3 minSociety
Utah authorities expected to link Ted Bundy to another decades-old homicide
Utah officials are expected to identify a 1974 victim and present evidence tying Ted Bundy to the killing, nearly 40 years after his execution.
Utah authorities are expected to link serial killer Ted Bundy to another decades-old homicide on Tuesday, nearly 40 years after he was executed. The Summit County Sheriff's Office and county attorney are scheduled to identify the victim at a news conference and reveal the evidence connecting Bundy to the killing. Officials are also expected to explain why investigators are closing the case.
The victim's identity has not yet been released. The 1974 death of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith has long been listed as a cold case, according to The Associated Press. Tuesday's announcement follows by about six months an earlier breakthrough in which authorities in Utah County used DNA evidence to tie Bundy to the 1974 killing of another 17-year-old, Laura Ann Aime.
Aime disappeared after leaving a Halloween party to buy cigarettes on Oct. 31, 1974. Hikers found her body near American Fork Canyon days later, and investigators determined she had been raped, strangled and murdered. For decades Bundy was considered the prime suspect in her death. He had begun studying law at the University of Utah just two months before she vanished. The case remained unsolved for 51 years until investigators with the Utah County Sheriff's Office used newer DNA technology to develop a male DNA profile from bodily fluids found on Aime's remains.
That profile was entered into the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, which produced a match in Florida. Additional analysis ultimately linked the DNA to Bundy. At an April news conference, Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith said, «We bring this case to a closure and, more importantly, closure to the Aime family.» The sheriff's office later shared the DNA profile with other law enforcement agencies in hopes of identifying more of Bundy's victims. Officials said at the time they believed the breakthrough could help resolve another cold case, though they did not provide details.
Bundy killed at least 30 women and girls across multiple states during the 1970s, according to the AP. In his final days he confessed to a series of killings, including some crimes previously unknown to police, though not all of those cases have been confirmed. He has been linked to killings in Florida, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Washington between 1974 and 1978. He was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering two Florida State University students in 1979, and received a second death sentence the following year for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. He was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989.
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