Utah authorities have officially closed a murder case that remained unsolved for half a century after DNA testing provided conclusive evidence that notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for killing a teenage girl.
Officials from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday they now have “definitive proof” connecting Bundy to the death of Laura Ann Aime, who was just 17 years old when she disappeared.
According to investigators, Aime vanished on Halloween night in 1974 after she left a party by herself to visit a nearby convenience store. College students discovered her remains on Thanksgiving Day that same year, finding her body discarded near State Road 92 in American Fork Canyon, just feet away from the main highway.
Law enforcement officials noted striking similarities between this case and Bundy’s known methods. “Case evidence similarities indicated that the manner of abuse and the likely cause of death was comparable to the modus operandi of Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy,” the sheriff’s office stated.
The sheriff’s office confirmed in their announcement: “The Utah County Sheriff’s office has definitive proof that Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy murdered Laura Ann Aime in 1974.”
Bundy, who boasted about killing no fewer than 100 women during his criminal spree, was put to death in Florida in 1989 following his conviction for murdering 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. His capture occurred in 1978.
Before his execution, Bundy had verbally admitted his role in Aime’s disappearance and death, along with other victims, according to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. However, authorities said he refused to provide specific details about his involvement in the crimes.
At the time, both the sheriff’s office and Utah County Attorney’s Office rejected Bundy’s spoken confession regarding Aime’s murder because “the evidence in possession and with the available investigative sciences for the time” would not have been sufficient to secure a conviction in court.
The breakthrough came when investigators recently reexamined physical evidence and submitted it to the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services. The analysis revealed that DNA recovered from Aime’s body matched the convicted serial killer.
Bundy’s killing spree spanned from 1974 to 1978, during which he confessed to murdering 36 young women. Investigators have also connected him to additional homicides across Washington, Oregon, Utah and Colorado.
