Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On November 8, 1974, Salt Lake City, Utah, resident Carol
DaRonch narrowly escaped being abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy. DaRonch had
been shopping at a mall when a man claiming to be a police detective told her
that there was an attempted theft of her car and she needed to file a police
report. Despite her misgivings, DaRonch accompanied the man to his Volkswagen
and got into the car. Once inside, he placed a handcuff on her and attempted to
hit her with a crowbar, but DaRonch fought back and jumped out of the car to
safety.
DaRonch’s attempted abduction was of special interest to
the Utah authorities at the time, who were trying to figure out what had
happened to several young women who disappeared earlier in the fall of 1974.
Simultaneously, Seattle area officials were looking for a young man named Ted
who was the suspected culprit in many murder cases.
On August 16, 1975, an officer noticed a suspicious
Volkswagen driving around his patrol area. After pulling the vehicle over, he
found handcuffs in the back of the automobile and arrested the driver–Ted
Bundy. Following his arrest, Bundy was identified as the man who tried to
kidnap DaRonch. In March 1976, he was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, which
put him behind bars while investigators tried to connect him to the many unsolved
murders in Washington, Colorado, and Utah.
On December 30, 1977, Bundy managed to escape from jail.
A few months later, he was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List,
and on February 15, 1978, he was finally captured. He eventually confessed to
the murders of 28 women, and was executed in Florida on January 24, 1989.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of two true crime books that includes the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949
and the soon to be released In the Company
of Evil – Thirty Years of California Crime, 1950-1980. Visit Michael’s
website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the
following links:
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