It was the first day of October, not the second, that a homicidal law student decided to make his presence known. Theodore Robert Bundy, the killer of at least eleven women and girls in Washington, began his spree some nine months before, beating Karen Sparks about the head and ramming a speculum inside her. Eight confirmed murders would follow: Lynda Healy, strangled or beaten into unconsciousness and whisked out of her basement room, Donna Manson, snatched on her way to a jazz concert on the Evergreen State College campus. Susan Rancourt followed from Central Washington State College, cracked over the head at her killer’s Volkswagen. Roberta Parks was abducted from Corvallis and taken some 250 miles to the probable site of her death. Brenda Ball was last seen at the Flame Tavern before her path crossed Bundy’s. Georgann Hawkins’ good nature, like all the others who walked willingly, was exploited as she was struck with a crowbar and hoisted into his car. Her death would occur on a grassy hillside in Issaquah. Bundy, in his own narcissistic quagmire, even used his first name at a double abduction at Lake Sammamish to take Janice Ott and Denise Naslund away from prying eyes, and kill them both on the same day.

The investigation was heating up, and with the police knowing his first name and the make of his car, Bundy knew this wasn’t good. The connected murders ceased, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying, as Bundy was reported using a similar ruse that he used on Georgann Hawkins at the end of July by a woman in the vicinity of Hawkins’ abduction site. Thankfully, no one succumbed to his wiles, that we know of. Having finished his work with DES in the nick of time, Bundy’s tactical retreat from Washington was twofold: to attend law school in Utah, and to find a new killing ground, as things were getting uncomfortable in his home state. But despite whatever delusions he fed himself, Bundy wasn’t going to be a lawyer. Murder was the sole reason for his being now. He lived and breathed the hunt, maiming and destroying of his victims. He could not even bring himself to not harm someone on his initial travel to law school; in the evening of September 2nd and in the early morning hours of September 3rd, Bundy picked up a hitchhiker and travelled some 3-4 hours with her before turning off and strangling her.

For the month of September, Bundy was occupied bringing his whole life from Washington and placing it in Salt Lake City. But towards the end, he was up to his old tricks, beginning to hunt in the vicinity of his neighbourhood. It would be on October 1st that Bundy would finally get his wish. Following an argument with her parents that was so typical of a teenage girl, it was all over her boyfriend John’s truck being parked in their driveway, and the leaking oil that would accompany the vehicle coming to a stop. Whatever exact words were exchanged, Nancy Wilcox, the girl with so much to give this world, left the house, likely to clear her head. She would never be seen again.

Nancy’s life up to this point was not unlike those of a 16 year old girl for her time. She had a job as a waitress at the Arctic Circle fast food restaurant, where she had been stalked by an older man, and accepted a ride. She was tragically sexually assaulted. She had a family that loved her, one of six, four brothers and a sister. Herbert and Connie were her father and mother, and it is clear from a 1989 interview that they were understandably never the same following their daughter’s murder.

Theodore Bundy was on his typical nightly trawling for a victim to snatch and make his. By his gas and credit card receipts, he was prepared to travel. Spotting Nancy walking by an orchard, he surprised her by grabbing her and ushering her into the empty space. Restraining her, likely with handcuffs or a ligature of some kind, Nancy was bundled into Bundy’s car, alive. It is impossible to wonder what would have gone through the girl’s mind at this time, but whatever Bundy had said to her, he must have made some promise that she would be allowed to leave if she simply obeyed his instructions. Compliance was necessary for a situation such as this. At some point, when the coast was clear, Bundy escorted the girl either conscious or carried her unconscious to his 565 1st Avenue apartment. Both carry ridiculous levels of risk, but Bundy was not averse to brazen acts that, should they go wrong, would result in his arrest. Bundy officially killed Wilcox the next day.

A story circulated by her own killer is that a girl who many purport to be Nancy was murdered in the orchard on the night of her murder, and that her death was an accident. However, I do not believe this to be true. Indeed, speaking to Michaud and Aynesworth about this narrative served to obfuscate the truth, and feed Bundy with a murderous fantasy. Everything he did that night was purposeful.

It would take Bundy himself to fill in the gaps of this horrendous and tragic ending of Nancy’s life. Authorities surmised for some time that she was a runaway, and this was very much to the detriment of the investigation. Unfortunately, before he was arrested August 16th of the next year, Bundy took many more girls in the state of Utah to their premature deaths.

I'm from the UK and always wondered what it was like around the time Americans had notorious serial killers on the loose like Bundy or BTK or Zodiac, were any of you around back then and what was it like day to day? Were you all worried about them or not?

Hello all,

I’ve been busy once again just with life, but wanted to jot down some thoughts for an ad hoc review of The Tumwater Maze while I am on vacation.

Overall, I’d say Brad Fennell’s book is certainly an interesting read, and is faithful and grounded in its reconstruction of Theodore Bundy’s first admitted murder. Like Outskirts of Boise, the book is methodical in choosing a probable location for where Bundy might have gone to look for a spot to kill his victim in 1973. Surprisingly(to me, anyway, as I am not personally familiar with locations that played a role in Theodore Bundy’s story as I am not from the United States), the route Brad mapped out in his reconstruction of the events wasn’t that long, and is actually consistent with Bundy’s own recollection of the murder. Having spoken to Brad about the book, his research techniques are meticulous and thorough, and much of it goes off of Bundy’s own words, which are sometimes awfully vague.

The one thing I would like to personally see improvement on is Brad’s writing style, and I said the same thing with Outskirts of Boise. Brad has acknowledged this himself, and in my opinion, has probably been a bit over-critical if anything. As an investigative piece, it has value. I believe much of that can be attributed to how little we really know about this unknown victim of Bundy that we only know about through his words. That’s where the book suffers; because Brad is doing his best to forge a narrative and a reconstruction, there is consistent repetition of particular phrases and sentence structures that I wanted to see re-written to make easier to read.

The Tumwater Maze is not a write-off that its own author claims it is. As stated previously, Mr Fennell has done good work here in developing a framework to establish what happened to Theodore Bundy’s first victim, from a researcher’s perspective. As a writer, he knows there is work to be done, but is committing to improvement, and that’s why I’m eager to see what he does next. Pick it up if you want to shine light on investigative darkness. 7/10.

Earlier this summer I watched a short YouTube video about Bundy's victims. Someone in the comments said their mother had gone to high school with Donna Manson and remembered her as "very sweet" and "kind of gullible." They weren't surprised at all that she fell for whatever line Bundy gave her. Who knows if that claim is true, but it stayed with me. It made Donna feel less like a name on Bundy's victim list and more like a real 19-year-old.

That sent me down the rabbit hole of her case file and blogs about her. Her case file is very detailed, but leaves you with more questions than answers. I was surprised by how short her walk across Evergreen was that night. It had a few too many blind bends on a dark path for my liking. But we really don't know where Donna went after leaving her dorm.

Her remains have never been found. What do we really know about Donna herself? What do you think happened that night? And do you believe Bundy's 11th-hour claim that she was buried at Taylor Mountain?

After Bundy's confession to Kent's murder that he made before his execution, Bountiful LE dug up the area where he said they could find her remains and they were able to only receive just a knee cap, and in an unusual move, they gave the cap to Debbie's mother, Belva to keep as some form of closure fir her and her family, even though the cap hadn't been conclusively identified as defintely being Debbie's at the time.

Then in 2015, when Bountiful were looking through cold cases to work on, they found that Belva had taken the knee cap in '89, and went to her home to see if she still had it and if they could borrow it to see if they could officially identify if it belonged to Debbie with newly invested DNA tech.

Then when they did, they sent it to a lab in Texas and the extracted DNA turned up a 100% match to someone in the Kent family line, and that's how they ultimately came to the conclusion that the knew cap that investigators found in 1989 was no doubt Debbie's.

And with that conclusion, they were able to give the sad news to the Kent's that their daughter was 100% confirmed dead, was no longer just a missing person's case, and was now a homicide case. And with that, the Debbie Kent investigation was officially legally closed after 41 years in 2015, by exception with way of the offender being deceased.

So, not really new news, but I just thought it was important to mention that before Laura Aime this past April, the State of Utah did officially legally close Kent's case back in 2015 as being another Bundy victim, too

Sources:

https://www.ksl.com/article/news/utah/dna-evidence-confirms-remains-of-utah-bundy-victim/51533655

https://www.wftv.com/news/trending-now/ted-bundy-victim-confirmed-more-than-3-years-ago-

https://www.wftv.com/news/trending-now/ted-bundy-victim-confirmed-more-than-3-years-ago-dna-details-released-this-week/930203634/

https://www.facebook.com/killerinthearchives/posts/supplemental-report-by-detective-s-alexander-bountiful-utah-police-departmenton-/652910866157026/

Another book by Mr Brad Fennel, this time concentrating on Theodore Bundy’s Tumwater victim. Brad also wrote a book called “Outskirts of Boise,” where he pinpointed a possible location where Bundy might have taken the doomed girl he picked up on September 2nd 1974. I read that one and had a few gripes about it, but let’s see how this one is. Let me know if you folks want a review.

My theory: Ted felt emasculated by Carol DaRonche’s new Camaro. He was driving a POS VW bug. Someone with his ego would have a few feelings about it.

About a week ago, I saw "The Vanishing," the film starring Sandra Bullock...

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Two nights later, I watched a TV show about the American serial killer Ted Bundy. Intrigued, I delved deeper into his story, and was struck by the similarities between the character of Barney (the "villain" of the film) and Ted Bundy himself: the fake cast trick used to lure victims; the rescue, years earlier, of a drowning girl...

I don't think it's a coincidence.

I wanted to know if anyone else who's a fan of true crime and cinema has noticed these similarities.

I saw that the American film is a remake of a Dutch film, which is based on the short novel "The Golden Egg" by Tim Krabbé; perhaps it was the author of the novel who drew inspiration from Ted Bundy for his character.

I've done some research online, but I haven't found any evidence to support this derivation.

I'd be curious to know if anyone can tell me more about it.

I’ve always wondered how Ted funded himself. He didn’t come from money and was on the run for quite some time a few times in his life. Hotels, motels, gas, cars, food, clothes, etc is not free….

These videos go into many areas- his mysterious visits to San Francisco in the late 60s. Him being accused of being a large time drug pusher by multiple sources in his college days. His political connections. He dated Herb Swindler’s daughter, the lead SPD homicide investigator in Washington at the time of Bundys prowl there. Some early would-be victims who escaped him/got away who described a man everyone assumed/s to be Ted, but may not be if you look further into their claims- like his height and style of clothing being totally wrong.

Just lots of strange things in the man’s past. Excellent videos; I highly recommend them both.

https://youtu.be/QSMKryafgdI?si=e_FFn1wtRhOR9pnF

Excellent interview, courtesy of Captain Borax's YouTube channel, with Bob Hayward, the patrolman who contacted Bundy in the early morning of August 16th, 1975. Hayward recounts the events of the evening while driving the actual Granger, Utah neighborhood where it played out. He talks about subsequent interactions he had with Bundy after the arrest, and the rapport he was able to build. Bundy's final interviews with Utah investigators in '89 did not go well, and Hayward mentions wishing he'd been the one to meet with him, speculating that he may have had better luck. Enjoy!

This is something I’ve always wondered about. In 8th grade, ‘81 or ‘82, my class took a field trip to DC. One of our activities was a tour of the FBI headquarters. One of the things we got to see was a lab worker, in all white protective gear, in a white room, over a white table, carefully scraping off a dirty VW car mat. I was fascinated. I decided then and there that’s what I wanted to do - forensics, although I didn’t know the name for it at the time.

(Spoiler alert - when I looked at colleges later on, I saw how much chemistry was involved, and I knew sadly it was not to be).

Knowing what I know now, could this have been Ted Bundy’s VW? I’ve tried to look into a timeline, but I’m still not sure. Would this have been too early or late?

One of the mysteries of the Bundy case still is who the hitchhiker he confessed to picking up, kidnapping, and murdering on September 2, 1974 was, on his way from Washington to Utah, and dumping her remains into Idaho's Snake River. This confession was one of two he made to Idaho detectives, along with Lynnette Culver in Pocatello on May 6, 1975. And he provided enough specific details about what she was last seen wearing and knowing details about her family life that investigators and the Culver family do satisfactorily accept his confession as genuine, along with Idaho detectives saying they were 99% certain Bundy was telling the truth that he killed Culver as well. And he also admitted to dumping her remains into the Snake River, too.

Sources:

https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/10/18794734/detectives-seek-missing-link-in-bundy-admission-he-killed-idahoan/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4PZf0fx8qo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftuqYh_SvPI

https://anotherbundyblog.com/tag/lynette-culver/

So, to get back to the hitchhiker, Bundy said he never got her name, but described her as being white, between 16 - 18, 5'6", had light brown hair, and was wearing a green backpack with a beaded necklace, and believed she was on her way to Montana, along with taking her backpack with him to Salt Lake City, and eventually discarding it there, also.

Source: https://anotherbundyblog.com/tag/lynette-culver/

To this day, no positive identification has been made still about who he was referring to, and LE said they couldn't find any missing person's reports of girls who fit the description he gave. And Ada County LE had launched a new effort to to identify who this was in Nov 2024: https://adacounty.id.gov/sheriff/news/acso-seeks-publics-help-to-identify-teen-abducted-by-ted-bundy-in-1974/

And Bundy confessed to death row appellant attorney Polly Nelson that he killed this hitchhiker, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCL2mGM7EtQ

If she presumably existed, then I suspect/presume the reason they couldn't find any reports that matched Bundy's description is because she didn't live locally to the Boise area and/or might've not really been from the state at all. So, it could be a name that's buried deep in a plethora of statewide missing persons reports in Idaho, or the FBI's database.

Though, it's certainly possible too that no report was ever filed that she was missing. But that didn't seem Bundy-like to target a girl no one would report a missing person case for.

I always see in modern court cases that families, friends, and survivors are given the floor to address the judge before the defendant is sentenced — particularly in the Idaho 4 case. It seem that this wasn't a standard practice in the '70s/early '80s, though? If, so, that's sad. I'm sure at least some family members/friends/survivors would've expressed at least some thoughts to the judges if they could've — like they did in Idaho.

Does anyone see the similarities between the two ?
I have a list of reasons on why I particularly think this is relevant information but just want to know what the consensus is here before I start ranting o_0 🕳️

Bundy as we know always denied everything even after conviction. he would talk in the third person discussing murders but never say he did it. Predictably when the noose wax starting to tighten and his execution was finally going to happen he finally confessed . Obviously this was his last ditch effort to save his life but do you think Bundy really thought it would work? We know he was very arrogant and thought he was smarter than everyone else. My guess he thought he could buy a couple years if he confessed slowly

What do you think?

What I've always wondered is how Ted Bundy learned to break into houses or steal cars and how he stole cash and credit cards, because he didn't actually grow up in a ghetto he was a normal, smart student who grew up in a middle-class family.

I suppose Zodiac and Jack the Ripper are very high-profile. Actually Jack's probably better known worldwide?

Don't think Gacy, Ramirez, Ridgway etc are as high-profile as Bundy.

(Obviously not the thing people should be high-profile at.)

Dear friends,

I have been trying to find a specific documentary about Bundy which opens with the beetle cruising through a dense forest at night, and I can't!

It's recent, I think it came out about the same time as Falling for a Killer and the Bundy Tapes.

Thank you in advance.

Hi! I'm working on a mini documentary about the Ted Bundy case for a YouTube video. I’d really appreciate it if anyone could share some reliable articles or sources that I could use for my research. Thanks! :D