The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (35 page)

The trial began on Monday, February 23, 1976. Because of the notoriety of the case, and the scant likelihood of moving the trial to any location in the state where the people weren't aware of the background, John O'Connell opted for a trial without a jury (a bench trial), where Bundy's guilt or innocence would be decided by Judge Stewart M. Hanson Jr. Under the circumstances, Bundy and his lawyer believed they'd fare better presenting their case before Judge Hanson, who could be counted on to adhere to the law and not be swayed by public opinion. Bundy readily gave O'Connell the okay.

Bundy's trial, which began that Monday in late February, would continue all week, ending Friday afternoon, when final arguments would be presented. It would be a week of delving into the life of this transplanted law student accused of committing a terrible crime, but suspected of committing many other acts even more terrible. The trial proved his incessant driving, all now a matter of record and solidly established by his Chevron Oil credit card receipts, and included the testimony of those who knew him.

Everyone understood the state's case depended upon the testimony of the young and easily intimidated Carol DaRonch. True, she had identified Bundy from the lineup, but how believable she would be with O'Connell grilling her with rapid-fire questions was anyone's guess. The testimony of Carol DaRonch that first day was believable to the one who mattered most, and despite her occasional tears and bouts of momentary confusion, she held firm that Theodore Bundy was indeed the man who'd led her to his vehicle under the guise of being a police officer and then attacked her in front of the McMillan School. Despite the fears of investigators and David Yocom, Judge Hanson found the testimony of Carol DaRonch believable. Although O'Connell worked very hard to undermine her testimony in areas of minor detail (was the color of the badge shown to her that evening gold or silver, as she had previously waffled back and forth on this point), it would be to no avail, for on the central point of who attacked her, her testimony was always consistent.

It was an odd collection of people brought together in that one place during that one week; a gathering of souls who should never have even met. Had it not been for Bundy and the course his life had taken, this human drama would never have unfolded. But the stage had been set when Bundy concluded he needed a new killing ground, and now Chief Louis Smith, grieving at the incalculable loss of Melissa, sat each day in the courtroom and stared at the man whom he believed might have murdered his daughter. John O'Connell, who felt Smith might be carrying his service weapon (and that he might use it), asked David Yocom to enter the packed courtroom and find out. When Yocom posed the question to the chief, Smith replied by opening his jacket, revealing only a defenseless grieving father. Even so, Louis Smith would suffer the indignity of having to show that he was unarmed throughout the remainder of the trial.'

Also in the courtroom, sitting towards the back of the packed room, were the Kents, hurting in the same way as Chief Smith and his family, but still without a body to lay to rest. For them, closure was still far in the future, and the stress and strain of what had happened to Debbie would culminate in a further breakdown of their family. Without question, the hands that killed young Debbie Kent had also reached beyond and played a part in the disintegration of her family as well.

Ted Bundy had his supporters there too. His mother and adoptive father, also victims of his rampage but who genuinely believed in their son's innocence, were present to help him in any way possible. Liz, who had flown in from Seattle on Thursday evening, somehow had kept herself in the afterglow of the Ted-is-innocent mode, where she had chosen to dwell while her man dodged the authorities during his recent trip home. She would soon reappear in the Ted-is-guilty camp, but this vacillation, so much a part of her life, would not continue forever.

Judge Hanson, truly as fair a judge as Bundy could have received, spent the entire weekend deciding his fate. Having heard from many witnesses over five days, Hanson had a veritable sea of notes and information to mull over. At some point during what must have been a rather exhausting experience, Stewart Hanson came to the realization that it was beyond a reasonable doubt that Ted Bundy had in fact attempted to abduct Carol DaRonch. The judge having reached this conclusion, Ted Bundy's fate had been decided.

When court resumed at 1:30 P.M. on Monday, March 1, 1976, Judge Stewart Hanson spoke the words that would forever alter the course of Ted Bundy's life: "I find the defendant, Theodore Robert Bundy, guilty of aggravated kidnapping, a first degree felony, as charged."' After asking for, and receiving permission from the court, Bundy spent a few minutes with his parents before being led away to the Salt Lake County Jail. It would be his home for the next several months while a pre-sentence investigation was conducted.

From Ted Bundy's perspective, what had just transpired was almost unthinkable. Having murdered so many women, over so many months, and managing never to leave behind even a trace of himself, he thought the law enforcement community was no closer to connecting him to any of the killings, no matter what police "knew" to be true. But having been convicted of the serious charge of aggravated kidnapping on the testimony of an obviously less than perfect witness meant he was headed to a Utah prison. The ramifications of such an outcome were endless. It was bad, and Bundy knew it. What he didn't know was that things were going to get much worse for him as the relentless investigator from Colorado had been quietly building a case against him for many months.

Bundy had known for some time that Utah authorities had retrieved his Volkswagen from the Sandy, Utah, teenager he'd sold it to in the fall of 1975. What he didn't realize was that the persistent Michael Fisher was going to ask for, and receive, permission from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office to personally transport the vehicle by rental truck to Denver for further testing. Fisher had great respect for what Utah had accomplished during the hectic investigation, but he wanted to have a second look at Bundy's "Death Wagon," as he referred to it. It would prove to be a wise decision indeed.'

As Fisher remembered it: "I had to find the boy again [who purchased Bundy's car] and interview him [as to] what he did in the car and with whom, then pull hair samples from him. Once the Salt Lake cops had it, it was taken apart. According to Jerry the seats had been removed as were the floor mats in the front and back."4 When Fisher asked Thompson if the headliner and side panels had been removed for inspection, he was told no. Upon hearing this, Fisher knew he'd have to use finesse so as not to offend someone he truly liked and respected. "I approached the touchy subject gingerly," the detective remembered. "I wanted to take possession of the car, transport it to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to search it once more for additional trace evidence. That surprised Jerry but he was willing, as always. I prearranged with the CBI to have lab technicians at the laboratory on Saturday, they'd help take the car apart and gather any evidence found and examine it."5

As soon as possible, Mike Fisher caught a flight to Salt Lake City. After landing, Fisher gave Thompson a call, and within a short time, both men were headed to the sealed compound holding Theodore Bundy's Volkswagen. "It was just as Jerry described," Fisher recounted. "The interior door panels were in place as were the head liners and the sun visors. I told him that my plan was to put the car in the back of a commercial rental truck, drive it to CBI in Denver, strip and search the car for additional evidence, and then load the car back in the truck and return to Salt Lake. Jerry assured me there was no hurry."6

After picking up the rental truck, they drove to the compound and loaded Bundy's car inside. Fisher then flattened the tires and secured the wheels with blocks. "By mid afternoon I was headed up out of Salt Lake on I-80."' Ironically, Fisher was taking the same route Bundy had on two prior trips to Colorado, but this time his beloved VW Beetle was driverless and shrouded in darkness, and would ultimately offer up even more silent testimony to the savage acts committed within its confines. Traveling across Wyoming with a steady stream of big rigs and occasional bursts of snow whirling about him, Fisher was all too aware of how important it was to arrive in Denver accident-free, preserving that all-important chain of evidence.

Around midnight he approached the outskirts of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and headed south on 1-25 towards Denver. He was on the last leg of a 380mile trip, and by his estimate he was ahead of schedule. Stopping at a gas station across the street from the CBI, he filled up the truck and "put air in the tires of Theodore's death wagon,"' and when he pulled into the parking lot of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation it was 6:00 A.M. The technicians wouldn't be there for two more hours, so Fisher caught what sleep he could in the drafty and uncomfortable rental truck. By 8:00 A.M. they were rolling Bundy's Bug into the lab. What was brought to light on that cold Saturday in Denver was astounding.

The lab tech was right on time and we rolled the car out ... and we began doing an interior search ... before we removed anything. A few hairs were found behind the backseat area. The side panels came out. On the passenger side window and below the weather felt that seals glass from the inside of the door we found blood. The blood had run down between the glass and the felt that keeps the inside of the door sealed, and samples were taken and photographed. The head liners came out as the search continued with samples of hair found being photographed in place and then mounted for comparison."9

By early afternoon Theodore Bundy's Volkswagon was rolled back into the rental truck, its tires were deflated and secured, and Detective Fisher began the long haul back to Salt Lake City. It had been an exhausting but productive journey and it wasn't over yet. Traveling west on 1-80, Fisher again found himself in the midst of large semis and contending with blowing and accumulating snow. Long before sunrise he descended the winding mountain highway leading into Salt Lake City. After locating a motel, Fisher, for the second time in as many days, caught a couple of hours of sleep before calling Thompson. "I woke after sunrise and called Jerry to let him know I was back," the detective remembered, "and I must have confused him as he kept telling me not to worry about getting the car back to him, when we were finished, just bring it back. I had to explain to him again that I was finished with the car, and that I was at that moment in Salt Lake City."" No one had expected the investigator from Colorado to make such a whirlwind trip with the biggest piece of evidence against Theodore Bundy, but Mike Fisher was never a man to leave things to chance. If there was even the slightest possibility unclaimed and uncontaminated evidence existed, he was determined to find it. Had he not pursued this course, the hair from the head of Carol DaRonch, the only woman to escape from Bundy, would no doubt have been lost forever. Theodore Robert Bundy did not yet know it, but he had a lawman on his trail who would not stop short of an arrest warrant for the murder of Caryn Campbell.

Fisher had stumbled into some good news in January 1976 when he was back at the Wildwood Inn re-interviewing some of the guests who were there a year earlier and had previously been questioned by the investigator. One such person was Elizabeth Harter, a middle-aged and mild-mannered woman who had information she deemed insignificant at the time, but had repeated to family and friends back home in California. When Fisher first spoke with Harter's party in January 1975, they had arrived in Colorado directly from Mexico, and had, according to the investigator, "Montezuma's Revenge." They spent the majority of their time in their room, with only limited exposure to the more populated areas of the inn. An entire year would pass before Fisher learned the details of Mrs. Harter's encounter with a "strange man.""

Having returned to the Wildwood Inn in January 1976, the Harters were the last people from whom Fisher expected to learn anything. He was more interested in showing photos to a doctor, with Bundy as one of eight men in a lineup. The doctor did not recognize anyone in the photo, but he did advise Fisher of Elizabeth Harter's story of the man by the elevator. Intrigued, the detective sat down with Mrs. Harter and couldn't believe what he was hearing. Apparently, the encounter occurred after Mrs. Harter left the inn to walk into the village to purchase soup for her ailing family. As she walked north along the outdoor walkway, she noticed a man standing by a pillar "that is across from the elevator [and] next to the ski lockers.... He was standing back out of the light."" From this position, he'd be on Caryn's left as she exited the elevator. She would have immediately turned to the right, never noticing the lone man standing there.

When Fisher asked Harter to define "strange," she said, "Everyone due to the cold that season ... was dressed in ski clothing or warm clothing. What made the man strange was that he wasn't wearing any skiing or warm clothing, no boots, no scarf, light pants, no gloves, [and] he didn't have skis with him.... He was just standing there doing nothing.""

Unlike the doctor, Elizabeth Harter was able to pick the mug shot of Theodore Bundy out of the group of photos, and she in fact was able to pick him out in the line-up shot made at the Murray Police Department the day Carol DaRonch identified him as her attacker. When the detective saw this he was almost unable to contain his emotions. Flipping each picture over, he asked her to sign the back and date them. Elizabeth Harter did what was asked of her, and a happy Mike Fisher, after thanking them all for their time, was on his way back to the office.

While the investigator kept adding one piece of evidence after another in his attempt to build the strongest case possible against the man he knew was guilty, Bundy was working just as hard as his nemesis in his attempts to keep the real Ted Bundy from being discovered. Still ensconced in the city jail, he would undergo psychological evaluation from a team of medical professionals headed by Dr. Al Carlisle, a man of wit and intelligence who personally liked Bundy, but recognized him for the sociopath he was. Although Bundy would do his utmost to hide his true psychological makeup from those equipped to unwrap it, it is clear he enjoyed talking with Carlisle, especially when it was considered true conversation and not the doctor's proverbial microscope. On one such occasion, as the two were standing outside of an interview room, Bundy asked the doctor if he believed he was guilty of the "Washington crimes." Carlisle responded that he didn't know. Upon hearing this, Carlisle remembered, "Ted paused, didn't ask why I thought that, and he returned to his cell block." "I wanted to say I knew for certain he was guilty but I felt that if I did say it, he would say that I was biased in my report."" Perhaps Ted was offended that the doctor could believe such a thing about him.