The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (29 page)

On Saturday, August 23, 1975, two students exploring an old mine shaft close to Berthoud Pass (some 40 miles west of Golden) discovered the decaying, nude body of a woman. She'd been bound with duct tape, and little to no evidence was subsequently recovered by detectives. The only certainty was that Shelley Robertson had been murdered and dumped like so much refuse in an abandoned mine shaft, where discovery of the body was essentially assured. It was only a matter of time, and her killer knew this.

What is quite interesting is that Golden was the place Bundy chose to buy gas on his last two trips to Colorado. He could have filled up at any of the numerous small communities west of Denver, but, like a creature of habit, he stopped in Golden, just as he had stopped in Silverthorne and other spots more than once. This proves nothing. Anyone could have killed Shelley Robertson. But given that his whereabouts are in question that day, that his new hunting ground had recently become Colorado, and that he'd stopped in this very locale on two recent occasions, he certainly can't be ruled out. If Theodore Bundy was anything, he was completely unpredictable, and this is why it was proving so difficult to catch him.

A second murder which is often attributed to him is the bizarre abduction (or disappearance) of Nancy Baird, twenty-three, from a Fina gas station in Layton (Davis County), about 25 miles north of Salt Lake City. It was an exceedingly strange disappearance, but something Bundy would have attempted. Given his success at pulling off the unthinkable, he can't be ruled out of this one either. Indeed, the entire scenario seems to have Ted Bundy's metaphorical footprints all over it. Nancy was working in a busy place of business one minute, and gone the next. At 5:30 P.M. on July 4, there should have been more than a regular flow of traffic. According to her boss, her purse was still there along with the money from her recently cashed check. Her car was in the lot, locked and in the same place she'd parked it when she showed up for work. No one witnessed anything, neither were there signs of a struggle. Just like Georgann Hawkins, Lynda Ann Healy, Julie Cunningham, Caryn Campbell, and all the others who perished at the hands of Theodore Bundy, Nancy Baird was simply gone, and gone without a trace.

The remains of Nancy Baird have never been recovered.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Friday night, August 15, 1975, had been a night of trolling. When Bundy awoke that morning, he had at least twenty-two murders under his belt. At no time had he ever come close to being apprehended (except in the women's dorm at Idaho State University), and given the fact that he felt absolutely at ease transporting bodies and body parts (he had at least four heads of the Washington victims at the Rogers's rooming house at one time), there was little that would have given him pause about his future activities. He was, he believed, impervious to detection and arrest. But that was about to change.

According to statements made later, Bundy maintained that that Friday night was simply a night of cruising around in his dependable VW Bug while he smoked dope. Reading his explanation makes it sound natural and innocent. There could be no denying what he had become, but he insisted on the innocence of the events of that evening, as though he truly had no evil motivations. He as much as said, "See, I shouldn't have been stopped; I wasn't doing anything wrong. How could they?" Knowing his history, however, and the true depths of his depravity, it's easy to see his declarations for the lies they are. Ted Bundy was not just a successful killer, but also an accomplished liar. He would have enjoyed nothing more than to have found a pretty young woman sticking out her thumb that evening, just as he had found Laura Aime after midnight on the last day of October, 1974. He was hunting then, and he was hunting on this night as well, make no mistake about it.

It must have been somewhat surprising when, at 2:30 A.M. on the morning of August 16, Theodore Bundy saw the headlights of a vehicle coming towards him suddenly go bright, and it momentarily startled him. Unknown to Bundy, the person behind those piercing headlights was Sergeant Bob Hayward of the Utah Highway Patrol. Bundy's time of secrecy was almost at an end.

The homicidal law student had been sitting in his car with the lights off, smoking a joint, and studying (perhaps half-heartedly) a map of Salt Lake City and its environs, so he could ascertain exactly where he'd ended up and how to get back home. With the sudden burst of light, he did the one thing he shouldn't have. He quickly slammed his left foot into the clutch pedal, shifted into first gear, hit the gas, and in a movement reminiscent of popping the clutch, jumped the car forward in an effort to get away. Stupidly, he kept his headlights turned off. This was an invitation for Hayward to pursue, and with the help of his searchlight, which bathed Bundy's car in an eerie red glow, he followed along as the Bug ran through one, and then two stop signs. At this point when Bundy was exiting a subdivision and turning onto the main road, he finally pulled the light switch and saw the highway before him. This didn't matter to Hayward, as he had no intention of letting the VW get away. Bundy had invaded Hayward's own neighborhood, a neighborhood that had seen a rash of burglaries, and in the patrolman's mind, this might be one of the thieves.

As Bundy attempted to increase his speed on 35 South he knew escape was fruitless, so he whipped his VW into the lot of an abandoned gas station and prepared to pour on the charm. Although the distinctive smell of marijuana still hung in the air around him, at some point during his feeble flight he threw what pot he had out the window.

Hayward, who had already called for backup, watched the door open and a man with "fuzzy shoulder length hair" emerge.' He was dressed in a dark turtleneck, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Understanding the possible dangers awaiting him, he kept his eyes trained on this stranger as he opened his door and stepped out of his patrol car. With his right hand resting on his .38 revolver, he asked to see the man's license. With a smile, he retrieved it from his car.

Bundy couldn't have known it at the time, but this was the moment when those slips of the tongue at Lake Sammamish would come back to haunt him. His careless use of his first name on that hot summer day had given investigators in Washington their first possible clue as to the identity of the killer, and within days they would discover the murderer also drove a VW Beetle. This information would be the catalyst causing Liz to first suspect him, and then turn his name in to authorities, like Bundy's former professor and another individual had done. All of this would eventually place him on the top 100 suspects list for King County detectives. Even this didn't mean he'd wind up a likely suspect, as police had considered him and felt he didn't fit the profile. However, if a connection could be made between Bundy and the crimes now occurring in Utah, the scales would fall from the eyes of the Seattle investigators and they would begin seeing him for what he was. The traffic stop set this in motion. The unveiling of Theodore Robert Bundy was about to occur.

Using his flashlight, Sergeant Hayward studied the information, and in a move which may have seemed a bit odd, read the name and address of the suspect aloud while Bundy stared at him. Following this, he questioned why he was in the area (just driving around, Bundy told him) and reminded him of the several traffic violations he'd just committed. He told Bundy to remain next to his unmarked vehicle while the veteran lawman - the younger brother of Captain Pete Hayward of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office homicide squad-walked over to the VW Beetle for a look inside.

Using his flashlight, the first thing he noticed was the passenger seat, detached and lying in the back seat. In its place were a brown gym bag, apparently open, with the contents, the tools of the trade of murder, spilling out. Those contents, as described by a deputy in Bundy's initial arrest report, were "one nylon white rope approximately 7' in length. One tan with dark brown stripe ski mask. One brown cotton glove with a leather hand grip, one Sears model 6577 pry bar, one black leather ski glove, one pair of panty hose with eye and nose holes cut out, one box of Glad trash bags, one every [sic] Ready captains brand flashlight, one piece of orange wire, 4' in length, one ice pick with a red handle, eight strips of white sheet material cloth different lengths."' Discovered later in the trunk was a pair of handcuffs.

The contents of Ted Bundy's murder kit laid bare for the world to see (courtesy Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, and King County Archives).

As Hayward was eyeing the strange contents of the satchel Bundy had with him, Sergeant John Fife and Deputy Steven Twitchell arrived on the scene, soon followed by Detective Daryle M. Ondrak. Bundy remained friendly and calm throughout the experience and according to the officers, he consented to a search of his car. He would later deny this, but this too is no doubt a lie; merely Bundy's lame attempt at casting a stain on their investigation and the case they would soon build against him.

The implements in his car, his attempt to evade Hayward, and his inability to answer even the basic question as to why he was in Granger at that late hour (he lied about seeing a movie at a local drive-in which wasn't even playing there) guaranteed him a trip to the Salt Lake County jail. Hayward, who had every intention of arresting the driver of the fleeing VW from the moment he stopped him, informed Bundy of his intentions. "I'm going to arrest you tonight for evading an officer, Mr. Bundy, but I intend to ask the county attorney for a complaint against you for possession of burglary tools."3

Bundy was then whisked to jail, booked, photographed, and released on his own recognizance. His murder kit, which he'd never see again, was admitted into evidence and locked away. Before Bundy left the station for the short walk to his apartment, Officer Hayward repeated his intentions word-forword as he had done when he arrested him at the vacant gas station. Again, Bundy just stared at him.

There isn't any record of Ted Bundy's thoughts as he walked home that early morning of Saturday, August 16, 1975. There is nothing to tell us of his feelings. We can never know for sure if he was overly troubled by his encounter with Hayward, or whether he had an inkling of the true magnitude of his arrest. One thing is certain. Life as Theodore Robert Bundy had known it was gone forever. From this defining moment, he became the hunted rather than the hunter. His unveiling was now in process, and was as certain as the rising of the sun. If he didn't see what was on his horizon during that short stroll home, he soon would.

On the following Tuesday morning, detectives from the various surrounding counties and departments would gather in an office in Salt Lake City to exchange information about cases, suspects, and anything which could prove beneficial to their investigations. Although much that was shared that morning could be considered little more than routine, what Detective Ondrak would present demonstrated beyond a doubt the wisdom behind such weekly meetings.

As Ondrak began talking about the law student Bundy, and how he was arrested early Saturday morning with the handcuffs and the gym bag containing implements that had to have a deeper meaning than being mere bur glary tools, ears began to perk up. The seasoned investigator summed up the situation by freely admitting that there was more to this thing than he knew. "There's something more here. I thought for a while Bundy was an armed robber, but we didn't find a weapon. He's not just your ordinary prowler. Some of the stuff we found in his car is obviously for tying someone up. I don't know. Bundy is the strangest man I ever met."4