Debra Diann Smith was born on December 26, 1958 to Thomas Leroy and Thelma Lorene (nee Hoover) Smith in Mansfield, OH. Mr. Smith was born on December 14, 1938 in Lucasville, OH, and I wasn’t able to find when Thelma was born but the couple were wed in October 1957. They had seven children together but eventually divorced, and in 1971 Debra relocated with her family to Salt Lake City. According to the Utah Department of Public Safety website, Debbie Smith had brown eyes, brunette hair, was 6’7″ tall and weighed 180 lbs… but considering the picture that the website used is wrong, I’m only going to assume those stats are incorrect as well.

According to reports Smith was a frequent runaway before she was killed, and left home for the final time in early February 1976. According to an article published in The Bellingham Herald on December 5, 1998, Thelma Smith said that she never reported her daughter as missing because she figured she would just change her mind about leaving and would eventually just come home on her own. On Monday, April 26, 1976 her badly decomposed and nude remains were found by a Utah Power and Light worker checking on poles in an open pasture in some ‘sagebrush covered land’ located one quarter mile NW of the Salt Lake International Airport. It’s often incorrectly reported that Smith was discovered on April 1, however according to newspaper reports it was April 26, 1976.

In the beginning of the investigation forensic experts incorrectly estimated the victim to be ‘middle aged’ and was anywhere from 35 to 45 years old, but when they studied her teeth they realized she was much younger. SLC Coroner Serge Moore performed Smith’s autopsy, and he determined that she suffered from three blows to the head and died from a fractured skull. He also said that she had been deceased for three to four months by the time her remains were discovered. SLC Detective Sergeant Dale Bithell said that evidence found near the scene of the crime indicated that she had been sexually assaulted and clothes were found near the body. Her identity remained a mystery until May 13, 1976, and it was only when Smith’s degraded fingerprints were reconstructed by the FBI that a positive identification was able to be made. The seventeen year olds prints were on file with the SLC Sheriff’s Department after she was arrested three separate times on minor charges.  

In the early spring of 1976 when Debra Smith was killed Ted was still with Liz Kloepfer (although they were getting towards the end of their rocky romance) and he was living at his third SLC residence, located at 413 B Street East (which he moved into at some point before March 22nd, 1976). According to the ‘1992 TB FBI Multiagency Report,’ Bundy was in Seattle on January 12, 13, 30 and was in SLC on February 23, which is when his kidnapping trial started. Although he was heavily under police surveillance around the time Smith was killed, on the report his whereabouts are mostly unaccounted for and he was remanded into custody on March 1, 1976, where he remained until he escaped in June 1977.

In the early stages of the investigation law enforcement thought that Smith’s murder could be linked to two other homicides in the SLC area: Kathy Harmon and Carolyn Sarkessian, who were both found dead on March 6, 1976. Harmon was a newlywed, and was last seen at the Better Days Bar four days before she disappeared. A University of Utah student out walking his dog found Kathy’s half nude remains between Parley’s Canyon and Emigration Canyon north of the Interstate-80. She had been raped, beaten, and strangled. As of December 2024 Harmons murder remains unsolved.

Also on March 6, 1976 SLC police discovered the remains of 24 year old Carolyn Sarkessian, brutally beaten and sexually assaulted; her cause of death is listed as strangulation and she suffered from a broken neck. In July 2004 it was determined that Gayle G. Benavidez was responsible for Sarkessian’s murder after a state-issued mouth swab destroyed his long-standing alibi; he was brought up on murder charge and took a plea deal of life imprisonment. Prior to his conviction of the murder of Carolyn he had two prior rape charges on his record. 

In an article published in the Bellingham Herald on December 5, 1998, Debra’s sister Stormee also disappeared briefly, much to the horror of her mother. At the time she vanished Stormee was in recovery from alcohol addiction, and had recently relocated to Fargo, ND where she completed a treatment program and was working on her sobriety. According to Thelma Smith, she had always managed to stay in touch with her (even ‘while drunk’), because she knew her mother worried about her after already losing one other daughter to murder: ‘the first time it happens to you, it’s totally devastating. because it was such a shock. I’m always concerned when I don’t hear from my girls. She (Stormee) knows that I worry and that’s why she’s so good about calling in.’ Mrs. Smith said that Stormee was outgoing and was comfortable in the company of strangers. and “she doesn’t seem to have a fear, even though her sister was killed.’ … ‘She’s never gone this long without giving me a call. She’s always called to let me know she’s ok. We haven’t heard anything this time. It’s fairly nerve wracking. But we’re holding up pretty well.’ Ms. Smith eventually turned up a few days later on December 9. Also in that same article, it confirms Debra as a Bundy victim and claims that he even confessed to her murder during his death row confessions in January 1989.

Stormee Ann Smith died at the age of forty-one in 2012 in Lynden, WA. Her brother Jeffrey Thomas passed away on March 7, 2020 at the age of thirty-eight. Wendy Jo Smith died at the age of fifty-five on April 5, 2019, and just two months later her twin Mary Francis passed away on July 21, 2019. Thomas Smith died at the age of 82 in January 2021 in Canada. As far as I can tell, Thelma Smith is still alive. As of December 2024 the murder of Debra Diann Smith remains unsolved.

* I have seen not only Debs first but also her middle name spelled a variety of different ways, and I decided to go with the spelling that is on her gravestone. I’ve also seen her middle name listed as DeAnn.

Works Cited:
bci.utah.gov/coldcases/deborah-diane-smith/
victims-of-serial-killers.fandom.com/wiki/Debbie_Smith