Aleca Renee Manning was born on March 13, 1952 in Fairbanks, Alaska and was adopted shortly after by James and Norma Manning. I wasn’t able to find out a lot about her background and childhood but apparently she ‘has a few half-siblings out there.’ Ms. Manning had green eyes, brown hair, was roughly 5’2” tall, weighed 125 pounds and was biracial (white and Native American). Aleca was described as ‘friendly, a happy flower child, and probably a bit naive… too trusting.’ Norma Manning worked as a receptionist and bookkeeper for a few different employers in Alaska, Arizona, and Texas. It was reported that she had an incredibly toxic relationship with her husband and after they divorced she took Aleca and moved to Arizona (James eventually moved there too and remarried). After finishing high school, Mr. Manning attended the University of Idaho and the Pacific Coast Banking School in Seattle and got a job in the banking industry; at one time he was the VP/Manager of Valley National Bank in Metha, AZ.

Also referred to as ‘Leca’ and ‘Lisa’ (pronounced ‘uh-Lisa’), in 1970 Aleca graduated from Westwood High School in Mesa, AZ (it’s incorrectly listed as 1971 in multiple sources). Leca was supposedly a bit of a wild child and reportedly struggled with some substance abuse issues. According to a family member, alcoholism ran in the Manning family: ‘her grandmother (who is Norma sister) died of alcoholism living homeless at a YMCA. And when Lisa was young Norma had a very volatile relationship with her husband. They left Alaska either to get away from him or because he died. Aunt Norma told me he was very abusive.’ (I realize this wouldn’t really apply to Aleca since she was adopted but maybe growing up in an environment with lots of alcohol around her trigger a budding problem). 

Aleca was last seen on February 17, 1975 at roughly 10:30 PM at the Celebrity Theatre located at 440 North 32nd Street in Phoenix, Arizona. The twenty-two year old went to a Jerry Jeff Walker concert but at some point got separated from her friend group. She failed to come home that night and never showed up for work the following day. It’s hypothesized that she may have indulged in some form of drug use at the concert (no judgment, we were all young once) and I wonder if this made her more vulnerable and easier to abduct or lure away. Denise Naslund apparently took a few Valiums with alcohol before she was abducted from Lake Sammamish in July 1974 and I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way (I say this as an addict with over 12 years sober) but I hope whatever she took dulled her senses enough that she wasn’t aware of the fact that her life was ending. Aleca was last seen wearing a dark green floor-length coat, a light green blouse with moss green pants, and dark tan shoes.

As of April 2023 no one has been charged in the disappearance of Aleca Manning but foul play is suspected. Leca’s family feels that whoever she left that concert with is most likely who abducted her and that her killer most likely dumped her remains in a desert. What’s interesting is when I was doing research on this case I stumbled upon some comments from a relative of Aleca’s on the website ‘Websleuths’ (user name is Kristine55 and Norma was her great Aunt): ‘Norma Manning is sisters with my father’s mother. Leca (I will use Lisa so I can dictate). She would be very touched to know that people still care. Now that Norma is gone I look from time to time to see if there’s any updates and that’s how I found you all.’ … ‘One more thing I don’t think that Lisa would have run away and never contacted her mom again… There was no reason. The way Norma described the relationship it was these two against the world and that she was a precious wonderful little girl. Lisa was the center of Normas life.’ … ‘Her family thinks that a serial killer got her and that she probably left with him. And there is a possibility but she was taking drugs at night. We have always felt that her body is somewhere in the desert. The only good thing I can say is I know that they were united now I don’t believe this because of religion but because of physics and the fact that everything in life is waves of energy… Matter cannot be destroyed it can only be changed. I feel like they found each other again. I was born in January 1975 and I never met Lisa or if I did I was less than two months old. She still has an effect on my life because I’m still thinking about her. Her and I look eerily similar at the same age. I feel like I’m just checking up to see what’s going on because I’m carrying the torch for aunt Norma. Incidentally, I graduated high school in Tucson Arizona. I wanted to go see Morrissey in concert in Phoenix when I was 17… I was not allowed to go without my stepmother. I don’t think my dad’s forgotten what happened to Lisa either.’

At the time Manning disappeared Ted was living in Salt Lake City and was enrolled in law school for a second time. He was unemployed and still in a long-distance relationship with Liz Kloepfer (although its common knowledge he was routinely unfaithful to her). The drive from his apartment to the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona would have been slightly over a twenty-two hour trip for Bundy (or about 1,421 miles one way). If you look at the ‘TB MultiAgency Investigative Team Report 1992,’ it was noted that he took a phone call in SLC the day Manning disappeared (also Caryn Campbell’s body was found 2.8 miles away from The Wildwood Inn in Aspen). In my opinion, it seems unlikely that Bundy killed Aleca (but apparently there are some sort of errors/inaccuracies in the report so who knows).

As we know, Ted didn’t have a problem driving hundreds of miles in one night while hunting for his prey. Another two abductions that fit in Bundy’s mid-1970’s time frame are Cynthia and Jackie Leslie, who vanished in Mesa, AZ on July 31, 1974 (Teri is covering the sisters’ background in Part One so I won’t be redundant here). They were last seen In Mesa walking to a friend’s house shortly after leaving their residence in the Desert Shores Mobile Home Park. We know at the time they disappeared in 1974 Bundy was living at the Rogers Rooming house in Seattle, so if he killed them he would have had to drive to Mesa, then back again to Seattle… one way is over 22 hours, that’s almost an entire days worth of driving just one way with no breaks. In my opinion, that’s a bit of a stretch. Additionally, I drove a newer VW for over three years and that’s a very long trip for a car like that. And Bundy drove a LOT… how long could an old Beetle last with him driving around the country like that?

There really isn’t much out there on whether or not Bundy was active in Arizona (when you search ‘Ted Bundy’ and ‘Arizona’ together you mostly get a lot of news articles on Ted from AZ based newspapers). I’ve never seen it discussed in any TB related literature, and even searching websites like Reddit/YouTube (where people LOVE weird conspiracy type shit like this) relevant information is slim pickings. Oddly enough, one of the only things I found was a really popular BuzzFeed video (with a whopping 4.5 million views) titled ‘Was my Mom Followed by Ted Bundy?,’ where a young man simply going by the name of ‘Chris’ discusses an alleged encounter his Mom had with Ted Bundy in the middle-1970’s in Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona. Unfortunately, Chris doesn’t give much of a time frame beyond it was ‘summer in the mid-70’s’ (I asked for a better idea of when this event took place with no response and searched through the YouTube comments for clarification with no success), which obviously leaves us wide open as far as where Bundy was living at the time and how long his drive to the Canyon would have been. The story goes (I’m only going to briefly summarize this because you can find the transcript in Teri’s article): Chris’s Mother, Aunt, and their friend went to Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, and while sitting at a pond just hanging out, enjoying the day they noticed a well-dressed man staring at them from across the water. Eventually he got up and started walking over to them ‘with intent,’ so the three friends got in their car and got out of there to not escalate the situation. Surprisingly, the mystery man got in his vehicle and followed them in a ‘yellowish, cream colored VW Beetle.’ Panicked, they finally pulled into a gas station and thankfully the man drove right by them. Fast forward about 15 years: Chris’ Mom (I’m not exactly sure what else to call her) is watching the news and sees that Bundy is about to be put to death in Florida. She sees his face and immediately realizes it was the man that followed her that day in the 1970’s. Oddly enough, her sister was watching the same news broadcast and immediately called to say that she felt it was him that followed them as well.

If this encounter happened on the earlier end of the mid-70’s when he was living in Seattle it would have been over a twenty-one hour drive just one-way (or roughly 1,375 miles). Ted moved into a room at Ernst and Freda Rogers boarding house in September 1969 lived there until September 2, 1974 when he moved from Salt Lake City to attend law school at the University of Utah. Now, if he would have driven to Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona while living in Utah it would have been about a little over an eight and a half hour drive, one way. But let’s not forget, he did abduct Roberta Kathleen Parks from the University of Oregon in Corvallis while living in Seattle, which was almost a five hour drive away (I know that’s still over 3.5 hours closer than Oak Creek Canyon but it helps prove my point that Bundy had no problem driving long distances).

What doesn’t make sense to me about this is I’ve never heard of Bundy going after three victims at once. Shit, it isn’t even confirmed he abducted more than one girl at the same time, even though it’s speculated he may have been involved in the 1969 Jersey Parkway murders where two girlfriends on vacation Memorial Day weekend were killed as well as the brutal assault of two stewardesses from the Capitol Hill area of Seattle in 1966. I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t Ted, but I’m also not saying it was. About this story my friend Erin Banks points out in her book ‘Ted Bundy: Examining the Unconfirmed Survivor Stories‘ that he ‘had coveralls in the trunk at all times. I have some trouble imagining that Bundy, dressed in a suit and tie, would chase after a group of women.’ Good point Erin.

We know Ted has never officially been linked to Arizona (no unconfirmed victims are from there either) but in my mind it really isn’t that far-fetched that he would have driven states away to commit more crimes against humanity. In fact, the more jurisdictions to help trip up the police the better (law enforcement in the 70’s were notorious for not sharing information with one another). In the only other semi-useful piece of information I could find about this topic, (a Reddit thread titled ‘Ted Bundy was active in Arizona’), user ‘Gothkatt’ begins by breaking down Chris’ BuzzFeed video, pointing out that the incident took place in the mid-70’s, which as we all know aligns up with Bundy’s murder spree (which officially went from 1974 to 1978 even though he was incarcerated for a good chunk of 1976 and almost all of 1977). What’s interesting about this time frame is that there are five unsolved missing female cases in Arizona from 1974-1975. The first case from this period took place on September 20, 1973: law enforcement deemed the disappearance of 14 year old Dorothy Mildred Clitheroe to be ‘fairly unremarkable’ and they strongly speculated that she ran away from home to a different state. I discussed the disappearance of Aleca Manning and Teri covered the two Leslie sisters. The fifth and final individual from that time period vanished on September 10, 1975, which was after Ted was arrested (a 21 year-old named Kristina Ann Perkins). After Perkins disappeared in Fall 1975 there was a two year gap and the next missing woman’s case didn’t occur until 1977.

Oddly enough as I was proofreading this (and almost ready to release it) I stumbled upon a third source of information in the form of a TikTok video: a user by the name of ‘mattyicerants‘ said that in 1969 his Mother drove her VW Beetle from New York to Arizona and took a pit stop at the Grand Canyon. While there she ran into a gentleman (driving a tan colored Bug) and asked if he ‘wouldn’t mind taking her picture;’ ‘Bundy’ agreed (the user couldn’t find the print but claims to have seen it). ‘Mattyicerants’ went on to elaborate that the same year Bundy went through a break up (with Diane Edwards) and because of that heartache he drove ‘all around the country.’ This is easily debunk-able as the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992’ pinpoints that Ted bought his tan/gold/bronze/tan/cream/off-white/yellow Beetle in spring 1973. Also, in 1969 Ted was in Pennsylvania for roughly the first half of the year and when he went home to Tacoma he was driving a professors car (dropping it off in California then going to Tacoma). I was unable to find what kind of car it was.

Exactly seven years to the day she disappeared, in 1982 Norma Manning had her daughter officially declared dead in the state of Texas. She moved to Myra, TX to be close to her Father and died on July 12, 2008 at the age of 86; she never fully recovered from her daughter’s disappearance. James Manning passed away in August 1971. As of April 2023 the disappearance of Aleca Manning remains unsolved.