truecrime

Janice Ann Blackburn-Ott.

~ Another Bundy Blog. ~ 2 Comments

Janice Ann Blackburn-Ott was born on February 14, 1951 in McMinnville, Oregon to Dr. Donald Edwin and Ferol Lorraine (nee Hunter) Blackburn. Donald was born on May 14, 1922 in Lovell, WY, and during WWII he was in the US Navy; when he was done serving his country he continued with his education and earned his PhD from the University of Idaho. Ferol was born on August 2, 1921 in Moscow, ID and the couple were wed on July 18 1946. They had two children together: Janice and her older sister, Illona Lynn (who was born in February 1949). Dr. Blackburn was a high school teacher and coach in Idaho before the family relocated to Washington state, where he became a counselor and administrator for the Spokane School District (specifically at school #81).

Well-liked by her peers, Janice was bright and bubbly (this trait even earned her the nickname ‘Sunshine Girl’ at her job), and had a very busy schedule while she was a student at Shadle Park High School: she was a member of the ‘Hi-Lassies’ (which looks like some sort a cheerleading squad), the ski club, the ‘Eldah Tra Art Club,’ and helped out in the library. In a strange twist of fate, she was high school sweethearts with Susan Rancourt’s (another Bundy victim) older brother, Dennis. She graduated from high school in 1969 with high honors and went on to earn her Bachelor’s degree in social work from Eastern Washington State University.

Janice was a petite girl, and only stood at 5’1” tall and was estimated to weigh less than 100 pounds; she had long blonde hair that she wore long and parted down the middle and had smokey green eyes. Affectionately nicknamed ‘Jan’ by her loved ones, she married James Douglass Ott on December 15, 1972 and at the time of her murder worked as a probation case worker for the King County Youth Service Center. After her car was broken into while living in Seattle, Janice felt that living in a smaller community would be safer and moved in with a roommate in nearby Issaquah (located just two doors down from ‘The Issaquah Press’). At the time of his wife’s disappearance, Jim Ott was in graduate school in California (some articles reported that he was in medical school, where others said he was earning ‘an advanced degree in prosthetics’).

On the morning of Sunday, July 14, 1974 Janice spent a few hours washing her clothes at the laundromat, and from there she had a cup of coffee with a friend. After her chores and errands were finished, she went home and put on her black bikini, cut-off shorts, and a white blouse she wore tied at her midriff. Before leaving she made sure to leave a note for her roommate, one that read, ‘I’ll be at Lake Sammamish sunin’ myself. See ya.’ The park is still a popular destination for Issaquah locals, which is a suburb located right outside of Seattle. It contains several beaches and is known to get very crowded during the hot summer months. Ott then hopped on her yellow 10-speed Tiger bicycle and rode to the park; when she arrived at roughly around 12:00-12:30 PM, many beachgoers noticed the attractive young woman, and some even said they remembered her stripping down to her bathing suit and applying a layer of cocoa butter to her skin. That day at the park, Rainier Beer Company was hosting its annual summer picnic, and it was said that there were upwards of 40,000 people there. In addition to happy park goers, Theodore Robert Bundy was there as well, prowling for his next victim (or in this case, victims).

Before Bundy abducted Ott, he approached a young park goer named Janice Graham at the bandstand area. After he said hello and introduced himself to her as Ted, he asked the 22-year-old if she would be able to help him load a sailboat onto the top of his car. She initially agreed, however once the pair reached his vehicle she quickly noticed there was no sailboat, and it was then that her new friend shared that it was actually at his parents’ house that was ‘just up the hill.’ Realizing it was going to be more than just a quick favor, Janice told Ted that she was unable to help him because she was supposed to meet up with her husband and parents shortly. Bundy replied ‘Oh, that’s OK. I should have told you that it wasn’t in the parking lot.’ He then walked the young woman back to the bandstand area, apologized one last time then took off to his right. Graham later reported to law enforcement that the man was wearing a ‘beige sling’ and on three separate times during their short walk from the bandstand to the VW he stopped to rub his ‘injured’ arm, claiming it was from a racquetball injury. Immediately after he parted ways with Graham was when he ran into Janice Ott, as she lay in her black bikini soaking up the rays on Lake Sammamish’s Tibbett’s Beach.

Before Bundy abducted Ott, he approached a young woman named Janice Graham at the bandstand area, and after he said hello and introduced himself to her, he asked the 22-year-old if she would be able to help him load a sailboat onto the top of his car. She initially agreed, however once the pair reached his vehicle she quickly noticed there was no sailboat, and it was then that her new friend shared that it was actually at his parents’ house that was ‘just up the hill.’ Realizing it was going to be more than just a quick favor, Janice told Ted that she was unable to help him because she was supposed to meet up with her husband and parents shortly. Bundy replied ‘Oh, that’s OK. I should have told you that it wasn’t in the parking lot.’ He then walked the young woman back to the bandstand area, apologized one last time then took off to his right. Graham later reported to law enforcement that the man was wearing a ‘beige sling’ and on three separate times during their short walk from the bandstand to the VW he stopped to rub his ‘injured’ arm, claiming it was from a racquetball injury. Immediately after he parted ways with Graham was when he ran into Janice Ott, as she lay in her black bikini soaking up the rays on Lake Sammamish’s Tibbett’s Beach.

Janice was only at Lake Sammamish for about twenty minutes before she was approached by a tall, dark-haired man dressed in tennis shorts (white with a red stripe on the side), a white shirt, and tennis shoes. People nearby that overheard small pieces of their exchange reported that he asked Ott for her assistance with putting a sailboat on his car, which was ‘just down the road’ at his parents’ house in Issaquah. She invited the handsome stranger to sit down next to her so they could ‘talk about it,’ and he did. Fellow beach goers heard Jan say to Bundy that she always had an interest in sailing but never really tried to learn, and flirtatiously asked if she could ‘have a ride in the boat;’ she seemingly agreed to help if he would take her out for a ride afterwards. People also overheard her tell the man that she had her bike with her and she didn’t want to leave it behind out of fear that it would get stolen. He assured her that there was lots of room in his trunk for it, and she then said to him, ‘OK, I’ll help you.’ As the pair walked away, one witness overheard Ott say, ‘hi, I’m Jan,’ to which the man responded, ‘hi, I’m Ted.’ She was never seen alive again.

There were a few people that were sitting close to Ted and Ott that had a first hand account as to what happened: Jerry/Kelly Snyder is a retired DEA agent that was sitting roughly 30 feet away when the exchange occurred, and he has said that he noticed Bundy was only asking women for help, and that he appeared to be ‘trying to find someone who met certain qualifications.’

About the exchange, Snyder said: ‘I noticed a guy that was walking down the beach. A young man. Probably in his mid-to-late twenties. He was wearing white shorts and they had a red stripe, which immediately caught my eye. When he got close, I noticed he had really curly hair and his left arm was in a sling. It piqued my interest because every time he approached a woman, or a group of two or three women, he was getting turned down. And I just kept watching him and he eventually ended up being right in front of me, where he approached a young girl. She was a young and attractive blonde girl. And he asked her… words to the effect of… ‘I need some help.’ She’s saying that she just got here… So obviously, going through her mind is ‘I’d like to help you out, but I’m here to relax.’ He kept on and on and on, and he talks her into whatever he talked her into. He said something about a catamaran. And ultimately, she gets up… reluctantly… because her head is down and she is like ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’ And then she started walking back past me. She had this frown on her face, like, ‘I’m helping this guy when I should be enjoying myself on the beach.’ And the end, the result is, she’s no longer with us because she was a nice person.’

Theresa Marie Sharpe was much closer to Ott than Snyder, and thankfully she was able to give investigators a detailed description about the exchange between the two strangers and what exactly they said. Sharpe also shared with LE that she ‘didn’t feel his arm was really hurt. I do remember he took his arm out of the sling and moved it around.’ A second young woman named Sylvia Valint was sitting closest to the pair, and where she was incorrect about his height (she said he was roughly 5’6” to 5’7”) she got the rest of his physical description correct. The fifteen-year-old was also able to tell detectives what was said between the two almost verbatim and provided them with details that no other witness was able to. Per a police report, ‘at about 12:30 hours, Sylvia Valint was laying on the beach at the park with her two friends. Jerry Snyder was about 15 feet from Valint with his wife. Theresa Sharp was with her family about 10 feet from Valint. They were all on the beach, about 200 yards directly in front of the east restroom. The above three witnesses all observed Janice Ott arrive on the beach and position herself between them.’

As we know, Bundy returned only four hours later and abducted Denise Naslund from the same park at around 4:30 PM, and it is the first time that he drastically switched up his MO and took two victims in the same day. It is strongly speculated that he abducted Ott, incapacitated and gagged her, then returned to Lake Sammamish to hunt again. Many TB scholars have theorized that by doing so he was attempting to increase the ‘high’ by taking one woman and returning to the scene only a few hours later to take a second one.

Although Bundy did (sort of) admit to journalists Hugh Aynesworth and Stephen Michaud what happened on July 14, 1974, it was during one of his third person, pseudo-confessions that didn’t directly incriminate him. When asked about Ott and Naslund, the killer theorized that ‘one of the women would probably have watched the other die; he later admitted that it was true while speaking to FBI Agent Bill Hagmaier during his time on death row. Despite finally (maybe… possibly??) telling the truth about how the two women were killed he refused to tell investigators the exact location of where he held them, or if the murders took place indoors or outside in a wooded area. We know that Ted was a liar and a narcissist, so we really need to be careful about taking his word as fact. It’s also possible that Ted tied Ott to a tree somewhere and left her there while he went and hunted for Naslund, and since the area he took the women to was most likely secluded and off the beaten track, it was highly unlikely that anyone would have stumbled upon her, especially if she was silenced (gagged).

Another possible theory is that Bundy lied completely, and he murdered Ott right away, then returned to Lake Sammamish to abduct Denise. Logically, there is a large chunk of time between when she was abducted at 12:30 PM and Ted’s return to Lake Sam at around 4 PM, and if we consider the length of the journey (12 miles, each way) between the park and the Issaquah dump site it means that he was most likely with poor Ott for a good 2-3 hours. If the original plan was to kidnap two women then attack them at the same time, it seems like a lot of time to spend with just one victim. I am including this thought while editing this article in July 2024, but I wonder if he did unspeakable horrors to the poor young woman for the entire 2-3 hours, and brought her to the brink of death over and over… only to revive her each time, so that she was alive when he brought Naslund back. Or, maybe Bundy took a second victim that day because something happened during Otts murder that prevented him from achieving complete sexual gratification. Or… perhaps the event wasn’t planned out at all, and he just wanted to try something brand new, right then and there. We will most likely never know.

A few hours later (at roughly 4 PM), Bundy returned to the same parking lot that he parked in earlier and began his ruse all over again. He approached Sindi Siebenbam and asked her for help getting his sailboat. The 19-year-old was on her way back from the bathroom when a visibly nervous Ted approached her asking for help. She immediately asked what happened to his arm, and he told her that he sprained it. Siebenbam also said that the man used his injured arm to gesture with his elbow, and even tugged on her arm in a way that somehow seemed to point her in the direction of his car. When she looked into his cold, dark eyes, she finally had enough of him and firmly told him, ‘no, I’m sorry. I’ve got people waiting.’ Even still, Ted almost seemed reluctant to accept her answer, and even tried a few more times to get her to go with him. The last time she saw him he was wandering towards the restrooms. 

Patricia Ann Turner reported a very similar encounter with a stranger that matched Bundy’s description: at around 4:15 PM a tall, dark haired man with his arm in a sling approached her on her way to the concession stand. They chatted briefly and it didn’t take long for him to ask ‘a really big favor.’ Turner told him that she was in a hurry and wasn’t able to help and after that he just sort of wandered away. Approximately five minutes later, Jacqueline Plischke arrived at Lake Sam wearing a bikini and cut-offs, and as she was locking up her bike she noticed a man just staring at her from a short distance away. He quickly walked up to her and asked for help, but she was quick to tell him that she wasn’t very strong and was waiting for someone. Plischke also advised him that he might be better off if he asked someone that was alone (as she was waiting for a friend). Not willing to waste time on someone unwilling to help him, Ted quickly moved on and approached Naslund, who (as we all know) unfortunately agreed to help him.

I’m not going to get super in-depth about Denise Naslund’s background because I’m going to write a separate piece on her (but for obvious reasons, it’s important to discuss her in some capacity as she plays an important role in the murder of Jan Ott). Naslund was a 19-year-old student studying software development at night school. She worked in an office setting during the day to make money to help pay for college, and at the time of her abduction she was living with her mother and seeing a man named Ken Little.

At around 1 PM, Denise and Little arrived at Lake Sammamish along with her dog and another couple, Bob Sargent and Nancy Battema. The small group of friends decided to sit on the lawn on the east side of the park, roughly 200 feet north of the restrooms. According to Battema, Naslund took four Valium tablets when they arrived, and at some point in the afternoon she and her boyfriend got into an argument. Shortly after 4 PM, Ken and Bob fell asleep after the group had eaten hot dogs and potato chips and Denise then told her friend that she was ‘feeling high’ and after a short discussion about the time, she got up and walked towards the restrooms. It was the last time Battema ever saw her. Naslund had driven her friends to the park in her car, and as it got later and later in the day her vehicle stood out in the lot by itself. Over the next couple of days, it started to dawn on investigators that not one but two women had gone missing from Lake Sammamish on the exact same day, just hours apart from each other. Denise was well known for her sweet nature and friendly personality, and her family said she would have most likely agreed to help any person that was in need without a second thought, especially if they were hurt or handicapped.

After Bundy killed Ott and Naslund, he dumped their bodies along the side of a service road near Issaquah. Roughly eight weeks after their abduction on September 6, 1974, a pair of grouse hunters stumbled across their remains scattered amongst a grassy patch in a wooded area near Issaquah, roughly seventeen miles east of Seattle and two miles from Lake Sammamish. The hunters reported to police that they ‘found two shallow graves, and there’s one with long, black hair.’ King County police immediately sealed off the area and after a three-day search found two skulls as well as some other bones, teeth, and tufts of reddish blonde and dark brown hair. By that time, the remains had fully decomposed and had been dispersed throughout the area by forest critters. An absence of clothing and jewelry on or near the victims made investigators believe that the bodies were left at the scene completely naked. Using dental records as well as hair samples (taken from the victims hairbrushes), the skulls were identified to be those of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund. In addition, there was a third set of remains discovered in the form of a femur as well as several vertebrae believed to have belonged to Georgann Hawkins, but sadly they were impossible to identify.

As the investigation heated up investigators learned that Ted had scoped out the park the weekend before the murders, which would have been July 6/7, 1974. They were also able to place him in Issaquah on July 14 by matching up his credit card receipts, and it has been confirmed that he filled up his car at a gas station located at the northwest corner of Front Street and Sunset Way, where the Issaquah Library now stands. Before he murdered Ott it’s speculated that Bundy may have stopped at ‘The Issaquah Press,’ and after his mugshot was released to the public, their bookkeeper insisted that she had sold him a copy of the newspaper (if you recall, I brought this business up earlier as it was two doors down from where Janice was living at the time).

By this time in the summer of 1974 most Washington residents were aware there was a predator targeting young women in the Pacific Northwest, but despite this the abductions at Lake Sammamish still came as a huge shock to locals. But thankfully, because Bundy had asked several women for help before finding Ott and Naslund, for the first-time law enforcement was able to put together a composite sketch of the infamous ‘Ted:’ Fliers were hung up throughout the Seattle/Issaquah area and women were told to be cautious of men matching the description.

A little over six months after the Issaquah dump site was discovered on March 1, 1975 forestry students from Green River Community College stumbled upon the skull of Brenda Ball on Taylor Mountain while doing field work; this is approximately thirty miles away from the Flame Tavern, where she was last seen. Two days later, King County Detective Bob Keppel found the skull of Susan Rancourt, who had vanished from Central Washington State University in Ellensburg on April 17, 1974, roughly eighty-seven miles away from where she was recovered; like Ball, her skull had been fractured from blunt force trauma. Roberta ‘Kathy’ Parks was found next: the twenty year old was abducted from the campus of Oregon State University, which is 265 miles (or a 4.5 hour drive) away from the Issaquah dump site. Like the others, her skull showed signs of trauma. The last of the remains found on Taylor Mountain were those of Lynda Ann Healy, and unlike the previous victims only her mandible was found, which was later identified through dental records. No remains of Donna Manson or Georgann Hawkins were ever recovered.

Because of the distance between them, Janice and Jim Ott would frequently write to each other, and after her death he received a letter she had sent right before her abduction. In it, she complained about how long it took for mail to be delivered from Washington to California, saying: ‘five days! Isn’t that a drag? Someone could expire before you ever got wind of it.’ Jim waited by the phone all evening on July 14, 1974, and after dozing off a bit he woke up around 10:45 PM, claiming he heard her voice calling his name over and over in his head, begging him to come help her; the following day, he woke up to learn that she was missing. In the true crime classic ‘The Stranger Beside Me,’ Ann Rule tells of a conversation she had with Ott regarding Jan’s disappearance, and in his last letter to her he begged her to be careful: ‘And then I wrote at the bottom (and I don’t know why I choose those words) ‘please take care of yourself. Be careful about driving. Be careful of people you don’t know. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re my source of peace of mind.’’

On January 24, 1989 Bundy was put to death by Florida’s ‘Old Sparky’ electric chair, and he confessed to both Ott and Naslunds murders less than 24 hours before his execution: he told FBI Agent Bill Hagmaier that he drove an unconscious Jan to a secluded cabin 2-3 miles from Lake Sammamish and repeatedly raped her before knocking her out again and tying her up, and when he returned with a second victim, he said she at some point regained consciousness. He then raped and murdered Denise in front of her before eventually taking her life as well. After this confession came to light Dr. Blackburn said that he would have rather not known what happened to Janice, saying ‘would you like to hear the story of what happened to your daughter?

While doing research into Dr. and Mrs. Blackburn in the years following their daughter’s murder, I discovered there was an ongoing legal battle between them and the King County Sheriff’s department over Janice’s remains: police told the Ott and Naslund families that their remains could not be turned over for burial because they were needed as evidence but unfortunately, this wasn’t true and it turned out that they were misplaced. Both families filed a lawsuit against the county in 1984, and where a trial had been set for December a settlement was reached on November 2: Denise’s mother Eleanor Rose originally sought $750,000 (she got roughly $112,500), and James Ott and the Blackburns sought $2 million each (in the end they received about the same amount as Rose, which was divided equally between the two parties). Additionally, Denise’s father Robert sought $750,000 but the county refused to settle with him (although they gave her brother Bob about $5,000).

Dr. and Mrs. Blackburn were married for 64 years at the time of his death on June 3, 2010; he was 88. Ferol Blackburn died at the age of 97 on December 8, 2018 in Spokane, WA and is buried in Fairmount Memorial Park in Spokane. Janice’s sister Illona married a man named Gary Clark in 1971 and relocated to Lompoc, CA; the couple have two children together.

* Edit, July 2024: I would like to thank an individual named Anna, who was kind enough to reach out and let me know that I included a picture of the wrong Jim Ott’s grave stone on here. Looking at it I can’t believe I made such a glaringly obvious mistake, and I’m now even more confident in my decision to put off writing any new articles until I go back and make sure that my old stuff is up to snuff. Also, thank you for being so kind about it. So many people would have publicly blasted me, via a comment at the end of the post pointing out all of my errors. Reaching out through email was very classy, and I appreciate you.

A photo of Janice Ott from high school.
Jan’s sophomore year picture the 1967 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
Janice Blackburn in a group picture from the “ASB Fall Council,’ taken from the 1967 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
Jan’s junior year picture the 1968 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1968 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
Jan Blackburn’s senior year pic from the 1968 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A blurb from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook that mentions Jan Blackburn.
A picture of Jan in a group shot for the “Hi-Lassies’ from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook (she is in the top row in the middle).
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook (she is on the bottom row, far right).
A photo of Janice Blackburn from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
A shot of Janice Blackburn in a group photo for the dance committee from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook (she is in the middle row, second from the right).
A shot of Janice Blackburn in a group photo for the ski club from the 1969 Shadle Park High School yearbook (she is in the bottom row, far right).
Photo taken on June 16, 1974. Janice is wearing the same pair of shorts from the day of her abduction and she is standing next to her Volkswagen.
A picture of Janice Ott and Dennis Rancourt. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Jean.
Janice Ott. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Jean.
Jan Ott. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Jean.
Janice Ann Ott, July 1974.
A candid picture of Jan Ott.
Janice and Jim Ott.
Janice and Jim Ott.
James and Janice Ott in the Fall of 1972.
A photo of Janice Ott from October 1972.
A photo of Jim and Janice Ott from October 1972.
James and Janice Ott. After Janice passed he got remarried Angela (Reed) Ott.
Some photos of Jim and Janice Ott from October 1972.
An excerpt from Ann Rule’s ‘The Stranger Beside Me’ that mentions Ott, published in 1980.
James Ott sitting in a motel room waiting on word regarding the search for his missing wife.
James Ott.
A photo of James Ott posting the first of hundreds of missing posters asking for information about his wife.
James and Janice Ott’s marriage certificate. Photo courtesy of Erin Banks/CrimePiper.
A picture of a young Dr. Blackburn published in The Spokesman-Review on February 23, 1938. He was on the track team at the University of Idaho, where he earned all three of his degrees including his doctorate.
A picture of Dr. Donald Blackburn, courtesy of Legacy. Don and his father owned and operated a Pepsi Cola Bottling Company in McMinnville, OR, and at some point during his career he was also employed with the local Welfare Department and Board of Prison Terms and Parole for the state of Washington. 
A screen shot of Dr. Donald Blackburn pleading for the safe return of his daughter.
An article mentioning Dr. Blackburn titled ‘Safer, More Creative Playgrounds Stressed’ that was published in The Spokesman-Review on December 19, 1974.
This is the house Janice Ott lived in Issaquah when she disappeared, located at 75 Front Ave. It’s only a five minute drive away from where her remains were discovered.
This is the house Janice Ott grew up in located at 2337 West Longfellow Avenue in Spokane. Photo courtesy of Google Earth from August 2023.
A description of the different accessories of the Tiger model bike Janice Ott was riding the day of her abduction.
A photo of the same model Tiger bike Janice Ott rode.
It would have taken roughly 10-15 minutes to drive from Lake Sam and the dump site at Issaquah; the drive is about four miles long.
It would have taken Jan little more than 15 minutes to ride her bike to Lake Sam from her home on Front Street in Issaquah.
This aerial map of Lake Sammamish shows the locations where Bundy approached Janice Ott and Denise Naslund and also points out the general area where his VW was parked. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
That afternoon, Ted Bundy parked his VW Bug in the middle of the car park. Photo courtesy of ThisInterestsMe.
An aerial photograph of the park from 1977; the layout of the park has remained the same. Photo courtesy of ThisInterestsMe.
Early in the afternoon on the day of the Lake Samammish abductions Bundy approached Janice Graham at the bandstand area wearing a beige colored sling. After politely introducing himself as Ted, he asked the 22-year-old if she could help him load a sailboat onto his car. After agreeing to help, they walked towards the parking lot, but once they reached the car she quickly realized there was no boat and got spooked and rescinded her offer. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
Roughly 40,000 people visited Lake Sammamish state park on the afternoon of Ott and Naslunds abduction. It was sunny and the temperature ranged between 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This nice weather provided people with a much-needed break from the typical damp and gloomy climate of the Pacific Northwest. Photo courtesy of the Kings County Sheriffs Department.
An older map of the Lake Sammamish/Issaquah area. Photo courtesy of the Kings County Sheriffs Department.
Another aerial image of the dump site from September of 1972. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
An old map of Issaquah from 1950. Bundy’s dump site was north of an abandoned cabin, on the north side of the railway (that no longer exists), and its exact location is just a hair to the left of the red dot. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
An aerial photograph of the Issaquah dump site where they found the remains of Janice Ott from 1977. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
The area in red is where the Issaquah dump site is located. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
A labeled police photograph of the Issaquah dump site. Ted left the women’s bodies at a clearance right before the trees. The location of the red dots probably isn’t too precise as the remains were strewn around the location by wildlife. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
On the left is an older map showing the exact location of the dump site, and on the right is a recent aerial photograph of the area. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
A hand drawn map of Lake Sammamish. Photo courtesy of the Kings County Sheriffs Department.
A wide view of Lake Sammamish Park.
Off duty DEA agent Jerry (or Kelly Snyder) was at Lake Sam on the day of Ott and Naslund’s abductions and was close enough to see Bundy approach Jan. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
A news anchor giving a report regarding the abductions from Lake Sammamish, 1974. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
A picture taken at Lake Samammish on July 14, 1974. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
A picture snapped of a police car with what looks like Bundy’s VW Bug in the background.
A B&W picture snapped of a police car with what looks like Bundy’s VW Bug in the background.
If you take a screen shot from these stop slides, you can make out the license plate in the shadow of the young man. I will leave that up to you, but no combinations are associated with any plate Bundy ever had. He even told Bob Keppel he didn’t park there.
After the girls were reported missing every picture and video that was turned over to police was meticulously analyzed. If you look closely behind this group of people you can see a yellowish/tan VW Bug.
If you take a screen shot from these stop slides, you can make out the license plate in the shadow of the young man. I will leave that up to you, but no combinations are associated with any plate Bundy ever had. He even told Bob Keppel he didn’t park there.
A pic of Lake Sam the day of Ott and Naslund’s disappearance.
A member of the search team goes through the Issaquah dump site looking for remains of the missing Seattle girls.
Once the remains were discovered, an extensive search was carried out.
Some of the remains found at the Issaquah dump site on September 6, 1974 by two grouse hunters.
The skull of Bundy’s ninth victim, Denise Naslund, discovered by two grouse hunters close to Issaquah, Washington.
Some of the remains found at the Issaquah dump site on September 6, 1974 by two grouse hunters.
Ott’s death certificate.
A 1974 Rainer Beer advertisement.
A 1974 Rainer Beer advertisement.
An article mentioning Ott standing up in a friends wedding published by The Spokesman-Review on June 5, 1970.
Janice and Jim Ott’s wedding announcement published by The Spokane Daily Chronicle on January 17, 1973.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Tacoma News Tribune on July 17, 1974.
An article on Jan Ott published on The Times on July 26, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on July 28, 1974.
The Spokane Chronicle on July 31, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on July 31, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Albany Democrat-Herald on August 27, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Daily Olympian on August 28, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Daily News on September 8, 1974.
An article about the identification of Janice Ott published by The Spokane Chronicle on September 10, 1974.
The Capital Journal on September 10, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Albany Bellingham Herald on September 11, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Enterprise-Record on September 11, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The News Tribune on September 11, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Napa Valley Register on September 11, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by (my hometown newspaper) The Buffalo News on September 11, 1974.
Part one of an article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Albany Lexington Herald on September 12, 1974.
Part two of an article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Albany Lexington Herald on September 12, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on September 12, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The News Tribune on September 13, 1974.
After graduating from Shadle Park High School with high honors Ott attended Eastern Washington State University ,earning a degree in social work.
Ott’s obituary published by The Spokesman-Review on September 13, 1974.
Part one of an article mentioning Ott published by The Bradenton Herald on September 15, 1974.
Part two of an article mentioning Ott published by The Bradenton Herald on September 15, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Olympian on September 16, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 17, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published by The Spokane Chronicle on September 18, 1974.
An article about Jan Ott published by The News Tribune on September 22, 1974.
An article about the disappearance of Janice Ott published by The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on September 27, 1974.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Capital Journal on October 14, 1974. The killer they’re talking about is Warren Leslie Forrest.
An article on another missing girl, Nellie Davis published by The Daily Herald on January 30, 1975.
The Spokesman-Review on February 2, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Spokane Chronicle on March 4, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published by The Coeur d’Alene Press on March 5, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on March 6, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on March 9, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The San Francisco Examiner on March 9, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Albany Democrat-Herald on March 11, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Playground Daily News on March 13, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on March 18, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on March 26, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Daily Herald on March 27, 1975.
An article mentioning Ott published in The News Tribune on July 1, 1976.
This is an interesting find I came across while doing my research on Ott: an article published by The Detroit Free Press on August 29, 1975 that suggests the killer from the Pacific Northwest also killed two women in Florida. This is obviously well before Bundy’s second escape in late 1977.
The News Tribune on February 17, 1978.
Part one of an article mentioning Ott after Teds arrest in Florida published in The Daily Sentinel on February 21, 1978.
Part two of an article mentioning Ott after Teds arrest in Florida published in The Daily Sentinel on February 21, 1978.
Part one of an article written about Ted’s first Florida trial that mentions Ott published in The Pensacola News on July 9, 1979.
Part two of an article written about Ted’s first Florida trial that mentions Ott published in The Pensacola News on July 9, 1979.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Santa Fe New Mexican on July 11, 1979.
An article mentioning Ott published in The Vancouver Sun on September 8, 1979.
An article about Bundy killing Ott after he was already incarcerated published by The News Journal on January 6, 1980.
An article about Ann Rule’s true crime classic, ‘The Stranger Beside Me’ that mentions Ott published in The Miami News on October 23, 1980.
A police sketch of Ted after the Lake Sammamish abductions in July 1974.
The unibrow could definitely use some work, but this composite sketch of Bundy after the Lake Sammamish murders is pretty good. Even his coworkers and a professor at his college recognized the sketch as Bundy, however police weren’t so sure. It was hard to believe that a law student with no record could be responsible. As a result, Bundy kept on killing.
A colorized composite sketch of ‘Ted,’ seen at Lake Sammamish State Park on July 14, 1974.
On Monday, July 22, the Seattle Times ran a sketch (above) of a man named ‘Ted,’ who had been observed by witnesses talking to both the young women who disappeared from Lake Sammamish the previous week. A co-worker of Ted’s GF Liz showed her the drawing, saying, ‘Do you think this looks like someone you know? … Doesn’t your Ted drive a VW?’ She knew he was joking, but had to admit the sketch did resemble her BF.
The only clue to the baffling disappearance is this police sketch of ‘Ted,’ who was seen with at least one of the missing girls.
Some of the cleared suspects from the July 14, 1974 murder of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund.
A magazine piece about the missing Seattle girls…
Denise Naslund, who was Bundy’s second Lake Sam victim on July 14, 1974.
A special news bulletin about the abduction of Denise Naslund.
This is Eleanor Rose, the mother of Denise Naslund. After her daughter was murdered she suffered from severe agoraphobia to the extent of where she could not leave her house. Until the day she died, Eleanors grief consumed her and it was as if her life stopped the day her daughter was murdered.
A photo of Bundy’s VW, sitting in police lock up.
Donald Blackburn’s WWII draft card.
The back of Donald Blackburn’s WWII draft card.
Donald and Ferol Blackburn’s wedding certificate.
Illona (‘Lonnie’) Lynn Blackburn’s junior year photo from the 1966 Shadle Park High School yearbook.
Janice’s sisters wedding announcement published by The Spokane Daily Chronicle on September 9, 1970.
Dr. Donald & Mrs. Ferol Blackburn, parents of Janice Anne Ott. Photo courtesy of The Yakima Herald.
Dr. Donald & Mrs. Ferol Blackburn, parents of Janice Anne Ott. Photo courtesy of The Yakima Herald.
Dr. Donald & Mrs. Ferol Blackburn, parents of Janice Anne Ott. Photo courtesy of The Yakima Herald.
Ferol Lorraine Blackburn. Photo courtesy of Legacy.
I thought these two memories for Mrs. Blackburn on the website ‘We Remember,’ and I thought they were so sweet that I had to include them. Screenshots courtesy of Legacy.
A memorial site for Ferol, Donald, and Janice Ott.
A close up of the memorial site for Ferol, Donald, and Janice Ott.
After Janice’s murder James Ott got remarried to a woman named Angela. This is his daughter, Casie Rebecca Ott, born on June 13, 1983 and she passed away on July 22, 2006 at age 24 after a long battle with heart disease.

Sotria Kritsonis.

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I won’t lie, the two Washington victims I have left to write about (Denise Naslund and Brenda Ball) are also the ones I know the least about, and the thought of doing another deep dive is incredibly overwhelming to me and I’ve been putting it off. So, I’m going to do one more unconfirmed abduction that strangely enough wasn’t discussed for the first time until February 2018. To be honest, of ALL the unusual spots I made a point of seeing during my time in Seattle, perhaps the strangest and most boring one was the bus stop where Sotria Kritsonis was allegedly abducted from, located at the intersection of Rainier Ave South and South Orcas South. If you don’t recognize the name of this victim don’t worry: much like Rhonda Stapely, Ms. Kritsonis held onto her experience for a very large portion of her life. It wasn’t until 2018 when she finally opened up and walked KIRO-7 reporter Dave Wagner through what happened to her that snowy winter day in early 1972.

Finding this site in Seattle was a bit of a challenge for me. It took a fair amount of internet sleuthing to figure it out, but with some time and effort I pulled it off. I must have driven around for a solid two hours searching for it too… When I finally was able to find it, a very curious but polite gentleman watching me from across the street seemed genuinely baffled as to why I was so interested in taking pictures of an old, run down bus stop. He kept offering to give me directions to where I was trying to go and couldn’t quite seem to grasp that was my intended destination. And now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this was my VERY last Bundy-location I visited and I doubt he would have been able to properly understand why I was so excited: I was DONE!

Sotria Linda Kritsonis was born on April 29, 1949 in Bellevue, WA. In early 1972, the twenty two year old student was waiting in the cold for a city bus to arrive and take her to school. After about an hour of waiting a VW Bug pulled up alongside of her, and the handsome young driver politely asked if she was waiting for a bus. After sharing that he didn’t see a bus coming for miles, he asked if she would like a ride to school. Sotria didn’t think for a second that this friendly stranger would do her any harm in the middle of the day so she happily accepted his offer to get out of the brutal Seattle cold and into a warm car: ‘he goes, ‘I’ve come down Rainier Avenue and that’s a long way and there’s no bus in sight. Would you like a ride?’’ The little tan Bug immediately started driving south on I-5 toward Tukwila, which was the opposite direction of where she told him her school was located (in Renton). Sotria became increasingly concerned when he began reaching under the seats: ‘he just started yelling at me, ‘why did you take this ride? Why did you even think about taking this ride? You’re never going to make it to school.’ It was then that Kritsonis considered jumping out of the vehicle but when she reached for where the door handle should have been she realized it was missing: ‘He said, ‘don’t even think about that. You’re not making it. I told you that before.’ Despite sobbing and pleading with him to let her go, her assailant continued to yell at her to shut up and stop screaming.

It was then that Sotria said Bundy made a strange request that made her realize he’d seen her before: ‘‘take your hat off.’ And I said, ‘what do you mean, take my hat off? What for?’’ … ‘I took my hat off and he saw that something was different about me.’ Just the week prior, she cut her once long brown hair up to her shoulders. Her abductor looked at her as though he was somehow aware of this change: ‘He goes, ‘Why did you cut your hair?’’ … ‘I keep thinking, did he stalk me? Did he see me somewhere?’ … ‘Was he waiting for me, or was he watching me?’ Kritsonis felt that he must have followed her previously, in a way marking her as his next victim. It’s widely speculated that Bundy had a preference for slim, long haired brunettes, and up until about a week before she would have been his ideal victim. After aimlessly driving around for about an hour, the man eventually dumped Sotria off in front of her college, saying she was ‘lucky’ as he threw her onto the sidewalk. She never filed a police report and only told her family about what happened: ‘I didn’t talk about it, because I was a little bit embarrassed.’ It wasn’t until about a year and a half later when she saw Bundy on the news that Kritsonis realized who exactly her abductor had been: ‘I knew 100 percent that was the guy.’ … ‘I’m more than lucky. I just thank God I’m alive, every day.’

Perhaps my biggest issue with Ms. Kritsonis’ story (aside from the part about Ted not liking her new hairdo) is her account of the missing door handle. Most Bundy scholars firmly believe that the passengers door in the serial killers car was completely intact and undisturbed, which is obvious when you study the story of an actual confirmed escapee like Carol DaRonch, who never once mentioned a missing handle (and she obviously was able to use it to get away from her attacker). It’s also worth mentioning that DaRonch was abducted on November 8, 1974, which is after Sotria claimed her abduction occurred. Now, let’s really think about this: I don’t think Bundy would have done something so outlandish like taken the door handle off his vehicle when he was trying to pass as a normal, everyday law student. Also, if Ted drove Liz or Molly around I’m sure they would have been alarmed if the car’s door handle mysteriously disappeared. Personally, I think she stole this detail from Rhonda Stapley, who most likely got her serial killers mixed up: it was Ed Kemper who jacked up the passengers side door handle, often shoving something inside it (usually a tube of chapstick), preventing it from opening on the inside, essentially trapping the victim inside his deathwagon.

I’m only briefly touching on Ms. Stapley as I haven’t been to Utah yet and am not super well versed with her story. I do want to mention how similar it is to what happened to Sotria: both started at a bus stop and were able to escape their attacker. In 2016, Ms. Stapley shared her story with KUTV-2 out of Salt Lake City, telling them: ‘I was waiting for a city bus downtown by Liberty Park. A tan Volkswagen came by and offered me a ride and I got in.’ … ‘Instead of taking me back up to campus where he told me he was going to take me, we ended up in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and I was assaulted. I didn’t tell anyone for 40 years. I felt shame.’ Stapley claimed that on October 11, 1974, Bundy noticed her waiting at a bus stop in Utah and asked if she’d like a ride to her college campus. Instead, he took her to a deserted canyon, where he brutally raped and assaulted her for hours. Additionally, he strangled her multiple times to the brink of death then revived her: ‘he did that several times.’ … ‘Revive me and choke me again.’ Rhonda made her escape when Bundy turned his back on her and she bolted: ‘I was able to run. And then I tripped and fell into a mountain river that swept me away from my attacker and saved my life.’ She then hiked 10 miles back to her dormitory at the University of Utah and kept the secret to herself until 2016, when she published her book, ‘I Survived Ted Bundy: The Attack, Escape & PTSD that Changed My Life.’ About the attack, she said: ‘I bathed and just decided never to tell anybody.’ … ‘I was afraid that people would treat me differently if they knew what happened. I wanted to put it behind me and get on with my life, pretend it never happened.’ Now, I do NOT want to victim doubt or shame, I don’t know what happened to Rhonda and there’s only two people (maybe three) in the entire world that do: Ted, Rhonda, and the potential assailant if it wasn’t Bundy. I feel one of the most important things worth mentioning is, like Kritsonis, Rhonda claimed the passengers side door of the VW Beetle had no inside handle, and that’s why she couldn’t escape.

While doing research for this article I stumbled upon a piece written by Shane Lambert titled, ‘Bundy, His Timeline, and Sotria Kritsonis: Filling in a Gap,’ published on January 6, 2021. In it, he dissects Sotria’s story and claims based largely on information found in the ‘Ted Bundy Multiagency Team Report 1992,’ which has been described as ‘exhaustive documentation of Bundy’s activities… in the hopes that his suspected participation in crimes other than those he confessed to can be clarified’ (from the report’s ‘Director’s Comments’). Not only does it contain important events related to Ted’s murders (for example the time and places of where he was when he killed his confirmed victims), but it also includes normal, everyday events, like what supermarket he did his grocery shopping at and where he bought gas. Lambert comments that the news piece done by KIRO-7 is not entirely accurate because it doesn’t give complete information; for example, the exact date of Kritsonis’ encounter isn’t given as well as the address where the abduction occurred. But, in a way I sort of get that: Bundy was a hot topic at the time the story was on the news and people were clamoring for any information related to him. Plus, in a way it was just a fluff piece for a local news station, not a scholarly journal article that required every single minute detail. I mean, let’s say the story is true. It doesn’t help that it happened over 45 years ago, and the memory doesn’t usually improve with time. However, the general time frame in question was given (winter of 1972) and the location can be found (obviously, as I was able to go there). Now, did it occur in early 1972 or late 1972? Living in Buffalo I am well aware you can have snow at two completely different times of the year: beginning (January, February, and March), and end (October, November, December). Lambert feels (and I agree) that the alleged abduction most likely occurred in early 1972 because Kritsonis says she was 22 at the time and at the end of the year she would have been 23. Thus, the time frame in question is January to March of 1972, and there’s no information provided during that time period in the ‘TB Multi agency Report 1992.’ It shows an entry for Bundy on New Year’s Eve in 1971 then nothing until April 15th, 1972. The encounter between Bundy and Kritsonis appears to be somewhere in that period of time and if we take her story to be true, then it shows that he was active during this period.

I’m not going to talk about everything Lambert discussed in his article (you can read it yourself, I’ll include the link at the end) but another important thing I want to touch on is that the news piece says that Kritsonis saw Bundy on television a year and a half after her botched kidnapping. If this is true, and she did in fact see him on the news in 1973, then what was it related to? Ted didn’t get arrested until August 1975, seeing him on TV before then makes absolutely no sense. I mean, we all know about how Bundy posed as a college student during 1972’s election and that he secretly traveled with Governor’s Dan Evans Democratic opponent monitoring their campaign activities. That did make the news in August of 1973 and could have been when Sotria claims she saw, but I doubt it.

Like Lambert, I don’t believe this woman’s story, however I disagree with his timeline on when Bundy started killing: he thinks it was in 1974, however I feel the murders started years earlier and Lynda Ann Healy wasn’t his first victim (although I think he thought he killed Karen Sparks). Just my personal opinion, I guess I’ll elaborate more at a different time. I also did not read the ‘Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992’ so I can’t comment much on that either (in fact I didn’t know it existed until now). Lambert also pointed out that it was a coincidence a good amount of the victims had long dark hair parted down the middle, as it was the style at the time (I can attest to this, in a picture from 1974 my Mom is a dead ringer for Kathy Parks). However, not all of his victims had brown hair: Lynette Culvers hair was light blonde, and little Kim Leach had dirty blonde locks (both girls were coincidentally only 12 years old by the way, and were also Bundy’s youngest confirmed victims). It’s also worth mentioning that the only victim Ted admitted to letting go was a woman in Seattle who claimed she had a child waiting for her at home.

I do want to touch on another unconfirmed escaped victim briefly, just because I want to ‘share the wealth of Bundy-knowledge,’ so to speak. When I was in Seattle I didn’t sleep very well being away from my new husband so I spent many late nights going down the true crime rabbit hole, so to speak. One of the WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIRDEST things I discovered was a book written by another supposed living victim named Sara A. Survivor. The review on Amazon says, ‘Reconstructing Sara is not a ‘story.’ It is testimony. Anyone thinking of buying the book and expecting some dramatic recounting of events that reads like a story is going to be disappointed. Sara does not have the ability to do that even though she writes for a living. Her mind simply can’t function that way due to the severe trauma she sustained while under the control of Ted Bundy.’ In a nutshell, this woman claims to have been repeatedly raped and assaulted by Ted Bundy; she also alleges that Bob Keppel mocked victims and destroyed important evidence related to the Bundy case. About the author, Amazon says, ‘Sara A Survivor is a pseudonym for the actual victim of Ted Bundy. She is writing the book under a pseudonym to protect her identity as she continues to move through the healing process as a survivor and tries to rebuild her life. The impact of the kidnappings and ‘relationship’ with Ted developed through intimidation, stalking, rape and coercion, lasted nearly a lifetime. The memory loss of the events of that time period for so many decades delayed the healing; but she was lucky in that she survived. What happened to Sara may help others in similar situations.’ I don’t want to get too off topic but this is something worth looking into (if just because she’s a wacko and this is entertaining) and there’s a wealth of information on her website despite the book being out of print. Per Amazon, ‘Reconstructing Sara is being taken out of circulation to be rewritten by a professional writer with new areas of information added. The original version will be available to professionals only upon request. Reconstructing Sara is not a story, it is a testimony.’ Maybe I’ll do a separate piece on this at a later point in time (after I do my research), but I do want to comment that I couldn’t find a copy of this book ANYWHERE and I tried looking in some pretty unconventional spots. I got nada. So, the search continues.

I am good friends with Erin Banks, and before I even went to Seattle I remember being surprised when I stumbled upon her write-up on this victim, because I never heard about her. At the end of Ms. Banks article on her wonderfully written blog ‘The Crimepiper” was a comment left by Ms. Kritsonis’s brother defending his sister, saying something along the lines of ‘you didn’t see the look on her face that day she saw him on the news…’ I don’t know. I guess a part of me kind of gets it: he believes her, and wants to defend his sister, who he loves and wants to protect.

Now, keep in mind this is my personal opinion. Take this information and please formulate your own thoughts. I feel perhaps Ms. Kritsonis was briefly kidnapped by a man in a VW Bug (it was after all a very popular car at the time), but I don’t think it was Ted Bundy who did it. It just makes no sense to me, especially when she claims she saw him on TV only a year and a half later in 1973. Also, I don’t think her new haircut would have stopped him either, not when she was already in his vehicle, unable to escape. And why would he randomly ask her to take her hat off? It’s almost as if Kritsonis was searching for excuses that Bundy didn’t assault and take her life. That paired with the obvious door handle lie just doesn’t add up.

Please refer to the following for works cited:
https://kutv.com/news/local/survival-story-utah-woman-says-she-was-attacked-by-ted-bundy-and-lived-to-tell-about-it
https://reconstructingsara.com/
https://www.kiro7.com/living/dating/ted-bundy-kidnapping-victim-shares-story-of-1972-kidnapping-and-how-she-escaped/696691973/
http://missingpersonscommentary.blogspot.com/2021/01/ted-bundy-his-timeline-and-sotria.html

Kritsonis’ sophomore year picture from the 1965 Franklin High School yearbook.
A photo of Kritsonis in the 1970’s, courtesy of KIRO-7.
A photo of Sotria Kritsonis with her brown hair cut short, courtesy of KIRO-7.
A close-up of Kritsonis’ short haircut
Sotria Kritsonis in 2018, walking the route of her abduction with KIRO-7 reporter Dave Wagner.
A photo of Kritsonis as she give an interview to KIRO-7 reporter Dave Wagner, courtesy of KIRO-7.
A more current photo of Sotria Kritsonis, courtesy of Facebook.
A more current photo of Sotria Kritsonis, courtesy of Facebook.
A more current photo of Sotria Kritsonis, courtesy of Facebook.
TB’s whereabouts in early 1972 according to the ‘Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992.’
An article mentioning Bundy before his 1975 arrest published by The Tri-City Herald on May 17, 1973.
An article mentioning Bundy spying on Dan Evans Democratic opponent before his 1975 arrest published by The Olympian on August 29, 1973.
An older shot of the bus stop where Sotria Kritsonis said she was kidnapped from by Ted Bundy in 1972.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
A current shot of the scene across the street from where Sotria Kritsonis claims she was abducted from, 2022.
It’s worth noting that the water levels at the time Stapley claims she was assaulted in the canyon were checked by some dedicated Bundy researchers and they came to the conclusion that they weren’t high enough to have swept her away.
‘I said, ‘My name is Rhonda, and I’m a first-year pharmacy student.’ And he said, ‘My name is Ted, and I’m a first-year law student. It didn’t seem scary or wrong. He just seemed like a fellow college student,” said Stapley. ‘There was nothing alarming at all about him.’
A more current photo of Ms. Rhonda Stapley, who claims she was sexually assaulted by Bundy in 1975 but didn’t come forward with her story until 2016. ‘I thought he was going to kiss me & instead he said I’m going to kill you. And then he started strangling me.’
‘She was an innocent Mormon girl. He was America’s most notorious serial killer. When their paths crossed on a quiet autumn afternoon, he planned to kill her. But this victim had an incredible will to survive and would live to tell her story nearly three decades after he met death in a Florida electric chair. Ted Bundy brutally attacked Rhonda Stapley in a secluded Utah canyon in 1974. She miraculously escaped and hid her dark secret until now. This compelling real story of triumph over tragedy is both shocking and inspiring and told with the true courage of a victim turned survivor (foreword by Ann Rule).’
Sara A. Survivor, at the age of 17. Photo courtesy of reconstructingsara.com.
Sara with the 1972 Daffodil Princesses, photo courtesy of Facebook.
Here is a picture of the inside passengers side door of Bundy’s VW Beetle. You can clearly see the door handle is in perfect condition on the car. Today, Bundy’s tan 1968 VW Beetle is among the star attractions at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Edmund Emil Kemper III is an American serial killer who murdered six college students before murdering his mother and her best friend from September 1972 to April 1973, following his parole for murdering his paternal grandparents.
On the outside it seemed a harmless ride to the next destination, but inside was a murderous trap: Ed Kemper’s car was a used yellow 1969 Ford Galaxie 500 with a black interior and hardtop. He bought it with the money he received after suing a female driver after he broke his left arm in a motorcycle accident. Not long after he got the Ford Galaxie, he crashed it, causing some damage to the left rear fender. Kemper roughly patched the rear bumper and light himself and it was in this condition when he was arrested.
While driving around, he noticed a large number of young women hitchhiking, and began storing plastic bags, knives, blankets, and handcuffs in his car. He then began picking up girls and peacefully letting them go, and according to Kemper, he picked up around 150 hitchhikers before he began acting on his homicidal sexual urges, which he called his ‘little zapples.’ As a side note, the first thing that popped in my head after reading about this was BTK’s ‘factor X,’ which he described as the internal, insatiable drive to kill that he does not comprehend.
Heres an interesting tidbit: while in prison, Ed Kemper voiced many audio books, including Star Wars and Flowers in the Attic.
Ed Kempers deathwagon. He often jammed a foreign object (usually a chapstick tube) in the passengers side door handle so his victim couldn’t escape. Rhonda Stapley most likely confused her serial killers when she concocted her story in 2016.
A photo of Clarnell State after she was killed by her son, Edward Kemper on April 21, 1973.
Aside from having to travel to court a few days here and there, after the attack DaRonch said, ‘My life continued normally.’ … ‘I was able to detach myself from an event that could have ruined my life.’ … ‘It may not be a reasonable solution for everyone, but it is how I have been able to move on.’
Aside from an incident right after the attempted kidnapping, when a magazine-seller approached her car in a grocery store parking lot, DaRonch has expressed that she’s experienced no fear regarding the attempted kidnapping has lingered in her. However, she grew ‘more cautious around strangers, more aware of my surroundings and less trusting,’ however she didn’t allow Bundy to take up space in her head.
Bundy’s periodic trials were only pauses in her return to normalcy, including night classes and weekends away to the lake with her boyfriend. DaRonch went on to earn a degree in business management and has long worked in the telecommunications industry, where she met Michael, her current partner of over 15 years. They live together in a suburb of Salt Lake City, the same place she was living with her parents when Bundy first approached her. ‘Even reliving it now, I’m not entirely comfortable.’ … ‘I enjoy my anonymity, when I have it. I also realize that it is an important story to tell, and if someone can benefit in a positive way from it, then that’s what I want.’

Benjamin Lawrence “Larry” Baker.

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I’m not going to be able to post a full article but I just wanted to stop and talk about one of the unconfirmed victims families:

In 1974, Brenda Joy Baker was 14 when she was found brutally murdered in Pierce County, WA. Her older brother Benjamin Lawrence “Larry” Baker. (below) was born December 4, 1956 and passed away at 25 in 1982. Brenda’s younger brother was born in 1960 and sadly only lived until he was 21.

I’m re-watching Primes ‘Falling for a Killer,’ and listening to Lynda Ann Healy’s sister speak about how Bundy’s actions had lifelong effects on her family made me think of the Baker family. On top of losing their daughter (murder is such a senseless act), they also experienced two other very early losses; no parent should have to bury their children, and they buried all three. Some people are just born with tragedy in their blood.

Benjamin Baker.

Mom & Dad.

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Oh my Gosh look at the waves in my Dad’s hair! It’s got to be a 70’s thing.

I found myself watching him a lot today. For 46 years he was always part of a unit, and now he’s by himself. Going from the funeral home to my Aunts house for dinner earlier he asked my niece to drive with him, and typical kid she kind of sighed about it (the 30 foot walk from her Moms car to his was a tough one, I’ll admit) so I just went with him. I was grateful to have some one on one time with him, just the two of us. I found myself not wanting to leave him. I even thought about skipping my husband’s soccer game to spend more time with him. But I can’t be around him 24 hours a day. Charlie’s like, almost been standing guard over me and the hovering has been driving me a bit mad. But I know it’s done out of love.

Dying is a part of life. I firmly believe that. Going through pictures yesterday I found a little saying from an old Mary Englebrite calender glued onto one of my baby pictures. It said, ‘a baby is God’s way of saying life goes on.’ I thought that was fitting, especially since we’ve been trying to start a family. She’s still here, living on through me. And my sister and niece. She was wonderful.

Mom – Graduation Day.

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This is my Mom the day of her high school graduation. I can see the happiness and excitement about life in her eyes. Now she’s gone. At the end of her funeral my Dad carried her box of ashes to the back of the church. In 1978 they took the same walk together down the same isle when they got married. But todays journey had a completely different meaning. Life is so short, and so precious. And it’s moving really, really fast. She would have wanted me to live it up, and do as much as I can in the years I have left.

Grandma/Grandpa Letters from Korea.

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This will be the last post about my family, I promise. I’m almost done with my piece on Brenda Ball. I’m incredibly behind on my ASL class and I’m dreading checking my email (I’m putting it off until tomorrow morning). Anyways, these are some really neat old love letters my Grandfather sent to my Gram during the Korean War. They were a little older when they got married in 1954 (she was 32 AND two years older than him!), and I’ve always admired that my Gram waited for the right person. She didn’t marry the first attractive guy who looked her way. She’d always tell me not to commit to just one fellow and to date around… and she did, she’d date a few guys at once and not think anything of it. My Grandma had this classic, ol’ timey beauty to her that you don’t see often anymore, and my Grandfather looked like he had a really great sense of humor (he died when my Mom was 11). When I asked my Mom to tell me about her Dad, she said she remembers ‘a lot of giggling in the other room before bed.’ He loved to make her laugh. After he passed away she never had any interest in remarrying, or even dating. My Mom said Grandpa was her one great love and he was it. She wasn’t interested in anyone else. Whats strange is I feel the same way about my husband. All I ever wanted was to get married, to have what my parents had. I thought I had it a few times before him but (thankfully) was wrong. I think he’s the person God made for me, and if anything ever happens to him I’d be done. I hope I never have to worry about that.

Anyways, here’s the cards, and I included a picture of my Grandparents on their wedding day.

A picture of my Grandparents, Richard and Bernice Smith, on their wedding day.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 3/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 3/3.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 1/2.
A card from my Grandpa to my Gram, part 2/2.

Donna Gail Manson.

~ Another Bundy Blog. ~ Leave a comment

Donna Gail Manson was born on June 9, 1954 to Lyle Edward and Marie Elizabeth (nee Nilson) Manson in Olympia, WA. Mr. Manson was born on August 29, 1917 in Marion, Iowa and Mrs. Manson was born on May 9, 1923 in Auburn, WA. The couple were wed on December 4, 1952 and had two children together: Donna and her younger brother, James. An eagle scout and troop leader, Mr. Manson served in the Navy during World War II (he was a Pearl Harbor survivor), and upon returning home he continued with his education and graduated with his BA in music education from Coe College in June 1949; he went on to earn his Masters from Central Washington University in 1952 (which is the same college Susan Rancourt was abducted from), and after graduating he got a position as a music teacher for the Seattle school district. Marie Manson graduated from the University of Washington in 1949 with a BA in music education, and worked PT as a legal secretary; she was also the choir director at Auburn First United Methodist. Both Mr. and Mrs. Manson spent two years performing with the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.

Donna Manson is Ted Bundy’s third (known) victim. It was said by those that knew her that at the time she disappeared Donna was going through a rough time and was struggling with depression, but she showed interest in overcoming these obstacles. Despite suffering from bouts of melancholy and anxiety, Donna’s loved ones called her a ‘free spirit’ and said that she was known to hitchhike and frequently ‘couch surfed’ among friends. She was an intelligent young woman and earned good grades over the course of her academic career, and was working towards a Bachelors degree in English. Much like her parents, she loved music and the arts and was an accomplished flutist. Manson graduated from Auburn Senior High School in 1972 and attended Green River Community College for a short period of time before transferring to Evergreen State College. She had pale blue eyes and chocolate brown hair that she wore long and parted down the middle; she was small in stature and stood at only five feet tall, and weighed a mere 100 pounds.

The campus at Evergreen State College is less than ten miles east of Olympia and was built in an isolated, remote spot surrounded by a dense forest of evergreen trees. A small, liberal arts school, in the fall of 1974 its enrollment wasn’t even at 3,000, and some of the more conservative Washington state residents complained about its high per-student cost of operation and ‘hippie-like atmosphere.’ One lawmaker even complained during a speech about how the students’ dogs were peeing on the expensive carpets in the schools library (which was ironically named the Daniel J. Evans Library, after the state governor that Bundy worked for).

On the day of her abduction, Donna planned on going to a folk dancing class at her schools activities building, and later that same night, she made plans to go to a jazz concert at the Daniel J. Evans Library (which was also on school grounds), which was scheduled to start at 8 PM. She lived in room 206 of the C building on Evergreens campus, and according to her roommates earlier in the evening Donna played her flute a bit and ate some beef vegetable soup (she even left some of it out in a pot on the stove). They also noticed that she seemed unusually focused on her appearance that evening, going so far as to switch outfits several times before eventually settling on a red, orange, and green striped shirt, blue (or green) slacks, a fuzzy black full-length coat (that used to belong to her grandmother), an oval-shaped brown agate ring, and a Bulova Caravell wrist watch. Despite this detail, Manson did not share any details about a date or meet-up with her friends. The night prior to her disappearance Donna spoke with her mother on the phone, and the two discussed her idea of taking a trip to the ocean during her upcoming spring recess. Regarding this, Marie Manson said it sounded like a good idea that they get away for a few days, and despite the ongoing gas shortage of the 70’s said that the family would ‘find a way.’

Donna departed her dormitory shortly after 7 PM on March 12, 1974 and set out for the dance class, which should have been just a two minute walk across campus. However, despite how close the College Activities Building was to her dormitory no one recalled seeing her at either the class or the jazz recital, meaning it is highly unlikely that she ever made it that far. She left behind all of her personal effects, money, and clothing.

Perhaps it was because of her free spirit and habit of hitchhiking and leaving for days at a time, but when Manson didn’t return home that night no one seemed very alarmed: it took her roommates a full six days to report her missing to the authorities, which is why newspapers didn’t start reporting on her disappearance until March 22, 1974, a full ten days after she was last seen. Several days after her disappearance some local police officers went to the Manson family home in Auburn to tell them that Donna had run away from school, news that made her mother immediately feel uneasy, and she immediately knew that: ‘she hasn’t run away, something’s happened to her.’

Perhaps it was because of her free spirit, her habit to leave for days at a time, or her habit to hitchhike but when Manson didn’t come back that night no one was very alarmed. In fact, it took her roommates a full six days to report her missing to the authorities, which is why newspapers didn’t start reporting about her disappearance until March 22, a full ten days later. Following Donna’s disappearance, on four different occasions search teams of up to 200 people combed the 990 acre college campus with the assistance of tracking dogs. Despite their best efforts, investigators were unable to find not one single trace of the missing girl: she had literally vanished out of thin air.

After he got the news that his daughter was missing, Lyle Manson immediately drove to the Evergreen campus to see if he could find out more information about what may have happened to her. When he arrived, Thurston County Detective Paul Barclift tried to reassure him by saying: ‘maybe she just went off somewhere with some boyfriend. That’s the way these things usually turn out around here.’ Manson’s stern Scotsman’s face showed cold disagreement, and in response he said: ‘no, Donna had no need to run away. We’ve always given her freedom.’ He and the detective walked from the parking lot to her residence hall, and together they looked through the items in her bedroom: she had left behind all her clothes, toiletries, and other personal items one would need if leaving for any period of time, and amongst her belongings Mr. Manson found her camera and flute, and it was then that he knew that something was seriously wrong. Following Donna’s disappearance, search teams of up to 200 people combed the 990 acre college campus with the assistance of tracking dogs on four separate occasions, but despite their best efforts not one trace of her was ever recovered: she had literally vanished out of thin air.

The guard also told investigators that he remembered seeing Donna around campus prior to her disappearance and recalled that when he last saw her she was wearing a long fur coat, a fact that her roommates corroborated. This strongly hints that he wasn’t mistaken and did in fact see Manson on the night she was abducted, meaning that she either got sidetracked by something (or someone, like a man with his arm in a sling asking for help) on her way to the dance class, or she lied to her roommates about what her plans were. Many Bundy sleuths believe that Ted approached the 19-year-old asking for help as she was walking toward the library, where others strongly feel that the two may have been acquainted previously (somehow) and that they had made plans to meet up that night. He liked to frequent college campuses, did he go to Evergreen at an earlier time and run into Donna? Maybe the two planned a secret rendezvous and she told her roommates that she was going somewhere else in an attempt to get them off her back? Obviously they would have started asking questions had they known she was going out with a guy, and when they found out she had plans to meet up with a 27 year old that she barely knew, then surely they would have persuaded her to not go.

Donna was into many things that would typically be considered ‘mysterious and dark,’ and had an interest in topics like death, the occult, and alchemy; when investigators searched her room they found several class listings on positive thinking and mind discipline from a local Olympia business called ‘The Institute of Insight’ (casual Bundy acquaintance Ann Rule incorrectly referred to it as the ‘Institute of the ESP’ in her 1980 book ‘The Stranger Beside Me’). It was mostly because of Manson’s unconventional interests that detectives initially wondered if maybe she had killed herself, and it wasn’t until a psychiatrist read through her journals and said that it was in his professional opinion that she wasn’t suicidal and most likely did not take her own life that they changed their minds. Donna’s habit of hitchhiking put her in a higher risk pool compared to other coeds, and it was very concerning to detectives, who felt that there was a possibility that she was picked up by the individual that killed her. Because her roommates did not see her take a backpack or a change of clothes with her on the evening she disappeared, LE deduced that she was not planning on going anywhere that evening and had no plans on hitchhiking.

The most widely believed theory was that Bundy grabbed Donna in a Georgann Hawkins-esque grab as she was on her way to the dance class that evening in March 1974: the route that she most likely took from her dormitory to the folk dancing class was only 350 yards away, and should have only been about a two minute walk, and because of the short distance involved it has been theorized that Ted grabbed Manson almost immediately after she left. One possible scenario could be that he may have approached her (perhaps while using crutches or an arm sling) in a nearby parking lot (lot F) and asked her to assist him with carrying something to his car. Another idea is that Bundy parked his car on Hidden Springs Drive, which is close to the c-dormitory and connects the area around the library with Driftwood Road, and is incredibly close to the route that Donna would have walked to get to the folk dancing class. But because traffic on campus was unusually high that evening because of three different events taking place, it stands to reason that both areas would have been pretty busy at the time, and a careful Bundy wouldn’t have taken the chance of getting caught. But at the same time… he was a known risk taker, especially while under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, so we can’t completely rule it out (and keep in mind that it worked out for him).

Mostly because Olympia is over an hour away from where Bundy’s other Washington state victims were abducted from, Manson’s case was not immediately connected to the other Seattle disappearances, and it wasn’t until more women started to disappear that it became clear that her case was a part of a much bigger puzzle. There was a (brief) period where (former) Thurston County Sheriff Don Redmond wondered if maybe there was a slavery ring nabbing young women from the area, but this was quickly ruled out. Unfortunately, we will never know exactly what happened to Donna on the evening she disappeared, as there are very few confirmed details regarding her disappearance. Due to the abduction taking place right before spring break detectives were not able to interview many of the eyewitnesses until weeks later, after their memories were dulled by time (maybe if her roommates reported her abduction earlier LE would have stood a chance of getting some worthwhile information).

In his previous two abductions/murders, Bundy broke into his victims’ houses and assaulted them while they were sleeping, but in the case of Donna Manson he completely switched up his MO and took her from a public place… I also wonder if perhaps this was the first time that he used the fake injury ruse? The dates of credit card receipts that were listed in the ‘TB Multiagency Report 1992’ prove that Bundy frequented the Olympia area at least 25 times in 1973 alone, so it would be reasonable to assume that he knew the area fairly well; this also falls in line with the theory that (most) serial killers prefer to operate in places that they are familiar with, and feel comfortable being in.

On August 29, 1978 two fishermen that were walking on Highway 7 southwest of Eatonville, WA discovered a human skull in the foothills of Mount Rainier; further searches by local investigators turned up additional bones, hair, and clothes that matched the description of the ones that Donna Manson was last seen wearing four years prior. Unfortunately, law enforcement lost everything before a positive ID could be made (although apparently color photographs were taken) and to this day she is classified as a missing person. Bundy confessed to her murder as a last ditch effort to avoid the electric chair in January 1989 and told investigators that he buried her remains at Taylor Mountain but burned her skull to ashes in his then-girlfriends Liz’s fireplace. He also told Robert Keppel that he didn’t remember much about the event because he was so drunk but did recall that it was ‘nightmarish, blurry, and incoherent.’

Retired Pierce County detective Roy Durham said that he felt the bones did not appear to go back as far as 1974 and did not appear to suffer from any blunt force trauma to the head (which is common in Bundy victims). Unfortunately, the skeletal remains were destroyed after being examined by a forensic dentist (who determined there was a strong possibility that the skeleton belonged to Manson) and most additional information (such as x-rays) related to the case were lost during a ‘routine purge’ of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Personally, I wonder if the remains found in 1978 belonged to a different (unknown) Bundy victim. I know people will argue that he was in prison by that time and wouldn’t have been able to commit a murder in his home state, but even law enforcement admitted they weren’t sure when victim was killed, just that it probably wasn’t in 1974. 

During Ted’s interview with Dr. Keppel he claimed that he left Manson’s body ‘up in the mountains,’ and although it was the same place where he disposed of Brenda Ball, Lynda Ann Healy, Susan Rancourt and Roberta Parks, he specified that he left her in a slightly different place than the others:

Keppel: ‘OK. How about Donna Manson? The girl from Thurston County, Olympia. Where is she?’
B: ‘Where is she? She should be… on Taylor Mountain.’
K: ‘Was she dumped out along the power line too or on a different road?’
B: ‘That was different. That was different.’
K: ‘What was different about it?’
B: ‘Well, where she was, relative to the power line road.’
K: ‘You told me before that Donna might be buried.’
B: ‘Yea. Do you have any pictures of the site?’

Bundy then pointed out a spot on a map where he thinks he left Donna’s remains, but clarified that search teams would never find her skull because it was ‘nowhere’ (Bundy’s words, not mine). When Keppel pressed Ted about that he claimed to have completely incinerated it then vacuumed up the ash that remained behind. Later searches of that area failed to find anything related to a human skeleton (keep in mind he admitted to being inebriated at the time of the abduction so he probably directed them to the wrong place). He explained: ‘it’s a lot of work and certainly very risky, under the circumstances. I mean, the kids come home from school and there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace and it’s warm outside.’

Now, there are holes in that story so big I can drive my VW Beetle through them: throughout the duration of his murder spree Bundy was (surprisingly) good about avoiding detection (although I firmly believe he may never have been caught if he wasn’t such a shitty driver), so I have a really hard time believing that he smuggled an entire HUMAN HEAD into his girlfriend’s apartment (which goes without saying is a huge risk). Additionally, burning a skull in a residential fireplace would not have been an easy feat: in order to transform human bone into ash, the fire would need to get to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (which can be done with the use of an accelerant), and even if he was able to get it that hot, there would still be pieces of bone left behind.

What I think most likely happened: Ted attempted to burn Donna’s skull in Liz’s apartment but partway through realized how difficult of an ordeal it was (plus, burnt hair smells ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE, and at the time of her murder she had a lot of it) and took the pieces that didn’t turn to ash and disposed of them in a different way (as awful as this sounds, perhaps they were so small he was able to put them in the household garbage?). Another reason to doubt Bundy’s story is that he said it was ‘warm outside’ when be burned the skull, and according to records the temperature range during the week after Mansons disappearance in Seattle was between 49°F to 57°F, and it remained on the cooler side until March 26th. So, that makes me think Ted was either lying about the weather or he got his dates mixed up and the event took place roughly two weeks after the murder. It is often wondered if Bundy made up the incident entirely just to hurt Kloepfer, who had cut all ties with him by the time he shared that information… but, at the end of the day, he was a habitual liar that rarely told the truth. And let’s say this ONE TIME Ted wasn’t lying: he has evaded telling anyone what really happened for so long, why would anyone actually believe him (especially when he was trying to avoid the electric chair). Keep in mind that only minutes before he told Keppel about incinerating Manson’s skull, he cracked a ‘joke’ about how much press his confession would generate.

The following is a conversation between Bundy and Robert Keppel regarding Manson:
Robert Keppel: ‘What about Donna Mason?’
Bundy: ‘I won’t beat around the bush with you anymore because I’m just tired and want to get back to sleep. So let me tell you, I know part of her is buried up there, the head however, wouldn’t be there.’
RK: ‘Where is it now?’
TB: ‘It’s nowhere. I’m not trying to be flippant. It’s in a category all by itself. It was incinerated. It was an exception, a strange exception.’
RK: ‘Where did you incinerate it?’
TB: ‘I promised myself I’d never tell this. In her fire place. That’s not really that humorous , but I mean , the fireplace at her house… that was the twist . It’s a lot of work and certainly very risky, under the circumstances. I mean, the kids come home from school, there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace, and it’s warm outside.’

On August 28th, 1978, two fishermen discovered the skeleton of a young female in the foothills of Mount Rainier near Eatonville, about 60 miles away from Bundy’s Taylor Mountain dump site. Despite multiple newspapers reporting that the missing skeleton belonged to Manson, the facts do not seem to line up: ‘The News Tribune’ reported that the skeleton Pierce County sheriffs discovered was 5’7”, and Donna was only 5 feet tall. Also, the remains were discovered wearing blue jeans, where Donna’s roommates said she was wearing a pair of green (or blue) pants the night she disappeared. Investigators also showed photographs of the clothing found on the skeleton to Manson’s parents and her mother was quick to say that she didn’t recognize the top as belonging to her daughter. The report also said the victim was somewhere between 12 and 17 years old where Donna was 19 at the time she disappeared.

Mr. Manson passed away on December 31, 2007; Donna’s mother died on May 26, 2014 in Auburn, WA. James Manson is still alive and currently lives in Seattle; he is the owner of ‘Axis Stainless Fabrication,’ and works with metal, and just by doing some quick research it appears that he is an expert in his field and has his work on display at the Seattle Art Museum. It doesn’t surprise me that Donna’s brother turned into a successful artist, it’s in his genes.

Donna Manson, clad in the long black coat that she was last seen wearing. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
Donna Manson.
Donna Manson’s student identification photo from 1973.
Donna Manson.
Donna Manson.
A picture of Donna Manson. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
Donna Manson.
Donna Manson and an unknown male friend. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
A picture of a friend that Donna Manson took. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
Another picture of a friend that Donna Manson took. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
Another picture that Manson took of a friend. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department.
Some pictures Donna Manson took. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department..
A hand-written note card from Donna Manson to her parents. Photo courtesy of Erin Banks/CrimePiper.
A typed letter from Donna to a friend named Sally W. in Indonesia; it was found on her desk but never mailed. Photo courtesy of Erin Banks/CrimePiper.
A letter to Marie Manson from Donna’s friend, Megan Ellis. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department/’hi: I’m Ted.’

A note found in Donna’s room. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department/’hi: Im Ted.’
A newspaper clipping about Donna Manson’s disappearance.
The front of an article published by the Cooper Point Journal on July 11, 1974; as you can see, Donna is featured on the front. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
A blurb on the jazz concert that Donna was planning on attending from the Evergreen State College newsletter published on March 8, 1974. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
The Evergreen State College Newsletter from the week of March 11, 1974 mentioning the jazz concert Donna was planning on attending. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
An excerpt from Donna Manson’s police report. Photo courtesy of ThisInterestsMe.
Thurston County Sheriff Don Redmond floated the theory that Donna’s disappearance was related to a white slavery ring. Photo courtesy of ThisInterestsMe.
A page from Donna Manson’s missing persons report.
A blurb from Donna’s missing persons report.
A memo from Evergreen Campus Security Chief Rod Marrom to Thurston County Detective Paul Barclift. Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department/’hi: I’m Ted.’
A letter to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department related to the Manson case.
A handwritten report about Donna’s disappearance from the Thurston County Sheriffs Department.
An aerial view of the Evergreen State College campus from 1974.
A: Residence halls.
B: Library.
C: C&N Road. 
Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
An old 1970’s b&w picture of Evergreen State College.
An old 1970’s b&w picture of Evergreen State College.
A path to residence halls from the 1970’s. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
A more rural area of the Evergreen State campus. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
Evergreen State College.
A security booth at Evergreen State College.
One of the entrances to Evergreen State College.
Evergreen State College.
Evergreen State College.
A sign for the Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College.
The Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College.
The Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College; the concert took place on the first floor.
The entrance of the Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College.
The Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College.
The windows at the Daniel J. Evans Library at Evergreen State College.
A student reading outside Dorm C from the 1970’s. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
The entrance to the dorms at Evergreen State College; Donna lived in the ‘C-building,’ and her exact mailing address was ‘4319 Indian Pipe Loop NW / ℅ Evergreen State College / Olympia WA, 98505.
The dorms at Evergreen State College
The dorms at Evergreen State College.
The C-dorm at Evergreen State College where Donna Manson lived when she was murdered.
A trail at Evergreen State College.
A trail behind the dorms at Evergreen State College.
A trail behind the dormitories at Evergreen State College.
The bridge on Madrona Beach Road at Perry Creek from November 2018. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.
A display of the trails available to walk on the Evergreen State College campus.
A display at Evergreen State College.
A display at Evergreen State College.
A map of Evergreen State College.
A map of Evergreen State College.
A map of Evergreen State College.
This old map of the Evergreen State College campus is from the 1975–1977 course catalog; the relevant locations are notated with red dots. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
The News Tribune broke the story about the missing skeletons on December 2nd, 1996. Photo courtesy of ‘ThisInterestsMe.’
At the time of her disappearance Donna lived in room 206 in the C building. Photo courtesy of ‘ThisInterestsMe.’
This satellite map shows the most likely route that Donna Manson took while she was walking between her dorm room and the library area. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
This aerial image shows the College Activities Building and the library. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
Another theory surrounding Donna Manson’s abduction is that Bundy parked his car on Hidden Springs Drive, which connects the area around the library with Driftwood Road to the north. It is also very close to the route she would have taken the night she vanished. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
This aerial image illustrates how close Manson’s dorm building was to Parking Lot F; its roughly a five minute walk. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
This route is only 0.1 miles long: less than two minute walk. Photo courtesy of ‘ThisInterestsMe.’
This aerial map shows Donna’s dorm, Parking Lot F, and the C&N road that she was seen walking along (the buildings above the C&N road were digitally removed because they did not exist at the time of Donna’s disappearance). Photo courtesy of OddStops.
In police reports, the road is labelled as C&N Road and on Google Maps it is called Overhulse Place. Photo courtesy of ‘ThisInterestsMe.’
This is a section of the pathway between Donna’s dorm and the library; the red arrow points in the direction she would have been walking in. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
When she wasn’t staying at her college dorm Donna lived at this home at 124 O St NE in Auburn with her parents at the time of her disappearance.
Taylor Mountain, April 2022.
An article about Donna’s disappearance published in The News Tribune. It was published on March 22, 1974, ten days after she disappeared.
An article on Donna from The Daily Olympian published on March 24, 1974.
An article about the search for Donna Manson published in The Olympian on March 24, 1974.
An article about Donna’s disappearance published in The Daily Herald on March 30, 1974.
An article about Donna Manson published in The Daily Olympian on March 30, 1974.
An article about Donna Manson published in The Daily Chronicle on March 30, 1974.
An article on Donna Manson’s disappearance from The Daily Olympian published on April 2, 1974.
A newspaper blurb about a reward for any information leading to the discovery of Donna Manson published in The Daily Chronicle on April 3, 1974.
An article mentioning Donna’s disappearance published in The Daily Chronicle on April 6, 1974.
The first part of an article about Donna Manson published by The Auburn Globe-News on April 17, 1974.
The second part of an article about Donna Manson published by The Auburn Globe-News on April 17, 1974.
An article about the missing Washington state coeds that mentions Donna published in The News Tribune on May 29, 1974.
An article about Donna’s disappearance published in The Olympian on June 18, 1974.
An article about mentioning Donna published in The Spokane Chronicle on June 19, 1974; the victim they’re referring to is actually Brenda Joy Baker.
An article mentioning Donna’s disappearance published in The Olympian on July 2, 1974.
An article about the missing Washington state coeds mentioning Donna published in The Columbian on July 3, 1974.
An article mentioning Donna’s disappearance published in The News Tribune on July 5, 1974.
An article mentioning Donna’s disappearance published in The News Tribune on July 28, 1974.
The first part of an article published by the Cooper Point Journal on August 11, 1974. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
The second part of an article published by the Cooper Point Journal on August 11, 1974. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
An article about the missing Seattle woman published in The Longview Daily News on August 27, 1974.
An article about the Issaquah dump site mentioning Donna Manson that was published in The News Tribune on September 13, 1974.
An article mentioning the disappearance of Donna Manson published by The Kitsap Sun on September 14, 1974.
An article about a murdered coed from Evergreen State that mentions Donna Manson published in The News Tribune on•October 4, 1974.
An article about Donna’s disappearance in The Daily-Herald-Tribune on March 5, 1975.
An article about Donna’s disappearance in The Spokesman-Review on March 8, 1975.
An article about Donna’s disappearance in The Daily Chronicle on March 14, 1975.
An article that mentions the disappearance of Donna Manson published in The News Tribune on March 18, 1975.
An article mentioning Donna’s disappearance in The Spokesman-Review on October 16, 1975.
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An article about the remains that were found in the foothills of Mount Rainier in August 1978 that mentions Donna Manson.
Seven of the eight Seattle Bundy victims… notice anyone missing? Detectives were hesitant to include Brenda Ball in with the other girls because she was a little older than them and not a college student (also she was away from a college setting and was a known hitchhiker). Ironically hers was the first skull found on Taylor Mountain.
A map of where the missing Washington women went missing compared to one another. Picture courtesy of the King County Archives.
An picture of the suspect from an article published by The Cooper Point Journal on August 8, 1974. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
A missing poster for Donna Manson. Photo courtesy of ‘hi: I’m Ted.’
A missing poster for Donna Manson. photo courtesy of ‘Ted Bundy: I was Trying to Think like an Elk.’

A missing poster for Donna Manson. Photo courtesy of ‘hi: I’m Ted.’
Photo courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department/’hi: I’m Ted.’
A photo of Ted and Liz cuddling in front of the fireplace he may have used to incinerate Donna Manson’s skull. Photo courtesy of Liz Kloepfer.
A graph of the temperature range in Seattle from March 1974. Photo courtesy of OddStops.
Information about ‘The Institute of Insight,’ photo courtesy of Captain Borax.
Information about classes offered at ‘The Institute of Insight,’ photo courtesy of Captain Borax.
Information about classes offered at ‘The Institute of Insight,’ photo courtesy of Captain Borax.
A World War II Bonus Case File related to Lyle Edward Manson.
Donna’s parents marriage certificate from December 1952.
A short newspaper blurb about Lyle Manson published in The Gazette on November 9, 1941.
Mr. Manson from the 1953 Auburn High School yearbook.
Donna Manson’s father Lyle in 1956, sadly he passed away in December of 2007 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Photo courtesy of Erin Banks.
Donna Manson’s father Lyle. Photo courtesy of Erin Banks.
A newspaper blurb from a Seattle fishing club mentioning Lyle Manson.
The gravestone of Lyle Manson.
Marie Manson’s junior year photo from the 1940 Auburn High School yearbook.
Donna’s parents wedding announcement published in The Gazette on November 30, 1952.
A picture of Donna Manson’s Mother, Marie Elizabeth (nee Nilson) Manson was born on May 9, 1923 and passed on May 6, 2014 at the age of 91. Photo courtesy of findagrave.
Donna’s Mother, Marie Elizabeth (nee Nilson) Manson. Photo courtesy of FindaGrave.
James Manson’s senior year picture from the 1978 Auburn High School yearbook.
A more recent picture of James Manson. Photo courtesy of Facebook.
Some of Jim Manson’s artwork. Photo courtesy of Facebook.
Ted Bundy and a dog.
A Google Maps view of how to get from the Rogers Rooming House to Evergreen State College.
An article published by the Cooper Point Journal on October 16, 1975 after Bundy’s arrest. Photo courtesy of the Evergreen State College Archives.
Bundy’s activities on March 12, 1974 according to the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report.’