Donna Gail Manson was born on June 9, 1954 to Lyle Edward and Marie Elizabeth (nee Nilson) Manson in Olympia, WA. Mr. Manson was born on August 29, 1917 in Marion, Iowa and Mrs. Manson was born on May 9, 1923 in Auburn, WA. The couple were wed on December 4, 1952 and had two children together: Donna and her younger brother, James. An eagle scout and troop leader, Mr. Manson served in the Navy during World War II (he was a Pearl Harbor survivor), and upon returning home he continued with his education and graduated with his BA in music education from Coe College in June 1949; he went on to earn his Masters from Central Washington University in 1952 (which is the same college Susan Rancourt was abducted from), and after graduating he got a position as a music teacher for the Seattle school district. Marie Manson graduated from the University of Washington in 1949 with a BA in music education, and worked PT as a legal secretary; she was also the choir director at Auburn First United Methodist. Both Mr. and Mrs. Manson spent two years performing with the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.
Donna Manson is Ted Bundy’s third (known) victim. It was said by those that knew her that at the time she disappeared Donna was going through a rough time and was struggling with depression, but she showed interest in overcoming these obstacles. Despite suffering from bouts of melancholy and anxiety, Donna’s loved ones called her a ‘free spirit’ and said that she was known to hitchhike and frequently ‘couch surfed’ among friends. She was an intelligent young woman and earned good grades over the course of her academic career, and was working towards a Bachelors degree in English. Much like her parents, she loved music and the arts and was an accomplished flutist. Manson graduated from Auburn Senior High School in 1972 and attended Green River Community College for a short period of time before transferring to Evergreen State College. She had pale blue eyes and chocolate brown hair that she wore long and parted down the middle; she was small in stature and stood at only five feet tall, and weighed a mere 100 pounds.
The campus at Evergreen State College is less than ten miles east of Olympia and was built in an isolated, remote spot surrounded by a dense forest of evergreen trees. A small, liberal arts school, in the fall of 1974 its enrollment wasn’t even at 3,000, and some of the more conservative Washington state residents complained about its high per-student cost of operation and ‘hippie-like atmosphere.’ One lawmaker even complained during a speech about how the students’ dogs were peeing on the expensive carpets in the schools library (which was ironically named the Daniel J. Evans Library, after the state governor that Bundy worked for).
On the day of her abduction, Donna planned on going to a folk dancing class at her schools activities building, and later that same night, she made plans to go to a jazz concert at the Daniel J. Evans Library (which was also on school grounds), which was scheduled to start at 8 PM. She lived in room 206 of the C building on Evergreens campus, and according to her roommates earlier in the evening Donna played her flute a bit and ate some beef vegetable soup (she even left some of it out in a pot on the stove). They also noticed that she seemed unusually focused on her appearance that evening, going so far as to switch outfits several times before eventually settling on a red, orange, and green striped shirt, blue (or green) slacks, a fuzzy black full-length coat (that used to belong to her grandmother), an oval-shaped brown agate ring, and a Bulova Caravell wrist watch. Despite this detail, Manson did not share any details about a date or meet-up with her friends. The night prior to her disappearance Donna spoke with her mother on the phone, and the two discussed her idea of taking a trip to the ocean during her upcoming spring recess. Regarding this, Marie Manson said it sounded like a good idea that they get away for a few days, and despite the ongoing gas shortage of the 70’s said that the family would ‘find a way.’
Donna departed her dormitory shortly after 7 PM on March 12, 1974 and set out for the dance class, which should have been just a two minute walk across campus. However, despite how close the College Activities Building was to her dormitory no one recalled seeing her at either the class or the jazz recital, meaning it is highly unlikely that she ever made it that far. She left behind all of her personal effects, money, and clothing.
Perhaps it was because of her free spirit and habit of hitchhiking and leaving for days at a time, but when Manson didn’t return home that night no one seemed very alarmed: it took her roommates a full six days to report her missing to the authorities, which is why newspapers didn’t start reporting on her disappearance until March 22, 1974, a full ten days after she was last seen. Several days after her disappearance some local police officers went to the Manson family home in Auburn to tell them that Donna had run away from school, news that made her mother immediately feel uneasy, and she immediately knew that: ‘she hasn’t run away, something’s happened to her.’
Perhaps it was because of her free spirit, her habit to leave for days at a time, or her habit to hitchhike but when Manson didn’t come back that night no one was very alarmed. In fact, it took her roommates a full six days to report her missing to the authorities, which is why newspapers didn’t start reporting about her disappearance until March 22, a full ten days later. Following Donna’s disappearance, on four different occasions search teams of up to 200 people combed the 990 acre college campus with the assistance of tracking dogs. Despite their best efforts, investigators were unable to find not one single trace of the missing girl: she had literally vanished out of thin air.
After he got the news that his daughter was missing, Lyle Manson immediately drove to the Evergreen campus to see if he could find out more information about what may have happened to her. When he arrived, Thurston County Detective Paul Barclift tried to reassure him by saying: ‘maybe she just went off somewhere with some boyfriend. That’s the way these things usually turn out around here.’ Manson’s stern Scotsman’s face showed cold disagreement, and in response he said: ‘no, Donna had no need to run away. We’ve always given her freedom.’ He and the detective walked from the parking lot to her residence hall, and together they looked through the items in her bedroom: she had left behind all her clothes, toiletries, and other personal items one would need if leaving for any period of time, and amongst her belongings Mr. Manson found her camera and flute, and it was then that he knew that something was seriously wrong. Following Donna’s disappearance, search teams of up to 200 people combed the 990 acre college campus with the assistance of tracking dogs on four separate occasions, but despite their best efforts not one trace of her was ever recovered: she had literally vanished out of thin air.
The guard also told investigators that he remembered seeing Donna around campus prior to her disappearance and recalled that when he last saw her she was wearing a long fur coat, a fact that her roommates corroborated. This strongly hints that he wasn’t mistaken and did in fact see Manson on the night she was abducted, meaning that she either got sidetracked by something (or someone, like a man with his arm in a sling asking for help) on her way to the dance class, or she lied to her roommates about what her plans were. Many Bundy sleuths believe that Ted approached the 19-year-old asking for help as she was walking toward the library, where others strongly feel that the two may have been acquainted previously (somehow) and that they had made plans to meet up that night. He liked to frequent college campuses, did he go to Evergreen at an earlier time and run into Donna? Maybe the two planned a secret rendezvous and she told her roommates that she was going somewhere else in an attempt to get them off her back? Obviously they would have started asking questions had they known she was going out with a guy, and when they found out she had plans to meet up with a 27 year old that she barely knew, then surely they would have persuaded her to not go.
Donna was into many things that would typically be considered ‘mysterious and dark,’ and had an interest in topics like death, the occult, and alchemy; when investigators searched her room they found several class listings on positive thinking and mind discipline from a local Olympia business called ‘The Institute of Insight’ (casual Bundy acquaintance Ann Rule incorrectly referred to it as the ‘Institute of the ESP’ in her 1980 book ‘The Stranger Beside Me’). It was mostly because of Manson’s unconventional interests that detectives initially wondered if maybe she had killed herself, and it wasn’t until a psychiatrist read through her journals and said that it was in his professional opinion that she wasn’t suicidal and most likely did not take her own life that they changed their minds. Donna’s habit of hitchhiking put her in a higher risk pool compared to other coeds, and it was very concerning to detectives, who felt that there was a possibility that she was picked up by the individual that killed her. Because her roommates did not see her take a backpack or a change of clothes with her on the evening she disappeared, LE deduced that she was not planning on going anywhere that evening and had no plans on hitchhiking.
The most widely believed theory was that Bundy grabbed Donna in a Georgann Hawkins-esque grab as she was on her way to the dance class that evening in March 1974: the route that she most likely took from her dormitory to the folk dancing class was only 350 yards away, and should have only been about a two minute walk, and because of the short distance involved it has been theorized that Ted grabbed Manson almost immediately after she left. One possible scenario could be that he may have approached her (perhaps while using crutches or an arm sling) in a nearby parking lot (lot F) and asked her to assist him with carrying something to his car. Another idea is that Bundy parked his car on Hidden Springs Drive, which is close to the c-dormitory and connects the area around the library with Driftwood Road, and is incredibly close to the route that Donna would have walked to get to the folk dancing class. But because traffic on campus was unusually high that evening because of three different events taking place, it stands to reason that both areas would have been pretty busy at the time, and a careful Bundy wouldn’t have taken the chance of getting caught. But at the same time… he was a known risk taker, especially while under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, so we can’t completely rule it out (and keep in mind that it worked out for him).
Mostly because Olympia is over an hour away from where Bundy’s other Washington state victims were abducted from, Manson’s case was not immediately connected to the other Seattle disappearances, and it wasn’t until more women started to disappear that it became clear that her case was a part of a much bigger puzzle. There was a (brief) period where (former) Thurston County Sheriff Don Redmond wondered if maybe there was a slavery ring nabbing young women from the area, but this was quickly ruled out. Unfortunately, we will never know exactly what happened to Donna on the evening she disappeared, as there are very few confirmed details regarding her disappearance. Due to the abduction taking place right before spring break detectives were not able to interview many of the eyewitnesses until weeks later, after their memories were dulled by time (maybe if her roommates reported her abduction earlier LE would have stood a chance of getting some worthwhile information).
In his previous two abductions/murders, Bundy broke into his victims’ houses and assaulted them while they were sleeping, but in the case of Donna Manson he completely switched up his MO and took her from a public place… I also wonder if perhaps this was the first time that he used the fake injury ruse? The dates of credit card receipts that were listed in the ‘TB Multiagency Report 1992’ prove that Bundy frequented the Olympia area at least 25 times in 1973 alone, so it would be reasonable to assume that he knew the area fairly well; this also falls in line with the theory that (most) serial killers prefer to operate in places that they are familiar with, and feel comfortable being in.
On August 29, 1978 two fishermen that were walking on Highway 7 southwest of Eatonville, WA discovered a human skull in the foothills of Mount Rainier; further searches by local investigators turned up additional bones, hair, and clothes that matched the description of the ones that Donna Manson was last seen wearing four years prior. Unfortunately, law enforcement lost everything before a positive ID could be made (although apparently color photographs were taken) and to this day she is classified as a missing person. Bundy confessed to her murder as a last ditch effort to avoid the electric chair in January 1989 and told investigators that he buried her remains at Taylor Mountain but burned her skull to ashes in his then-girlfriends Liz’s fireplace. He also told Robert Keppel that he didn’t remember much about the event because he was so drunk but did recall that it was ‘nightmarish, blurry, and incoherent.’
Retired Pierce County detective Roy Durham said that he felt the bones did not appear to go back as far as 1974 and did not appear to suffer from any blunt force trauma to the head (which is common in Bundy victims). Unfortunately, the skeletal remains were destroyed after being examined by a forensic dentist (who determined there was a strong possibility that the skeleton belonged to Manson) and most additional information (such as x-rays) related to the case were lost during a ‘routine purge’ of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Personally, I wonder if the remains found in 1978 belonged to a different (unknown) Bundy victim. I know people will argue that he was in prison by that time and wouldn’t have been able to commit a murder in his home state, but even law enforcement admitted they weren’t sure when victim was killed, just that it probably wasn’t in 1974.
During Ted’s interview with Dr. Keppel he claimed that he left Manson’s body ‘up in the mountains,’ and although it was the same place where he disposed of Brenda Ball, Lynda Ann Healy, Susan Rancourt and Roberta Parks, he specified that he left her in a slightly different place than the others:
Keppel: ‘OK. How about Donna Manson? The girl from Thurston County, Olympia. Where is she?’
B: ‘Where is she? She should be… on Taylor Mountain.’
K: ‘Was she dumped out along the power line too or on a different road?’
B: ‘That was different. That was different.’
K: ‘What was different about it?’
B: ‘Well, where she was, relative to the power line road.’
K: ‘You told me before that Donna might be buried.’
B: ‘Yea. Do you have any pictures of the site?’
Bundy then pointed out a spot on a map where he thinks he left Donna’s remains, but clarified that search teams would never find her skull because it was ‘nowhere’ (Bundy’s words, not mine). When Keppel pressed Ted about that he claimed to have completely incinerated it then vacuumed up the ash that remained behind. Later searches of that area failed to find anything related to a human skeleton (keep in mind he admitted to being inebriated at the time of the abduction so he probably directed them to the wrong place). He explained: ‘it’s a lot of work and certainly very risky, under the circumstances. I mean, the kids come home from school and there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace and it’s warm outside.’
Now, there are holes in that story so big I can drive my VW Beetle through them: throughout the duration of his murder spree Bundy was (surprisingly) good about avoiding detection (although I firmly believe he may never have been caught if he wasn’t such a shitty driver), so I have a really hard time believing that he smuggled an entire HUMAN HEAD into his girlfriend’s apartment (which goes without saying is a huge risk). Additionally, burning a skull in a residential fireplace would not have been an easy feat: in order to transform human bone into ash, the fire would need to get to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (which can be done with the use of an accelerant), and even if he was able to get it that hot, there would still be pieces of bone left behind.
What I think most likely happened: Ted attempted to burn Donna’s skull in Liz’s apartment but partway through realized how difficult of an ordeal it was (plus, burnt hair smells ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE, and at the time of her murder she had a lot of it) and took the pieces that didn’t turn to ash and disposed of them in a different way (as awful as this sounds, perhaps they were so small he was able to put them in the household garbage?). Another reason to doubt Bundy’s story is that he said it was ‘warm outside’ when be burned the skull, and according to records the temperature range during the week after Mansons disappearance in Seattle was between 49°F to 57°F, and it remained on the cooler side until March 26th. So, that makes me think Ted was either lying about the weather or he got his dates mixed up and the event took place roughly two weeks after the murder. It is often wondered if Bundy made up the incident entirely just to hurt Kloepfer, who had cut all ties with him by the time he shared that information… but, at the end of the day, he was a habitual liar that rarely told the truth. And let’s say this ONE TIME Ted wasn’t lying: he has evaded telling anyone what really happened for so long, why would anyone actually believe him (especially when he was trying to avoid the electric chair). Keep in mind that only minutes before he told Keppel about incinerating Manson’s skull, he cracked a ‘joke’ about how much press his confession would generate.
The following is a conversation between Bundy and Robert Keppel regarding Manson:
Robert Keppel: ‘What about Donna Mason?’
Bundy: ‘I won’t beat around the bush with you anymore because I’m just tired and want to get back to sleep. So let me tell you, I know part of her is buried up there, the head however, wouldn’t be there.’
RK: ‘Where is it now?’
TB: ‘It’s nowhere. I’m not trying to be flippant. It’s in a category all by itself. It was incinerated. It was an exception, a strange exception.’
RK: ‘Where did you incinerate it?’
TB: ‘I promised myself I’d never tell this. In her fire place. That’s not really that humorous , but I mean , the fireplace at her house… that was the twist . It’s a lot of work and certainly very risky, under the circumstances. I mean, the kids come home from school, there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace, and it’s warm outside.’
On August 28th, 1978, two fishermen discovered the skeleton of a young female in the foothills of Mount Rainier near Eatonville, about 60 miles away from Bundy’s Taylor Mountain dump site. Despite multiple newspapers reporting that the missing skeleton belonged to Manson, the facts do not seem to line up: ‘The News Tribune’ reported that the skeleton Pierce County sheriffs discovered was 5’7”, and Donna was only 5 feet tall. Also, the remains were discovered wearing blue jeans, where Donna’s roommates said she was wearing a pair of green (or blue) pants the night she disappeared. Investigators also showed photographs of the clothing found on the skeleton to Manson’s parents and her mother was quick to say that she didn’t recognize the top as belonging to her daughter. The report also said the victim was somewhere between 12 and 17 years old where Donna was 19 at the time she disappeared.
Mr. Manson passed away on December 31, 2007; Donna’s mother died on May 26, 2014 in Auburn, WA. James Manson is still alive and currently lives in Seattle; he is the owner of ‘Axis Stainless Fabrication,’ and works with metal, and just by doing some quick research it appears that he is an expert in his field and has his work on display at the Seattle Art Museum. It doesn’t surprise me that Donna’s brother turned into a successful artist, it’s in his genes.
A note found in Donna’s room. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department/’hi: Im Ted.’
A: Residence halls.
B: Library.
C: C&N Road.
Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
Another Bundy Blog. 