Suspected or Convicted Serial Killers in Washington State.
Unconfirmed Bundy Victims.
Martha Feldman, Rape Report.
I’ve had Martha Feldman’s rape report in my drafts folder for over a year now, and I’m not sure why I didn’t post it yet. I started doing some digging into her background and as I was really getting into it, I realized that she didn’t ask for this to happen and this file was most likely only released due to a TB related FOIA request: she doesn’t want her personal life to be dissected fifty years after what was most likely one of the worst events of her life, so I am not going to go into her background and will strictly stick to the facts on the police report (especially since she specifies in it that she wishes to remain anonymous). I will say that she went on to lead an incredibly successful life, but I’m not going to elaborate any further. Feldman isn’t a Rhonda Stapley or Sotria Kritsonis, who ‘came forward’ years after their alleged run-in’s with Bundy looking for attention and notoriety (and in Stapley’s case, money). I mean, there’s a fair chance that Ted wasn’t Martha’s rapist.
According to the police report that Feldman filed on March 7, 1974 with the Seattle Police Department at the YWCA (located at 4224 University Way NW), she was raped by an unnamed assailant five days prior on Saturday, March 2 around 4:15 AM; she first disclosed her attack to a woman named Maria at the Seattle based organization ‘Rape Relief’ later that morning at around 7:30; from there, she sent two young women over, and they brought her into Harborview Hospital for a medical exam, which was given by a Dr. Shy at around 8:30 AM (where we know Bundy interned as a counselor from June 1972 to September 1972); the Seattle PD were notified later that evening.
Feldman told investigators that at around 1:30 AM on February 28, 1974 she heard something unusual but when she got up to investigate nothing was amiss; later in the same afternoon a friend of hers noticed that the screen had been removed from one of her windows (this reminds me of when Ted removed Cheryl Thomas’s screen from her window four years later in Florida). Martha’s assailant broke into her apartment around 4 AM and said that he didn’t ask her for money or valuables, and she even had some of her good jewelry sitting out and it remained untouched (in fact, the man didn’t appear to touch anything in the apartment). Personally, I think it makes sense that Bundy wouldn’t have stolen anything expensive, because by that point Liz already knew he was stealing and he was making a half-hearted attempt of not doing it.
Also, according to the report Feldman was moving out of her apartment and would be in touch with her new address; it does not clarify if she left because of her rape. She did not want her parents notified of her assault and said that she was ‘careless in not drawing her drapes or locking the window.’ After a few unsuccessful attempts to reach her by phone, detectives finally connected with her and on March 6th stopped by her apartment so she could sign a medical release form and speak to her more about what happened. Feldman told them that her assailant had been between twenty to twenty-four years old based off his ‘build and voice,’ and said that she never saw his face because he had a dark navy watch cap pulled over his head and down below his chin (it only had slits for the eyes that she suspected were made by him and specified that it had ‘not been a ski mask’); she said that she didn’t know his hair color but was certain he was white because she ‘saw his arms’ (she also said they had no hair on them).
Feldman said that early on the Saturday morning of her assault she went to bed around 1 AM (one other place in the police report said it was at 2 PM), and even though her shades were drawn one of the curtains were slightly agape, and she said it was easy to look in her one window and see that her extra bed was empty and that she was alone (she said that roughly ¾ of the time a friend stayed with her). It was probably 4 AM when she was suddenly awakened by something (she believes by him opening then shutting the window). Martha said that she’ had forgot to put the wooden slot in the window to lock it and although it would be difficult to see it was not there in the dark, he must have seen it as be took off the outer screen to reach the window.’ When she opened her eyes, a man she didn’t immediately recognize was standing in her doorway, and she said at first she only saw his profile and noticed there was something bright illuminating her living room and realized he had left his flashlight on the table (and that he had left it on). After her assailant came in her room he sat on her bed and assured her that he wasn’t going to hurt her and that he wouldn’t use his weapon on her as long as she didn’t scream, then proceeded to pull a hunting knife out from his back pocket, one that was dark and had a ‘carved bone handle’ with streaks on it. When she asked him how he got into her apartment he told her that it was ‘none of her business.’
Martha told the detectives that the man had been wearing a white, short-sleeved t-shirt and Levi’s, but was wearing not wearing a coat or sweater (even though it had been cold outside). She also said that his voice sounded like a Northwesterner and he seemed ‘well-educated,’ and possibly could have been a student at the nearby University of Washington. Feldman said that she didn’t recall that her assailant was wearing any jewelry or a watch and he had been drinking but was ‘not drunk’ and after about eight to ten minutes of talking he pulled out some tape out of his pocket and used it to cover her eyes.
He then turned on her bedroom light and left it on as he undressed her, unzipped his pants, then had sexual intercourse with her. When finished, he taped her hands and feet up ‘just to slow you down,’ turned off the light, covered her up with some blankets, said ‘go back to sleep,’ then left; the tape was later put into evidence. She heard him go out to the living room, open the window then run down the back alley; she listened but heard no car start up. Martha said he was very calm and sure of himself and felt that ‘he has done this before,’ although he didn’t say anything that made her think it was anything other than his first time. Feldman told detectives that she believed she could identify her assailant (even though her eyes were taped shut), and was usually home days as she had classes in the evening.
At the time of her assault Feldman lived at 4220 12th Avenue NE Unit 14, which was four houses and just a minute’s walk away for Bundy, who was living at the Rogers Rooming House just down the street at 4214 12th Ave NE (the building she lived in has since been torn down and in 2023 a new complex was built in its place). Ted’s whereabouts aren’t accounted for specifically on March 2, 1974, however he was placed in Seattle/Tacoma both the day before and after. He was in between employment at the time and had been without a job since September of 1973 (when he was the Assistant to the Washington State Republican chairman) and remained unemployed until May 3, 1974 when he got a position with the Department of Emergency Services in Olympia (he was there until August 28, 1974, which is right before he left for law school). On the last page of the eight-page document is a blank page with a scribbled note: ‘this is the case, I thought of for Bundy. Think there would be a print on the tape?’
Bundy went on to abduct then murder Donna Gail Manson from Evergreen State College in Olympia on March 12, 1974. On her website ‘CrimePiper, Erin Banks points out that on a social media post about Feldman one commenter remarked on the face that the assailant pulled out a ‘carved knife handle,’ and it just so happened to match the description of a rare knife that had been ‘stolen’ out of Bundy’s girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer’s VW Bug a short period later. That same person went on to say that ‘the fact that he wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a T-shirt, even though it was cold outside, seems to indicate he lived nearby too.’
Virginia ‘Gini’ Ingraham-McNair.
Note: While on vacation with my husband in the Adirondack Mountains this past October I came across the name ‘Gini McNair’ in relation to Ted Bundy on a website called ‘Bartleby;’ there’s no author credited, and I have no idea who wrote it or where it came from (Google was also incredible unhelpful). When I looked ‘Gini McNair’ up on multiple search engines the same (poorly written) essay came up three times (all with no author). After a little bit of research, I was able to find out more about McNair’s background (as well as her full first name), however because her story is short and mostly unremarkable (and most likely made up), I’m not going to go super deep into her background.
Background: Virginia Ingraham was born sometime in 1953 to Lowell ‘Bud’ Everett and Lillian Marie (nee Tasker) Ingraham in Binghamton, NY. Mr. Ingraham was born on September 13, 1915 in Binghamton, and Lillian was born on July 2, 1918 in Arlington, Virginia. The couple were married on July 21, 1940 in Binghamton and went on to have five children together: James, Martha, Margaret, Raymond, and Gini. After serving in the Army during WWII Bud went on to get a job with IBM, where he worked for twenty-nine years; the family relocated to Colorado in 1965 after he was transferred and they settled down in Boulder. In 1975 Gini graduated with a bachelor’s in fine arts from the University of Colorado and she married Bob McNair in 1977; the couple settled down in Hotchkiss, CO.
Ted Bundy?: One chilly afternoon in late 1977 (the description of the encounter is incredibly vague and there is no exact time frame given) the twenty-six-year-old newlywed had been dropped her off at her car on Sugarloaf Road near Boulder Canyon by her sister-in-law. After saying goodbye, Gini unlocked her ‘dusty red’ Volkswagen Beetle and got in, and as she sat there waiting for it to get warm she looked up and noticed a second VW almost identical to hers (except for the fact it was light blue in color) coming towards her.
As the vehicle got closer to her McNair was able to get a good look at the driver, who took the brief opportunity to size her up as well, and when his eyes met hers, she it was as if she had been punched in the gut. After the man drove by her, he continued along until he reached the bottom of the road, that’s when he briefly stopped then quickly made a U-turn and began making his way back to her. When he pulled up to the scene, he parked his own VW and got out, and as he confidently walked towards her window she started to roll it down, and he leaned in close and asked if she was ‘having car trouble?,’ to which she hastily replied, ‘no.’ In return, he loudly said back to her, ‘oh, well I am!’ Gini looked up at him with a surprised look on her face, and it was at that point that she knew she had to get away from him, and she quickly blurted out, ‘well, I’m sorry, but I don’t really know anything about cars. I don’t think that I would be able to help you!’ The man became angry and said to her: ‘well, maybe you COULD!’ McNair said ‘no’ for a second time then rolled up her window and sped away.
McNair said that in the days that immediately followed the event she didn’t tell many people about her strange encounter, and wondered if it had simply been one of those weird events that happened to people on occasion… But one night, a few months later, her and Bob were watching the news and a story about Ted Bundy came on: he had just been recaught in Florida, and as they were watching the station showed a picture of the killer and Gini’s mouth dropped to the floor in shock: it was the same man that claimed to have car problems that afternoon in late 1977. From that moment forward, McNair said that she always made a habit of trusting that little voice in the back of her head that had been with her that day.
If I can be candid, I think Mrs. McNair is mistaken in her identification of Ted Bundy that night in Boulder in late 1977: by that time his movements were incredibly well documented and tracked (as he was in police custody for most of the year), and in total was technically only ‘free’ for a total of seven days (although only one can really be considered as six of the seven days were in June). According to the ‘1992 FBI TB Investigative Report,’ from January 1-29, 1977 he was incarcerated in the Utah State Prison, and from January 29th to April 11, 1977 he was in the Pitkin County Jail; from April 11th to June 7th he was in the Garfield County Jail (with the occasional overnight trip to the Pitkin County Jail). Let’s not forget his daring escape where he was free between June 7th to the 13th, and after he was recaptured he was sent back to the facilities in both Garfield and Pitkin Counties until his second escape early in the morning on December 31, 1977… so unless McNair’s encounter happened on New Years Eve, (which one would think is a pretty memorable day), then it was most likely not Ted Bundy that needed car help. Also he was not said to have been in Boulder that day, only Glenwood Springs, Vail, and Denver; from there he took a plane to Chicago.
Gini is an established artist and ceramicist that has over forty-five years of experience in her field (she also makes fused glass jewelry); she has a physical storefront with her husband called ‘McNair Studios’ and most days you can find them in their respective studios or outside working in their garden. She opened ‘Fat Cat Pottery’ in Grand Junction (which is still open as of December 2025), which is described as a ‘successful, next door, do-it-yourself pottery studio,’ and has multiple storefronts across the internet (I was able to easily find her Etsy page). Bob is retired from a successful career of the field of custom home construction, and he now creates hand carved wooden spoons; in August 2006 the couple opened a coffee shop called ‘Doghouse Espresso.’ When she is not creating her art Gini enjoys gardening, spending time with her daughter and granddaughter, cooking, baking, entertaining friends, and enjoying the inspiring mountain view from her deck. I was unable to find anything related to McNair after 2021 online, and her Etsy shop is currently closed.
According to her Etsy page, Gini has ‘been fascinated by clay since I was a child. I grew up in the rural countryside of upstate New York and while most kids were content making ‘mud pies,’ I loved making complete sets of tiny dishes with the clay that I dug up near the pond in our backyard. That love was reawakened during my first year of college when I stumbled into my first pottery class at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I immersed myself in the study of ceramics and took many workshops with some of the best potters of that era; Warren MacKenzie, David Shaner, Ken Ferguson, John Reeve and others. I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1975 and have had a love affair with clay ever since.’
Mr. Ingraham died at the age of seventy-four on March 7, 1990 in Boulder, Colorado after a sudden illness. According to his obituary, he retired in 1972 and was a member of the Nederland Presbyterian Church and was active in the Nederland Lions Club as well as several other groups aimed for senior citizens, and in his spare time enjoyed gardening, fishing, and photography. Lillian Marie Ingraham died at the age of ninety-one on September 2, 2009 in Boulder. Gini’s brother Raymond Charles Ingraham passed away suddenly at the age of sixty-four on June 20, 2013; her sister Margaret Jean (Peg) Craven died at the age of seventy-nine on September 9, 2024, in Fort Lupton, Colorado.
Kathleen Clara D’Olivo.
This is the second in a series about young women that were encountered by Ted Bundy on the Central Washington University campus in April 1974: Kathleen Clara D’Olivo was born on October 8, 1952 to Rinaldo and Elizabeth (nee Burk) D’Olivo in Tacoma WA. Rinaldo Anthony ‘Buzz’ D’Olivo was born on January 13, 1928 in Tacoma, and after graduating from Bellarmine Prep he served in the military during WWII; upon returning home he enrolled at Gonzaga University as a marketing major, and in 1974 he founded the company ‘Humdinger Fireworks.’ Kathy’s mother Elizabeth ‘Betty‘ Ann Burk was born on May 9, 1930 in Clare, Iowa. The couple were married on August 26, 1950 and went on to have three children together: Kathy, Douglas (b. 1954), and Rinaldo (b. 1956).
A traditional Italian beauty, Kathy was tall and slim, and stood at 5′ 9.5″ and weighed 125 pounds; she had hazel eyes and dark brown hair she wore long and parted down the middle. At the time of her encounter, she was living with a roommate in unit #21 at the Knissen Village Apartments located on 14th and ‘B’ Street.
On the evening of Wednesday, April 17, 1974, twenty-one-year-old D’Olivo dropped her roommate off near downtown Ellensburg and drove to CWU’s campus, arriving just after 8:00 PM; she parked her car in the lot next to the Hertz Music Hall (located kitty corner to the library) and went into the main entrance of the Bouillon Library. In an interview with Detective Robert Keppel of the King County Sheriff’s Department on March 1, 1975, Kathleen said that ‘it was a clear night. I don’t remember it being extremely cold or extremely warm.’ She also stated that she was certain she was wearing blue jeans but wasn’t 100% sure of the top she had on, however she thinks it was most likely a blazer. Kathy was wearing two rings (one of them being her engagement ring) and said that she may have also been wearing a bracelet; at the time she was using a navy-blue cross-body purse.
Kathy stayed on the second floor of the library until around 10 PM, studying in an area known as the curriculum laboratory (don’t forget this location, I’m going to bring it up again later). But when she saw the clock nearing 10, she began gathering up her things, as it was time to head home and call her fiancé (a ritual she did every Wednesday at the same time). D’Olivo left the library same way she came in: through the front entrance. She then made a quick right and stepped off the concrete path and began making her way across the grass.
D’Olivo said that she ‘hadn’t quite gotten off the lawn, or sidewalk (wherever I was, I hadn’t reached the main mall stretch) when I heard something behind me. It sounded like something following me, it didn’t startle me or anything, it wasn’t a loud noise and I turned around and there was a man dropping books, he was squatting, trying to pick up the books and packages was what he was doing and so I noticed that he had a sling on one arm, and a hand brace on the other. I didn’t really notice it at the time, I just noticed that he was unable to pick up that many things and I assumed that he was going into the library. I went over and said, ‘do you need help?’ He said, ‘Ya, could you?,’ or something to that affect. So I picked up what to me felt like a bicycle backpack, it was nylon material, kind of.’ Kathy later clarified that he had his right arm in a sling but had metal braces on fingers of both hands, specifically the type that were used on broken fingers.
Kathleen told Detective Keppel that she wasn’t sure what was in the backpack, but it felt like books, and he also had with him ‘some packages, three boxes that were small, not large. I think they were wrapped in parcel post, or brown paper bag-type thing and I think some of them had string ties on them, you know, like… I’m almost sure on that, but at any rate, I picked up the bag that I thought had books in it, the knapsack type bag, and he picked up the packages.’
When Detective Keppel asked Kathy where she thought he was taking her as they began their walk, she replied ‘I thought he was going in the library. He was headed that way, so I thought that’s where he was going. But that same sidewalk actually leads up over a little bridge that runs alongside the library, it’s just short bridge that goes over a pond (man-made pond) and that’s actually the direction that he was going in, but its right next to the library and the same sidewalk will angle off to go into the library so that’s where I thought he was going. We started walking and when we came to the bridge, it was obvious that he wasn’t turning off to go to the library, and I said wait a minute, you know, where are we going? He said, ‘oh my car is just parked right over here.‘ I said okay, or didn’t make any motion, but at the same time I know what I was carrying which I thought was books, or felt like books, was very heavy, and the way I was carrying them, I knew I could protect myself with it if the need arose.’
But instead of continuing on the pathway to the Library, the man started walking across the bridge, which immediately threw up a red flag for D’Olivo, and she said to him, ‘well, wait a minute, were are you going?’ He said, ‘well my cars just over here.’ I said, ‘okay,’ so we started walking across the bridge and we were maybe a quarter the way across the bridge and he began telling me about his ski injuries and that conversation took us up to by the other side of the bridge and a little ways beyond that, and then I asked him again, ‘well, where’s your car?’ I expected it to be parked on the street that’s right behind the library. He said, ‘oh, its just right here.’ Then we walked under the trestle to the right there, and it was just barely down that dark stretch.’ She said at that time she ‘assessed the situation,’ and said she ‘was extremely cautious while with him. I never gave him the opportunity of walking behind me.’
When Detective Keppel asked Kathleen what the man looked like, she said he ‘was no taller than I am, possibly, he could have been a few inches taller, maybe 6’ but absolutely not taller than 6’… I don’t remember thinking that he was a lot shorter than I, nor a lot taller. I would say he was probably around my height. He had brown, light brown kind of shaggy hair, no real style, no real cut, cut kind of long and shaggy. He was thin and his face is a blur to me. I don’t remember his features at all. I don’t really recall if he had a mustache or not. I picture him in my mind both ways, one with and without one. The same thing about glasses: in one thought in my mind, I picture him with wire rims, and another I don’t. I don’t really know. He was dressed kind of sloppily, not real grubby, but nothing outstanding.’
When asked about the condition of his arms, D’Olivo said ‘his left arm was in a sling, no cast, no plaster of Paris cast I know that, but it was in a sling. His right arm had like a hard brace, or finger brace.’ … ‘I think it was metal. He had bandages wrapped around it. It was supporting his fingers. I’m not sure if his arm that was in a sling was wrapped, but I think that it was. He told me that he had hurt it skiing. He’d run into a tree or something and bent his fingers back, and dislocated his shoulder (or did something to his shoulder).’ She clarified that he did not tell her where the accident happened.
When Keppel asked her if the man ever showed signs of being in any sort of pain from his injury, D’Olivo said that ‘he may have mentioned that he was in pain, maybe once, but he didn’t make a real big deal out of it; it was just so obvious that he was helpless that he’d have to be in pain, that’s the way it appeared to me, anyway. He told me that he’d been in an accident (ski) and this is what happened, and the way he was bandaged up it all made sense, the sling on his arms and shoulder, etc.’
Additionally, she recalled that he was soft spoken, and was dressed ‘sloppily, not real grubby, but nothing outstanding,’ and may have worn jeans with a wrinkled shirt, with ‘the tail hanging out.’ When asked if she recalled what the man was wearing, and if he had on for instance a short or jacket she said, ‘it seems to me that he had a shirt on, like a sport shirt, it was very sloppy or wrinkly looking. It seems to me he had a shirt-tail hanging out. I mean, intentionally hanging out, wearing it on the other side of his pants. I don’t remember what type of pants he had on, just all-around kind of grubby, like jeans or something like that.’
Kathy said that the strangers car was parked on 10th Street, and as they got closer to it she noticed that it was a ‘no parking’ area on the outskirts of campus and was in a secluded, dimly lit area that was ‘not well travelled.’ During their walk, D’Olivo said he talked about how much pain he w as in, and as they went under the railroad trestle, she said that she could vaguely make out the shape of a VW Bug in the distance that was parked to the right of the large trestle: ‘it was a dark road. There were no streetlights on that road … but it wasn’t completely black.’ This would make sense, as the only light available to them was from the library and an adjacent building, both of which were a fair distance away.’
When they got to the car, Kathy said that she ‘set the pack down, well first of all, he went to unlock the door on the passenger side, which is the inside… I mean, the car was parked right next to a log and there was room between it for a person, and he went to unlock the car on the passengers side, and I set down the package (the pack) that I had been carrying and leaned it against the log and I think I said goodbye… anyways, my thought was well, I had done my deed and I was going to leave, and then he was supposedly unlocking the car and he dropped the key; then he felt for the key with his right hand and he couldn’t find it apparently and he said, ‘do you think you could find it for me because I can’t feel with this thing on my hand (meaning the brace on his right hand. I was cautious this time, I mean, even while we were walking I thought well, I’m not going to let him get behind me, I’m going to keep an eye on him, I’ve got these heavy books and I can use them. But I didn’t want to bend over in front of him so I said, lets step back and see if we can see the reflection in the light, so we stepped behind the car, kind of behind the car to the side, and I squatted down and luckily I did see the reflection of the key in the light so I picked up the key and dropped them in his hand and I said goodbye and good luck, or something with your arms, or something to that effect, and that was the end of the conversation.’ She also said that the lack of light made the VW appear shiny and brown in color and that it appeared to be in good shape (which we know isn’t exactly true), and as far as Kathy could remember it did not have a ski rack on top of it.
When Detective Keppel asked D’Olivo if she thought the man’s intentions were sincere, she told him, ‘yes, I did… Ya, and I thought he was just going into the library, it was just a short distance and her really did need help and I thought I could help him.’ She also said that nothing seemed unusual about his car when she was asked, and about it said: ‘it looked, just very normal, like any VW on the street.’ … ‘All I really noticed was that it was a nice VW, it was in good shape. And it was shiny.’
When Detective Keppel asked Kathy if she happened to notice if the VW’s front seat was missing on the passengers side, she replied that she ‘left before he opened the car. I didn’t notice it and I was right alongside the car on the passengers side. I think I would have if there had been a seat missing, but I can’t be certain on that, but it seemed all intact to me and in good shape.’ Like Jane Curtis, she said that the car had no particular odor associated with it, like cigarettes or marijuana smoke.
When asked if the man seemed disappointed when she left him, Kathleen said, ‘no, not at all. That’s why I wasn’t suspicious, because it was just a small thank you for helping me, was the attitude that I picked up anyway, and uh… he didn’t seem nervous that I was leaving. He didn’t say, ‘hey, do you need a ride home’ or ‘how ’bout a ride? or get in the car,’ or anything like that. So I still felt that it was on the up and up, and I was kind of mad at myself for even being suspicious.’ When asked if she remembered seeing him around campus (before and after the incident), she said: ‘there was nothing unique about him really that would. I may have seen him in a crows somewhere… I… his face… nothing about him was familiar to me. I don’t recall ever seeing him before.’ Kathleen also said that he was not ‘very appealing’ to her, and ‘he was shaggily, or sloppily, or however you want to say it, dressed and kind of scrawny looking. He didn’t appeal to me at all.’ Ms. D’Olivo further clarified that the stranger was not clean cut nor a hippy, but was ‘kind of weird looking, and when asked if he appeared to be athletic, she replied, ‘no, not at all. No, he just… he didn’t fit the stereotype in my mind of an athlete, or even a skier.’
Another young woman that may have had an encounter with Ted Bundy on Central Washington University’s campus is Jane Marie Curtis: at first I believed Jane’s encounter took place earlier in the same evening that Sue Rancourt was abducted (because that’s the date that was given in everything I’ve read about her), but after reading her interview with Detective Keppel I learned it actually took place on a Sunday evening, most likely on April 14, 1974 or April 21, 1974. Like Kathleen, Curtis had been spending time at the Curriculum Lab at CWU and ‘ran into’ Bundy as she was walking out of the main entrance at the Bouillon Library. She said he used the same ruse that he did with D’Olivo: he had been in a skiing accident and needed help carrying some heavy books to his car, as his arm was in a (poorly made) sling. Like Kathy, Curtis was lucky and managed to leave Bundy alive.
Kathy D’Olivo and Jane Curtis were both able to escape with their lives, but unfortunately Susan Rancourt was not so fortunate: later in the evening on April 17, 1974 around 10/10:30 PM Bundy stumbled upon the pretty young Biology major as she left a meeting about becoming an RA the following school year. After the meeting she had plans to see a German film with a friend but she never made it, and it didn’t take long for her friends and family to become worried, and by 3:00 AM her roommate Diana Pitt called the dorm manager, saying: ‘I got worried she wasn’t back.’ Parts of Rancourt’s skeleton were discovered in Taylor Mountain in March 1975 after two forestry students uncovered multiple sets of human remains; after combing the area, the King County Sheriff’s Department discovered four skulls in total as well as an assortment of other human bones.
In addition to Sue Rancourt, forensic experts were able to determine that the remains belonged to University of Washington coed Lynda Ann Healy, University of Oregon student Roberta Parks, and twenty-two-year-old loner Brenda Carol Ball. Later in the same day that Sue’s skull was identified, the King County ME took X-rays of her skull and mailed them special delivery to her dentist in Alaska, who confirmed it was her. According to CWU’s Police Chief Al Pickles: ‘there were several points of identification that made us almost sure the skull was Rancourt’s. This switches the case from a missing person to a homicide.’
Elizabeth D’Olivo passed away at the age of sixty-eight on March 15, 1999 in Mexico. According to her obituary, Betty was a member of St. Charles Borromeo Church and her life revolved around her friends and family, and she especially loved her four grandchildren. Kathy’s father Rinaldo passed away at the age of eighty on November 22, 2008 in their winter home in San Carlos, Mexico. According to his obit, he continued working in his family’s fireworks company until his time of his death. Kathy’s brother Ron died at the age of fifty-four on March 10, 2011 after a prolonged battle with lung disease. Douglas D’Olivo is currently a seventy-one-year-old resident of University Place, WA. Kathleen and David are still married and reside in University Place, WA; they have two grown daughters together: Amy and Emily.
Jane Marie Curtis-Bjork.*
Jane Marie Curtis was born in Washington state in 1953, and grew up in Edmonds; she graduated from Bellevue High School in 1971 and during her time there she participated in multiple clubs and organizations, including ‘Girls Club,’ the Big Sister Picnic, Mother-Daughter Tea, Homecoming Committee, the Chowder Bowl, Spades, and Ski Club. After Curtis graduated from high school she enrolled at Central Washington University, and while there she was a sorority sister and in April 1974 she lived in the dormitories on campus, specifically at ‘Walnut North #46.’
At the time of her encounter with Bundy, Jane was a twenty-one-year-old student at CWU and stood at 5’6″ tall (one report listed her height as 5’8”) and weighed 140 pounds; she had hazel eyes (although one source said they were green), and had ‘washed out blonde hair’ that she wore at her shoulders.
Most websites and articles about Jane’s run-in with Ted claim that she encountered him earlier in the evening on April 17, 1974 (which is earlier in the evening before Sue Rancourt was abducted), but after reading her interview with Detective Robert Keppel of the King County Sheriff’s Department, I learned that it actually took place on a Sunday, (either on April 14, 1974 or April 21,1974) after she left her job at the Curriculum Lab at the James E. Brooks Library at campus, sometime between 8:30 and 9 PM. She worked ten hours a week on the second floor, and upon leaving her POE she walked out of the front door, and shortly after was approached by a young man that was ‘carrying a huge stack of books, like about eight or nine books, and he had a cast* on his left arm as I recalled earlier. But he was carrying these books and all of a sudden he just kinda drops them, right in the direction I was walking in, so I just more or less… offered assistance. I said, ‘gee, well it looks like you have quite a load, would you like some help?’ so I helped him pick up the book, no big deal, cause he didn’t act like, uh, he acted like a very nice person. So I said, ‘do you need any help?’ He said that he could, so I…’ Curtis clarified that he did carry a few of his books, but she carried the majority of them and they were all hardcover. Jane also said that she remembered the man was a bit ‘shorter than she was,’ because she happened to have on platform shoes that day that placed her at around 5’9″. *One sources says that Bundy was using crutches when he approached Curtis, but she never mentioned it in her interviews with LE.
Curtis said the man was wearing a dark colored stocking hat that ‘went up’ on his head and that his ‘hippie clothes’ were on the blackish side and he also had on a long, ‘grubby’ coat. She also stated that he had dark hair and that ‘everything about him was lacking color:’ ‘no outstanding colors like red or yellow.’ She said where she was certain he had no beard or mustache she wasn’t completely certain if he wore glasses or not, as he looked at her ‘strangely,’ and his eyes looked: ‘weird. That’s one thing I remembered, but I can’t remember whether he had glasses on or not.’ In regard to what hand the cast was on, she said it would have been his left hand because when they were walking it was on (…) side, so it would have been his left hand because his fingers were in my direction because I noticed that there was on one of his fingers some metal, kind of a metal type cast on his fingers, silver, splint-like.‘ When Curtis asked the stranger how the injury happened, he said it was from a skiing injury but was reluctant to say much else on it, and after she suggested ‘Crystal Mountain’ as where the accident took place he immediately responded, ‘yes, that’s where it happened, and he elaborated that he ‘ran into a tree up there.’ She commented that he didn’t strike her as the skiing type, and that he didn’t appear to her to be much of an athlete; she also said she thought the scenario could have possibly happened, but she felt it was highly unlikely.
When Detective Keppel asked Jane if the man was skinny, she said no but that his ‘coat was big, kinda bulky looking, slouched over.’ She also said he didn’t appear to be in any pain from his injury and his arm only seemed to hurt when she started to allude that she didn’t want to further help him, or get in his car: ‘the only thing, only the times when he needed help, like when I said I was leaving, when I approached the car, then he wanted me to get in, then all of a sudden he started, like, ‘ohhhh my arm,’ he went on about his arm hurting him, and he said don’t forget I have a broken arm, you feel sorry for me… get in…’
When Keppel asked Curtis what the man’s sling looked like, she said that ‘it looked like, when I was at Western I was in a cast for several months, and it looked like, it wasn’t hard… not the plaster. It looked like the wrapping of gauze-type.‘ … ‘It was white, with white wrapping. It was completely around his fingers, across here, around this thumb and up his arm, but he had his coat up. The coat was over it, but only part way up so you could see it. Then he had that metal thing on his finger, it looks like maybe it was something you could do yourself.’ Curtis told the detective that it was unusual to her that he would have a broken arm and not have a real cast on it: ‘because I had the gauze on before the swelling went down, then they put a hard cast on me. It looked like something that anybody could do if they wanted to. I just sorta glanced at it, but it didn’t look like a professional job. That little metal thing over his finger looked like it was just taped on.’
As they approached the car, Bundy told her to open it up, and after she replied ‘what?’ he handed her his car keys, to which she refused and told him no. When they arrived at the VW, the car was locked, and after he unlocked and opened the door, she peered inside of it and immediately noticed that there was no passenger seat: ‘it was simply gone, with nothing in its place.’ She said the man ‘wasn’t saying anything, and after he opened the door he said, ‘get in,’ to which she said ‘what,’ then he quickly said, ‘ohhhh, could you get in and start the car for me?’ I said, I can’t.’ So he was wincing at the time about his arm.’ When pressed about what was inside of the car, Curtis said there was a ‘square box in the back, way in the back in a cubby hole behind the back seat. There was something back there, but there was nothing unusual that struck me except the whole passengers seat was gone.’ Jane said that the car was for the most part non-descript and had no CWU stickers on it.
Curtis told Detective Keppel that the man never touched her and he ‘probably more or less just wanted me to feel sorry, and get in, and I just dropped his books after he told me that and I took off.’ When she turned around and left him she didn’t run, and only briskly walked away and he didn’t chase or come after her and she just went back to her on-campus apartment; she also said that as she was running away from him she never heard him start his car.
Curtis said the car was yellow in color and didn’t seem to have any particular smell, like he had been smoking in it, andthat it had been parked in a ‘no parking area,’ because it was in an spot that ‘went around a curve, and right in there there’s a road and it has the block-wooden blocks, and there’s a parking lot area for the tickers for the lower dorm, then right around the corner there’s kind of a high grass and ditch.’
At the end of the interview with Detective Keppel, Curtis said that the man told her to: ‘start the car for me, I remembered that. First of all, he told me to get in, I said what, then he went through his little pain bit, and said get in and start the car for me because I can’t. He said because of his arm he couldn’t start it. He wanted me to start it for him.’ She also clarified that the ignition on the VW was on the left hand side.
At around 8 PM on April 17, 1974 (which was about two hours before Sue Rancourt went missing) CWU student named Kathleen D’Olovio reported to police that she was approached by a man using the same ruse as Jane Curtis: he had his arm in a sling and was looking for some help carrying some books to his car. D’Oloviosaidwhen they reached his Volkswagen, the man dropped his keys and asked her for some help finding them, but her suspicions were raised after she noticed the cast on his arm didn’t look as if a medical professional put it on. Wisely, instead of bending over to look for the keys she suggested they look for them using the reflection from a car’s lights: once she found them she immediately snatched them up, tossed them at Bundy then quickly got out of there, an act that most likely saved her life. This most likely threw Ted off, as he was most likely hoping she would lean over so he would have had a good angle to bash her over the head from behind with a crowbar (or tire iron), and she was able to get away unharmed.
As we all know, after the failed abduction of both Jane Curtis and Kathleen D ‘Olivo Ted went on to find a victim in Sue Rancourt, who was last seen around 10 PM on April 17, 1974 leaving a meeting of ‘The Living Group Advisors’ at 9:30 PM in Munson Hall about possibly being an RA the following year (which would have helped her save in tuition costs).
* In November 2025 I received an email from Jane asking me to take the post down, and where I did spend a lot of time thinking about what to do I ultimately decided to take all of the personal details out, but leave the Bundy related information.
Susanne ‘Sue’ Arlette Swanson-Crawford.
Susanne Arlette Swanson was born in May 1955 to Herbert and Blanche (nee Haynes) Swanson in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Blanche Ethel Haynes was born on July 12, 1916 in Mason, MI, and Sue’s father Herbert Clarence Swanson was born February 9, 1918 in Tacoma, WA. The couple were married in Flagstaff, Arizona on October 13, 1948 and had two daughters together: Susanne and her sister, Holly. After serving in WWII Herb went to school and got a degree in engineering, and after he graduated he got a position with the LA Department of Water and Power, and would frequently talk about how much he loved going to work every single day, not just for his love of engineering but also because of the wonderful people that he worked with.
Sue was a strong student and while she was attending Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Los Angelas she was in Spanish Club, Advanced Girls Ensemble, and concert choir. After she graduated in 1973 she relocated to Salt Lake City and enrolled in Brigham Young University. Susanne married LeRoy Crawford on May 23, 1975 in their temple in SLC and the couple had four children together: Kristi , Jaden, Glen, and David. Leroy Dalley Crawford was born on November 9, 1949 in Summit, Utah.
One hot day in early August 1975 after registering for a Spanish class for the upcoming semester at BYU, Crawford made a quick call on a pay phone in the Wilkinson Center. After she hung up, she nearly ran into ‘a handsome, curly haired man in his early 30’s’ that had ‘mesmerizing clear green eyes,’ ones that she had felt for sure were fixated on her as she finished up with her phone call moments before. The young newlywed softly apologized and quickly walked off, but the attractive stranger stayed with her and placed himself between her and the exit; she said that his voice was ‘deep’ and ‘rhythmic,’ and it ‘sounded poetic’ to her… she also thought to herself that his smile was perfect and his ‘handsome dimples’ drew her to every word that came out of her mouth. He told her: ‘you have such long, beautiful hair. You really are a pretty woman…. I love your eyes, they are captivating.’ Then came the question that stuck with her for the next forty years: ‘may I walk you to your car?’
Crawford lied, and told him: ‘thank you, but my husband is going to pick me up shortly,’ then flashed her diamond ring at him (which she pointed out had been in plain sight during the entire interaction). She said in response the man said nothing, but quickly turned and darted out of the building. At the time she thought the encounter was unusual and he offered her no explanation to his quick departure, like ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were married,’ or ‘it was nice talking to you.’ He simply turned away from her then fled.
She later concluded that he probably was anxious to go and: ‘find his next victim, to captivate her with his charm, wit, intelligence and charisma. I had no idea who this evil man was until many years later. ’She said that fourteen years later (which would have been roughly around the time of his 1989 execution) she was watching the news and a story about none other than Ted came on and it dawned on her who it was that she had run into in August of 1975: ‘I saw him for the first time after all those years in three-dimensional form, walking and talking as I had remembered.’ Crawford said that even though she had seen Bundy’s face ‘multiple times over the years’ in the newspaper and on newscasts she didn’t realize it was him because he ‘had so many different faces, each captivating with an array of hairstyles and looks. His eyes seemed to mutate from green to brown and then back to a hue of green again while we were talking that day in 1975.’
Sue said she’ll obviously never know what would have happened if she had never gotten married only six months prior, and strongly believes that she ‘would have allowed him to walk me to my car if I had not been married’ because she ‘sensed no danger in his presence.’ Thinking about it, she realized that she ‘fit into his pattern of victims: young, tall and thin, with long brown hair parted in the middle.’ ‘It had to be him,’ she thought to herself. At that time in early 1989 she was stuck in an unhappy marriage and remembered that the man was the only person in the past fourteen years that had bothered to pay her a single compliment.
At the time Crawford claimed she had her encounter with Ted in early August 1975 he had been a law student at the University of Utah and was in the final stages of his relationship with Elizabeth Kloepfer (although by then we knew he was being unfaithful to her). According to her, ‘Bundy was arrested two weeks after my meeting him when police finally caught up with him on August 16, 1975. It was also a little more than a month after the abduction and murder of Susan Curtis, a 16-year-old girl attending a youth conference at BYU.’ This statement is at the very least confirmed to be true: According to the ‘1992 FBI TB Multiagency Team Report,’ on June 27, 1975 after she left the Wilkenson Student Center to go back to her room during a youth conference but she was never seen or heard from again.
At the time she wrote her article for Spectrum, Crawford was a resident of Ivins City, UT (according to her FB page she still lives there) and was a student at Dixie State University; she is a grandmother to six and concluded her article by saying: ‘these days I can count four wonderful children and six darling grandchildren. They never would have been born had I accepted Ted Bundy’s offer.’
Herbert Clarence Swanson passed away on February 15, 2008, and at the time of his death, he had been married to Blanche for close to sixty years. According to his obituary, Herb was a gifted gymnast in his youth and loved to roller skate, go camping, and go out flying with his brother, Fred (who was a pilot). Sue’s mother died only ten months after her husband on December 24, 2008. Blanche was gifted in music (she excelled at the piano) and poetry, and in her younger days taught at a small school in the country. Her obituary said that: ‘her greatest gift, and most beloved of her family, was her kind and gracious heart and the sweetness which she radiated to all who knew her. Her greatest passion in life was dancing, and we as her family in our mind’s eye, can see her dancing once again as she once used to!’ During Herb and Blanche’s time together, they enjoyed traveling through the continental United States (including Canada and Alaska).
Leroy Dalley Crawford passed away suddenly on August 9, 2016 at the age of sixty-six of Richfield, Utah. According to his obituary, he was a huge fan of music, and knew how to play the piano, the organ, and a variety of different wind instruments (his favorite being the tuba, which he played in the Utah Valley Symphony while he attended BYU). He was called to the Southwest Indian Mission in 1969 where he served the Navajo Native Americans in the four corners area of the US (where Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet), and while there he learned how to speak Navajo fluently.
Works Cited:
Crawford, Susanne. ‘A chance encounter with serial killer Ted Bundy.’ (March 8, 2015). Taken December 11, 2025 from http://www.spectrum.com
Deborah ‘Debbie’ Wharton Beeler.
Deborah Wharton Beeler was born in Lawrence Memorial Hospital on October 6, 1946 to John and Elizabeth ‘Betty’ (nee Wharton) in New London, Connecticut. John Hall Beeler Sr. was born on August 3, 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland and according to MyHeritage, he graduated from John Hopkins University with a BS in civil engineering in 1938 and went on to serve in the Army during WWII, where he saw battle in Europe; upon his discharge from the military on April 10, 1944 he was employed at the Arundel Corporation and Consolidated Engineering Company’ and went on to become the president of the Precision Tool Company in Edgemont, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Sergeant Wharton was born on November 15 1922 in Philadelphia, and graduated from the Agnes Irwin School in 1941; she made her debut later that same year. The Beeler’s were married on October 28. 1942 in the Thomas Virgin Islands and had three children together: Deborah, Edward (b. 1956) and John (b. 1944). After getting hitched the family moved around the US, and briefly lived in Stonington, CT and Maryland before eventually settling down in Pennsylvania.
According to an article published in The Times-Herald on February 26, 1970, the Beelers were ‘listed in the Social Register of Pennsylvania’ which is a directory of ‘prominent and elite families’ in the Philadelphia area and other regions of the state that (historically) focused on ‘old money’ and well-connected families (in more recent years they have expanded to include a more ‘diverse’ membership). In early 1970 the family lived in the Chester Hill area of Philadelphia, and Deborah’s brother John was a Captain in the Air Force and was serving in Vietnam, and her younger brother Edward was attending Chester Hills Academy in Philadelphia.
Deborah Beeler seemed to live an incredibly charmed life: described by a loved one as ‘vivacious,’ she was the daughter of a wealthy, high level business executive and graduated from Springside High School in 1964. Springside was an independent college preparatory school in the Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia, and while there she excelled in academics and participated in drama club, glee club, and wrote for the newspaper. After graduating from high school Beeler went on to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1968; upon completion she relocated to Berkley, where she got a part time intern position teaching three reading classes a day at the Oakland Technical High School, and got her temporary teaching credentials in January 1970 after taking a class in the Golden State.
According to Deb’s boyfriend and Ted Bundy’s one time Seattle lawyer John Henry Browne (who Bundy actually sought out to be his attorney), at the time of her death she was a graduate student in English education at UC Berkeley, and in addition to teaching she volunteered PT at a halfway house that was close to the cottage that she rented (which was located in the front part of 477 Arlington Avenue). According to William H. Miller, the principal of the school Beeler taught at, she was ‘outstanding,’ and seemed to get along very well with her students, and friends of hers said she was in good spirits the week prior to her death and was an ‘outdoorsy’ type and enjoyed hiking and skiing.
Inspector Jack Houston with the Berkley PD also said that Beeler had gone to her teaching job on Friday, February 20, 1970 and that the following Monday was a holiday (Presidents’ Day), however she failed to report to work on Tuesday, February 24th. The Almeida county coroner said that the twenty-three year old had been found later that day in her cottage by her landlord Stanley Gould, who became worried after she didn’t pick up her mail; her autopsy would later determine she had been deceased for roughly 24 hours. Beeler had been dressed in a ‘slip over housecoat’ and a ‘shorty’ night gown, and was found lying face down on her living room floor; she had been strangled with an electric cord from a nearby hot plate (one source said it was from a lamp), which her killer had looped around her neck multiple times. A pair of pliers that may have been used to tighten the cord lay just within arm’s reach from the victim.
At first, Deputy Coroner David Hitchcock speculated that her death may have been a suicide, but this theory was disregarded (detectives thought this because of the pliers). The ME determined that she died of strangulations but had been hit on the side of the head; she had probably been unconscious when she was strangled. According to William H. Miller, the principal of the school Debbie taught at, she was ‘outstanding,’ and seemed to get along very well with her students. Friends of hers said she was in good spirits the week prior to her death and was an ‘outdoorsy” type, and enjoyed hiking and skiing.
At first, Deputy Coroner David Hitchcock speculated that Beeler’s death may have been a suicide, but this theory was quickly disregarded. The ME determined that she died of strangulation but had also been hit on the side of the head and may have been unconscious at the time she was killed. According to Inspector Houston, ‘there were no signs of a forced entry nor a struggle. I don’t think she would have let anyone in whom she didn’t know while she was wearing her nightclothes. I’m sure that whoever did her in was somebody she knew.’ He also said that she more than likely had let the man that took her life into her apartment willingly, and that she hadn’t been sexually assaulted and her residence showed no sign of a struggle. Detectives interviewed all known loved ones and acquaintances of Beeler: current and former boyfriends, friends, colleagues, family members, residents of the halfway house she volunteered at. No one gave them any helpful information.
I think what is most interesting about Deborah Beeler is, at the time of her murder she was in a relationship with John Henry Browne, who would later become Ted Bundy’s lawyer. While working and going to school in DC Browne made frequent trips to San Francisco, and he connected with Debbie through a friend he nicknamed ‘Punky,’ and the two began dating (an exact time wasn’t given or how long they were together, but I’m thinking it was around 1969). There are no good pictures of Deborah that I could find, however Browne described her in his book as ‘pretty, with brown eyes and long brown hair she parted down the middle.’ The night that they met, the two stayed up until 4 AM talking about a broad range of topics, ranging from war (I’m assuming Vietnam was going on during the time), the death penalty (both were ‘vehemently against it’), and prisoners rights.
According to Browne, ‘she lived in Heights-Ashbury, which in 1969 was the red-hot center of the hippie universe. I started to stay at her apartment, and we’d walked up and down the street, taking it all in. I was struck by her kindness towards strangers. If we came across a homeless man, she would stop and engage him in conversation. And if she had spare change, she would hand it over. It was almost alarming how open she was, how trusting. At Christmas she joined me for a holiday party at my parents house I have a photo from that party that my dad took of her sitting on my lap (Browne, 57)’
According to JHB, Beeler ‘was an angel, and so smart,’ and was as passionate about prisoners’ rights as he was. In the fall of 1969, he left his beloved in Berkeley, quit the band he was in and enrolled in law school at American University in Washington, DC. While there the two ‘maintained a long-distance relationship, talking on the phone, occasionally exchanging letters. When Debbie came out east to see her family, we connected in her hometown of Philadelphia. I met her parents, John and Elizabeth, who had a beautiful home in the tony neighborhood of Chestnut Hill. John, like my father, was an engineer, and was president of Precision Tool Company. Debbie and I talked a lot on that trip about what we wanted out of our relationship. We weren’t anywhere near where Audrey and I had been. We weren’t ready to get engaged, but we loved being around each other, even if we had to live on separate coasts. She was excited about the intern program she’d been accepted, teaching English at Oakland Technical High School. And I was excited about a new program I’d just started with my law school pal Allen Ressler in DC (Browne, 56-57).’
Browne said that some nights he would call her and tell her about the work he was doing with Law-Core, which he described as a ‘university-based prisoners’ rights project,’ and he said she ‘was proud of him.’ He also said that she had ‘recently began to volunteer at a nearby halfway house teaching ex-cons how to write and had recently moved into a cottage in the hills above Berkeley. The phone calls kept me tethered to the Bay area (Browne, 60).’ He also said that there were times that he ‘wouldn’t hear from Debbie for a week or more, or I wouldn’t call her. Our lives were both so busy. So I thought nothing of it until late February when I didn’t hear from her for several days (Browne, 60).’
In the early morning hours of February 26, 1970, Browne received a phone call from his dad from California (that he originally hoped was Debbie), who told him his girlfriend was dead and had been murdered: ‘he was home in Palo Alto and was holding that day’s newspaper: ‘Deborah Beeler had been found dead, lying face down on the living room floor of her Berkeley cottage.’ My whole body went cold, ‘Police said an electrical cord was looped several times around her neck,’ my dad had read to me from The Oakland Tribune: ‘Death was caused by strangulation, but there were indications she was struck on the side of the head. She had been dead for at least 24-hours.’’
After the murder Browne was thrown into a deep depression, and: ‘it really sent me through a loop. I withdrew a lot. I think I was really clinically depressed but didn’t know it.’ … ‘I fell into a deep depression. I didn’t leave my apartment. Didn’t eat. Didn’t answer the phone. I missed classes. I was confused and heartbroken (Browne, 62). He also said that where he had always been passionately against the death penalty he wanted Debbie’s killer to be executed if he was ever caught.
In the first page of Browne’s epilogue, he said that people often ask him if he thinks Bundy killed his one-time girlfriend, and to this he said, ‘the short answer is no. Aside from a few coincidences- both she and her manner of death fit the Bundy profile- there is no direct evidence that Ted was active in the Bay area in early 1970. But the question itself brings up all kinds of complicated thoughts. I’ve never been able to shake the knowledge that Ted knew about my loss before he sought me out as his counsel- and that he kept this secret from me for years. More complicated still is the fact that I defended Ted knowing he had killed countless of women just like Debbie. It was the ultimate test: how committed was I to this life of defending the rights and lives of others, even the most heinous, no matter how much their crimes personally impacted me (Browne, 215).’
In an interview with Washington reporter CR Brown with KCPQ-TV, Browne said that and Bundy had signed a document releasing him from attorney-client privilege and that he could disclose anything he wanted about his time as his lawyer: ‘Ted told me things that he’s never told anyone before… he told me his first victim was a man, and that he had killed over one-hundred people.’ … ‘And I was talking to people who kind of introduced me to Ted, and got me involved with Ted, and I now believe that Ted actually ‘chose me,’ and I found out that he had researched me. He knew where I lived, he knew what kind of clothes I had, what kind of cars I had…. and the women I was dating, they were the same kind of women that he was murdering. I kind of put this together recently, and that kind of creeps me out a lot. Because I had also lost a woman friend to a murderer: my girlfriend when I was in law school was murdered in Berkeley, and I was in DC. And so, he knew that.’ When asked if he thought Bundy had anything to do with his girlfriend’s death, he responded, ‘I pray to God that he didn’t, and I never even thought about that until recently because they reopened some of those cases in California.’ … ‘But it wasn’t in the area where he told me he had killed people.’
Browne said that to this day, he’s not entirely sure why he was willing to defend Bundy in court, but he said Deborah was always on his mind: ‘part of the reason involves my relationship with Debbie and her commitment to being anti-death penalty and her being active in anti-death penalty programs. After she was murdered, I became kind of a believer in the death penalty for a while. But then I had this very powerful dream. Debbie came to me and said, ‘don’t honor me by doing things I didn’t agree with.’ And so, I thought it was a good reminder. If she was around, she would want me to continue fighting against the death penalty. That’s why I’ve been doing this for 40 years now.’
According to his Wikipedia page, John Henry Browne was born on August 11, 1946 and he is a criminal defense attorney practicing in Seattle that is known for his ‘zeal’ in defending his clients, his flair for garnering media attention, and his habit to ‘plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.’ In addition to Bundy, he has represented a number of high-profile defendants, including Colton Harris-Moore (also known as The Barefoot Bandit, he was only a teenager when he was charged with the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in property), Benjamin Ng (who was partly responsible for The Wah Mee massacre, which was a multiple homicide that took place on February 18, 1983, in which Ng and two others gunned down fourteen people in the Wah Mee gambling club on Maynard Alley S. in Seattle’s Chinatown), and Martin Pang (an arsonist that served twenty-three years in a Walla Walla prison for the deaths of four Seattle firefighters). Browne has tried over 350 criminal cases and is particularly known for getting sympathetic treatment for his clients by shifting the focus away from the crimes they committed by arguing for consideration of their background, and the circumstances in which the events took place.
At the time Beeler was murdered Ted Bundy was in the early stages of his romance with his long-term girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, and was residing at the Rogers Rooming House on 12th Avenue Northeast in Seattle. He was employed as a ‘messenger and process server’ for an Attorney’s office, and was there from September 1969 to May 1970 and was fired for ‘unjustifiable absences’ after claiming he had been babysitting Liz’s daughter.’ According to the ‘1992 TB FBI Multi agency Team Report,’ he wasn’t a student at that time and didn’t enroll at The University of Washington until June 1970, however he did spend some time in California when he attended Stanford University in 1967; the following year he quit school completely and started traveling around the US, and briefly spent some time in San Francisco.
Mrs. Beeler died at the age of ninety-eight on January 3, 2021, and her husband wasn’t too far behind her: John Hall Beeler Sr. died after having a stroke on April 13, 2001 in Hershey’s Mill, PA. According to John’s obituary, the couple had three grandchildren (two boys and a girl) and were residing at Dunwoody Village in Newtown Square before their death (which is a retirement community that provides nursing care, residential apartments, and wellness care to the elderly). In addition to working with Arundel Corp. and The Precision Tool Company, in his younger years Mr. Beeler was president of JM Schmidt Company in West Chester and retired in 1984 after twenty years of service; before working for Schmidt he oversaw the ‘finished products division’ of the former Dodge Steel Casting Company in the Tacony Section of Philadelphia, and was also there for twenty years. He enjoyed golf and at one time played with a ‘five-stroke handicap.’ At the time of Mrs. Beeler’s death the couple had been married for fifty-eight years, and they are buried next to one another and their daughter in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Cemetery in Ludwigs Corner, PA. As of September 2025, Deborah’s case remains unsolved and open.
Deborah’s brother Ted attended the University of Utah for his undergraduate degree and went onto graduate school at the University of Michigan; he got married in August 1976. According to familysearch.org, John Beeler Jr. is deceased and passed away sometime in 2023.
Works Cited:
Browne, John Henry. ‘The Devil’s Defender: My Odyssey through American Criminal Justice from Ted Bundy to the Kandahar Massacre.’ (2016).
Gardner, James Ross. (July 18, 2012). ‘The Law and John Henry !*@#ing Browne.’ Taken August 28, 2025 from SeattleMet.com
yearbook.
Vonnie Joyce Van Driel-Stuth, Case Files: Part One.
The first installment of case files related to the murder of Vonnie Stuth, courtesy of the King County Sheriff’s Department.
Various ID and Missing Person’s Information Related to the Ted Bundy Investigation.
Some information on some possible victims and suspects, document courtesy of the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department.
Article, ‘Blood as an Important Tool in Criminal Investigation: How to Catch a Killer Using Mathematical Science, written by Pamela Lillian Valemont.
Another Bundy Blog. 