SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The late Ted Bundy, one of the most famous and prolific serial killers in U.S. history, has claimed another victim.
New DNA testing confirmed Bundy was responsible for the 1974 killing of a 17-year-old Utah girl who disappeared after leaving a party alone on Halloween night, the local sheriff’s office said Wednesday.
Laura Ann Aime was found dead on the side of a highway in American Fork Canyon about a month after her abduction. She was bound, beaten and without clothing.
Investigators long suspected that Bundy killed her — police said he confessed without providing any details before his execution in Florida in 1989 — but the case remained open until they could be certain.
“It's really quite amazing that people are even still interested in Laura's case,” her sister, Michelle Impala, said at a news conference Wednesday. “Know I speak for my family when I thank you, and thank you media, too, for even caring.”
Bundy was linked to the deaths of at least 30 women and girls across several states in the 1970s. His murders — which occurred in sorority houses, parks and elsewhere — set the nation on edge. Bundy’s arrest drew widespread fascination, in part because many considered him to be charming and handsome.
Investigators had carefully preserved the evidence from Aime’s case, and forensic analysts were able to identify portions that seemed most likely to have usable DNA samples, Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said.
The state crime lab got new technology in 2023 that allows investigators to extract DNA from samples even if they are small, degraded from age or contain DNA from multiple people, he said. That technology allowed them to identify a single male DNA profile, which they submitted to a national law enforcement database.
Bundy’s DNA was a match, Mason said.
That profile can now be used by other law enforcement agencies who have long suspected Bundy of additional unsolved killings, he said, adding that more families could get similar closure.
“Laura Aime is the quintessential daughter of Utah County,” Sgt. Mike Reynolds said. “We felt the pain the family feels when she was taken. We felt the pain that you felt this whole entire time, and we’ve had the desire to deliver to you some type of healing.”
Impala was only 12 when her older sister died. Even with a five-year age gap, she said they were very close and did everything together. They shared a bedroom on the family's farm in Fairview, Utah, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Provo.
Impala reminisced Wednesday about riding horses with her sister and watching Aime feed her horse red licorice nibs.
“When she died, he would not eat those anymore,” she said.
It’s not known when Bundy first began his attacks, but by 1974, young women — many of them college students — began disappearing in Washington state. Authorities were still investigating those cases when Bundy moved to Salt Lake City and began killing in Utah, Idaho and Colorado.
At the time of Aime’s killing, Bundy was studying law at the University of Utah.
In August 1975, he was arrested for the first time in connection with the attacks. Police pulled him over and found incriminating items in his vehicle including rope, handcuffs and a ski mask.
He was found guilty the following year of kidnapping and assaulting a teen in Utah who had managed to get away. Bundy was sentenced to 15 years in prison for that crime, and while imprisoned he was charged in connection with the earlier death of a nursing student.
He was brought to Aspen, Colorado, for a hearing in that case in 1977, and he escaped custody by climbing out a second-story courthouse window when he was left alone for a time. He was caught after about a week, but escaped again six months later by breaking through the ceiling of a jail.
Bundy fled across the country, eventually making his way to Tallahassee, Florida. On Jan. 15, 1978, he entered the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University, bludgeoning two women to death with a large branch and leaving two more badly injured. He then went to another house nearby, badly injuring another woman.
Less than a month later, he abducted, sexually assaulted and killed a 12-year-old girl in Lake City, Florida. Kimberly Leach was believed to be his last victim before he was arrested again and executed by electric chair years later.
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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.
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This story has been updated to correct that the killings at the Florida State University sorority house were in 1978, not 1977.
