The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (30 page)

A bushy-headed Ted Bundy stares blankly at the camera after his first arrest in August 1975 (courtesy King County Archives).

Detective Jerry Thompson with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office believed he'd heard the name before. He also made an immediate connection between Ondrak's mention of the Volkswagen and the handcuffs. Intrigued, Thompson pressed Ondrak to explain what he meant by strange. Ondrak's answer was both chilling and accurate: "I used to be in the Marine Corps.... You meet a lot of strange people in the Corps. I don't know. It's just a gut reaction. This man's into something big."5

When the meeting broke up, Jerry Thompson headed straight to his office to see what, if anything, he had on this character. Thompson, who kept an alphabetized suspect list on a Rolodex-type system of 3 x 5 index cards, did find Theodore Bundy's name along with those of Detective Robert Keppel and Keppel's boss, Captain Nick Mackie. This was information they'd received from King County authorities when they learned their unlikely suspect was moving to Salt Lake City to attend law school. Indeed, Thompson and Keppel had spoken by phone at that time, but Bundy just didn't seem like he could be the killer the Washington cops were looking for. Keppel had sent him a picture of Bundy along with the few facts they had gathered about him. This produced a call to the King County detective about the current activities of Ted Bundy.

Shortly after making this discovery, Thompson asked his partner, Ben Forbes, to contact the Seattle authorities concerning Bundy and his current situation in Utah. The officer receiving the call at King County took down all the vital information Forbes was giving him and passed it along to those responsible. In what must have been one of the most surreal moments of their lives, just as Keppel and his detectives were informed about Forbes's call, the file on Theodore Bundy had just risen to the top of the stack of the 100 suspects list, and was at that moment next in line to undergo a thorough investigation by their team. It was as if the gods of chance and circumstance were saying, "He is your killer of women, come now and get him." The scales which were rapidly falling from the eyes of those in Utah, immediately vanished from the gaze of the weary Seattle investigators. Even Liz Kendall had once again contacted them after hearing about Bundy's August 16 arrest, telling them she'd broken off their engagement.

Now police had a heightened sense of things, and it is clear from the record that in that same instant Detective Thompson was introduced to Bundy by way of Daryle Ondrak, he would, in the phraseology of police jargon, "work him," and in fact, he would work him relentlessly. Having caught the scent of what this Ted Bundy might really be, Thompson would burrow into his suspect with everything he had. The crack in Bundy's dam of secrecy was both lengthening and widening now. How long the secret would hold depended on what investigators could find out. If this Bundy fellow was the one who had attacked Carol DaRonch nine months earlier, she might be able to identify him. But that was a big maybe.

On Thursday, August 21, Utah authorities would make good on their promise to arrest Bundy for possession of burglary tools. But by now, the general consensus among them was that Theodore Bundy was far more than a burglar. He was much more, and they were determined to find out what. As Ondrak pulled to the curb in front of 565 First Avenue, Bundy was busy refinishing an old table he'd recently stolen from somebody. Quickly returning upstairs, Bundy had only seconds to wait before the lawman started knocking on his door. When Bundy answered, Ondrak presented him with the arrest warrant and said, "I told you I'd get one."6 After allowing Bundy to change his clothes, he handcuffed him and placed him in the back seat of his vehicle for Bundy's second trip to jail in less than a week.

But the mask Theodore Bundy wore for the world to see was causing the detective to metaphorically scratch his head. He couldn't understand how someone of Bundy's demeanor could be anything other than the person he presented himself to be. As Bundy watched and listened from the back seat, Ondrak kept repeating, "You know, I can't figure it out. I mean, you're a nice guy. I just can't figure this out."7

As Bundy exited the police car he was led into the booking area. When the fuzzy-headed suspect stood for his first mug shot, he was passing into a realm from which he would never leave. Although he understood that he was only a suspected burglar (a charge that had little meaning as he hadn't done it), he'd soon learn the gravity of his circumstances, and how easily the tables could turn. Now the hunter became the hunted, and while he would not see it as a welcome challenge, Bundy believed he was more than up to the task. His regard for the intellect of the police, both individually and combined, was not very high, and he anticipated beating them at their own game. Such arrogance was a recipe for disaster. But Bundy, ever the sly one, didn't see it that way.

After being booked, he was taken to an interview room where Ben Forbes was waiting for him. Forbes, originally from Scotland, was chomping at the proverbial bit to question the strange man. Even so, he would not reveal his true intentions right away. Having waived his rights to have an attorney present (a legal mistake that his professors would have scolded him for), Bundy obviously felt comfortable dueling verbally with the seasoned detective.

For at least the next few minutes, the subject at hand would be the objects in his car. It all seemed simple enough to Bundy. The only problem, which he didn't realize, was his propensity to not remember which lie he had told. He had already told Ondrak that he found the handcuffs at a local dump, while he told Forbes he purchased them. This is a blunder he would repeat over other items and at other times.

With an acrobat's sense of timing, Forbes suddenly blurted out to the obviously confident Bundy: "My game is homicide!"' Forbes also startled him with the news that he was a suspect in an attempted kidnapping/ murder case. Bundy, who sat there and said nothing, knew exactly what he meant. Perhaps for the first time he felt a different kind of regret over Carol DaRonch's escape. Until now he'd been sorry because she was exceedingly good looking and he very much wanted to kill her. Now, however, her flight back to the living meant something even more vital - the very real possibility she could identify him.

Before getting up from the table, Forbes shoved a piece of paper towards his somewhat startled suspect, asking him to sign a consent form so officers could search his apartment. Bundy not only said yes, he validated it by signing the release. Unlike the night of his arrest, when he later denied giving police permission to rifle through his car, he could never retract what he had done here. Forbes picked up the consent form and left the room.

It was now 6:30 P.M. and Ted Bundy was being escorted from jail. Jerry Thompson, who had just arrived, met Bundy as he was being led by Sergeant Bernardo and Detective Bob Warner. In a matter of minutes, Bernardo and two officers would drive Bundy to his apartment, a distance of just under one mile, with Thompson following in his car. Having had such freedom of movement, it must have felt quite odd to Bundy to be taken back in custody to the home he had so freely shared with his victims.

As they entered Bundy's second-floor apartment, Jerry Thompson was struck by the cleanliness and the orderliness of the law student's dwelling. All of the furniture had been dusted, all the dishes were clean and put away, and there wasn't a crumb to be seen anywhere in the kitchen. In his closet, his clothes were neatly hanging and spaced evenly apart, and his shoes were all perfectly lined up in a row. "The apartment," Thompson noted in his report, "is very immaculate, in this detective's opinion."9

While gazing down at Bundy's tidy shoe collection, Thompson noticed a pair of patent leather shoes, just the type Carol DaRonch said her wouldbe abductor was wearing. This fact alone meant nothing, but what is of interest is that when Thompson next returned to Bundy's apartment, the shoes were gone.

Throughout the search of his place, while Thompson and Bernardo opened drawers and scanned book shelves, Bundy was confined to the sofa in his living room with two deputies standing over him. According to Thompson, Bundy kept up a steady stream of conversation the entire time the detectives were there. "He kept saying things like, `I know you guys have it tough, and IT help in any way I can.... I know this work is rough.... I was on the Seattle Crime Commission.) " Thompson said, "He was chattering like a Magpie." 0

While the investigators rifled through everything, Bundy kept up the chit-chat, which, in truth, was nothing more than his way of dealing with a situation completely out of his control. However, Thompson clearly noted the one crucial topic missing from his jovial conversation. "At no time did he ever ask me what I was searching for, what I wanted to talk to him about, or what was going on."" Bundy didn't ask, because he already knew why they were there.

This lack of denying guilt, or, to put it another way, his refusal to proclaim his innocence, would raise its head in the most unusual of times. It happened then, and it would happen again when he returned to Washington State as a suspect. It would also be duly noted in statements by fellow law students after charges were brought against Bundy. It was, one might say, a hallmark of the killer's strange personality. As far as the authorities were concerned, Bundy's proclamations of providing help and feeling empathy for the officers was like a politician saying thanks for asking me that question; in other words, it had no meaning at all.

The items of interest Bernardo and Thompson would find were "a book called `The Joy of Sex,' a road map of the state of Colorado, a Colorado Ski Country Guide '74 and '75, a brochure from the Bountiful Recreation Center, a copy of a Chevron gasoline bill listed to Theodore R. Bundy, and also a copy of a phone bill for the month of June, which listed a telephone call to Denver, Colorado.""

This was odd indeed, as Detective Thompson had asked Bundy early in the search if he'd ever been to Colorado, and he had said no. When asked if he had any friends in the state, or knew anyone there, he answered no to this too. Having found the Colorado items, Thompson walked over and inquired of Bundy if he could keep them, and Bundy, never one to object, looked up at the stern-faced cop and said it "would be no problem."" But Jerry Thompson wasn't about to let this promising suspect off so easily. He would do a little probing too.

Addressing his seated suspect, the detective asked about the Colorado maps and guides. "They were left here," Bundy responded, "by a friend of mine who was talking about how good the skiing was over there."" When quizzed about the brochure from Bountiful, he feigned geographical ignorance and answered: "Is that the city just north of Salt Lake? I've heard about it, and probably driven through it, but I've never been there to speak of." 5 The smiling, nervous, and talkative Theodore Bundy was lying, and Jerry Thompson knew it.

Pressing him further about the brochure (which was in fact an advertisement for the Viewmont High School play), he said that "a friend of mine ... left it there, some kid of his or something that went up there to some kind of deal."" Bundy's use of words at this point is little more than grammatical mumbo-jumbo, so it may signal that he was experiencing a higher degree of anxiety. That would certainly be something he'd attempt to conceal from Thompson.

As the search was concluding, the lead detective asked for permission to photograph his car. Without hesitation, Bundy again used the "no problem" response, and the investigator walked around to the rear of the house with his Polaroid camera and photographed both the inside and outside of Bundy's VW Beetle. When Thompson finished taking all the shots he wanted, he concluded the official search of Bundy's apartment and the prisoner was returned to jail by Sergeant Bernardo. The tables were turning now on Theodore Bundy and he began to recognize it. Bundy could see the Utah authorities assembling that metaphorical noose with which they would hang him. It was now time, he believed, to obtain the services of the best defense attorney Salt Lake City had to offer. But this he kept to himself. He would also make bail before morning.

When the sun began its ascent over Salt Lake that Friday, August 22, 1975, Jerry Thompson fully expected Theodore Bundy to come strolling into the office to speak with him and Captain Pete Hayward, just as he had agreed to do. But instead of their star suspect, a call came through to the homicide unit, and Detective Ben Forbes, who had already rattled Bundy by revealing the real direction the investigation was moving, answered it and spent the next few minutes listening to a somewhat testy John O'Connell, Bundy's new defense attorney.

After informing Forbes that he had advised his client not to talk to police, O'Connell also said he was "rescinding the search warrant the individual had signed." Forbes told him that the search was already completed and the warrant was now unnecessary anyway. Apparently feeling the need to make it abundantly clear, O'Connell repeated that he didn't want his client talking to police, and then blurted out, "What are you looking at? You're certainly not looking at him in regards to the murder of all these girls?"" The matterof-fact investigator told him no, but quickly added that they did want to speak with Bundy. Firing his final salvo, O'Connell told Forbes, "I have advised him not to talk to you.""