News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 8

8A Fort Myers News-Press. Tuesday. June 26. 1979 From Page I A V.Bundy. crazy connection with that madness in Washington the year before.

The Salt Lake detectives didn't need probable cause to question Tea Bundy. The agreeable young man had been released on the charge oi fleeing from a police officer, but they could still bring him in on another charge because of the stuff in his car. It took three days to put together. On the Thursday morning of Aug. 21, 1975, Bundy was arrested for possession of burglary tools and led into an interrogation room.

He was cooperative, helpful and happy to answer their questions. He even agreed to let detectives search his room. Later that day, Thompson and another detective followed Bundy up the stairs of his apartment building, a few blocks from the law school. Methodically, they began picking through his books, records and drawers, keeping up a casual conversation. Go to school here? Yes, Bundy answerd, law school.

Moved to Salt Lake City in September. Drive a car? Just the Volkswagen, he said. The room was neat and orderly, filled with the lifestyle of a law student. Textbooks, sporting gear, a copy of "The Joy of Sex." Thompson noticed a batch of papers and sifted through the pile. He picked out a map of Colorado and a guide to ski lodges.

The Wildwood Inn near Aspen was underlined. Ever been to Colorado? No, Bundy said, not that he could recall. What about these, Thompson asked? A friend, who skiied in Colorado, had left them, came the answer. While they talked, the other detective was going through the closet. He found several dark sport coats and a pair of patent leather shoes.

He picked up a gas credit card receipt, a telephone bill, a brochure from Bountiful, Granger was Hayward's home. He had passed the movie theater several times that evening. "Towering Inferno" wasn't playing this week. "Mind if I look in your car," the trooper asked? "Not at all." Bundy said. At that precise instant, Ted Bundy's credibility was running short.

Those split-second impressions that add up so quickly were ticking through the trooper's mind. Law students don't prowl bedroom communities at three in the morning. They don't lie to police officers. They don't flee from squad cars. They aren't normally so self-assured in such a compromising situation.

Hayward peered inside the compact car and noticed the front passenger seat was unbolted and pushed against the backseat. On the floor, he found a crowbar. Then an ice pick and ski mask. By now, other troopers had reached the scene. They joined in the search and found, among other things, a nylon stocking cut with eyeholes.

Then a pair of handcuffs. What about these? Hayward wanted to know. Without missing a beat, Bundy said the handcuffs were for his job as a security guard at the University of Utah. The rest was just some junk he'd accumulated. Hayward thought he was lying.

Bundy was booked for fleeing from a police officer and then released on his own recognizance. A central theme in the story of Ted Bundy's last four years is the occurrence of seemingly coincidental events. And perhaps the most striking coincidence of all is the fact that Utah State Trooper Robert Hayward was the brother of Peter Hayward, of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, who was directing the investigation of the unexplained killings in Utah and the bungled kidnapping of Carol DaRonch. It was this same Peter Hayward that Suzanne had spoken with by telephone from Seattle about her ex-boyfriend, Ted Bundy. The lineup on Ocf.

2, 7 975, in which Ted Bundy, second from right, was picked by three witnesses i Viva. But the Playboy advocate had never seen Viva. So after the group had j- settled down by the (ire, about 8:30 p.m., Caryn took the room key and walked toward the elevator, the picture of vacation chic in her beige jacket, I boots, blue jeans and long brown hair, parted down the middle. She said 1 she'd be right back with her copy of Viva. First 10 then 15 minutes passed.

When Caryn didn't return, Gadowski I- decided to see what was keeping her. Perhaps she was feeling ill. He got another key from the front desk, and went back up to their room. The Viva magazine lay on a bedside table. Her purse, credit cards and cosmetics were still in the room.

After searching for Caryn around the lodge and in a few local bars, the cardiologist contacted police. They dutifully broadcast a description of Caryn, while realizing that Aspen's social life is built upon the casual encounter and spontaneous party. Caryn would probably turn up in the morning. V. But Caryn never showed up.

And four days later, as the confused and worried physician climbed aboard the return flight to Michigan, having passed a polygraph test, detectives in Colorado were still interviewing Witnesses and looking for clues. One month later, on Feb. 17, a woman motorist saw a body lying along 2 "Owl Creek, four miles from the Wild wood Inn near Snowmass. What was left of Caryn lay in a snowdrift a short distance from the road. The body had been frozen for several weeks, until a period of warmer weather had caused it to thaw and attract animals.

t' Although the cold had preserved the corpse, there was nothing left of Caryn's easygoing beauty. Coyotes had gnawed at the limbs. The snow was stained with blood. Swatches of hair and flesh were scattered about. After an autopsy, pathologists decided the cause of death was repeated I blows to the head.

Her hands had been tied from behind and they guessed she may have been strangled and sexually molested before her body was dumped from a car. 1 By July 1975, Mike Fisher knew he had one very large problem. Like his counterparts in Washington and Utah, Fisher, a homicide investigator with the state attorney's office in Aspen, had several murders to account for, no hard evidence and a gut feeling he might be facing something much larger than anyone guessed. 'I' The carnage that started in Aspen with Caryn Campbell continued with rapid-fire intensity, jarring residents of Colorado with killings that bore the mark of an agile intelligence. Vail, is different from Aspen.

Aspen is the ski-bum capital of 1-the world and the place where actress Claudine Longet shot her lover Vladimer "Spider" Sabich and was convicted only of a misdemeanor. Vail, 100 miles away, is where former President Jerry Ford preferred to vaca-; tion. It's closer to the middle class. I It was in Vail that Julie Cunningham was living a storybook life of low-cost leisure. At 26, she was attractive, athletic and loved to ski.

Her 'social calendar was seldom empty and Vail, of course, offered some of the best skiing in the world. She earned spending money as a ski instructor and part-time clerk at a sporting goods store. I On the night of March 15, 1975, Julie told her roommate she was going to a nearby tavern and then departed, tucking her long brown hair, which she parted down the middle, under a ski cap and pulling on a jacket. She left behind all the things she would have taken on an extended trip. Her body was never found.

I Three weeks later, on April, 6, 1975, Denise Lynn Oliverson, a 25-year--' old housewife, had a brief dispute with her husband. In a huff, she decided to take a bike ride to her parents' home. About 3 p.m. that day, Denise mounted her yellow bicycle and depart-: ed from her home in Grand Junction, wearing blue jeans and a print blouse. The weather made it a glorious, beautiful Sunday afternoon.

The next day, her shoes and bicycle were found roughly a half mile from her home in a ditch along a highway. Her body, with its long dark 1 hair, was never located. 4 On the afternoon of April 28, it happened again. Melanie Suzanne Cooley, 18, of Nederland, walked out of her high school near Boulder. Two weeks later, her body, with its long brown hair, was discovered near the mouth of a canyon and it was clear her death was no accident.

The killer had carefully bound her thin arms behind her back and covered her face, which was framed by long dark hair, with a cloth blindfold. Then he hefted a rock weighing more than 40 pounds and methodically pounded it down on her skull until she died. The last was Shelly K. Robertson of Denver. She was 24 and on the day of June 30, 1975, disappeared from her home.

That's all anyone knew until Aug. 23, the day her badly decomposed body was found inside a mineshaft roughly 85 miles west of Denver. Although it was difficult to determine the cause of death, pathologists could make out the signs of severe blows to her head. As he studied and restudied each of the cases, Mike Fisher realized it was going to be a long, hot summer. For Utah State Trooper Robert Hayward, a slow night was almost With just a few minutes left on his early morning shift, Hayward parked his cruiser in front of his home in Granger, a middle-class suburb of Salt Lake City, and waited.

It would be easy enough to monitor radio traffic from his front yard. It was 2:50 a.m., and the usual early morning calm that descends upon any residential neighborhood at that hour gave the subdivision a peaceful, settled feeling. It was Aug. 16, 1975. At precisely that moment, Theodore Robert Bundy steered his tan Volkswagen through the neighborhood of Granger, picking a route that passed near Hayward's front yard.

The cough of the air-cooled engine briefly interrupted the residential stillness and Hayward took note, but allowed the Volkswagen to travel from view. 1 He was considering another swing through the neighborhood when he heard a routine radio call dispatched to another trooper. Hayward decided to respond as a backup. The trooper punched down his accelerator and steered his squad car abruptly around the corner one block from his house. That's when he noticed the Volkswagen, the same one he'd seen earlier, parked along the roadside.

Someone was sitting in the driver's seat. Acting on the instinct that only the best street cops seem to possess, Hayward decided to ignore the radio call and check out the Volkswagen. He flicked on his warning lights and aimed a searchlight toward the beetle. 1 What happened next involves a thing psychologists call the fight or flight response. It comes from deep within a person and can be acutely revealing.

When the bright lights from Hayward's car split the darkness, Ted Bundy panicked. His pulse quickened, his eyes dilated and adrenalin surged through his body. He jammed the car into first gear and it bolted from the corner, careening off through the silent, sleeping neighborhood. From a standing start, there is no real chance that a late model Volkswagen will outrun a state police cruiser. So there was never any doubt about what would happen.

But it took 12 blocks before Bundy decided to pull over and by that time, his instincts were under tight control. When Bundy finally climbed out, the first thing Hayward noticed was his attire: a dark, long-sleeved turtleneck and pants. Bundy handed over his driver's license and seemed anxious to explain and cooperate. He had gotten lost in the neighborhood, Bundy said, after seeing a movie at a nearby theater. Which movie, Hayward wondered? I "Towering Inferno," Bundy said, at the Redwood Drive-in.

Victims, from left, Caryn Campbell, Julie Cunningham, Denise Oliverson y5 When his brother telephoned the next afternoon with word of the strange young man named Ted, and told of the handcuffs found in the Volkswagen, lights began popping in the mind of Peter Hayward. Handcuffs on DaRonch. Handcuff key found in Viewmont High School parking lot. A similar physical description. A Volkswagen.

He wanted to know more. Bundy. Bundy. had heard that name somewhere. quite place it.

the three syllables kept scratching at his thoughts. Bundy. It was Monday morning and Jerry Thompson, a Salt Lake County detective, was sitting in the department's regular weekly meeting held to exchange information on pending investigations. Somebody was recounting a strange case the state patrol brought in over the weekend. The guy was a law student at Utah U.

by the name of Bundy. He had spooked at the lights of a state patrol car. Had to be run down. His Volkswagen was loaded with all kinds of suspicious stuff, handcuffs, nylon pantyhose, burglary tools. It was Aug.

18, 1975. The name Ted Bundy was one of hundreds that were stuck in the files Salt Lake detectives had accumulated over the months in the dead girl cases. An old girlfriend had telephoned long distance from Seattle, some time last year. She had insisted they look at his picture. At the time, of course, it didn't mean anything.

He was just a law student. There was no corroborating evidence. She, on the other hand, was a divorcee, who at one time had been under psychiatric care. They had given it the once over, and stuck it in the files. No time to waste on disgruntled girlfriends.

Isn't Bundy the guy a woman from Seattle called about? Thompson wondered aloud. The meeting stopped short. "You could hear everybody's mind slapping the pieces together," a detective later told reporter Michael Daly, according to his account in Rolling Stone magazine. "We started with a traffic offense and 20 minutes later, we had a guy with 20 murders." It didn't take long to put together. And as the hours passed, fact, circumstance and inference began to merge into the momentum that would soon create the astounding public image of Ted Bundy as a mass murderer.

He was looking like their best lead in a long time. And make no mistake, it had been a very long year in Salt Lake City since October 1974 when they had three teenage girls disappear or die in 30 days. Then there were the murders of young women in Colorado, just across the state line. And the newspaper reporters were talking about some Utah. Ever been to Bountiful? the cops wondered.

He didn't think so. Couldn't remember. May have driven through there once. The room search didn't take long. And what happened during the next few weeks involved routine police work.

They circulated Bundy's mug shot and fingerprints to other detectives from various agencies, including the two who were most interested, Capt. Nick Mackie, at the sheriff's office in Seattle, and Mike Fisher, the homicide investigator with the Aspen state attorney's office. They put his picture in with a packet of other male faces and asked witnesses to pick out the man they'd seen. The art teacher who was at Viewmont High School in Bountiful the night Debra Kent disappeared was shown the packet of photographs. She picked Bundy's picture.

It was perfect, she said, all except for the mustache. Put a mustache on him and that's the man I saw. Carol DaRonch, the kidnap victim who fought her way out of a Volkswagen, was shown Bundy's picture, along with others, on several occasions. She couldn't say for sure that Bundy was the mysterious "Officer Roseland." In Colorado, Fisher subpoenaed Bundy's gas credit card records from Chevron Oil Co. They arrived a week later and the momentum that began with the meeting Monday morning shifted into high gear.

Bundy used his gasoline credit card three times in Colorado. Each purchase was made on the same day a young woman disappeared in that state. Each time, the gas was purchased at stations within 30 miles of the individual abduction sites. He put gas in his Volkswagen in Glenwood Springs on Jan 12, 1975, the same day Caryn Campbell disappeared from the Wildwood Inn ski lodge in Aspen after returning to her room for a magazine. Glenwood Springs is a few miles from Aspen.

He bought gas in Dillon, with the same credit card on March 16, 1975, the day Julie Cunningham walked out of her apartment in Vail and vanished. Dillon is 30 miles from Vail. The third time he used the same credit card was in Grand Junction, on April 6, 1975, the same day housewife Denise Lynn Oliverson left her home on a bicycle. The bicycle was found one mile from her home in Grand Junction. As circumstantial evidence that Bundy lied when he said he had never been to Colorado, the oil company records were solid gold.

Ted Bundy, law student, became Ted Bundy, murder suspect. On Oct. 1, 1975, more than 10 months after the attempted abduction of Carol DaRonch, a detective handed Bundy a summons to appear in a police lineup the next morning. He showed up at 9 a.m., but it was obvious his wavy brown hair had been cut within the last 24 hours. The other men in the line-up were police officers.

Each member of the lineup got a number. They gave Bundy number 7. When everything was ready and Carol DaRonch was allowed to view the lineup, frightened recognition snapped her composure. She wept and scribbled the number 7 on a slip of paper. The art teacher and another woman were brought in.

They each picked number 7. At age 28, Theodore Robert Bundy, former aide to the governor of Washington, found himself charged with kidnapping Carol DaRonch Bond was set at $100,000. John O'Connell, Bundy's attorney in Salt Lake City, subsequently argued that the lineup was unfair for several reasons, but mostly because the witnesses, especially Carol DaRonch, had been shown Bundy's photograph so many times during the preceding weeks that his image had become planted in the minds of the young women. O'Connell's aguments, particularly that it was obvious the policemen in the lineup were older than Bundy, had some merit. But it was too late to stop the rush of events that would sweep Ted Bundy along on a roller coaster ride through the criminal justice system.

Wire service dispatches reporting his arrest for kidnapping and the suspected links to other dead or missing women burst across the Pacific Northwest like a thunderbolt. The next day, a headline writer asked the question that would become for many people across America, a blind, mostly circumstantial conclusion: "Could Utah Ted be Seattle Ted?" NEXT: Ted Bundy is on the run I Bundy trial jurors hard to find By RICK SPRATLING Associated Press Writer secretary. "Truthfullly I don't think 1 could sit here and judge him." Mrs. Ellerbrock was excused. Seated next to Bundy was Dr.

Emil Spillman, an Atlanta physician who said he pracitces psychiatry through hynosis. He said as a sideline he serves as a consultant to help lawyers in jury selection. "The hypnosis background really lets you see into a person's subconsious," he said. "You look for a juror that wants to be a juror. look for a person that may be lying." But Spillman wouldn't say what he might have spotted in the prospective jurors for Bundy's case.

Bundy, who is serving as one of his own attorneys, personally argued in a long hand-written motion asking the judge to improve Bundy's conditions of confinement. Neatly dressed in a tweed jacket, the former Utah law student argued his case persuasively. And after visiting Bundy's cell in the Dade county jail. Circuit Judge Edward D. Cowart agreed with some of Bundy's complaints, including one that the lighting in his cell made reading impossible.

He told jailers to make a jail house conference room available so Bundy could read and to send him law books from the jail's library. MIAMI Theodore Bundy's trial on charges of murdering two coeds made scant progress toward picking a jury Monday as the defense was joined by a hypnotist who said he could peer into the subconscious of potential jurors. In nearly a full day of questioning potential jurors, the court succeeded only in eliminating four and leaving three others tentatively seated. Bundy's trial was moved to Miami after no impartial jury could be found in Tallahassee. That is where Lisa Levy, 20, and Margaret Bowman, 21, were strangled and bludgeoned to death in the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University on Jan.

15, 1978. It was clear Monday that plenty of publicity about the case has reached Miami eight of the first 12 jurors up for consideration said they had heard of it. "It's a terrible thing that happened. I don't think I could forget about it," said Lou Ellerbrock, an insurance company.