Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell (1924–2012, known by her middle name) at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers[11] in Burlington, Vermont. His biological father's identity has never been confirmed; his original birth certificate apparently assigns paternity to a salesman and United States Air Force veteran named Lloyd Marshall,[12] though a copy of it listed his father as unknown.[13] Louise claimed she met a war veteran named Jack Worthington,[14] who abandoned her soon after she became pregnant.[15] Census records reveal that several men by the name of "Jack Worthington" and "Lloyd Marshall" lived in the area when Bundy was conceived.[16] Some family members expressed suspicions that Bundy might have been fathered by Louise's own father, Samuel Cowell.[17] In the 2020 documentary film Crazy, Not Insane, psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis claimed to have arranged a DNA test which confirmed that Bundy was not the product of incest.[18]

For the first three years of his life, Bundy lived in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandparents, Samuel (1898–1983) and Eleanor Cowell (1895–1971), who raised him as their son to avoid the social stigma that accompanied birth outside of wedlock at that time. Family, friends, and even young Ted were told that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. Bundy eventually discovered the truth, although his recollections of the circumstances varied; he told a girlfriend that a cousin showed him a copy of his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard,"[19] but he told biographers Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth that he had found the certificate himself.[13] Biographer and true crime writer Ann Rule, who knew Bundy personally, wrote that he did not find out until 1969, when he located his original birth record in Vermont.[20] Bundy expressed a lifelong resentment toward his mother for never talking to him about his real father, and for leaving him to discover his true parentage for himself.[21]

Bundy occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior at an early age. Louise's younger sister Julia recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen, and three-year-old Ted standing by the bed, smiling.[22] Bundy's childhood neighbor Sandi Holt described him as a bully, saying, "He liked to terrify people... He liked to be in charge. He liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear."[23]

In some interviews, Bundy spoke warmly of his grandparents[24] and told Rule that he "identified with," "respected," and "clung to" his grandfather.[25] In 1987, however, he and other family members told attorneys that Samuel was a tyrannical bully who beat his wife and dog, exhibited bigotry (including religious intolerance, racism, and xenophobia), and swung neighborhood cats by their tails. In one instance, Samuel threw Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping.[26] He sometimes spoke aloud to unseen presences,[27] and at least once flew into a violent rage when the question of Bundy's paternity was raised.[26] Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent electroconvulsive therapy for depression[27] and feared to leave their house toward the end of her life.[28] These descriptions of Bundy's grandparents have been questioned in more recent investigations. Some locals remembered Samuel Cowell as a "fine man", if a bit eccentric. A cousin of Bundy claimed that the negative characterizations of Samuel Cowell likely arose to explain why his grandson became a serial killer. In addition, Louise's sister Audrey stated that their mother couldn't leave her home because she suffered a stroke due to being overweight and was not mentally ill.[29]

Bundy as a senior in high school, 1965

In 1950, Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson[12] and, at the urging of multiple family members, left Philadelphia with Ted to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in Tacoma, Washington.[30] In 1951 she met Johnny Culpepper Bundy (1921–2007), a hospital cook, at an adult singles night at Tacoma's First Methodist Church.[31] They married later that year and Johnny formally adopted Ted.[31] Johnny and Louise conceived four children together, and though Johnny tried to include his adopted son in camping trips and other family activities, Ted remained distant from him.[32] He would later complain to a girlfriend that Johnny wasn't his real father, "wasn't very bright," and "didn't make much money."[33]

Bundy varied his recollections of Tacoma in later years. To Michaud and Aynesworth, he described roaming his neighborhood, picking through trash barrels in search of pictures of naked women [34] and to Polly Nelson he said that he perused detective magazines, crime novels, and true crime documentaries for stories that involved sexual violence, particularly when the stories were illustrated with pictures of dead or maimed women.[35] In a letter to Rule, however, he asserted that he "never, ever read fact-detective magazines, and shuddered at the thought that anyone would."[36] He told Michaud that he would consume large quantities of alcohol and "canvass the community" late at night in search of undraped windows where he could observe women undressing, or "whatever [else] could be seen."[37]

Accounts of Bundy's social life also varied. He told Michaud and Aynesworth that he "chose to be alone" as an adolescent because he was unable to understand interpersonal relationships.[38] He claimed that he had no natural sense of how to develop friendships. "I didn't know what made people want to be friends," Bundy said. "I didn't know what underlay social interactions."[39] Classmates from Woodrow Wilson High School however, told Rule that Bundy was "well known and well liked" there, "a medium-sized fish in a large pond."[40]

Bundy's only significant athletic avocation was downhill skiing, which he pursued enthusiastically with stolen equipment and forged lift tickets.[13] During high school, he was arrested at least twice on suspicion of burglary and motor vehicle theft. When he reached age 18 the details of the incidents were expunged from his record, as is customary in Washington and many other U.S. states.[41]

After graduating from high school in 1965, Bundy attended the University of Puget Sound (UPS) for one year before transferring to the University of Washington (UW) to study Chinese.[42] In 1967, he became romantically involved with a UW classmate, Diane Edwards (identified in Bundy biographies by several pseudonyms, most commonly Stephanie Brooks).[43][44] In early 1968, Bundy dropped out of college and worked a series of minimum-wage jobs. He also volunteered at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign[45] and became Arthur Fletcher's driver and bodyguard during Fletcher's campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Washington State.[46]

In August, Bundy attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami as a Rockefeller delegate.[47] Shortly thereafter, Edwards ended their relationship and returned to her family home in California, frustrated by what she described as Bundy's immaturity and lack of ambition. Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis would later pinpoint this crisis as "probably the pivotal time in his development".[48] Devastated by the breakup, Bundy traveled to Colorado and then farther east, visiting relatives in Arkansas and Philadelphia and enrolling for one semester at Temple University.[49] It was also at this time in early 1969, Rule believed, that Bundy visited the office of birth records in Burlington and confirmed his true parentage.[49][50]

Bundy was back in Washington by the fall of 1969, when he met Elizabeth Kloepfer (identified in Bundy literature as Meg Anders, Beth Archer, or Liz Kendall), a single mother from Ogden, Utah, who worked as a secretary at the UW School of Medicine.[51] Their stormy relationship would continue well past his initial incarceration in Utah in 1976.[52] Bundy became a father figure to Kloepfer's daughter Molly, who was three years old when he started dating her mother; he remained in her life until she was aged 10, after he had been arrested. As an adult, Molly wrote of incidents beginning at age 7 in which Bundy was abusive or sexually inappropriate with her. Her accounts include Bundy hitting her in the face, knocking her down, putting her at risk of drowning, indecent exposure, and sexual touching disguised as accidents or "games."[53][54]

In mid-1970, Bundy, now focused and goal-oriented, re-enrolled at UW, this time as a psychology major. He became an honor student and was well regarded by his professors.[55] In 1971, he took a job at Seattle's Suicide Hotline Crisis Center. There, he met and worked alongside Ann Rule, a former Seattle police officer and aspiring crime writer who would later write one of the definitive Bundy biographies, The Stranger Beside Me. Rule saw nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality at the time; she described him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic."[56]

After graduating from UW in 1972,[57] Bundy joined Governor Daniel J. Evans's re-election campaign.[58] Posing as a college student, he shadowed Evans's opponent, former governor Albert Rosellini, and recorded his stump speeches for analysis by Evans's team.[59][60] Evans appointed Bundy to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee.[61] After Evans was re-elected, Bundy was hired as an assistant to Ross Davis, Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. Davis thought well of Bundy and described him as "smart, aggressive ... and a believer in the system."[62] In early 1973, despite mediocre LSAT scores, Bundy was accepted into the law schools of UPS and the University of Utah on the strength of letters of recommendation from Evans, Davis, and several UW psychology professors.[63][64]

During a trip to California on Republican Party business in the summer of 1973, Bundy rekindled his relationship with Edwards. She marveled at his transformation into a serious and dedicated professional who was seemingly on the cusp of a significant legal and political career. Bundy continued to date Kloepfer as well; neither woman was aware of the other's existence. In the fall of 1973, he matriculated at UPS Law School,[65] and continued courting Edwards, who flew to Seattle several times to stay with him. They discussed marriage, and at one point he introduced her to Davis as his fiancée.[33]

In January 1974, Bundy abruptly broke off all contact with Edwards; her phone calls and letters went unreturned. When she finally reached him by phone a month later, she demanded to know why he had unilaterally ended their relationship without explanation. In a flat, calm voice, he replied, "Diane, I have no idea what you mean," and hung up. She never heard from him again.[66] Bundy later explained, "I just wanted to prove to myself that I could have married her";[67] but Edwards concluded in retrospect that he had deliberately planned the entire courtship and rejection in advance, as vengeance for the breakup she initiated in 1968.[66]

By then, Bundy had begun skipping classes at law school. By April he had stopped attending entirely,[68] as young women began to disappear in the Pacific Northwest.[69]

There is no consensus as to when or where Bundy began killing women. He told different stories to different people and refused to divulge the specifics of his earliest crimes, even as he confessed in graphic detail to dozens of later murders in the days preceding his execution.[70] He told Nelson that he attempted his first kidnapping in 1969 in Ocean City, New Jersey, but did not kill anyone until sometime in 1971 in Seattle.[71] He told psychologist Art Norman that he killed two women in Atlantic City while visiting family in Philadelphia in 1969.[72][73]

Bundy hinted to homicide detective Robert D. Keppel that he committed a murder in Seattle in 1972[74] and another murder in 1973 that involved a hitchhiker near Tumwater, but he refused to elaborate.[75] Rule and Keppel both believed that he might have started killing as a teenager.[76][77] Bundy's earliest documented homicides were committed in 1974, when he was 27 years old. By his own admission, he had by then mastered the necessary skills—in the era before DNA profiling—to leave minimal incriminating forensic evidence at crime scenes.[78]

Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1974 (around the time that he terminated his relationship with Edwards), Bundy entered the basement apartment of 18-year-old Karen Sparks[79] (often identified as Joni Lenz,[80][81] Mary Adams,[82] and Terri Caldwell[83] in Bundy literature), a dancer and student at UW. After bludgeoning Sparks with a metal rod from her bed frame, he sexually assaulted her with either the same rod[67][84] or a metal speculum,[81] causing extensive internal injuries. She remained unconscious in the hospital for ten days[83] and although she survived, she was left with physical disabilities.[85] In the early morning hours of February 1, Bundy broke into the basement room of Lynda Ann Healy, a UW undergraduate who broadcast morning radio weather reports for skiers. He beat her unconscious; dressed her in blue jeans, a white blouse, and boots; and carried her away.[86]

During the first half of 1974, female college students disappeared at the rate of about one per month. On March 12, Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of Seattle, left her dormitory to attend a jazz concert on campus but never arrived. On April 17, Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared while on her way to her dorm room after an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Seattle.[87][88] Two female Central Washington students later came forward to report encounters—one on the night of Rancourt's disappearance, the other three nights earlier—with a man wearing a sling, who was asking for help carrying a load of books to his brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.[89][90] On May 6, Roberta Kathleen Parks left her dormitory at Oregon State University in Corvallis,[91] 260 miles (420 km) south of Seattle, to have coffee with friends at the Memorial Union, but never arrived.[92]

Investigators from Seattle and King County grew increasingly concerned. There was no significant physical evidence, and the missing women had little in common apart from similar appearance: young, attractive, white college students with long hair parted in the middle.[93] On June 1, Brenda Carol Ball, 22, disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien, near Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. She was last seen in the parking lot, talking to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling.[94]

In the early hours of June 11, UW student Georgann Hawkins vanished while walking down a brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dormitory residence and her sorority house.[95] The next morning, three Seattle homicide detectives and a criminalist combed the entire alleyway on their hands and knees, finding nothing.[96] Bundy later told Keppel that he lured Hawkins to his car and knocked her unconscious with a crowbar. After handcuffing her, he drove her to Issaquah, a suburb 20 miles (30 km) east of Seattle, where he strangled her and spent the entire night with her body.[97][98] He later returned to the UW alley the morning after and, in the very midst of a major crime scene investigation, located and gathered Hawkins's earrings and one of her shoes where he had left them in the adjoining parking lot, and departed, unobserved. "It was a feat so brazen," wrote Keppel, "that it astonishes police even today."[99] Bundy said he revisited Hawkins' corpse on three occasions.[100]

After Hawkins's disappearance was publicized, witnesses came forward to report seeing a man in an alley behind a nearby dormitory on the night of her disappearance. He was on crutches with a leg cast and was struggling to carry a briefcase.[101] One woman recalled that the man asked her to help him carry the case to his car, a light brown Volkswagen Beetle.[102]

During this period, Bundy was working in Olympia as the assistant director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission, where he wrote a pamphlet for women on rape prevention.[103] Later, he worked at the Department of Emergency Services (DES), a state government agency involved in the search for the missing women. At the DES he met and began dating Carole Ann Boone, a twice-divorced mother of two who would play an important role in the final phase of his life six years later.[104]

Bundy's 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, in which he committed many of his crimes. The vehicle was on display at the now-defunct National Museum of Crime and Punishment[105][106] and is now at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.[107]

Reports of the brutal attack on Sparks and the six missing women appeared prominently in newspapers and on television throughout Washington and Oregon.[108] Fear spread among the population; hitchhiking by young women dropping sharply.[109] Pressure mounted on law enforcement agencies,[110] but the scarcity of physical evidence severely hampered them. Police would not provide reporters with the little information that was available for fear of compromising the investigation.[111] Further similarities between the victims were noted: the disappearances all took place at night, usually near ongoing construction work, and were within a week of midterm or final exams. All of the victims were wearing slacks or blue jeans when they disappeared, and at many crime scenes there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.[112]

The Oregon and Washington murders culminated on July 14 with the broad daylight abductions of two women from a crowded beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah.[113] Five female witnesses described an attractive young man wearing a white tennis outfit with his left arm in a sling, speaking with a light accent, perhaps Canadian or British. Introducing himself as "Ted," he asked their help in unloading a sailboat from his tan or bronze-colored Volkswagen Beetle. Four refused; one accompanied him as far as his car, saw that there was no sailboat, and fled. Three additional witnesses saw him approach Janice Anne Ott, 23, a probation caseworker at the King County Juvenile Court, with the sailboat story and watched her leave the beach in his company.[114] About four hours later, Denise Marie Naslund, a 19-year-old woman who was studying to become a computer programmer, left a picnic to go to the restroom and never returned.[115] Bundy told Stephen Michaud and William Hagmaier that Ott was still alive when he returned with Naslund and that he forced one to watch as he murdered the other,[116][117][118] but he later denied it in an interview with Lewis on the eve of his execution.[119]

King County police, finally armed with a detailed description of their suspect and his car, posted fliers throughout the Seattle area. A composite sketch was printed in regional newspapers and broadcast on local television stations. Kloepfer, Rule, a DES employee, and a UW psychology professor all recognized the profile, the sketch, and the car, and reported Bundy as a possible suspect;[120] but detectives—who were receiving up to 200 tips per day[121]—thought it unlikely that a clean-cut law student with no adult criminal record could be the perpetrator.[122]

On September 6, two grouse hunters stumbled across the skeletal remains of Ott and Naslund near a service road in Issaquah, 2 miles (3 km) east of Lake Sammamish State Park.[113][123] An extra femur and several vertebrae found at the site were later identified by Bundy as those of Hawkins.[124] Six months later, forestry students from Green River Community College discovered the skulls and mandibles of Healy, Rancourt, Parks, and Ball on Taylor Mountain, where Bundy frequently hiked, just east of Issaquah.[125] Manson's remains were never recovered.

Rooming house in Salt Lake City where Bundy lived from Sept. 1974 to Oct. 1975, showing the fire escape used to sneak into his room and windows to the utility room where he concealed photo souvenirs of his murders[126]

In August 1974, Bundy received a second acceptance from the University of Utah Law School and moved to Salt Lake City, leaving Kloepfer in Seattle. While he called Kloepfer often, he dated "at least a dozen" other women.[127] As he studied the first-year law curriculum a second time, he was devastated to find out that the other students "had something, some intellectual capacity", that he did not. He found the classes completely incomprehensible. "It was a great disappointment to me," he said.[128]

A new string of homicides began the following month, including two that would remain undiscovered until Bundy confessed to them shortly before his execution. On September 2, he raped and strangled a still-unidentified hitchhiker in Idaho, then either disposed of the remains immediately in a nearby river[129] or returned the next day to photograph and dismember the corpse.[130][131] On October 2, he abducted 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox in Holladay, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.[132][133] Bundy informed investigators that her remains were buried near Capitol Reef National Park, some 200 miles (320 km) south of Holladay, but they were never found.[134]

On October 18, Melissa Anne Smith—the 17-year-old daughter of the police chief of Midvale, another Salt Lake City suburb—disappeared after leaving a pizza parlor. Her nude body was found in a nearby mountainous area nine days later; postmortem examination indicated that she may have remained alive for up to seven days following her disappearance.[135][136] On October 31, Laura Ann Aime, also 17, disappeared 25 miles (40 km) south of there in Lehi after leaving a café just after midnight.[137] Her naked body was found by hikers 9 miles (14 km) to the northeast in American Fork Canyon on Thanksgiving Day.[138] Both girls had been beaten, raped, sodomized, and strangled with nylon stockings.[139][140] Years later, Bundy described his postmortem rituals with the corpses of Smith and Aime, including hair shampooing and application of makeup.[141][142]

In the late afternoon of November 8, Bundy approached 18-year-old telephone operator Carol DaRonch at Fashion Place Mall in Murray,[143] less than a mile from the Midvale restaurant where Smith was last seen. He identified himself as "Officer Roseland" of the Murray Police Department and told DaRonch that someone had attempted to break into her car. He asked her to accompany him to the station to file a complaint. When DaRonch pointed out to Bundy that he was driving on a road that did not lead to the police station, he immediately pulled onto the shoulder and attempted to handcuff her. During their struggle, he inadvertently fastened both handcuffs to the same wrist, and DaRonch was able to open the car door and escape.[144] Later that evening, Debra Jean Kent, a 17-year-old student at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, 20 miles (30 km) north of Murray, disappeared after leaving a theater production at the school to pick up her brother.[145] The school's drama teacher and a student told police that "a stranger" had asked each of them to come out to the parking lot to identify a car. Another student later saw the same man pacing in the rear of the auditorium, and the drama teacher spotted him again shortly before the end of the play.[146] Outside the auditorium, investigators found a key that unlocked the handcuffs removed from DaRonch's wrist.[147]

In November, Kloepfer called King County police a second time after reading that young women were disappearing in towns surrounding Salt Lake City. Detective Randy Hergesheimer of the Major Crimes division interviewed her in detail. By then, Bundy had risen considerably on the King County hierarchy of suspicion, but the Lake Sammamish witness considered most reliable by detectives failed to identify him from a photo lineup.[148] In December, Kloepfer called the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and repeated her suspicions. Bundy's name was added to their list of suspects, but at that time no credible forensic evidence linked him to the Utah crimes.[149] In January 1975, Bundy returned to Seattle after his final exams and spent a week with Kloepfer, who did not tell him that she had reported him to police on three occasions. She made plans to visit him in Salt Lake City in August.[150]

Caryn Campbell: Bundy's 14th documented murder victim and the subject of his first homicide indictment

In 1975, Bundy shifted much of his criminal activity eastward, from his base in Utah to Colorado. On January 12, a 23-year-old registered nurse named Caryn Eileen Campbell disappeared while walking down a well-lit hallway between the elevator and her room at the Wildwood Inn (now the Wildwood Lodge) in Snowmass Village, 400 miles (640 km) southeast of Salt Lake City.[151] Her nude body was found a month later next to a dirt road just outside the resort. She had been killed by blows to her head from a blunt instrument that left distinctive linear grooved depressions on her skull; her body also bore deep cuts from a sharp weapon.[152] On March 15, 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Snowmass, Vail ski instructor Julie Cunningham, 26, disappeared while walking from her apartment to a dinner date with a friend. Bundy later told Colorado investigators that he approached Cunningham on crutches and asked her to help carry his ski boots to his car, where he clubbed and handcuffed her before sexually assaulting and strangling her at a secondary site near Rifle, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail.[153][154] Weeks later, he made the six-hour drive from Salt Lake City to revisit her remains.[154][155]

Denise Lynn Oliverson, 25, disappeared near the Utah–Colorado border in Grand Junction on April 6 while riding her bicycle to her parents' house; her bike and sandals were found under a viaduct near a railroad bridge.[156] On May 6, Bundy lured 12-year-old Lynette Dawn Culver from Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho, 160 miles (255 km) north of Salt Lake City. He drowned her in his hotel room,[157] after which he disposed of her body in a river (likely the Snake River) north of Pocatello.[158][159]

Caryn Campbell disappeared while walking down this brightly lit hallway to her hotel room.

In mid-May, three of Bundy's Washington State DES coworkers, including Boone, visited him in Salt Lake City and stayed for a week in his apartment. He subsequently spent a week in Seattle with Kloepfer in early June and they discussed getting married the following Christmas. Again, Kloepfer made no mention of her multiple discussions with authorities in King County and Salt Lake County. Bundy disclosed neither his ongoing relationship with Boone nor a concurrent romance with a Utah law student known in various accounts as Kim Andrews[160] or Sharon Auer.[161]

On June 28, Susan Curtis vanished from the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, 45 miles (70 km) south of Salt Lake City. Her murder became Bundy's last confession, tape-recorded moments before he entered the execution chamber.[162] The bodies of Wilcox, Kent, Cunningham, Oliverson, Culver, and Curtis were never recovered.

In August or September 1975, Bundy was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although he was not an active participant in services and ignored most church restrictions.[163][164][165] He would later be excommunicated by the LDS Church following his 1976 kidnapping conviction.[163] When asked his religious preference after his arrest, Bundy answered "Methodist", the religion of his childhood.[166]

In Washington State, investigators were still struggling to analyze the Pacific Northwest murder spree that had ended as abruptly as it had begun. In an effort to make sense of an overwhelming mass of data, they resorted to the then-innovative strategy of compiling a database. They used the King County payroll computer, a "huge, primitive machine" by contemporary standards, but the only one available for their use. After inputting the many lists they had compiled—classmates and acquaintances of each victim, Volkswagen owners named "Ted", known sex offenders, and so on—they queried the computer for coincidences. Out of thousands of names, 26 turned up on four lists; one was Ted Bundy. Detectives also manually compiled a list of their 100 "best" suspects, and Bundy was on that list as well. He was "literally at the top of the pile" of suspects when word came from Utah of his arrest.[167]

• January 4: Karen Sparks (often identified as Joni Lenz in Bundy literature) (age 18): Bludgeoned and sexually assaulted in her bed as she slept;[85] survived[83][80]
• February 1: Lynda Ann Healy (21): Bludgeoned while asleep and abducted;[86] mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975[125]
• March 12: Donna Gail Manson (19): Abducted while walking to a concert at Evergreen State College; body left (according to Bundy) at Taylor Mountain site, but never found[285]
• April 17: Susan Elaine Rancourt (18): Disappeared after attending an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College;[89][90] skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975[125]
• May 6: Roberta Kathleen Parks (22): Vanished from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975[125]
• June 1: Brenda Carol Ball (22): Disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien;[92] skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site in 1975[125]
• June 11: Georgann (often misspelled "Georgeann"[95]) Hawkins (18): Abducted from an alley behind her sorority house, UW;[96] skeletal remains identified by Bundy as those of Hawkins recovered at Issaquah site[124][375]
• July 14: Janice Ann Ott (23): Abducted from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight;[114] skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site in 1974[123]
• July 14: Denise Marie Naslund (19): Abducted four hours after Ott from the same park;[115] skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site in 1974[123]

• October 2: Nancy Wilcox (16): Disappeared in Holladay, Utah;[132] body buried (according to Bundy) near Capitol Reef National Park, 200 miles (320 km) south of Salt Lake City, but never found[134]
• October 18: Melissa Anne Smith (17): Vanished from Midvale, Utah; body found nine days later on a hillside in Summit Park[135]
• October 31: Laura Ann Aime (17): Disappeared from Lehi, Utah; body discovered by hikers in American Fork Canyon[139]
• November 8: Carol DaRonch (18): Attempted abduction in Murray, Utah; escaped from Bundy's car and survived[144]
• November 8: Debra Jean Kent (17): Vanished after leaving a school play in Bountiful, Utah; body left (according to Bundy) near Fairview, Utah, 100 miles (160 km) south of Bountiful; minimal skeletal remains (one patella) found, were positively identified by DNA as Kent's in 2015[183][376]

• January 12: Caryn Eileen Campbell (23): Disappeared from a hotel hallway in Snowmass, Colorado;[151] body discovered thirty-six days later on a dirt road near the hotel[152]
• March 15: Julie Cunningham (26): Disappeared on the way to a tavern in Vail, Colorado;[153] body buried (according to Bundy) near Rifle, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail, but never found[377]
• April 6: Denise Lynn Oliverson (25): Abducted while cycling to her parents' house in Grand Junction, Colorado;[156] body thrown (according to Bundy) into the Colorado River 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Grand Junction,[378] but never found[379]
• May 6: Lynette Dawn Culver (12): Abducted from Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho;[157] body thrown (according to Bundy) into what authorities believe to be the Snake River, but never found[158]
• June 28: Susan Curtis (15): Disappeared during a youth conference at Brigham Young University;[162] body buried (according to Bundy) near Price, Utah, 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Provo, but never found[380]

• January 15: Margaret Elizabeth Bowman (21): Bludgeoned and then strangled as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU (no secondary crime scene)[381]
• January 15: Lisa Levy (20): Bludgeoned, strangled and sexually assaulted as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU (no secondary crime scene)[381]
• January 15: Karen Chandler (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU; survived[381]
• January 15: Kathy Kleiner (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU; survived[381]
• January 15: Cheryl Thomas (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, eight blocks from Chi Omega; survived[381]
• February 9: Kimberly Dianne Leach (12): Abducted from her junior high school in Lake City, Florida;[10] mummified remains found near Suwannee River State Park, 43 miles (69 km) west of Lake City[226]

Bundy remains a suspect in several unsolved homicides, 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".[382]

• Ann Marie Burr, aged 8, vanished from her Tacoma home on August 31, 1961,[383] 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.[384] The Burr house was on Bundy's newspaper delivery route. The victim'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.[385] Other circumstantial evidence implicates Bundy as well, but detectives familiar with the case have never agreed on the likelihood of his involvement.[74][386] Bundy repeatedly denied culpability and wrote a letter of denial to the Burr family in 1986;[387] but 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".[382] 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.[388]
• Flight attendants Lisa E. Wick and Lonnie Ree Trumbull, both 20, were bludgeoned with a piece of lumber as they slept in their basement apartment in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood on June 23, 1966.[389] Trumbull died. In retrospect, Keppel noted many similarities to the Chi Omega crime scene.[390] 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."[391] In the absence of incriminating evidence, Bundy's involvement remains unconfirmed.[392]
• Vacationing college friends Susan Margarite Davis and Elizabeth Perry, both 19, were stabbed to death on May 30, 1969.[72] Their car was found that day abandoned beside the Garden State Parkway outside Somers Point, New Jersey, near Atlantic City, 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Philadelphia; and their bodies—one nude, one fully clothed—were found in nearby woods three days later.[393] 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.[72] Biographer Richard Larsen believed that Bundy committed the murders using his feigned-injury ruse, based on an investigator's interview with Julia, 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.[394] Bundy is considered a "strong suspect", but the case remains open.[394]
• Rita Patricia Curran, a 24-year-old 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.[395] The location of the motel where she worked (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.[396] Bundy told Keppel that he murdered a young woman in 1971 in Burlington when he was there to obtain information about his birth,[397] but denied specific involvement in the Curran case to Hagmaier on the eve of his execution.[398] 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,[399] and long stretches of Bundy's time—including the summer of 1971—remain unaccounted for.[45] Curran's murder officially remains unsolved.[400]
• Joyce LePage, 21, was last seen on July 22, 1971, on the campus of Washington State University, where she was an undergraduate. Nine months later, her skeletal remains were found wrapped in carpeting and military blankets, bound with rope, in a deep ravine south of Pullman, Washington. Multiple suspects—including Bundy—have "never been cleared", according to investigators.[401] Whitman County authorities have said that Bundy remains a suspect.[402]
• Kerry May-Hardy, 22, disappeared on June 24, 1972, from Capitol Hill, Washington near Seattle.[403][404] According to police, she was married at the time and her disappearance was reported to the Seattle Police Department by her mother. May-Hardy's skeletal remains were unearthed on September 6, 2010, by construction machinery, in a grave measuring two feet or less in depth. She wore blue clothing and a gold ring. Reports about the discovery within the first day mentioned that the remains may have been placed at the scene after 2002, based on previous land development activity. The following March, it was released that the date of her death was placed between the 1960s and 1990s.[405][406] At the time May-Hardy was reported missing, the site had been used for logging, and it was heavily wooded. There were no existing missing person cases from the county that were consistent with the remains. Authorities believed early on that the victim was not likely from the immediate area. Examination suggested the victim was between 5' 4" to 5' 10", at the age of 19 to 40 when she was killed. It was also noted that the then-unidentified female had undergone a significant number of dental procedures. She was erroneously thought to have possibly been of Hispanic ethnicity. Dental charting was entered into a national database, which did not lead to her identification. A facial reconstruction was later created in hopes that she would be recognized. May-Hardy's DNA was obtained in 2004 from family members, initially for the investigation of the Green River murders, committed by Gary Ridgway between the 1970s and 1990s. Her family reported a resemblance to the facial reconstruction. DNA from the skeleton matched the family's sample on June 1, 2011. The identification was announced two days later, and her relatives announced plans to bury her remains. The location where her body was found was in the general proximity where Ted Bundy discarded known victims near Interstate 90; only five miles from Bundy's mass grave at Taylor Mountain. Kerry also matched Bundy’s supposed victim preference: pretty, with long, straight hair parted in the middle. However, Bundy's involvement in her death is merely conjecture with notable forensic psychologist, Dr. Park Dietz, expressing skepticism over Bundy's involvement.[407] Bundy was executed in 1989, never mentioning involvement, and Ridgway has not reportedly commented on her case.[408][409][410][411][412]
• Rita Lorraine Jolly, 17, disappeared from West Linn, Oregon, on June 29, 1973;[413] Vicki Lynn Hollar, 24, disappeared from Eugene, Oregon, on August 20, 1973.[414] 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.[415]
• Katherine Merry Devine, 14, was abducted on November 25, 1973, and her body was found the next month in the Capitol State Forest near Olympia, Washington.[416] Brenda Joy Baker, 14, was seen hitchhiking near Puyallup, on May 27, 1974; her body was found in Millersylvania State Park a month later.[402][417] Though Bundy was widely believed responsible for both murders, he told Keppel that he had no knowledge of either case.[418][419] DNA analysis led to the arrest and conviction of William E. Cosden for Devine's murder in 2002.[416] The Baker homicide remains unsolved.
• Sandra Jean Weaver, 19, a Wisconsin native who had been living in Tooele, Utah, was last seen in Salt Lake City on July 1, 1974; her nude body was discovered the following day near Grand Junction, Colorado.[420] Sources conflict on whether Bundy mentioned Weaver's name during the death row interviews.[421] Her murder remains unsolved.[422]
• Melanie Suzanne "Suzy" Cooley, 18, disappeared on April 15, 1975, after leaving Nederland High School in Nederland, Colorado, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Denver.[423] Her bludgeoned and strangled corpse was discovered by road maintenance workers two weeks later in Coal Creek Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) away. Gas station receipts place Bundy in nearby Golden on the day Cooley disappeared.[424] She is included in some compilations of Bundy victims, but Jefferson County authorities say the evidence is inconclusive and continue to treat her homicide as a cold case.[425]
• Shelley Kay Robertson, 24, failed to show up for work in Golden on July 1, 1975. Her nude, decomposed body was found in August, 500 feet (150 m) inside a mine on Berthoud Pass near Winter Park Resort by two mining students.[426] Gas station receipts place Bundy in the area at the time, but there is no direct evidence of his involvement; the case remains open.[427]
• Nancy Perry Baird, 23, disappeared from the gas station where she worked in Layton, Utah, 25 miles (40 km) north of Salt Lake City, on July 4, 1975, and remains classified as a missing person.[428][429] Bundy specifically denied involvement in this case during the death row interviews.[361]
• Debbie Smith, 17, was last seen in Salt Lake City in early February 1976, shortly before the DaRonch trial began; her body was found near the Salt Lake City International Airport on April 1, 1976.[430] Though listed as a Bundy victim by some sources, her murder remains officially unsolved.[431]

Minutes before his execution, Hagmaier queried Bundy about unsolved homicides in New Jersey, Vermont (the Curran case), Illinois, Texas, and Miami, Florida. Bundy provided directions—later proven inaccurate—to Susan Curtis's burial site in Utah, but denied involvement in any of the open cases.[398] In 2011, Bundy's complete DNA profile, obtained from a vial of his blood found in an evidence vault, was added to the FBI's DNA database for future reference in these and other unsolved murder cases.[432]

• Rule, Ann (1980). The Stranger Beside Me. W.W. Norton and Company Inc. ISBN 978-1-938402-78-4
• Kendall, Elizabeth (1981). The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy. Abrams & Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-1419744853
• Sullivan, Kevin M (2009). The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History. McFarland and Company Inc. ISBN 978-0-786444-26-7
• Michaud, Stephen G., and Hugh Aynesworth (2000). Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer. Authorlink Press. ISBN 978-1928704-17-1
• Nelson, Polly (2019). Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer. Echo Point Books & Media. ISBN 978-1635617-91-7
• Carlisle, Al (2017). Violent Mind: The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy. Genius Book Publishing. ISBN 978-0998297-37-8
• Michaud, Stephen G., and Hugh Aynesworth (2012). The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy. Authorlink. ISBN 978-1928704119

• The Deliberate Stranger (1986), played by Mark Harmon
• Ted Bundy (2002), played by Michael Reilly Burke
• The Stranger Beside Me (2003), played by Billy Campbell
• The Riverman (2004), played by Cary Elwes
• Bundy: An American Icon (2008), played by Corin Nemec
• The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008), played by James Marsters
• Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), played by Zac Efron
• Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021), played by Chad Michael Murray[433]
• No Man of God (2021), played by Luke Kirby[434]

• The song "Ted, Just Admit it..." by Jane's Addiction[435]
• The song "Lotta True Crime" by Penelope Scott references Ted Bundy[436]
• The song "Video Crimes" by Tin Machine references Bundy.[437]
• The song "Ted Bundy" by Theory of a Deadman[438]

• Ted Bundy: Devil In Disguise.[439]
• Ted Bundy: An American Monster.[440]
• Ted Bundy: What Happened.[441]
• Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Netflix documentary series (2019)
• Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer, Amazon Prime Video documentary series (2020)