The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (25 page)

As she stepped off the elevator, a cold blast of air hit Caryn squarely in the face. Perhaps still feeling queasy from the day's stomach cramps, all she wanted to do was to get the magazine as quickly as possible and get back to Raymond and the kids. The children had in fact attempted to go with her back to the room, but were told by Caryn to stay with their dad. Had she allowed them to accompany her, Bundy would have had no choice but to let her continue on to her room. The few words she exchanged with the Yoders were said without stopping, and in the short distance she had to walk, not only did the ascending steam play its role in hiding the pretty wife-to-be from anyone who might be in the pool at that time and glancing up, but a service closet was situated directly across from her door, which also formed a type of shield. In what must have been a matter of only seconds, Bundy presented some ruse to Caryn Campbell and it worked.

Raymond Gadowski waited by the fire for Caryn to return. Five minutes turned into ten, ten minutes into twenty. Wondering what was taking her so long, Raymond Gadowski, with his children in tow, took the same elevator he watched Caryn enter not thirty minutes earlier. Not having his key, he knocked on the door of room 210 but was met only with silence. After retrieving a passkey from the desk, the bewildered doctor found Caryn's purse in the same place she had left it, the Viva was still on the shelf in the closet.

Two quick searches by Raymond of the cocktail party they had decided not to attend proved fruitless, as did his brief excursion onto the main street of Snowmass Village, where he hoped to catch a glimpse of her. But Caryn was nowhere to be found, and a very anxious doctor now turned to the police.

It was close to 11:00 P.M. when a patrol car from the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office responded to the Wildwood Inn. The officers took the regular information: name, age, and sex of the missing person, and the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. Raymond Gadowski gave them everything they needed, and was forthright concerning the disagreement he and Caryn had concerning who would return to the room for the magazine. He assured them Caryn would not have just taken off. After completing what is always an initial - and, for want of a better word - routine gathering of facts, the police pulled away from inn and the ongoing mystery of what happened to Caryn Campbell.

The next day, Michael Fisher, chief criminal investigator for the Ninth Judicial District, State of Colorado, received a call from William Baldridge of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office. Fisher didn't know it at the time, but answering this particular call was but the beginning of an intense and grueling investigation involving many participants, one that would stretch throughout years. Soon after hanging up the phone, he left his Glenwood Springs office, climbed into his car, and headed south towards the Wildwood Inn some 34 miles away. The weather was turning bitterly cold, and as Fisher remembered it, "Snow fell regularly during those days."3

During the drive, Fisher kept pondering what it would take to pull off an abduction from a place like the Wildwood Inn. He thought about Gadowski and Brinkman, and whether they possessed those necessary elements to do such a thing. Until he could be ruled out, Gadowski would be his prime suspect (especially if Caryn should be found dead), with Brinkman right behind him. There was always a chance, experience had taught him, that the nurse from Michigan might turn up. Speaking of it recently, Fisher explained how it wasn't all that unusual for women to disappear at such places, at least temporarily. "Aspen is and was well known for strange behavior [and] at the time there was a great deal of cocaine available, alcohol affected people much quicker at 8,000 feet and it was consumed like prohibition was just around the corner.... A young attractive woman could walk away from her partner, find another, and then turn up by noon the following day with buyer's remorse, or at the E.R. with an overdose problem ... it happened a lot. But there was always someone, or something that pointed in that direction. Caryn's disappearance had nothing but mystery [attached to it] each time you looked around the next corner."4

Beyond the obvious interviews with Gadowski and Brinkman, Mike Fisher had his work cut out for him. It was the peak season for skiing, and the Wildwood Inn did not have an empty room. Outside of those at the medical conference, most were strangers to one another, with guests having flown in from around the world. One room at a time, Fisher began knocking on doors, all the while trying to shield himself from the occasional blasts of icy wind. These face-to-face encounters would go on for a week, and some visitors, because of scheduling problems, had to be awakened as late as 3:00 A.M. Yet even these people, Fisher added, "were very cooperative once they knew what the investigation was about."'

It was during this time that the investigator realized just how good an environment the abductor had. "As I conducted my interviews I could not help but notice that the swimming pool was almost invisible from the second floor walkway due to the rising steam [from] the warm pool water.... Those were some of the coldest nights I ever spent anywhere. I had to wait and watch for the guest[s] to return to their rooms, give them a few minutes and then knock on their door. It gave me a lot of time to contemplate what had happened here ... the lack of observation showed me that the walk to Caryn's room could not be seen by anyone other than the person who abducted her."6

After studying the second floor, walking and timing the distances between the elevator and the various outside stairways and observing the traffic patterns of the patrons, it wasn't long before the astute lawman formulated a correct hypothesis about the abduction. "I came to the troubling conclusion her abductor had her cooperation in leaving the more public areas of the Wildwood Inn."7

Theodore Bundy learned long before that having women unwittingly aid in their own abduction could make his job that much easier. And now, without prior knowledge of Bundy's activities at CWSC, Lake Sammamish, or the Hawkins kidnapping, the Colorado investigator had zeroed in on Bundy's favorite mode of operation, solely on the layout of this famous ski resort. Once again, Bundy had avoided detection and been successful at obtaining what he wanted. Years later, Bundy would confirm to Fisher that Caryn's murder occurred far away from the Wildwood Inn, and then he told him that he killed her "just like the others (hitting her in the head) just once," before quickly adding, "I did my thing right there in the car."

Driving away from the area late that Sunday night, maneuvering his VW on slick back roads through the falling snow, he firmly believed the outcome of this one would be like all the others. Nothing would, or could, ever be connected to him. But nothing could have been farther from the truth. For this tapestry of murder he'd been weaving, first in Washington with a May excursion into Oregon, and then the homicides in Utah and now Colorado, had captured the interest of many; so much so, they had been weaving a tapestry of their own. This tapestry, although similar in pattern to Bundy's, was one of evidence and not murder. It would hang, waiting for that unveiling, when Theodore Robert Bundy would be displayed before the world for the monster he really was. At that time, this tapestry of evidence would smother him, and he would never be able to extricate himself from it. But that time had not yet arrived.

Raymond Gadowski and his two children would remain at the Wildwood Inn for about a week. It must have been extremely upsetting that with each passing day they were no closer to finding out what had happened to Caryn. When Mike Fisher first interviewed Gadowski on Monday evening, Caryn had been gone about twenty-four hours. Although emotionally distraught, Fisher said, Gadowski maintained control for the children's sake. But feelings of guilt were quite evident, and this apparently was a battle the doctor would wage for many months. As to being a suspect in Caryn's disappearance, Fisher did not believe he was guilty, as the doctor's statements were believable and were corroborated by his children and other guests. But before the shaken trio left for Michigan, Fisher did polygraph Raymond Gadowski. The results were inconclusive, he said, "but ... definitely not deceptive to any of the issues."

The frozen and partially eaten body of Caryn Campbell was found on Monday, February 17, 1975. She was found nude, and her remains were resting on the south side of Owl Creek Road, just west of Sinclair Divide Summit, the Wildwood Inn being 2.8 miles northeast from this location. When Chief Investigator Fisher arrived on the scene, he viewed the body and ordered it be transferred to Howard Mortuary in Denver, where an autopsy was to be performed by Dr. Donald M. Clark of Middleton, Colorado. Before leaving the area, Fisher spoke with District Attorney Steve Waters, who hardly encouraged the investigator by saying, "Fish, you'll never find out who did this. You've got nothing to work with." Although Mike Fisher wasn't a man to let anything get in the way of finding Caryn's killer, he inwardly acknowledged "he was flabbergasted at what it would take to solve this crime."'

Soon after Caryn disappeared, Fisher obtained from her dentist, Dr. Stanley McBride of Dearborn, Michigan, a copy of her dental charts and x-rays. On Tuesday, February 18, Dr. Richard H. Mentzer determined that in his "unqualified opinion ... after comparing the dental charts and x-rays with the dental work on the body, that the body is in fact Caryn Eilene Campbell."9

The autopsy, also performed on February 18 (it took a good twenty-four hours for the body to thaw), revealed "the cause of death was blows to the back of the head with a blunt object combined with exposure to sub zero weather.""

One of Caryn's teeth had been broken, corresponding with an overlapping blow to her head. She had also suffered extensive damage to the soft tissue areas of the face, head, and one arm from wildlife. Gnaw marks were evident on her skull and most the bones were exposed on one arm. The contents of her stomach were well preserved: the bowl of stew she'd consumed along with the glass of milk shortly before her disappearance told investigators that her death occurred two to five hours after she had had dinner. This didn't surprise anyone, as most abductees are murdered within the first few hours after capture.

The discovery of the body of Caryn Campbell solved the mystery of what happened to her, but it did not solve the case. Whoever killed the pretty young nurse from Michigan was now long gone, and any evidence he left behind, meant a long and grueling investigation for the meticulous chief criminal investigator. It was likely that other young women in Colorado would meet the same fate in the coming months. In fact, Colorado's time of suffering had only just begun.

Having captured and killed his first Colorado victim, Bundy returned to Salt Lake City temporarily satiated and with the intention of fulfilling the promise he had made to himself earlier, that he'd attend his law classes on at least a more regular basis. Bundy is known to have been present in class on only three occasions during his first semester at the University of Utah School of Law. It is as if his new-found freedom from Liz and the massive manhunt back home, coupled with a fresh geographical location teeming with unsuspecting females was creating a homicidal hunger that he couldn't resist, nor did he want to. The "meals" were for the taking, and they were truly the only real and sustained force which drove Theodore Robert Bundy.

Now that he was actually listening to the lectures, taking notes, and participating in class, his classmates weren't sure what to make of him. Andrew Valdez, also a beginning freshman law student in the fall of 1974, had this to say about him: "He first introduced himself to me in a contracts class. I thought he was a transfer student because I'd never seen him before."" Valdez, who clearly liked Bundy (there were few who didn't), also gave Bundy high marks for whatever academic success he was able to maintain. "I remember him for his ability to pass tough classes when he rarely went to school." 12

Others remember an odder sort of man. Wynn Bartholomew knew Bundy. He was two years ahead of him, and remembered seeing him in class one Monday "in the winter of 1975, looking haggard, with bags under his eyes and crimson red scratches branded across his cheeks and neck." When he asked him if he'd had "a rough date this weekend," Bundy, told an elaborate story about how it was all caused by a tree branch. Bartholomew wasn't buying it. But he never suspected it was caused by the last flailing moves of a dying woman desperately trying to avert her fast approaching demise. How could he?

January 1975 meant more to Ted Bundy than just killing Caryn Campbell. He was preparing for and taking law school finals. These would also preclude a brief return to Seattle to see Liz, friends, and family members. Liz, being in a complete and fixed state of dilemma over his possible involvement in the murders in Washington State and now Utah, decided to take yet another step towards resolving the issue once and for all.

Liz had met previously with her bishop about Bundy and explained how she'd contacted the King County Police over her fears and concerns that he might be involved in the murders. Her bishop rightly interpreted that she had given this much thought, but was still unsure of the truth, and it is doubtful he believed her problem would be resolved any time soon. But Liz was in fact about to undergo yet another temporary reversal of position after spending Christmas with Bundy in Utah when she went to see her folks. At the very moment the wheels of the jet touched down, the magic began, as she and Tina met him at the airport, who greeted them with hugs and laughter. It was apparently a mutually happy time, a time of visiting family members with the man she loved and planned to marry. It must have seemed to Liz like those early days together, and the charm and apparent normalcy of the outer Bundy had once again convinced her of his complete innocence. Liz was now so happy it seemed like an answer to prayer, and soon after returning to Seattle she told her minister." But the bishop, although feeling happy for Liz and not wanting to throw cold water on the embers of a rejuvenating fire of hope, at the same time wanted her to remain level-headed about the matter. He suggested she contact the police again, just to make sure they followed through on their promise of contacting the Utah authorities. It was not what Liz wanted to hear. She wasn't about to contact Hergesheimer again; she'd make the call to Utah herself.