On January 20 and 22, 1989, Ted Bundy sat down with King County Detective Robert Keppel to give his final confessions. As a gesture of good faith, and with the hope of receiving a stay in exchange for more information on the final resting place of his unrecovered victims, Bundy described the final hours and resting place of one Seattle victim, Georgann Hawkins. Hawkins was a freshman at the University of Washington in Seattle who was abducted only steps away from her sorority house. His “Bones for Time” strategy was a desperate last attempt to ward off execution, as Bundy intended for her remains to be found so he would be seen as too valuable to be put to death. After Bundy’s execution, investigators unsuccessfully attempted to locate her remains in Issaquah.
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The Presentence Investigation Report, 1976
In March 1976 Salt Lake City district court Judge Stewart Hanson ordered a presentence investigation report for Ted Bundy after his conviction in the Carol DaRonch kidnapping case. The judge wanted more information about Bundy’s life, as his clean-cut, law student exterior clashed with the violent crime he had been found guilty of committing. Don Hull with the Utah Department of Probation and Parole was assigned to investigate his background and reported the results to Judge Hanson before final sentencing.
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Case File: Melissa Smith, 1974
Seventeen-year-old Melissa Smith disappeared the night of October 18, 1974 while walking home from a pizza restaurant in Midvale, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Her nude, beaten, and strangled body was discovered by hunters nine days later in a wooded area. While Ted Bundy never admitted to her murder, when directly asked during his final confessions he did not deny it either. This is her case file.
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Salt Lake City Police Surveillance Logs, 1975
After Ted’s arrest on August 16, 1975, Salt Lake area police quickly put two and two together, tying him to the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch from nearly a year earlier. By early September, police from multiple jurisdictions were working together to follow the young law student and watch his campus-area home on the Avenues.
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The Police Interviews, 1975-1978
In late summer of 1975, Salt Lake area police decided they needed to look into Ted Bundy’s associates: his neighbors, friends, girlfriends, and employers. This is what they had to say.
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The Police Interviews: Liz Kloepfer, 1975
Elizabeth Kloepfer had been Ted Bundy’s girlfriend for nearly six years by the time he was arrested in Salt Lake City. After he became a suspect in the DaRonch kidnapping and Kent disappearance, police became especially interested in talking to her. Liz had struggled with her suspicions about Ted since the double murders at Lake Sammamish in Seattle nearly a year earlier. Here a distraught Liz dicusses Ted’s strange behaviors, personality, and background, as well as intimate details of their sex life and relationship.
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The Unconfirmed Cases: Joyce Margaret LePage, 1971
This is an installment of my ongoing “unconfirmed” case study series. All of these cases have been connected to Ted Bundy in some way, whether by active investigation or later speculation, but never officially linked to him. As they are all still unsolved, generally police will not release the case files. However, using newspaper archives and other works for reference, I have written the most exhaustive summary of each case as I can. I also include my own analysis based on my research and personal knowledge of Bundy’s timeline and modus operandi.
All suspects are innocent until proven guilty and all opinions are my own and not that of law enforcement unless otherwise indicated.
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The Other Girlfriends, 1968-1976
Several other women were romantically linked to Ted Bundy besides his well-known girlfriends Diane Edwards, Liz Kloepfer, and Carole Boone. While less discussed than his major relationships, all of these women had interesting stories to share about their time with Ted both before and during his murders.
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Case File: Debra Jean Kent, 1974
The following are excerpts from the Bountiful Police Department’s file on the missing person case of seventeen year old Debra Jean Kent. Ted Bundy confessed to Debra’s murder two days before his execution in 1989. Only her right patella has ever been found.
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Trial Transcript: Theodore Bundy, Part II, 1976
This is the cross examination of Ted Bundy by David Yocom, Assistant Salt Lake County prosecutor, in the Carol DaRonch kidnapping trial. Bruce Lubeck and John O’Connell were Bundy’s defense attorneys. The testimony occurred on Thursday February 26, 1976.
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