FILE - Suspected murderer Theodore Bundy, charged with the killings of FSU coeds Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy who were beaten and strangled at the Chi Omega House in January, is shown in this photograph. (Getty Images)
New DNA testing has linked one of the most infamous serial killers in American history to a 1974 murder, officials announced on Wednesday.
Ted Bundy has been confirmed to be responsible for the murder of 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime of Utah.
Dig deeper:
Investigators had carefully preserved the evidence from Aime’s case, and forensic analysts were able to identify portions that seemed most likely to have usable DNA samples, Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said.
The state crime lab got new technology in 2023 that allows investigators to extract DNA from samples even if they are small, degraded from age or contain DNA from multiple people, he said. That technology allowed them to identify a single male DNA profile, which they submitted to a national law enforcement database.
Bundy’s DNA was a match, Mason said.
Laura Ann Aime’s cold case
The backstory:
Aime disappeared after leaving a Halloween party, local sheriff’s officials said.
Her body was found a month later on the side of a highway in American Fork Canyon. She was bound, beaten and nude.
Investigators long suspected Bundy and he even confessed to killing her before his execution in 1989, but the case remained open until police could be certain.
At the time of Aime’s killing, Bundy was studying law at the University of Utah.
Bundy has been linked to the deaths of at least 30 women and girls across the United States in the 1970s. His murders gripped the country and when he was finally caught, drew widespread fascination because many people found him charming and handsome.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press.