Utah authorities have announced that DNA evidence links the serial killer Ted Bundy to the 1974 murder of Melissa Ann Smith, a 17-year-old girl who went missing in the state before her nude body was discovered days later.
The finding was presented at a news conference on Tuesday. It follows an announcement in April, when Utah county detectives confirmed that Bundy had killed another 17-year-old Utah girl, Laura Ann Aime, in 1974.
Bundy admitted to killing Laura in a series of confessions he made before his execution in 1989 for two of his murders. She was last seen at a Halloween party. Her severely beaten body was found in late November 1974.
Only this year, however, did new DNA testing support his account. Law enforcement officials said at the time that bodily fluid taken from Laura's body matched Bundy's known DNA profile.
That result set in motion the effort to close the investigation into Melissa's death. Investigators found that the Y-STR DNA profile recovered from Laura's body was a genetic match to a profile found on Melissa's body.
Salt Lake county sheriff Rosie Rivera said the case shows why evidence must be kept safe. "This case demonstrates the importance of preserving evidence, even when decades have passed," she said on Tuesday. "We have the ability to take a look at these cases again and again."
Between 1974 and 1978, Bundy carried out a violent spree across the American west and Florida, sexually assaulting and killing at least 30 women.
Mike Reynolds, a sergeant with the Utah county sheriff's office, also spoke at the news conference. "The voices and cherished memories of Melissa Ann Smith and Laura Ann Aime and others involved in these cases ring louder than the hate and sedition of the one that took their lives," he said. "With every case closure may we stomp the memory of Ted Bundy out."
