- 6 hours ago
Hunting Bundy: Chase for the Devil - Season 1 - Episode 01: Episode 1: The Devil Comes to Utah
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:07we would just like to caution all the young women of our community to be overly cautious at this
00:14time you've got different areas that have missing women in Utah Colorado Washington State in 1974
00:27eight women vanish in the span of just six months then police start finding them the women whose
00:37bodies were found were all of a similar type the blood had been drained from the body dark hair
00:43young blood part of their hair in the middle almost kind of like a ritualistic killing there
00:49was too much coincidence for this not to be a serial killer they said that they had found a
00:56police call buried in a list of more than 200 suspects is the name Theodore Robert Bundy
01:07you gotta remember those who really knew Bundy thought it can't be him
01:10it was pretty slick very articulate and smooth we're dealing with something that was outside
01:17of the mold of what people consider a killer and a mass killer at that at the time and Bundy
01:26knew
01:26this jurisdictions didn't always cooperate with each other they didn't share so the murders still
01:32continued police began investigating a young woman who disappeared George Ann Hawkins was last seen
01:38Monday evening Linda Ann Healy disappeared from her Seattle apartment but because these investigators
01:43were so frustrated they began working together the Aspen summit was a conclave of law enforcement from
01:54several states that met to talk about Ted Bundy all these detectives gathered and all of them basically said we
02:03know it's Bundy we're just gonna have to prove it so they went meticulously over all the case files these
02:11conversations along with crime scene photos and interviews have been lost to history until now a trove of
02:19case files and audio tapes found by the widow of lead detective Jerry Thompson is being shared with the public
02:26here for the
02:27first time I want a truthful answer to this did you kill that young lady up there in your snowmass
02:34that asked me to call her
02:35I certainly couldn't kill anyone anywhere wherever it was I couldn't kill anyone
02:41it sounds like I'm sure it would say so but you can remember if you've done something like that
03:01current condition right now in Salt Lake Airport it's 48 Fahrenheit we do have some cloudy skies
03:05five-day forecast looks great Carol Durant was 18 years old she had just graduated from high school she
03:12was working as a telephone operator and she was still living with her parents she had just bought
03:18herself a sweet new 1974 muscle car she was very proud of that car it's a fall evening in this
03:26suburb of Salt Lake City by this point ten young women have been murdered or reported missing in Washington
03:33Oregon and Utah Carol Durant has just finished work and her plan is to buy a gift for a cousin
03:42she went down to the fashion place mall in Murray Utah she drove her pride and joy Camaro to the
03:50parking lot
03:52walked into the mall and was just walking around and she was approached by someone who was dressed like a
04:02police officer and he asked her are you driving this maroon Camaro that's in the
04:10parking lot outside of Sears and she said oh yeah how how'd you know that he's like well there was
04:18someone who was caught trying to break into your car she said oh no you know I love that car
04:24and he said well if
04:26you follow me like I can show you the car I need you to make sure that nothing was stolen
04:31out of it she
04:32said okay the man leads her to the car she looks inside she said it looks fine to me I
04:43don't see a
04:43problem here and he said well we really want to make sure that you know we can catch this guy
04:52and we'd like
04:53you to come down to the station and give a report come with me it's my car and I'll drive
04:58you there
05:01she gets in the car this ratty Volkswagen he says put on your seat belt and she's thinking
05:10something's weird she said I don't think I will sorry I'm not going to put on my seat belt
05:16he goes down this kind of dark street suddenly the man runs the car up the side of the curb
05:25slams
05:25on the brakes and whips out a gun the man says do what I say or I'm going to blow
05:32your head off
05:35she's like what are you doing what are you doing he tried to handcuff her she starts fighting for her
05:41life he pulls out a crowbar and he is trying to hit her trying to slam it down on top
05:48of her head
05:48and she breaks away and she just starts running into the street
05:58Carol de Ranche flagged down a passing car and an elderly couple drove de Ranche to the Murray
06:03police station the search for her objector began it will take more than a year but the Carol de Ranche
06:12case will eventually provide investigators with a critical clue in their desperate search for a
06:18serial killer
06:26up to this point investigators spread across multiple states have the murders of at least 15
06:33women to solve they didn't have the internet they didn't have fax machines the fact that there was no
06:40sort of interstate database for crimes made it very difficult for departments to see if there might be
06:48any other missing women or similar suspects so it was a brilliant idea to get all of these
06:57investigators together to compare notes
07:10all the blood was out of the park right there's no blood at the site no clothing is found
07:20these tapes of the aspen summit along with dozens of crime scene photos hundreds of police reports and
07:28interview tapes with ted bundy's girlfriend and bundy himself were acquired by the producers directly
07:34from the widow of lead utah detective jerry thompson after he passed away in 2019 as she handed over the
07:42files mrs thompson said thank you for removing this evil out of my life now the contents of those files
07:51are revealed here for the first time they provide a new perspective on the story of ted bundy one of
07:59the most notorious serial killers in history
08:20in seattle in the 1970s everything is green and lush
08:26on those clear days the mountains are visible this was a time when starbucks was one store at pike
08:33place market amazon was still a river in in south america it just felt like a place that had been
08:41unspoiled this beautiful corner of the northwest the university district is swarming with college students
08:49who lived in apartments and fraternity and sorority houses the women's movement had really started to
08:57take hold there so women felt much more independent it just felt like a very innocent bucolic place
09:04and then these disappearances started to happen in and around seattle police began investigating a young
09:11woman who disappeared linda ann healy a 21 year old university of washington student disappeared from her
09:17seattle apartment linda lived here in this greenhouse in the university district along with five other
09:23university students she was last seen here thursday evening about 12 o'clock in the beginning police are
09:30reluctant to jump to conclusions about the disappearances the room was very neat there was no signs of foul play
09:41in the room except some blood in the pillow and head area on the sheets of linda's bed
09:49i used to listen to linda healy's cascade ski report driving into work in the mornings and so when she
09:57disappeared i was very aware that she was a missing person then women started disappearing all over the
10:03northwest at the rate of one a month in 1974 roger dunn is a homicide detective for the king county
10:11sheriff's
10:12office and will soon be drawn into the case it was something i never experienced before
10:18and i hope to never experience again
10:25george ann hawkins was last seen monday evening shortly after midnight
10:30she had been visiting at the beta house and was returning to her house just a half block away
10:35down this alley police believe she went along this route and then somewhere she disappeared
10:42all the girls were between the ages of 18 and 21 four of the girls attended were attending colleges
10:49same hairstyle all very similar in appearance it was a front page story every day all day long
10:57it was frightening i know that the campuses locked things down and that you were discouraged from
11:06walking at night it was horrifying when 20 year old kathy parks goes missing from corvallis
11:14oregon police seem slow to respond i remember clearly she went missing from the campus and initially
11:24uh the police thought she was just a runaway i mean a lot of families would say this is the
11:30response
11:31they get you know well she'll probably turn up tomorrow or you know maybe she's at a friend's house
11:40then in mid-july everything changes
11:46rainier brewery is throwing its big summer beer party at lake sammamish state park near seattle
11:53i think there was a beer garden and a lot of entertainment live bands so it was a big hoopty
11:59-doo
12:01there were about 40 000 people in attendance and about 12 o'clock janice ought a counselor at king
12:10county youth center decided to go sunbathing before leaving home janice leaves a note for
12:16her roommate stating that she's heading to the lake took her yellow tiger brand bike and went over to the
12:23park which is not too far away from her residence in issaquon
12:30witnesses saw her ride up on her bike she laid out a blanket she put on some cocoa tanning butter
12:40and she
12:41decided to have a relaxing day to herself just hanging out at the festival
12:48several witnesses described what happened next
12:52a man had been wandering around kind of looking at different women
13:01and then he noticed janice sitting by herself and he went over to her and he said
13:09uh excuse me could you help me with something he was wearing a bandage like a sling claiming that he
13:20needed help loading his sailboat onto his car
13:25and he said well you know you see i have this broken arm and i have this sailboat that i
13:32would really like
13:33to take out on the lake today my parents live in issaquah and they have the sailboat and i was
13:41hoping that
13:42you could come help load it onto my car
13:48and she said oh okay well if i can get a ride in the sailboat sure
13:56and so she packed up her stuff and he led her out of the park
14:11that's the last anyone ever saw her
14:16at least seven people at the crowded beach saw and heard a man who was described as a smooth
14:20talking man with his arm in a cast who asked several women to help him load a boat onto a
14:25volkswagen
14:27but janice art isn't the only woman who vanishes later on that day
14:35denise nasland her boyfriend and another couple decided to go spend a nice day relaxing at the
14:45festival local kid she was from west seattle just a young woman of 19. she'd left her shoes and her
14:55purse
14:55in the trunk of her car
14:58she was just hanging out on a picnic blanket
15:02drinking beer having a good time her friends started dozing off
15:08one of her friends said that she had kind of just gotten up and hadn't said anything
15:14to anybody but it looked like she was heading to the restrooms
15:18when she came out this man approached her and asked her the same question about helping him
15:24with his boat and so she said well sure why not when denise fails to return to her friends
15:32and janice doesn't come home police descend on the park looking for answers
15:40as soon as this happened this double abduction in broad daylight
15:48thousands of witnesses
15:51it became a media firestorm
15:57we would just like to caution all young ladies that are going to partake in the beaches tomorrow
16:02and at the races that that they do not leave with a stranger that anybody that approaches them that is
16:08a stranger makes any overtures towards them that they notify one of our police officers immediately i think
16:13they should be getting together so that the girls could be protected that are walking around
16:17you go out at night by yourself at all once in a while are you afraid you just got to
16:22be really
16:23careful the police and the searchers have to contend with the grim idea that there might have been foul play
16:32investigators finally concede the likelihood that there's a predator on the loose
16:35and he needs to be stalked at this point there were eight missing women in the span of six months
16:44they
16:44realized that there was someone stalking and preying on young women in the pacific northwest
16:50and that the clock was ticking before there would be another murder
16:54we were dealing with something that was outside of the mold of what people consider a killer and a mass
17:01killer at that i took it as a heavy responsibility i wanted to find the guy before he killed more
17:08people we're going to have a big job ahead of us we had no evidence i mean you got a
17:15guy out there
17:15that's making a sport out of this you never know where he's going to strike next one of the fortunate
17:21things that we had i don't know if it's ever become widely known was there was an undercover dea agent
17:30laying on a blanket right next to janice on so he witnessed the man's approach in his spiel
17:37so we had a good description of the guy that left the beach with janice on and the fact that
17:44he had a
17:44volkswagen there was a witness named sylvia valent sitting very close by and she was able to
17:52report what he had said and their conversation
17:58he said hi i'm ted
18:03i wondered all these years why would he do that
18:10that was a turning point and it was a turning point for the king county police
18:16now they had a name
18:20and they had this volkswagen that appeared in photographs that they could attribute to this man ted
18:33we've gotten a few good leads uh particularly on janice hot the missing girl from issaquah
18:39as far as denise nasland we're still a little bit shaky on that yet we uh we're getting some leads
18:44we're developing some leads some more information is coming in but uh it isn't anything that we can
18:49really go on right now i don't think the term serial killer was commonly used it was a phenomenon that
18:58really wasn't widely happening i mean there was jack the ripper way back when but it was something that
19:03wasn't happening in seattle washington in an effort to try to locate the two missing girls
19:08in subsequent days the entire area around the lake sammamish state park will be searched inch by inch
19:17outrage and the indignation people blamed the police said why can't you catch this guy because when the
19:22story about lake sammamish came out it seemed like this guy is taunting you and you gumshoes can't
19:28catch up with it the girls might be in or around a foliage area such as a swamp or lake
19:37out of all
19:38the witnesses that he he had contact with we were able to create a composite drawing of what this guy
19:45looked like not everybody agreed on the final composite drawing but it was the only thing we had to work
19:53with at the time so we did our best we also knew that he had a volkswagen which seemed to
20:00change color
20:00with each witness we were giving every kind of tip that you could imagine we got 140 phone calls in
20:10about
20:10two hours i don't remember how many tips we had 3 000 sticks in my head i think in hindsight
20:21the
20:22overwhelming number of photos witnesses saw i think was more confusing than helpful
20:31an employee at the university of washington named liz klepfer is in a long-term relationship with a man
20:37named ted when the police sketch of the lake sammamish ted is published her friends are suspicious
20:46one of her friends said that looks like ted where was he that day
20:51she couldn't account for his whereabouts liz was originally from ogden utah she had gotten married
20:59young and had a child she got divorced and decided that she needed a fresh start
21:06her good friend had moved to seattle in 1969 and so she decided to pick up and move with her
21:14young
21:14daughter and start over a new life in seattle she had just moved there and she went out to a
21:25bar
21:25the sandpiper tavern and she met ted at that bar they hit it off and he ended up spending the
21:37night that night
21:38and they were inseparable going forward and he decided to integrate himself into her and her daughter's life
21:51i think she was looking looking for love and looking for a solid relationship he was suave and charismatic
22:00and he was you know pretty handsome and he knew how to just kind of turn on the airs ted
22:09bundy
22:10was raised in a working-class family but he aspired to bigger and better things we don't know who
22:16bundy's father was he was born illegitimately to his mother louise cowell she went to a home for unwed
22:24mothers in vermont and gave birth to him his first four or five years he lived with his mother with
22:32some teenage aunts and with his grandparents in pennsylvania we know that when he was three years
22:39old his teenage aunt woke up one morning and ted had gathered several sharp big long kitchen knives and
22:49put them around her when she was sleeping so she woke up and they were aimed at her head and
22:55she was
22:55very afraid and this was part of why he and his mother fled pennsylvania and went to her great uncles
23:04in tacoma bundy's mother met a man in tacoma washington named john bundy they married and had four children
23:13together johnny bundy was a working-class guy at the military base here and ted was embarrassed by the
23:22car they had and ted wanted to be just in a different class than he was born into by 1974
23:31liz and ted have
23:32been dating for five years but they continue to live separately liz is from a mormon background and
23:39cohabitation outside of marriage is forbidden ted lived in a rooming house for many years with other
23:45people and she lived in a small apartment in the seattle area with her daughter
23:52he was pretty mysterious and he'd come and go i think that was a concern for her she never
24:01cohen and knew where he was liz was a very trusting vulnerable frightened insecure person ted bundy could
24:11play on that and there have been signs throughout their five-year relationship that all is not right
24:19in ted's world liz talks about a few strange instances she found bags full of women's clothing
24:28in his apartment she found hundreds of random house keys that he'd collected in his apartment
24:37she thought those things were strange she found plaster of paris she found crutches
24:42he had a knife in his glove compartment that she found he had a hatchet under his car seat
24:50he had good explanations for these things when she would ask him about it
24:53what she thought were good explanations but it kind of added up understanding the psychology of women
25:01who are in relationships with perverse manipulative psychopathic people like ted bundy unless you're in
25:09that world it's kind of hard to understand but for people who understand these things it makes all too much
25:16sense you put some of the things out of your head as far as the negative aspects of this person
25:24in light of the fact that she loved the guy
25:32in september of 1974 just seven weeks after the lake sammamish abductions ted bundy moves to salt lake city
25:40alone to begin the fall semester of law school at the university of utah
25:46bundy applied for a lot of different law schools he had applied for university of washington law school
25:52oregon and a few other places throughout the pacific northwest
25:57he'd been rejected from all of them
26:01but the university of utah finally accepted him liz was from utah and he knew he would have connections there
26:12so ted never invited liz to come with him at one point he'd said well you know if you really
26:19want to come i guess you can which is not much of an invitation and so to her credit she
26:26didn't
26:26beg him to come live with him she was willing to let him be independent
26:35back in the 1970s utah was a lot more conservative socially than it is even now you had a hard
26:43time
26:44finding a drink in a restaurant the influence of the lds church at that time was overpowering for the
26:51people who were members of the church for most kids getting a shot is almost as exciting as a bowl
26:59of spinach you're going to bed early terry wood is the lead anchor on kutv channel 2 in salt lake
27:05city when ted comes to town the avenues area where ted bundy lived at a time was the area just
27:15north
27:15and east of downtown running from the state capital over to the university of utah when i first came to
27:23town 71 january of 71 i got an apartment right down at the base of the avenues area one night
27:31that was
27:31a saturday night i was over a restaurant called the pub in trolley square and my wife and i and
27:40our documentary head at kutv we were sitting at a table together and this one guy was passing our table
27:48and our documentary producer stood up oh hi how you doing ted
27:55and he said oh yeah fine how you doing and mentioned her name and everything and then she said let
28:01me
28:01introduce you to our 10 o'clock anchor and i got up shook hands with a nice looking guy very
28:09pleasant he
28:10wore the same type of clothes i was wearing at that time a beige corduroy jacket and we chatted for
28:16a few
28:16minutes she said she knew him through the university of utah law school he seemed like such a nice guy
28:35back in washington state nearly two months after janice ott and denise naslin disappear from lake sammamish
28:42state park just three miles away in a wooded area bird hunters make a grisly discovery the bird hunter had
28:52smelled something strange in the area and began looking around and found what looked like a clump of hair in
29:01a ribcage
29:10it was really tragic when a body lays out in the open it gradually starts deteriorating and there's a
29:22what's called a grease spot where the body laid it's a combination of decaying matter
29:30decaying fat and things that don't decay
29:35her long blonde hair was tangled up in some of the vine maple right where this grease spot was
29:43that we assume was janice hot
29:48it was everything i could do to hold back whatever tears were coming out
29:53it was tough it was emotionally very very very difficult
30:03we secured the scene we started processing for other evidence no evidence of any trauma like a gun or a
30:12knife
30:15there was nothing there no weapons nothing i was feeling that we had a big problem
30:25i think i got onto the fact that our two women were just the next two in the chain that
30:32started with linda
30:33ann healy and it was up to us to deliver because i knew he wouldn't stop with our women
30:43denise naslin's mother became the designated mourner for those women she was an incredibly powerful woman
30:50and she was not going to let the police off the hook i had a lot of communication with elena
30:55rose
30:57it took a little time and a deep breath to come back to normal after talking to her
31:02she was devastated absolutely devastated they said that the earth had crumbled i believe on a hill or
31:11something and uh they had found uh a skull
31:21we had skulls and we had bones but we had no evidence of trauma nothing king county detectives
31:32are working with a long list of suspects with more than 200 names including a number of men named ted
31:40ted bundy is on that list but nothing about his background indicates that he's a killer
31:47it's not as if the police were tripping over their own feet not seeing ted bundy was in plain sight
31:52there were plenty of other suspects who looked better than ted did in many ways people with sex crimes
31:59people who had been arrested for all sorts of you know terrible things but that's the nature of police
32:05work of this kind
32:10we needed evidence uh and we needed a lot of luck
32:23by october of 1974 there are eight missing and murdered women in the pacific northwest
32:30king county investigators in seattle are no closer to finding out the identity of this serial killer
32:36but for now the disappearances have stopped
32:41then hundreds of miles away in a suburb of salt lake city another young woman disappears
32:49melissa smith was a 17 year old high school student she was the daughter of the midvale police chief
33:14the first person he calls is lead detective jerry thompson at the salt lake county sheriff's
33:26office the same detective whose trove of case files are the foundation of this series
33:32the reason why jerry thompson got the melissa smith case is because he was good friends with lewis
33:38smith who was the chief of police in midvale utah he asked jerry could you do me a favor and
33:44handle
33:45this case and jerry said yes i'll go ahead and take it over
33:53the evening melissa smith disappeared she had planned to go to a slumber party with one of her
33:59friends who ended up ghosting her she was a little upset about that and then she got another call from
34:08a friend who was working at a pizza restaurant and that friend said uh can you come talk to me
34:17probably offered her some pizza on the house
34:20previous to leave and she had asked dad for two dollars that night her girlfriend at that time
34:27beat me off work for about midnight melissa walks over to the pizza restaurant she met with her friend
34:35her friend confirmed that she had been there for about 30 minutes and then she left we had a
34:41restaurant she stopped jv's restaurant individual claims she walked into that restaurant walked over
34:49the cigarette machine bought some cigarettes walked out
34:52he probably followed her
35:09passed her up and parked probably in a section that was dimly lit
35:17and then got out with this crowbar
35:21and she only had time to let out one screen before he hit her in the head with it knocked
35:25her out
35:28around 10 or 11 o'clock a woman out raking leaves hears a young girl's piercing
35:34scream come through the night air and that's no doubt her
35:48melissa smith's body was found in a semi-rural canyon in a lot of scrub and oak brush it was
35:57found by hunters
35:59she was found in the oak brush she was completely nude she had a mile in stacking
36:08around her neck along with one strand of her beads the other strand is still missing
36:13she could beat around the head because of death of course was on the beating on the head and strangulation
36:22the blood had been drained from the body there was no blood at the site no clothing has been found
36:27marks all over the body almost kind of like a ritualistic killing
36:33in some cases the blow to the head was not fatal and so it was incapacitating and once he had
36:40rendered them
36:42truly helpless then he owned them
36:46his mo was to have sex with them from behind while he strangled them to death
36:53i don't want another parent to go through what my wife and i went through
36:57i don't i don't think that's right
37:06so this is melissa smith oh god these are of color
37:24i've never seen these
37:30this is how it was described in the police report with one arm
37:35and her painted nails yeah there's the bead necklace
37:41her father was able to identify her from this necklace
37:55seeing these it really reminds you that these aren't just stories these are real people
38:02until you see it it's hard to put that smiling face with that that horrible fate
38:10and so and she was so alone it's just really sad
38:18that's why their stories need to be told
38:22two days after melissa smith's body is found bundy's girlfriend liz hears about it through a close female
38:29friend liz's best friend is also from utah they had grown up together liz had told her all about her
38:38suspicions she told her i'm very worried that ted might be involved in this
38:45her best friend was visiting her family in utah when melissa smith was killed so when she came back
38:52to seattle she said liz i don't want to alarm you but this is happening now in utah
39:01liz is shaken is there a world in which her ted could be the monster the police are looking for
39:09liz loved him she was devoted to him even though he didn't always treat her very well
39:17i felt sorry for her it was a hard thing for her to accept a lot of the things she
39:24was hearing
39:25i think what she wanted to know was that he wasn't the one who had done it she wanted
39:30to have her conscience cleared and she wanted to be assured that it wasn't him
39:36but these coincidences just kept happening she felt like she had to do something
39:42on october 29th just two days after melissa smith's remains were found liz finally breaks down and phones
39:51the police when liz first called in she called seattle police and seattle police said well you have to
39:58come in and make a report well i kind of put her off she didn't want to go downtown thank
40:03god we had
40:04an investigator named hergy we call him hergy it was brandy herger shimer herger shimer attempted to
40:12contact her and it took him five attempts to convince her to meet with him which they did at a
40:21hamburger
40:22stand in the u district liz confesses her suspicions about ted to the detective hoping to dispel them
40:33because of that interview with liz her he called up jerry thompson in salt lake and told him if you
40:39have missing women over there this is the guy you should be looking at that just moved into your area
40:47he said listen we don't think he's a good suspect but we're going to do further investigation
40:56but before utah detectives can respond to this tip and just four days after melissa smith's body was
41:02found they're hit with another disappearance laura amy was a tall girl she had long brown hair she was of
41:12italian descent and i think she was supermodel beautiful this girl was a big girl about 5 11 6 foot
41:21140 145
41:22pounds at midnight she made a buy of some thc on the american pork city park
41:30she had a little bit of a tumultuous home life
41:33she was a free spirit and she definitely felt like she could take care of herself
41:42it was halloween night 1974 laura amy was at a house party with some of her friends
41:50one of her friends described her getting a little tipsy and giving everyone halloween kisses
41:57she was affectionate and just having fun and then the stories differ a little bit but she
42:04told one of her friends that she wanted to go get a pack of cigarettes
42:13she was probably going to a cafe there called grounds she was heading toward lehigh
42:20was the statement that was made at nine o'clock last she's seen is midnight on the 31st
42:30we don't know exactly what happened after that
42:34it seems likely to me that she may have been hitchhiking
42:38somewhere to go get cigarettes and this may have been an opportunistic victim
42:45it will take weeks for laura amy's remains to be discovered
42:51just eight days after amy disappears the attempted kidnapping carol de ranch occurs
42:59and really if it hadn't been for carol de ranch
43:03the killer could have gone on a killing spree it was much larger
43:15next on hunting bundy
43:19cause of death is either by strangulation or by massive blows to the head
43:28so hard to look at
43:33so the chase was on
43:41this is the punch the gloves the ski mask and that's the cobra have you ever seen what's in that
43:48jim
43:48bay no it was usually empty
43:54it's very highly unusual that any man would have these things other than for what reason
44:02is
44:10so
44:12so
44:41Transcription by CastingWords
44:50CastingWords
Comments