The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (42 page)

The next day he came close to literally grabbing what he wanted when he stopped the van in a K-Mart shopping center parking lot across from Jeb Stuart Junior High School, located at 4815 Wesconnett Blvd. in Jacksonville. He struck up a conversation with Leslie Ann Parmenter, age 14, the daughter of Lester Parmenter, chief of detectives of the Jacksonville police. According to her report, an unkempt and agitated man (again, not the refined killer of 1974 and 1975) stopped his white van in front of her and got out, leaving his door open. He began making conversation with the apprehensive teenager. He was described as wearing "glasses, with heavy dark frames, multicolored plaid trousers, and a black or navy blue jacket similar to a navy pea coat."' He had a plastic fireman's badge with the name Richard Burton pinned on the coat, which was probably little more than a cheap toy meant to entertain a child.

Suspicious of the odd man, Leslie admitted she just didn't know what he wanted. At this point, Leslie's older brother Danny pulled up in his truck and stuck his head out the window, asking Leslie what the man wanted. Danny's words and later testimony revealed what must have been going through the young man's mind as he saw this much older man talking to his sister. He knew something wasn't right as the man "wasn't a very clean cut person ... kind of scrawny looking."2

After telling Leslie to go over to the passenger side of the truck and get in, he approached Bundy, who was already nervous, and asked him what he wanted. Bundy was not stupid and he could see a physical confrontation on the horizon. He told Danny, "Nothing ... I just asked if she was somebody else and just asked who she was."3 Bundy got back inside the van, rolled up the window, and began driving away. Danny quickly scribbled down the license number and attempted to follow him, but lost sight of the vehicle in heavy traffic. He gave the license number-13D-11300-to his father. "He was very nervous," Danny Parmenter added. "Like he was almost shaking. His voice was even quivering."4 Theodore Bundy was facing somebody who could fight back, and he didn't like it.

Foiled again, the increasingly self-destructing killer headed west. Unhappily for one very unlucky girl and her family, Theodore Robert Bundy would stop for the night in Lake City, where he would gather his thoughts about what he would do next. Never in his career as a killer had he gone so long without committing a murder once he had set his mind to do so. It's not that he was losing his edge; he was way beyond that. He was going through his own unique version of disintegration, and he knew it all too well. He had been unsuccessful in gaining the trust of women in the clubs and discos in Tallahassee, so he decided to attack the unconscious ones at Chi Omega and the Dunwoody apartment. Whatever attempts he made on this particular foray into murder are unknown, but it is highly likely, given his emotional makeup, the "vibes" emanating from him were pushing women away. Hence, it was easier to go after a child, just as he had done in Pocatello the morning after his failed day and night of hunting adult women in and around the university. But as we have seen, he was but a ghost of the figure he'd been in Idaho. His suave demeanor had been replaced by that of a physically dirty man whose speech was neither clear nor coherent. Even before her brother Danny arrived, Leslie Ann Parmenter had no intention of going anywhere with him, although Bundy may very well have been on the verge of crashing something into her head and throwing her into the van.

While lying in bed that night he may have replayed in his mind his attempt to snatch the girl in the parking lot, and the escalating confrontation with her brother. It's safe to assume he believed he'd never see those two again. It was just another abduction gone wrong, something he had had to deal with again and again for several days. The particulars of this attempt meant nothing to him beyond not getting what he wanted, and as far as he was concerned, brother-and-sister team wasn't worth remembering. But they were destined to see each other again, and the Parmenters would never forget the very strange man and the white van he was driving.

The night of February 8, 1978, Theodore Bundy rented a room at the Lake City Holiday Inn, registered under the name Ralph Miller, and was noticed and remembered by patrons and staff alike because he had dinner at the hotel and was at the bar that night. The two desk clerks working that evening, William Dale Sconyers and Randy Alton Jones, noticed how unkempt their new guest was. Sconyers described the man's hair as being "greasy, dark, and dirty [and he] looked weird ...."s Both men said he was slow in answering questions, and according to Randy Jones, "He looked either drunk or spaced out, he acted funny, slurred his words [and] his clothes were rough."6 Bundy checked into the hotel at 8:44 P.M. and would spend the night in Room 433.

Sharon Colquitt, who was bartender that evening, served Bundy as he sat at the bar talking with another gentleman. Although the bar was quite busy, the music was loud, and she was busy training another bartender, she had no trouble remembering him. He drank "four gins and one draft beer" according to his bar voucher (he also had had two beers earlier when eating at the hotel buffet), and while he had introduced himself as Mr. Evans to Colquitt, he "showed her a room key and wrote `Miller' on top of the ticket after he signed `Miller' at the bottom."' The disintegration of Bundy continued.

When he awoke in the morning, a cold rain was falling out of an ugly grey sky, and Ted Bundy began gathering up all of his stolen belongings and prepared to leave the motel. He was still in hunting mode and was probably quite disgusted with himself for his recent bungled attempts at committing murder. But things were about to go his way one last time. If he did, in fact, murder little Ann Marie Burr, then he was coming full circle. He began his life of murder by killing a child, and it would be a child who would die in Theodore Bundy's final homicidal act.

Leaving the Holiday Inn, Bundy had meandered down U.S. 90 for a couple of miles when he spotted Lake City Junior High School. The rain was still coming down as he circled the school, and it is clear from his persistence that he believed that somehow he might be able to repeat the success he had had in Pocatello, Idaho, almost three years before. At some point Bundy spotted twelve-year-old Kimberly Diane Leach crossing the open ground between the detached portable building which housed her first period class and the back doors of the main building. Kim Leach, a happy seventh-grader, had returned to her classroom to retrieve her purse, which she had inadvertently left behind. When Bundy saw her, he was moving slowly along U.S. 90 (which is also Duval Street at that point) and he quickly whipped the van to the side of the road, jumped out, and ran over to the startled young girl.

Formerly Lake City Junior High, this building now houses the Columbia County School Board. Young Kimberly Leach disappeared from this site one cold and rainy morning in February 1978. She would be Theodore Bundy's final victim.

Although witnesses would later come forward saying they saw the white van patrolling the school that morning, no one witnessed the initial encounter between the man and Kimberly. It would surely have been remembered, and possibly roused some suspicion. However, a former firefighter by the name of C.L. Anderson, nicknamed "Andy," who was even then approaching the school from the same direction as had Bundy after working a night shift, later testified he saw someone who looked like Bundy leaving the school holding the arm of a young girl whom he believed had been crying, later identified as Kimberly Ann Leach. Anderson was able to get a good look at the pair because he was temporarily blocked by the white van in front of him and oncoming traffic which wouldn't allow him to pass.

According to Anderson's later court testimony, the "scowling" man brought the girl to the passenger side of the vehicle, opened the door, shoved her inside and slammed the door, then "jogged around to the driver's side, and drove off." Anderson, whose gaze was now riveted on the scene, said that at the time he was thinking, "Daddy's going to take the little girl home and give her a spanking."' But the former firefighter, not wanting to get involved, would wait six months before telling authorities what he saw that morning.

Once Bundy had cleared the school grounds, it was all over for young Kim Leach. That she resisted her abductor while in the van is virtually without dispute, as a witness spotted the van careening on the highway and heading west. Jacqueline Moore, the wife of a Lake City doctor, was heading east on U.S. 90 when the van nearly "ran her off the road."9 It must have been a very odd sight indeed, as Moore said the driver's head kept "bobbing" as he looked down at something, and that his mouth was open and his jaw was slack."

He was intoxicated, but not with alcohol. His intoxication was the deep and vicious craving to which he had surrendered himself so long ago. This craving, which had so utterly taken control and superceded every other aspect of his life, would never stop seeking victims as long as he was alive. On that cold and rainy February day, Bundy was on the run, completely separated from family and friends, completely apart from everything remotely connected not just to his former life before the killing began, but from everything one would call normal. Like the shark which travels alone through the seas and oceans looking for food, so too Theodore Bundy was moving alone on this day through oceans of people, fulfilling the only real craving he had.

Fighting the way the little girl was, it was evident to her killer that the sooner he found a kill spot, the better off he'd be. But it is likely Bundy rendered the child unconscious soon after the near-collision as he still had about a thirty minute drive ahead of him. Bundy took the exit at Live Oak, some 28 miles from Lake City. At some point in this rural area, he stopped the van and raped but did not kill Kimberly Leach. Unlike his days in Washington State, when he would pick his location for a killing ground and/or dumping ground in advance, Bundy stumbled upon a small and empty hog shed with a metal roof and dragged young Leach inside the cramped space. Cradling a knife in one hand, he forced the young girl to lie on her stomach, and while having sex with her from behind, he stabbed and slashed at her throat, quickly killing her.

Finally satiated, Bundy was ready to return to Tallahassee. As he entered the city limits, he quickly found a place he was comfortable with and dumped the van. He apparently took the time to wipe down those areas particularly susceptible to fingerprints: door handles, steering wheel, and any place he reasoned he might have touched, but that was about it. It would not be a wise decision and this too would come back to haunt him.

The evening after Bundy's return to Tallahassee, he took a young lady from the rooming house to dinner. (Actually, it was the stolen credit card of William R. Evans that took Ms. Messier and Bundy to dinner at Chez Pierre, a posh French restaurant that evening of February 10. Indeed, Bundy would dine at the French eatery courtesy of Evans's Master Card the night before and the night after his date). Her name was Frances Messier and the two had met a couple of weeks earlier and apparently hit it off quite well. From her photograph (soon to be displayed in newspapers across the land), she appeared to be a pretty girl possessing an equally pleasant demeanor. From Bundy's perspective, it would be a celebratory dinner at his favorite eatery, and Frances would be able to share it with him. Celebratory, for the monster within had been satisfied for a time, and celebratory because taking her out on this most innocent of dates meant that Ted Bundy was more than just a diabolical devourer of young women's lives, he also had his normal side, or so he wanted to believe.

But amidst the laughing and talking and swilling of wine, Bundy realized he'd need to be moving on. Everyday life, especially for a killer, was going to become very difficult around there. Had news of the murders traveled to Seattle, to Aspen, to Salt Lake City? He couldn't be sure, but he understood the possible ramifications for his anonymity in Tallahassee and all of Florida if that ever happened. All that was known there, he realized, would be known here, and then where could he run to? Leaving Tallahassee was the only sound thing to do.

But he was anything but sound, and what he didn't know was that as soon as Bob Keppel learned of the murders at Chi Omega (now over two weeks before), he telephoned his counterparts in Tallahassee and introduced them to Theodore Bundy and his penchant for murdering college coeds. Mike Fisher and Milt Blakey also made calls, and both would soon travel to northern Florida.

Ted Bundy's first attempt at departing the city began the afternoon of Saturday February 10. It was the same every time. When Bundy wanted to steal a car he'd start perusing the streets around his immediate area until he found one with the keys still inside. Between 4:00 P.M. and 6:00 P.M., Bundy entered the parking lot of an auto repair shop, and within a minute he came across a 1975 Toyota with the keys in the ignition. He climbed inside, started the engine, and without drawing even the slightest attention, was out of the lot and gone. Later that evening Bundy sat down to the aforementioned dinner with Frances Messier, and after watching some television with her back at The Oak, he headed out into the night, probably to burglarize either a car or an apartment.