Ted Bundy was charged with aggravated kidnapping in Utah, first-degree murder in Colorado, and a combined total of nine felony counts across two separate Florida trials. He was convicted in Utah and in both Florida cases, producing three death sentences. The Colorado murder charge never reached trial because Bundy escaped custody twice and was then convicted and sentenced to death in Florida, making the Colorado prosecution moot. He was also the prime suspect in killings across Washington, Idaho, and additional Utah cases, but no charges were ever filed in those matters, even after he confessed to many of them in the days before his execution.
Utah: Aggravated Kidnapping of Carol DaRonch
Bundy’s first criminal charge came out of a failed abduction on November 8, 1974, when he approached Carol DaRonch at a shopping mall in Murray, Utah, posing as a police officer. DaRonch fought her way out of his car and escaped. Bundy was identified months later, in August 1975, after a Utah Highway Patrol trooper stopped him and found handcuffs, a ski mask, and other items in his vehicle. DaRonch picked him out of a lineup.
In March 1976, a judge convicted him of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced him to one to fifteen years in the Utah State Prison. That conviction traveled with him. When Florida courts later weighed aggravating factors to support the death penalty, the Utah kidnapping counted as a prior violent felony.1Justia Law. Bundy v. State :: 1989 :: Florida Supreme Court Decisions
Colorado: First-Degree Murder of Caryn Campbell
While Bundy was serving his Utah sentence, Colorado charged him with the first-degree murder of Caryn Campbell, a 23-year-old nurse who had disappeared from a lodge in Snowmass Village in January 1975. Her body was found about a month later along a dirt road. Bundy was transferred to Colorado in January 1977 to face the charge.
He never stood trial for Campbell’s murder. On June 7, 1977, during a pretrial hearing at the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, Bundy jumped from a second-story window after being left unshackled to use the law library. He was recaptured six days later. On December 30, 1977, held at the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, he removed a light fixture in his cell, crawled through the ceiling, and made it out of the building. He reached Florida within days.
Both escapes exposed him to Colorado escape charges on top of the murder count. After his Florida convictions and death sentences, Colorado let the pending charges drop and never brought him back.
Florida: The Chi Omega and Dunwoody Street Indictment
The heaviest set of charges came from a single night in Tallahassee. In the early hours of January 15, 1978, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University and attacked four women in their sleep, killing Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy and seriously injuring Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler. Within the same hour he entered a duplex apartment on Dunwoody Street and attacked Cheryl Thomas in her bed.
A grand jury indicted Bundy on seven counts arising from that night:2Justia Law. Bundy v. State :: 1984 :: Florida Supreme Court Decisions
- Two counts of first-degree murder, for Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy.
- Three counts of attempted first-degree murder, for Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler at Chi Omega and for Cheryl Thomas at Dunwoody Street.
- Two counts of burglary, one for the sorority house and one for the Dunwoody Street apartment.
The trial moved to Miami on a change of venue because of the saturation coverage in Tallahassee. On July 24, 1979, the jury convicted Bundy on all seven counts. The judge imposed two death sentences, one for each murder.
Florida: The Kimberly Leach Indictment
Bundy was indicted separately for the abduction and murder of Kimberly Leach, a 12-year-old who disappeared from her school in Lake City, Florida, on February 9, 1978. The grand jury returned the indictment on July 21, 1978, charging him with first-degree murder and kidnapping.1Justia Law. Bundy v. State :: 1989 :: Florida Supreme Court Decisions The trial was held in Orlando in early 1980.
The jury convicted him of both counts. The judge imposed a third death sentence. With two trials, nine Florida counts, and three death sentences, Bundy’s formal criminal exposure in Florida was complete.
Crimes He Confessed To But Was Never Charged With
The charges that produced convictions are a smaller list than the killings Bundy admitted to. In the days before his execution he began confessing to investigators from multiple states, claiming responsibility for 24 killings during 1974 and 1975, though many of those statements lacked verifiable detail.3UPI Archives. Investigators Luke Warm to 24 Bundy Confessions A Salt Lake County detective said Bundy admitted to eight Utah killings but gave useful specifics for only two. A Washington state investigator reported that Bundy took responsibility for the eight women long known as the “Ted murders” and named three additional Washington victims.
Despite being the prime suspect in a string of 1974 disappearances in Washington, including Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish State Park on July 14, 1974, and University of Washington student Georgann Hawkins in June 1974, he was never charged in Washington. Skeletal remains of Ott and Naslund were recovered that September, along with bones Bundy later identified as Hawkins’s.
He also confessed to killing a young female hitchhiker he picked up near Boise, Idaho, on September 2, 1974, describing her as roughly 16 to 18 years old, about five-foot-six, with light brown hair and a green backpack. She has never been identified and her remains have not been found.4Ada County Sheriff. ACSO Seeks Public’s Help to Identify Teen Abducted by Ted Bundy in 1974 In Utah, he confessed to killing Debra Kent, a 17-year-old who disappeared from Bountiful on November 8, 1974, the same evening he tried to abduct Carol DaRonch. DNA testing later confirmed Kent’s remains matched evidence from the case.5KSL.com. DNA Testing Helped Police Confirm Missing Utah Teen Was Killed by Ted Bundy No murder charges were filed in Utah.
Execution
Ted Bundy was executed in Florida’s electric chair on January 24, 1989, at age 42. Less than an hour before his execution, he gave investigators directions to two locations where he said he had left victims’ remains. The formal convictions that put him there were the Utah aggravated kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, two first-degree murders and three attempted first-degree murders at Chi Omega and Dunwoody Street, two burglaries from the same night, and the first-degree murder and kidnapping of Kimberly Leach. The true number of his victims is believed to be far higher than what any charging document ever reflected.