Twenty-one minutes of audio taken from four hours of recordings from a 1989 interview at Florida State Prison between Dr. Robert Keppel and Ted Bundy that is used in training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. During the interview Bundy brags about slaughtering eleven women across the state of Washington.
As of now, I have been to Seattle three times: In April 2022, April 2024, and May 2025… During my first trip I couldn’t find the Issaquah Dump Site and was driving around the same two mile radius for almost two hours with absolutely no luck. During my second trip in April 2024, I had a friend help walk me through exactly where to park and how to navigate to the actual site (his name is Cole Kaiser, and he is awesome and deserves another shout out). Like with Taylor Mountain this time around I decided to explore ALL of it, and to my surprise learned it was quite a bit bigger than I previously thought.
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.
I’ve been spending a good chunk of my time writing about the unconfirmed victims so in this installment of ‘All Things Bundy,’ I’m going over his confirmed kills.
Also referred to as ‘Joni Lenz,’ Sparks was brutally assaulted by Ted Bundy while asleep in her basement apartment in the University District of Seattle. She was his first known victim. Thankfully Bundy didn’t kill her, however she was badly beaten with a metal rod, sexually assaulted, and left unconscious for hours before her roommates discovered her later that night. Ted left her with a number of serious long-term injuries she still struggles with to this day.
On January 31st, 1974, Healy borrowed a friends car to go shopping for a family dinner she was preparing the next night and returned with her groceries at roughly 8:30 PM. Shortly after, Lynda and her roommates went drinking at a popular bar called Dante’s Tavern located at 5300 Roosevelt Way NE. The establishment was a five minute walk from her apartment but the friends didn’t stay out long because Lynda needed to be up at 5:30 AM to be at her job giving the ski report for a local radio station. A number of sources report that Bundy used to go to Dante’s often and it is hypothesized that he first saw Lynda there then followed her home. In the early morning hours of February 1, 1974, he broke into Healy’s basement room, beat her, took off her bloody nightgown (making sure to neatly hang it up in her closet), dressed her then carried her off into the night. It is theorized that Ted only took clothes to make it appear as if Lynda left on her own but obviously we’ll most likely never know the truth. Her body found in March 1975 on Taylor Mountain, near Issaquah outside of Seattle.
On the day of her abduction, Donna planned on going to a folk dancing class at the College Activities Building at Evergreen State College (where she attended). Later that same night, she made plans to go to a jazz concert at the Daniel J. Evans Library (also on campus), which was scheduled to start at 8 PM. Donna departed her dormitory just after 7 PM and set out for the dance class, which was just a two minute walk away. Despite how close the College Activities Building was to her dorm, no one recalls seeing her at either the dancing class or the jazz recital, making it highly unlikely that she ever made it that far. Manson was never seen alive again. After confessing to her murder, Bundy said he burned her skull in Liz Kendall’s fireplace.
Shortly before 8 PM the evening she disappeared from her college campus at Central Washington University, Susan Rancourt put some clothes in a washing machine in Barto Hall (her dorm building). She then went to a meeting about becoming a Residential Advisor at Munson Hall. When it ended at 10 PM Sue left to walk back to her dorm to switch out her laundry but was never seen alive again. She had plans later that night to watch a movie with a friend but never showed up. Rancourts skull was later found near Taylor Mountain, where Bundy placed several bodies during his reign of terror.
A student at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Parks was abducted from her college campus, which is over a four and a half hour drive for Bundy (who was living at the Rogers Rooming House on 12th Ave NE in Seattle at the time). Shortly before 11:00 PM the night she disappeared, Parks encountered Bundy in the Memorial Union Commons cafeteria at OSU. During Teds interviews with journalists Hugh Aynesworth and Stephen Michaud, he ‘confessed’ in the third-person that Kathy may have encountered her killer while in the cafeteria. Bundy then said he was able to convince her to leave with him and as soon as the opportunity presented itself he immediately overpowered her. He most likely bound and gagged Parks during the 250-mile trip back to Seattle, where then killed her and dumped her body on Taylor Mountain.
In the wee hours of June 1st, 1974, Brenda Ball seemingly vanished into thin air after seeing a band play at The Flame Tavern located at 12803 Ambaum Boulevard in Burien, WA. She arrived at the bar alone and stayed until closing. As the act was wrapping up their set at the end of the night Brenda asked one of the members she knew for a ride home back to her house but he was heading in the opposite direction so he couldn’t help out. There are two conflicting reports about how she could have left the bar that night: one is that she left by herself and was planning on hitchhiking home, and the other claims that she left with an unidentified man wearing an arm sling. Despite law enforcement being hesitant to officially say her disappearance was related to the other missing girls in Seattle, her skull was the first discovered on Taylor Mountain in March of 1975.
A student at the University of Washington, Georgann Hawkins disappeared from an alley behind her sorority house in June 1974. The night before she vanished, Hawkins went to a party, where she had a few mixed cocktails. Because she had a Spanish final coming up that she needed to study she didn’t stay long; she did mention to a sorority sister that she was planning on swinging by the Beta Theta Pi House to pick up some Spanish notes from her boyfriend. Hawkins arrived at the frat at approximately 12:30 AM on June 11 and stayed for approximately thirty minutes. After getting the notes and saying goodnight to her beau, Georgann left the fraternity house for her sorority house, Kappa Alpha Theta. Before he was executed, Ted told law enforcement that he approached her in an alley on her way home, feigning injury with a hurt leg (using his crutches as a ruse) while dropping his briefcase. Bundy asked Hawkins for help carrying the prop to his VW Bug, which was waiting in a parking lot roughly 160 yards north of the alley. She agreed and as she bent over to put the briefcase in his vehicle, Ted grabbed a conveniently placed crowbar and knocked her out with a single blow to the head. He then pushed George into his car and drove off into the night. Bundy claimed that while driving she regained consciousness and started to incoherently babble about her upcoming final, thinking he was her Spanish tutor. He again knocked her out with his crowbar. Once at his intended location, Ted took her unconscious body out of his car and strangled her with an old piece of rope. According to him, the parts of Georgann’s body he had not buried were recovered in Issaquah with the bodies of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund. He confessed to murdering Hawkins shortly before his 1989 execution.
At the time she was murdered, Janice Ott worked as a probation case worker at the King County Youth Service Center in Seattle, WA. In December of 1973, she married Jim Ott, who at the time of her death was in California for graduate school. After her car was broken into while living in Seattle, she moved in with a roommate to 75 Front Street in Issaquah (she felt the smaller community would be safer). The morning she disappeared, Janice spent a few hours at doing laundry and having a cup of coffee with a friend. After her errands and chores were completed, she rewarded herself with a trip to Lake Sammamish. Ott was abducted by Bundy at around 12.30 PM, and just a mere three and a half hours later he returned to the same park and abducted Denise Naslund.
On a beautiful, picture perfect sunny day, Naslund disappeared from a very busy Lake Samammish State Park (that day was Rainier Beer’s annual picnic, there were over 40,000 people there). She was there with her boyfriend and another couple, and after telling them she was going to the restroom Denise was never seen alive again. Naslund lived with her mother in Seattle and was studying to become a computer programmer. Eleanor Rose said her daughter had the kind of helpful nature that would easily place her in danger. Denise’s remains were found on a hillside near Issaquah roughly two months later in September 1974, only two miles away from Lake Samammish. Bundy confessed to her murder shortly before his execution.
The first of Teds confirmed Utah victims, Wilcox went missing after she went on a walk to buy a pack of gum (it’s also speculated that from there she was on her way to her high school to visit her boyfriend). She left the house in a huff after getting into a fight with her Dad about her bf’s pick-up truck leaking oil on the families driveway. Both Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox said that because of this law enforcement initially considered her to be a runaway even though they knew their daughter would never voluntarily leave home and had no troubles whatsoever in her personal life. Nancy left all of her personal belongings behind including some expensive jewelry that held deep sentimental value to her. Before he was executed Bundy confessed to sexually assaulting and strangling her, then burying her body about 200 miles away near Capitol Reef National Park. Sadly her body has never been found.
Bundy abducted Smith shortly after she left a pizza parlor on West Center Street in Midvale at around 9.30 PM on October 26, 1974. One unconfirmed report suggests that he may have been asking women in the area to help him with a car issue. Melissa was the daughter of Midvale Police Chief Louis Smith, and her murder took place just sixteen days after Nancy Wilcox vanished from the nearby city of Holladay (and five days before Laura Aime). On the night she disappeared, Smith was supposed to sleep over at a girlfriend’s house but those plans fell through after she didn’t answer the phone. After realizing she had been stood up, she decided to leave the pizzeria and walk back to her house on Fern Drive. At some point during her walk, its speculated that Bundy grabbed Melissa off the street and killed her. She never made it home.
Shortly before she disappeared Aime dropped out of high school, left home (she frequently couch surfed at various friends’ homes), and worked a few menial part-time jobs. Surprisingly she still remained in contact with her family and according to her parents, they were just beginning to accept her ‘nomadic lifestyle.’ So, when she first disappeared no one really seemed overly concerned. Thanks to my newspapers.com subscription it didn’t take long for me to realize there were no news articles mentioning Laura Aime’s disappearance at first, and her name only began to appear in ink after two hikers discovered her remains in American Fork Canyon. Additionally, when her body was first discovered, law enforcement first speculated it belonged to Deborah Kent.
The evening she was abducted Carol DaRonch parked her maroon 1974 Camaro on the southern side of The Fashion Place Mall in Murray, UT. As she was window shopping outside Walden Books, DaRonch was approached by Bundy, who was posing as a police officer. He said that her car had been broken into and asked her to drive down ‘to the station’ with him to file a report with him. However as they were on their way he attempted to subdue and handcuff her but was unsuccessful: she was able to fend him off and escape. Of the encounter, DaRonch said that she ‘thought he was kind of creepy … I thought he was a lot older than he was.’ She also commented that she could smell alcohol on his breath.
After Bundy was unsuccessful in his attempts to kidnap Carol DaRonch he quickly realized he was going to need a new victim. So he made the twenty-two minute drive away to Viewmont High School, where he successfully abducted Debbie Kent. Kent was watching a play with her family but left the school at approximately 10:30 PM to pick up her brother from the nearby Rustic Roller Rink. She never made it to the rink and was most likely abducted in the parking lot. According to an eyewitnesses, there was loud screaming coming from the area at roughly the time that Debra was last seen, and another person saw a light-colored VW Beetle speeding away from the school. After the Kent’s realized their daughter hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot, they found a handcuff key on the ground by their car. Bundy confessed to killing Deb and burying her body in the same area as Nancy Wilcox.
Bundy abducted the 23-year-old nurse from the Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village. While staying at the inn with her fiance and his children, Campbell went missing after going upstairs to her room to retrieve a magazine. Although we will never know for certain how exactly Ted managed to abduct the attractive young woman, it is highly likely he feigned an injury and asked her to help him carry something back to his vehicle. After he lured her away from the hotel to a darkened parking lot he hit her over the head then quickly snuck her into his Bug. Roughly five weeks after Campbell disappeared her body was found less than three miles away from the Wildwood Inn. Someone driving by her remains noticed a large amount of birds flying over the area. Using dental records, police determined that the remains belonged to Caryn. The postmortem examination revealed that her skull had sustained three heavy blows. Before Ted’s run in with Ol’ Sparky, he confessed to Campbells murder.
Cunningham disappeared early in the evening on March 15, 1975 after leaving her Apollo Park apartment in Vail to go a nearby bar to meet up with a friend. Bundy told law enforcement that he pretended to be an injured skier on crutches that needed help carrying a pair of ski boots to his car. According to Ted, the pair walked over half a mile together before they finally reached his vehicle. Once there, Bundy knocked her unconscious, put her in his car then drove to a remote area roughly eighty miles west of Vail and sexually assaulted her. When finished, he strangled her to death and dumped her remains in a shallow grave near Rifle, CO. Julie’s body has never been recovered.
On April 6, 1975, Denise Oliverson set out on a bike ride to her parents house but was never seen alive again. The next day, a search party found her bicycle and shoes under the Fifth Street Bridge by some railroad tracks. Just days before he was executed in January 1989, Bundy told law enforcement he abducted Oliverson then disposed of her body in a river about five miles West of Grand Junction. Her remains have never been found.
Although the details surrounding Culvers murder seem to vary between sources, it’s strongly speculated she was last seen at Alameda Junior High School. It’s worth mentioning, this was a two and a half hour drive from where Bundy was living at the time in Salt Lake City to Pocatello, Idaho. Some places say that she left campus during her lunch period, where others claim Lynette was last seen getting on a bus. When considering her healthy and happy relationship with family and friends as well as and her stellar academic performance, she most likely was taken against her will. In his death row interviews, Bundy confessed to killing Lynette then dumping her body in the Snake River. He also said he raped and drowned the 12 year old child in a hotel room after abducting her. Law enforcement didn’t fully accept his confession despite providing some convincing details.
At the time she was murdered, Susan was a freshman at Woods Cross High School. She had a history of running away from home for days at a time but never was gone for very long. Susan was originally from Bountiful, Utah but at the time of her disappearance was attending a youth conference at Brigham Young University in Provo. A natural athlete, Curtis had ridden her bicycle 50 miles from Bountiful to Provo to attend the conference. She vanished on the first evening of the conference after a formal banquet: she left her friends to make the quarter mile walk back to her dormitory to brush her teeth but was never seen or heard from again. As Bundy walked down to the hall to be executed Curtis was his last death row confession. Since her body has not been recovered she is still regarded as a missing person.
In the early morning hours of January 15, 1978, a group of young women residing at the Chi Omega house at Tallahassee’s Florida State University were asleep in their beds when evil crept in… Margaret Bowman was born in Honolulu and moved to Florida in 1973 after her father retired from the US Air Force. Bowman was one of four women Bundy attacked when he broke into the sorority house at around 3 AM on January 15, 1978. He beat her with a piece of firewood as well as a telescope and strangled her to death with her own tights. Despite the violent nature of the crime, the initial investigation failed to produce any evidence of sexual assault or struggle. The severity of the beating was so extreme that part of Bowman’s brain was visible.
Lisa was born in St Petersburg, FL and attended Dixie Hollins High School, where she played flute in the band for two years. At FSU, she majored in fashion merchandising and worked at the Colony Shop near campus. When law enforcement got to the crime scene Levy’s was the first sister that officers found dead. Medical Pathologists discovered that she had been beaten on the head with a log, sexually assaulted with a hair spray bottle then strangled. Additionally, they found bite marks on her buttocks and one of her nipples had been so savagely bitten that it was almost completely severed from the rest of her breast.
Kathy Kleiner-Rubin and Karen Chandler shared a room at the Chi Omega sorority house. That night she was attacked Kathy went to bed first, with Chandler following shortly after. After Bundy attacked and murdered Lisa Levy, he went into the room next door and brutally assaulted Kleiner-Rubin and Chandler. In an interview, Kathy said that was awoken that morning by the sound of her bedroom door opening. The assailant then tripped over a chest that was in-between the girls twin beds. Ted then assaulted her with a piece of firewood, which left her with a broken jaw, concussion, skull fracture, broken arm and finger. Miraculously, she survived her injuries and testified against Bundy in his death penalty trial.
As I said earlier, Karen Chandler was Kathy Kleiner-Rubin’s roommate in the Chi Omega house. After Bundy was done brutally assaulting Kathy he moved onto Chandler. Bundy knocked out four of her teeth and beat her so severely that he broke her jaw and right arm. Somehow Chandler survived. She took the rest of the academic quarter off, but later returned to the Chi Omega house at FSU.
After Bundy was finished with his atrocities at the Chi Omega sorority house, he wandered a few blocks over and climbed into an open kitchen window in Cheryl Thomas’ apartment. He attacked her and Thomas barely escaped with her life: her jaw was broken in two places, her shoulder dislocated, and she had five skull fractures, which left her permanently deaf in her left ear. In 1978 Thomas was a student at FSU and a member of the schools dance team. The night she was attacked was alone in her apartment but thanks to some attentive neighbors who heard the assault her life was saved.
In 1978, Kim Leach was a 12-year-old seventh-grader at Lake City Junior High School, where she was a straight-A student and the runner-up Valentine Queen. Leach was one of Bundy’s youngest and his last victim. On the morning of February 9, 1978, Kimberly arrived at Lake City Junior high School on time. Just before 9 AM, she left her first period class to go and pick up her purse that she had accidentally left behind in her homeroom. After she recovered the purse she headed back towards her classroom in the pouring rain but never arrived. That afternoon, Kimberly’s parents became concerned when their daughter didn’t come home after school. They called everybody they knew, but nobody could account for Kimberly. Their concern escalated to fear when they learned she had been at her first period class but then never returned. They immediately called law enforcement to report their daughter missing. A search party quickly formed and concentrated on Suwannee River State Park for weeks. Kims remains were eventually found on April 7, 1978 in an abandoned hog pen with a small metal lead-to. She was nude other than for a pullover jumper, her clothes were piled up beside her body. She was in an advanced state of decomposition, but she was identified thanks to dental records. Leach had suffered homicidal violence about the neck region.
Miscellaneous:
There is no consensus as to when or where Bundy began killing. He told different people varying stories to and refused to give the specifics of his earlier crimes, even as he shared in graphic detail to dozens of later murders in the days before he was his executed. He told one of his attorneys Polly Nelson that he attempted his first kidnapping in 1969 in Ocean City, NJ, however did not kill anyone until sometime in 1971 in Seattle. He told Portland forensic psychologist Dr. Art Norman that he murdered two women in Atlantic City while visiting family in Philadelphia in 1969. Bundy hinted to former homicide detective Dr. Robert Keppel that he committed a murder in Seattle in 1972 and another murder in 1973 that involved a hitchhiker near Tumwater, but he refused to elaborate. Rule and Keppel both believed that he might have started killing as a teenager. Bundy’s earliest documented homicides were committed in 1974, when he was 27 years old. By his own admission, he had by then mastered the necessary skills to leave minimal incriminating forensic evidence at crime scenes.
On September 2, 1974, Bundy drove through Boise while moving from Seattle to Salt Lake City and during that trip, he picked up a still unknown hitchhiker and killed her. Ted returned the next day to photograph and dismember the corpse then dumped her remains in the Snake River. Reports from Gonzaga University’s student newspaper ‘The Gonzaga Bulletin’ claim that Bundy stopped by a campus dorm for a party in the 1970’s and drove a female student to Pullman. She miraculously survived.
Bundy confessed to detectives from Idaho, Utah, and Colorado that he had committed numerous additional homicides, including several that were unknown to the police. He explained that when he was in Utah he could bring his victims back to his apartment, ‘where he could reenact scenarios depicted on the covers of detective magazines.’ A new ulterior strategy quickly became apparent: he withheld many details, hoping to parlay the incomplete information into yet another stay of execution. ‘There are other buried remains in Colorado,’ he admitted, but refused to elaborate. The new strategy (which was referred to as ‘Ted’s bones-for-time scheme’) served only to deepen the resolve of authorities to see Bundy executed on schedule, and yielded little new detailed information. In cases where he did give details, nothing was found. Colorado detective Matt Lindvall interpreted this as a conflict between his desire to postpone his execution by divulging information and his need to remain in ‘total possession, and the only person who knew his victims true resting places.’
After being sentenced to death, Bundy spent 11 years on death row, before he was executed by electric chair on 24 January 1989.
Georgann Hawkins was born on August 20, 1955 in Sumner, Washington to Warren and Edith Hawkins. She had an older sister named Patti and both girls were brought up in an upper middle class, Episcopalian household. Affectionately nicknamed ‘George’ by family and friends, Mrs. Hawkins described her daughter as a ‘wiggle worm’ because she was always full of energy and was unable to sit still. Georgann seemed to be universally adored by everyone around her, and she was always surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. At one point in her early childhood Hawkins went through a bout of Osgood-Schlatter Disease, which is described as painful inflammation found just below the knee that is made worse with physical activity and made better with lots of bed rest. One or both knees can be affected by this disease and flare-ups may occur after the initial episode has passed. Thankfully it never came back after George’s initial bout (although she was left with several small, barely noticeable bumps just below her patellae).
Despite her health challenges, Georgann went on to become a star athlete at Lakes High School in Lakewood, Washington: she was on the swim team in her early years but eventually gravitated towards cheerleading, winning numerous medals and competitions while on her high schools cheerleading squad (where she cheered all four years). In addition to her impressive athletic accomplishments, Hawkins was also a straight A student throughout the entirety of her academic career. During her senior year in 1973, Georgann was awarded with the title of princess to the royal court of the annual Washington Daffodil Festival. As Daffodil Princess, she traveled around Washington State with the other court members and their ‘duties’ involved being interviewed by newspapers, meeting children, riding in parades, attending concerts, and signing autographs at charity events. Georgann even gave a speech in the spring of 1973 addressing lawmakers at the Washington State Legislature.
Patti Hawkins went to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, which is the same school that Susan Rancourt attended before she was abducted by Bundy in April 1974. Georgann originally planned on following in her sisters footsteps and attending CWU as well, however her mother was strongly against it; she wanted her younger daughter to attend college at the University of Washington Seattle Campus, which was only about 30 minutes away from Sumner. Agreeing to this arrangement, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins paid for Georgann’s tuition, books, room and board. To earn some extra spending money, she worked in Seattle throughout the summer, occasionally returning to her family home on weekends. The final time Georgann saw her parents was on Mother’s Day weekend of 1974.
Georgann’s freshman year at the University of Washington was a busy one: she joined the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and decided to major in either broadcast journalism or reporting. Despite having some troubles with a Spanish course she maintained a straight A GPA and found love with a Beta Theta Pi fraternity brother named Marvin Gellatly. Georgann planned to return to her parents house for the summer on June 13th and had plans to start a summer job on Monday, June 17th.
At the time of her disappearance in spring 1974, Georgann stood at a petite 5’2” and weighed a mere 115 pounds. She has long chestnut hair that went down her back and big, doe-like brown eyes. Earlier on the day on June 10th, Hawkins called her mother to tell her she was going to study as hard as she possibly could for her next days Spanish final so she wouldn’t have to retake it later. But before hitting the books she went to a party, even imbibing in a few mixed cocktails. But, because she needed to study didn’t stay long; Hawkins did mention to a sorority sister that she was planning on swinging by the Beta Theta Pi House to pick up some Spanish notes from her boyfriend. She arrived at the frat at 12:30 AM on June 11 and stayed for approximately thirty minutes. After getting the notes and saying goodnight to her beau, Georgann left the fraternity house for her sorority house, which was only about 350 feet away.
Although typically a very safe and cautious young woman, Georgann thought nothing of this short walk that she took hundreds of times before, as it was in a well lit and busy area. While on her way of what should have been just a quick jaunt home, a friend called out to her from his window and she stopped to chat for a few minutes. She said goodnight to him and continued her short walk back to her dorm. Hawkins sorority sisters knew something wasn’t right when the typically reliable George didn’t arrive home two hours later. One of them even called her boyfriend, who informed her that she left his place at around 1 AM. After hearing this, the sister woke the housemother, and together they waited up for Georgann until morning. When morning came and she still didn’t arrive home they called Seattle police, and because of the recent disappearance of fellow University of Washington student Lynda Ann Healy, they immediately sprung to action. They later were informed that one of the other housemothers had awoken that night to a high pitched scream: she thought it was some people joking around and went back to sleep. Bundy confessed to Georganns murder moments before his execution, and though he was foggy on some of the more specific details he distinctly remembered how kind and trusting she was. He went on to say that he asked her for assistance carrying his briefcase to his car (because of his prop cast), and she happily obliged. As Bundy was approaching the young coed he pretended to fumble with the briefcase he was carrying. This was a common practice Bundy used in order to gain his victims trust and get them to lower their defenses; he later switched things up a bit and used an arm sling during his Lake Sammamish abductions (most likely because he couldn’t drive with a ‘broken leg’). As she bent over to put the briefcase in his vehicle, Ted grabbed a conveniently placed crowbar and knocked her out with a single blow to the head. He then put George’s tiny body in the passengers seat of his car and drove off into the night, never to be seen again. Haewkins briefly regained consciousness and in her confused state asked Bundy if he was there to help study for her Spanish exam. He then knocked her unconscious again, pulled his VW Bug over to the side of the road near to Lake Sammamish State Park and strangled her using a piece of rope. Before his execution he claimed that part of her remains were included in those found at his Issaquah dump site.
The day after her brutal murder, Bundy returned to check on Georgann’s body and discovered that one of her shoes was missing. He immediately began to worry that it had fallen off in the parking lot during the abduction and that someone might remember seeing his car parked in the area. Ted was also worried people were going to piece things together because just two weeks prior he had attempted the exact same abduction technique on a different young woman, but something spooked him and he decided against it. He was terrified that this unknown woman might come forward and mention the strange encounter if Hawkins belongings were discovered in the same parking lot. The morning after Hawkins abduction, law enforcement taped off the alley and searched it thoroughly for any evidence… but they left the parking lot where Bundy first approached her untouched. Because of this oversight, he was able to return at roughly 5 PM the next evening and retrieve the missing shoe as well as both of Georgann’s earrings that were misplaced as well.
Bundy also claimed he returned to Hawkins body again on June 14th, and at that point made the decision to cut off her head. His third (and final) post-mortem visit to her remains occurred about a week or two later, when he came back to ‘see what was going on.’ During his death row confession, Ted also hinted at acts such as necrophilia, so who knows what he meant when he said he went back to ‘see what was going on’ with poor Georgann’s corpse. While going through the bones recovered from the Issaquah dump site, forensic experts found a femur they strongly thought to be Hawkins but is considered ‘impossible to identify.’ It’s also been said that Bundy himself admitted that one of her femur bones discovered at the Issaquah dump site was Georgann’s, but this statement has never been confirmed.
I’ve always wondered about Georgann Hawkins’ family and how they coped with the loss of their daughter. Many family members of other Bundy victims have been vocal with their opinions regarding Bundy’s fate and what happened to their loved ones (specifically Lynda Healy’s sister (Laura) was active in the Amazon mini-series “Falling for a Killer” as well as Susan Rancourts Mom and Sister) but it was tough for me to find anything about Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins. I did stumble across an article Georgann’s mother did with “Green Valley News” titled “Georgann Hawkins died at the hands of Ted Bundy, but that’s not how her mom wants her remembered” that was published on June 11, 2014. In it, Mrs. Hawkins fondly remembers her daughter, saying that “she was a very self-confident little girl … she wasn’t vain, she wasn’t arrogant and she wasn’t snooty. That’s why kids liked her.” She went on to say that her daughter was an avid swimmer who was active in the Brownies (however swimming eventually fell to the wayside once she discovered boys). Years after Theodore Robert Bundy was executed for his crimes against humanity by the State of Florida Georgann’s friends held a memorial for her at their alma matter: Lakes High School. Warren and Edie Hawkins did not attend. She explained, ‘my feeling at the time was, ‘What was it for,’ you know? It wasn’t going to help me any.’ She went on to elaborate that she didn’t keep in touch with anyone in her daughters life nor did she want to. Over the years many newspapers and magazines reached out to the Hawkins family for interviews about their beloved daughter but they turned them all down (aside from a single sentence Edie gave to the associated press after Bundy was executed, saying ‘I’ve never, ever, ever dwelt on how she died. I didn’t want to know how she died’). She didn’t like the idea of anyone making money off the death of her daughter.
THIS was an incredibly eerie experience for me. I felt a lot of sadness and fear at this particular site. When my Google Maps alerted me when I came to the supposed exact location (figured right down to latitude and longitude) I didn’t linger long, plus there was a cop just sitting there, watching the area.
A newspaper article mentioning Georgann Hawkins published by The Spokane Chronicle on October 16, 1974.
Another Bundy Blog. 