[15] However, in the 2020 documentary film Crazy, Not Insane, psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis claimed she received a sample of Bundy's blood and that a DNA test had confirmed that he was not the product of incest.

"[62] In early 1973, despite mediocre LSAT scores, Bundy was accepted into the law schools of UPS and the University of Utah (U of U) on the strength of letters of recommendation from Evans, Davis and several UW psychology professors.

On March 12, Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of Seattle, left her dormitory to attend a jazz concert on campus but never arrived.

[88] On April 17, 18-year-old Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared while on her way to her dorm room after an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Seattle.

[90][91] On May 6, Roberta Kathleen Parks, aged 22, left her dormitory at Oregon State University in Corvallis,[92] 260 miles (420 km) south of Seattle, to have coffee with friends at the Memorial Union, but never arrived.

[100][101] The next afternoon he returned to the UW alley and, in the very midst of a major crime scene investigation, located and gathered Hawkins' earrings and one of her shoes where he had left them in the adjoining parking lot and departed, unobserved.

Three additional witnesses saw "Ted" approach Janice Ann Ott, 23, a probation caseworker at the King County Juvenile Court, with the sailboat story and watched her leave the beach in his company.

[118] Bundy told Stephen Michaud and FBI agent William Hagmaier that Ott was still alive when he returned with Naslund and that he forced one to watch as he assaulted and murdered the other,[119][120][121] but he later denied it in an interview with Lewis on the eve of his execution.

Kloepfer, Rule, a DES employee, and a UW psychology professor all recognized the profile, the sketch and the car, and reported Bundy as a possible suspect;[123] but detectives—who were receiving up to 200 tips per day[124]—thought it unlikely that a clean-cut law student with no adult criminal record could be the perpetrator.

[127] Six months later, forestry students from Green River Community College discovered the skulls and mandibles of Healy, Rancourt, Parks and Ball on Taylor Mountain, where Bundy frequently hiked, just east of Issaquah.

[157] On March 15, 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Snowmass Village, Vail ski instructor Julie Lyle Cunningham, aged 26, disappeared while walking from her apartment to a dinner date with a friend.

Bundy later told Colorado investigators that he approached Cunningham on crutches and asked her to help carry his ski boots to his car, where he clubbed and handcuffed her before sexually assaulting her at a secondary site near Rifle, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail.

[159][160] Denise Lynn Oliverson, aged 25, disappeared near the Utah–Colorado border in Grand Junction on April 6 while riding her bicycle to her parents' house; her bike and sandals were found under a viaduct near a railroad bridge.

On May 6, Bundy parked outside of the Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho, 160 miles (255 km) north of Salt Lake City, and after seeing 12-year-old Lynette Dawn Culver walking along by herself, he lured her into his vehicle before driving her to his Holiday Inn hotel room.

In a search of Bundy's apartment, police found a guide to Colorado ski resorts with a checkmark by the Wildwood Inn,[176] and a brochure that advertised the Viewmont High School play in Bountiful, where Kent had disappeared.

[189] In October, Bundy was found hiding in bushes in the prison yard carrying an "escape kit"—road maps, airline schedules and a Social Security card—and spent several weeks in solitary confinement.

[205] "A more rational defendant might have realized that he stood a good chance of acquittal, and that beating the murder charge in Colorado would probably have dissuaded other prosecutors ... with as little as a year and a half to serve on the DaRonch conviction, had Ted persevered, he could have been a free man.

[211] On the night of December 30, with most of the jail staff on Christmas break and nonviolent prisoners on furlough with their families,[212] Bundy piled books and files in his bed, covered them with a blanket to simulate his sleeping body and climbed into the crawl space.

[217] Bundy later said that he initially resolved to find legitimate employment and refrain from further criminal activity, knowing he could probably remain free and undetected in Florida indefinitely as long as he did not attract the attention of police;[218] but his lone job application, at a construction site, had to be abandoned when he was asked to produce identification.

[222] He then entered the bedroom of 20-year-old Lisa Janet Levy and beat her unconscious, strangled her, tore one of her nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock and sexually assaulted her with a hair mist bottle.

[221] After leaving the sorority house, Bundy broke into a basement apartment eight blocks away and attacked 21-year-old FSU student Cheryl Thomas, dislocating her shoulder and fracturing her jaw and skull in five places.

Seven weeks later, after an intensive search, her partially mummified remains were found in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park, 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Lake City.

[233][234] On February 12, with insufficient cash to pay his overdue rent and a growing suspicion that police were closing in on him,[235] Bundy stole a car and fled Tallahassee, driving westward across the Florida Panhandle.

"[243] According to Mike Minerva, a Tallahassee public defender and member of the defense team, a pre-trial plea bargain was negotiated in which Bundy would plead guilty to killing Levy, Bowman and Leach in exchange for a firm 75-year prison sentence.

He told them that he revisited Taylor Mountain, Issaquah and other secondary crime scenes, often several times, to lie with his victims and perform sexual acts with their bodies until putrefaction forced him to stop.

"[146] Bundy decapitated approximately twelve of his victims with a hacksaw,[44][283] and kept at least one group of severed heads—probably the four later found on Taylor Mountain (Rancourt, Parks, Ball and Healy)—in his apartment for a period of time before disposing of them.

[297] Colorado Detective Matt Lindvall interpreted this as a conflict between his desire to postpone his execution by divulging information and his need to remain in "total possession—the only person who knew his victims' true resting places.

"[146] Consumption of large quantities of alcohol was an "essential component," he told both Keppel and Michaud; he needed to be "extremely drunk" while on the prowl[339][340] in order to "significantly diminish" his inhibitions and to "sedate" the "dominant personality" that he feared might prevent his inner "entity" from acting on his impulses.

Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and an authority on violent behavior, initially made a diagnosis of bipolar disorder,[347] but later changed her impression more than once.

"[385] "I told Ted Bundy that we now have the evidence to charge him with both cases," Leon County Sheriff Kenneth Katsaris recalled, referring to the Chi Omega murders and the slaying of Leach.