The case of a Utah teenager murdered more than 50 years ago is finally closed after authorities said Wednesday that DNA evidence confirmed she was a victim of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.
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Laura Ann Aime, 17, was last seen at a Halloween party on Oct. 31, 1974. She left the party to do a convenience store run and never returned, according to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.
Hikers found the woman’s body about a month later, down an embankment just off a mountain road. It appeared she had been strangled and severely beaten, the office said.
Before his execution in 1989, Bundy admitted to killing Aime, Sheriff Mike Smith said Wednesday. But authorities declined to accept the confession and determined the case “was unable to satisfactorily convict Bundy based upon the evidence in possession and with the available investigative sciences for the time,” the sheriff’s office said.
At the time, Bundy was studying law at the University of Utah.
The office said that it began efforts last year to resolve Aime’s cold case using new forensic techniques and DNA test comparisons. The process confirmed that the DNA evidence recovered from Aime’s body in 1974 belonged to Bundy.
“This case is officially closed,” Smith said during a news conference Wednesday.
Laura Ann Aime.Utah Department of Public Safety
Michelle Impala, Aime’s younger sister, remembered Aime as a fun, outgoing older sister.
“I was 12 when Laura died. She was 17. We were really close. We shared a room. We rode horses together. She was very passionate about animals,” Impala, who is now 64, said at the news conference. “She took me everywhere, as a 12-year-old that was pretty cool to hang out with my older sister.”
Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Reynolds, who was involved in reviewing Aime’s cold case last year, described the late teen as “the quintessential daughter of Utah County.”
“We felt the pain the family feels when she was taken. We felt the pain that you felt this whole entire time, and we’ve had the desire to deliver to you some type of healing, we can’t really say closure,” Reynolds said during the news conference.
Smith said new forensic techniques “will make any future DNA test comparisons easier for those law enforcement agencies who still have open cases involving Bundy.”
Bundy kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered what is believed to be dozens of young women during the 1970s.
While it is unknown exactly how many people he killed, he confessed to murdering 30 women in seven states in the mid-1970s. Bundy was executed on Jan. 24, 1989.
Bundy was convicted of murdering two sorority sisters from Florida State University. The 1979 trial was the first to be nationally televised, sparking a twisted fascination among viewers at home who considered him charming and handsome.
In the decades since his execution, Bundy has been the subject of countless films, documentaries, books and biographies.
