Caryn Campbell: Disappearance, Murder, and Bundy’s Confession

The Caryn Campbell murder was the January 12, 1975 killing of a 24-year-old Michigan nurse who was abducted from a ski-resort hotel in Snowmass Village, Colorado, by serial killer Ted Bundy. It is the only Colorado murder for which Bundy was formally charged, though he never stood trial for it. He confessed to killing Campbell days before his execution in Florida in January 1989.¹

How Campbell Disappeared From the Wildwood Inn

Campbell had traveled to the Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village with her fiancé, Dr. Raymond Gadowski, who was attending a medical convention there. On the evening of January 12, 1975, the couple returned to the lodge from dinner at around 6:00 p.m. Campbell left the lobby to walk up to their second-floor room to get a magazine. She never came back.²

She vanished somewhere between the lobby and a room one floor above it, inside a busy hotel full of convention guests. When Gadowski realized she was missing, a search was launched. It turned up nothing.

Where Her Body Was Found

Thirty-six days later, on February 17, 1975, Campbell’s body was found along Owl Creek Road where it descends from Sinclair Divide toward Snowmass Village, roughly four miles from the hotel.³ She was nude. Her remains had been covered by snow for much of the time she was missing and had been disfigured by animals.

Examiners determined she had suffered blows to the back of the head and that her hands appeared to have been bound behind her back. They found no evidence of sexual assault.³ Investigator Mike Fisher, then with the Colorado state attorney’s office, later said Bundy killed Campbell at the spot where her body was found, striking her with a crowbar.⁴

How Investigators Linked Ted Bundy to the Case

For more than a year, there was no suspect. Campbell was Bundy’s first known Colorado victim, but not his last. Julie Cunningham disappeared from Vail in March 1975, and Denise Oliverson vanished in Grand Junction in April 1975. Neither woman’s body has ever been found.⁵ Campbell’s case was the one investigators could build, because she was the only Colorado victim whose body had been recovered.⁶

The break came after Bundy was arrested on August 16, 1976, during a traffic stop in a Salt Lake City suburb.⁷ FBI technicians dismantled his 1968 tan Volkswagen Beetle and recovered hairs that matched Campbell’s.⁶ Around the same time, Denver Post reporter Jay Whearly was tracing a pattern across Colorado disappearances and unsolved cases in the Pacific Northwest: young women, often with long dark hair parted in the middle.

In November 1976, more than thirty investigators from jurisdictions across the western United States gathered in Aspen to compare notes. By the end of the meeting, they were collectively convinced Bundy was responsible.⁶ Colorado charged him with first-degree murder in Campbell’s death, and he was extradited from Utah to Pitkin County in January 1977.⁸

Why There Was Never a Trial

The case was set to be heard at the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen. Bundy insisted on acting as his own attorney, and the presiding judge gave him access to the courthouse law library on the second floor, ruling that he did not need handcuffs or leg shackles while moving between the library and the courtroom.⁸

On June 7, 1977, during a recess in pretrial proceedings, Bundy jumped from a second-story window of the courthouse and fled into the surrounding mountains.⁶ He hid in the wilderness for several days before stealing a car in Aspen. Six days after the escape, a deputy pulled him over on Highway 82 near Independence Pass and brought him back into custody.⁹

He was then transferred to the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs. On December 30, 1977, he escaped again, this time by climbing through a ceiling grate and ductwork above his cell, dropping into an empty jailer’s apartment, changing into civilian clothes, and walking out. He left Colorado for good and traveled to Florida, where he committed further murders before his final arrest in Pensacola on February 15, 1978.⁸

Because of those two escapes, the Colorado charges never went to trial. Bundy was instead tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Florida for the murders of Margaret Bowman, Lisa Levy, and Kimberly Leach.⁹

Bundy’s Confession to the Campbell Murder

In January 1989, days before his scheduled execution, Bundy reached out to the Colorado investigators who had worked his cases for more than a decade. Mike Fisher and former Vail police detective Matt Lindvall traveled to Florida’s death row for what author Kevin Sullivan later called a “bones for time” arrangement: Bundy offering confessions in hopes of delaying his death.⁷

In a three-hour interview on January 21, 1989, Bundy confessed to Campbell’s murder, confirming what investigators had long believed. He also confessed to killing Julie Cunningham and Denise Oliverson. He described using fake crutches to feign an injury and asking Cunningham to help him carry ski boots to his car before incapacitating and killing her.¹ In a separate taped confession made shortly before his execution, he said he had abducted Oliverson near Grand Junction and dumped her body in the Colorado River.⁷

Fisher described the meetings as “tension-filled,” with Bundy trying to bargain for his life and pressuring the State of Florida to halt the execution. Fisher called Bundy a “very efficient killer” and “very efficient stalker” who was driven by the terror he could inflict on his victims. On Campbell, Fisher said: “He killed her right where we found her, on Owl Creek Road. He hit her with that crowbar.”⁴

The confessions did not save him. Bundy was executed by electric chair on January 24, 1989. The bodies of Cunningham and Oliverson have never been recovered, and their missing persons cases remain officially open.⁷

Who Caryn Campbell Was

Campbell was 24 at the time of her death. She was from Dearborn, Michigan, and worked as a nurse. Her sister, Nancy McDonald, was among the family members who waited through the long years between Bundy’s identification as a suspect and his confession more than a decade later.¹⁰ By one count, she was Bundy’s fourteenth verified victim overall.⁶

1
Orlando Sentinel. Bundy Details Grisly Murders
2
Aspen Times. Snowmass History: Remembering Caryn Eileen Campbell
3
Post Independent. Evidence Represents Ted Bundy’s Time in the Roaring Fork Valley
4
Aspen Daily News. Bundy Flees to Florida, Killing Goes On
5
Denver7. Evil Is Real: Former Sheriff, Photographer Reflect on Encounters With Ted Bundy in Colorado
6
Denver Public Library. The Very Definition of Heartless Evil: Ted Bundy in Colorado
7
USA Today. Ted Bundy: Could His Killing Spree Have Ended in Colorado
8
ABC News. Notorious Serial Killer Ted Bundy’s Escape From Custody
9
Aspen Times. Author Releases New Book About Ted Bundy’s Six Days in Aspen
10
TIME. Press: Knocking on Death’s Door