Law enforcement officials in Utah linked the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith to serial killer Ted Bundy on Tuesday, closing the cold case of the murder 52 years after her body was found.
Summit County and Salt Lake County investigators led the investigation into the murder since it first opened, but recently partnered with neighboring Utah County after the jurisdiction made developments in a related murder case. After Utah County closed the 1974 murder case of 17-year-old Laura Aime this year, linking it to Bundy using new DNA profiling, the neighboring counties were able to match Bundy’s DNA to the Smith murder.
“The Utah State Crime Lab concluded that the Y-STR DNA profile recovered from Laura Aime’s body matched the Y-STR DNA profile recovered from Melissa Ann Smith’s body. This DNA evidence, when considered alongside evidence related to pattern, motive, means, and opportunity, establishes that Ted Bundy was responsible for Melissa Ann Smith’s murder,” Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson said at the Tuesday press conference.
The closure of the case comes 37 years after Bundy was executed in an electric chair at Florida State Prison for the murder of two students at Florida State University and a 12-year-old girl. He killed at least 30 women and girls before he was sentenced to death. He has been linked to murders in states such as Florida, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Washington, according to the Associated Press.
Smith’s body was found on Oct. 27, 1974, by hunters in the Utah forests near the border of Summit County and Salt Lake County. She had been reported missing nine days earlier on Oct. 18, according to the state. She has long been suspected of being a victim of Bundy’s, but investigators never made the connection until Tuesday.
“Today we get to remember Melissa Ann Smith, her family, and all of our victims from cold cases,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said during the press conference. “We get the opportunity to show that there is hope out there.”
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Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office detective Ben Pender added that the closure of Smith’s case does not “close the book on Ted Bundy,” pointing to the cold case of Nancy Wilcox, who disappeared on Oct. 1, 1974, in Utah.
“Even though, again, the information kind of leads to Ted Bundy, but again we’re not for certain on Nancy Wilcox either,” Pender said. “So we’re going to continue to work that case, and probably in conjunction with Utah County and Summit County as well on that, to see if we can get that resolved as well.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
