Utah officials confirmed Ted Bundy’s DNA tied him to a 1974 teen murder exactly 52 years after her body was found.
Summit County authorities announced Tuesday that forensic testing matched Bundy, who died in Florida’s electric chair in January 1989, to the killing of Melissa Ann Smith, 17. The news conference fell on the anniversary of when Smith’s remains were discovered in a wooded area along the county’s northwest border, roughly 100 miles north of Provo.
The genetic breakthrough followed a similar case cracked months earlier. In April, the Utah State Crime Lab confirmed biological material from Laura Aime, another 17-year-old, matched Bundy’s profile. That same forensic team then examined preserved evidence from Smith’s crime scene, starting advanced testing in mid-July before finding an identical match.
“Although Ted Bundy is no longer alive to face prosecution, advances in forensic science and continued dedication of law enforcement professionals have helped provide answers in a case that has remained unsolved for over 50 years,” Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson told reporters. “Most importantly, we remember Melissa Ann Smith and the somber significance of finally bringing this investigation to a close.”
Olson emphasized that the DNA finding was weighed alongside Bundy’s established criminal patterns, motives, means, and his documented presence in the region during late 1974. The combination of genetic and circumstantial proof allowed authorities to make a definitive link after decades of uncertainty.
Summit County Sheriff Kacey Bates acknowledged that detectives had long suspected Bundy in Smith’s slaying but lacked the technology to prove it.
“Although there was much speculation regarding a suspect at the time, a suspect was never named, and the case was never officially closed,” Bates said.
Bundy confessed to murdering at least 30 women across Washington, Utah, Colorado, and Florida between 1974 and 1978. Investigators have consistently maintained his actual death toll exceeded that number, with modern testing now resolving cases that lingered for half a century.
The Smith and Aime identifications represent a broader push by Utah law enforcement to apply contemporary forensic methods to 1970s evidence. Authorities are currently examining whether Bundy can be linked to three additional unsolved cases from the same period: Nancy Wilcox, 16; Susan Curtis, 15; and Deborah Smith, whose body was found near Salt Lake City International Airport in 1976.
Smith’s killing had remained one of the region’s most haunting unsolved crimes since her discovery in 1974. The confirmation of Bundy’s involvement closes a file that pre-dated his eventual arrest, trial, and execution by more than a decade.
The Summit County Sheriff’s Office is expected to continue reviewing preserved evidence from the three remaining cold cases.