What authorities announced
Authorities in Utah said Tuesday that DNA evidence connects serial killer Ted Bundy to the death of Melissa Ann Smith, a teenager whose body was found by a hunter more than 50 years ago. According to CBS News, the prosecutor for Summit County said investigators have concluded Bundy was responsible for the 1974 killing of Smith, who was 17.
The case had long sat unsolved. Smith's death had been classified as a cold case for decades, with no one held accountable. Bundy died in 1989, so the finding cannot lead to a prosecution, but it gives a long-delayed answer about who killed her.
What is known about Smith's disappearance
Smith was a high school senior. She disappeared near the end of October 1974, according to the account of historian Linda Sillitoe cited in the CBS News report. Sillitoe said deer hunters later came across her body, which had been bludgeoned.
Her disappearance came weeks after another Utah teenager vanished. Nancy Wilcox, a 16-year-old cheerleader from Salt Lake County, disappeared on Oct. 2, and Sillitoe has described her as believed to be among Bundy's first victims in the state.
Bundy's trail across several states
Bundy is regarded as one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. At least 30 women and girls in several states were killed by him in the 1970s, and CBS News noted that many others escaped or survived with injuries. His crimes took place in locations such as sorority houses and parks and unsettled communities across the country. His arrest drew intense public fascination, partly because many people viewed him as charming and handsome.
It is not known exactly when he began attacking people. By 1974, young women, many of them college students, had started disappearing in Washington state, and investigators there were still working those cases when Bundy relocated to Salt Lake City in September. From there, according to the report, he went on to kill in Utah, Idaho and Colorado.
Florida executed Bundy in the electric chair in 1989. He was put to death for the 1978 murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. In his last days he made a string of confessions, including to offenses police had not previously known about. Not all of those admissions have been confirmed.
How DNA keeps expanding the list
Advances in DNA analysis have kept adding to the confirmed toll. In 2011, a vial of Bundy's blood was discovered in Florida. It had been drawn in 1978, when he was arrested in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl. His complete DNA profile was then entered into the FBI's national database, which gave investigators a new way to test unsolved cases that might be connected to him.
The Smith announcement follows another one earlier this year. In April, Utah authorities attributed the killing of Laura Ann Aime to Bundy. Aime was 17 and disappeared on Halloween in 1974, around the same time as Smith.
