Nancy Wilcox was born on July 4, 1958 to Herbert and Constance (nee Mouritsen) Wilcox of Holladay, Utah; she was one of six kids and had four brothers and a sister (David Michael, Richard Stephen, Thomas Brent, James Patrick and Susie Wilcox-Nelson). The Wilcox family were devout Latter-day Saint’s and Nancy was very active in the LDS community; she was described as being incredibly kind, very pretty, funny, and it seemed that everyone who knew her liked her. She was said to have a small, close-knit group of friends, was a straight shooter, and didn’t drink, do drugs, or party. The young girl had medium length strawberry-blondish hair, brown eyes, stood roughly 5’6” and weighed around 120 pounds; she used minimal make-up, had a small scar on the side of her face, wore a size 6.5 shoe and a size 9 dress. At the time of her disappearance in early October 1974, Nancy was sixteen years old and a junior at Olympus High School. It’s commonly reported that she was a cheerleader however according to her best friend Louisa Paulson-Graves, it was her that participated in that extracurricular activity, not Nancy. In September and October 1974, Wilcox worked part time at a small coffee shop called the Arctic Circle Drive-In near her home but was fired prior to her murder. When she disappeared she was in a healthy, committed relationship with a guy from her high school named John Hood.

Wilcox was last seen by some classmates near her high school in the passengers seat of a tan VW Beetle close to her home on Arnette Drive in Holladay, Utah on October 2, 1974. The young lady was on her way to the store to purchase a pack of gum, and it’s speculated that from there she was on her way to her high school to see her boyfriend, who was a football player and may have been somewhere on campus. Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Detective Jerry Thompson said she was last seen wearing a blouse of unknown color, blue corduroy pants, a silver chain necklace with beads and a turquoise ring; she wasn’t wearing a coat. In an interview with YouTuber ‘Captain Borax,’ Susie Nelson said that on the day she went missing her sister left the house in a huff after getting into a fight with her Dad about John’s pick-up truck leaking oil on the families driveway (oh my gosh my Dad would be the same way!). Both Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox said because of this initially law enforcement deemed her to be a runaway, however it was glaringly obvious to her loved ones that she had no intention of leaving home and had no troubles whatsoever in her personal life. Nancy left all of her personal belongings behind including some expensive jewelry that held deep sentimental value to her.

From January to July 1974, young women in Washington state were disappearing at an alarming rate, and even though most residents of Utah were somewhat aware of what was happening it still seemed too far away to really affect them. After all, it was Seattle’s problem, not theirs. At the time in the mid-70’s, law enforcement felt so strongly that the killer was going after young coeds in the general Seattle area that they were even hesitant to link ‘Ted’ to the disappearance of Kathy Parks out of Corvallis, Oregon. I probably don’t need to say that Nancy was the first of many young women to vanish without a trace from the Salt Lake City area in 1974. The juvenile division of the sheriff’s department did not release a public appeal for information related to her disappearance until December of 1974, three months after she vanished (and even then they stressed that she ‘might still be a runaway’). On the day after Ms. WIlcox’s case first made the news a waitress from Lake Point contacted the Sheriff’s Department and told them she had seen a girl matching Wilcox’s description at the restaurant where she worked. She further claimed that the young girl was with a ‘tall young man who had a mustache’ and when they were done with their meal drove off in a ‘light-colored Volkswagen.’

I hope I don’t need to point out that we live in different times now and back in 1974 there was no internet scroll with news constantly updating itself. Additionally, at that time police jurisdictions didn’t like to share information with one another, and Utah wasn’t on high alert like Washington state was about missing young females: Nancy was the first (known) of Bundy’s Utah victims to go missing. After Wilcox vanished, Utah law enforcement were unable to find very many helpful clues that would help them locate her (they had few leads and not much to go on). During the course of the investigation they spoke with at least 45 of her family, friends, school mates and acquaintances, however none of them knew anything about her disappearance. Several of her loved ones were also given polygraph tests but passed. On November 30, 1974, Utah police began a two day search of the canyons around Salt Lake City but were unable to find any trace of Nancy.

It’s speculated that Bundy may have been grooming Nancy Wilcox: family members said she mentioned an older man who would come into the drive-in that she briefly worked at and flirt with her. As I said earlier, she was employed at an Arctic Circle located on 3300 South and shared with her cousin Jamie Hayden that while there she had met an ‘older guy in law school.’ Susie told a similar story: one time Nancy became visibly excited when she saw this same older gentleman drive by their family home, and said something like, ‘oh my gosh, that’s the guy who has been coming into my work!’ During his final interviews with law enforcement, Ted didn’t share that he knew Wilcox beforehand nor did he elaborate or give any intimate details about her murder. Ted did admit he remembered Nancy’s case vividly because it took a fair amount of time for her name to appear in the news after she disappeared: ‘because nothing came out in the paper about it for some time, as I recall, in this particular case. Which I later would associate with Wilcox.’ This shows he was paying close attention to the media coverage surrounding his atrocities.

On September 2nd, 1974 Bundy left Washington and moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah School of Law. After Nancy’s mysterious disappearance on October 18, 1974, he abducted 17-year-old Melissa Smith from Midvale, Utah; her naked body was discovered nine days later by two deer hunters on a hillside in Summit Park, UT. A stocking was found tied around her neck and she had sustained multiple blows to the head. Less than two weeks later on the evening of October 31, 1974, 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime vanished after leaving a cafe in Lehi, Utah. Almost a month later on November 27th two hikers stumbled upon her remains in American Fork Canyon. A little over a week later on November 8, 1974, Bundy attempted to kidnap 18-year-old Carol DaRonch from the Fashion Place Mall on South State Street in Murray but was unsuccessful. After DaRonch escaped, Bundy quickly realized he’d need a new victim and drove roughly 25 miles away to Bountiful to abduct 17 year-old Debra Kent. Kent and her parents were at a play at Viewmont High School when it went later than expected. She volunteered to take the family car and pick up her two younger brothers at a nearby roller skating rink. On her way out to the parking lot, Bundy abducted then killed her and dumped her body roughly 50 miles away in American Fork Canyon. Upon realizing that a worrying pattern was emerging, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office began a review of all their cases involving missing girls. Subsequently, they determined that Nancy Wilcox and Debra Kent were the only girls who were still unaccounted for.

Before Bundy was put to death in Florida, he confessed to killing Nancy on January 22, 1989 in a 90-minute confession with Salt Lake City Detective Dennis Couch. It’s not surprising: she fits the physical profile of one of his victims and it was established he was in the Holliday, Utah area at the time of her disappearance. During his confession, Ted said that he was driving on a ‘main roadway’ south of the University of Utah when he saw Wilcox walking along the side of the road, forcibly abducted her at knife point then ‘ushered’ her into a nearby orchard; he elaborated that it was dark at the time, the lighting in the area wasn’t the greatest, and that the area was ‘small’ and ‘residential’). Bundy then ‘restrained’ her, put her in his waiting VW then drove her back to his apartment (at 565 1st Avenue), where he sexually assaulted her; he kept her alive for a day. He then killed her and dumped her body in Capitol Reef National Park, located roughly 216 miles away; he specifically told law enforcement that he remembered disposing of Nancy’s body after driving south on I-15 then onto U-89. He had trouble giving them an exact location, claiming ‘we need better maps. That would help. We need just a clearer picture of what it looks like. I do not remember this Capitol Reef National Park. But I don’t imagine that it looks any different from the rest of it, except its name.’ Now, there’s two schools of thought here: either he couldn’t recall exactly where he dumped her body or he purposefully withheld information using the excuse about the map as an excuse. It is worth noting that Bundy claimed Nancy was never in his car which to me is just bizarre. Now, let me get this straight: he abducted her, killed her, then took her body over 200 miles away to dispose of it but she never was in his vehicle? That just doesn’t make any sense. And at first I thought maybe he had Liz’s car or a family members, then I quickly remembered she was a Utah victim not a Washington one and that Bundy is a notorious fucking liar.

During one of Bundy’s third-person ‘pseudo-confessions’ with Stephen Michaud, he suggested that ‘the killer’ parked his car further down the road then ran up behind Nancy and forced her to go into the orchard. He elaborated that they right then and there that he planned on raping her but didn’t intend on killing her. In his mind, avoiding murder might help bring less attention to the crime; obviously, this plan didn’t work when she began to struggle against him. At that point he started to get paranoid that someone nearby might hear Nancy’s cries of distress and decide to investigate so out of pure fear he wrapped his hands around her throat and strangled her until she passed out (or so he thought). Once she was unconscious, he then took off her clothes and sexually assaulted her. After he was finished he realized that she had stopped moving, which panicked him so much that he dragged her body into a corner and then left. However, once ‘the killer’ had returned to his apartment he began to worry that he had left behind physical evidence so he decided to return to the orchard and see if her remains were still there.

According to Ted, ‘the killer’ was so inebriated when he killed Nancy that it took him some time afterwards to piece together exactly what happened so he could locate the orchard again. Once he finally found it, he realized that her body was still there, completely undisturbed. He then swiftly loaded her into his Bug along with her discarded clothing and took her body back to his apartment. He waited ‘a day or two’ before finally dumping her body somewhere near Capitol Reef National Park, but was not able to provide an exact location. I don’t know, I don’t buy Bundy bringing her back to his apartment in any capacity, it just doesn’t sound plausible (unless she was dead but even that’s incredibly risky). Getting caught carrying an unconscious or dead girl in and out of your rooming house in the middle of the night is a bit of a red flag, in my opinion. Also, if she wasn’t dead and regained consciousness she could have screamed or made noise and getting caught was the last thing Bundy wanted. Obviously there are giant discrepancies between his third person ‘confession’ and what he shared with law enforcement before he was executed in 1989. Who knows what to believe.

After Bundy confessed to Nancy’s murder and the Wilcox family was informed their daughter was gone, Herbert Wilcox commented: ‘the sheriff’s office has advised us that the case is closed. The whereabouts of Nancy’s earthly remains are known only to her Heavenly Father.’ Sadly her older brother, David Michael passed away from a kidney disease four months after she vanished. In a 1984 letter to Belva Kent, Mrs, Wilcox wrote of their daughters deaths: ‘I compare my feelings in the loss of both of the children. Knowing that we buried (David’s) body is sad but peaceful and I have had some wonderful dreams wherein I have talked to him, and I know he is happy. I have never had a pleasant or comforting feeling about Nancy. It is a constant pain. Even now when the phone rings on Mother’s Day, Christmas or her birthday, for a split second I think she might be calling (I cannot imagine losing two children so young, so tragically).’ At Nancy’s memorial service on June 30, 1990, Robert Carlyle Stephens of the West Valley Utah Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said she ‘has been at peace for 16 years, but there has been turmoil in our minds because we did not know what happened to her until recently. Now all those who knew and loved Nancy can be at peace and know that she left home happy and died quickly.’ … ‘When Nancy died, so white, so splendid, so fine, so beautiful and so innocent, she was received immediately into the Savior’s arms.’ He further said that the memorial service was ‘a final act to settle our minds and thoughts and remember her for who she was and how she was rather than what happened to her.’

On March 19, 1989, the Deseret News reported that after Ted confessed his crimes to law enforcement they searched Capitol Reef National Park and found bones along with the tattered remnants of an old, tan blouse with lace: ‘it was deteriorated to the point that it could have been 14.5 years ago, that they say may have belonged to Nancy.’ They found bones in three different areas during a 2.5 square mile search located one mile east of the park: it was from the location Bundy confessed to dumping her body roughly two months earlier. Forensic experts felt that most of the bones belonged to animals and at the time of the discovery former Wayne County Sheriff Kerry Ekker claimed that the bones found in one area could possibly have been human and that: ‘they were of the size that alarmed us to the point that it could have been human.’ … ‘he (Bundy) claimed that he buried her, but in past victims he didn’t bury them. The information that we got on this is very vague.’…’We didn’t extricate any of the bones.’ … ‘He thought the word `Notom’ meant something to him when he left the highway.’ Sheriffs found a ‘shoulder blade that would have to be off of a small animal or a human of approximately Nancy’s size.’ Shortly after they were found the bones were sent off to be tested and unfortunately none were a match to Wilcox. The only human bone found after Ted gave his death row confessions was a patella (knee cap) in Fairview Canyon a little over 130 miles away from Capitol Reef National Park; it was assumed to have been Debra Kent’s and was given to her family. However, because investigators were unable to get DNA from the remains they were unable to 100% confirm the identification until 2015. After going through the missing persons report, it was noted that Kent’s mother had the kneecap, which authorities at the time didn’t know about. Bountiful Police Sergeant Shane Alexander said: ‘Belva Kent was very hesitant at first, but eventually she agreed, believing that it would be a good thing to know and have that confirmation. I sent the patella to the University of North Texas as well as the samples that were collected, and then they were able to determine that the patella matched the family DNA that was collected.’

Steven Kuick has a different theory about Nancy’s death: ‘Just found a new one, so he said he remembers driving Nancy Wilcox through Scipio, Fillmore, and Beaver Utah, which is about 2.5 hours west from Capitol Reef National Park, and the road through the mountains would have been way too much at the time. Bundy spoke of being worried about driving the speed limit because a cop may be trying to reach his quota, and said  (he drove through Beaver, which is 2.5 hours south of his apartment, and Capitol Reef National Park is another 2.5 hours east through a mountainous road at night, I just do not believe he did all of that, I do not. If he feels he went east out of Beaver towards the National Park, he very well could have, that would have been HWY 153 East towards Junction, Utah. Drive east off Highway 153 east heading towards Junction, it’s a 40.5 mile journey, and about 10 miles down 153 east there is a road that heads north, and it goes nowhere, it is not a named road on the map that I have, and it looks like it would be a perfect spot for Bundy, and it looks like a spot he could confuse with Capitol Reef National Park. I do not think he went down the road very far either once he went North on that road off of 153. He wanted to hurry up at that point and just get rid of her. Jim Reed Creek follows the road I am talking about, and there looks to be a gravel road that breaks off of there as well, which could truly be where Nancy Wilcox is located.’

Both Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox have both passed away as well as two of Nancy’s brothers. As of 1987, the orchard where Bundy took Wilcox no longer exists; it is now occupied by Summerspring Court, a housing development.

Works Cited:
deseret.com/1989/3/19/18799046/bones-blouse-may-belong-to-bundy-victim
thisinterestsme.com/nancy-wilcox/
int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Nancy_Wilcox
bci.utah.gov/coldcases/nancy-wilcox
https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/1/18869477/victim-s-family-lays-hope-and-grief-to-rest-in-empty-grave