The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (8 page)

Steve Burnham, a member of Phi Kappa Sigma, a fraternity located a little farther north on 17th Avenue, noticed this person around 12:30 A.M., just about the same time Georgann was entering Beta house to spend a few minutes with Marvin. According to Burnham, "He was dropping his briefcase as he crossed the street from the southwest corner of N.E. 47th and 17th N.E. [site of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity] to the southeast corner of N.E. 47th and 17th N.E. going eastbound."

Burnham, who was walking north on 17th Avenue, was directly across the street from Greek Row (the Row being on his left and facing him), and approaching the corner where N.E. 47th intersects with 17th, when he spotted the fumbling stranger who appeared to be moving away from the frat and sorority houses. Burnham then cut left at an angle (jaywalking), and would have rendered assistance, but as he approached the median, he saw a young woman offering help. This woman, who was coming from the opposite side of the street, walking in the crosswalk, and whose identity is unknown to this day, carried the briefcase through the intersection, handed it back to the man, crossed the same intersection again and continued walking west on 47th.

Once Burnham had crossed the street he stepped up on the sidewalk directly in front of the Beta house where Georgann was having a last conversation with her boyfriend. Not having seen anything he deemed odd or suspicious, he paid no further attention to the injured man after reaching this corner. And the good Samaritan, without ever knowing it, was now out of harm's way, no doubt believing the recipient of her help would soon be far from the area too. But this was not the case.

The dark-haired man with the elaborate ruse had no intention of leaving. Either immediately or in the next few minutes he retraced his steps back across 17th Avenue, eyes darting about for the next pretty female with long hair parted in the middle. Stepping up onto the curb, he walked past the Beta fraternity and turned left into the alleyway (passing the door where Georgann would re-emerge), walking a block or so before stopping. Like a hunter seeking his prey, he would wait for the proper moment, the proper opportunity, and then pounce upon his victim suddenly. The time involved didn't matter to him, as he would later explain to a detective that it was a "warm, Seattle May night."29 This was the environment he loved, and he took a great pleasure in trolling for his victims here. He was learning, there was simply no shortage of women willing to be out alone at night, no matter what might be in the papers or on the news, no matter how short a distance they had to walk. He was in their comfort zone, where they felt relatively safe, and he'd take full advantage of that sense of security. He was, in fact, becoming very skillful at committing abduction and murder.

As he strolled very slowly up the alley he saw a door open and a woman emerge. He heard the faint sound of the door shutting and he watched as she began walking in his direction, only to stop. He watched as she turned around, and from the angle of her head, he knew she was talking to someone in the window. With anticipation he watched and listened, his mind already beginning to sense the opportunity in the making, to sense that he would soon have her, and that subtle rush of sexual excitement, of arousal, began coursing through his being. As she said goodnight and resumed what would have been a very brief walk to her place, she noticed the lone individual hobbling his way in her direction. This lie of disability he presented worked perfectly on Georgann, who must have found the pitiful form approaching her completely non-threatening. So when he asked for help with his briefcase she didn't think twice about it. It just seemed the right thing to do. She could help him, she believed, and in a few minutes be on her way. There was still plenty of time to conquer the Spanish language.

Approaching the car, he guided her from behind to the passenger-side door. It is unknown if the car was unlocked (probably not), or whether she unlocked it at his request. He may even have turned the key himself and then stepped back, giving Georgann room to open the door; still, the exact sequence of events here is a mystery. But what happened next is not. As Georgann stayed focused on the task at hand, he reached underneath the rear of his car for the crowbar he'd placed there earlier, and with one lightning-quick movement, he struck her in the skull, knocking her out cold. Indeed, the blow was of such force that both her earrings flew off and she came out of one of her shoes (these items he'd retrieve the following day, having peddled his bicycle through a hornet's nest of cops who didn't give him a second look). He then handcuffed her and threw her into his VW. Once again, nobody saw anything and he would leave no trace of himself behind. Once again, police would be adding another name to an already growing list of missing women, and their frustrations would only multiply.

Quickly jumping behind the wheel, he started up the VW and drove down the alleyway until he hit 50th Street, where he made a quick turn and headed for the freeway. As he would later confess: "We went across the bridge, across Mercer Island, east past Issaquah, up the hill, down the road, and up to the grassy area."" Georgann Hawkins would die soon after arriving at this very rural location. Her killer, however, would continue to hold her close to himself and make love to her until the wee hours of the morning. In his mind, they were now a couple.

Georgann had now joined the other missing women, at least in a metaphorical sense. They would never have any human contact with each other; never exchange glances or a smile, or communicate with each other in any way. Yet they would share a common destiny, in that all perished by the same hands. And in some cases, they would share a common grave. The author of their demise had planned it this way.

He was quickly becoming the architect of fear and dismay among investigating officers around the state, who desperately hoped the pattern they were beginning to see wasn't really a pattern at all. But a pattern was emerging. And an attack so bold, so without precedence, would unfold in the weeks to come to confound authorities and bring to the public the true terror of what it was now facing. What occurred was not just a private act between killer and victim, but a statement about what this killer could accomplish at will. It was, in essence, a terrible homicidal boast. And it wouldn't be his last. He was playing God now, and he enjoyed it.

On Sunday, July 14, 1974, the weather was sunny, hot, and clear over Lake Sammamish State Park, conveniently located just a short distance east of Seattle. It was a day that should have been remembered for the size of the crowd (some 40,000 souls), the various company picnics being held that day including a police get-together, and the little incidental things couples and families like to recall during their individual outings. But none of that would have any real meaning after today, a pivotal day in the lives of all Washingtonians. Until now, there was at least hope that a reasonable explanation could account for the individual disappearances of the women. But each new disappearance brought with it a little more apprehension, a little more fear, and a little more doubt as to what it all meant. But the state of denial was about to vanish, for the events at Lake Sammamish would serve as a wakeup call for the people of the region. There was a monster in their midst.

Jerry Snyder, thirty, was a DEA agent out of Seattle. On July 14 he and his family (including their Doberman) had come to Lake Sammamish for some relaxing fun in the sun. According to a statement given later, he said they arrived at the park around 10:30 in the morning, but this was probably a simple mistake, given he didn't speak with King County detectives until October 10, 1975. Their actual arrival time was probably closer to noon. In any event, once the family piled out of the car, they headed immediately to the beach where they placed towels on the ground as the kids ran for the water. Because Jerry had charge of the dog, he was obliged to sit about thirty feet farther back from his wife. Looking around, he noticed "a young lady to my left, sitting approximately 12-15 yards away from me, dressed in a black two-piece bikini with blond hair. I remembered that earlier when we were arriving at the park, the same young lady was riding her bicycle, parallel to my vehicle.""

The young lady was Janice Anne Ott, twenty-three, currently from Issaquah. Although she was married to James Ott, who was away attending medical school in California, it is clear they allowed themselves a tremendous amount of freedom in their relationship. "Legally, I was Jan's husband," James Ott would later tell authorities. "However, we liked to keep our marriage out of its traditional role. That is, being devoted only to each other, such that either of us could not expand ourselves to work with other people. We both felt a need to have an independence of our own, so that we could expand and in turn, enhance our relationship."32

A probation officer working in Seattle, Janice arose to do laundry that sunny morning before hopping on her yellow 10-speed for the five-mile ride to the lake. The Suds Shop Laundromat, owned and operated by David Allison McKibben, was just across the street from Ott's small apartment, and both Janice and David apparently arrived there at the same time, about 10:00 A.M. McKibben remembers her wearing "cut-off blue jeans, a white open collar button-up blouse, tucked in, no bra, and tennis shoes." As he cleaned up around his place, McKibben and Ott kept up a conversation of small talk, the normal interaction you would expect from two people having just met each other. As she was finishing up her laundry the same time he was wrapping up his cleaning duties, he asked her to join him for a cup of coffee, and Janice accepted his offer. "I walked to the corner of Sunset and Front with her and she took her laundry in and came out about five minutes later, looking the same as before. We walked down to Fasona's Restaurant, and sat in a small booth and talked over coffee." Sipping her coffee, Janice mentioned she was separated from her husband, and said something about being a "liberated woman." She had moved to Issaquah, she told him, after having most of her belongings stolen while living in Seattle, adding that all she had now "was her Volkswagen, bike, and clothes."33 After sharing some of the details of his life -children, business, and where he lived - they left Fasona's, McKibben escorting her back to her place. Here they parted, Janice saying good-bye and going inside for a few minutes, while McKibben left for his home in North Bend. Before pedaling away, Janice taped a note to her door telling her roommate she'd be at Lake Sammamish for the afternoon.

Spreading out a blanket, Janice removed the clothes she wore over her bikini, folded them neatly, and laid them down. Making herself comfortable, she reached into her backpack and retrieved a number of items, including several paperbacks and an orange jar of cocoa butter, and tossed those on the blanket.

Not long after getting settled, Snyder noticed "a white male walking ... to my right - walking down the beach towards me, and the reason I noticed him [is] that he was looking at all the girls ... he would almost come to a complete stop [and] it appeared to me he was trying to pick up a girl, or trying to find someone who met with his qualifications."34 But he kept walking, kept looking, until he passed just in front of the DEA agent and spotted the pretty blond in the black bikini. After the man walked up to her, Snyder heard him say either "Hello, miss" or "Excuse me, miss," but whatever greeting he used was enough. Responding to the polite introduction, Janice gestured to the smiling young man to have a seat on her blanket. He had to carefully lower himself as his left arm was bandaged and in a sling. Once seated, Snyder said, the man crossed his legs and the two talked for about five minutes. As they talked, Janice Ott began gathering up some of her things. Jerry Snyder described the man's height as being somewhere between 5'10" and 5'11", and said he was about twenty-five to twenty-nine, wearing white, boxer-type shorts and a "pull-over shirt, beige in color." The man's hair, he added, was "collar length, wavy [and] sort of a light brown color."35

Janice Ott, a probation officer, only wanted to spend the day relaxing at Lake Sammamish State Park on that fateful Sunday of July 14,1974 (courtesy King County Archives).

Unbeknownst to Snyder, the individual he was paying at least scant attention to had had an encounter with another woman only moments before. Twenty-two-year-old Janice Graham was an employee of Boeing and lived in nearby Bellevue, Washington. She arrived at Lake Sammamish around 11:30 that morning and immediately looked for an empty picnic table but was unable to find one. She then moved over to the bandstand, she said, to watch some races. As she stood there, a man she described as being about 5'8" to 5'10", with curly, sandy blond hair, came up to her and said hello. She said hello back, but obviously feeling a little weird about the intrusion, walked away. It was then that he asked her to "help him for a minute," explaining that he couldn't find his friends. "Yeah," she said. "What do you want?" The polite young man with his arm in a sling said he needed help unloading a sailboat from his car. A reasonable request, she believed, to which she responded, "Sure."