Serial killer Ted Bundy linked to another Utah girl's cold case murder

DNA connects serial killer Ted Bundy to the death of a Utah teenager, authorities announced Tuesday, more than 50 years after her body was discovered by a hunter.

Bundy has been dead since 1989, but the tally of his confirmed victims continues to grow due to advances in DNA testing. He killed at least 30 women and girls in multiple states in the 1970s, and many more escaped or survived with injuries.

The Summit County, Utah, prosecutor said investigators are satisfied that Bundy was responsible for killing 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith in 1974, a death that had long been listed as a cold case.

Bundy was executed in 1989 by electric chair in Florida for the 1978 murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University.

Bundy killed at least 30 women and girls in multiple states in the 1970s, and many more escaped or survived with injuries.

In April, Utah authorities said Bundy was responsible for the murder of Laura Ann Aime, 17, who disappeared on Halloween in 1974.

Bundy was one of the nation's most prolific serial killers, with at least 30 women and girls' deaths linked to him in several states in the 1970s. In 2011, a vial of Bundy's blood — drawn in 1978 when Bundy was arrested in the death of a 12-year-old girl — was found in Florida. The full DNA profile was entered into the FBI's national database, giving investigators a shot at solving potential cases linked to Bundy.

His murders — which occurred in sorority houses, parks and elsewhere — set the nation on edge. Bundy's arrest drew widespread fascination, in part because many considered him to be charming and handsome.

Bundy gave a series of confessions in his final days, including to some crimes that were previously unknown to police. Not all of those cases have been confirmed.

It's not known when Bundy first began his attacks, but by 1974, young women — many of them college students — began disappearing in Washington state. Authorities were still investigating those cases when Bundy moved to Salt Lake City in September and began killing people in Utah, Idaho and Colorado.

Nancy Wilcox, a 16-year-old cheerleader in Salt Lake County, was believed to be one of Bundy's first victims in Utah, according to historian Linda Sillitoe. Wilcox disappeared on Oct. 2. High school senior Melissa Smith disappeared near the end of the same month. Deer hunters found her bludgeoned body, Sillitoe said.