Difference between revisions of "Ted Bundy"

Revision as of 17:47, 3 July 2020

Theodore Robert Bundy was a convicted serial killer said to be responsible for dozens of murders across the United States, particularly in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Florida.

Biography

Family and early life

Political involvement

Pacific Northwest crimes

Move to Utah

Utah prosecution

Colorado prosecution

Eastward getaway

Chi Omega prosecution

Kimberly Leach prosecution

Death row and execution

Controversies

Others involved

While it is virtually certain that Ted Bundy was responsible for numerous murders, there is little chance that he was solely responsible for all of the murders attributed to him. Many of them likely involved accomplices in addition to Bundy himself, and some of them may have been entirely the work of others for which Bundy was set up to take the fall. An interesting fact pointing to this possibility is that, as KOMO news reporter Ruth Walsh discovered while doing a series on Bundy's case, suspects in the Seattle murders other than Bundy also subsequently relocated to the same states (Utah and Colorado) where the later murders attributed to Bundy were committed.^[1] The movement in unison of multiple suspects from the Pacific Northwest to Utah and Colorado suggests that a group effort was behind these murders from the beginning.

Based on an informant in Seattle's drug scene, the Seattle Police Department appeared to initially be pursuing the lead of a murderous cult being responsible for the murders of the young women. Reports were generated on that lead as late as June 26, 1974. Up until that point, every one of the disappearances had no witnesses, but 3 weeks later, the purported killer committed a brazen attack in broad daylight that created the public perception that one lone madman calling himself "Ted" was responsible for the disappearances. On July 14, 1974 at Lake Sammamish, when and where numerous prominent entities including the Seattle Police Department were having a picnic, Janice Ott and Denise Naslund both vanished after being seen in the company of a young man in a cast going by "Ted". Intended or not, the appearance of a lone killer almost certainly detracted from the cult investigation. "Ted" became the template to search for an individual serial killer who was ultimately identified as Ted Bundy.

Nevertheless, Seattle police continued to compile evidence of occult involvement in the murders into a police file known as File 1004. Several witnesses whose statements ended up in File 1004 reported seeing a man who looked like "Ted" leading satanic cult meetings in the woods. File 1004 was also reported to have made reference to a "Satanic cannibal murder in Montana", likely referring to serial killer Stanley Baker who professed to being part of a Process Church splinter group known as the Four P cult.^[2]

With these multiple similar accounts in the Seattle police files, there is a distinct possibility that Ted Bundy was just one high-ranking member of a cult that was behind the disappearances of the young women in the Pacific Northwest. Further backing that up is the account of serial killer Stanley Bernson in Oregon, an open satanist who claimed to have traveled with Bundy, though Bundy denied the assertion.^[3]

The circumstances behind the Melissa Smith abduction suggest the involvement others than or in addition to Bundy. An autopsy indicated she had been held captive for multiple days, yet she disappeared on the night of October 18, 1974 and Bundy left on a hunting trip with his fiance's father the next day.

On November 8, 1974, Bundy is purported to have failed to murder Carol DaRonch in Murray UT and then gone to Bountiful UT to murder Debra Kent. The timing of that night, however, makes it virtually impossible for Bundy to have done both crimes. By DaRonch's recollection to police just after her kidnapping, following her arrival at the mall around 7:00 PM, she spent about 10 to 15 minutes inside before meeting her abductor, and spent 20 to 30 minutes with him in total. Thus, she would have escaped her captor sometime between 7:30 and 7:45, and since she was taken to the police station by bystanders just after her escape yet her report was only taken at 8:30, her escape is likely to have occurred closer to 7:45. Meanwhile, the key witness in Bountiful, drama teacher Raelynn Shepherd, first reported seeing the culprit right around 7:45 PM. It ranges from extremely implausible (immediately coming up with a new plan and getting from Murray to Bountiful on a rainy evening, all in 15 minutes) to outright impossible (being in two places at once) for any person, Bundy or otherwise, to be responsible for both attacks that night.

It is quite notable that the Bountiful police's initial suspect was a Park City UT drug dealer named Ronald Dennis Auth. Ron Auth fit witnesses' description of the man at the school in Bountiful, and when the police took Shepard to a restaurant where Auth was the waiter, she gave an adamant identification of him as the man she saw, based on physical appearance, gait, mannerisms, and voice. Auth was subsequently cleared, seemingly on the sole basis of a polygraph exam. Auth appears to have been very well connected in the drug scene; in 1979 he was caught with three other men attempting to transport $390 million worth of Colombian marijuana past Puerto Rico on a shrimp boat that he owned.

The Colorado crimes attributed to Bundy contain some of the starkest indications that Bundy was networked with a larger criminal enterprise in the area. Nearly all of the crimes connect in some way to the drug and prostitution scene in the area around Grand Junction CO that occurred under that city's police chief Ben Meyers. Meyers was formerly police chief in Salem OR before relocating to Grand Junction in 1973 to become their police chief. Interestingly, this movement from the Pacific Northwest to states further inland mirrored the movement of Bundy and the other Seattle suspects who subsequently became suspects in the later murders. During his time in Grand Junction, Meyers was beset by rumors of corruption and a sleazy personal life.

In the murder of Caryn Campbell, the earliest alternate suspect was a man named Hugh Joe Temos. Temos was one of the aforementioned men who was a suspect in the Seattle murders and then also a subsequent murder (that of Campbell) attributed to Bundy. After living in Seattle during the 1974 murders, he was arrested on September 8, 1974, one day after the remains of Ott and Naslund were found, for indecent exposure to a policeman's wife. He then drifted to Colorado, taking up manual labor jobs like dishwashing at various hotels in the Snowmass resort in Aspen CO. During this time, he developed a reputation of violence, especially towards women, and exhibited mental instability, described by one coworker as not "playing with a full deck". Temos worked every single day from January 4, 1975 through January 11, 1975, then happened to be off duty on the 12th, the day that Campbell was murdered. Despite not working at the Wildwood Inn where she was staying, Walsh reported that a witness for law enforcement saw Temos by the Wildwood Inn pool that day. The next day, Temos collected his paycheck and quit, leaving town. He next surfaced at the Roseburg OR city jail, where other inmates described him bursting into spontaneous laughter at empty space and drinking his own urine. Aspen investigators visited Temos there and cleared him on the sole basis of polygraph exams, though no one other than Walsh reported that Temos refused to wear the blood pressure monitor during at least one of them.

Another alternate suspect in Campbell's murder is Meyers himself. Lizabeth Harter, the star witness who saw a suspicious man by a Wildwood Inn elevator where Campbell was last seen, was expected to identify Bundy, but in the pretrial hearing she instead pointed to Pitkin County's then-Undersheriff Meyers despite the fact that Bundy was clearly sitting at the defense table. Her identification of Meyers was universally dismissed as a fluke, but given Meyers's own rumored connection to several murders in Grand Junction CO later that same year, it is possible that he really was the man who Harter saw. As the Grand Junction murders appeared to center around local organized crime activities, that also suggests that if Meyers was involved, Campbell's murder was likely a targeted hit. Her brother Robert Campbell was a police officer in Fort Lauderdale FL, a major center for drug trafficking activity.

Vail CO ski instructor Julie Cunningham, who disappeared on March 15, 1975, may not have been a random victim. She was good friends with the daughter of Salem OR chief of detectives Jim Stovall, who worked directly under Meyers back when Meyers was Salem police chief. In fact, Stovall was the very first officer of the Salem Police Department who Meyers nominated for a national law enforcement award, and the two traveled together to Washington DC for the ceremony. Eagle County CO, whose county seat is Vail, also happens to be a notable center for the nationwide drug trade. Allen Rivenbark, a drug trafficker who operated from the 1970s until his plane crash death in November 1981, owned the Black Mountain Guest Ranch 30 miles from Vail, which was a hideout for East Coast mob figures and a reported drug distribution point for Rivenbark's network that was based in Fort Lauderdale FL.

Denise Oliverson was the first of many young women to disappear or be murdered in Grand Junction in 1975. All of these crimes were suspected of revolving around the drugs and prostitution activity in the city, in which many officers including police chief Meyers were complicit. Oliverson was known to be a drug user, putting her in at least some contact with the local drug scene.

While Bundy was never officially connected to this murder, there are also indications that he was at the scene of a later Grand Junction murder: that of Linda Benson and her young daughter on July 25, 1975. Steve Goad, who lived in the same apartment complex as Benson, saw Bundy on TV one day and immediately recognized him as a man he had seen in the apartment parking lot on the night Benson was killed. DNA ultimately linked serial rapist Jerry Nemnich to Benson's murder, but that does not exclude the possibility of a larger group being responsible, especially given the presence of unidentified DNA samples that Nemnich's defense singled out at trial. Benson was even more enmeshed in the Grand Junction drug scene, to the point where she expressed intimate knowledge of high-level local players' complicity in narcotics trafficking. She was good friends with Linda Miracle, who would be murdered a month later along with neighbor Pat Botham after the two of them resolved to come forward with news that would "shock the whole town".

Bundy's second escape from prison in Colorado, which took him all the way to Tallahassee FL, has multiple indications that it was facilitated by others. He purportedly managed to saw through the ceiling of his cell using a hacksaw without anyone noticing, and a prison informant who heard Bundy moving through the crawlspace in the ceiling made multiple reports but nothing was done. After escaping, he is said to have found a sports car with keys already in the ignition that allowed him to make his escape, and from there managed to hitchhike from Vail to Denver to Chicago (by plane, raising the question of how he bought his ticket) to Atlanta and finally to Tallahassee. When asked later by a Florida interrogator how he got the money to travel across the country after his escape, Bundy responded "Well, man, there’s other people. Other people are in on it."

The massacre at the Chi Omega sorority house in the University of Florida at Tallahassee had very little evidence pointing to Bundy and some pointing away from him. Semen found in the bed of victim Cheryl Thomas belonged to a nonsecretor even though Bundy was known to be a secretor. Jurors in Bundy's trial seemed unaware of the significance of this testimony, with one stating "To me, the evidence said he was a nonsecretor, and it fit right in" and another admitting "I really didn’t pay too much attention to that".^[1] This may have been due to an ineffective defense by Bundy's attorneys, questionable juror selection (picked with the help of Atlanta hypnotist Emil Spillman who served in the Marines during the Korean War), or some combination thereof. The lynchpin of the state's case was bite mark evidence on the buttocks of one victim that was said to match Bundy's teeth, but that evidence was extremely dubious. The prosecution experts matched the purported bite marks to a cast of Bundy's teeth taken in prison, but when the cast was taken, Bundy had a chip in his tooth that he had made after the Chi Omega murders.^[4] The judge refused to admit testimony and photographic evidence demonstrating this at trial. If the bite mark matched the state of Bundy's teeth after the murders took place, then it is likely that the bite mark did not even exist at the time of the murders itself, and was instead fabricated based on the cast of Bundy's teeth.

1975 Grand Junction murders

Political connections

Republican Party

References

External links

True crime overviews
- The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (1980) - PDF here
- The Only Living Witness by Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth (1983)
KOMO, "Ted Bundy - The Mystery", 1979 (FLV video) (WorldCat page) ("Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 202 (Ted Bundy - OTHER SUSPECTS)", 2020/06/28) - producer, writer, and reporter is Ruth Walsh; executive producer is Jim Harriott; cameraman and editor is Rich Crew
- Description for entry to the Peabody Awards: "For over four years, the circumstances surrounding mass-murder suspect, Ted Bundy, have been the subject of in-depth investigation by reporter Walsh. Bundy is a former Seattle resident -- his notoriety began in connection with the murders and disappearances of eight young women in the Seattle area. For the most part, in the print and electronic media, Bundy was convicted before the trial on purely circumstantial evidence. He is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, suspected of over 32 murders. Walsh, over the years, through contact with Bundy, his family, his lawyers, his prosecutors, law enforcement officials, and years re-reading every court transcript, police document, and psychiatric report done in connection with the murder cases, uncovered substantial evidence of at least five other men with the same incriminating circumstantial evidence. This five-part investigative series was shown during our seven-week coverage, from Miami, of Ted Bundy's first murder trial. Also included as part of the 'Bundy Story' are three of the daily reports (3 a day), sent by satellite back to Seattle, Washington, about the longest distance possible in this country for local coverage!"
People, "The Enigma of Ted Bundy: Did He Kill 18 Women? Or Has He Been Framed?", 1980/01/07
- "Previously, while researching a five-part series on Bundy, Walsh discovered that seven other men could be linked circumstantially with some or all of Bundy’s alleged crimes. “There are five possible ‘Teds’ in the Seattle area alone,” she says. The list includes a convicted sex offender who was living in Seattle at the time of the murders there. He then moved to Aspen, where he took a job at Snowmass, the resort where victim Caryn Campbell was staying. His co-workers remember him as violent, especially toward women. He didn’t show up for work on the day Campbell was murdered; the next day he picked up his paycheck and left town. (Subsequently he was given a lie detector test and passed.)"
- "Walsh also learned that another suspect in the Seattle slayings was living in Salt Lake City at the time of the DaRonch kidnapping. Later convicted of shooting a woman to death, the suspect owned a gun and handcuffs and matched DaRonch’s description of her abductor—dark, slicked-down hair and a mustache. “The thing that makes me want solid proof against Bundy is that we have uncovered these other people,” says Walsh. “They fit the pattern of evidence and description in an almost uncanny way.”"
Law enforcement documents
- Seattle Police Department, case 74-031075 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) (archive)
  - installment 1: on p.30 has the 1974/07/03 statement of former Medford OR policewoman Sylvia Wahl mentioning a cult in Kirkland WA involving college-aged girls; she was approached by a girl driving a beige or yellow Volkswagen, which had two other girls as passengers, and asked to come to a meeting with them; when asked what kind of meeting, the driver said words that sounded like a chant, and inside the car, there was a wooden box which one of the passengers said contained an altar; the conversation led Wahl to believe that this group was a cult; the meeting was going to be on 13 Lake Street or 31 Lake Street; for whatever reason this document ended up in the Missing Girl File; on p.181 introduces a former roommate and good friend of Bundy's named John Muller; on p.182 says that Muller was partners in a diving venture with someone named Stan, who drowned a month ago and whose possessions subsequently ended up in a garage used by Bundy; notes that Muller went to Australia shortly after Stan's death; on p.185 says that Muller's wallet had a "private guard license" inside; on p.186-187 interviews James Doros who knew Bundy through his friend Muller; quotes Doros as saying that he and Stan Nielsen took over Northwest Marine Collectors from Jim Styres and John Muller in May 1975; puts the diving accident with Nielsen in August 1975 and says that his body had not been found; has Doros say that Muller had gone to Australia to work security for the State Department, and he did not know whether or not it was a CIA assignment; on p.190 has Val O'Donald of McChord AFB say that Muller was stationed at Alice Springs in Australia to provide support for Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica; on p.192 names Muller as John Edward Muller, who claims that he met Bundy in August 1973, didn't associate much with him, and last saw him in September 1974 when Bundy left for Utah
  - installment 2: on p.5 it is mentioned that as of 1975/10/06 Bundy knew Ann Rule was writing a book; on p.158 there is a Seattle police interview with Michael Leach a.k.a. Kelly in October 1975 about his knowledge of cult activity and possible connections to the missing girls: "Officers brought KELLY into homicide office on information they received that Homicide wanted to talk to him about the missing girls in the U district and info he may have about the Cults. This started about a year ago when KELLY was somehow involved in narcotics, and two Det who he believes were a Frank & Dan Stokey, at this time Kelly states he went to the two Det and told them that he Met a man who he learned to know but had ill feelings about, and did not trust, they met at a bar and this man told him about persons who were involved in the cult activity and were looking for organic Mescaline. A short time later he met another person who told him the same story, and told him that they wanted approx 500 hits. This last person was a black guy by the name of Alex, Andrew who later raped a girl in U dist and has not been seen since. A few days later he was with his friend in a tavern who pointed out two of the persons wanting the drugs, they went and talked to them and talked about the price. A appointment was arranged to meet them at a later date to give them a sample of the drugs, and to see if he could find out anything about the missing girls. The meeting place was the Eastlake zoo tavern, he went there but the people did not show. Kelly cannot remember names, stated he has been in Seattle the last year, that about every day he is in LEE'S BAR in the U District drinking."
  - installment 3: on p.22-23 there is a mention of case 74-138 about a woman accusing a Seattle police officer of raping her, which the department denies
  - installment 4: on p.13 a woman being interviewed about Bundy refers to "two separate Teds or schizophrenic personality"; on p.20 in the interview transcript of her it mentions that Ann Rule had already, as of 1975 when the interview happened, "written a whole book on the missing girls"; on p.34 a Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office homicide investigator mentions collaborating with Mike Fisher of the Pitkin County District Attorney's Office, Sgt. Bill Baldridge from the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, and Milo Vig of Grand Junction CO from the Mesa County Sheriff's Office; on p.61 mentions Det. Dave Reichert of the King County Sheriff's Office being involved in a 1989 search for remains of Bundy's victims; on p.86 details an informant on 1974/06/26 giving information to Det. F.L. Roesler about the missing girls: the bodies of the girls were "all hacked up" at an unknown location, the girls were killed during the cult's religious rites, the cult purchased hallucinogenic drugs from the informant to use during their rites, they had a house on Capitol Hill and one in the Fremont area, a woman named Joanne with a history of mental illness who lived on 12th Avenue N.E. near the University District was taken by the cult but made so much noise that they let her go, the informant was planning to meet a cult member at Fat Albert's Tavern on Eastlake Ave. E. at 8 PM on that date to arrange the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms, the informant believed another girl would be kidnapped soon; Roesler believed the informant's information was good; on p.142 William Hugh Parry (born in Chicago IL in 1947), a former US Army serviceman and University of Washington philosophy major who lived near Lake Sammamish, was mentioned as offering several Capitol Hill women escort jobs to persuade them to get into the car with him; on p.145 mentions a request to the Los Angeles authorities for more information on William Hugh Parry
  - installment 5: on p.135-136 there is a 1976/02/04 letter from Dodie Etlinger of Boise ID: in late February 1975 she was approached by two girls trying to lure her to a house while a car with three man pulled up to oversee, her husband was a journalist who worked with Ken Matthews on the Thomas Creech case and she remembered him discussing similar tactics, as a Post Intelligencer journalist her husband also received a call from a University Hospital security guard in 1974 claiming that a young man there who worked as a janitor and had a friend in the cast room would go by the name Ted "when he wanted to make time with the girls" and later quit and "went east of the Cascades to work in the wheat harvest"
  - installment 6: on p.73-81 there is the Murray City Police Department report about the Carol DaRonch abduction: report was taken at 8:30 PM, on p.76 she says she arrived at the mall around 7:00 PM and was inside 10 to 15 minutes before meeting her abductor outside, on p.80 she says she spent 20 to 30 minutes with her abductor in total, and on p.80 she says she was picked up by witnesses who took her to the police station after getting free, allowing us to conclude that DaRonch likely escaped her captor closer to 7:45 PM which would give him about 15 minutes to reach the high school in Bountiful
  - installment 7: on p.6 is a letter from Susan Roller to the Seattle police chief on 2017/07/18 claiming that there was "a cover up of the Ted Bundy cases in general and in particular relative to the findings at Taylor Mountain", asserting that crime scenes were unprotected and evidence was ignored or destroyed while people "were allowed to profit from the case"; on p.7 Roller asserts that Robert Keppel, whose book Riverman shaped public opinion on the Bundy case, spread misinformation about the Bundy dump sites which hid the fact that he was already an "experienced serial killer" in 1974; on p.12 Roller claims that "law enforcement agencies in WA" ("from the Attorney General Office to the Seattle and King County police") "acted in concert" to hide this misinformation; also claims that in Issaquah where the remains of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund were located, other unidentified remains were also found; on p.16-20 it is noted that the Taylor Mountain site, which Keppel (whose name is on all the investigative reports) claimed was just a dumping ground, had items like chemical bottles and a proximity to abandoned houses indicating that Bundy took refuge there to plan his crimes; on p.23 the case number for the Taylor Mountain investigation is given as 75-29267; on p.54-55 there are documents mentioning "VORTMAN, MARLIN L" and linking him to the addresses "3510 W. ELMORE 201 SEATTLE, WA. 98199", "1220 IBM BLDG SEATTLE, WA. 98101", and "3814 NE. LATONA SEA, WA." as well as "LINCOLN NATIONAL LIFE"; on p.85 is a circled article about three men kidnapping two girls in Bang Saen, Thailand for Chinese millionaire "Sia Klueng"
- Multi-agency (including Seattle Police Department) files on the 1974/07/14 murders of Denise Naslund and Janice Ott at Lake Sammamish
- Bountiful Police Department, case on Debra Jean Kent disappearance, 1974
- Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, case 75-0078, 1975
- Colorado 9th Judicial District Attorney's Office, case on Caryn Campbell murder, 1975-77
- Grand Junction Police Department, case on Denise Lynn Oliverson disappearance, 1975
Political connections of Bundy
- From p.163 of The Only Living Witness: "Outwardly, however, Ted was still the young Republican. He wrote friends that he could not believe what had happened (which was true) and how he looked forward to the system working to correct its error. This was the Ted that they all remembered, the one for whom a “Ted Bundy Defense Fund” was immediately established. Something over $4,000 was almost immediately raised, and major contributors included Marlin and Sheila Vortman as well as Ralph Munro [the Washington Secretary of State involved in the VoteHere company]."
- Marlin Vortman background
  - Attorney bios for Vortman & Feinstein: "Marlin L. Vortman began his professional career with the systems engineering division of the Boeing Company’s Developmental Center. He later worked for a local mechanical engineering firm before accepting a commission in the US Army in 1966. In the early 70’s, Marlin worked with Washington Governor Daniel J. Evans to revise the state’s tax structure. He advised the Washington State Legislature’s House Republican Caucus and was later assistant legal counsel to the Senate Republican Caucus. Marlin began his legal career defending small businesses who were being sued because of a product they manufactured or a service they provided. Marlin then worked for ten years with one of Seattle’s foremost real estate attorneys, representing local real estate professionals and their Multiple Listing Service. Marlin went on to develop his own general business practice serving closely held business, trade associations, medical and other professionals."
  - 1981/03/17 letter by Vortman concerning an annual report while working at Keller, Rohrback, Waldo, Hiscock, Butterworth & Fardal
- Aspen Times Weekly, "Evidence represents Ted Bundy’s time in the Roaring Fork Valley", 2019/03/28: "Among the items in storage at the DA’s Office in Glenwood Springs [...] in the boxes of documents is a detailed report about Bundy’s escape from the jail in Glenwood Springs. Included is a lengthy inventory of the stuff he left behind in his cell after he broke out. Among the legal documents and texts, food items like vegetable protein powder and clothing was a large collection of books. They included “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” by Hunter S. Thompson, the Woody Creek writer who lost the 1970 Pitkin County sheriff’s race to Carroll Whitmire, the man who occupied the Sheriff’s Office when Bundy committed the Snowmass Village murder. [...] Bundy apparently received several Christmas cards during the winter of 1977, including one, oddly enough, from Sheriff Dick Kienast and the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. The cards were saved as evidence in a manila envelope and tucked in among the boxes of evidence."

Life background

From p.184 of Programmed to Kill:

Theodore Robert Bundy was yet another serial killer whose parentage remains obscured. He entered this world in 1946 at the Elizabeth Lund Home for unwed mothers and he was promptly abandoned there for three months by his mother, Eleanor Cowell. He was raised to believe that his mother’s father, Sam Cowell, was his father as well, which he may in fact have been. Chronicler Ann Rule has written that the identity of Ted’s real father was unknown outside of the family, and that he was a “shadowy man whose real identity grows more blurred with every year that passes…” Throughout his life, Bundy described his church deacon father/grandfather in glowing terms, while other family members have characterized him as a horrendously violent and abusive man who terrorized his family and was sadistic to animals. Sam Cowell’s own brothers reportedly stated on numerous occasions that somebody should kill him to spare others further misery.
In October 1950, Ted’s mother began calling herself Louise and legally changed her son’s name from Theodore Robert Cowell to Theodore Robert Nelson—for no discernable reason. The next year, she married Johnnie Culpepper Bundy and changed Ted’s name once again. Johnnie, a former Navy man and a member of a large clan of Tacoma Bundys, was employed at—of all places—a military hospital at a joint Army/Air Force complex. Ted attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington—at least according to his former classmates he did. That cannot be verified, however, since all records of Bundy’s enrollment there have strangely disappeared. After graduation, he worked for a municipal electric utility.
Allegation that Thomas Dowling Carr / Thomas D. Carr / Thomas Carr was Bundy's father
- Part 3 of the FBI vault files on Bundy - allegations were made by Thomas's daughter Janla N. Carr in 1991; after noting that Bundy's mother Louise claimed Bundy's biological father was known to her by the name Jack Worthington, it relates Janla's claim that her father told Louise his name was either Lloyd Nelson or Jack Worthington; Janla accuses Bundy of multiple crimes: pushing a little girl into the path of a train at West Park in Pittsburgh PA during the mid 1950s, stealing a car in Tacoma WA and driving i to Pittsburgh at age 14 or 15, having him confess in 1970 at a party in Pittsburgh to a Tacoma murder and a 1969 New Jersey turnpike murder, and being in Pittsburgh in 1970 when a coed turned up stabbed to death; it is noted that the photograph of Thomas "bears a resemblance to published photographs of Ted Bundy"; elsewhere calls Janla by the name Janla D. Carr; notes that Janla claims her father once introduced Louise as "Aunt Eleanor"; on p.40-41 has Janla Carr claim that both her father and Bundy himself had "hypnotized" her to forget about the family connection
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Grieving father, fatal obsessions", 1998/01/30 (pages 1, 10): "Thomas Carr gave Pittsburgh homicide detectives a torn piece of newspaper, 19 years old, with his daughter's troubled scrawling on it. The mostly indecipherable note written by Janla Carr told of some unidentified man looking at her strangely. That proved his daughter had been murdered, the Squirrel Hill man first told detectives nearly a year ago and many times since. Patiently, repeatedly, detectives told Carr that such was not the case. Janla, who had a lengthy history of mental illness, had probably committed suicide eight days after her 45th birthday by putting herself in the path of a train in Oakland. If not a suicide, they told him, it had been an accident. [...] On Wednesday, inside the Wal-Mart in Cranberry, Carr, 84, told his tale to a cellular telephone salesman throughout the day. Shortly thereafter, he took off a tassel cap, walked near the cash registers, drew a handgun, pointed it to his chest and pulled the trigger. [...] Wounded, he fired two more shots into his chest. [...] Janla Carr and her father had what friends characterized for police as a "love-hate" relationship. Janla Carr would tell her friends that her father had abused both her and her mother, who died of cancer about five years ago. Yet Thomas Carr, who told police he was a retired U.S. Postal Service supervisor, paid for the apartment Janla Carr kept in a former mansion in the 5100 block of Fifth Avenue, Oakland. [...] Janla Carr, who had suffered with mental illness for years and had numerous stays in Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, graduated from college but held no job. [...] Late on the night of Jan. 31, 1997 [...] The woman had been killed instantly. It was Janla Carr. [...] "He would point his anger in different directions, one tirfie.at'his neighbors, another time he would be angry at us and other times he would be angry at some nebulous government agency," Freeman said. [...] On Tuesday, Carr went to the Butler Eagle newspaper office and told an employee that he wanted to talk about his daughter's death, that he tried to get Pittsburgh police interested in it but he no longer trusted them. He said her murder involved a top political aide of a gubernatorial candidate. Carr, who said he was on the run, was referred to Post-Gazette reporter Dennis B. Roddy. The next day, Wednesday, [...] Carr walked about 20 yards away, out of Hengelsberg's line of vision. And then the first shot was fired."
- North Hills News Record, "Suicide comes year after daughter's death", 1998/01/30: "The Pittsburgh man who shot himself Wednesday in front of employees and customers at the Wal-Mart in Cranberry did so just short of the first anniversary of his daughter's death. Thomas D. Carr talked to several people in the store, including a cellular telephone salesman claiming that his daughter was murdered and the same people were after him. [...] Although Janla Carr had a home, Marraway described her as eccentric. "I believe she had some psychological problems," Marraway said. "She had been in the hospital for psychological problems." There was no indication that Carr. 84, had psychological problems, according to Cranberry police Cpl. David Lewis. "When talking to the family, they were shocked at the occurrence," Lewis said. He said Carr has a sister who lives out of state. [...] Lewis added that police do not know where Carr got the gun he used to shoot himself and it is not registered. [...] Carr claimed he was the victim of FBI and police conspiracies, according to Hengelsberg. "It sounded like something on 'Miami Vice,'" Hengelsberg said Wednesday after the shooting."
Ann Rule - a potential handler of Bundy
- From p.37 of The Stranger Beside Me: "We might never have met at all. Logically, statistically, demographically, the chance that Ted Bundy and I should meet and become fast friends is almost too obscure to contemplate. We have lived in the same states at the same time—not once but many times—but the ten years between our ages precluded our meeting for many years."

Occult connections

Connection to the Seattle murders
- From p.186-187 of Programmed to Kill: "Along with the proliferation of missing girls, the Pacific Northwest was grappling with another emerging problem in the spring of 1974: an abundance of what are referred to as ‘cattle mutilations.’ While conspiracy theories attempting to explain this phenomenon abound, such theories frequently involving UFOs and alien experimentation, many police investigators and independent researchers have linked these occurrences to local satanic cult activity."
- Spokane Daily Chronicle (from Associated Press), "Police File Hints at Ties With Occult", 1976/02/03 (also called "POLICE FILE HINTS AT THE OCCULT" in a Henry Makow article): "A Satanic cannibal murder in Montana [possibly Stanley Baker], animals found skinned and missing their vital organs, and disappearances of Northwest women all play a part in the mystery of Seattle Police File 1004. Police interest in the occult, witchcraft and satanism has been stimulated by the mysterious slayings of several Washington and Oregon women and by the ravings of a murderer in Idaho. That plus the Charles Manson legend and a new wave of animal mutilations have caused a host of hysterical tipsters, officers say. The disappearance of the women—one of them in the company of the mysterious "Ted"—has filled File 1004 with citizen suspicions of a deadly occult connection, police say. Several tipsters said they'd seen men who looked like "Ted" and had held cult meetings, talked of the occult, talked about devil worship, worshipped rattlesnakes or set up strange shrines in the forest. With hindsight, some of the tips turned out to be laughable. The shrine in the forest was the work of a backwood sculptor. A "devil mask" was a piece of model airplane wing. A strange red and orange symbol on a tree turned out to be a forestry sign. But file 1004 continued to grow. A witch involved in "white magic" was said to know of a black magic group on the east side which had used the missing women in a sex ritual. Another advanced a theory that "Ted" was a Jesus freak who traveled to South America, studied Inca religions in which an ancient god returned to earth with a wounded wing, Ted's broken arm, and was forced to sacrifice victims on a high altar. None of the tips panned out, police say. There was a haunting resemblance between several of the missing women, whose photos revealed them as having long hair, parted in the middle. Some said they looked like sisters. Could they have been hand-picked for ritual death? And why, when the remains of four of them were discovered on Taylor Mountain last March, were there only skulls and skull bones found, officials wonder. Within weeks of the skull discoveries, an Idaho murder suspect, 24-year-old Thomas Creech, began talking to authorities from his jail cell. He said he had witnessed the ritualistic slaying of several women in King County by a motorcycle gang of Satan worshippers. At least the innocuous portions of his bloody story were true. There was a house in South King Couty like the one he described as the site of cult killings, and several of the individuals he named did exist. And human blood was found in one of the rooms in the house, although Seattle Police Homicide Capt. Herb Swindler said the room was too small for the kind of hideous ceremonies Creech described. But the bizarre events continue, and File 1004 continues to grow. Is the occult involved? "I've never known," said Swindler. "I don't know now.""
- The Daily Chronicle (Centralia WA), "Seattle police investigating witchcraft", 1976/02/03: "[...] and missing their vital organs, to disappearances of Northwest women all play a part in the mystery of Seattle Police File 1004. Police interest in the occult, witchcraft and satanism has been stimulated by the mysterious slayings of several Washington and Oregon women and by the ravings of a murderer in Idaho. That plus the Charles Mansco [Manson?] legend and a new wave of animal mutilations have caused a host of hysterical tipsters, officers say." plus "[...] of them in the company of the mysterious "Ted" filled file 1004 with citizen suspicions of a deadly occult connection, police say. Several tipsters said they'd seen men who looked like "Ted" and had held cult meetings, talked of the occult, talked about devil worship, worshipped rattlesnakes or set op strange shrines in the forest. With hindsight, some of the tips turned out to be laughable. The shrine in the forest was the work of a bickwood [?] sculptor. A "devil mask" was a piece of forestry sign. But file 1004 continued to grow."
- From p.48-49 of The Only Living Witness:
  
  In the absence of any concrete leads as to "Ted's" identity, many north westerners thought the answer would be found in occultism or Satan worship, which enjoy small but ardent followings around Seattle. One rumor given broad currency was that “Ted” had been a Jesus freak gone insane after a trip to South America. The theory was that “Ted” believed himself to be the reincarnation of a broken-winged Inca bird god.
  Herb Swindler wasn't buying anything so outrageous, but neither was the frustrated investigator above checking out the occult angle. Working quietly and, for the most part, alone, he put together what became File 1004, a dossier on area occultism. In the end, the effort led him no closer to “Ted”, but in the absence of anything more substantive to go on, he felt obliged to try.
- p.189 of Programmed to Kill has a slightly different quote from Michaud: "Chronicler Michaud, however, offered a different take: “occultism or Satan worship [are] creeds that local police say have long found a small but ardent following of practitioners around Seattle.”"
- From p.198 of The Stranger Beside Me: "Seattle Police had a file on occult happenings, File 1004. Reports came in to the beleaguered Task Force—reports from people who thought they'd seen “Ted” at cult gatherings. In any case with such widespread publicity, a number of “kooks” will surface, advancing theories that make an ordinary person's hair stand up on the back of his neck. There were totally unsubstantiated rumors that the missing and murdered girls had been sacrificed and their headless bodies dumped, weighted, into the almost bottomless waters of Lake Washington."
- From p.111 of The Only Living Witness: "An odd-shaped piece of paper was found near the Issaquah hillside, and promptly there was speculation that it was a ceremonial mask. The “mask” turned out to be a wing cover for a model airplane. Many people were convinced that a virulent offshoot of the Charles Manson family had moved to the Seattle area and had begun a new reign of terror led by “Ted.”"
- The Oregonian, "SATANISM AT ROOTS OF INMATE'S ELABORATE ESCAPE PLOT? SYMBOLS OF DEVIL WORSHIP RAISE UMATILLA SUSPICIONS", 1988/04/01: "The suggestion of satanism caught Donald D. Yokom of Pendleton, Bernson's court-appointed attorney on the escape charges, by surprise. ``I haven't heard anything of that,'' he said Wednesday. ``This is the first time anybody suggested that to me.'' But Carey said satanism crops up occasionally in criminal cases around the Northwest. ``We have definitely seen it in some homicides,'' the sheriff said. ``I think we're underestimating it. . . . I think it plays a far bigger role than we've understood in the past.'' Bernson is a former Tri-Cities, Wash., produce salesman who once bragged of traveling with Seattle serial killer Theodore Bundy, who is on death row in Florida. Bernson has been in jail for nearly 2 years, awaiting trial for the Dec. 22, 1978, murder of 15-year-old Sharon Weber at Cold Springs Reservoir near Hermiston. [...] According to testimony last year by former cellmates, Bernson bragged that he and Ted Bundy traveled together. Bundy was investigated, though never charged, in a string of murders in Washington state of college-age women in the mid-1970s. Six bodies eventually were found. Bundy has steadfastly denied any involvement in those killings."
- "Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 92 (Ted Bundy - Serial Killer - Occult & Satanism)", 2018/02/05 - has "Mad Dog" McKenna, a purported Hand of Death member, being interviewed by Gerald John Schaefer about how he taught Bundy about Satanism in 1973 and how Bundy sent a map to a cave where he tortured women; discusses how Bundy incinerated victims' bodies, raising the possibility that others were involved; points out the resignation of Ben Meyers after Bundy escaped from his Colorado prison
- Fatal Visions No. 17, "AMERICA'S CULT OF DEATH: THE HAND OF DEATH" by G.J. Schaefer - claims that Bundy was driven to commit his crimes due to his involvement in Satanism; says that "South African adventuress" Molly von Heydreich was researching the Hand of Death, contacted Kenneth McKenna, and learned from him about Ted Bundy's cave where he tortured his victims; claims that practitioners of Palo Mayombe had stolen the remains of Denise Naslund from a police morgue and brought them to the mountains of northern Mexico; also claims that Bundy's hair was taken by Pauli Valentino, a member of the squad that prepared Bundy for execution who realized its value to the Satanic underground, and that Bundy's ashes were hidden in the Gainesville FL home of University of Florida employee Michael Radelet; says that in 1993 von Heydreich learned from McKenna that Bundy followed a branch of Satanism associated with some of Charles Manson's followers; claims that McKenna ordered the murder of von Heydreich through the satanic underground after she betrayed his confidence by publishing what he told her; mentions two books on Bundy links to Satanism: Ted Bundy's Butchered Beauties by Molly von Heydreich circulated by Justice Now in Columbus GA and the upcoming The Horrors of Bundy's Cave by G.J. Schaefer
- Criminology Australia Vol. 6 No. 3, "Social control and the violation of human rights: the relationship between sociological variables and serial murder", 1995/02: "A further important influence on Bundy in a subcultural context was Satanism. After murdering several hitch-hikers during 1973, Bundy believed his own arrest was inevitable unless he could secure the protection of metaphysical forces. Through his contacts in the pornography underworld he met Kenneth "Mad Dog" McKenna whom he believed could help him through an organisation known as the Church of the Process, established in 1963. Initially, followers of the cult were offered a choice of deities, including Jehovah and Christ, but progressively the organisers insisted on homage to Satan. McKenna allowed Bundy to visit him at his home in Manasota, Florida. McKenna was able to cite details and provide evidence from his own criminal history which convinced Bundy that he could indeed kill with impunity provided certain guidelines were followed. He offered' Bundy a contract to sign which would enable him to commit murder and avoid detection as long as he acted as a representative of Satan and not simply indulge his own desires. A ritual was enacted, with Bundy becoming a practitioner of Satanism (K. McKenna 1994, pers. comm.). Apparently, Bundy was convinced of the validity of Satanism, and his subsequent behaviour was influenced accordingly."
- Interesting note: Bundy attended Stanford University back in the 1960s, and purportedly starting killing in 1974, the same year that Arlis Perry was murdered at Stanford by Four P cult members. The accounts of File 1004 (see above) suggest a connection between Four P member Stanley Baker and a Satanic cult led by "Ted", and the weapon used on Perry was an ice pick, something that was found in Bundy's trunk at one point.
- From Bundy: The Deliberate Stranger by Richard Larsen: "For years [Captain Edwin "Butch"] Carlstadt had been at the frustrating task of tracking California's so-called Zodiac killer. One after another, Carlstadt had investigated murders of girls and young women in northern California—fourteen or more between December 1969 and December 1973—in which the victims, often hitchhikers, were found nude, without clothing or other belongings. Near the bodies was found an elaborate witchcraft symbol of twigs and rocks."
- From p.203 of Programmed to Kill, there is the possibility of overlap between Bundy's murders and those committed by Thomas Creech or his associates: "Ted Bundy, calmed by tranquilizers, was put to death by the state of Florida on January 24, 1989. In his final hours, he allegedly confessed on tape to an array of murders, including some in the state of Idaho that he had never been accused of. Many of the details given in these confessions were either wrong or unverifiable, and the tape is difficult to hear—due purportedly to yet another tape-recorder malfunction."
Above Top Secret comment about Bundy alluding to a larger network: "Toward the end of Stephen G. Michaud's book, The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy, the author stated that Bundy said there was a secret network wherein people like himself were able to communicate, & to help each other in their efforts. Nobody was ever sure whether there might be some truth to this claim, or whether this was just one more ploy on Bundy's part to inspire the postponement of his scheduled execution so he could give information on this subject. Bundy attempted to offer several incentives to persuade the authorities to let him live a bit longer (including hints about more murders & an offer to lead authorities to bodies), but society had apparently had enough of Mr Bundy, & it was decided to allow his departure from this life to proceed on schedule."

Victim information

Melissa Smith - 1974/10/27 in Midvale UT
- Find A Grave memorial for Melissa Smith: "Murder Victim. Daughter of Police Chief Louis Smith. Chief Louis had warned his seventeen year old daughter about the dangers of the world. On October 18, 1974, Melissa left a pizza parlor where she had been visiting with friends, but she would never make it home. Her body was found October 27, 1974 in Summit Park, she had been strangled. A murder victim of Ted Bundy, who confessed to her murder just before his execution on January 24, 1989."
- From p.180 of The Stranger Beside Me: "Meg looked through the newspaper clippings that Lynn had brought back with her, and she drew a sigh of relief when she read that Melissa Smith had disappeared on the night of October 18. “There, see? October 18. I talked to Ted that night about eleven o'clock. He was looking forward to going hunting with my dad the next day. He was in a good mood.”"
Carol DaRonch - 1974/11/08 in Murray UT
- From p.236 of The Stranger Beside Me: "On November 8, Carol DaRonch was abducted at 7:30, and Debby Kent vanished at 10:30."
- Ted Bundy: A Visual Timeline post about the Murray Police Department: "5461 South State St. Murray PD, Murray Ut, downstairs in the back. This is the same building Mary and Wilbur Walsh took a hysterical Carol DaRonch on 11-08-74 at approximaty 7:30 pm. Directly next to Murray High School where Carol had graduated the year before."
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, "Utah Student Seized in Attempted Murder, Kidnaping", 1975/10/03
- Idaho State Journal, "Salt Lake County Police Charge Man with Attempted Homicide", 1975/10/03
- Idaho State Journal, "Shoes Become Issue at Trial of Bundy", 1976/02/26
Debra Kent - 1974/11/08 in Bountiful UT
- Background of the Kent family
  - Logan Herald Journal, "Visitors from Nebraska", 1970/07/28: "Visitors in Smithfield the past two weeks have been the Dean Kent family of Omaha, Neb. Dean, his wife Belva and children Debra, Bill, Patricia, Eddy, and Blair have been guests of the William Ellett family, Belva’s parents. The Kent family are moving back to Utah and are waiting to move into a new home at 24 East 3500 South in Bountiful. Dean, who has been employed for the past six years by Husky Oil, will now assume responsibility as district representative for the Triangle Oil Co. [...]"
  - Ogden Standard-Examiner, "Case of Missing Mother Baffles Officers in Davis", 1975/07/15: "Ten days ago Monday a 23-year-old Layton mother mysteriously disappeared while working at a self-service gas station here. Today, law enforcement officials say they still have no clues as to the whereabouts of Nancy Perry Baird, the divorced mother of a 4-year-old son. From the outset, East Layton police and Davis County sheriff’s deputies have investigated the possibility the disappearance was an abduction, since the missing woman left behind her purse, containing $167 and medication, and her car. [...] The woman had been working at the Fina Station at 1378 N. Highway 89 on the Fourth of July. She had talked with East Layton officer Dave Anderson at 5:10 p.m. when he checked the station and left. About 5:30 p.m., store manager Bonnie Peck stopped by the station and found customers waiting and Mrs. Baird gone. [...] Initially, officials thought three men, two friends and the woman’s ex-husband, who could not be found during the July 4th weekend, could lead to information on her whereabouts. The former husband had been working in Idaho, another man had left for Phoenix, Ariz. the Wednesday before the incident and the third man was reportedly in Pocatello, according to Sheriff’s Lt. Dean Egbert. MAN IDENTIFIED Lt. Egbert said today the man in Pocatello had been identified by a 9-year-old girl as having been in the station that day, although he had alibis in Idaho on his whereabouts July 4. Lt. Egbert said the alibis are being checked thoroughly. The officials also reported that the Fina Station was run by Triangle Oil Co., a firm in which Dean Kent, the father of 17-year-old Debbie Kent who disappeared last November in Bountiful, was an officer. [...] Chief Adams, a parttime officer who also works at Hill Air Force Base, took a week's vacation to work with fulltime officer Anderson in investigating the case."
  - Deseret News, "LABOR DEPARTMENT FILES SUIT AGAINST TRIANGLE", 1988/06/20: "The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court for Utah against Triangle Oil Co. of Bountiful and four trustees of the Triangle Oil Co. Inc. Profit Sharing Plan for allegedly violating their fiduciary obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Trustees named in the lawsuit were Lyle Nelson, Dean Kent, Geraldine B. Allred and estate of Sheldon E. Christensen. Also named as defendants were Douglass Allred, Triangle Oil president; and West Winds Truck Stop, a joint venture owned by Triangle.The complaint alleges that the trustees violated the act when they made repeated imprudent loans, failed to collect money due the profit sharing plan, loaned $200,000 to the truck stop, a party to the plan; and caused the plan to extend credit to Allred Investment Co., also a party to the plan. The government claims that Douglass Allred participated in the fiduciary breaches of the trustees and the company is alleged to have acted imprudently by not monitoring the trustees' actions and failing to prevent or correct the violations. In its suit, the department is asking the court to appoint an independent fiduciary to manage the plan, enjoin Geraldine Allred, Nelson and Kent from acting as fiduciaries to any employee benefit plan for 10 years and order the trustees to restore to the plan all losses incurred as a result of the alleged violations. The department also wants the court to order the company to restore to the plan any profits of the fiduciaries which have been made as a result of the alleged violations, order Douglas Allred to reimburse the plan for all losses incurred as a result of participation in the fiduciary breaches of the trustees and enjoin all defendants from taking any action concerning the plan."
- From p.95 of The Only Living Witness (also on this Tumblr blog):
  
  Meanwhile, another incident was unfolding twenty miles to the north in Bountiful.
  That night, the Viewmont High School drama club was presenting The Redhead before an audience of 1500 in the school auditorium. The play was to begin at eight, but the opening curtain was delayed about twenty minutes. Just before eight, drama teacher Raelynne Shepard, an attractive twenty-four-year old, was approached in the hallway by a young man she later described as “very good-looking.” Not only was he handsome, Shepard thought, but he was impeccably dressed. She noticed his patent leather shoes.
- From the Bountiful Police Department file in the 1974/11/10 "Written Statement of Raelynne Shepherd": "I got to school for the musical at 7:30 p.m., seated my husband in the auditorium, and started around the corner to the dressing rooms. I think it was about 7:45 at the time. The hall was dark, but I could see fairly well. A man who was standing alone halfway down the hall approached me as I walked toward the dressing rooms."
- Drug dealer suspect Ronald Dennis Auth - pseudonym John Badway
  - From the Bountiful Police Department file in the 1974/11/18 supplemental report of Detective Beal: "We left the Club Car 19 at approximately 2030 hours. When we returned to the car Mrs. Shephard stated, “That is the man I talked to in Viewmont,” indicating the waiter, this being Ronald Dennis Auth. Reporting officer inquired as to how she could identify him. Mrs. Shephard stated that there was no question in her mind that he was the man. He looks identical to him, his walk and mannerisms were same, his voice was the same. She pointed out that his voice was slightly higher when he spoke at reporting officer’s table, however when he waited on another table a few minutes later, he was talking in a lower normal voice. This was the voice she had heard at Viewmont. She also pointed out that he was an inch or two taller at this time, however he was wearing shoes tonight with higher heels. She also pointed out that on his left hand he had the imprint of a large ring, which he was not wearing tonight. Reporting officer asked if there was any question in her mind as to whether or not this was the man. Mrs. Shephard replied, “Absolutely none.”"
  - Morning News (Paterson NJ), "6th 'pot boat' bust nets $34M haul", 1979/06/07: "Four men arrested aboard a marijuana boat carrying $34 million in marijuana — the sixth "pot boat" seized in the Caribbean in 10 days — are American citizens, the Coast Guard said Wednesday. The Charles M, a 70-foot shrimp boat, was stopped by the Coast Guard cutter Gallatin Tuesday afternoon about 100 miles southwest of Puerto Rico. The vessel was well known around the Caribbean for "good Samaritan" relief work. It assisted earlier this year in evacuations from the burning cruise ship Angelina Lauro in the U.S. Virgin Islands and from the island of St. Vincent during the eruption in the La Soufriere volcano. The Coast Guard said the Charles M was carrying 17 tons of marijuana. At a street price of $1,000 per pound, the pot would be worth $34 million, officials said. Street price differs from area to area. The Coast Guard identified the four men as Clinton Hayes, of Tampa, Fla., James Swope of Miami, Stephen Black of California and Ron Auth, whose hometown was unknown. Another boat, the luxury yacht Backrunner registered in Nassau, Bahamas, was seized earlier this week by another Coast Guard cutter with about 5,000 pounds of marijuana 400 miles northwest of Puerto Rico. It had a crew of two Americans and one Canadian who have not yet been identified. Four other vessels laden with marijuana have been seized around the Caribbean in the past 10 days and a total of more than 150,000 pounds have been confiscated. Total street value of the drug which will be destroyed was $150 million. Most of the crewmen arrested on charges of conspiracy to smuggle marijuana were Colombians."
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "Fifth Pot Boat Seized In Four Days", 1979/06/07: "Two Florida men have been arrested in the area's fifth "pot boat" seizure in four days, the U.S. Coast Guard says. The Key West fishing boat "Charles M." was being towed to San Juan, P.R., after it was discovered loaded with 17 tons of marijuana, the Guard said. Arrested on pot smuggling charges were James Swope Jr., 33, of Miami, and Clinton Hayes, 25, of Tallahassee. Also arrested were Stephen Black, 31, of Seal Beach, Calif., and Ron Auth, 31, no address available."
  - The Daily Herald (Provo UT), "Judge to Rule on IRS Case Against Park City Resident", 1979/10/17: "A Park City, Utah, man convicted of drug smuggling in Puerto Rico claims the Internal Revenue Service can't assume he used unreported income to buy the Columbian marijuana. Ronald Auth is trying to stop the IRS from seizing his home and bank account. The federal agency told U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Jenkins that the IRS assumed Auth used at least $227,325 in unreported income to help buy the drugs. Jenkins said he would rule on Auth's suit "within 20 days." Auth was one of four men picked up in a boat off Puerto Rico last June. The Justice Department said the men used $1.3 million to purchase marijuana in Columbia. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Wallace Boyack said, if the drugs had been sold in the United States "the marijuana would have been worth far more." The U.S. Coast Guard confiscated the marijuana, and Auth was later convicted in Puerto Rico of possession of a controlled substance with intent to smuggle it into the United States. The IRS says it figures Auth bought up to one-fourth of the marijuana cargo, and claims he therefore understated his income because his recent federal tax returns show he did not have enough money to make the huge purchase."
  - Salt Lake Tribune, "Marijuana Charges Net Probationary Terms", 1979/10/21: "Four U.S. residents, including two Utah men, convicted of smuggling and distributing nearly 20 tons of Colombian marijuana have been re-sentenced to five-year probationary sentences by a federal judge. Ron Auth of Park City, Utah, said he was taken by surprise Friday when federal Judge Juan Torruella suspended his conviction sentence issued six months ago by a jury. Torruella said the four defendants' two-count sentences should run concurrently. Nabbed June 5 Auth said that on June 5 his shrimp-boat Charles M was boarded by the U.S Coast Guard some 20 miles southeast of Puerto Rico. It was there that the gold-colored marijuana was found. The shrimpboat captain, Steve Black, also of Park City, James Swoup, Key West, Fla., and Clinton Hayes of Texas claimed they were traveling from Colombia and destined to meet a mother ship that would have distributed the stash to Europe. Auth was quoted in local papers as estimating the street value of the weed at approximately $360 million. Feared Jail "I thought I was going to he jailed," said Auth. "I met some prisoners in the Bayamon Jail who were convicted to three and four years or having a single marijuana joint on them," he said. He said he and his three companions were jailed for three weeks before their individual $250,000 bail was reduced to $50,000."
  - United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, United States of America, Appellee, v. Clinton Hayes, Ronald Auth, Steven Black and James Swope,jr., Appellants, appeal decision, 1981/06/19: "On June 5, 1979, the CHARLES M, a United States registered fishing vessel, was boarded by the United States Coast Guard Cutter GALLATIN on the high seas in the Caribbean approximately 110 miles southeast of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. [...] The gravamen of appellants' defense was that they did not intend to import or introduce marijuana into the United States, or to otherwise violate the laws of the United States. To that end, they sought to introduce testimony that Captain Hayes thought that the marijuana was destined for Europe. [...] Captain Hayes was given ample scope to testify how he was recruited by a man named Cruz, who directed him to deliver the marijuana to a "mother ship" on the Saba Bank, and to develop the details of the planned delivery."
  - Park Record, "FBI agents arrest three Park City men on drug charges Wednesday, Feb. 24", 1993/03/04: "Three Park City men were arrested Feb. 24 by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on drug charges, Special Agent Keith Bennett said Mar. 3. Ronald Dennis Auth, 45, is charged with a three-count federal indictment. The charges include conspiracy to distribute cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and using a communication facility (telephone) to facilitate illegal transactions. Auth was arrested in his home Feb. 24. Terry Hjorth Thomas, 41, is charged with a one-count indictment, alleging possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Niles Christian Andrus, 42, was also charged with a one-count federal indictment alleging possession of cocaine with, intent to distribute. Auth is currently out on a $5,000 bond awaiting trial. Thomas and Andrus have been similarly released but on $1,000 bonds. The arrests were part of a long-term investigation on the part of the bureau, Bennett added. The maximum sentences for the charges against the three differ according to their prior records or lack of them, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dave Schwendiman Mar. 3. Because Auth has a prior conviction in district court in Puerto Rico for trying to smuggle 18 tons of marijuana into the U.S. in 1979, the maximum sentence on the first count, conspiracy to distribute five kilograms of cocaine is 20 years to life imprisonment. Andrus and Thomas, on the other hand, would spend only a maximum of 20 years in prison if they were to be convicted, because neither has former convictions, Schwendiman said."
Caryn Campbell - 1975/01/12 in Aspen CO
- Detroit Free Press, "Nurse's Death a Homicide, Colo. Investigators Believe", 1975/02/20: "Pending autopsy results expected later this week, investigators for Colorado district attorney Frank Tucker are working on the assumption that 23-year-old Dearborn nurse Caryn Campbell was murdered. Her naked, frozen body was found Monday two miles from an Aspen, Colo., ski resort from which she disappeared Jan. 12. She had been vacationing there with her fiance, Dr. Raymond Gadowski of Farmington Hills. [...] The sheriff's office earlier told reporters that marks on the woman's wrists showed she had been tied and probably thrown from a car. The sheriff's office also said the slaying might be connected with 12 others reported in the West. [...] Tucker said there are no suspects yet. His staff, he said, had interviewed practically all the guests at the lodge the night of Miss Campbell's disappearance. Miss Campbell's body was to be flown to Detroit for burial. Robert R. Campbell, Miss Campbell's brother and a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., policeman, flew to Dearborn Wednesday to be with his family."
- Alternate Seattle suspect Joe Temos a.k.a. Hugh Joe Temos a.k.a. Hugh Joseph Michael Temos a.k.a. Hugh Michael Joseph Temos - pseudonym Manny Treff (in The Only Living Witness) or "Jones" (in Ruth Walsh's report)
  - People, "The Enigma of Ted Bundy: Did He Kill 18 Women? Or Has He Been Framed?", 1980/01/07: "Previously, while researching a five-part series on Bundy, Walsh discovered that seven other men could be linked circumstantially with some or all of Bundy’s alleged crimes. “There are five possible ‘Teds’ in the Seattle area alone,” she says. The list includes a convicted sex offender who was living in Seattle at the time of the murders there. He then moved to Aspen, where he took a job at Snowmass, the resort where victim Caryn Campbell was staying. His co-workers remember him as violent, especially toward women. He didn’t show up for work on the day Campbell was murdered; the next day he picked up his paycheck and left town. (Subsequently he was given a lie detector test and passed.)"
  - Early life and personal background
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "Record Contingent Arrives For 3rd Week at Minsi", 1956/07/09: "Approximately 40 scouts and scouters, the largest weekly contingent in the history of Camp Minsi, Bethlehem Area Boy Scout Council camp, began the third camping period Sunday along Stillwater Lake. [...] Recipients of first class rank, awarded by John Winters, scoutmaster of Troop 30, were Hugh Temos, Robert Wartman, Joseph Hook and Perry Fly, all of Troop 16, Hamilton School Parent-Teacher Assn. [...] Winners of the medley relay were Chris Quigg, Troop 4, Wesley Methodist Church; Frank Barnako, Troop 2, First Presbyterian Church; Hugh Temos, Troop 16, and Lester Kemmerer, Troop 53. Other boating events included a canoe race, won by Hugh Temos, Troop 16, and Robert Lindenmuth, Troop 53, and a lifeboat rescue, won by Robert Myers, Troop 29, ana John Peapos, Troop 43."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "3 Bethlehem Wrestlers Win Jaspers", 1959/03/17: "[At Bethlehem High School] In wrestling, 13 varsity awards were approved. Recipients are Bedics, Koch, Grubbs, Ronald Bednar, Thomas Clements, John Eckenrode, Frank Epinger, Anthony Iasiello, Thomas Magdasy, Roy Morgan, Glenn Rossetti, Hugh Temos and Richard Branda, manager."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "3,000 Attend Bethlehem Scout Court", 1959/06/21: "Bethlehem area boy scouts were honored last night at a court of honor during the council's annual camporee at the East Bath Rod and Gun Gub grounds. A crowd of 3,000 attended. Hugh Temos of Post 16 of the Hamilton School, was honored with the eagle award and Fredric Wilson received the eagle gold palm. [...] Thirty-three units are represented in the three-day program. Camp will break this afternoon after the presentation of awards for camping activities. Included in the program will be the presentation of honors for the first aid meet held in April. Archery demonstrations were given yesterday morning by Frank Schwartz, state champion and Dr. John Heilman, state runner-up. The Bethlehem Elks band gave a concert before the court of honor awards."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "Easton 2nd, Allen 3rd, 'Kids 4th", 1961/03/05: "The only other champion to survive was Malcolm Purdy, the 124-pounder from Easton. He defeated Hugh Temos of Bethlehem, one of the two Hurricanes who fell in the finals."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "INSIDE STUFF" by Joe McCarron, 1961/12/10: "[At Franklin & Marshall College] HUGH TEMOS, of Bethlehem, is a 130-pound candidate on the Freshman wrestling squad"
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "Daggett-Temos Rites Held", 1964/09/13: "Marriage vows were exchanged yesterday in St. Anne's Church, Bethlehem, by Nancy Louise Temos, daughter of Mr, and Mrs. Michael G. Temos, Stokes Park, Bethlehem, and J. Robert Daggett, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence H. Daggett of Glens Falls, N.Y. The Rev. C. Donald McManus officiated. Given in marriage by her father, the bride chose Mrs. Richard C. Grove of Aberdeen, Md., as her matron of honor. Bridesmaids were Marion Daggett, sister of the bridegroom; Mrs. Neil O. Reichard, and Mrs. Robert E. Davidson of Pittsfield, Mass. Serving as best man was Joseph O'Keefe of Glen Falls. Ushering were Hugh M. Temos; Neil O. Reichard; Joseph Stein of Hurley, N.Y.; Richard W. Nixdorf, Woodstock, N.Y.; and Robert E. O'Connor of Rochester, N.Y. Connie Lare of Norristown was flower girl. After a reception at the home of the bride's parents, the couple departed on a honeymoon trip to Canada. They will reside in Albany, N.Y. The bride is an alumna of Liberty High School and Virginia Intermont College. Prior to her marriage she did medical research for Merck, Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories in West Point, Pa. The bridegroom is an alumnus of St. Mary's Academy, Glens Fall and LeMoyne College. He received his M.S. degree from New York State University in Albany where he is presently studying for his doctorate in educational administration. He taught in the Onteora Central Schools, Boiceville, N.Y."
      - Albany Times Union, obituary for J. Robert Daggett, 2004/01/09: "J. Robert Daggett, 65, of Voorheesville, died unexpectedly on Wednesday, January 7, 2004 at his residence. He was born in Glens Falls and was the son of the late Clarence H. and Martha V. Scannell Daggett. Bob completed his undergraduate education at LeMoyne College and his graduate pursuits at SUNY Albany, where he completed his master's degree and doctoral studies. Mr. Daggett started his career in public service as director of educational planning for the state's office of planning coordination in the executive chamber. He was executive director of the New York State Assembly's Education and Higher Education Committees for six years. Over the course of 20 years, he served as executive assistant to three commissioners of education. In that capacity, he was responsible for coordinating and advancing the state legislative programs of the Board of Regents and the State Education Department. He was the recognized for executing extraordinary administrative and program responsibilities as assigned by the commissioners and for expediting the delivery of services, requested by public officials, their staff, members of the educational and professional communities and the general public. He was a partner later with Coppola Ryan McHugh Lobby Firm in Albany and currently served as volunteer and public policy coordinator of Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese. Bob is the beloved husband of 39 years to Nancy T. Daggett; devoted father of Kimberly and Dermot Whelan, J. Robert and Lori Daggett Jr., Daniel and Kathleen Daggett and Michael and Valerie Daggett; the brother of Marion Zinkievich, Diana Cote and Martha Brock; cherished grandfather of Caitlin, Luke and Bridget Whelan, Timothy, Lindsey, Kelsey, Julia Daggett and J. Robert (Jack) Daggett III."
      - Relationship Science page for J. Robert Daggett: "J. Robert Daggett is former National Account Manager at REALTECH AG, former Head-Enterprise Sales at FirstLight Fiber, Inc. and former National Account Manager at MCI, Inc. He received an undergraduate degree from Siena College."
    - Bangor Daily News, "Piscataquis District Court", 1976/06/28: "Hugh Michael Temos, 33, North Hampton, Pa., criminal threatening, dismissed."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "32 ENTER COUNTY'S DRUNKEN-DRIVING ARD PROGRAM", 1987/04/01: "A total of 32 people were enrolled Monday in Northampton County's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program for first-time drunken drivers. The offenders are placed on a year of nominal probation and must each pay $525 to the court. Of that, $25 is for an alcohol abuse profile; $150 for alcohol-highway safety school; $100 for costs; and $250 for supervision and program costs. Their drivers licenses are also suspended for six months. Some of the offenders, who were admitted into the program by President Judge Alfred T. Williams Jr., were also assessed charged for blood-alcohol tests, restitution, and fines for related charges. [...] Hugh Michael Joseph Temos, 43, of 3302 Bath Pike, Bethlehem R. 8, was charged $51.65 for blood testing. He was arrested Sept. 25 in Bath."
    - The Morning Call (Allentown PA), "BETHLEHEM", 1991/02/05: "Charged — Hugh Temos, 47, of 1216 Dover Lane, with public drunkenness Saturday at Fritz Drive and Randolph Road; citation issued."
- Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Bundy questioned by Pitkin County investigators", 1976/03/23: "A Salt Lake County sheriffs office said Monday that two officials from Pitkin County, Colo. questioned Bundy a week ago in connection with the slaying of Caryn Campbell, 24, a Michigan nurse, near Aspen, Colo. early last year. She disappeared while on a skiing vacation. Her body was found Feb. 18, 1975. The officer said Bundy's lawyer, John D. O'Connell, was present during the jail questioning by Pitkin County Sheriff's Lt. William Baldridge and Michael Fisher, an investigator for that county's district attorney. The session also was tape recorded."
- Greeley Daily Tribune, "Convicted Utah kidnapper is charged with murder", 1976/10/23: "Bundy, 29, a former University of Utah law student from Tacoma, Wash., now serving a one-to-15-year sentence in Utah State Prison, was served a warrant accusing him of the 1975 killing of a nurse at the Aspen, Colo. ski resort. "I will prosecute Mr. Bundy for murder in the first degree," said Pitkin County District Attorney Frank Tucker in Glenwood Springs, Colo. [...] Michael Fisher, an investigator from Tucker's office, carried the first degree murder warrant to the Utah prison and served it on Bundy."
- Culpability of Pitkin County Undersheriff Ben Meyers
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Aspen court action for Bundy opens", 1977/04/05: "One of the key prosecution witnesses in the Caryn Campbell murder case identified the wrong man Monday during a preliminary hearing for Theodore R. Bundy, charged with the slaying. Instead of identifying Bundy, she singled out Pitkin County undersheriff Ben Meyers as the man she saw standing near an elevator where Miss Campbell was last seen. [...] Bundy was sitting at the defense table when Lizabeth Harter of Chico, Calif., was called to the stand Monday in district court. Prosecutor Milton Blakey asked if one of the men she had seen outside the elevator at the Snowmass lodge, where she and Miss Campbell were staying, was in the courtroom. "I cant be sure," she said, then asked to have one man stand up and singled him out. That man was the undersheriff, who wasnt in uniform. Another witness, who according to a prosecution affidavit had spoken to Miss Campbell as she got off the elevator, was called to testify. Ida Yoder, wife of a Littleton physician, promptly said that she did not speak to Miss Campbell and could not remember at what floor Miss Campbell got off the elevator."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Bundy to stand trial for murder", 1977/04/07: "District Court Judge George E. Lohr ruled Wednesday that there is probable cause to bind Theodore R. Bundy over for trial on a first-degree murder charge in the death two years ago of a Michigan nurse. Lohr had no comment on the case, except to say that he had reviewed the evidence presented at a preliminary hearing Monday and Tuesday and found that Bundy should stand trial. A hearing on motions is set for May 6. No trial date has been set. [...] An FBI agent testified Tuesday that hair substances found in Bundys car were of the same type as those of Miss Campbell. Gasoline credit cards were introduced to show that Bundy was in the Aspen area at the time Miss Campbell was slain. Bundy's public defender, however, contended that insufficient evidence was presented to indicate Bundy should be tried. He noted that one of the key prosecution witnesses, when asked to identify Bundy in court Monday, singled out Pitkin County Undersheriff Ben Meyers as the man she saw standing near an elevator in the Snowmass Lodge where Miss Campbell was last seen."
  - From p.315 of The Stranger Beside Me: "This time, the eyewitness was the woman tourist who had seen the stranger in the corridor of the Wildwood Inn on the night of January 12, 1975. Aspen Investigator Mike Fisher had shown her a lay-down of mug shots a year after that night and she'd picked Ted Bundy's. Now, during the preliminary hearing in April of 1977, she was asked to look around the courtroom and point out anyone who resembled the man she'd seen. Ted suppressed a smile as she pointed, not to him, but to Pitkin County Undersheriff Ben Meyers." (a play calls the witness Sandra Quilling) (true crime author Kevin M. Sullivan names her as Elizabeth Harter)
  - Archive Aspen photograph of Ben Meyers: "One b/w image of Ben Meyers, new Pitkin Co. undersheriff, in the Aspen Times on May 20, 1976, pg. 11B."
  - The Capital Journal (Salem OR), "Meyers seeks Colorado job", 1973/12/05: "Salem Police Chief Ben Meyers has been on the road this week looking for a new job. Meyers, 42, was interviewed by officials in Grand Junction, Colo., as one of three finalists for chief of the department in that Western Colorado city."
  - Salem Statesman Journal, "Meyers Finalist for Colorado Job", 1973/12/05: "Ben Meyers, Salem's police chief since May 1967, is one of three finalists to apply for police chief at Grand Junction, Colo. Meyers, 42, was in the Eastern Colorado city of 23,000 population this week for an interview for the job, The Statesman learned Tuesday. He is scheduled to return here today."
  - The Capital Journal (Salem OR), "Salem police chief takes Colorado position", 1973/12/10: "Salem Police Chief Ben Meyers will resign Dec. 31 to become chief of police in Grand Junction, Colo. City Manager Robert Moore said Meyers, 43, informed him of the resignation this morning. [...] Meyers, who came here in 1967, cited the new challenge and the climate as the two main reasons he accepted the Grand Junction job. [...] Meyers said he began looking for a job early this year when the Salem Civil Service Commission rejected his bid to demote Captain Walter Esplin to lieutenant. He noted that the Grand Junction police force does not have civil service. Meyers, who makes $21,000 a year, will take a base salary cut to $16,000. But certain fringe benefits including a paid life insurance policy, exemption from social security payments, and vacation and sick leave benefits partially offset the cut. [...] "Don't get me wrong," he said. "I like this community, They've paid me well, and I've tried to serve them well. I just never liked the climate.""
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Bar incident revealed after police chief resigns", 1976/01/20: "The resignation of Grand Junction Police Chief Ben Meyers, announced Monday, follows a New Years Eve confrontation with the local state liquor Inspector at a Grand Junction bar. During the argument Meyers threatened to get" the job of James Gilliam, local state liquor inspector, according to a report filed by Gilliam with the state revenue department. Also during the argument, Meyers told Gilliam he would dismiss a police officer who had made allegations that the chief was illegally buying alcoholic drinks for a 19-year-old girl friend, according to Gilliam's report. The confrontation occurred during the new year's celebration at The Timbers bar and restaurant, 1810 North Ave. The Sentinel learned of the details of Gilliams report this morning from Roland Brumbaugh, deputy director of the state revenue department. [...] Gilliam also reported that a young woman he later verified as being 19 years old was sitting at Meyers table on the night of the confrontation. Gilliam reported the woman had a drink in front of her but that he did not check to see if it was an alcoholic beverage, Brumbaugh said. Brumbaugh added that Gilliam later told his superiors at the revenue office that a few days after the bar incident, Meyers apologized to him and assured him his woman companion was drinking only Coca-Cola. [...] For the past month in interviews with The Sentinel Meyers said he was considering other job opportunities and as early as last October spoke of the consultant position with the Public Administration Service. Meyers often cited press criticismas one reason causing him to seek another job."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Interim police chief to be named Jan. 30", 1976/01/20
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Meyers says confrontation didn't lead to resignation", 1976/01/27: "Grand Junction Police Chief Ben Meyers said today the New Years Eve confrontation with the local state liquor inspector had nothing to do with his resignation announcement last week. In his first interview with The Sentinel on the subject, Meyers also said he might not take an offer to become a consultant for a law enforcement evaluation agency, Public Administration Service. He originally said that job was why he is resigning, effective Friday. He said today that in addition to the Chicago-based firms offer, he is considering three other jobs. One would be a management position with a local business, which he declined to identify. Meyers said that he also has tenative interviews scheduled with two larger cities, one in California and one in Minnesota, for police chief."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Ex-police chief must testify at former policeman's trial", 1976/02/18: "Grand Junction's former police chief, Ben Meyers, will have to testify at the marijuana possession trial of Richard Deavens and Bobby Wilson on March 4, Mesa County Judge Harold Moss ruled Tuesday afternoon. [...] On the witness stand, Meyers said he expects to be in Rochester, Minn., as a police consultant for Public Administration Services for five weeks, beginning in the next few days. Meyers told Defense Lawyer Harold Flowers of Denver, who had subpoenaed him as a witness, that he was "unemployed - between jobs," and that his address is 2837 Mesa. He also testified that he had decided to resign as police chief "to seek better employment" and that he had three job offers at the time he resigned. One was with the Chicago firm, one was in a management position with a Grand Junction business, and one was a police chief interview, he testified. [...] Meyers told the court that, as police chief, he had heard rumors that Deavens, a Grand Junction policeman, was involved in narcotics deals. Meyers said there were more rumors than usual about Deavens, and Flowers asked if he felt there was some reason. "Because he's black," Meyers replied. "Does that concern you?" Flowers asked. "Yes, it does," Meyers replied."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Mayor calls resignations 'normal turnover'", 1976/03/06: "Kozisek, backed by city council members Jane Quimby, Larry Brown and Bob VanHouten, maintained the four resignations are coincidental. The string of resignations began last October when police Capt. Robert Burnett, the number two man in the department, resigned. Police Chief Ben Meyers announced, his resignation, effective Jan. 30, on Jan. 19. City Manager Harvey Rose held a news conference Feb. 19 to announce that he plans to resign but declined to give a date. On Feb. 23, Public Works Director Gus Byrom said he would resign on April 2 and then City Engineer Rodger Young announced last Monday that he would resign on March 19."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Meyers has caretaker Aspen role", 1976/08/10: "Former Grand Junction Police Chief Ben Meyers has become head of the Pitkin County Sheriffs Office following the resignation Monday of the county's elected sheriff whose performance was the subject of an outside investigation. Meyers, 46, became Pitkin County undersheriff this spring after resigning his Grand Junction post in January. He will temporarily replace Carroll Whitmire as Pitkin County sheriff. Whitmires performance was criticized Tuesday by Dist. Atty. Frank Tucker, whose staff recently conducted an investigation of the sheriffs office. Pitkin County Commissioner Dwight Shell man told The Sentinel today it is unlikely Meyers will be formally appointed acting sheriff an election will be held for the job in November."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "City bank files lawsuit against former Junction police chief", 1976/12/22: "A lawsuit has been filed against former Grand Junction Police Chief Ben H. Meyers involving money he borrowed from the First National Bank in Grand Junction. The lawsuit alleges that Meyers, now employed as undersheriff for Pitkin County, and living in Aspen, has not repaid loans of $1,700 and $1,400 he received from the bank in November, 1975, and January, 1976. [...] Meyers, contacted in Aspen this morning, said he has not repaid the loans. But he blamed his financial troubles on a divorce settlement his ex-wife obtained from a Mesa County District Court judge this November, and said he intends to repay First National Bank as soon as possible. The divorce settlement was rendered against Meyers a few months after his repayment of the bank loans was due. Meyers, 46, resigned as Grand Junctions police chief last Jan. 19 and was named to his current law enforcement job in April. [...] Meyers became Grand Junction's police chief In February, 1974, after serving in the same capacity in Salem, Ore. His resignation last January came in the wake of criticisms about his performance as police chief and his personal lifestyle. Upon his resignation Meyers received $3,364 in severance pay from the city."
  - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Meyers leaves Pitkin County law position", 1977/07/01: "While Meyers' resignation follows immediately a pair of resignations directly related to the recent escape of Theodore Bundy, Kienast said Meyers departure is not connected to that incident. Kienast said he and Meyers differed over law enforcement philosophy. Meyers said he will vacation at Aspen, and possibly at Lake Powell, before considering new job opportunities. His resignation took effect Thursday."
  - In his previous job as police chief of Grand Junction CO, Meyers faced controversy during the murder trial of Ken Botham over Botham's apparent framing, the string of murdered women in 1975, and police involvement in organized crime that Meyers himself likely partook in: "The public would like to believe lawmen are on their side, but with a turnover rate far in excess of the state average, sexual involvement of nearly a dozen officers (that can be proven) with some of the victims, when the same officers being assigned to investigate their murders when they admittedly alter and destroy evidence, and when the police chief of that time, partied with the victims before their deaths, a feeling of uneasiness tends to develop.
    
    The police chief Ben Meyers was forced to resign shortly after the Tomlinson murder, and was allegedly extensively involved in drug traffic. Botham's investigators found numerous large deposits in account in two banks, but the D.A. objected to a court order for all Meyers bank records and Judge Ela denied it, saying it was irrelevant. Immediately, the chief resigned, clearing all accounts. This man took an undersherrif position in Aspen, Colorado, resigning after Ted Bundy escaped from the Aspen jail. During the Bundy trial, a witness identified Myers as the man she saw leaving the dead nurse's apartment at the time of her murder . . . the nurse Bundy was accused of killing and leaving frozen in the countryside."
    
    As the Ken Botham website's overview of people describes him: "Was found to have several "extra" bank accounts with untraceable money. Cleared bank accounts and left Grand Junction in December, 1976. Went to Telluride as Chief of Police. Alleged connections to the drug/traffic/prostitution community."
  - Denver Post, "Former Grand Junction cop still haunted by bizarre rash of homicides in 1975", 2012/05/19 (pages 1, 2, 3, 4): "On April 6, serial killer Ted Bundy bought fuel at a gas station where Rushing’s brother worked, Rushing said. Coincidentally, a girl resembling many of Bundy’s victims, Denise Oliverson, disappeared while riding a bike. The next day her bike and shoes were found but not her, according to a Grand Junction Sentinel article. Three months later in July a “ghost” murdered Linda Benson, 24, and Kelley Ketchum, 5, Rushing said. It would take decades before DNA would identify the mysterious killer, who had never been on the radar for Rushing and two detectives while they tirelessly investigated the case in 1975 and the years to come. The man was suspected serial killer Jerry Nemnich . Authorities arrested Nemnich in 2009. Nemnich became a person of interest in the murder of June Kowaloff, a 20-year-old mathematics major at the University of Denver On Aug. 22, Patricia Botham and neighbor Linda Miracle and her two sons Chad and Troy were murdered. Patricia’s husband Kenneth was later convicted of their murders and sentenced to life in prison. Before the terrifying year was up there would be one more shocking homicide in the bucolic city of Grand Junction. It would prove to be the most difficult to solve. Shortly before 6 p.m. on Dec. 27, 1975, a Saturday, the partially clothed body of Deborah Kathleen Tomlinson, 19, was discovered in the bathroom of an apartment at 1029 Belford Ave. She had lived alone in the ground-floor apartment a block south of Mesa College, where she attended school. Tomlinson’s hands were tied behind her back, according to an article that appeared in The Denver Post two days later. Evidence indicated she had also had been sexually assaulted, according to a Grand Junction Sentinel article. [...] Grand Junction spokeswoman Kate Portas said currently there are no suspects in the Tomlinson case. But despite all the years that have passed she holds out hope the case will be solved some day."
  - The Killing Season by Alex French (2016) - preview
  - From l.900 of The Killing Season: "There were rumors Chief Meyers took cash for looking the other way on prostitution and drugs. When it became too much to ignore, the city council president (a former police chief) asked Fromm to investigate in secret. That's the way Fromm tells it, at least. He says he stole the key to the chief's file cabinet. Slipped into the office late one weekend night when he imagined Meyers would be out with his buddies. But then Chief caught him snooping. The next day the brass kept Fromm in interrogation for four hours. Worked him over good."
  - Linda Miracle and Pat Botham murders - on August 23
    - Junction podcast episodes (show notes) - says that Butch Goad and wife Arlene Goad were "told by Patricia that her and Linda were going to come forward with some news that was going to shock the whole town"
      - #1-Welcome to Junction (individual player) - plays clips from Thad Botham, the Holler family, Marti Talbott, and the Goad family
      - #2-Questions: The Shoe (individual player) - shoe indicates Linda Miracle's car was used to transport the bodies
      - #3-Questions: The Boyfriends (individual player) - Linda Miracle's boyfriends were Norm Wilhelm (at her home that night) and sheriff's deputy Truman Haley (on a phone call with her earlier that day)
    - Reddit comment about another Colorado murder suspect who brought up the Botham and Miracle murders: "Incidentally, this case was referred to briefly by one of the witnesses to a murder case currently in the courts, the retrial of Lester Jones, who is accused of murdering Paige Birgfeld. One of the other suspects in that case, Steven Heald, who took the stand a couple days ago, was said by another witness to have mentioned the case "out of the blue" when they had met to discuss business several years ago, at the Bridgeport road where it intersects US 50. The witness found it alarming that Mr. Heald had mentioned the discovery of the bodies that were "thrown off the abandoned bridge" up the road, for no apparent reason in the midst of their business discussion. As it happens, the victim's remains in this case were found in this vicinity as well, near Wells Gulch adjacent to the Gunnison River, a few miles away from the Bridgeport Road."
      - Denver Post, "Mesa County: arrest made in death of soccer mom turned escort", 2014/11/22 (pages ..., 5, ...): "They investigated Steven Heald, 44, then the manager of Blue Star Industries. He had written checks to Paige. When Sgt. Josh Warner interviewed Heald, he said he once asked Paige if she was ever afraid of the johns she met and she replied, “no more than I’m afraid of my ex-husband.” He said that Paige offered a deal in which Paige would give the construction company Pampered Chef products to new home buyers. She also did odd cleaning jobs for Blue Star for money. Two days before her disappearance he had lunch with her and she said she was trying to refinance her home."
      - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Witness: Birgfeld blackmail story was a lie", 2016/08/25: "A former client of slain Grand Junction call girl and single mother Paige Birgfeld said Thursday that early in the investigation he fabricated a story to law enforcement that she was blackmailing him in order to avoid coming under scrutiny himself. Steven Heald, a former Delta resident, testified Thursday that, even though he seemingly gave himself a motive in Birgfeld’s 2007 disappearance by claiming she was demanding hush money to hide their sexual relationship from Heald’s wife, that story was a lie, and he had nothing to do with her death. “She never blackmailed me,” Heald said on the witness stand. “(At the time) I am trying to protect myself and trashing someone who did not deserve to be trashed.” Defense attorneys have presented Heald as one of several alternate suspects they say could have kidnapped and killed Birgfeld instead of Lester Ralph Jones, who is standing trial for the crime. Law enforcement briefly investigated Heald as a suspect, but ultimately cleared him after his alibi was verified, according to testimony Thursday."
      - Dateline NBC, episode on the Paige Birgfeld murder with reporter Keith Morrison, 2017/04/01: "reporter: so they let him go too, for the moment. the other clients? hautzinger knew one of them very well, a prominent real estate investor named steven heald. he was almost as well known in town as rob dixon and, like dixon, for the wrong reasons. investigator: the first major case i handled when i came to this jurisdiction was his multi-million dollar fraud case. i mean, i had prosecuted him and sent him to prison back in the early '90s for that. so when he came up again as a suspect in the birgfeld matter it was interesting. reporter: when detectives questioned him, heald admitted he embezzled money from his company to pay for dates with paige. but then, he claimed, paige turned the tables on him. investigator: he made allegations that she was essentially blackmailing him asking for extra money. reporter: what a motive. except heald's wife supplied an alibi -- they were home that night, reading, watching tv. so heald seemed to be in the clear -- which made it all the more shocking when -- after being questioned by detectives -- heald attempted suicide. that, d.a. hautzinger assumed, was not guilt but shame."
  - Denise Oliverson disappearance - on April 8
    - Greeley Daily Tribune, "Colorado officers want to question man held in Utah jail", 1975/11/01: "And Grand Junction Police Chief Ben Meyers also confirmed to a reporter that the Bundy credit card had been used in his city on the date of the Oliverson disappearance."
    - Just before his 1989 execution in Florida (see below), Bundy confessed to murdering Denise Lynn Oliverson
  - Linda Benson murder - on July 25
    - Her murder is the focal point of The Killing Season
    - Denver Post, "Rapist held in 1975 murders", 2009/04/10: "According to a July 27, 1975, Denver Post article, the bodies of Benson and her daughter were discovered on a Friday afternoon in their apartment. [...] Neither victim was raped."
    - From l.376 of The Killing Season: "A cross was carved into her sternum, between her breasts."
    - From l.558 of The Killing Season: "Word around Junction was that the stab wounds suffered by Linda and Kelley formed a particular pattern that linked them to cult killings in California."
    - From l.710 of The Killing Season: "There were rumors around town (none of them substantiated) that Steve Benson was running stolen guns and drugs—marijuana packed into hollowed-out bullet casings. There were murmurs that he'd been behind on a narcotics payment. A member of Lawrence Himmerite's church group told the police, I'll tell you what, though. Linda was into the drug scene. I believe she had knowledge of the numerous heavy pushers around the Valley and that put her into considerable danger. Once she said to me, "If you only knew who the dealers are . . . big shots.""
    - From l.913 of The Killing Season: "STEVE GOAD, A race car enthusiast who lived in the Chateau Apartments, saw Ted Bundy on TV and said, Oh my God. That's my boy! He remembered so clearly seeing that face in the parking lot out back on the night Linda and Kelley were murdered. The police brought the hypnotist in to work with Goad. It was around 2 a.m. He looked like he was nursing something that was hurt. Ribs maybe. I looked him dead in the eyes. Cold black eyes that I'll never forget. He was real close. I thought he was going to rumble."
    - Death of sister in 1974
      - From the Botham website overview: "The previous year (July 1974) Linda Benson's older sister, Judith Ketchum, is found dead at a campground just outside of Aspen (Pitkin County). Authorities ruled it a drug-overdose. The head sheriff, however, was investigating a plane crash and Judith's body was suspiciously whisked away and embalmed before family members could request an autopsy."
      - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, "Young Junction woman's death attributed to natural causes", 1974/07/09: "The death of a Grand Junction woman, discovered Monday at an eastern Pitkin County campground, is being attributed to natural causes, according to a district attorneys investigator here. Investigator Michael Fisher told The Sentinel today the death of Judee Ketchum, 22, appeared to be from natural causes. He said circumstances surrounding Miss Ketchum's death indicated little possibility of foul play or suicide. He said an autospy would be performed in Denver to determine the exact cause of death."
      - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, obituary for Judee Ketchum Lake, 1974/07/10: "Mrs. Judee Ketchum Lake, 22, of 3347 Road G, who died unexpectedly Monday at Chapman Reservoir campground while vacationing in the Ruedi area, had lived in Grand Junction since 1961. She was employed at Delta Products. The Ketchum family came here from North Platte, Neb., where she was born Feb. 6, 1952. Surviving are her husband, Phil Lake; her mother, Mrs Barbara Himmerite; two brothers, Mark and Danny Ketchum, and two sisters, Linda and Tammy Ketchum all of Grand Junction."
      - Fort Collins Coloradoan, "Body of young woman identified", 1974/07/11: "The body of a young woman found in the Chapman Reservoir Campground near here Monday has been identified as that of a 22-year-old Grand Junction woman, Judy Ketchum, authorities reported Tuesday. Assistant Dist. Atty. Mike Fisher of Aspen said the woman apparently died of natural causes. Her death was first reported as a possible homicide when the body was found. Fisher said the woman had a history of poor health and had seen a Glenwood Springs doctor [...]"
  - Jerry Nemnich as a serial killer
    - Denver Post, "Rapist held in 1975 murders", 2009/04/10: "Nemnich has an extensive sexual-assault history. His first case was in Nebraska when he was 16 in 1960. In 1961, at 17, he was convicted of rape with a weapon and served a prison term in Colorado, said Katherine Sanguinetti, Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman. In 1968, he was imprisoned for assault with intent to rape, according to CBI records. In 1974, he was arrested in Boulder for rape using a weapon, kidnapping and assault, according to CBI records. The disposition of the case is not known. Between 1978 and 1992, he served a prison sentence for a Denver rape."
    - Boulder Daily Camera, "Longmont man arrested in 1975 Grand Junction killings", 2009/04/10
    - Boulder Daily Camera, "Longmont suspect investigated in '73 DU killing", 2009/09/02: "Two years earlier, June Kowaloff, a 20-year-old mathematics major, was fatally stabbed outside her apartment at 2301 S. Race St. in Denver early on a Saturday morning. Denver cold-case detectives are investigating whether Nemnich killed Kowaloff, according to Sgt. Anthony Parisi. "We have reopened the case," Parisi said. "We are reinterviewing witnesses." Investigators are going to compare semen found on the woman to Nemnich's DNA, according to sources."
    - Denver Post, "DU student raped, stabbed after accident" by Kirk Mitchell, 2009/09/05: pages 1, 2, 3 - has this weird detail: "In the early 1990s, New York City attorney Arthur Kowaloff got a call from the same Denver detective who had worked on the investigation of his sister’s murder 19 years earlier. The detective told him he was going to seek a DNA test of a man who had been a suspect in June’s death all along. Arthur Kowaloff said he couldn’t recall the suspect’s name. The detective wanted to test the man to determine whether he was the killer before his release from prison. Arthur Kowaloff never heard from the detective again."
    - ABC7 Denver, "Longmont Trucker Explains DNA In Mother-Daughter Slayings", 2010/10/26
    - GJPD Patrol, "Past and Present Come Together for a Conviction", 2010/10/29: "In 1960 Nemnich raped a 15-year-old girl at knifepoint."
    - From l.1133 of The Killing Season: "Bullard called up Nemnich’s rap sheet. He found an arrest in late August of 1960 for rape, assault, and car theft in North Platte, Nebraska. (North Platte was Where Barbara Himmerite was from, Bullard remembered.) Nemnich was just fifteen years old the first time he got put away. He stayed fourteen months in a Lincoln, Nebraska, reformatory. The day he was released, police from Boulder County picked him up and brought him back to Colorado on rape charges. Nemnich negotiated a plea agreement and served as a guest of the state until 1963; he was nineteen. When he was released. Six months later he was picked up again, this time in Grand Junction, for passing bad checks. He served four years. In May of 1968, Nemnich was arrested just hours after entering a home in Pueblo through an unlocked front door and sexually assaulting a woman. He threatened her with a cleaver. Witnesses spotted him casing the neighborhood before the attack. He was just about to turn thirty when he was released in 1973. Once free, Nemnich landed in Denver. He got caught trying to shoplift a carton of cigarettes in 1975 but otherwise managed to avoid serious trouble until 1978, when he kidnapped a woman at gunpoint, forced her into a vacant apartment, and raped her. The Department of Corrections (DOC) sent over booking photos. In 1968, Nemnich had been bookish and prim, with thick, black-framed glasses and a hairline in prompt retreat. In the photos from ’75 and ’78, he had long, shaggy hair, a thick beard, and dark-tinted prescription glasses. His facial features were hardly visible behind the hair and the spectacles, but there was no hiding the menace."
  - Other potential victims in Grand Junction
    - From l.888 of The Killing Season: "GRAND JUNCTION, IT seemed, was overrun by evil. At a motel on Horizon Drive in Grand Junction, Detective Montgomery busted a drifter for using hot credit cards. When Montgomery went through the man's wallet, he found IDs for two young Oregon women who'd mysteriously disappeared weeks earlier. Out on the interstate, sheriff's deputies and state troopers arrested three men from the FBI's most-wanted list."
  - UFO cult in Grand Junction at the time - later infamous as Heaven's Gate
    - Washington Post, "KEEPER OF HEAVEN'S GATE WAS AN EARTHLING NAMED MARSHALL APPLEWHITE", 1997/03/28: "For more than two decades, they had been known as "The Two." They were soft-spoken and secretive, a nurse and one of her former patients. They called themselves Bo and Peep, or sometimes Tiddly and Wink, or even Winnie and Pooh. Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles had a knack for winning publicity. In 1975, they made it onto Walter Cronkite's newscast, "a group of earthlings who believe they're on their way to a rendezvous" with a rocket ship from outer space. According to academic studies and news accounts, he was a music professor who had sung 15 roles with the Houston Grand Opera and was said to resemble Mister Rogers in manner and voice. She had left medicine to become an astrologer, and left her family to join Applewhite in a spiritual journey. Both were once dedicated Christians. And both came to believe that they were aliens from the "next level," sent to Earth to find converts who would join them in a return to outer space."
    - Baltimore Sun, "Cult leader seduced 20 people from town on Ore. coast in '75 Most returned, wonder what impulse drew them", 1997/03/30: "WALDPORT, Ore. -- This seaside village, a pastiche of lighthouses, tidal pools, and cedar-shingled bed and breakfasts, does not look like a source for new members in a UFO cult. But Aaron Greenberg remembers the day when he and about 150 people -- one quarter of the town's population -- eagerly packed a motel hall to hear Marshall Herff Applewhite, who was called Bo at the time, lecture on the topic "UFOs -- why they are here, who they have come for, when they will leave." "There was this compulsion," Greenberg recalled of the standing-room-only crowd that attended the September 1975 lecture. . "It was like Richard Dreyfuss in 'Close Encounters' when he was making that tower of mashed potatoes." Within days after the lecture, about 20 people, including Greenberg, had left town to join the cult, going first to Grand Junction, Colo., for a gathering of more than 400 people seeking an eventual rendezvous with a UFO."
    - Denver Post, "Rapist held in 1975 murders", 2009/04/10: "The Bensons’ murders occurred during a year when 15 women and children died violently in western Colorado and eastern Utah: [...] There were rumors in the shaken community at the time that some of the murders were cult killings. A UFO cult, led by a couple who called themselves “The Two,” had stayed at Colorado National Monument around the time of the murders."
    - From l.794 of The Killing Season: "For years the Two had been recruiting members across the country. In Spokane, Washington, and the Bay Area and Los Angeles and Ojai and Sedona, Arizona, and Boise, Idaho, and Longmont, Colorado, and western Nebraska. The Two instructed their followers fast. They recommended that, after surrendering all money and material objects, their followers relied on the kindness of church organizations for fuel and sustenance. Sex, drugs, alcohol were forbidden. A young woman from West Allis, Wisconsin, showed authorities a note from her boyfriend, a twenty-two-year-old surveyor: "I've seen the light, and I'm going to follow it. There's so little time left." Police in Fox Lake, Illinois, linked the group to a string of cattle mutilations and murders plaguing Midwestern farmers." - note that West Allis WI is where Jeffrey Dahmer's grandmother lived
- Brother and Fort Lauderdale FL police officer Bob Campbell
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "Machete-Wielding Man Sets House On Fire, Fends Off Policemen", 1975/01/31: "A machete-wielding arsonist possibly aggitated by marital problems set fire to an empty house this morning and tried to cut police officers who arrested him minutes later, police said. Police arrested Wilmer Vassor, 25, of 915 NW Third Ave., and charged him with arson and aggravated assault against a police officer. Police later today said Vassor was a mentally disturbed person and that they will place him in a state hospital under the Baker Act. Officers Dave Ecklund and Robert Campbell said they were directed to the fire at 3:45 a.m. by witnesses who said they saw a man torching a house at 909 NW Third Ave."
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "The Truglia Jury — 10 Hours Of Anger", 1976/08/15 (pages 1, 17, 18): "But, the four holdouts would not give in. They asked to hear again the testimony of Officer Robert R. Campbell, of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, who was one of the first policemen to arrive in the bloodstained room on NW 15th Street and talk to Truglia. It was read back to them by the court clerk. They heard again Campbell's words, how he saw Mary Lou Truglia lying on the floor, her mouth smeared with blood and her tooth chipped off. She was hysterical, the young officer said. They heard him relate Truglia's admission at the scene. It hardly varied from the defendant's later statements, and he was "highly upset" at the time. They heard again how Truglia called his .22 a .38 revolver. Most of the jurors thought that a natural mistake to make in the turmoil of the moment. But the four wondered and held out."
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "Woman Shot In Apartment Robbery", 1979/02/09 (pages 6, 8): "While staying at the Las Olas home. Miss Deiss met 26-year-old Kevin Buckley in the neighborhood several days ago. He lives less than a block away in a second floor apartment at 321 Sunset Drive. Buckley, described by police as a yacht broker, was returning to his apartment late last night with a friend, Laurie Doornbosch, 26, of 1520 SE Third Ave. [...] [Susan] Ruhl said she heard one of the men say, "DA" or "DEA," as he met one of the victims at the door. "I thought he meant district attorney," Miss Ruhl said. Detectives, however, believe the intruders were trying to pass themselves off as agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. While rifling through drawers and personal belongings, the two men kept demanding of Buckley, "Where is it? Where is it?" the victims told police. Detectives said Buckley told them he did not know what the men were looking for. The victims added that they could hear the men using walkie-talkies or some other type of radio to communicate with a third person. Finally, according to Miss Ruhl, the intruders received a radio message: "Get out the back door, quick." The two men fled immediately. [...] [Linda Deiss] ran to the Las Olas home where she had been staying and telephoned police. Patrolman Robert Campbell, first to arrive at the Las Olas home and first at the apartment, found the other victims."
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "Out of luck: Annual influx of destitutes begins when fall winds blow", 1980/10/19: "The paramedics and police try to decide what to do with Florice. "Come on, dear. We're going to give you a ride. You can't be sleeping on this bench," says Fort Lauderdale patrolman Robert Campbell. "You're not playing games, are you?" challenges Florice. "Do I look like I'm playing games?" responds Campbell. He piles Florice into the back of a patrol car and heads for the Broward Alcoholism Rehabilitation Center. It's a nightly assignment."
  - Fort Lauderdale News, "Witness in Williams' trial says car on bridge at murder site", 1982/01/08 - unsure if same Robert Campbell: "The police recruit who was under the Jackson Parkway bridge the night Wayne Williams became a suspect in the Atlanta child murders testified today he saw a car turn on its lights on the bridge seconds after he heard a loud splash in the river. Robert Campbell told the jury in the third day of testimony in Williams' trial for the murder of two of the 28 black victims that he used his flashlight to follow the waves of the splash in the Chattahoochee River to a point below the concrete bridge. "I looked up, I looked down, looked up again and I was about to look down again when I saw lights come on right there above where the splash originated," he testified. "Then what did you see?" asked prosecutor Jack Mallard. "The car went on across the bridge very slowly," Campbell said. It was the first revelation that Campbell had seen a car as well as heard a splash early in the morning of May 22, 1981, and the first testimony that Williams, who was driving the car that another recruit saw coming off the bridge, had been running with its lights off."
Julie Cunningham murder - 1975/03/15 in Vail CO
- Connection to Salem OR chief of detectives Jim Stovall
  - From p.??? of The Stranger Beside Me:
    
    Jim Stovall, Chief of Detectives of the Salem, Oregon, Police Department, takes his winter vacation there, working as a ski instructor. His daughter lives there, also a ski instructor.
    Stovall drew a deep breath as he recalled to me that twenty-six-year-old Julie Cunningham was a good friend of his daughter, and Stovall, who has solved so many Oregon homicides, was at a loss to know what had happened to Julie on the night of March 15.
Chi Omega sorority house murders - 1978/01/15 in Tallahassee FL
- From p.237 of The Only Living Witness:
  
      It had been nearly three and a half years since Dr. Daris Swindler, the forensic anthropologist from the University of Washington, had examined the remains of Denise Naslund, Janice Ott, and the nameless third victim found on the Issaquah hillside. Those murders had never been far from his mind, not with the indelible memory of cradling Jan Ott's peculiarly elongated skull in one hand while he compared it with the photograph of her that he held in his other hand.
      On Sunday morning, January 15, 1978, Swindler awoke in Tallahassee, Florida. He and his wife, Cathy, were on their way to a Caribbean vacation and had stopped in Florida capital to visit a favored ex-student, then teaching at FSU.
      When they heard the gruesome news of the Chi Omega slaughter that morning, Cathy Swindler felt “this shudder of recognition.” She remembered the horror of 1974 in Seattle. Their host in Tallahassee also remembered the “Ted” killings and his former professor's involvement in the case. “What are you doing?” he asked jocularly. “Bringing more dead girls along with you from Seattle?”
      Daris Swindler laughed uneasily.
- Bite mark evidence
  - Florida Supreme Court, no. 57,772: THEODORE ROBERT BUNDY, Appellant v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee, initial brief of appellant, 1982/03/30: "The state shortly thereafter rested its case. Motion for judgment of acquittal was made and dmied (R 9023). Defense counsel announced ready for trial with exhibits (R 9024). The defense began with another rift between counsel and the Defendant (R 9036). It became obvious the defense was not ready as a motion was made to recpen the case for the defense after resting (R 96241, The defense had evidence from blow-ups of the Defendant taken when he was arrested in Pensacola which showed no chip on one of the teeth, a critical point of comparison {R 9978-9984). The Defendant and another witness testified that the chip in the tooth wasmade in jail in Pensacola after the crimes were committed (R 9590). The trial judge found the defense had adequate time to develope the photo (R 98301, and related testimony, and if the evidence had been timely prepared and presented, the court would have admitted it (R 999Q). The failure to procure the evidence was attributed to counsel (R 9998)."
  - Tallahassee Magazine, "An Extra-Ordinary Joe", 2012/07/20: "Yet while prosecutors used the bite marks to put Bundy at the scene of the murders, Aloi says he personally knew the evidence was faulty. That’s because before the trial, when Aloi told Bundy that investigators were going to make an impression of his teeth, “he broke his tooth off right in front of me” using the metal return bar from the typewriter. Bundy told him, “Now let them figure that out.” During his testimony, Souviron matched that gap in Bundy’s teeth to the photograph. But, says Aloi, “Of course it couldn’t be, because I saw him make the gap.”"
- Dr. Emil Spillman - a "jury expert" for Bundy's defense
  - Associated Press, "Ted Bundy Trial Miami 1979", 1979/06/28: "Ted Bundy, left, accused in the Chi Omega sorority sister murders, leans over the table to offer an opinion to defense counsel Dr. Emil Spillman during jury selection for his murder trial, Wednesday, June 28, 1979, Miami, Fla. Bundy is participating in his own defense, along with a team of public defenders. Spillman is an analytical hypnotist."
  - From p.457 of The Stranger Beside Me: "Dr. Emil Spillman, the Atlanta hypnotist who had been Ted's jury expert, told the press that Ted had truly chosen his own jury. They had to go through seventy-seven potential jurors before they reached a final selection on June 30."
  - Obituary of Emil V. Spillman III who died 2005/08/26 - served in the US Marines during the Korean War; opened medical practices in the Marietta and Mableton areas (near Atlanta)
- New York Times, "Bundy Guilty of Murders Of Two Florida Women", 1979/07/25
Kimberly Leach - 1978/02/09 in Lake City FL
- Involvement of alleged CIA mind control scientist Dr. Milton Kline
  - High Times, "Ex-CIA Doc Leads Fight to Limit Hypnosis", 1980/01: "Hypnotherapist Dr. Milton V. Kline, former consultant to the CIA's supersecret behavior-modification project Bluebird, is currently campaigning for strict legal constraints on hypnosis, limiting its use to trained members of the health professions. During the early '60s, when the CIA was covertly funneling millions of tax dollars into a variety of brainwashing experiments involving LSD, other hallucinogens and electroshock, Kline provided expertise on hypnosis."
  - Palm Beach Post, "Testimony in Bundy Case Challenged", 1980/02/05: "A defense expert testified yesterday that hypnosis-induced testimony by the state's only eyewitness in the Theodore Bundy kidnap-murder trial lacked any value or credibility. Dr. Milton V. Kline, a New York City clinical psychologist and specialist in hypnosis, told a Circuit Court jury that former fireman C.L. Anderson "was extremely compliant to suggestions" by what he called domineering and "omnipotent hypnotists" on what he saw during 12-year-old murder victim Kimberly Diane Leach's alleged kidnaping two years ago."
  - Tampa Tribune, "Bundy Case Psychologist May Be Fraud", 1981/10/08: "A psychologist who examined convicted murderer Theodore Bundy and John Lennon's admitted killer, Mark David Chapman, has been charged with lying about his professional credentials. Milton Kline of Chappaqua, N.Y., was indicted Friday on a charge of committing perjury during a Nov. 14, 1979 hearing in Manhattan state Supreme Court, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said at a news conference Tuesday."
  - Tampa Tribune, "Bundy Case Witness Subject Of Florida Perjury Investigation", 1982/02/04: "The investigation of Milton Kline centers on whether he misrepresented his academic credentials on two occasions during Bundy's 1980 trial in the death of a 12-year-old Lake City girl, according to Lake City State Attorney Jerry Blair, who prosecuted the case."
  - Orlando Sentinel, "Psychologist in Bundy case faces charges", 1982/03/06
  - Orlando Sentinel, "Psychologist gets 1-year sentence", 1983/02/18: "Milton Kline, 58, had pleaded no contest to perjury after prosecutors said he lied when he said he had degrees from Columbia and Penn State universities. He made the plea with understanding that he could appeal Columbia County Judge Arthur Lawrence's ruling that the testimony was material to the case."
  - Orlando Sentinel, "Court upholds conviction of Bundy witness", 1984/01/31: "Kline testified as a defense witness at Bundy's trial for the 1978 rape and slaying of 12-year-old Knberly Leach of Lake City. He claimed to hold a doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Pennsylvania State University. Kline later admitted this was not true and pleaded no contest to a perjury charge. [...] Bundy was convicted of murdering the Leach girl and sentenced to death in the electric chair. He also received death sentences for killing two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Appeals in both cases are pending before the Florida Supreme Court. Victor Africano, a lawyer for Bundy and Kline, said he was "fairly confident" Kline would seek a rehearing and, if that is denied, appeal to the Florida Supreme Court."
Raiford prison term and 1989 execution
- Daily Kent Stater, "Bundy's death ends ordeal for families", 1989/01/26 - mentions "Shelley Robertson, 24, of Denver, who disappeared June 30, 1975" (note that in his interview with Billy Bob Barton, Ottis Toole claims to have been responsible for Shelley's murder, not Bundy)
- Orlando Sentinel, "Bundy Detailed 2 Slayings 45 Minutes Before Execution", 1989/01/27

Other curiosities

According to Denver Post, "Bigfoot believers", 2003/01/05 (excerpted here), anthropology professor Daris Swindler, who examined the skulls of the Seattle victims, is an adherent of Bigfoot's existence. This is reminiscent of how multiple Bigfoot believers were linked to the Yosemite murders: Michael Larwick was the son of Leroy Larwick, who produced a controversial videotape purportedly showing Bigfoot, and Cary Stayner was known to be fascinated with Bigfoot, claiming to others he met that he had seen one of those creatures.
Alternate suspect Douglas Alan Yoakam
- Deseret News, "Man convicted in 1977 murder makes another plea for parole", 2016/01/06: "Douglas Alan Yoakam, 66, has been incarcerated for nearly four decades. On Tuesday, Yoakam made yet another plea for parole before Utah Board of Pardons and Parole member Jesse Gallegos, the same board member who heard Yoakam's last attempt at parole in 2006, which was denied. The challenge for the board, however, is deciding whether Yoakam, who has been diagnosed several times as being delusional and schizophrenic, would still pose a threat to society if he is released. Yoakam, a licensed gun dealer, was in Millcreek Canyon in 1977 when he unloaded a Mac-10 submachine gun on Karen Roberson and Justin Tauffer, killing Tauffer and critically injuring Roberson. [...] At the time of the shootings, Yoakam was on medical leave from his job and was paranoid that someone was out to kill him — so much so that he carried a cache of weapons with him everywhere he went and wore a bulletproof vest. On Tuesday, Yoakam said part of that paranoia was caused by [Ervil] LeBaron, the former leader of a polygamous sect that ordered the murders of rival polygamists in the 1970s, including Rulon Allred. Yoakam claimed that Allred attempted to buy a machine gun from him shortly before he was killed in 1977. Because of that contact, Yoakam was afraid that LeBaron would come after him, he said. LeBaron, who was sentenced to life in prison himself, died in the Utah State Prison in 1981. [...] During his latest psychological evaluation given in preparation for the hearing, it was noted that medication prescribed to Yoakam in 1977 could have caused psychosis in a person who already suffered from schizophrenia."
Alternate suspect William Cosden
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "DNA match leads to arrest in girl's 1973 slaying", 2002/03/08: "For most of the past 28 years, Katherine Merry Devine's parents were convinced their 14-year-old daughter had been murdered by notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. The Seattle girl looked like many of his victims and had died under similar circumstances. Yesterday, Thurston County authorities revealed a startling twist: DNA testing had identified a different man with a history of rape and murder as the likely killer. The suspect, William E. Cosden Jr., was already in prison in Washington, serving a lengthy sentence for rape."
- Court of Appeals of Washington, no. 2332-2: STATE v. COSDEN, 1977/07/20
Reddit post arguing that there was a substantial amount of reasonable doubt for Ted Bundy's guilt: "Copious amounts of evidence? Most people described someone that didn't even fit Ted's description. The person who picked him out of a line up was shown his picture three times before, and said it wasn't him. There are other people who were in the same places at the same time for some of the murders, but ruled out because they passed a lie detector. The fact that the jury in the first trial convicted him, not because of any evidence, but because he ran from the cops (they didn't know he was on the run). He was tedious in his case, and learned every fact from every murder. Is it unreasonable to think he falsely confessed to the crimes because he loved the attention? Did his confessions come before or after his prison rape? There are crimes he admitted to where the facts didn't line up, the last ones before he was executed. If you read a lot of the cases, you'll find that most of the evidence points to different perpetrators. The killings when he escaped prison, the only evidence was a bite mark. The descriptions of him were all wrong (a short guy). And the semen was from a "secretor" and bundy was a "non-secretor". I'm not saying the guy is innocent, because I haven't gone into any depth in the case. But when you see all the stuff that the books leave out, all the reasonable doubt, it makes you wonder. But the fact that someone can kill 30+ people, and the only evidence is a bite mark, that seems really suspect. And they should still have all the blood and semen evidence. But of course they'll never run DNA on any of it, because imagine if Ted Bundy was innocent!"
Bonnie Kernene, "Brittany Phillips murder 9/30/2004 Tulsa, OK *Still unsolved, 9 years later", 2006/10/23 - a 2007/04/03 comment by Steven Costello refers to "Clark Dawson, Ted Bundy’s accomplice (no! He did not work alone!)" whose nickname is "Silent"

[people_walsh-1] 1.0 ^1.1 People, "The Enigma of Ted Bundy: Did He Kill 18 Women? Or Has He Been Framed?", 1980/01/07

[news_file1004-2] Spokane Daily Chronicle (from Associated Press), "Police File Hints at Ties With Occult", 1976/02/03

[bernson_satanism-3] The Oregonian, "SATANISM AT ROOTS OF INMATE'S ELABORATE ESCAPE PLOT? SYMBOLS OF DEVIL WORSHIP RAISE UMATILLA SUSPICIONS", 1988/04/01

[talmag_joe-4] Tallahassee Magazine, "An Extra-Ordinary Joe", 2012/07/20

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+'''Theodore Robert Bundy''' was a convicted serial killer said to be responsible for dozens of murders across the United States, particularly in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Florida.
 == Biography ==
 === Family and early life ===
@@ Line 238: / Line 240: @@
 *** [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50560157/fort-lauderdale-news/ ''Fort Lauderdale News'', "Out of luck: Annual influx of destitutes begins when fall winds blow", 1980/10/19]: "The paramedics and police try to decide what to do with Florice. "Come on, dear. We're going to give you a ride. You can't be sleeping on this bench," says Fort Lauderdale patrolman Robert Campbell. "You're not playing games, are you?" challenges Florice. "Do I look like I'm playing games?" responds Campbell. He piles Florice into the back of a patrol car and heads for the Broward Alcoholism Rehabilitation Center. It's a nightly assignment."
 *** [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50560178/fort-lauderdale-news/ ''Fort Lauderdale News'', "Witness in Williams' trial says car on bridge at murder site", 1982/01/08] - unsure if same Robert Campbell: "The police recruit who was under the Jackson Parkway bridge the night Wayne Williams became a suspect in the Atlanta child murders testified today he saw a car turn on its lights on the bridge seconds after he heard a loud splash in the river. Robert Campbell told the jury in the third day of testimony in Williams' trial for the murder of two of the 28 black victims that he used his flashlight to follow the waves of the splash in the Chattahoochee River to a point below the concrete bridge. "I looked up, I looked down, looked up again and I was about to look down again when I saw lights come on right there above where the splash originated," he testified. "Then what did you see?" asked prosecutor Jack Mallard. "The car went on across the bridge very slowly," Campbell said. It was the first revelation that Campbell had seen a car as well as heard a splash early in the morning of May 22, 1981, and the first testimony that Williams, who was driving the car that another recruit saw coming off the bridge, had been running with its lights off."
+* Julie Cunningham murder - 1975/03/15 in Vail CO
+** Connection to Salem OR chief of detectives Jim Stovall
+*** [https://books.google.com/books?id=zMtMKtg3yI4C&pg=PT132&lpg=PT132&dq=julie+cunningham+jim+stovall&source=bl&ots=GH1GYyVfgI&sig=ACfU3U0dpva4wUnxXXH5QriOBVxa-82ZQw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiYjoacxbHqAhU4mnIEHSggAq0Q6AEwCnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=julie%20cunningham%20jim%20stovall&f=false From p.??? of ''The Stranger Beside Me'']:<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Jim Stovall, Chief of Detectives of the Salem, Oregon, Police Department, takes his winter vacation there, working as a ski instructor. His daughter lives there, also a ski instructor.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stovall drew a deep breath as he recalled to me that twenty-six-year-old Julie Cunningham was a good friend of his daughter, and Stovall, who has solved so many Oregon homicides, was at a loss to know what had happened to Julie on the night of March 15.<br>&nbsp;
 * Chi Omega sorority house murders - 1978/01/15 in Tallahassee FL
 ** [https://books.google.com/books?id=rO5IdAhFw_YC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=%22daris+swindler%22+%22tallahassee%22&source=bl&ots=Q5u6lbFlZ7&sig=Fmcdu9Iq8Fjlgdh3wy29CA1kRtg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjozKuNjPfaAhUBmuAKHUbABqwQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%22daris%20swindler%22%20%22tallahassee%22&f=false From p.237 of ''The Only Living Witness'']:<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It had been nearly three and a half years since Dr. Daris Swindler, the forensic anthropologist from the University of Washington, had examined the remains of Denise Naslund, Janice Ott, and the nameless third victim found on the Issaquah hillside. Those murders had never been far from his mind, not with the indelible memory of cradling Jan Ott's peculiarly elongated skull in one hand while he compared it with the photograph of her that he held in his other hand.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On Sunday morning, January 15, 1978, Swindler awoke in Tallahassee, Florida. He and his wife, Cathy, were on their way to a Caribbean vacation and had stopped in Florida capital to visit a favored ex-student, then teaching at FSU.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When they heard the gruesome news of the Chi Omega slaughter that morning, Cathy Swindler felt “this shudder of recognition.” She remembered the horror of 1974 in Seattle. Their host in Tallahassee also remembered the “Ted” killings and his former professor's involvement in the case. “What are you doing?” he asked jocularly. “Bringing more dead girls along with you from Seattle?”<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Daris Swindler laughed uneasily.<br>&nbsp;
 ** Bite mark evidence
+*** [https://fall.fsulawrc.com/flsupct/57772/57772ini.pdf Florida Supreme Court, no. 57,772: ''THEODORE ROBERT BUNDY, Appellant v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee'', initial brief of appellant, 1982/03/30]: "The state shortly thereafter rested its case. Motion for judgment of acquittal was made and dmied (R 9023). Defense counsel announced ready for trial with exhibits (R 9024). The defense began with another rift between counsel and the Defendant (R 9036). It became obvious the defense was not ready as a motion was made to recpen the case for the defense after resting (R 96241, The defense had evidence from blow-ups of the Defendant taken when he was arrested in Pensacola which showed no chip on one of the teeth, a critical point of comparison {R 9978-9984). The Defendant and another witness testified that the chip in the tooth wasmade in jail in Pensacola after the crimes were committed (R 9590). The trial judge found the defense had adequate time to develope the photo (R 98301, and related testimony, and if the evidence had been timely prepared and presented, the court would have admitted it (R 999Q). The failure to procure the evidence was attributed to counsel (R 9998)."
 *** [https://www.tallahasseemagazine.com/an-extra-ordinary-joe/ ''Tallahassee Magazine'', "An Extra-Ordinary Joe", 2012/07/20]: "Yet while prosecutors used the bite marks to put Bundy at the scene of the murders, Aloi says he personally knew the evidence was faulty. That’s because before the trial, when Aloi told Bundy that investigators were going to make an impression of his teeth, “he broke his tooth off right in front of me” using the metal return bar from the typewriter. Bundy told him, “Now let them figure that out.” During his testimony, Souviron matched that gap in Bundy’s teeth to the photograph. But, says Aloi, “Of course it couldn’t be, because I saw him make the gap.”"
 ** Dr. Emil Spillman - a "jury expert" for Bundy's defense

Difference between revisions of "Ted Bundy"

Revision as of 17:47, 3 July 2020

Contents

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Pacific Northwest crimes

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Colorado prosecution

Eastward getaway

Chi Omega prosecution

Kimberly Leach prosecution

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1975 Grand Junction murders

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