1974: Ted Bundy Confessed to Her Killing, but Proof Took 51 Years

Laura Ann Aime left a Halloween party in Lehi, Utah, on this day in 1974 and never made it home. Hikers found her body on the banks of a river in American Fork Canyon almost a month later, on Thanksgiving Day.

At the time, Ted Bundy was living nearby in Salt Lake City, studying law at the University of Utah, while already murdering women across the region. Before his 1989 execution in Florida, he confessed to killing her, but refused to give any detail, so investigators would not close the file on his word alone.

It took new DNA testing, decades later, to formally confirm his guilt, finally closing the case 51 years after Laura disappeared.

Exhibit with the Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA - December 18 2025: The Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy in an exhibit the Alcatraz East Crime Museum | ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com
ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com

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1965: The Moors Murders: Police Find the First Victim on the Moor

After three days searching the moorland above Manchester, police uncovered the first grave. The discovery confirmed what detectives had feared since finding a body at Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s home: there were more victims. Eleven days later, searchers found a second grave. Another victim was never found. His mother spent the rest of her life searching for answers and returning to the moor, hoping to bring her son home.

Graves on Saddleworth Moor in England
Graves on Saddleworth Moor in England

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1993: A Firewood Hunt Led to Two More Bodies in Belanglo Forest

In October 1993, a local man out gathering firewood stumbled on human remains in a remote corner of Belanglo State Forest. The bones belonged to Deborah Everist and James Gibson, a Melbourne couple missing since 1989.

What unsettled investigators was that Gibson's camera and backpack had already turned up years earlier, dumped by the roadside at Galston Gorge, more than 120 kilometres from where his body finally lay. Within weeks, a wider search of the forest uncovered four more young backpackers buried nearby, confirming Belanglo as the burial ground of a serial killer.

Belanglo State Forest
Dark History of Belanglo Forest

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1974: Vanished in Utah: the Teenager Ted Bundy Later Confessed to Killing

Sixteen-year-old Nancy Wilcox vanished from Holladay, Utah in 1974, one of a string of young women who disappeared across the state that year without a trace. No body was ever found, no arrest followed, and for years her family had only questions.

The answer came from Ted Bundy himself. Awaiting execution years later, he confessed to her murder as part of a wider accounting of his crimes, admitting to a killing police had never been able to solve. Her remains have still never been recovered.

Exhibit with the Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA - December 18 2025: The Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy in an exhibit the Alcatraz East Crime Museum | ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com
ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com

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On This Day in True Crime History
1858·The Rope Broke, So They Hanged Him Again: Samuel Gibbs Executed in Melbourne for the Murder of His Wife
1858·He Named Four Innocent Men as the Killers: Hanged in Melbourne for a Ballarat Murder
1929·She Asked for a Kiss, Then Bled to Death: Frederick Carr Hanged in Adelaide for Murdering His Wife
1963·The Royal Commission That Cleared Brisbane Police, Then Unravelled as a Cover-up
More Crime On This Day →

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