New Ted Bundy Victim Confirmed More Than 50 Years Later After His Confession

Infamous serial killer Ted Bundy kidnapped and murdered dozens of young women throughout the 1970s. However, while the murderer was executed in January 1989, his victims are still being identified.

Laura Ann Aime, a 17-year-old girl from Utah, disappeared on Halloween 1974 after leaving a party alone. Now, 52 years after the case went cold, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Aime to be Bundy’s latest victim.

“Case evidence similarities indicated that the manner of abuse and the likely cause of death was comparable to the modus operandi of Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy,” the sheriff’s office said on Wednesday, April 1.

Aime’s body was found, naked and beaten, by hikers on the side of the highway in American Fork Canyon on November 27, 1974.

Using new technology, forensic analysts were able to use small portions of the preserved DNA evidence from the case to identify a single male DNA profile. Bundy was determined to be a match.

“Although Bundy did claim that he committed the murder of Laura, the confession he gave was deemed to be not enough evidence to close the case and rule out any other party having had committed this crime,” the sheriff said. “We can now say, without a doubt, that Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy, did, in fact, murder Laura Ann Aime in the fall of 1974.”

The sheriff explained that, if Bundy were alive today, they would have sought the death penalty for the murder of Aime.