Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [47]
Bundy’s first victim was Sharon Clarke of Seattle. He had broken into her apartment while she was asleep and smashed her around the head with a metal rod. She suffered a shattered skull, but survived. She could not identify her attacker and no motivation for the attack has been given.
Then young women began to disappear from the University of Washington campus nearby. Six disappeared within seven months. At the Lake Sammanish resort in Washington State, a number of young women reported being approached by a young man calling himself Ted. He had his arm in a sling and asked them to help get his sailing boat off his car. But in the car park they found that there was no boat on the car. Ted then said that they would have to go to his house to get it. Sensibly, most declined. Janice Ott seems to have agreed to go with him. She disappeared. A few hours later, Denise Naslund also disappeared from the same area. She had been seen in the company of a good-looking, dark-haired young man who fitted Ted Bundy’s description. The remains of Janice Ott, Denise Naslund and another unidentified young woman were later found on wasteland, where their bodies had been eaten and scattered by animals.
Other witnesses came forward from the University of Washington, saying that they had seen a man wearing a sling and some other bodies were found, again disposed of on waste ground.
The police had two suspects. Ex-convict Gary Taylor had been picked up by the Seattle police for abducting women under false pretences. And park attendant Warren Forrest picked up a young woman who consented to pose for him. He took her to a secluded part of the park, tied her up and stripped her naked. He taped her mouth and fired darts at her breasts. Then he raped her, strangled her and left her for dead. But she survived and identified her attacker. Both were in custody though, and the attacks continued. Bundy’s girlfriend, who was beginning to suspect something was up, called anonymously, giving his name, but it disappeared among the thousands of other leads the police had to follow up.
Bundy began to travel further afield. On 2 October 1974 he abducted Nancy Wilcox after she left an all-night party in Salt Lake City. In Midvale on 18 October, he raped and strangled Melissa Smith, the daughter of the local police chief. Her body was found in the Wasatch Mountains. He took Laura Aimee from a Hallowe’en party in Orem, Utah. Her naked body was found at the bottom of a canyon.
In Salt Lake City a week later, he approached a girl named Carol DaRonch. Bundy pretended to be a detective and asked her the licence number of her car. Someone had tried to break into it, he said. He asked her to accompany him to the precinct to see the suspect. She got into his car, but once they were in a quiet street he handcuffed her.
She began to scream. He put a gun to her head. She managed to get out of the door and Bundy chased after her with a crowbar. He took a swing at her skull, but she managed to grab the bar. A car was coming down the street. Carol jumped in front of it, forcing it to stop. She jumped in and the car drove away.
Carol gave a good description to the police, but Bundy continued undeterred. He tried to pick up a pretty young French teacher outside her high school. She declined to go with him. But Debbie Kent did. She disappeared from a school playground where a key to a pair of handcuffs was later found.
The following January in Snowmass Village, a Colorado ski resort, Dr Raymond Gadowsky found that his fiancée, Caryn Campbell, was missing from her room. A month later, her naked body was found out in the snow. She had been raped and her skull had been smashed in. Julie Cunningham vanished from nearby Vail and the remains of Susan Rancourt