Up until about five years ago I lived paycheck to paycheck, and after getting two really good jobs I banked quite a bit of money and decided to start traveling. In April 2022 I went to Seattle and since then have been to Florida, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Colorado, Cobleskill (in NY, for a suspected Bundy victim) and Portland (on that trip I also went back to Seattle). I’ve been retracing the steps of Ted Bundy and taking pictures along the way.
Where Bundy’s very first home once stood in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, where he lived with his mother, aunt, and maternal grandparents until he was three years old; it was formerly located at ‘7202 Ridge Avenue’ and is now ‘499 Domino Lane.’ Picture taken in May 2023.The Cowell family’s second home. A diabetic (and agoraphobic), Eleanor Cowell had suffered a stroke in the mid-1950’s and underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for depression. She passed away at the age of 76 in April 1971, and in December 1983 Samuel passed away at the age of 85.Ted’s Uncle Jack Cowell’s house, located at 1514 South Alder Street in Tacoma, WA. Louise and Ted lived here briefly when they moved to Washington state in 1951. Picture taken in April 2022.The Bundy family’s first home, April 2022. During an interview with author Stephen G. Michaud, Ted talked about his time living here: ‘Our house was on Sheridan Street in Tacoma. It was the second house from the corner, on the west side of the street. We moved there, I would guess, in about 1951. My boyhood on Sheridan Street was not an unpleasant one. I remember those days, of roaming with my friends. The adventure, the exploration. Those were the days of frog hunting and marble playing.’The Bundy family’s second home, located at 658 North Skyline Drive in Tacoma; Ted spent a good portion of his adolescent years living here. Picture taken in April 2022.The former house of eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr, located at 3009 North 14th Street in Tacoma, WA. The oldest of five, on the morning she went missing on August 31, 1961 her mother, Beverly, woke up early and noticed that Ann wasn’t in her room, and after walking downstairs, she noticed that the front door was slightly open along with the living room window. There’s so many rumors about Bundy and Ann Marie Burr: my favorite is that his Uncle Jack was her piano teacher, and where she did take lessons, he wasn’t her instructor. Also, it’s said that Ted was her neighbor as well as the Burrs’ paperboy… and where he did deliver newspapers as a youngster, he was not hers, and where they didn’t live super far away from one another they were hardly neighbors (I made the 3.3 mile walk from the Ann’s house to Ted’s during my first trip to Seattle). Picture taken in April 2022.The front of Ann Marie Burrs house, picture taken in April 2022. I thought the trees were beautiful.The third and final home of Johnnie and Louise Bundy, located at 3214 North 20th Street in Tacoma. The family moved here in 1968 after selling their second house on North Skyline Drive and lived there until the late 2000’s. In May 2007, Johnny died at the age of 86 and two years later, Louise sold the property for $305,301. In December 2012, Mrs. Bundy passed away at the age of 88. Picture taken in April 2022.This is the front of Silas High School, formerly Woodrow Wilson High School, where Ted graduated from in 1965. Picture taken in April 2022.Ted Bundy’s alma mater: Dr. Dolores Silas High School, located at 1202 North Orchard Street in Tacoma. From its founding in 1958 until July 2021 it was called Woodrow Wilson High School. Picture taken in April 2022.Dr. Dolores Silas High School, in Tacoma, WA. Pictures taken in April 2022.The music building at Silas High School in Tacoma, WA. Picture taken in April 2022.The entrance to the University of Puget Sound, a school that Ted attended twice: right after he graduated from high school (then dropped out) then again for his (first attempt) at law school (he once again dropped out). Picture taken in April 2022.The University of Puget Sound, picture taken in April 2022.Another shot of the entrance to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Picture taken in April 2022.While getting a cup of tea at the University of Puget Sounds coffee shop, one of the baristas reminded me that Louise Bundy used to work at the school, and that she had a brick on campus near the water fountain. Picture taken in April 2022.A broader shot of Johnnie and Louise’s brick on the campus of the University of Puget Sound, picture taken in April 2022.McMahon Hall located at the University of Washington. In 1966 during Ted’s first year at the school he lived on the 4th floor of the dormitories South Tower, and reportedly kept a key after ‘officially’ moving out and would return there on occasions to take naps. Picture taken in April 2022.The apartment building where flight attendants Lisa Wick and Lonnie Trumbull lived when they were attacked in the early morning hours of June 23, 1966, located 2415 8th Ave North in the Queen Anne district of Seattle. Ted is still considered a suspect in their attacks (Wick survived but Trumbull sadly did not). Picture taken in April 2024.Another shot of ‘The Sherri Lee Apartments,’ picture taken in April 2024. The back portion of ‘The Sherri Lee Apartments,’ picture taken in April 2024.The Seattle Yacht Club, where Ted worked as a busboy until he was fired for stealing food. Its strongly thought he began his employment there in September 1967, but how long he was there for seems to be a bit of a gray area: Mrs. Ferris said he was there for roughly six weeks, but Ann Rule wrote in ‘The Stranger Beside Me’ that he worked there for six months. Additionally, Dr. Robert Dielenberg’s true crime masterpiece ‘A Visual Timeline’ said he parked cars at the club and left in January 1968.The Seattle Yacht Club, located at 1807 E Hamlin Street in the Montlake neighborhood of Seattle. Picture taken in April 2022.A sign at the entrance of The Seattle Yacht Club, picture taken in April 2022.A memorial outside The Seattle Yacht Club, picture taken in April 2022.5015 16th Street Seattle, WA, Picture taken in April 2024. According to the ‘1992 FBI TB Multiagency Report,’ Ted lived here sometime in 1967. Picture taken in April 2024. One of Bundy’s residences, located at 5015 16th Northeast Avenue in Seattle. The dates and circumstances of Ted living here are unknown, however according to the ‘1992 TB Multiagency Report 1992,’ he lived here at various intervals between 1966 and 1967 (which is before his relationship with Liz and roughly around the time he started seeing Diane Edwards). I will say, I’m not sure if this address is a mistake, as it is incredibly similar to 5015 16th Street, but who knows. Picture taken in April 2024.The (former) Olympic Hotel in Seattle, where Ted worked in March 1968. This is where he met his friend Sybil Ferris, who was employed here as a pastry chef. The establishment, now called The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, was built in 1924 on the original site of the University of Washington and was originally part of a larger development plan that included the Metropolitan Theatre. He was fired for stealing from lockers. Picture taken in April 2022.The sign outside the entrance for The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.The entrance to The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.The fountain in the plaza outside The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.Some plaques on the side of the entrance of The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, picture taken in April 2022.The Safeway that Bundy worked at as a stock boy in the Queen Ann neighborhood of Seattle from April 12, 1968 to July 26, 1968. According to his friend Sybil Ferris: ‘I helped him get a job at Safeway for a short while and he just quit, not even going back to work to tell them he was leaving.’ Picture taken in April 2022.The inside of the Seattle Safeway where Ted Bundy worked, picture taken in April 2022.This is Ted’s Aunt Julia’s house, and he stayed here while attending Temple University in Philadelphia during the late 1960’s, located at 4039 South Warner Road in Lafayette Hill (in the outskirts of Philadelphia). Picture taken in May 2022.The University of Washington campus in Tacoma, picture taken in April 2022.The entrance of the University of Washington in the heart of Seattle. Picture taken in April 2022.What the former SandPiper looked like in April 2022.During his time at The University of Washington Ted was a psychology major, and the main building on campus for psych majors is Guthrie Hall. Picture taken in April 2022.The back of Guthrie Hall, picture taken in April 2022.A sign for Guthrie Hall, picture taken in April 2022.The University of Washington School of Medicine, where Liz Kloepfer worked when she was in a relationship with Ted Bundy. Picture taken in April 2022.When employed at The University of Washington, Liz Kloepfer worked for the Medical School on campus. Picture taken in April 2022.The University of Washington School of Medicine, which opened in 1946 and was founded as part of a larger School of Health Sciences. It quickly gained recognition and received full accreditation from the AMA and AAMC in 1949 and by 1970, it had become a national leader in biomedical research grants. Picture taken in April 2022.Another shot of the University of Washington School of Medicine, picture taken in April 2022.The parking lot where Dante’s once stood, April 2022.The former ‘O’Banion’s Tavern,’ where Bundy frequented during his time living in Seattle located at 5220 Roosevelt Way NE. As of April 2025,it is the home of the Laughs Comedy Club. In an interview with the King County Sheriff’s Department Elizabeth Kloepfer, told investigators that Bundy and his neighbor, John Neeler went to O’Banion’s Tavern a few times each month, along with Dante’s Tavern and The Pipeline Tavern. It’s also only a few steps away from where Dante’s Tavern once stood. Picture taken on April 2022.Harborview Medical Center, where TB interned from June 1972 to September 1972. He had a lot of jobs and never seemed to stick around for very long. Picture taken in April 2022.Harborview Medical Center, picture taken in April 2022.The Pike Place Market, located in Seattle, Washington. The open market was created on August 17, 1907 in response to public outcry over high food costs, and is one of the oldest continuously operating public farmers’ markets in the US. Picture taken in April 2022.Another shot of The Pike Place Market, Picture taken in April 2022.Another shot of the Pike Place Market, picture taken in April 2022.I love this shot, picture taken in April 2022.Another part of The Pike Place Market, picture taken in April 2022.Another part of The Pike Place Market, taken in April 2022.The front of the Rogers’ Rooming House, located at 4143 12th Northeast Avenue in Seattle, Washington. Bundy lived here from September 1969 to September 2, 1974. Picture taken in April 2022.The residence housed multiple tenants (along with the owners, Ernst and Freda Rogers) that shared the same facilities. Ted lived in a room on the second floor for four years until he left for his second attempt at law school on September 2, 1974. Picture taken in April 2022.This is the apartment where Liz Kloepfer lived in when her and Bundy began dating, located at 5208 18th Avenue NE in Seattle. She lived here with her daughter, Molly in an apartment on the first floor, on the right side of the building. Although Bundy was known to stay here a lot he still formally lived at the Rogers’ Rooming House. Picture taken in April 2022.
According to the ‘1992 TB Multiagency Report 1992,’ Ted lived here briefly with Marlin Vortman and his wife sometime in late 1973, located at 3510 West Elmore Street in Seattle. Photo taken in April 2024.A shot of where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, picture taken in April 2022.A shot of where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, picture taken in April 2022.A shot of where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, picture taken in April 2022.The final resting place of Katherine Merry Devine, picture taken in April 2024.Kathy Devine’s diary, courtesy of Charlene Devine-Gonzales. Picture taken in April 2024.A picture of a page taken from Kathy Devine’s diary, courtesy of Charlene Devine-Gonzales. Picture taken in April 2024.Where the apartment of Karen Sparks once stood, who Bundy attacked and left for dead in her basement apartment on January 4, 1974. Picture taken in April 2022.This is the house where Ted Bundy attacked and abducted his first known murder victim, Lynda Ann Healy located at 5517 12th Avenue NE in Seattle, Washington. Picture taken in April 2024.A path located on the side of the house (and in the back) that Lynda Ann Healy was renting at the time of her murder. Picture taken in April 2024.A picture of Lynda Ann Healy’s former house taken in April 2022. On the evening of January 31, 1974, Healy and her roommates were drinking at Dante’s Tavern, but because she needed to be at her job the following morning at 5:30 to read the ski report they didn’t stay out late and returned home around 10 PM (their friend Pete also had to catch a bus back to his place). A picture of the side of Lynda Healy’s former house, taken in April 2022. Donna Manson’s former dormitory located on the campus of The Evergreen State Collegein Olympia, WA. Picture taken in April 2022.A path near Manson’s dormitory, picture taken in April 2022.A path in the back of the dorm buildings that Donna may have taken the night of her murder, picture taken in April 2022.Some interesting trees in front of the Daniel J. Evans Library on the campus of The Evergreen Sate College. Picture taken in April 2022.The Library on the campus of The Evergreen State College, picture taken in April 2022.A picture taken at the entrance of Central Washington University from April 2022. Susan Rancourt was abducted from campus on April 17, 1974.Before Bundy came across Sue Rancourt he approached two other young women, Jane Curtis and Katherine Clara D’Olivo. Earlier in the evening both women said they were approached by a man with his arm in a sling onthe schools campus.Another picture of the Susan Rancourt Memorial Garden located on the campus of Central Washington University. Picture taken in April 2022.Another picture of the Susan Rancourt Memorial Garden located on the campus of Central Washington University. Picture taken in April 2022.Another picture of the Susan Rancourt Memorial Garden located on the campus of Central Washington University. Picture taken in April 2022.Barto Hall, where Rancourt was living at the time of her murder. Picture taken in April 2022.Before her murder Sue Rancourt was attending a meeting about being a residential advisor the following school year, picture taken in April 2022.A safety phone on the campus of Central Washington University. Picture taken in April 2022.Millersylvania State Park as it looked in April 2022. This is where the remains of Brenda Joy Baker were discovered in May 1974. Most likely Brenda was killed by a man named William Cosden Jr., but because no DNA was ever taken at the crime scene we will most likely never know for sure who took her life.One of the signs for the entrance of Millersylvania State Park as it looked in April 2022.The sign for the entrance of Millersylvania State Park as it looked in April 2022.The former Flame Tavern as it looked in April 2022. On May 31, 1974 Brenda Ball vanished without a trace after seeing a band play here, and was last seen in the company of a handsome man with his arm in a sling. The former Flame Tavern as it looked in April 2022.The former Flame Tavern as it looked in April 2022.The former Flame Tavern as it looked in April 2022.The alley where Bundy first encountered Georgann Hawkins, picture taken in April 2022.The alleyway where Ted first encountered Hawkins, picture taken in April 2024.The parking lot where Bundy abducted Georgann Hawkins on June 11, 1974 from outside the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority house on the University of Washington campus. Picture taken in April 2024.Another shot of the parking lot where Bundy first encountered Georgann Hawkins, taken in April 2024.A sign at the entrance of Lake Samammish State Park in Issaquah, WA. Picture taken in April 2022.The entrance of Lake Sammamish, picture taken in April 2022.Lake Sammamish, picture taken in April 2022.A beach at Lake Sammamish for Tibbetts Beach. Picture taken in April 2022.A beach at Lake Sammamish for Tibbetts Beach. Picture taken in April 2022.A sign at Lake Sammamish for Tibbetts Beach. Picture taken in April 2022.A sign for some King Country Government buildings, picture taken in April 2022.The King County Sheriff’s office, located at 516 3rd Ave in Seattle… To be honest, I went here right before I was due to come home, and as I was walking around taking my pictures I saw a young man smoking crack in one of the buildings alcove. In that moment, I was ready to come home, and I had enough of my vacation. Like so many other things I experienced that week, if was definitely a first. Picture taken in April 2022.Another shot of the King County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in April 2022.The King County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in April 2022.The side of the King County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in April 2022.A door to the King County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in April 2022.Another door at the King County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in April 2022.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Issaquah Dump Site in April 2024.This is the former boarding house where Bundy rented a room in during his second attempt at law school in SLC, located at 565 1st Avenue; he lived here from September 2, 1974 to September 1975. Picture taken in November 2022.The house where Nancy Wilcox lived when she was abducted and killed by Bundy. It’s located at 2409 Arnette Drive in Salt Lake City, is 1,482 square feet in size and was built in 1957. I took this picture in November 2022.A picture of where the orchard once stood located across the street from Nancy Wilcox; I took this picture in November 2022.A picture of Big Cottonwood Canyon taken in November 2022. This is where Rhonda Stapley claims Ted took her after abducting her in October 1974.A picture of a couple signs from Big Cottonwood Canyon taken in November 2022.Where The Pepperoni Pizza restaurant once stood, where Melissa Smith died with a friend before she was last seen. Picture taken in November 2022.The intersection close to where the remains of Melissa Smith were found, picture taken in November 2022.On October 18th, 1974, Bundy abducted Melissa Anne Smith from outside of a pizzeria in Midvale, and her nude remains were discovered twenty-three miles away by deer hunters nine days later, on this hillside in Summit Park. The seventeen-year-old had a man’s blue nylon sock tied around her neck raped, beaten, and then strangled. She was found face down in some scrub oak. Picture taken in November 2022.The home of Melissa Smith, located at 527 Fern Drive in Midvale, Utah. Picture taken in November 2022.William S. Robinson Park in American Fork, which is one of the places Laura Aime was possibly last seen alive. Picture taken in November 2022.Where Laura Ann Aime was possibly last seen, this is where ‘The Knotty Pine’ was once located in Lehi, UT. Picture taken in November 2022.This white SUV is where Bundy dumped the remains of Laura Ann Aime, and is located off Utah State Route 92 in American Fork (per the OddStops website). Pictures taken in November 2022.A beautiful shot in front of The Fashion Place Mall in Murray, where Carol DaRonch was abducted from. Photo taken in November 2022.A shot of front sign for The Fashion Place Mall in Murray. It’s where Bundy attempted to abduct 18 year old Carol DaRonch from on November 8th, 1974. At the time the store was home to Sears, now it is a Dillards Department Store. Photo taken November 2022.The ‘police substation’ that Bundy took Carol DaRonch to when he pretended to be a police officer in an attempt to abduct and most likely kill her. Picture taken in November 2022.The door to the entrance of the ‘police substation.’ Photo taken in November 2022.Where my rental car sits is where Carol DaRonch fled Bundy’s car. It’s on the western side of McMillan Elementary School, close to the intersection between South Fashion Boulevard and 5900 South. Photo taken in November 2022.McMillan Elementary School, located close to the intersection between South Fashion Boulevard and 5900 South. Photo taken in November 2022.Viewmont High School in Bountiful, UT. Picture taken in November 2022.Viewmont High School, located at 120 West 1000 North in Bountiful, UT. Photo taken in November 2022.Viewmont High School, in Bountiful, UT. Picture taken in November 2022.The doors for the auditorium at Viewmont High School, where Debra Kent was abducted from. Picture taken in November 2022.The parking lot in Viewmont High School that Bundy abducted Deb Kent from. Picture taken in November 2022.Where Deb Kent was abducted from, picture taken in November 2022.A broader shot of the entrance to Fairview Canyon, where Deb Kent’s remains were found. It’s about an hour and a half outside of Salt Lake City. Photo taken in November 2022.This is close to where Bundy buried the remains of 17-year-old Debra Jean Kent, near a dirt road in Fairview Canyon around 105 miles away from Viewmont High School. During one of his final confessions, he said he left her near a steep dirt road that ‘wound up to the left’ and buried her about three feet deep and then covered her with heavy rocks. Photo taken in November 2022.The entrance to where the remains of Deb Kent were foundA shot of the entrance to Fairview Canyon, where Deb Kent’s remains were found. Photo taken in November 2022.A sign for the Wildwood Hotel (formerly Inn) located in Aspen. I’m shocked at how squished together everything is, I imagined this beautiful, sprawling hotel… but it was all so close together. 2/10, would not recommend.The Wildwood Hotel (formerly Inn), where twenty-three-year-old Michigan nurse Caryn Campbell was staying with her fiancé when she disappeared on January 12, 1975; her body was found on February 17, 1975, 3.1 miles away on the side of Owl Creek in the outskirts of Aspen. Picture taken in March 2025.This is the GPS coordination’s where Caryn Campbells remains were discovered on Owl Creek Road in Aspen. Picture taken in March 2025.Bundy moved into an apartment on the right side of the top floor of this residence located at 364 Douglas Street in SLC on September 26, 1975. He claims that he moved here because it was within walking distance of the University of Utah. Picture taken in November 2022.A picture of where Caryn Campbells remains were found on Owl Creek Road, picture taken in March 2025.On January 12, 1975 Bundy bought gas in Glenwood Springs and Bundy abducted 23-year-old Caryn Campbell from the Wildwood Lodge in Snowmass, Colorado. Picture taken in March 2025.Bundy’s Douglas Street apartment, located at 413 ‘B’ Street in SLC, Utah. He moved here some time before March 22, 1976, during his trial for the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, and was also under heavy police surveillance. He didn’t live here for very long: on March 1, 1976, he was found guilty of kidnapping Carol DaRonch and was immediately taken intp custody. Picture taken in November 2022.A photo I took of the entrance to the Taylor Mountain Dump Site in April 2024. On March 3, 1975 the remains of Lynda Ann Healy, Susan Rancourt, Roberta Parks, and Brenda Carol Ball were discovered by two forestry students at Green River Community College.A photo I took of the Taylor Mountain Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Taylor Mountain Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the Taylor Mountain Dump Site in April 2024.A photo I took of the road from the Taylor Mountain Dump Site in April 2024.On March 15, 1975 Bundy came across 26-year-old ski instructor Julie Cunningham near this covered bridge by Gore Creek Drive in Vail, Colorado. Picture taken in March 2025.An area close to the parking garage where Julie Cunningham was abducted from. Picture taken in March 2025.The parking lot where Bundy abducted Julie Cunningham from, picture taken in March 2025.The parking lot where Bundy abducted Julie Cunningham that is located at 395 South Frontage Road in Vail, Colorado. At the time of the murder, it was a regular ground-level parking lot however in more recent times it is home to a multi-story car park. Picture taken in March 2025.The underground parking lot where Bundy abducted Julie Cunningham from in Vail, Colorado. Picture taken in March 2025.The entrance to the Apollo Park Apartments, where Julie Cunningham was living at the time of her murder. Picture taken in March 2025.The Apollo Park Apartments, where Julie Cunningham was living at the time of her murder. Picture taken in March 2025.The back of Cunningham’s apartment complex in Vail, picture taken in March 2025.1619 LaVita Street in Grand Junction, Colorado, where Denise Oliverson lived at the time of her murder. Picture taken in March 2025.This is the South 5th Street Bridge in Grand Junction, where Bundy abducted Denise Lynn Oliverson from on April 6, 1975.A (blurry) shot of the South 5th Street Bridge where Denise Oliversons’ bike was found the day after she disappeared. Picture taken in March 2025.The South 5th Street Bridge, in Grand Junction. Denise Oliverson vanished after leaving her nearby house on April 6th, 1975, and the next day, a railway worker found her yellow bike and sandals underneath this overpass. Photo taken in March 2025.A shot of the alley next to the South 5th Street Bridge in Grand Junction, picture taken in March 2025.The entrance of Brigham Young University, where Ted Bundy abducted Susan Curtis in June 1975. Originally from Bountiful, the fifteen-year-old was attending the Bountiful Orchard Youth Conference at the school when she disappeared. She had ridden her bicycle fifty miles to Provo to attend the conference and was last seen on June 27, 1975, the first day of the conference. After a formal banquet that evening, Susan left her friends and made the quarter mile walk to her room to brush her teeth. No trace of Curtis has ever been recovered. Picture taken in November 2022.Brigham Young University, where Ted Bundy abducted Susan Curtis from in Provo, Utah On June 27th, 1975, Curtis attended the Bountiful Orchard Youth Conference at the Wilkinson Student Center. Picture taken in November 2022.The Wilkenson Student Center on Brigham Young’s campus, where Susan Curtis was last seen alive. Picture taken in November 2022.I had great plans of hiking Berthoud Pass, where the remains of Shelley Kay Robertson were found on August 23, 1975, but my rental car kept getting stuck so this was as far as I was able to go. On July 1, 1975, the twenty-three-year-old failed to come into work at her family’s printing business in Colden, and she was last seen earlier that same day and was in ‘the company of an unknown man.’ Picture taken in March 2025.A picture of a sign announcing my arrival in Pitkin County, taken in March 2025.The ‘Ted Bundy Murder Cellar,’ which is a urban legend of sorts where locals claim he brought victims to (there is no evidence that proves this). Picture taken in November 2022.The inside of the TB Murder cellar. Even though it was two o’clock in the afternoon when I visited this location this was as far as I would venture in. My momma didn’t raise no fool, taken in November 2022.This house was the focus of a Ghost Adventuress episode about Ted, and is located near Viewmont High School in Bountiful where Deb Kent was abducted from. Zak Baggins claims that Bundy brought her back her to torture her, but there’s no evidence to back this up (in fact, there’s proof that a family lived there at the time). The (fuzzy) picture was taken in November 2022.A current picture of where Bundy got arrested for the first time, taken in November 2022.A horrible quality picture of Bundy’s first arrest site (as I am no master photographer), taken in November 2022.The entrance to the Utah State Corrections Facility, picture taken in November 2022. I was actually wrong that Ted was housed here before he was transferred to Colorado to stand trial: he actually was in Utah State Prison, and in July 2022 (just a few mere months before I went there) it was replaced by the Utah State Correctional Facility.The Pitkin County Courthouse, where Bundy escaped for the first time on June 7, 1977.A close up shot of the side of the building Bundy escaped from, picture taken in March 2025.A (terrible) shot of the window Bundy would have jumped out of when he escaped from the Pitkin County courthouse on June 7, 1977. Picture taken in March 2025.A plaque on the Pitkin County Courthouse that it is in the ‘National Registry of Historic Places.’ Picture taken in March 2025.An inscripted stone on the Pitkin County Courthouse. Picture from March 2025.This is (roughly) the grassy area that Bundy would have landed on when he jumped out the second story window of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen on June 7th, 1977. Picture taken in March 2025.A picture I took in March 2025 of a statue of a generic Civil War soldier that’s located in front of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen. The monument, which is dedicated ‘to the soldiers of 1861-1865’ and is intended as a symbol of national healing, does not representing either the Union or Confederacy and was erected on Memorial Day in 1899 and is dedicated to all of the soldiers that fought in the Civil War.The Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder building located at 530 East Main Street next to the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, Colorado. Picture from March 2025.The Aspen Police Department, located two buildings down from the Pitkin County Courthouse. Picture taken in March 2025.The house that Bundy stole a Cadillac from in the early hours of June 13, 1977, located at 805 Bonita Drive in Aspen. Picture taken in March 2025.This is the only picture I was able to get that was close to where (I think) Fritz Kaeser’s cabin is located… I rented a piece of junk Ford Focus with bald tires and got stuck on a back road searching for it. I have no problem admitting I underestimated my husbands warnings of how bad Aspen winters can be, as I’m from Buffalo and have no problems driving in the snow… but what I have never encountered before is snow AND mountains. Where I hate admitting defeat, I knew I would have to take the L on this one. I didn’t have cell phone signal on top of it all and I was STUCK stuck, but thankfully the girls house I got stuck in front of helped me get out thanks to kitty litter and a board). It all worked out.The entrance to the Glenwood Springs government building, picture taken in March 2025.A picture of the Garfield County Jail, taken in March 2025.Another shot of the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department, picture taken in March 2025.A picture of the Garfield County Jail, taken in March 2025.The keystone on the Garfield County Court Building, picture taken in March 2025.The Chi Omega sorority house, located at 661 West Jefferson Street in Tallahassee. On January 15, 1978 Bundy entered the dormatory armed only with a piece of firewood, and killed twenty-one-year-old Margaret Bowman and twenty-year-old Lisa Levy; he also brutally harmed Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, but thankfully both women survived. Picture taken in May 2023.Another shot of the Chi Omega sorority house.Where Sherrod’s night Club once stood, located next door to the Chi Omega sorority house at 675 West Jefferson Street in Tallahassee. Photo taken in May 2023.The road sign for Dunwoody Street and Pensacola Street, photo taken in May 2023.This is where Ted brutally attacked (and most likely left for dead) twenty-one-year-old dancing student Cheryl Thomas, in her residence located in one side of a duplex located at 431 Dunwoody Street in Tallahassee. Photo taken in May 2023.The area near Dunwoody Street where Cheryl Thomas was living at the time she was attacked by Ted Bundy. Photo taken in May 2023.The sporting goods store where Ted Bundy purchased a hunting knife on February 8, 1978, located at 8764 Normandy Boulevard in Jacksonville. Picture taken in May 2023.This is where the mall parking lot was once located on Blanding Boulevard where on February 8th, 1978 Bundy attempted to abduct-fourteen-year-old Leslie Parmenter. The daughter of Jacksonville PD’s Chief of Detectives, Parmenter was confronted by Ted (who had introduced himself as Richard Burton from the Fire Department) after leaving Jeb Stuart Junior High School, but said he backed down when her older brother showed up. Back in 1978 it was home to a Kmart, and today it houses an Amazon Hub. Photo taken in May 2023.This is the school where Bundy abducted twelve-year-old Kimberly Dianne Leach located at 372 West Duval Street in Lake City, Florida. Photo taken in May 2023.On the morning of February 9th, 1978, Kim left her gym class in the auditorium and walked over to her homeroom when she realized that she had lost her purse. After going back and getting it, Leach started back to the auditorium but never got there. Picture taken in Mat 2023.The house where Bundy stole an orange VW ‘Super Bug’ from its owner Rick Garzaniti. On February 12, 1978 Garzaniti and his wife parked their 1972 Volkswagen outside this residence located at 515 East Georgia Street in Tallahassee and went inside to pick up their toddler from the babysitter. He admitted to leaving the keys in the vehicle, as they weren’t sticking around for very long. Picture taken in May 2023.The location of Ted Bundy’s final arrest, picture taken in May 2023. This is where he was arrested by Officer David Lee at roughly 1 AM on February 15, 1978, located at West Cross Street in Pensacola.A broad shot of an area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.Another area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.An area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.An area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.Another shot of an area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.An area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.An area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.An area of the farm where Kim Leach’s body was recovered, photo taken in May 2023.A road named ‘Kimberly’ that is located close to the cemetery where Kim Leach is buried. Photo taken in May 2023.The entrance to the cemetery where Kim Leach is buried in Memorial Cemetery in Lake City. Picture taken in May 2023.The gravesites of Kim Leach and her brother, Michael. Photo taken in May 2023.The entrance to the Leon County Detention Center, picture taken in May 2023.The Leon County Courthouse, where Bundy stood trial in 1980 for the Chi Omega/Cheryl Thomas attacks. Picture taken in May 2023.The courtyard in front of the Leon County Courthouse, picture taken in May 2023.The entrance to the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, located at1351 NW 12th Street in Miami. Picture taken in May 2023.
Below is a copy of a letter that Ted Bundys one time girlfriend Liz Kloepfer sent his probation officer Don Hull, voicing her annoyance that detectives were prying into his personal life. It is part of Judge Stewart Hanson’s private collection and was digitized and sent to Maria Serban by Sean Papanikolas, Stewart’s grandson.
I was able to find a few pictures of Ted, Liz, and Molly these past few days and I wanted to share them here. Ted and Liz had a tumultuous relationship that began in September 1969 and eventually fizzled out after his kidnapping conviction in 1976. Both Liz and Molly are alive as of December 2024 and they reside in Seattle, Washington.
A young Elizabeth.A young Elizabeth Kendall. Liz at her college graduation from the University of Utah, taken in 1968.Liz standing in front of her fireplace in her University District apartment.A picture of Liz taken at he POE, at the University of Washington in Seattle. Liz at work.A young Liz.Liz.Liz and a young Molly.Another shot of Liz and Molly taken outside in the sunshine.Liz and Molly.A picture of Liz and Molly taken at the Pacific Science enter in Seattle, 1970.Liz and Molly at Molly’s baptism. Ted was late because the night before he abducted Brenda Ball.Ted and Molly watching the ‘veg-o-matic man’ at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, 1970.Ted and Molly fishing for rainbow trout in Flaming Gorge, UT in 1970. Molly playing with the hose with Ted in the background; picture taken in July 1970 in Green Lake, Seattle.Molly and Ted walking out of his parents cabin in Green Lake, Seattle; picture taken in July 1970.Ted and Molly baking cookies at Green Lake in Seattle, 1970.Ted swinging Molly around in Flaming Gorge, UT; picture taken in 1970. The Flaming Gorge is a popular recreation area that spans Utah and Wyoming that features a reservoir, dam, and scenic landscape.Ted and Molly driving a boat.I couldn’t find another copy of this, I don’t know why Molly’s face is covered up and the other childs isn’t.Ted and Molly on a carousel at the Seattle Center, 1970.Ted spraying water on Molly and the neighborhood children.Ted and Molly playing outside.Ted teaching Molly how to ride his bike, picture taken in Green Lake in 1970.Ted teaching Molly how to ride a bike. Another picture of Ted teaching Molly how to ride a bike. Ted and Molly at Christmastime in Ogden in 1970.Another shot of Ted and Molly in Ogden at Christmastime in 1970.Ted and Molly celebrating Christmas at Green Lake in 1970.A picture from Molly’s fifth birthday. Ted made the banner. Taken at Green Lake in Seattle, 1971.Christmas Day in Utah, 1974.Christmas Day in Utah, 1974.Ted and Molly around Christmas in 1974. Picture taken at the Hardware Ranch in Utah.Ted and Molly in their ‘hippie clothes; picture taken in Seattle’s University District in 1975.Ted swinging Molly around in the University DIstrict in 1975.Molly putting barrettes in Teds hair during a visit to Seattle. Taken in June 1975 at Liz’s apartment in the University District. Ted and Molly outside of Liz’s residence in the Universtiy disctict in Seattle, 1975.Ted and Liz on the lake, about to go waterskiiing, picture taken at Flaming Gorge, UT in 1970. Flaming Gorge is a 91-mile-long reservoir created by damming the Green River in 1958, and is known for its sapphire blue water and is a top destination for boating, fishing, and other water activities. Ted, Liz, and Molly visiting family in Ogden, UT. Picture taken in 1970.Ted and Liz at Hood Canal in Washington. Picture taken in 1973.Ted carrying Liz on his back.Liz hugging Ted from the back. Does that sweater look familiar? It was the one he wore during his first escape in 1977.A picture of Ted and Liz; her father is on the other side of her.Liz and Ted sunbathing.Ted and Liz.Ted and Liz in front of a fireplace, picture taken in Ogden, UT in December 1974.Ted and Liz in Flaming Gorge, Utah in 1975. Liz, Ted, and Molly on a vacation visiting Liz’s family in Ogden, taken in 1970.The trio on horses outside of the Liz’s childhood home in Ogden, UT.Ted tickling Molly, picture taken in December 1974.Ted and Liz on a trip to the zoo with Molly.Ted, Liz, and Molly. Ted and Liz sharing a kiss.Ted and his little brother Richie on a camping trip.Ted sitting in front of Liz’s fireplace.Ted jumping for joy and his first camping trip with Liz; picture taken in 1970 at what would later turn out to be his Issaquah dump site.Ted waking up from a nap at Green Lake in Seattle, 1971.Ted in 1972.Ted at Hood Canal, WA in 1973. A young Ted wearing a suit.Ted waterskiing. Ted holding a dog.A picture of Ted taken in 1972.Ted taking a nap on Liz’s childhood bed at Christmastime in Utah, 1974.Ted playing Frisbee on the beach.An action shot of Ted playing Frisbee on the beach.Ted in Wyoming on his way to Flaming Gorge, UT.Molly with her biological dad.A young Molly.A picture of Molly from high school.Molly.Liz Kloepfer.Liz featured in a news special about Bundy.Liz after her relationship with Bundy, taken in the 1980’s.Liz.Liz.Liz Kloepfer.Liz Kloepfer after her relationship with Bundy.Elizabeth Kloepfer. Elizabeth Kloepfer.Liz and Molly in a promotion photo for Amazon’s, ‘Falling for a Killer.’
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
Debra as a baby.Baby Debbie and her mother, Smith and her mother.Deb (right).A picture of Smith in a local newspaper, published in The News Journal Sat, March 6, 1965.Jack, Steven, Jeffrey, Terry Lynn Sparks, and Debra Smith in November 1968.Deb and her mom, Thelma.Debra and her brother, Thomas.Debra’s gravestone.Smith’s picture on the Utah Department of Public Safety website.Thelma, Elizabeth, Stormee, and Francis Smith.Debra’s grandmother Mary Ellen Smith holding one of her twin sisters (either Wendy or Mary) in their house on East First Street in Mansfield, Ohio.An article about the discovery of the remains of Deb Smith published in The Daily Herald on April 27, 1976.An article about the discovery of Smith published in The Ogden-Standard Examiner on April 27, 1976.An article about the murder of Deb Smith published in The Deseret News on April 30, 1976.An article about the discovery of the remains of Deb Smith published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on April 30, 1976.An article about the murder of Deb Smith that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on May 2, 1976.An article about Deb Smith’s murder published in The News Journal on May 13, 1976.An article about the identification of Debbie Smith’s body published in The Deseret News on May 13, 1976.An article about the murder of Deb Smith that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on May 14, 1976.An article about unsolved murders in Salt Lake that mentions Deb Smith published in The Daily Spectrum on October 10, 1984,An article about unsolved murders in Salt Lake that mentions Deb Smith published in The Daily Herald on October 11, 1984.An article about unsolved murders in SLC that mentions Debbie Smith published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 14, 1983.Part one of an article about unsolved murders that mentions Deb Smith published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 1983.Part two of an article about unsolved murders that mentions Deb Smith published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 1983.Part one of an article about Bundy’s execution that mentions Debbie Smith published in The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.Part two of an article about Bundy’s execution that mentions Debbie Smith published in The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.A newspaper blurb that mentions Mr. and Mrs. Smith applied for a marriage license, published in The News Journal on October 23, 1957.An article about the disappearance of Stormee Smith published in The Bellingham Herald on December 5, 1998.An article about the disappearance of Stormee Smith published in The Spokesman-Review on December 8, 1998.An article about the disappearance of Stormee Smith published in The Spokesman Review on December 8, 1998.An article about the disappearance of Stormee Smith published in The Spokesman Review on December 8, 1998.An article about the disappearance of Stormee Smith published in The Bellingham Herald on December 9, 1998.An article about the weather conditions in SLC on the day Smith’s body was recovered published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on April 26, 1976.Temperatures in 1976 at the SLC International Airport.Bundy’s whereabouts in early 1976 according to the 1992 TB Multiagency Team Report.Kathy Harmon.Carolyn Sarkessian.Gayle Gilbert Benavidez.
Joy Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Harmon was born on October 30, 1953 to James Donald and Joy Loraine (nee Caldwell) Jones. Her father was born on September 21, 1925 in Sanford, Colorado, and at the age of nineteen he was drafted into the Navy during World War II. He was a signalman in a landing craft vehicle personnel and served on the USS Dade until the end of his enlistment. Loraine was born on July 29, 1930 in Leeds, Utah and the couple were married in a SLC Temple on July 16, 1948; they briefly relocated to Alamosa, CO then Sheridan, Montana before eventually settling down in Southern Utah.The couple had six children together: Kathy, Whitney, Elbert, Jennifer, Matthew, Jackie, and Wesley. The Jones family was deeply involved in the Kearns 4th Ward in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Kathy married David George Harmon on August 9, 1975 in Elko, NV. Harmon was born July 12, 1948 in SLC and served in the Army during the Vietnam War as a ‘Specialist Four’ (which is a military rank in the US Army that is one step above a Private First Class); he was honorably discharged after being injured and his military decorations for his heroism in battle include one Purple Heart, one Bronze Star Medal, and The Army Commendation.
Harmon had brown eyes and brunette hair that she cut short just before her murder; she stood 5’4” tall and weighed 115-pounds. According to ‘thedeckpodcast,’ she had a reputation for being a little rough around the edges, and was ‘definitely no shrinking violet.’ Her husband was the chapter president of a notorious local outlaw motorcycle gang called The Sundowners (he went by the nickname ‘Easy’), and because of this no one was overly concerned about her being left alone when David was out on the road for work (he also worked PT at a supermarket as a meat wrapper).
In the early spring of 1976 twenty two year old Kathy Harmon had been married for six months, and on the evening of March 2nd the twenty-two year old newlywed (along with her roommate Vicki) stopped by the Better Days Bar in downtown SLC for a nightcap. The two were regulars at the establishment, and when they stopped that rainy Tuesday night they were greeted by owner Van Brown, who was a longtime friend of the Harmon family. When David was out on the road he knew his wife was in good hands, as she had a close knit group of girlfriends that frequently checked in on her when he was away. On that quiet evening out, Vicki said that Kathy seemed unusually sad, and according to her: ‘they were the only ones in there for a while. I sat with them for a while. We just talked. She seemed kinda down.’
Around midnight Vicki decided to call it a night but her friend wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, so she left Kathy behind and made her way to her boyfriends house; despite living together she had recently started spending a large amount of time with her boyfriend and had plans to move in with him shortly after Kathy’s murder. According to public records, by the time Harmon decided to leave the temperature had dropped to a frigid 21 degrees, so she asked Brown for a ride home, who said: ‘all right. But she had to wait till I closed up; that was the deal.’ He then went into the kitchen to wash some dishes and when he came back Kathy was gone. No-one saw her leave the pub that evening, and what happened to her after is mystery.
In case Kathy didn’t want to sit and wait for a ride, Vicki left behind her very warm, thick coat so she didn’t have to walk home in the light jean jacket that she brought with her. When Vicki arrived at their shared residence the following morning she noticed that Harmons purse was there along with her winter jacket. The strange thing is, she not only missed work on the day she disappeared, but she wasn’t there the day before either. Harmon’s uncle owned the store that she was employed at, so Mrs. Jones was kept well informed when it came to the comings and goings of her daughter. Kathy’s parents grew worried, as it was out of character for her to blow off work and after they couldn’t reach her by phone, they decided to call the police and report her as missing. Law enforcement disregarded the usual customary waiting period and took the report immediately, and stopped by her Salt Lake City apartment later in the day. While there, they talked to her roommate about her purse and coat that was found at the residence, which pointed to the concept that she had made it home from the bar the night before but something happened between the time of her arriving and when she was supposed to leave for work. When questioned, one of her neighbors gave officers testimony about a strange car they saw idling outside Harmon’s residence in the early morning hours of March 6: a blue Volkswagen Beetle, with a tall, thin man in his 20’s standing next to the passenger door.
Just four days after she was last seen at 11:30 AM on March 6, 1976, the remains of Kathy Harmon were found by a University of Utah student that was out walking his dog in between Emigration Canyon and Parley’s Canyon; she was fully clothed on top but her pants and underwear had been removed. After parking his vehicle her killer had carried (then eventually dragged) her body (most likely at dark) nearly 96 yards up the still-frozen slopes of the canyon just north of I-80. It was clear to detectives that an intense struggle had taken place between Harmon and her killer, and that she had put up quite a fight: investigators found skin fragments underneath her fingernails and she had cuts and bruises all over her face, arms, and hands. Although she had a wound on her head, she died from strangulation.
Located next to Kathy’s remains, detectives found her underwear, turned inside out, with semen on the waistband (presumably from her attacker). Robbery did not seem to be the motive of the crime, as detectives found cash in her jeans pocket and her necklace and rings (including her wedding ring) were still present. The Utah state medical examiner said that Harmon had suffered from extensive bruising and had a large amount of abrasions on the lower half of her body, injuries that most likely occurred post-mortem. According to (retired) SLC Captain Pete Haywood, ‘we feel she was carried about 300 years south of the lookout off Utah-65, where her jeans were found, and dragged 75 additional yards to where her body was eventually recovered. The dragging could account for some of the bruises and abrasions inflicted upon her after death.’
It was easy for detectives to rule out David Harmon as a suspect for the murder of his wife, as they quickly determined that he had been out of town for work when she was killed. The homicide investigation soon became bogged down by the discovery of a similar murder that took place at almost exactly the same time as Harmon: on March 6, 1976 on the same day that her body was discovered, the battered, raped, and strangled remains of 24-year-old Carolyn Sarkesian were discovered by SLC police in a trailer in a vacant lot behind a prison halfway house on the 300 West block of North Temple. At the time nineteenyear old Gayle Gilbert Benavidez was considered a ‘person of interest,’ but despite being looked at closely by detectives there was no evidence that linked him to Sarkesian’s murder and he was released.
In February 2004, the cold case unit of the Salt Lake City Police Department reviewed Sarkesian’s files and sent the suspect’s DNA to the Utah state crime lab; it came up as a match to genetic material that was left behind at the crime scene. Benavidez pleaded guilty to ‘murder in the first degree’ (which was the law at the time the capital crime took place), which carried a penalty of either death or life in prison with the possibility of parole; he accepted a plea bargain that recommended life in prison. At the time of the homicide took place he was residing in SLC after serving a brief prison term for the 1974 rape of a 15-year-old girl, who had been beaten and choked during that attack. Police say Benavidez had a second rape charge on his recordand was in and out of prison until 1991.
In addition to Sarkessian there was a third homicide that was initially tied to the murder of Kathy Harmon, a young woman I have brought up on this blog multiple times: Debbie Smith, whose remains were found by a Utah Power and Light employee in an open pasture near the Salt Lake City International Airport on April 1, 1976. Debbie was born on December 26, 1958 in Mansfield, OH and had been arrested three times in her short life on minor charges, including being a runaway. She ran away from SLC home on an unknown date and was last seen alive in February 1976. In the early stages of the investigation it was believed her remains belonged to an older woman, and she died from three blows to the head. Smith’s murder has also been linked to Ted Bundy and as of December 2024 remains unsolved.
According to a news clip provided by Captain Borax, a man was seen near Kathy’s apartment complex that matched Bundy’s description on the night of her murder, and over the years I’ve seen her name included in a few different sources listed as a Ted Bundy victim. A quick glance at the ‘TB MultiAgency Report 1992’ tells me that he was already in custody by the time she was killed, and as far as I can tell, there is no real evidence linking him to Harmon’s murder, and it’s unknown when the theory was first presented.
According to an article published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 1983,’ notorious killer (and liar) Henry Lee Lucas was investigated for the murder of Kathy Harmon. In December 1971, he was charged and sentenced to roughly five years in prison for the attempted abduction of a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint, and while serving his sentence he became penpals with a family friend (and the widow of his cousin), Betty Crawford. After being released in August 1975, he moved to Port Deposit, Maryland where he married Crawford and moved in with her and her two daughters in Pennsylvania. Their marriage didn’t last long and ended the following year when Betty accused him of molesting her children. He then relocated to Jacksonville, Florida in 1976, where he met fellow transient and PT transvestite Ottis Elwood Toole in a soup kitchen and struck up a friendship with him. Lucas roamed the US with Toole and went on to kill three more women before the law caught up with him again and he was arrested in 1983. While in custody he confessed to killing hundreds of people, despite there being no evidence linking him to any more than his three known victims. Lucas was sentenced to death which was later commuted to life in prison by then Texas Governor and complete shitbag George W. Bush, and he died from natural causes at the age of 64 on March 12, 2001. No evidence was ever found tying Lucas to the death of Harmon.
In February 2009, a witness came forward to LE and told them about her (then) 20-year-old boyfriend who had come home one night in early March 1976 with scratches all over his face; at the time he told her that his sister was responsible for his injuries, but she never believed him. She also shared that a week after the incident he was acting unusually and at one point was ‘quite upset’ and ‘crying.’ She also said that he had been with a friend (name withheld) and the two had picked up a girl at a party in SLC then took her to Emigration Canyon, where they had sex with her and left her there.’ She also reported that she remembered that her boyfriend told her ‘she had been found, and he felt bad.’ Strangely enough, despite his horrifying confession she still married him and they were still together when she went to police in 2009 (although in the few years prior their relationship had turned into estrangement). Within days of the eyewitness coming forward, a warrant was issued to collect saliva samples from her 68-year-old Taylorsville resident, and according to witnesses, the woman was there when he was swabbed by LE, and at the time was ‘being treated (by paramedics) because she was having an anxiety attack.’
During the execution of the search warrant investigating officer (retired) Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Don Hutson confirmed that there was a yellow VW Beetle found on the side of the friends house, but it was not the same one that he owned in 1976, which was a vehicle she told investigators her then-boyfriend drove ‘from time to time.’ Detectives also took saliva samples from the friend, whom the witness also claimed may have somehow been involved in Kathy’s murder. Lieutenant Hutson also said that ‘some of the DNA testing may be items that were collected at the scene, at the time of the incident. There is also some evidence that we have collected since then that is also being analyzed. This is something that occurs in a lot of cold cases where we develop new information.’ … ‘and we have techniques available to us to make it possible for us to take the case in a new direction. There’s nothing imminent. In cold cases we want to take our time and not rush anything. They are very complicated and very complex. It may be weeks if not months before we actually come to a conclusion with this particular case.’ Hutson said that at the time that Harmon’s body was recovered, due to the weather and the mountainous terrain it was difficult to collect evidence at the scene, and that ‘we would not open a case, or re-invigorate it so to speak, unless we felt there was something that would really work associated with the case.’
Mr. Jones died on October 4, 2018 Kearns, UT, and Kathy’s mom passed away on June 28, 1998. Joy was active in her local 4th Ward as the Relief Society President, Young Women’s President, and had even earned the prestigious ‘Golden Gleaner Award.’ David Harmon went on to remarry a woman named Laura, who he was with for 33 years before he died at the age of 75 on January 29, 2024. The couple had two daughters together, Brandy and Angela (who has also passed away), and he also had a stepson named Cody Golden. As of December 2024 Kathy’s murder remains unsolved.
Works Cited: Thompson, Linda. “Life term given for ‘cold case’ killing.” (May 27, 2005). Taken December 6, 2024 from deseret.com/2005/5/27/19894623/life-term-given-for-cold-case-killing/ thetruecrimedatabase.com/case_file/kathy-harmon/, article written by the user ‘Nucleus.’ victims-of-serial-killers.fandom.com/wiki/Kathy_Harmon
Little Kathy Jones mentioned in The Murray Eagle on November 5, 1954.A picture of Kathy as a baby published in The Deseret News on October 30, 1954.The picture used in Kathy Harmon’s obituary.A picture of Kathy Harmon taken from the The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.A picture of Joy Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Jones-Harmon from what looks like high school. Kathy Harmon.Kathy.Kathy Harmon.Kathy’s obituary published in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 8, 1976.Part one of an article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Deseret News on March 8, 1976.Part two of an article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Deseret News on March 8, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 8, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 9, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Herald on March 10, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Deseret News on March 10, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Standard-Examiner on March 10, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on March 10, 1976.An article about the murder of Carolyn Sarkesian that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 11, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Daily Herald on March 11, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 11, 1976.An article about the murder of Carolyn Sarkesians that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on March 11, 1976.An article about the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 13, 1976.An article about the murder of Deb Smith that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Deseret News on April 30, 1976.An article about the murder or Deb Smith that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on May 2, 1976.An article about the murder of Deb Smith that mentions Kathy Harmon published in The Herald-Journal on May 14, 1976.An article about Henry Lee Lucas being investigated for the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 14, 1983.An article about unsolved murders in Kathy Harmon published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 1983.The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18, 1983.Part one of an article about Henry Lee Lucas being investigated for the murder of Kathy Harmon published in The Salt Lake Tribune on October 10, 1984.An article about The Salt Lake Tribune on October 10, 1984.The Salt Lake Tribune on October 14, 1983.Part one of an article about the murder of Carolyn Sarkanias being solved published in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 17, 2004.The Salt Lake Tribune on July 26, 2004.The Salt Lake Tribune on July 17, 2004.The Salt Lake Tribune on July 31, 2004.The Salt Lake Tribune on July 31, 2004.Carolyn Sarkesians; she was found with a broken neck. Gayle Gilbert Benavidez.Ted’s whereabouts in March 1976 according to the “TB Multiagency Report 1992.”Kathy’s grave stone.Joy Loraine (nee Caldwell) Jones.James Jones WWII draft card. A newspaper article about Kathy’s parents applying for a marriage license published in The The Washington County News on July 15, 1948.A newspaper article about the union of Kathy’s parents published in The Washington County News on July 22, 1948.James Donald Jones.Kathy’s parents grave site.A newspaper clipping mentioning George Harmon being honorably discharged from the US Army published in The Jordan Valley Sentinel on November 20, 1969.An article about The Sundowners published in The Salt Lake Tribune on February 2, 1982.David Harmon, who was known to be an easy going guy among those that loved him, and was well loved by the Sundowners Motorcycle Club.Jackie Brown, Harmon’s sister. Photo from a news clip, courtesy of Captain Borax.The obituary for Joy Loraine Jones published in The Deseret News on June 30, 1998.Where Kathy had been living at the time of her murder, photo courtesy of ‘TheDeckPodcast.’A picture of the area between Emigration Canyon and Parley’s Canyon where Harmons remains were found in March 1976, courtesy of ‘TheDeckPodcast.’A picture of the Better Days Bar as it looks today, courtesy of ‘TheDeckPodcast.’
Ann Marie Hammer was born on February 4, 1927 to Maxwell Algernon and Agnes Marie (nee Sutton) Hammer in Aberdeen, SD. She had an older sister named Cecelia Mae (Boyce) and a brother named Lowden William, who was born in December 1921 and sadly only lived to the age of three. Maxwell was born on April 7, 1887 in Hubbard, Iowa, and Agnes was born on August 31, 1890 in Illinois. I wasn’t able to find out very much about Ann’s background, and wasn’t even able to find the name of the high school she graduated from. According to Ancestry.com, the Hammer family lived in Aberdeen, SD in 1930 and in 1935 they moved to Rural, SD. Ann’s father was a WWII vet and was the owner and operator of the Hammer Realtor Company, and president of the Co-operative Building and Sales Company. Sadly he shot himself in the chest in November 1940 with a .410 shotgun, and according to his obituary he had been in poor health for several months prior to his death and had recently learned he had malignant cancer. In late 1940 Mrs. Hammer took her two daughters and moved to Maricopa, AZ.
Ann was married twice: she wed her first husband Clarence George Sutherland in Juárez, Mexico, and her second Leslie Harrison ‘Woody’ Woodward on November 17, 1953 in Gallup, NM (she was his third wife). Sutherland was born in June 1912 in Peoria, Illinois and died in June 1996 in San Diego. ‘Woody’ was born on March 19, 1921 in New York, and the couple had four children together: Leslie Ann, Maxwell Joseph, Suzan Edna, and Guy Thomas.
In the early morning hours between 1:40 and 2:30 AM on March 2, 1973 Woodward was killed in the bar she worked at and owned with her husband. After his wife failed to return home Leslie went into the establishment between 6:30 and 6:45 AM to look for her, and stumbled upon a gruesome sight: Ann, deceased. She was half-dressed with her shirt completely unbuttoned and bra exposed, and she had no pants on and was lying on the floor in between two pool tables, with the right leg of her white striped slacks still tied around her neck. Next to her discarded pants were eight dimes and one tissue, and Moab Detective Jeremy Drexler said there were tissues in every one of Ann’s pockets, except for the left pocket. The mother of four had been beaten, raped and strangled. Woody immediately called his friend Heck Bowman, who was the Grand County Sheriff even though the bar was outside his jurisdiction. Typically the case would have fallen into the lap of the Moab PD instead of the sheriff’s, and that ended up playing a large role in how the investigation was handled and why it was mishandled. Detective Drexler commented that based on the notes he read in Woodward’s case file, there seemed to be some bad blood between the two policing agencies, and they didn’t really get along and couldn’t really seem to work together.
In the early morning hours between 1:40 and 2:30 AM on March 2, 1973 Woodward was killed in the bar she worked at and owned with her husband. After his wife failed to return home Leslie went into the establishment between 6:30 and 6:45 AM to look for her, and stumbled upon a gruesome sight: Ann, deceased. She was half-dressed with her shirt completely unbuttoned and bra exposed; she had no pants on and was lying on the floor in between two pool tables, with the right leg of her white striped slacks still tied around her neck. Next to her discarded pants were eight dimes and a single Klenex, and Detective Drexler said there were tissues in every one of Ann’s pockets except for the left one. The mother of four had been beaten, raped and strangled. Woody immediately called his friend Heck Bowman, who was the Grand County Sheriff even though the bar was outside his jurisdiction. Typically the case would have fallen into the lap of the Moab PD instead of the sheriff’s, and this ended up playing a large role in how the investigation was handled (and why it was mishandled). Detective Drexler commented that based on the notes he read in Woodward’s case file, there seemed to be some bad blood between the two policing agencies, and they didn’t really get along or work together.
Found at the scene were two sets of bar glasses as well as some cigarette butts which helped point investigators to where Ann and her killer were most likely sitting. According to Detective Drexler, ‘they wanted to identify that person who sat next to Ann in the worst way. You can see from the original case notes that they were really hoping that fingerprints on the bar glasses would identify him.’ But, sadly that never worked out, and the glassware was sent to the FBI but came back inconclusive.
In recent years Moab police admitted that they didn’t handle the crime scene as well as they should have, and a lot of important evidence was mishandled and lost. While the (now retired) Police Chief Melvin Dalton was meticulous in his investigation, the method in which things were done 51 years ago muddied the waters, and while ‘very neatly put together and ready for our taking’ there was no records management system in place at the time. The two boxes of information related to Woodward’s murder were eventually removed from the sheriff’s office and placed in a building off campus and was eventually forgotten about. Once Drexler discovered the evidence that was lost so many years before things broke wide open: ‘it was 50 years and six months later, but we got it and I knew we had it. I called my wife and told her I had the evidence in the backseat of my truck and I got emotional. It was a treasure trove.’
The evidence related to Woodward’s murder sat collecting dust in the archives of the Grand County Sheriff’s Department until September 14, 2023, when Detective Drexler found them after taking over the investigation. According to him, ‘it was actually on a shelf back next to some Geiger counters. So the evidence was not labeled as evidence, I guess you could say. It’s just a beat-up cardboard box with dust on it.’ … ‘It was truly amazing. We found these boxes in a store room, and they were absolutely pristine. We opened one box and saw that it was Ann’s clothing. I knew right then: we’re going to get him.’ Two months later DNA related to the case was sent to the Utah State Crime Lab for analysis. In May 2024, that genetic evidence was returned and pointed to Chudomelka. Drexler said: ‘He could explain away having his DNA on the outside of her clothes, but not the inside of her pants. No way.’
Upon taking over the case, Detective Drexler initially thought Ted Bundy was his guy using the logic that he was known to be in the general area at the time Ann was killed… but this isn’t really the case, and a quick glance at the ‘1992 TB MultiAgency Investigative Team Report’ would have told him that Ted was nowhere near Utah at that time. In March 1973 Bundy worked for the King County Program Planning and he was still in a long term relationship with Liz Kloepfer (although by this time he was seeing multiple other women and wasn’t being entirely faithful to her). He wouldn’t go on to commit his first (proven) murder until the beginning of 1974, and wasn’t even active in the state until October 2 when he killed Nancy Wilcox.
In recent years former Moab Police Chief Melvin Dalton sat down with The Deseret Morning News and shared that when he arrived at the scene of the crime it was chaotic and almost like a party: ‘people were going in and out like they were going to church.’ The former police chief also said that because the sheriff’s had taken over the investigation the Moab PD didn’t have access to very much evidence, and that the case was not handled well by them despite his admission that he and his officers weren’t trained to handle a murder: ‘I wasn’t really trained in homicide, I always felt if we had a really good trained detective, we’d have been in a lot better shape.’
Shortly after the murder took place in March 1973, the Deseret News newspaper reported that Sheriff Bowman had a good lead in the case, but nothing ever came of it. Chief Dalton recalled administering polygraph tests and even came up with a few strong potential suspects, however they both got lawyers and stopped talking. The investigation quickly went cold but was reopened in October 2006 after Ann’s daughter Suzan (who was 16 when her mom was killed) sent a letter to (now retired) Moab Police Chief Mike Navarre asking him for help. The homicide remained unsolved until the summer of 2024 when forensic experts were able to determine that a man named Douglas Keith Chudomelka killed the 46 year old wife and mother.
Detective Drexler speculated that Ann’s killer was angry at her for beating him at poker, but clarified that he wasn’t 100% sure and it could also have been a crime of opportunity versus rage. He said that he does know without a doubt that night that the two played cards and Chudomelka ‘drank beer and smoked Camel cigarettes.’ Using modern scientific techniques, he was able to separate the 29 pieces of evidence (which included ashtrays, fingernails, hair, fingerprints and salt shakers) that were part of the original investigation and break them down into about 80, helping the department analyze the components more thoroughly.
Chudomelka worked at the Rio Algom Mine in the Moab area during the early to middle 1970’s and rented a trailer in the Walnut Lane Mobile Home Park for $100 a month. He was known to frequent Woody’s Tavern when he was done with work for the day and had a long paper trail of documented violence. After he killed Woodward, he went into the establishments cash register and helped himself to $75; he also took the $50 out of her left pants pocket that she won from him playing poker (some sources say it was an undetermined amount of money), and two days later he paid his rent with five $20 bills. Detective Drexler said he has no idea if he gave the landlord the stolen money but it’s definitely a possibility.
The current Moab Police Chief Lex Bell said: ‘that pair of pants is what led us to her killer,’ and Detective Drexler said that in addition to the inside of the slacks Ann was wearing, all the buttons on her shirt had Chudomelka’s DNA on them as well. Forensic testing was also done on items found at the bar as well, which confirmed his presence at the establishment on the night Woodward was murdered.
According to Moab reporter Emily Arnsten, the area was much more conservative in 1973, and the Mormon Church had a much greater influence on the community than it does today. But at the same time, there was also a large, blue-collar mining community that contained a large amount of transient workers that may not have been the most pious of people, and Woody’s was the perfect stomping grounds for these individuals. The establishment was perhaps a bit more wild than it is today as well, as they used to employ the likes of go-go dancers and there was lots of gambling that took place on the premises.
According to Ann’s granddaughter Annie Dalton, Woodward was unlike most of the other more ‘traditional’ women in the area: firstly, she was Catholic, not Mormon, and wasn’t originally from the area. She also ran a bar in a conservative area where a lot of people maybe didn’t drink and was a pretty avid card player. Dalton and Woodward family friend Tim Buckingham wonder if her grandmother’s worldly lifestyle had anything to do with the Moab police’s lack of urgency regarding this murder: ‘’I think that when something that horrific happens in a town like this, to convince yourself that it could never happen to you, to feel safe in that, you do what you can to distance yourself from the person that it happened to. That’s most of what I got, the sense of people who were trying to come up with stories that made sense.’ About her grandmother’s murder, Annie said: ‘it was this thing that my mom carried that was grief and loss, and she ended up passing away from COPD. They say that you carry grief in your lungs, and I’ve always felt like it was just grief that she never was able to process. So they were all carrying this burden in different ways and it never got resolved. It’s a tragedy that just keeps being tragic over and over.’
When questioned Chudomelka told investigators that he had not been in Woody’s on the night of the murder, but had instead spent the evening drinking at The Westerner Grill. His girlfriend, Joyce, provided him with an alibi, and told investigating officers that he came home at about 2 AM, however the bartender at The Westerner Grill told police that he was not in at all the night of March 1. Law enforcement asked Chudomelka if he was willing to take a polygraph test, to which he agreed, but in the end they were unable to administer it because when he arrived at the station he was drunk. Eventually, he stopped talking to police and asked for a lawyer and no charges ever stuck. Before he left the area Doug would later be convicted of cattle rustling (which is ‘the act of stealing livestock’) in San Juan County and served out a term of probation. Detective Drexler said he was found guilty of additional crimes in other states, including an atrocity involving a 10-year-old child in Alabama. In 1978, Chudomelka returned to Nebraska, where he managed to (mostly) fly under the radar until his death.
Chudomelka was always considered to be a prime suspect in Woodward’s murder and was one of 25-30 suspects, a number that included acquaintances, bar patrons, and members of the Moab community. Anyone that had been in the tavern on the night of the homicide or was known to be a regular at the establishment was considered a suspect… but he had more going against him than the others: the mid-1960’s Ford sedan that he owned matched the description of the car witnesses reportedly saw parked next to Woodward’s truck late in the evening on March 1, 1973. According to Detective Drexler: ‘they were looking at Doug, they just couldn’t get him. He easily could have killed her and made it home by 2 AM, but the bartender at the Westerner told police Chudomelka was not in at all the night of March 1.’ … ‘They wanted to solve it. All the evidence was there, but they just didn’t have the technology at the time to solve this case beyond a doubt.’
Douglas Keith was born to Paul and Magdalena (nee Arps) Chudomelka in rural Dodge, NE on February 7, 1937. On February 9, 1954 he joined the US Marine Corps and he was married three times: he wed Thelma Mae Scheulz on May 16, 1958 in San Diego, California and the couple had four children together. After they parted ways he met Ernestine Winnie Jolly, and the two were wed on December 3, 1976 in Galveston, TX; I don’t know any details about their divorce but he married Vickie Flowers for a third time at some point before his death. Chudomelka left the military on December 13, 1961 with the rank of sergeant after serving in Korea, then went on to get his CDL and worked as a long haul trucker for several companies across the United States. According to his obituary, at some point after Ann’s murder he moved to Fremont, Nebraska, where he became a lifetime member of the VFW Post 7419 in Nickerson. According to his obituary he had no kids (this is a complete lie) and only left behind siblings (five sisters and two brothers) and three ‘special friends…’ He died on October 18, 2002.
Just a few days after Ann’s murder on March 6, Chief Dalton received permission to pull hairs from the suspects body, and took samples from his belly button, chest, pubic area and head; cigarette butts (which were Camels, like the ones found at the scene of the crime) were also recovered from an ashtray in his residence to see if a saliva sample could be pulled. After the evidence was meticulously collected and preserved it was sent to the FBI, however in 1973 the Bureau was not yet equipped to test hair or saliva, and according to Drexler, ‘this case hinged on the hair Dalton pulled in 1973. I have no idea how he knew that we would be able to do that today. Dalton made this case very easy for us in that aspect.’ The box of evidence was returned (unopened) to the Sheriff’s department along with a letter that (essentially) read: ‘this is a great idea, but we don’t have the technology to do that.’
Douglas Keith Chudomelka was born to Paul and Magdalena (nee Arps) Chudomelka in rural Dodge, NE on February 7, 1937. On February 9, 1954 he joined the US Marine Corps and he was married three times: he wed Thelma Mae Scheulz on May 16, 1958 in San Diego, California and the couple had four children together. After they parted ways he met Ernestine Winnie Jolly, and the two were wed on December 3, 1976 in Galveston, TX; I don’t know any details about their divorce but he married Vickie Flowers for a third time at some point before his death. Chudomelka left the military on December 13, 1961 with the rank of sergeant after serving in Korea, then went on to get his CDL and worked as a long haul trucker for several companies across the United States. According to his obituary, at some point after Ann’s murder he moved to Fremont, Nebraska, where he became a lifetime member of the VFW Post 7419 in Nickerson. According to his obituary he had no kids and only left behind siblings (five sisters and two brothers) and three ‘special friends…’ He died on October 18, 2002.
After Ann died Leslie went on to remarry Jane Jaramillo on November 17, 1985, in Las Vegas (I also saw the date listed as November 11, 1984); the two stayed together until his death on Christmas day in 2015 at the age of 84 in Newton, Kansas. According to his obit, Woody served in the US Navy during WWII, where he earned 13 battle stars. He was an entrepreneur and ran several businesses across Moab, including laundromats, gas stations, and Woody’s Tavern, and in his spare time he enjoyed hunting, fishing and exploring the country while on vacation.
Ann’s sister Cecelia passed away on August 12, 2004. As of November 2024 three of her four children have passed away and the only one remaining is her older daughter Leslie Ann (Estes). According to Estes, ‘there’s no closure for me. It’s still going to go on. She’s still going to be gone tomorrow, and my grandkid, my children have never seen her and don’t ever know what a wonderful grandmother she would have been.’ Max Woodward died in early November 1999 at the age of 43, and Ann’s daughter Suzan passed away on June 1, 2019. According to her obituary, she ‘loved sewing, cross-stitching, driving across the country on adventures, playing with her grandchildren, talking to her daughters and friends, laughing and joking with Pug, going to the mountains, watching sunsets, making pots, and staying in little old hotels with character.’ Guy ‘Bugsy’ Woodward died at the age of fifty on March 13, 2009, and according to his obituary in The Times-Independent, he was a sweet, funny, and loving brother, dad, son, uncle and friend that loved the outdoors, music, yard work, fishing, hunting, making jewelry, heckling his sisters, and being a part of Narcotics Anonymous. His three daughters were the jewels in his crown and were the ‘best accomplishments of his life.’
According to Detective Drexler, ‘if he was alive today, I would be asking Grand County District Attorney Stephen Stocks for an arrest warrant for Douglas K. Chudomelka for the crime of first-degree murder for his actions on March 2, 1973.’ Stacks seemed to be in agreement with Drexlers statement, and said, ‘had he not passed, we would have filed criminal information against him. I hope today brings some closure to the family. I truly believe if this case would have been presented to the jury, he would have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the murder of Ann Woodward.’ Leslie Ann said that her father was the first suspect that LE investigated, and the locals always seemed to be whispering that he was the one responsible for her death; Estes hopes that now these rumors can finally be put to rest. About her father, Leslie Ann said ‘he was larger than life, and it just, it broke our, it broke his heart, but it broke our family, like the splinter never was healed. It never really did even begin to heal.’
Chief Bell said that (as of June 2024) his department was still testing additional items found at Woody’s Tavern, and Detective Drexler commented that both the Moab PD and the Grand County Sheriff’s are ready to start digging into other cold cases.
A young Ann Hammer.Woodward.Ann’s grave.A law enforcement unit is parked outside of Woody’s Tavern on March 2, 1973. Photo courtesy of MPDAnn’s clothes.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Daily Herald on March 2, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Deseret News on March 3, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Daily Herald on March 4, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Deseret News on March 5, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Ogden Herald-Journal on March 6, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Daily Herald on March 6, 1973.An article about a memorial service being held for Ann Woodward published in The Times-Independent on March 8, 1973.An article about the investigation of the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Times-Independent on March 8, 1973.An article about the continuing investigation related to the homicide of Ann Woodward published in The Times-Independent on March 15, 1973.An article about the continuing investigation related to the homicide of Ann Woodward published in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 25, 1973.An article about the continuing investigation related to the homicide of Ann Woodward published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 26, 1973.An article about the continuing investigation related to the homicide of Ann Woodward published in The Deseret News on March 26, 1973.An article about the continuing investigation related to the homicide of Ann Woodward published in The Daily Herald on March 27, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Times-Independent on March 29, 1973.An article about the murder of Ann Woodward published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 19, 1973.An article about unsolved murders in Utah that mentions Ann Woodward published in Deseret News on August 7, 1974.Ann is mentioned in a ‘notice to creditors’ related to her estate; this was published in The Times-Independent on April 3, 1975.A plea to the public from Ann’s daughter Suzan for anyone with information related to the murder of her mother to come forward, published in The Times-Independent on May 20, 1993; sadly she has since passed.A press release put out by the Moab City PD in related to the murder of Ann Woodward.Woody’s Tavern.Woody’s in 1973. Photo courtesy of OddStops.Woody’s in 1973. Photo courtesy of OddStops.DNA evidence proved that Chudomelka had been sitting at the bar that night. Photo courtesy of OddStops.The scene of the murder in March 1973. Photo courtesy of OddStops.The victim’s body was found between a set of pool tables. Photo courtesy of OddStops.Woody’s Tavern as it looks today, photo courtesy of OddStops. The bar is located at 221 South Main Street in Moab, Utah.Woody’s Tavern.The inside of Woody’s Tavern.The bar at Woody’s Tavern.A sign inside Woody’s Tavern. Photo courtesy of Instagram.The bar at Woody’s. Photo courtesy of Instagram.The inside of Woody’s Tavern. Photo courtesy of Instagram.A show at Woody’s (this is a great shot of what looks like the entire bar). Photo courtesy of Instagram.A show at Woody’s. Photo courtesy of Instagram.A band onstage at Woody’s. Photo courtesy of Instagram.Individuals that have been permanently banned from Woody’s Tavern. Photo courtesy of Instagram.A mural on the outside of Woody’s. Photo courtesy of Instagram.Ted’s whereabouts in early March 1973 according to the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992.’Moab Police Detective Jeremy Drexler giving Ann’s remaining living daughter Leslie Ann Estes a hug at the conclusion of the press conference announcing the case was solved. Photo courtesy of Doug McMurdo.Doug Chudomelka.An older Doug Chudomelka during his time incarcerated at Dodge County Correctional Facility. Doug Chudomelka and Thelma Schultz’s marriage records from 1958.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka breaking his leg at the age of nine published in The Fremont Tribune on March 1, 1946.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being admitted to the hospital in Camp Pendleton published in The North Bend Eagle on November 7, 1957.Part one of an article about Chudomelka getting into a car accident published in The Fallbrook/Bonsall Enterprise on September 3, 1959.Part two of an article about Chudomelka getting into a car accident published in The Fallbrook/Bonsall Enterprise on September 3, 1959.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka competing in a marksman contest for the Marines published in The Albion News on June 2, 1960.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka’s time in the US Marine Corps published in The North Bend Eagle on September 8, 1960.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka serving in the US Marines published in The Boone Companion on February 6, 1961.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka competing in a marksman contest published in The Boone Companion on May 8, 1961.A newspaper article announcing the birth of Chudomelka’s daughter published in The Fremont Tribune on October 23, 1963.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka working as a repair shop machinist with the US Marines published in The Cedar Rapids Press on November 26, 1964.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being arrested for reckless driving published in The Independent on June 6, 1965.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka getting into a motor vehicle accident published in The Daily Nonpareil on April 9, 1966.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being sued for child support by his ex-wife published in The Daily Nonpareil on August 16, 1967 An article about a car accident Chudomelka was in, I was unable to find the publication date.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being fined after a traffic infraction published in The Fremont Tribune on July 22, 1972.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with check forgery published in The Fremont Tribune on January 20, 1973.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being sued for child support by his ex-wife published in The Fremont Tribune on July 24, 1973.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with theft published in The Salt Lake Tribune on January 9, 1974.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with theft published in The Times-Independent on January 10, 1974 .A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to shooting a registered bull published in The Deseret News on February 9, 1974.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with theft published in The Daily Herald on May 6, 1974.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with theft published in The Manti Messenger on May 9, 1974.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with illegal hunting and trespassing published in The Fremont Tribune on May 15, 1985.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with a drunken driving charge published in The Fremont Tribune on October 14, 1992.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with hitting a fire hydrant with his motor vehicle published in The Fremont Tribune on February 15, 1995.An article mentioning Chudomelka pleading guilty to a DWI published in The Fremont Tribune on April 7, 1995.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka being charged with hi third DWI published The Fremont Tribune on April 28, 1995.A newspaper clipping about Chudomelka reporting a larceny published in The Fremont Tribune on October 17, 1996.A newspaper blurb announcing that Douglas Chudomelka died published in The Fremont Tribune on October 19, 2002.Chudomelka’s obituary published in The The Fremont Tribune on October 21, 2002.The grave site of Douglas Keith Chudomelka.Ann’s parents record of marriage filed on March 28, 1921. Woody in WWII.Leslie Woodward with his first wife.Leslie Woodward’s WWII draft card.Leslie Woodward and his first wife’s marriage certificate.A letter to Gloria Woodward letting her know that her divorce from Woody was finalized. The wedding announcement for Ann’s parents, Max Hammer and Agnes Sutton. Courtesy of Jan Even on Ancestry.Ann’s father’s obituary, published in The Arizona Republican November 28, 1940.A newspaper clipping regarding Max Hammers funeral, published on November 29, 1940 in Phoenix, AZ.An application for a military headstone for Ann’s father published on September 17, 1941.A newspaper clipping about the birth of Woody and Ann’s daughter published in The Times-Independent on September 25, 1958.An article about a court case involving Leslie Woodward published in The Times-Independent on August 6, 1964.Ann’s mothers obituary published on February 5, 1965.An article about a court case involving Leslie Woodward published in The Times-Independent on June 10, 1965.An article about a court case involving Leslie Woodward published in The Times-Independent on June 17, 1965.Leslie Ann Woodward (r) in a picture for the FHA published in The Times-Independent on March 4, 1971.An article about Ann’s husband Woody getting into some trouble related to a car accident, published in The Times-Independent on September 16, 1971.A newspaper blurb regarding property taxes for Ann and Leslie published in The Times-Independent on December 27, 1973.An article about Woody appearing before a judge for a driving while intoxicated charge, published in The Times-Independent on February 20, 1973.A picture of Leslie Woodword from the 1972 Grand County High School yearbook.A picture of Max Woodword from the 1973 Grand County High School yearbook.A picture of Suzan Woodward from the 1974 Grand County High School yearbook.A picture of Guy Woodword from the 1974 Grand County High School yearbook.A newspaper clipping announcing Guy Woodward’s death published in The Times-Independent on November 25, 1999.Woody.A newspaper clipping announcing Leslie Woodward’s death published in The Wichita Eagle on December 27, 2005.Jane N. Jaramillo, who was born on November 11, 1934 and passed on July 3, 2016.Former Sheriff Heck Bowman.Former Moab Police Chief Melvin Dalton, who took steps in 1973 that allowed current law enforcement officers to solve one of Moab’s most notorious cold cases.Former Moab Police Chief Melvin Dalton.
When I went to Utah in November 2022 there was one location I was completely unaware existed that I wish I (somehow) knew to include in my list: the supposed ‘Ted Bundy Ritual House’ just outside of SLC in Bountiful. The duplex-style residence is located at 1201 North 200 West, and is said to be ‘just across the street’ from Viewmont High School, which is where Deb Kent was abducted by Bundy on November 8, 1974 after his botched kidnapping attempt of Carol DaRonch just 45 minutes away in Murray. Kent was last seen at roughly 10:30 PM after leaving a showing of ‘The Redhead’ to go and pick up her brother from the nearby Rustic Roller Rink. According to eyewitnesses, there were loud screams heard from the parking lot at roughly the same time that she was last seen, and after the Kents realized that the family car had never left the parking lot they immediately contacted the police.
Before Bundy was executed in January 1989, he confessed to killing then 17 year-old Kent and pointed investigators to where he dumped her body. Upon searching Fairview Canyon later that May the only human remains that search crews located was a patella, which was found among the ten bags of animal bones that were collected. The kneecap was presumed to belong to Debra and was given to her family to hold onto, and it remained unidentified until 2015 when DNA testing confirmed that it belonged to her. After the positive ID the Bountiful PD returned the bone to Belva Kent along with her daughter’s official death certificate.
According to Redditor ‘je-m-en-fiche,’ Bountiful residents that lived in the area referred to it as the ‘Viewmont House’ because of its close proximity to the local high school. Looking into the residence, it’s in no way ‘close’ (in my opinion, anyways) to Viewmont HS, nor should it be considered just across the street (it’s actually 0.2 miles away, and is about a five minute walk). It was featured on the Travel Channel television show Ghost Adventures, ‘starring’ Zak Bagans and his group of cronies (including Aaron Goodwin and Nick Groff), specifically for the limited spin-off mini-series ‘Serial Killer Spirits.’ The episode, titled ’The Ted Bundy Ritual House,’ aired on October 26, 2019, and focused on the abandoned structure that has been uninhabited since a gas leak led to an explosion on July 4, 1997. The show’s creator and ‘lead investigator’ Zak Bagans claims that Bundy took Debra Kent there after abducting her after she left a showing of ‘The Red Head’ to go pick up her brothers from a nearby roller skating rink.
In addition to the TB ritual house, Ghost Adventures did episodes on HH Holmes (he killed a nine year old kid in a house in Irvington, Indiana and the current owner felt that dark and sinister forces had ‘overtaken the property’), Joliet Prison in Illinois (where John Wayne Gacy spent only a small amount of time), and an episode titled ‘Axe Killer Jail,’ where the team investigated a prison in Council Bluffs, IA, where SK Jake Bird was once housed.
Because the events of the episode are so ridiculously absurd, I’m not going to spend much time on a synopsis of it. In a nutshell, it began with some little ginger-haired boy that supposedly lived next door to the house (knowing Bagans it’s probably his own kid) peeing on a log on the front steps (Zak tells one of his cronies to smell it ‘for research,’ and he does), and of course the GA’s crew followed him home and gave him (and his mother) the third degree and told them exactly what they wanted to hear… and the guys ate it up like a piece of fucking cheesecake. When asked how he felt about the house the kid told Bagans that there were ten mean child-aged spirits that lived there and weretrying to kill him and they ‘better not go in there because they might kill you.’
In the beginning of the episode, a one-time resident of the home named Peter Kingston claimed that when they first moved in his family found weird, mysterious satanic symbols drawn on the walls, including various ‘devils signs’ (including a ‘big pentagram’ on the wall) and ‘666’s all over the place.’ At some point during the episode some guy named Vincent (who does not appear to be with Bagans’ crew and I don’t care enough about him to do any additional research) said that when he was in the house prior to the episode he was pushed down the stairs and almost went through the side railings. As the show progresses, the ghost hunters break out all their fancy bullshit equipment meant to detect supernatural activity, and of course everything they do results in some sort of captured phenomenon (I mean, no one would watch it if nothing happened), and plenty of jump scares and ‘sledgehammers of evil’ (Zak’s words, not mine) ensues.
One of the first things the GA team does upon entering the residence is attempt to open a portal on the floor near a pentagram using what Bagans calls a ‘geophone device,’ which he said ‘measures temperature and electromagnetic energy.’ However, according to the website HiggyPop that’ ‘isn’t strictly true. A geophone doesn’t detect heat or electromagnetic energy, as the name suggests it’s to do with geological movement and it actually detects vibration. The gadget Zak is using is called an EDI meter which has several functions built in, including EMF and thermometer as well as a geophone. Ironically the geophone is the one function of the device that Zak is not using.‘
In addition to the ‘geophone’ (that really isn’t a geophone), Bagans used night vision cameras, digital recorders, and a spirit box, which is a device that rapidly scans AM/FM radio frequencies in an attempt to pull paranormal messages out of the static and white noise. Two additional pieces of equipment the team used (that I have also never heard of before) is the Ovilus V (which is a tool that supposedly allows spirits to communicate with the living by selecting words from a internal database using their ‘energy’) and a TriField meter, which measures EMF in the form of radio-frequency, magnetic, and electric fields.
Zak and Aaron used an SLS camera in the upstairs part of the house, which is a device which ‘looks for’ human-like shapes in the darkness and supposedly can capture images in the absence of light that the human eye can’t see. According to the investigators, while using the camera in a hallway they captured what they described as a ‘mind-blowing figure,’ which was shown in the form of a ‘glitching and dancing stickman on the camera’s screen for a brief moment’ (I cannot make this up, they pulled it out of thin air).
After doing some research into the history of the structure, Bagans was wrong: Bundy never could have brought Deb Kent to this house, because it was actually occupied by two different families at the time of her abduction in November 1974. In an interview with KSNV, the Peterson family had five daughters residing there at the time Kent was abducted in November 1974, and ‘people have said that Ted Bundy took women over here and killed them in this house at the time that Debbie Kent got taken. We were living here. Two families were living here and never saw anything like that happen.’ … ‘I think it’s ridiculous because Ted Bundy never came over here. Nothing like that ever happened here.’ Cindy’s mother Rolean did share that she felt the residence was haunted (just not by Ted Bundy), and that the family experienced several strange things during their time in the house: on one occasion they were sitting in a front room and a white ball flew out the wall, seemingly out of nowhere.
Despite Bundy never having any actual ties to their former residence, Mrs. Peterson said that as mother of five young girls she made sure to always keep the doors locked, and ‘it was a really terrifying time for everybody here.’ She also commented that linking Bundy to the old residence only further exploits his victims, and that ‘he was a monster. And I don’t think he should be glorified in any manner at all. If they’re going to tell a story, they need to get their facts straight.’ KUTV out of Salt Lake reached out to Mrs. Belva Kent about the Travel Channel’s episode on the residence and she said that every time a movie or TV special is made about her daughter’s killer her family is forced to relive their pain and that the show only glorified the man that killed Debra.
According to a ‘deseret.com’ article published on July 5, 1997, the duplex went up in flames the day before after gas accumulated underneath the basement ceiling from a leak which caused the explosion (which was most likely ignited after the water heater kicked on). After an assessor was able to investigate the fire it was determined there was nearly $100K worth of damage done to the structure, with the first-floor apartment suffering the majority of it.
According to Redditor ‘OatyBisc,’ ‘I grew up in Bountiful (I even went to Viewmont HS where the abduction happened!) and this house has nothing to do with Ted Bundy other than proximity. I was excited to see an episode from my hometown but there were so many inaccuracies it drove me crazy! Debbie Kent’s body was never found, but they did find a patella at a site where they found bones from other murder victims and a few years ago they verified it was hers through DNA. This was maybe 20 miles or so from Bountiful, not 100 miles. Her headstone is in the city cemetery, but her body is not there. When she disappeared this house was occupied. It only looks bad now. I drive past it occasionally and it’s pretty worn and clearly burnt on the North end, but the fire was much later. It’s a spooky looking house and they have ghost tours there occasionally, but the Ted Bundy angle is a stretch.’ In addition to this, a Redditor going by the handle ‘pengony’ pointed out that when Bagans was told by locals that the house was completely unrelated to Bundy he told them that he didn’t care and was going to film there anyway.
Just as a side note, the episodes IMDB page gives a completely different narrative and outright fabrication of the truth: ‘Zak and the crew investigate an abandoned house in Bountiful, Utah, where locals claim notorious serial killer Ted Bundy murdered one of his victims. Overloaded with satanic rituals and violence, the home is drenched in a dark, sinister energy.’
Now… this isn’t just some old, dilapidated house with a possible (but, not really) link to Ted Bundy: referred to as the ‘Anson Call House,’ the residence was built by a pioneer of the Mormon faith (Anson Call, obviously) in the early days of Bountiful when it was known as Session’s Settlement (or North Canyon). The building, which began as a one-room cabin, was initially constructed in 1855 and the first additions to the home were made two years later when a dining room and kitchen area were built as well as a basement. Over the years a second floor was added, and it eventually turned into the structure you see today (or, before it blew up).
Interestingly enough though, Ted Bundy isn’t the house’s only murderous link: In Adam Call-Roberts blog post titled, ‘Mary & Anson Call: Hosts to a Killer,’ in October of 1857, Anson and Mary Call hosted then Utah Congressman John Doyle Lee overnight, blissfully unaware that just one month prior their guest participated in the ‘Mountain Meadows massacre.’ In September 1857 an emigrant group from Arkansas known as the Baker–Fancher party set up camp in Utah’s Mountain Meadows, which was a staging area in the southern part of the state that was used to get ready for the long crossing of the Mojave Desert by groups that were going west to California.
In the early morning hours of September 7, 1857 a group of Paiute Indian and Mormon militia men that were dressed as Native Americans attacked the circled wagons without warning. The party fought off their aggressors the best they could and the conflict went on for four days; in the process fifteen emigrant men were killed either in battle or while attempting to escape. Congressman Lee didn’t get involved in the dispute until the third day, when he approached the wagon party and convinced them to surrender their possessions and weapons in return for safe passage to nearby Cedar City. The emigrants (who were low on ammunition and supplies) accepted his offer and surrendered, and it was then that roughly 120 people from the Baker–Fancher party were then slaughtered, leaving only 17 small children behind. In 1874, Lee was arrested for leading the massacre: his first trial ended with a hung jury and two years later a second one took place in which the prosecuting attorneys put the blame solely on his shoulders. He was convicted and sentenced to death. On March 23, 1877, Lee was executed by firing squad at the very site of the massacre that took place twenty years before.
In conclusion, there’s a lot of different videos and podcasts on this residence, but one thing is for certain: Ted Bundy had absolutely nothing to do with this house.
A picture of the Anson Call House taken around 1920 with attached ‘milk diet’ sanitarium on the south side of the residence. Photo courtesy of Lewis and Jean Call.The Anson Call house around 1940 after the Sardoni remodel. Photo courtesy of Lewis and Jean Call.Another shot of the Anson Call House, showing the southeast corner. An older shot of the Anson Call House before the fire.The front of Anson Call home showing picket fence and old enclosed brick entrance and balcony.A side view of the house after the 1997 fire.The Anson Call House as it looks today.The entrance to those house, notice the ‘private property’ signs posted everywhere. Photo courtesy of news3lv.com.The side of the Anson Call House in its more recent years. Photo courtesy of The Travel Channel.An aerial view of the Anson Call House. Photo courtesy of The Travel Channel.The houses front porch light. Photo courtesy of news3lv.com. A drawing of the layout of the first floor of the Anson Call House. Photo courtesy of Lewis and Jean Call.The back entrance to the house as it looks today.The best screenshot I could get of the no trespassing sign on the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’Zak Bagans standing in the kitchen of the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.A recent view of the kitchen in the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’Another shot of the kitchen in the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’Another shot of the kitchen in the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’A pentagram drawn on the living room floor of the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.Some satanic drawings on the first floor walls in the Anson Call House. The GA team used UV flashlights to capture ‘hidden’ messages drawn on the walls of the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.Some satanic drawings on the first floor walls in the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.One of the living rooms in the duplex in the Anson Call House as it looks today. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’Another shot of one of the living rooms in the duplex in the Anson Call House as it looks today. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’Another shot of some ‘hidden’ messages drawn on the walls of the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.Some more ‘hidden’ messages drawn on the walls of the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of The Travel Channel.Some spray painted artwork on the wall in the Anson Call House. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’A bedroom in the Anson Call House as it looks today. Screenshot courtesy of YouTube Channel ‘Lazarus Unknown.’A comment on a Reddit post about the TB Ritual House from the user ‘penogy.’ A comment on a Reddit post about the TB Ritual House from the user ‘Coleyb23.’ A comment on a Reddit post about the TB Ritual House from the user ‘lordglo.’ Deb Kent.Deb Kent’s patella, which remained unidentified until 2015. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Jean.Viewmont High School, located at 120 West 1000 North in Bountiful, UT. Photo taken in November 2022.The parking lot at Viewmont High School where Deb Kent was abducted from.A possible route from the Anson Call House to Viewmont High School in Bountiful, Utah.Anson and Mary Call.A picture of John D. Lee taken in December 1857. Photo courtesy of Adam Call Roberts.A picture of Congressman Lee just prior to his execution sitting next to his own coffin; how dark but appropriate for what he did.
Susan ‘Sue’ Curtis was born on May 18, 1960 to Larry Eugene and Marilyn Ruth (Nee Haslam) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Larry Curtis was born on February 6, 1935 in Salt Lake, and Mrs. Curtis was born on August 27, 1936. The couple were wed on September 22, 1954 and eventually settled down in Bountiful. They had six children but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find out much else about the family. Sue was an honor student that also excelled in athletics and was involved in quite a few extracurricular activities at her high school: she played baseball and volleyball, and was also on the school’s track and basketball teams. She stood at 5’7” tall, weighed 120 pounds, had hazel eyes, and brown hair that she wore long and parted down the middle. Curtis had pierced ears and had just gotten braces the month before she was murdered.
In the summer of 1975, SusanCurtis was fifteen and about to go into her sophomore year at Woods Cross High School. Due toan unhappy home life she had a history of running away, but she was never gone for very long and would always return home after just a few days. Sue hada lot of mental health concerns, and attempted suicide on a couple different occasions. She was also an ongoing victim of sexual assault at the hands of from a former physical education teacher and coach named William ‘Bill’ Lugo, who taught at South Davis Junior High School in north SLC (he was eventually convicted of his crimes)*. In an interview with true crime researcher Chris Mortensen (also known as Captain Borax), Lieutenant Arnold Lemmon from the Brigham Young University campus Police Department (and close friend of the Curtis family) said that Lugo and Sue ran away together the week before she was murdered. He even flew her to Phoenix and put her up in a hotel room. They got caught after Susan had a pregnancy scare and (using the fake name of a friend) arranged for her to go to a clinic and take a test (there was apparently a mix up and the results were mailed to that friend’s parents). He was eventually court ordered to stay away from the FOURTEEN year CHILD and in July 1975 was sentenced to a year in jail for his crimes. Lugo was initially charged with rape but pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. The defendant’s lawyer as well as the ‘Adult Probation and Parole Administration’ both said that the teacher was a good fit for probation, and that he suffered sufficient punishment in the form of his loss of accreditation as a teacher, excommunication from his church, and derision of friends and associates. Thankfully this wasn’t enough to dissuade District Court Judge Thornley K. Swan from imposing the maximum allowed jail sentence: ‘because of the public trust you held and violated, this court is required to impose a jail sentence upon you.’ It’s been reported that the entire experience was pretty traumatizing to Sue, and because of the ‘relationship’ she suffered from a lot of behavioral health issues.
The summer before she disappeared Curtis had been spending much of her time at a friend’s house in Centerville, which is a suburb community north of Bountiful. She wasn’t getting along very well with her family and in an attempt to reconcile with them was picked up by her older sister Barbara on June 24, 1975, who (along with Mr. and Mrs. Curtis) were attempting to bring their ‘Sue-Sue’ back into the family fold. She also registered Sue for a two-day Latter Day Saints conference at Brigham Young University. On June 26, 1975 the sisters rode their bikes (along with a friend named Lynette Stringer) 50 miles from Bountiful to Provo. The girls met up with some other kids from Bountiful’s ‘Orchard Youth Ward’ at the Orchard Stake building in north SLC, and they all made the long ride together. They even stayed the night ‘in a yard at the residence of Eva Smith of Lehi, UT.’ On multiple occasions during the journey, Sue complained of stomach problems, as well as feeling suicidal. They made it to the Mormon university sometime in the mid-morning the following day, and quickly settled into their assigned rooms. Once at the conference, she was going to room with Lynette in Merrill Hall in the HelamanHalls, which is a group of dormatores; Curtis was staying in the all female dormitory in a second story room, specifically number 2121. According to the missing persons report, Barbara was staying nearby in room 2118.
There was a formal banquet early in the evening on the first day of the conference that was held at the Wilkinson Student Center. Curtis was last seen at around 7 PM wearing a full-length, yellow evening gown. She had just eaten dinner and was worried about food possibly being stuck in her new braces, and left her friends to walk the quarter mile back to her room to brush her teeth, telling one of them she’d be back in a few minutes. Although we have to keep in mind that Sue wasn’t a student at BYU and wasn’t incredibly familiar with the layout of its campus (her high heels didn’t help), the journey was fairly short and should have only taken her about 10 to 13 minutes (it was about 0.6 miles in length). When she didn’t come back to the banquet Barbara went looking for her, and when she went to inspect her toothbrush it was bone dry, meaning she never made it back to her room. All of her clothes, money, and personal possessions were left behind, and Susan Curtis was never seen alive again. After Barbara made the initial report with BYU police, the Provo Police, Utah Highway Patrol, Utah County Sheriff, and Orem Police Departments were all notified.
When officers looked through Susans possessions they found $21 in a jewelry box on the dresser. Also left behind were a pair of jeans and some other clothes folded and hanging up in the closet, along with several pairs of shoes, a pendant, and ring that she reportedly would never have left behind. It’s worth noting that there’s a parking lot near the Helaman Halls dormitory buildings, and in the past Bundy had successfully snatched quite a few of his victims from college campuses: Donna Manson, Sue Rancourt, Georgann Hawkins, and Roberta Kathleen Parks… When you think about these other abductions it makes sense he would park his VW in a secluded spot that was slightly out of the way but still within walking distance. This explains why no one witnessed the attack even though it happened in the early evening on a busy college campus.
According to an article published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 27, 1989, Curtis’ disappearance stirred only a small amount of buzz in the media, although it caused great concern to investigators at BYU. Despite her habit of running away, law enforcement wasn’t hesitant to immediately start investigating her disappearance as an abduction, which is a surprising (but good) change of pace. I feel the need to comment that it didn’t take long for me to notice that a bunch of Bundy related cases weren’t taken seriously in the beginning because the girls were considered ‘runaways…’ even though she’s a unconfirmed victim, Brenda Joy Baker immediately comes to mind, whose disappearance didn’t make the news at all until they found her body. I suspect this is most likely because by this time in mid-1975 there were quite a few young women that had vanished around the general SLC area, and investigators knew that they were all most likely related.
BYU Campus Police and the Provo Police Departments investigated the disappearance, and in the beginning a few witnesses came forward claiming to have seen Curtis around town and on campus. One professor reported he saw her trying to sell a textbook in the back of his class four days after she went missing. He said she was wearing a blue knit top and faded jeans, and was able to positively identify her from a picture. Others claimed to have seen her hitchhiking in the Provo, Orem, and Spanish Fork areas, and one person reported that he saw her hiking up by the ‘Y-mountain’ directly to the east of the Woods Cross football field. According to the missing persons report Barbara gave to the BYU police, at the time Sue disappeared she was seeing a ‘social counselor’ about her mental health issues, who at one time shared with her dad that she had a lot of concerns as well as suicidal tendencies.
The gym teacher quickly became the chief suspect. Dan Clark, who was the lead detective on Sue’s case, polygraphed Lugo, however the examination was determined to be biased and was deemed inadmissible. Lieutenant Lemmon said that nowadays something like that would never fly, and typically an investigator would never be allowed to administer a polygraph to a suspect. In an interview with Captain Borax, Lemmon recently tracked down Lugo (he still lived locally) and asked him about his relationship with Curtis; he lived in an upscale neighborhood and still had all of his mental faculties about him. Lemmon shared that he was working on Curtis’s disappearance and understood that they had an affair many years ago. They briefly discussed it, and Lemmon asked him ‘point blank’ if he killed her, to which he responded ‘no.’ Lugo additionally said no when asked if he was aware of where her body was buried. Nothing ever officially tied him to Sue’s disappearance.
Here’s an interesting fact I learned from Kevin Sullivans book, ‘The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History:’ The Curtis family attended the same viewing of ‘The Redhead’ at Viewmont High School as the Kent family the night Deb was abducted in November 1974. This means that Susan was in the same auditorium as Bundy before she became one of his victims roughly seven months later. I wonder if he noticed her that evening? Sue and Deb grew up in the same Bountiful neighborhood and went to the same high school.
Apparently the Curtis family was so desperate for answers as to what happened to Sue that they hired multiple psychics, but sadly nothing ever came of it. At the time of her abduction Bundy was a law student at the University of Utah and was living at565 1st Avenue North in SLC. Per my ‘handy dandy TB job chart,’ in June and July 1975 he was employed as the night manager in charge of Bailiff Hall at the University (but was terminated after showing up for work drunk). He was still with Liz Kloepfer, although things were getting ready to fizzle out for the final time (they officially broke up after Ted went to prison for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch in 1976). Also according to Kloepfer he started growing a beard in June 1975, so there’s a good chance he had one when he abducted Curtis.
After Curtis was murdered Bundy wasn’t on the run for long: Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Bob Hayward pulled him over in Granger at around 2:30 AM on August 16, 1975 after he saw his unfamiliar tan VW Beetle pass by him while he was out on patrol. The officer knew the neighborhood well and had no memory of ever seeing that particular vehicle before. When he turned his lights on to get a better view of its license plate, the driver turned off their headlights and attempted to flee. Sergeant Hayward began to follow the car, which went through two stop signs and eventually pulled into a gas station. When he asked the driver why he was out driving around so late, Bundy replied that he was on his way home from the Redwood Drive-In after seeing the Towering Inferno but lost his way. Two more officers arrived on the scene, and after noticing that the passengers seat was missing they searched the car (with Bundy’s permission) and discovered some incredibly unusual items: a black duffle bag that contained a pair of handcuffs, an ice pick, rope, a crowbar, a flashlight, a ski-mask, a pair of gloves, wire, a screwdriver, large green plastic bags, strips of cloth, and a pantyhose mask.
In addition to his ‘kill kit,’ LE also found maps, brochures of ski resorts, and gas receipts in the VW’s glove compartment box. When asked why he had such strange instruments in his car, Ted told the officers that he was in law school and was studying how to arrest criminals. While they weren’t completely convinced the law student was the ‘crazed murderer of young women’ that they were looking for, investigators did know he wasn’t completely innocent and arrested him for possession of burglary tools; they didn’t have enough evidence to detain him and he was ROR’ed.
It didn’t take long after his first arrest that investigators began to connect the dots between the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch and the other Utah abductions, and they quickly began to suspect that the young law student was responsible. Perhaps one of the most damning pieces of evidence against Bundy were the handcuffs that were found in his car, which were the same style and brand as the ones found on DaRonch’s wrist after her attack. Additionally, the crowbar that officers found in his ‘murder kit’ was identical to the weapon used to threaten her the previous November, and his tan car matched the description of the one her abductor was driving. There were too many similarities for the police to ignore, but they also knew they needed more evidence to help support their case. A few days after his arrest on August 21, investigators searched Ted’s apartment and found various brochures from the areas where some of the women were missing from, however they failed to search the building’s utility room. Years later, the killer revealed to his lawyer Polly Nelson that he had kept a box of Polaroids of his victims inside that room in a shoebox, which he later destroyed.
Curtis is Ted’s last confirmed victim until his escape in late 1977 (although there are some suspected/unconfirmed victims that disappeared after, including Sandra Weaver, Nancy-Perry-Baird, Shelley Kay Robertson, and Debbie Smith). Just a few days after Sue vanished on July 1, 1975 Shelley Kay Robertson was abducted from Golden, Colorado; her remains were found less than two months later on August 21 in a mine in Berthoud Pass. Four days after Robertson was last seen on July 4, 1975, Nancy Perry-Baird was abducted from the gas station where she worked in East Layton, UT and was never seen or heard from again. After Susan Curtis Bundy didn’t kill again until January 1978, when he escaped incarceration for the second time and escaped to Florida, and killed Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman.
In a last minute, taped confession that took place less than an hour before he was put to death, Bundy confessed to Florida State Prison Superintendent Thomas Barton that he killed Susan Curtis. He also volunteered information as to where investigators would find her body and how they could get to it. Ted said that he dumped her body five to ten miles south of Price right before the Green River, and that he ‘turned left on a side road’ and after about a quarter of a mile took another left. He then drove roughly 200 yards down that dirt road and dumped her remains about 50 yards off of it, to the left. He also shared that he wasn’t aware of her name or identity. In the same confession, he took responsibility for the death of Denise Oliverson, who was last seen riding her bike in Grand Junction in April 1975. He dumped her body in the Colorado River, about five miles west of Grand Junction and specified that she ‘was not buried.’ Ted confessed to killing at least eight young women in the state of Utah: Curtis, Nancy Wilcox, Deb Kent, Melissa Smith and Laura Ann Aime; three more remain unidentified. The Curtis family found out with the rest of the world that their daughter was murdered by the serial killer: they heard it on the news after Bundy was executed.
When Bundy confessed to Curtis’s murder in January 1989 fourteen years had passed by. This gave local wildlife a lot of time to pick apart her remains and move them around, dispersing them around the area. After he was executed law enforcement was forced to put off the search efforts until the following spring because of the cold, snowy conditions. Because of the incredible amount of attention the case had garnered, at first Florida law enforcement gave the media only small pieces of his confession related to Curtis’s murder. This was most likely so people wouldn’t take it upon themselves to go check out the crime scene and potentially destroy evidence, or attempt to disrupt recovery efforts. The search team was headed up by the Salt Lake County and the Carbon County Sheriff’s departments, and volunteers combed the area looking for any trace of Curtis. They were hopeful that their metal detectors would be able to pick up her braces, however all they found were pieces of scrap metal, old tires, beer cans, and shell casings. They also used cadaver dogs in their search efforts, mostly because of the deep layer of snow that covered the area. In the years that followed the initial search, Curtis’s family and cold case detectives have searched the hills and fields, with the help of (multiple) mediums and psychics. They also used helicopters in their recovery efforts, but with every attempt they came back with nothing.
As I sit here writing, the abduction of Georgann Hawkins immediately comes to my mind when I think about the circumstances of this case, as they share a lot of similarities: they both took place on college campuses, with the girls walking back to their living spaces. They were both thin, and had brown hair they wore long and parted down the middle. Nancy Wilcox as well (to a point), who was on her way to her high school after getting into an argument with her father about her bf’s truck leaking oil on their driveway (my dad is the same way). She just… vanished into thin air. They all did. I know that with Hawkins Bundy used his ‘injury ruse’ in his abduction technique, I wonder if he did the same type of thing with Curtis. It wasn’t like he could have easily hit her over the head with a crowbar and dragged her away: she was abducted from a busy college campus at around 6-7 in the evening in the middle of summer. I’m leaning towards him using some sort of ruse to lure her back to his car, then he pounced. Maybe he faked a broken arm and told her he needed help carrying his briefcase to his car. Or maybe he faked a broken leg somehow… The possibilities are endless, and we’ll never know what actually happened.
Lieutenant Lemmon collected DNA swabs from Larry and Marilyn Curtis in hopes of one day positively identifying their daughters remains. Mrs. Curtis said that Susans disappearance was especially hard on Barbara, who blamed herself for not walking back to the dorms with her sister. I couldn’t find any record of either one of Susan’s parents passing away. Because her remains have never been recovered she officially remains a missing person. Susan Curtis would be 63 as of December 2023.
*As a personal note, I initially hesitated including this information in this piece. But I learned it from Captain Borax, so obviously it’s out there in the Bundy community, although it doesn’t seem to be widely discussed (I also saw it discussed on WebSleuths as well).
Sue Curtis.Susan Curtis in a group picture from the 1972 South Davis Junior High School yearbook.Sue in a group photo from junior high. Photo courtesy of ‘TB: I was Trying to Think Like an Elk.’ And thank you to Samantha Shore for finding this for me.Sue in a group photo from junior high. Photo courtesy of ‘TB: I was Trying to Think Like an Elk.’ And thank you to Samantha Shore.Sue in a group photo from junior high. Photo courtesy of ‘TB: I was Trying to Think Like an Elk.’ And thank you to Samantha Shore.Sue Curtis’ freshman year picture from the 1975 Woods Cross High School yearbook.Susan in a group picture for the baseball team from the 1975 Woods Cross High School yearbook.Susan in a group picture for the volleyball team from the 1975 Woods Cross High School yearbook.An article about Curtis published by The Daily Herald on July 4, 1975 (which is coincidentally the same date that Nancy Perry-Baird disappeared on).An article mentioning Curtis published by The Deseret News on September 8, 1978.A list of some potential victims of Bundy that mentions Curtis published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.AAn article mentioning Curtis published by The Idaho Statesman on January 27, 1989.Part one of an article mentioning Curtis published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 27, 1989.Part two of an article mentioning Curtis published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 27, 1989.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Spartenburg Weekly Herald on January 28, 1989.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Wilmington Morning Star on January 28, 1989.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Knoxville News-Sentinel on January 29, 1989.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Ukiah Daily Journal on January 29, 1989.An article about the search for Susan Curtis published by The Daily American Republic on January 29, 1989.A newspaper blurb mentioning Curtis published by The Times-Independent on February 9, 1989.An article about the hunt for Curtis published by The Sun-Advocate on February 14, 1989.Part one of an article mentioning Curtis published by Newsday (Suffolk Edition) on February 23, 1989.Part two of an article mentioning Curtis published by Newsday (Suffolk Edition) on February 23, 1989.A ‘thank you’ note written to the investigators that worked Bundy’s case that mentions Susan Curtis, published by The Sun-Advocate on March 16, 1989.An article about the search for Susan Curtis published by The Salt Lake Tribune on March 22, 1989.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Lakeland Ledger on April 25, 1989.An article about the search for Susan’s remains published by The Salt Lake Tribune on November 9, 1996.An article mentioning Curtis published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 19, 2000.A professor from BYU reported that he had seen Sue trying to sell a textbook at the back of his class. This false sighting, paired with her habit of running away initially made the police wonder if she left willingly and that no abduction had taken place. Photo courtesy of OddStops.The Curtis family’s page on ‘MyHeritage.’ It looks like it’s run by a Marilyn Curtis.An x-ray of the skull of Susan Curtis from when she got her braces. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.Another shot of an x-ray of the mandible of Curtis. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.An x-ray of the mandible of Curtis. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.The notes on an x-ray of Susan Curtis. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.The missing persons report for Susan Curtis completed by her sister Barbara. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.An aerial shot of Brigham Young University in 1974. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.The Wilkinson Student Center in the 1960’s. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.The Wilkinson Center Cafeteria in the 1960’s. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.This is a Google Street View image of the Wilkinson Student Center at Brigham Young University. Helaman Halls. Photo courtesy of OddStops.The Wilkinson Student Center at BYU.The set-up of the Helaman Hall group of dorms at Brigham Young University. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.Merrill West Hall. Photo courtesy of Captain Borax.The Curtis family home at the time Sue disappeared, located at 73 South 250 East North in Bountiful outside of SLC. After she was abducted the family relocated to Wellington, Utah for employment reasons.Woods Cross High School, where Curtis was a student.Bountiful’s ‘Orchard Youth Ward,’ in the northern part of Salt Lake City located at 3599 South Orchard Drive.The route from Bundy’s apartment on 1st Ave in SLC to the Wilkinson Student Center at BYU.This is an aerial image that shows the three possible routes that Curtis may have taken the evening she vanished. Google Maps shows that the orange one is the preferred one, but this may not have been the case back in the summer of 1975. We also have to remember that Curtis wasn’t a student at the University and wasn’t very familiar with the campus. All of these routes are roughly the same length and because of this, there is no way of knowing which one she took. Photo courtesy of OddStops.This is an aerial photograph of the BYU campus taken in September 1969. The Wilkinson Student Center is circled in blue, and the red circle highlights the dorm building that Curtis was planning on walking to the night she was abducted. Some of the parking lots in the area are marked with yellow X’s. Photo courtesy of OddStops.Where Bundy abducted Curtis from and where he claims he dumped her remains. Photo courtesy of OddStops.Joe Ruden from the Carbon County Search and Rescue team uses a metal detector to search for the remains of Susan Curtis. Jim Simone from the Carbon County Search and Rescue team sets out in search for the remains of Sue Curtis.Investigators spent three weeks fruitlessly scratching the frozen earth outside of Price. Picture published in Newsday (Suffolk Edition) on February 3, 1989.Bundy’s whereabouts the day Curtis disappeared according to the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992.’The outside utility room of the rooming house Bundy lived in SLC. It was the first place he rented while living in Utah, and he lived there from September 1974 to October 1975. Larry Curtis from the 1954 West High School yearbook.Marilyn Haslam-Curtis from the 1954 West High School yearbook.Mr. and Mrs. Curtis’s wedding announcement in The Deseret News on September 27, 1954.Marilyn Curtis on her wedding day.Mr. and Mrs. Curtis’ marriage announcement published in The Deseret News on September 22, 1954.Brett Curtis from the 1976 Viewmont High School yearbook.Calvin Curtis from the 1976 Viewmont High School yearbook.Jeff Curtis from the 1976 Viewmont High School yearbook.Barbara Curtis from the 1976 Viewmont High School yearbook.The layout of where Bundy’s five confirmed Utah victims were abducted from. Photo courtesy of OddStops.William Lugo from a South Davis Junior High School yearbook.An article about the former gym coach from South Davis Junior High School that may have been in an inappropriate relationship with Susan Curtis, published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on June 25, 1975.An article William Lugo published in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 30, 1975.A article about William Lugo published in The Davis County Clipper on August 1, 1975. I believe the 14 year old girl he was in a relationship with was Susan Curtis.An interesting theory about Curtis’ death from a comment on her Morbid Library article. Fern was on the right track, she just got the teachers last name wrong.
Johanna Tabitha Virginia Strong Leatherbury was born on May 17, 1953 to Jack and Gayle (nee Strong) in Cedar City, UT. Mr. Leatherbury was born on September 16, 1916 in Eureka, UT and her mother was born on July 21, 1920. The couple were wed on May 22, 1939 in Heber City and eventually settled down in Holladay outside of Salt Lake City. Jack was a graduate of Brigham Young University and worked for the Union Pacific railroad for 43 years. The couple had ten children: six boys (Jack, Charles, Paul, Christopher, Marshall, and Greg) and four girls (Roxanne, Johanna, Suzanne and Jacquine, who died the same day she was born on February 22, 1940).
Johanna stood at 5’3″ tall and weighed 135 pounds at the time of her murder. In 1971, she graduated from Olympus High School and was employed at Ballast Hall, a dormitory at the University of Utah. She was also a member of the Holladay Sixth Ward Chapel, a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The evening of August 20, 1971 was no different than any other: before she left her family home to go hang out with her friends the 17 year-old said goodbye to her parents and siblings. It would be the last time the Leatherbury’s would see her alive. The night turned into morning, and she never came home. This wasn’t like Johanna at all and her family knew right away that something was wrong. Immediately they began to search the area in hopes of finding her.
Described by one of her brothers as ‘thoughtful and kind,’ Johanna was very well liked by her peers and was deeply loved by family and friends. She always made time to visit her grandfather at the VA, who was an injured World War II veteran and loved spending time with her nieces, who said their aunt would often take them out for coffee with her friends and never treated them like children. Like most teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, Leatherbury liked going out with friends and ‘hanging out:’ on the evening of Friday August 20th, she met up with friends at a popular hangout referred to as ‘The Complex,’ which is best described as a vacant field where kids from the areas high schools went to hang out. Leatherbury had just graduated and was moving on to college (most likely the University of Utah where she worked), and it’s important to keep in mind it was the end of August, which is right before school starts up again. Of the spot, Jack Leatherbury said that it was just a normal teenage haunt, and that the areas two schools (Skyline and Olympus High) were just a five minute, 1.7 mile drive apart so many of the students knew each other from growing up in the same area: ‘the kids from Skyline and Olympus High School all hung out at this area. They played games and did what teenagers do.’
I have two different reports as to where Johanna was last seen: in an article published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 24, 1971, it stated that ‘Miss Leatherbury was last seen Friday night when she drove a friend home.’ However the more frequently given account is that she was last seen getting into a car with two unidentified gentlemen containing an unknown number of people by friends near The Complex (which was located at the intersection of State Street and 2100 South Street) at roughly 11:00 PM on August 20, 1971 (I read one source that said it was as late as 11:25 PM and listed the location at 2500 South State Street and West Temple). No one caught the type of car that Johanna got into, however the public was given a description of two different makes and models that were said to be in the area where she was last seen: on August 26th just days after Leatherbury was murdered LE issued an all points bulletin on two cars and their drivers that were reported to be near The Complex. One of them was a 1959/60 black (or dark green) Chevrolet Impala with an engine that ‘sounded like a washing machine’ that was driven by an approximately 24 year-old male with ‘hair down to his ears.’ The second vehicle in question was a 1970/71 Dodge Charger with white racing stripes painted on the sides and a black stripe on the rear that was driven by a person described as ‘young and blonde.’ Unfortunately, it seems that police were unsuccessful in their search efforts.
The day after Johanna was last seen her older brother Jack heard a report on the radio that immediately alarmed him: ‘it was a bulletin on the radio that said there had been a body discovered in the surplus canal out by the Great Salt Lake.’ … ‘Good Lord, I could tell you where we were about every hour from the day to the time they discovered her.’ Per KSL, her younger sister, Roxanne said that ‘when she didn’t show up, we all began to panic.’ The Leatherbury family’s search attempts didn’t yield any answers; however her body was quickly discovered the next day.
On August 21, sometime between 4 – 4:45 PM the naked remains of Johanna Leatherbury were discovered in a marshy area near the Great Salt Lake by David Russell and Neal Draper. The men happened to be fishing in the canal, which was located about a half mile west of the west stock bridge on the Goggin’s Drain by the Great Saltaire, an abandoned entertainment complex that had been destroyed in a fire in November 1970. Goggins Drain is a bypass canal that drains water from a surplus canal and helps transport water from 21st South to the Great Salt Lake. At first the two fishermen thought they found an old department store mannequin, however after they brought it to shore and further inspected it they quickly realized that wasn’t the case at all: it was the corpse of a young woman.
Because it was 1971 and not 2023 the men had no cell phones, so they drove to the closest town of Magna, UT to inform law enforcement about their discovery. Once detectives arrived on the scene and pulled the body out of the water it was obvious to them what happened to the young woman: she had been shot in the chest and head nine times and stabbed in the chest and stomach four times (I did see it reported she was stabbed five times and another that said was shot only three times). She had also been raped and pistol whipped. In the very beginning, responding officers thought the body may have belonged to 17-year-old Sheri Martin, who disappeared from her POE of Winchells Donut House on August 12, 1971. Martin’s body was eventually found by two hikers 15 miles south of Wendover on September 6; she also died from gunshot wounds.
Captain Pete ‘ND’ Haywood of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department told the public that they’re ‘looking into many leads in the killing of Leatherbury, but we have no suspects at this time.’ Strangely enough, a 20 year-old woman named Leeora Looney disappeared the same evening in August 1971 that Johanna was murdered after she was reported missing from her POE at a doughnut shop in Lakewood. According to court documents, her car and purse were also both left behind, completely untouched. Several witnesses reported seeing two men in the shop just before she disappeared that were later identified as serial killers Sherman Ramon McCrary and Carl Taylor. Three days after Looney disappeared her naked remains were found in a remote field; she had been strangled, raped, and shot in the head. It was later determined McCrary and Taylor were responsible for her death as well as Shari Martins. The McCrary family is suspected of at least 24-26 additional murders (I’ve read varying amounts) and all involved young women that were last seen alive at doughnut shops throughout Colorado, Texas, Florida, Kansas City and Utah between 1970 and 1971. In 1988, 62-year-old Sherman Ramon McCrary hung himself in his cell while serving time in prison; he would have been eligible for parole in 1997.
It wasn’t long before police identified the woman as Johanna Leatherberry. After she was found, SLC deputies thoroughly combed the marshes that bordered the Great Salt Lake for clues. Additionally, on August 22-23 two Utah National Guard helicopters helped in the search and they combed through the area where her remains were found; unfortunately, this failed to find anything of value. Detectives speculated that she was killed early in the morning after she disappeared then was transported to Goggins Drain. After arriving, her assailants dragged her body into the water, where it floated for roughly eight hours before it was discovered. Investigators found multiple tire tracks and footprints near where the remains were recovered as well. On August 26, 1971 detectives executed a search warrant to enter an undisclosed Salt Lake residence, where they confiscated a .22 caliber gun as well as a switchblade, which may have been connected with the crime. Ballistics tests were done on the weapon and comparisons were made with slugs taken from the girls remains. A total of three .22 caliber pistols as well as the knife were sent into the FBI crime lab in Washington DC; also sent in were the victim’s fingernail clippings, hair samples, her Chrysler car, and her purse as well as its contents. Captain Haywood told the media that all possible leads were being investigated and any pistol which deputies came across in their routine duties were being run through ballistics.
At first, the investigation was on a fast track and LE were certain an arrest would quickly be made, however all leads were deemed to be a ‘dead ends’andfizzled out; the case quickly went cold. Weeks turned into months, which turned into years, then decades. Hopes for a quick arrest vanished after multiple persons of interest were questioned and cleared. In an article published on August 27, 1971, it’s reported that at one point five full time detectives were assigned to the Leatherbury case. They conducted interviews with hundreds of Johanna’s family members, friends, school/church mates, acquaintances, and coworkers, but no one could provide them with anything of value. One of Captain Haywood’s ‘hottest leads’ was a phone call from a man that wished to remain anonymous that claimed he had seen a girl abducted near the County Complex the same night Johanna was last seen. Officers asked the man to call them back and Haywood even offered to protect his identity.
Captain Haywood said that one of LE’s biggest handicaps regarding the investigation was that no one that was with the victim at The Complex the night she disappeared ever came forward to offer information. Because of this, investigators had to keep going back to find individuals to check out certain pieces of information, which took up a lot of valuable time and made their job much harder. Haywood speculated there were at least a dozen kids at The Complex the night Leatherbury disappeared (if not more), but nobody wanted to come forward and volunteer anything helpful. It also made him wonder if maybe there was some form of illegal activity going on that night that nobody wanted to get in trouble for.
According to KTSU, today the vacant lot where Leatherbury was last seen is now occupied by The Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office and an assisted living development. One odd fact about this case is that her wallet and checkbook were found on the roof of the World Motor Motel which was located at 1900 South and State Street in SLC. Eventually, two juveniles (one of them was an industrial school escapee) came forward that had items in their possession that belonged to Johanna; they were questioned, cleared, and released. The boys admitted to rifling through her Chrystler early on Saturday, August 21st and stealing her purse, which she left behind on the backseat. The two then went through the bag, throwing its contents on the roof of the motel; they threw the purse itself in some nearby bushes. LE found the belongings thanks to a breeze that blew several of Leatherbury’s papers off the roof of the motel, which alerted them to the location of the items as they combed the area for evidence. Detective Haywood said that Leatherbury’s vehicle was found a couple blocks away from The Complex parked on Westminster Avenue between State Street and 200 East near the Salt Lake County Complex in the early morning just hours after she disappeared.
A night watchman from the Morton Salt Company told LE that he saw a brown International Harvester Scout driving in the area where Johanna’s remains were recovered at around 5 AM on August 21; this is the same time that investigators suspect her remains were dumped. When detectives located the vehicle’s owner and spoke to him, he was cleared as well. Captain Haywood said of the killer, ‘there’s no doubt in the world that this is a crime committed by a local person.’ The SLC Chief of Detectives seemed to back him on his claim, saying that Leatherbury’s body was found in ‘practically an unknown spot’ and that the individual would have had to had to have known the area ‘intimately’ to find his way in and out on the three trails leading to the area. One of those three paths was useless and led directly to a muddy mess.
On September 5, 1971, Haywood announced that he saw links between Johanna’s case and the brutal murders of William Rulon Shaw and a young delivery driver named Mike Bown. Shaw was a 65 year old florist that was killed three days after Johanna on August 24, 1971 after he was shot during a robbery of his shop. Michael Preston ‘Mike’ Bown was a 23 year-old deliveryman in Provo and was shot in the back of the head on September 2, 1971 while dropping off bread at Natter’s Market on South 700 East Street. The bullet struck him in his left cheek and exited through his right eye, killing him instantly. Another employee, 33 year-old Carolyn Kingston was also shot in the head through her right temple but survived. The suspect got away with less than a hundred dollars. There was a second delivery man on the scene and I read conflicting reports that either the suspect’s gun jammed or that he ran out of ammo, but regardless as to what happened that person’s life was spared that day. According to him, the robber was between 18 to 20 years of age, had curly hair, was short and well groomed. Left behind at the crime scene was a gold Timex watch with a dark blue face and a blue and gray striped nylon band. The timepiece used Roman numerals rather than numbers and is strongly believed to have belonged to the suspect. Additionally, there were reports of a 1959 Black Chevrolet Impala four-door sedan at the scene with its engine running, much like the one seen the night Johanna disappeared. Haywood said that he saw similarities in the deaths of Bown, Leatherbury, and Shaw: they all involved a .22 caliber pistol and that the ‘mode of operation’ in the Bowe and Shaw homicides were similar.
At the time Johanna was murdered Bundy was living in Seattle at the Rogers Rooming house on 12th Avenue and was in a long term relationship with Elizabeth Kloepfer. He was also an undergraduate psychology student at the University of Washington (although he was in between semesters at the time, as it was the middle of August). At the time he was a delivery driver for Pedline Supply Company, which was a family-owned medical supply company (he was there from June 5, 1970 to December 31, 1971). One of the first things that jumped out at me regarding Johanna being a possible Bundy victim is the fact that she was shot multiple times. None of Ted’s victims were ever shot, and aside from Carol DaRonch’s claim that he pulled out a gun during her attempted kidnapping I never heard of him using such a weapon in any capacity. The only other unconfirmed victim I wrote about that suffered from gunshot wounds is Susan Wickersham. On July 11th, 1973 at 11:30 PM, the 17-year-old dropped the family car off at the restaurant her mother was working at in Bend, Oregon then left to wait across the street for some friends to pick her up. When they never showed up, she decided to walk home instead and was never seen alive again. Wickersham’s skeletal remains were found in the woods by a man collecting firewood on January 20, 1976. Examination of her skull by the state medical examiner’s office determined she had suffered from a gunshot wound to the head. Personally, I don’t think Bundy killed Susan and it seems like her family doesn’t either (I briefly spoke with one of her SIL’s on FB and she agrees with me).
Officials in charge of Leatherbury’s murder said that most of the files related to the case were damaged by flooding at the police station years ago. Despite going cold, her case is still considered ‘active’ and officials exhumed her body in 2017; the results of this examination have not been shared with the public or even her family, which deeply upsets them. Johanna’s niece Sandy said that they ‘weren’t privy to hardly anything. We appealed for the file, and we were denied.’ … ‘She deserved more. She deserved to have whoever did this to be caught.’ … ‘We just didn’t have any follow-through. There was no follow-through. It was just put up on the shelf and left.’ … ‘I am so angry and frustrated because there was a door being slammed in our face all of the time.’ However, a spokeswoman for the Unified Police Department named Melody Gray disagreed with that statement, explaining that the case is still active and that they ‘have a full-time cold case investigator and he has actively been working this case including right now.’
A newsletter for the police society VIDOCQ dated December 15, 2015 mentions a presentation the organization put on regarding the case of Johanna Leatherbury (looking through their website I couldn’t find any additional information on her). In the article, Deputy Police Commissioner Bill Gill reported that Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey was able to secure a sample of Leatherbury’s DNA as well as her mandible for further testing. The same article mentioned that the group was going to speak with a serial killer named ‘Robert Lee Sales,’ who was serving time at the Utah State Prison for murders similar in nature to Leatherbury’s. Incarcerated since 1973, Sells raped and murdered multiple young woman around Johanna’s age in the early 1970’s. He was convicted of the murder of JoAnn Poulsen from Corinne, UT, who was recovered from the PineView Reservoir on September 26, 1971. Oddly enough she disappeared on August 21, 1971, which is the same day that the remains of Leatherbury’s were recovered.
About her sister, Roxanne Leatherby-Brough said that Johanna ‘was a good kid. She tried hard to please other people, help us all. I don’t know. I miss her a lot.’ The remaining members of the Leatherbury family haven’t gotten much information related to Johanna’s case over the years, and unfortunately both of her parents died before seeing their daughter’s killer brought to justice: Gayle passed away at the age of 64 on November 6, 1984 and Mr. Leatherbuty died at the age of 73 on May 6, 1990. Their son Jack said he watched as the gruesome details and gnawing unknown tore his parents apart, and because of the death of their daughter they both went to their graves completely changed people. A few of Johanna’s siblings have passed away as well: her brother Paul died at the age of 55 on November 23, 1997 in Murray, UT (which is coincidentally where the Fashion Place Mall is located, which is where Carol DaRonch’s attempted abduction took place). According to his obituary, he was a past President of the Utah Arabian Horse Association and he loved his horses, fishing, and traveling. He had a great zest for life and was known to those who loved him as ‘the world’s greatest salesman.’ On July 5, 2012 Greg Leatherbury died of complications from diabetes at the age of 61. He was known to loved ones as ‘the great organizer’ because he excelled at planning events and activities, including an annual Father’s Day Open Golf Tournament. Charles Leatherbury died at the age of 73 on December 27, 2018; he was in the US Army and fought in the Vietnam War.
Because of their extreme dissatisfaction with the way law enforcement handled the investigation, the Leatherbury family recently joined forces with the Utah Cold Case Coalition to help get answers in Johanna’s case. The coalition is a Utah based organization that helps to bridge the gap between police and the families of cold case murder victims. Two of Johanna’s nieces, sisters Sandy and Cindy, said they were told that information related to their aunt’s case could not be shared because it is still an open and active investigation. Cindy Leatherbury-Grange commented that: ‘we really have felt the case was solvable, but now it’s so many years past.’… ‘We’re wondering if these people are dead, what has happened. Thirty years ago, we might have had a chance.’ The coalition’s co-founder Jason Jensen is certain Johanna’s killer is local to Salt Lake City. In a post on their FB page about the Leatherbury case, the ‘Cold Case Coalition’ commented that: ‘it’s been exactly 48 years since Johanna Leatherbury was found dead in a drainage ditch near Saltair in Salt Lake County. She had been raped, shot, and stabbed. 48 YEARS. Yet Unified P.D. won’t release any records because it’s ‘still an open case’s This is the same response we get from Unified in every case. If you haven’t solved the case in nearly half a century, can someone else have a try?’
In an article published by ABC4, Johanna’s family got an email from a Salt Lake detective in mid-February 2022 with news they’ve been waiting many, many years to receive: ‘They have identified new DNA from the crime scene and he was securing funds to send it to their lab for testing and hopefully he’ll be able to use genetic genealogy.’ Jensen commented that this new evidence could be a variety of things: ‘if it was an article of clothing or something that was handled by an investigator 30 or 40 years ago chances are great that it’s an incidental from an investigator. But if it’s something concrete like semen, then it’s going to be the bad guy.’ This technique is quickly becoming very common with law enforcement and helps to identify familial DNA, and from there authorities are able to narrow down the search in hopes of finding a possible suspect. The article said it would be months before LE got the results of the DNA analysis and considering it’s now the end of 2023, I’m leaning towards them not finding anything of value from the sample. As a side note, in early 2023 Rita Curran’s killer was found in the same manner, and it was determined that her neighbor William DeRoos killed the pretty young teacher in her bed on July 19, 1971 in Burlington, VT.
Johanna Leatherbury.Johanna Leatherbury.Leatherbury’s sophomore year picture from the 1969 Olympus High School yearbook.Leatherbury in a group picture for chorus from the 1969 Olympus High School yearbook.Johanna Leatherbury’s senior picture from the 1971 Olympus High School yearbook.Investigators standing at the site where Leatherbury’s remains were discovered.A screen grab of crime scene photo’s related to Johanna Leatherbury’s murder.Another screen grab of crime scene photo’s related to Leatherbury’s murder.Where the Leatherbury family lived, located at 2919 Ward Way in Holladay, Utah.Where Johanna attended church, the Holladay Sixth LDS Ward Chapel (located at 3070 Nila Way in Holladay, Utah).Johanna’s birth announcement.An article I found on WebSleuths about Leatherbury that had no publication information..An article about the murder of Johanna Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on August 23, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 23, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Herald-Journal on August 23, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 23, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 24, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Herald-Journal on August 24, 1971.An newspaper blurb mentioning a service for Leatherbury published by The Daily Herald on August 24, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on August 24, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 24, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Daily Herald on August 25, 1971.A short listing of Utah deaths featuring Johanna Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 25, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The American Fork Citizen on August 26, 1971.An article about Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 26, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Daily Herald on August 27, 1971.An article about the murder of Johanna Leatherbury published by The Herald-Journal on August 27, 1971.An article about Johanna Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 27, 1971.An article about the murder of Johanna Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on August 27, 1971.An article about the investigation on the murder of Johanna Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on August 28, 1971.An article about the investigation on the murder of Johanna Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on August 31, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on September 2, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on September 4, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on September 4, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on September 5, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Herald-Journal on September 6, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Ogden Standard-Examiner on September 8, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on September 8, 1971.Leatherbury mentioned in an article published in The Salt Lake Tribune on November 22, 1971.An advertisement for ‘secret witnesses’ that mentions Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on December 2, 1971.An opinion piece about secret witnesses that mentions Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on December 6, 1971.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on December 30, 1971.An newspaper blurb about secret witnesses mentioning Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 15, 1972.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 1, 1972.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on September 10, 1972.An article about unsolved crimes mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on January 1, 1973.An article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on January 1, 1974.The second page of an article mentioning Leatherbury published by The Deseret News on September 16, 1985.An article after Bundy was executed that mentions his possible link to Leatherbury’s death published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 24, 1989.An article after Bundy was executed that mentions his possible link to Leatherbury’s death published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.A picture mentioning Leatherbury possibly being a victim of Bundy published by The Salt Lake Tribune on January 25, 1989.An article about a website featuring true crime sites mentioning Leatherbury published by The Daily Herald on October 30, 2000.An article about a website featuring unsolved crimes mentioning Leatherbury published by The Toole Transcript-Bulletin on November 9, 2000.Jack Leatherbury in his senior year of high school.Jack Leatherbury’s World War II draft card.Jack Leatherbury’s freshman picture from the 1937 Brigham Young University yearbook.Jack Leatherbury’s senior picture from the 1941 Brigham Young University yearbook.Jack and Gayle’s marriage announcement published in The Pleasant Grove Review on June 16, 1939.Jack and Gayle in the 1940 census. The birth announcement for Johanna’s oldest brother Jack, who was born on Valentine’s Day in 1941.A newspaper blurb mentioning the Leatherbury’s visiting Gayle’s parents. There’s a lot of weird little things like this in newspapers I’ve noticed. This was published in The American Fork Citizen on October 1, 1943.It looks like at one point the Leatherbury’s thought about divorcing. This was published in The Salt Lake Tribune on February 12, 1947.Gayle Kathryn Strong Leatherbury.Jack Leatherbury’s photo from the 1957 Olympus High School yearbook.Paul Leatherbury’s photo from the 1958 Olympus High School yearbook.Charles Leatherbury’s photo from the 1964 Olympus High School yearbook.Paul Leatherbury’s photo from the 1965 Olympus High School yearbook.Greg Leatherbury’s photo from the 1965 Olympus High School yearbook.Marshall S. Leatherbury’s photo from the 1965 Olympus High School yearbook.Roxanne (l) and Suzanne (r) Leatherbury’s junior year pictures from the 1971 Olympus High School yearbook.Greg Leatherbury’s wedding announcement published in The Salt Lake Tribune on February 3, 1974.A photo from Greg Leatherbury’s 2012 Obituary.Johanna’s brother Jack in a screen grab from a news clip about his sisters death that aired on August 22, 2022.Johanna’s nieces.An obituary for Johanna published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 24, 1971.An announcement for funeral services for Johanna published by The Salt Lake Tribune on August 24, 1971.An obituary for Gayle Leatherbury published by The Daily Herald on November 9, 1984.An obituary for Gayle Leatherbury published by The Pleasant Grove Review on November 14, 1984.An obituary for Johanna’s father Jack Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on May 8, 1990.An obituary for Paul Leatherbury published by The Salt Lake Tribune on November 25, 1997.Johanna’s grave site; she is buried next to her little sister, who sadly died the same day she was born in 1940.Gayle and Jack Leatherbury’s grave stone.Paul Leatherbury’s grave stone.Charles Leatherbury’s grave stone.Jack Leatherbury’s pedigree. I know it’s cut off on the right side, I was unable to find the rest of it.The Leatherbury’s are mentioned in a document I found on Ancestry titled: ‘Remington’s of Utah: with their ancestors and descendants from ‘Section IV. Descendants of Jerome N. and Lydia RB Remington.’Bundy’s whereabouts in 1971 when Leatherbury was murdered according to the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992.’A Google maps route from the Rogers Rooming house in Seattle where Bundy was living at the time to where Johanna was last seen in Utah.A picture of a car similar to Johanna’s white Chrysler. Where the ‘Complex’ once was located, which was where Leatherbury was last seen before she was murdered on August 20, 1971.The intersection where the ‘Complex’ once was located, which was where Leatherbury was last seen before she was murdered on August 20, 1971.The intersection where the ‘Complex’ once was located, which was where Leatherbury was last seen before she was murdered on August 20, 1971.The town of Magna, which is where the two fishermen that discovered Johanna’s body had to travel to in order to report their discovery to police.An aerial view of the Goggins Drain outside of SLC in Utah where Johanna’s remains were found.The World Motor Hotel.The former site of ‘The Complex.’The Great Saltair. A brown International Harvester scout.A 1960 black Chevrolet Impala like the one that was reportedly seen the night Johanna was killed.A Timex watch much like the one found left behind at Michael Bowe’s murder.A brief mentioning of Johanna Leatherbury VIDOCQ Society newsletter. According to their website, ‘for more than 25 years, the VIDOCQ Society has provided pro bono expert assistance to law enforcement agencies across the United States as they work to solve their cold case homicides. The Society does not conduct independent investigations; we act as a catalyst and assist law enforcement agencies only at their invitation.’William Rulon Shaw.Michael Preston Bown.A picture of Robert Lee Sales published in The Ogden Standard-Examiner on January 18, 1974.Robert Sales victim, Joann Poulsen.Roylene ‘Roydie’ Alexander, who was murdered by Robert Sales at the age of 17 on June 15, 1972.An article about Robert Sales being charged for the murder of Roylene Alexander that was published by The Salt Lake Tribune on February 22, 2003.An obituary for Sheri Martin published by The Deseret News on September 11, 1971.Leeora Looney.Raymond Carl Taylor (l) and Sherman McCrary (r). Carolyn Elizabeth McCrary is being escorted in background. Photo courtesy of Oxygen. Pictures of the McCrary family and Raymond Taylor after they were arrested. An article about the McCrary family published by Deseret News on December 6, 1973.Norman Daniel ‘Pete’ Hayward, who served as the Salt Lake County Sheriff for 12 years and was employed with the Sheriff’s Office for over 44 years. A distant cousin of Johanna’s left a comment on her ‘findagrave’ page.
Another Bundy Blog. 