Utah authorities will hold a Tuesday news conference to connect Ted Bundy to another decades-old homicide, adding to a case file that has long remained open. The Summit County sheriff's office said the sheriff and county attorney will provide information on the investigation, the findings that led to the conclusion, and the decision to close the case.
The victim's name has not been released. Melissa Ann Smith, who was 17 when she died in 1974, has long been listed as a cold case in the same county, and that local history now sits next to a new conclusion authorities say they are ready to present.
Summit County sheriff announcement
The sheriff's office said ahead of the Tuesday news conference that the Summit County sheriff and county attorney will provide information regarding the investigation, the findings that led to this conclusion, and the decision to close the case. That leaves the announcement focused on two things readers will want first: which homicide is being tied to Bundy and why the case is being closed now.
Bundy has been dead for nearly 40 years, but his case record has continued to change. Authorities in Utah said in April that he was responsible for the murder of Laura Ann Aime, 17, who disappeared on Halloween in 1974.
Melissa Ann Smith in 1974
Smith's 1974 death has long been listed as a cold case, and the new announcement places that unresolved killing back in the center of the record. The victim's name has not been released yet even as authorities say they are closing the case, which means the Tuesday briefing is expected to supply the identification and the investigative basis together.
Bundy killed at least 30 women and girls in multiple states in the 1970s. He was executed by electric chair in Florida in 1989 for the 1978 murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University.
Ted Bundy and DNA
The broader pattern in Bundy's case history has been the use of DNA to revisit old killings and sharpen the historical record. He also gave a series of confessions in his final days, including to some crimes that were previously unknown to police, but not all of those final-day confessions have been confirmed.
Tuesday's announcement will settle one more Utah cold case in the public record and may leave a narrower question for readers: which victim authorities are naming now, and how many other old cases could still be revisited using the same methods.
