  • Laura Ann Aime (age 17)
    October 31: Disappeared from Lehi, Utah on her way home from a Halloween party; body discovered by hikers in American Fork Canyon. Her face was beaten beyond recognition and she had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
  • Carol DaRonch (age 18)
    November 8: Abducted from a Murray shopping mall and intended to kill; she escaped by jumping out of Bundy's car after he inadvertently fastened a pair of handcuffs on the same wrist.
  • Debra Jean Kent (age 17)
    November 8: Vanished after leaving a school play in Bountiful, Utah; body left according to Bundy near Fairview, 100 miles (160 km) south of Bountiful; one patella was found which was positively identified by DNA as Kent's in 2015.

1975

  • Caryn Eileen Campbell (age 23)
    January 12: Disappeared from a hotel hallway in Snowmass, Colorado; body discovered on a dirt road near the hotel with skull fractures and knife wounds on February 17.
  • Julie Lyle Cunningham (age 26)
    March 15: Disappeared from Vail, Colorado after she left her apartment in the Apollo Park neighborhood to visit a local tavern; body buried according to Bundy near Rifle, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail, but never found.
  • Denise Lynn Oliverson (age 25)
    April 6: Abducted while cycling to her parents' house in Grand Junction, Colorado; body thrown according to Bundy into the Colorado River 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Grand Junction, but never found.
  • Lynette Dawn Culver (age 12)
    May 6: Abducted from Pocatello, Idaho after she left Alameda Junior High School for her lunch break; body thrown according to Bundy into what authorities believe to be the Snake River, but never found.
  • Susan Curtis (age 15)
    June 28: Disappeared during a youth conference at Brigham Young University when she left her friends to walk back to her dormitory and brush her teeth; body buried according to Bundy along a highway near Price, 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Provo, but never found.

1978

  • Margaret Elizabeth Bowman (age 21)
    January 15: Bludgeoned, raped and strangled as she slept at the Chi Omega sorority at Florida State University (no secondary crime scene).
  • Lisa Janet Levy (age 20)
    January 15: Bludgeoned, strangled, bitten and sexually assaulted as she slept at the Chi Omega sorority at Florida State University (no secondary crime scene).
  • Karen Chandler (age 21)
    January 15: Bludgeoned as she slept at the Chi Omega sorority at Florida State University; survived although her skull was fractured, and her jaw, right arm, and fingers were crushed.
  • Kathy Kleiner (age 21)
    January 15: Bludgeoned as she slept at the Chi Omega sorority at Florida State University resulting in her jaw being shattered and her right cheek being ripped open; survived.
  • Cheryl Thomas (age 21)
    January 15: Bludgeoned as she slept, eight blocks from Chi Omega; survived after having a fractured jaw and skull which left her with permanent deafness and equilibrium damage.
  • Kimberly Dianne Leach (age 12)
    February 9: Abducted from Lake City Junior High School in Lake City, Florida and was last seen being led to a white van by a man who was later identified as Bundy; mummified remains found near Suwannee River State Park, 43 miles west of Lake City, with "homicidal violence about the neck region."

Suspected Victims
Bundy remains a suspect in several unsolved homicides and disappearances, and is likely responsible for others that may never be identified; in 1987, he confided to Keppel that there were "some murders" that he would "never talk about", because they were committed "too close to home", "too close to family", or involved "victims who were very young".

  • Ann Marie Burr (age 8)
    Vanished from her Tacoma home on August 31, 1961, when Bundy was 14. An unknown tennis shoe imprint was found by the overturned bench used to enter her house. Due to the small size of the shoe, police believed the perpetrator was a teenager or youth. The Burr house was on Bundy's newspaper delivery route and Burr's father was certain that he saw Bundy in a ditch at a construction site on the nearby UPS campus the morning his daughter disappeared. Other circumstantial evidence implicates Bundy as well, but detectives familiar with the case have never agreed on the likelihood of his involvement. Keppel has observed that the Burr case fits all three categories of murders Bundy would "never talk about": "too close to home," "too close to family," and "very young." Speaking in the third person, Bundy claimed during audiotaped discussions with journalists Michaud and Aynesworth in 1980 and 1981, that he had "stalked, strangled, and sexually mauled his first victim, an eight-year-old girl," in an orchard; Ann's family had lived next to an orchard. Burr's mother informed Bundy in a 1986 letter that she believed he was responsible for killing Ann. "You have nothing more to lose in this world," she wrote. "Will you write to me regarding Ann Marie?" In response, Bundy categorically denied killing her. "First and foremost, I do not know what happened to your daughter Ann Marie," Bundy wrote. "I had nothing to do with her disappearance." Forensic testing of material evidence from the Burr crime scene in 2011 yielded insufficient intact DNA sequences for comparison with Bundy's, and as such his involvement remains speculative.
  • Lisa Wick and Lonnie Ree Trumbull (both age 20)
    Flight attendants bludgeoned with a piece of lumber as they slept in their basement apartment in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood in the early morning hours of June 23, 1966. An autopsy concluded that Trumbull had died at approximately midnight from a blow to the head she had received about an hour earlier. In retrospect, Keppel noted many similarities to the Chi Omega crime scene. The crime's modus operandi was also similarly comparable to Bundy's earlier verifiable assaults on murder victim Healy and survivor Sparks, who were bludgeoned while in their beds in Seattle basement apartments. Wick, who suffered permanent memory loss as a result of the attack, later contacted Rule: "I know that it was Ted Bundy who did that to us," she wrote, "but I can't tell you how I know." Police records state that when Bundy's fingerprints were compared in January 1977 to those left at the crime scene, they did not match, although many people were allowed into the unsecured crime scene and may have left their fingerprints, thereby causing unwanted alteration of evidence. Bundy's involvement remains unconfirmed.
  • Susan Margarite Davis and Elizabeth Potter Perry (both age 19)
    Vacationing Pennsylvania college friends stabbed to death in Somers Point, New Jersey. The women had been visiting Ocean City and were on their way back to Pennsylvania at about 4:30 a.m. on May 30, 1969, before they stopped at the Somers Point Diner for breakfast. They left the diner one hour later and vanished. Their car was found that day abandoned beside the Garden State Parkway outside Somers Point, near Atlantic City, 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Philadelphia; and their bodies were discovered in nearby woods three days later tied to trees with their hair. Davis was naked with her clothing and accessories in a pile beside her. Except for her missing underwear, Perry was fully-dressed. Bundy attended Temple University from January through May 1969 and apparently did not move west until after Memorial Day weekend. While his accounts of his earliest crimes varied considerably between interviews, he told forensic psychologist Art Norman that his first murder victims were two women in the Philadelphia area. Biographer Richard Larsen believed that Bundy committed the murders using his feigned-injury ruse, based on an investigator's interview with Julia Cowell, Bundy's aunt: Ted, she said, was wearing a leg cast due to an automobile accident on the weekend of the homicides, and therefore could not have traveled from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore; there is no official record of any such accident. Bundy is considered a "strong suspect", but the case remains open.
  • Rita Patricia Curran (age 24)
    Elementary school teacher and part-time motel maid, was murdered in her basement apartment on July 19, 1971, in Burlington, Vermont; she had been strangled, bludgeoned and raped. The time of death was later given as approximately midnight. The location of the motel where she worked which was adjacent to Bundy's birthplace, the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers, and similarities to known Bundy crime scenes led retired FBI agent John Bassett to propose him as a suspect. Bundy told Keppel that he murdered a young woman in 1971 in Burlington when he was there to obtain information about his birth, but denied specific involvement in the Curran case to Hagmaier on the eve of his execution. Inquiring as to Bundy's involvement in Curran's death, Curran's sister wrote a telegram to Florida's Death Row. In a response, the FBI informed her that Bundy had declined to confirm or deny his culpability. No evidence firmly places Bundy in Burlington on that date, but municipal records note that a person named "Bundy" was bitten by a dog that week, and long stretches of Bundy's time-including the summer of 1971-remain unaccounted for. However, the Burlington Police Department announced during a 2023 press conference that Curran's killer was actually her next-door neighbor, William DeRoos, who had been identified using DNA extracted from a discarded cigarette butt found at the crime scene.
  • Joyce Margaret LePage (age 21)
    Last seen on the evening of July 22, 1971, when friends dropped her off at her apartment on the campus of Washington State University, where she was an undergraduate. Later, her vehicle would be discovered by police parked four blocks from her residence. Nine months later, her skeletal remains were found wrapped in two "military" blankets, bound with rope, in a deep ravine south of Pullman, Washington. Her remains were also covered with a sizable piece of green shag carpet that had been previously reported missing from Stevens Hall, a women's residence on the WSU campus, which was vacant and undergoing renovations in the summer of 1971. The cause of her death was confirmed to be three knife wounds to her chest, which was determined during an FBI forensic examination of her bones. Police concluded from the available evidence that she had been stabbed to death in Stevens Hall before being wrapped in carpet and taken to the ravine. Multiple suspects-including Bundy-have "never been cleared". According to reports, a "yellow VW Bug" and a person matching Bundy's description were spotted on campus at the time of the disappearance. LePage's case was briefly brought up by Keppel in January 1989, but Bundy did not either confirm or deny his involvement in the murder. Whitman County authorities have said that Bundy remains a suspect.
  • Kerry May-Hardy (age 22)
    Disappeared whilst hitchhiking on June 13, 1972, from Woodland Park, Seattle. Hardy's skeletal remains were unearthed on September 6, 2010, by construction machinery, in a grave measuring two feet in depth. At the time she was reported missing, the site had been used for logging, and it was heavily wooded. A facial reconstruction was later created and her DNA was obtained in 2004 from family members. DNA from the skeleton matched the family's sample on June 1, 2011. The location where her body was discovered was in general proximity to where Bundy discarded known victims near Interstate 90, only five miles from his mass grave at Taylor Mountain. Hardy also matched Bundy's supposed victim preference and is even known to have shared a mutual acquaintance with Bundy; although it is uncertain if they actually knew each other. However, Bundy's involvement in her death is merely conjecture with notable forensic psychologist, Dr. Park Dietz, expressing skepticism over the notion. Bundy was executed in 1989, never mentioning direct involvement.
  • Rita Lorraine Jolly (age 17
    Disappeared from West Linn, Oregon, on June 29, 1973, after leaving her residence on Horton Road to go for a walk. Jolly was last seen between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., walking uphill on Sunset Avenue. Vicki Lynn Hollar, 24, disappeared from Eugene, Oregon, on August 20, 1973. She was last seen getting into her car at a parking lot en route to her apartment. Bundy confessed to two homicides in Oregon without identifying the victims. Oregon detectives suspected that they were Jolly and Hollar, but were unable to obtain an interview with Bundy to confirm it. Both women remain classified as missing.
  • Suzanne Rae Justis (age 23)Last seen in Portland, Oregon on November 5, 1973. A resident of Eugene, Justis was last heard from when she telephoned her parents from outside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and said she would return to Eugene the following day to pick up her son from school. Her mother reserved a room for her at a nearby motel, but Justis never used the room. Her car was later found in Eugene, leading authorities to believe that Justis had hitchhiked to Portland. Her body has not been found. In 1989, law enforcement identified Bundy as a prime suspect in the Justis case due to the fact that her disappearance occurred within six months of the murder of Parks and because of how Justis fitted Bundy's preferred victim profile.
  • Katherine Merry Devine (age 14)
    Abducted on November 25, 1973, and her body was found the next month in the Capitol State Forest near Olympia, Washington. Brenda Joy Baker, 14, was last seen hitchhiking near Puyallup, on May 27, 1974; her body was found in Millersylvania State Park a month later. Her throat had been slit. Though Bundy was widely believed responsible for both murders, he told Keppel that he had no knowledge of either case. DNA analysis led to the arrest and conviction of William Cosden for Devine's murder in 2002. The Baker homicide remains unsolved although Cosden is considered the prime suspect in her case.
  • Sandra Jean Weaver (age 19)
    Wisconsin native who had been living in Tooele, was last seen leaving the Warehouse District in Salt Lake City for her lunch break at around 10:30 a.m. on July 1, 1974. Her nude body was discovered the following day by tourists hiking in De Beque by the Colorado River near Grand Junction, Colorado. She had been sexually assaulted and died by suffocation due to strangulation before being dumped off a service road. Salt Lake County Sheriff's Detective Jerry Thompson later stated that Weaver's case was "very similar" to the subsequent deaths of Smith and Aime. However, Weaver's murder officially remains unsolved.
  • Rhonda Stapley (age 21)
    University of Utah student was waiting at a bus stop in Salt Lake City on October 11, 1974, when she was allegedly approached by Bundy who had pulled over and offered her a ride in his Volkswagen Beetle. After entering his vehicle, Bundy drove to an isolated canyon picnic spot, shut off the engine, turned to her and said: "Do you know what? I am going to kill you now." He then repeatedly choked and raped Stapley over a period of three hours until Bundy, who thought she was dead, was distracted by something near his car and she was able to run into the woods. Although she would not publicly acknowledge the incident until 2011, her account was supported by Ann Rule who said that it was consistent with the FBI's timeline of Bundy's activities in 1974.
  • Melanie Suzanne Cooley (age 18)
    Disappeared on April 15, 1975, after leaving Nederland High School in Nederland, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Denver. She was last seen by classmates hitchhiking nearby after her classes were over. Her corpse was discovered by road maintenance workers two weeks later in Coal Creek Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) away from where she was last seen. According to Jefferson County Sheriff Brad Leach: "She had been bludgeoned, perhaps with a stone. Her hands were tied in front with a yellow nylon cord; many, many feet of it, wrapped around and around. She died from a blow to the head and strangulation. Her face had been beaten repeatedly with a rock." Ann Rule described how "a filthy pillow case, perhaps used as a garrotte, perhaps as a blindfold, was still twisted around her neck." Gas station receipts place Bundy in nearby Golden on the day Cooley disappeared. Jefferson County authorities consider the evidence in Cooley's case to be inconclusive and continue to treat her homicide as a cold case.
  • Shelley Kay Robertson (age 24)
    Failed to show up for work in Golden on July 1, 1975. She was last seen on June 29, at 34th and Sheridan Streets in Denver trying to hitchhike to her place of employment. Her nude, decomposed body was found on August 21, 500 feet (150 m) inside a mine on Berthoud Pass near Winter Park Resort by two mining students. Her body was bound with duct tape and it was determined that she had been struck on the head and the right side of her chest. In 1976, Bundy was questioned about the Robertson case by Clear Creek County Detective Bob Denning who subsequently stated that he was "99% sure" that Robertson's killer was Bundy. "Crumpled up credit card receipts found in his VW" placed Bundy in Golden a few days before and on the day of Robertson's disappearance, but there is no direct evidence of his involvement; the case remains open.
  • Nancy Perry Baird (age 23)
    Disappeared from the gas station where she worked as a service station attendant in Layton, 25 miles north of Salt Lake City, on July 4, 1975, and remains classified as a missing person. A police officer on patrol saw her working alone there, and at 5:30 p.m., less than fifteen minutes later, she was discovered missing. Bundy admitted to eight Utah homicides shortly before his execution and authorities suspected that one of the unidentified victims could have been Baird. However, her suspected kidnapping did not fit the profile of Bundy's past crimes in a number of respects, and he explicitly denied involvement in this case during the interviews he gave from his death row cell.
  • Deborah Diane Smith (age 17)
    Last seen in Salt Lake City in early-February 1976, shortly before the DaRonch trial began; her body was found by a Utah Power and Light worker checking on poles in an open pasture near the Salt Lake City International Airport on April 1, 1976. Salt Lake Detective Jim Bell suspected that Bundy may have killed Smith. "We're still in limbo on the Debbie Smith one," Bell said. "We're going to wait for a time chart. We haven't come up with anything on Bundy, but we haven't ruled anything out, either." Her murder remains unsolved.
  • Joy Kathleen Harmon (age 22)
    Last seen exiting the Better Days Bar in Salt Lake City on the evening of March 2, 1976. On March 6, a hiker between Parley's Canyon and Emigration Canyon found her partially clothed body north of Interstate 80. Harmon had been strangled and beaten; her murder occurred the day after Bundy was found guilty of aggravated kidnapping and three months before he was sentenced to prison and incarcerated on June 30. Her case is still unsolved.

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