The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (12 page)

Susan Clarke had been assaulted, bludgeoned in her bed a few weeks earlier, but she survived her injuries and would eventually recover. As for 21-year-old Lynda
BUNDY, Theodore Robert

Healy, she was gone without a trace.

Ted Bundy is a striking contrast to the general image of Police had no persuasive evidence of any pattern a “homicidal maniac”: attractive, self-assured, politi-yet, but it would not be long in coming. On March 12, cally ambitious, and successful with a wide variety of Donna Gail Manson, 19, disappeared en route to a women. But his private demons drove him to extremes concert in Olympia, Washington. On April 17, 18-of violence that make the gory worst of modern year-old Susan Rancourt vanished on her way to see a

“slasher” films seem almost petty by comparison. With German-language film in Ellensburg. On May 6, 22-his chameleon-like ability to blend, his talent for year-old Roberta Parks failed to return from a late-belonging, Bundy posed an ever-present danger to the night stroll in her Corvallis neighborhood. On June 1, pretty, dark-haired women he selected as his victims.

22-year-old Brenda Ball left Seattle’s Flame Tavern Born Theodore Robert Cowell in November 1946 at with an unknown man and vanished as if into thin air.

a home for unwed mothers in Vermont, Ted never knew Ten days later, 18-year-old Georgeann Hawkins joined his father, described vaguely by Louise Cowell as a ser-the list of missing women, lost somewhere between viceman she dated several times. Poverty forced Louise her boyfriend’s apartment and her sorority house in and her newborn son to live with her strict Methodist Seattle.

parents in Philadelphia, where Ted spent the first four Now detectives had their pattern. All the missing years of his life pretending Louise was his sister. He women had been young, attractive, with their dark hair would later paint a sunny picture of those years, pro-worn at shoulder length and parted in the middle. In fessing love for grandfather Sam Cowell, but other fam-their photos, laid out side by side, they might have ily members describe Sam as a bitter racist and wife passed for sisters, some for twins. Homicide investiga-30

BUNDY, Theodore Robert

tors had no corpses yet, but they refused to cherish false swagen Beetle was parked. There was no sign of any illusions of a happy ending to the case. There were so sailboat, and his explanation—that the boat would many victims, and the worst was yet to come.

have to be retrieved from a house “up the hill”—had On July 14, a crowd assembled on the shores of Lake aroused her suspicions, prompting her to put the Sammamish to enjoy the sun and water sports of sum-stranger off.

mer. When the day was over, two more names would be Police now had a fair description of their quarry and appended to the growing list of missing women: 23-his car. The published references to “Ted” inspired a year-old Janice Ott and 19-year-old Denise Naslund rash of calls reporting suspects, one of them in reference had each disappeared within sight of their separate to college student Ted Bundy. The authorities checked friends, but this time police had a tenuous lead.

out each lead as time allowed, but Bundy was consid-Passersby remembered seeing Ott in conversation with ered “squeaky clean,” a law student and Young Repub-a man who carried one arm in a sling, and he was over-lican active in law-and-order politics, complete with heard to introduce himself as “Ted.” With that report commendations from the Seattle PD. So many calls in hand, detectives turned up other female witnesses reporting suspects had been made from spite or simple who were themselves approached by “Ted” at Lake overzealousness that Bundy’s name was filed away with Sammamish. In each case, he had asked for help secur-countless others, momentarily forgotten.

ing a sailboat to his car. The lucky women had declined, On September 7, hunters found a makeshift grave-but one had followed “Ted” to where his small Volk-yard on a wooded hillside several miles from Lake Police and scent-trained dogs search for Bundy victims. (Wide World API)
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BUNDY, Theodore Robert

Sammamish. Dental records were required to finally A week before the final grim discovery, Ted Bundy identify remains of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund; the was arrested in Salt Lake City for suspicion of burglary.

skeleton of a third woman, found with the others, Erratic driving had attracted the attention of police, and could not be identified. Five weeks later, on October an examination of his car revealed peculiar items such 12, another hunter found the bones of two more as handcuffs and a pair of pantyhose with eyeholes cut women in Clark County. One victim was identified as to form a stocking mask. The glove compartment 20-year-old Carol Valenzuela, missing for two months yielded gasoline receipts and maps that linked the sus-from Vancouver, Washington, on the Oregon border; pect to a list of Colorado ski resorts, including Vail and again, the second victim would remain unknown, Snowmass. Carol Da Ronch identified Ted Bundy as the recorded in the files as a “Jane Doe.” Police were opti-man who had attacked her in November, and her testimistic, hopeful that discovery of victims would eventu-mony was sufficient to convict him on a charge of ally lead them to the killer, but they had no way of attempted kidnapping. Other states were waiting for a knowing that their man had given them the slip shot at Bundy now, and in January 1977 he was extra-already, moving on in search of safer hunting grounds dited to Colorado for trial in the murder of Caryn and other prey.

Campbell at Snowmass.

The terror came to Utah on October 2, 1974, when Faced with prison time already, Bundy had no

16-year-old Nancy Wilcox disappeared in Salt Lake patience with the notion of another trial. He fled from City. On October 18, 17-year-old Melissa Smith van-custody in June and was recaptured after eight days on ished in Midvale; her body, raped and beaten, would be the road. On December 20 he tried again, with more unearthed in the Wasatch Mountains nine days later.

success, escaping all the way to Tallahassee, Florida, Laura Aimee, 17, joined the missing list in Orem on where he found lodgings on the outskirts of Florida October 31 while walking home in costume from a State University. Suspected in a score of deaths already, Halloween party. A month would pass before her bat-Bundy had secured himself a new hunting ground.

tered, violated body was discovered in a wooded area In the small hours of January 15, 1978, he invaded outside of town. A man attempted to abduct attractive the Chi Omega sorority house, dressed all in black and Carol Da Ronch from a Salt Lake City shopping mall armed with a heavy wooden club. Before he left, two on November 8, but she was able to escape before he women had been raped and killed, a third severely could attach a pair of handcuffs to her wrists. That injured from the blows he rained upon her head.

evening, 17-year-old Debbie Kent was kidnapped from Within the hour, he had slipped into another house, the auditorium at Salt Lake City’s Viewmont High just blocks away, to club another victim in her bed.

School.

She, too, survived. Detectives at the Chi Omega house Authorities in Utah kept communications open with discovered bite marks on the corpses of 20-year-old police in other states, including Washington. They Lisa Levy and 21-year-old Margaret Bowman,

might have noticed that a suspect from Seattle, one Ted appalling evidence of Bundy’s fervor at the moment of Bundy, was attending school in Utah when the local dis-the kill.

appearances occurred, but they were looking for a mad-On February 6, Ted stole a van and drove to Jackman rather than a sober, well-groomed student of the sonville, where he was spotted in the act of trying to law who seemed to have political connections in Seattle.

abduct a schoolgirl. Three days later, 12-year-old Kim-Bundy stayed on file and was again forgotten.

berly Leach disappeared from a schoolyard nearby; she With the new year, Colorado joined the list of hunt-was found in the first week of April, her body discov-ing grounds for an elusive killer who apparently ered near Suwanee State Park.

selected victims by their hairstyles. Caryn Campbell, Police in Pensacola spotted Bundy’s stolen license 23, was the first to vanish, from a ski lodge at Snow-plates on February 15 and were forced to run him down mass on January 12; her raped and battered body as he attempted to escape on foot. Once Bundy was would be found on February 17. On March 15, 26-identified, impressions from his teeth were taken to com-year-old Julie Cunningham disappeared en route to a pare with bite marks on the Chi Omega victims, and his tavern in Vail. One month later to the day, 18-year-old fate was sealed. Convicted on two counts of murder in Melanie Cooley went missing while riding her bicycle in July 1979, he was sentenced to die in Florida’s electric Nederland; she was discovered eight days later, dead, chair. A third conviction and death sentence was subse-her skull crushed, with her jeans pulled down around quently obtained in the case of Kimberly Leach.

her ankles. On July 1, 24-year-old Shelly Robertson It would take almost a decade to see justice done.

was added to the missing list in Golden; her remains Ted stalled his execution with repeated frivolous were found on August 23, discarded in a mine shaft appeals that went as far as the US Supreme Court in near the Berthoud Pass.

Washington. Between legal maneuvers, he passed time
32

BUONO, Angelo

with media interviews, jailhouse small talk with fellow Clackamas County, Oregon; Vicki Hollar, 24, from sadis GERARD SCHAEFER, and brief consultation with Eugene; 14-year-old Katherine Devine, of Seattle; Washington authorities on the still unsolved case of the Brenda Baker, another Seattle 14-year-old; Nancy

“GREEN RIVER KILLER.” Ted’s luck and life ran out on Baird, 21, from Farmington, Utah; 17-year-old Sandra January 24, 1989, when he was executed in the state of Weaver, killed in Utah; and yet another Utah victim, Florida. Before his execution, Bundy confessed to 20 or 17-year-old Sue Curtis. Some investigators believe 30 murders (published reports vary). The earliest mur-Bundy may have killed 100 or more victims in all, per-der admitted by Bundy was that of an unidentified haps beginning when he was an adolescent, but evi-hitchhiker killed near Olympia, Washington, in May dence is sparse to nonexistent in those cases. Bundy 1973. Two years later, Bundy said, he had killed 12-took the secret to his grave.

year-old Lynette Culver, abducted from a junior high school in Pocatello, Idaho.

In addition to those named above, authorities

BUNTING, Jon

See
SNOWTOWN

believe him responsible for at least seven other murders, committed between 1973 and 1975. Victims in those cases include: 17-year-old Rita Jolly, from
BUONO, Angelo

See
BIANCHI, KENNETH

33

C

CANNIBALISM and Serial Murder

were members of the “reactionary” old guard. In Rus-Throughout history, many cultures have sanctioned and sia, at least one case of serial murder and cannibalism ritualized the consumption of human flesh, but canni-was also reported from Leningrad during the long Nazi balism is generally banned today, since its practice siege, but details are elusive thanks to Soviet censorship.

requires either homicide or desecration of corpses (a (Perhaps significantly, Russian slayer ANDREI CHIKATILO

criminal offense in most American jurisdictions). Still, blamed his own forays into cannibalism on childhood as bizarre as it seems in modern society, cannibalism is stories concerning his older brother, allegedly murdered not particularly rare among serial killers, particularly and eaten during the famine of the 1930s.)

those driven by sexual or sadistic MOTIVES.

There is at least one case on record of serial murder Indeed, it has always been so. In ancient Mexico, and cannibalism committed as acts of revenge. Embit-where Aztecs sacrificed and cannibalized an estimated tered at the murder of his wife by members of the 15,000 victims yearly, Emperor Moctezuma was said to Crow Indian tribe, trapper John Johnston waged a prefer dining on the same young boys he chose to share ruthless vendetta in the Colorado Rockies, killing his bed. Cannibal killer ALBERT FISH also preferred the scores of tribesmen and devouring their still-warm liv-flesh of children, while California’s EDMUND KEMPER

ers, raw, as a gesture of contempt. When Hollywood devoured parts of at least two female victims, later tackled his story a century later, handsome Robert terming the act a means of “possessing” them forever.

Redford took the lead as
Jeremiah Johnson,
a romantic The “CHICAGO RIPPERS,” four young Satanists, habitu-hero, with no trace of “Liver-eating Johnston” to be ally severed and devoured the breasts of women they found on-screen.

abducted, raped, and killed.

Reports of cannibalism flourished in the 1990s, per-Cannibalism is not always a sexual act. For some, it haps because of the subject’s sensational nature. In may be a survival technique. Millions starved to death October 1997, Ugandan police arrested Ssande Sser-in Russia during the 1930s while Josef Stalin commu-wadda, accused by his wife of cannibalism. In custody, nized the nation’s agricultural system, and the tragedy Sserwadda freely admitted the charge, reporting that he was repeated 20 years later under Mao Zedong in the learned the practice from his parents. He told the court, People’s Republic of China. In both countries, many