Ted Bundy claims another victim as Utah teen cold case tied to murderer
After more than 50 years, the case has been definitively linked to the notorious serial killer
Police in Utah have officially closed a 51-year-old cold case after new DNA technology identified a murdered teenager as a victim of serial killer Ted Bundy.
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Laura Ann Aime, 17, disappeared after leaving a Halloween party on October 31, 1974.
Her body was discovered about one month later by hikers in the American Fork Canyon. She had been strangled and severely beaten.
On Wednesday, the Utah County Sheriff's Office announced that new testing "confirmed irrefutably that DNA evidence recovered from Laura's body verified the existence of DNA belonging to Bundy".
Before he was executed in Florida in 1989, Bundy confessed to Laura's killing, but since he would not elaborate or give any detail to his actual involvement in her death, "the Sheriff's Department elected to keep this case open until investigators could prove, without a shadow of doubt", that he was her killer – the sheriff said in a statement.
Utah County sheriff Mike Smith declared the case as "officially closed" during the news conference on Wednesday, adding that if Bundy were still alive, prosecutors would pursue the death penalty against him.
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Bundy is one of America's most infamous serial killers. Between February 1974 and February 1978 Bundy murdered at least 30 women and has been linked to many more murders throughout the country.
At the time of Laura's death, Bundy was living in Salt Lake City and studying law at the University of Utah.
Michelle Impala, Laura'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."