DNA links serial killer Ted Bundy to 1974 murder of Utah teenager Melissa Ann Smith
Authorities in the US state of Utah have said DNA evidence has found serial killer Ted Bundy responsible for the murder of Melissa Ann Smith, a 17-year-old girl who went missing in 1974 before her nude body was found days later. State authorities announced the finding at a news conference on Tuesday.
The breakthrough comes months after Utah county detectives confirmed in April that Bundy had killed another Utah girl, 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime, in 1974.
Bundy had confessed to killing Laura during a string of admissions he made before being executed in 1989 for two of his murders. Laura was last seen during a Halloween party, before being found dead and severely beaten in late November 1974.
It was not until this year, though, that new DNA testing backed Bundy's account. Law enforcement officials said then that bodily fluid extracted from Laura's body was a match to Bundy's known DNA profile.
That discovery put into motion the closure of Smith's homicide investigation. The Y-STR DNA profile recovered from Laura's body was a genetic match to one found from Melissa's body.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said on Tuesday that the case demonstrates the importance of preserving evidence, even when decades have passed, and that authorities have the ability to look at these cases again and again.
Between 1974 and 1978, Bundy went on a violent rampage, sexually assaulting and killing at least 30 women across the American west and Florida.
Mike Reynolds, a sergeant with the Utah County Sheriff's Office, said on Tuesday that the voices and cherished memories of Melissa Ann Smith and Laura Ann Aime and others involved in these cases ring louder than the hate of the one who took their lives, and that with every case closure the memory of Ted Bundy should be stamped out.
