Ted Bundy: First Two Series of M*rders

No one can agree on the exact moment or location Bundy started killing women. Even though he confessed in great detail to scores of later killings in the days leading up to his execution, he gave varied accounts of his crimes to different persons and would not reveal the facts of his early atrocities.He admitted to Nelson that he made his first attempt at an abduction in Ocean City, New Jersey, in 1969, but that he did not actually kill anyone until some time later, in Seattle.He admitted to killing two women in Atlantic City in 1969 while on a family trip to Philadelphia, according to psychotherapist Art Norman.

Despite declining to go into further detail, Bundy suggested to homicide investigator Robert D. Keppel that he had killed a hitchhiker near Tumwater in 1973 and a person in Seattle in 1972.He may have begun killing while he was a teenager, according to Rule and Keppel. When Bundy was 27 years old and committed his first known homicides, it was in 1974. In the days before DNA profiling, he had, according to his own admission, perfected the skills required to leave only the barest amount of incriminating forensic evidence at crime sites.

On January 4, 1974, just after midnight, Bundy entered Karen Sparks' basement apartment, a dancer and student at UW.

He sexually abused Sparks after beating her with a metal rod from her bed frame, leaving her with severe internal injuries. He may have used the same rod or a metal speculum.She was unconscious for ten days, and although though she lived, she was permanently damaged on the physical and mental levels. On February 1, early in the morning, Bundy broke into Lynda Ann Healy's basement room. Healy was a UW undergraduate who provided skiers with morning radio weather reports. He carried her away after beating her into unconsciousness, dressing her in blue trousers, a white top, and boots.

Female college students vanished during the first half of 1974 at a rate of roughly one per month. A 19-year-old student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, which is 95 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Seattle, Donna Gail Manson left her dorm on March 12 in order to attend a jazz concert there but never showed up. On April 17, Susan Elaine Rancourt, who was attending a nighttime advisers meeting at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, 110 miles (175 kilometers) southeast of Seattle, vanished while she was making her way to her dorm room.Later, two female Central Washington students came forward to describe encounters with a man wearing a sling who was requesting assistance carrying a load of books to his brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle. One of these encounters occurred the night of Rancourt's disappearance, and the other occurred three nights earlier. Roberta Kathleen Parks left her Oregon State University dorm in Corvallis, which is 260 miles (420 km) south of Seattle, on May 6 in order to meet friends for coffee at the Memorial Union, but she never showed up.

Seattle and King County investigators became more worried. The missing women shared little in common with one another outside their comparable appearance as young, pretty, white college students with long hair parted in the middle. There was also little in the way of physical evidence. Brenda Carol Ball, 22, vanished on June 1 while she was leaving Burien's Flame Tavern, which is close to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

She was last observed conversing with a brown-haired male who had his arm in a sling in the parking lot.

Georgann Hawkins, a University of Washington student, went missing early on June 11 while crossing the street from her sorority home to her boyfriend's dorm.Three Seattle homicide detectives and a criminalist searched the entire alleyway on their hands and knees the following morning but came up empty-handed.Later, Bundy admitted to Keppel that he had lured Hawkins to his car and used a crowbar to strike her senseless. He handcuffed her, drove her to Issaquah, a neighborhood east of Seattle, where he strangled her and spent the night with her corpse. Issaquah is 20 miles (30 km) from Seattle.The following morning, he went back to the UW alley and, in the midst of a significant crime scene investigation, found and took Hawkins's earrings and one of her shoes from the nearby parking lot, where he had placed them, and then left unnoticed. According to Keppel, "it was a daring feat that still astounds police today." Bundy claimed to have visited Hawkins' body three times.

After Hawkins's disappearance was made public, witnesses spoke up to say they saw a man in an alleyway behind a nearby dorm the night she vanished. He was attempting to carry a briefcase while using crutches and a leg cast.According to one woman, the man asked her to assist him in carrying the case to his light brown Volkswagen Beetle.

Bundy authored a booklet for women on rape prevention while he was employed at the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission as the assistant director in Olympia during this time.Later, he was employed by the Department of Emergency Services (DES), a state government body charged with conducting the investigation into the disappearance of the ladies. Carole Ann Boone, a twice-divorced mother of two who would play a significant role in the closing stage of his life six years later, was someone he met and started dating at the DES.

News of the heinous assault on Sparks and the six missing women was widely reported in newspapers and on television throughout Oregon and Washington.

People became more fearful, and the number of young ladies hitchhiking decreased significantly.Law enforcement authorities came under increasing pressure, but they were greatly hamstrung by the lack of tangible proof. Police refused to give media the scant information they had because they thought it may jeopardize their investigation. Additional commonalities amongst the victims included the fact that they always vanished at night, frequently close to active construction sites, and within a week of midterm or final exams. All of the victims were last seen wearing slacks or blue jeans, and numerous crime locations featured sightings of a man driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle while carrying a cast or sling.

The killings in Oregon and Washington came to a head on July 14 when two women were kidnapped in broad daylight from a busy beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah. A young man with an appealing appearance who had his left arm in a sling and was speaking with a light accent—possibly Canadian or British—was seen by five female witnesses. He identified himself as "Ted" and asked for assistance in getting a sailboat out of his tan or bronze Volkswagen Beetle. Four refused, and one followed him all the way to his car before realizing there was no sailboat and taking off. Three more witnesses saw him approach Janice Anne Ott, 23, a probation caseworker at the King County Juvenile Court, and witnessed her leave the beach in his company. He told her the sailboat narrative.Denise Marie Naslund, a 19-year-old studying to be a computer programmer, left a picnic four hours later to use the restroom and never came back.Bundy admitted to William Hagmaier and Stephen Michaud that Ott was alive when he returned with Naslund and that he had made the other witness the killing of the other under duress, but he later denied it in an interview with Lewis on the day before his execution.

Once King County police had a complete description of their suspect and his vehicle, they distributed flyers around the Seattle region. Regional newspapers and local television stations both ran a composite sketch. The profile, sketch, and car were all recognized by Kloepfer, Rule, a DES employee, and a UW psychology professor, who suggested Bundy as a potential suspect. However, detectives—who were receiving up to 200 tips per day—thought it was unlikely that a well-groomed law student with no adult criminal record could be the perpetrator.

The skeleton remains of Ott and Naslund were discovered on September 6 by two grouse hunters close to a service road in Issaquah, 2 miles (3 km) east of Lake Sammamish State Park. Later, Bundy determined that the extra femur and many vertebrae at the scene were really Hawkins'. On Taylor Mountain, where Bundy frequently walked, just east of Issaquah, forestry students from Green River Community College found the skulls and mandibles of Healy, Rancourt, Parks, and Ball six months later.The remains of Manson were never found.