How did DNA tie Ted Bundy to Utah teen Melissa Ann Smith's murder—52 years later?

The decades-old case into the murder of a Utah girl, Melissa Ann Smith, has come to an end, linking DNA to the most notorious serial killer in U.S. history: Ted Bundy.

Summit County Attorney Margaret Olsen said four key words that best describe Ted Bundy's modus operandi—pattern, motive, means and opportunity.

Smith went missing in 1974 before her body was found days later.

State officials held a news conference on Tuesday, October 27, and confirmed DNA has linked Ted Bundy to the murder of the then 17-year-old girl named Melissa Ann Smith.

The investigators got breakthrough of the probe of Melissa Ann Smith’s murder after Utah County detectives confirmed in April that Bundy had killed another Utah girl, 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime, in 1974.

Bundy had confessed to killing Laura during a series of admissions he made before being executed in 1989 for two of his murders.

Laura was last spotted during a Halloween party, before being found dead and severely beaten in late November 1974.

Who was Melissa Ann Smith?

The 17-year-old Utah girl Melissa Ann Smith, who was the daughter of late Midvale Police Chief Louis Smith, was first reported missing from Salt Lake County on October 18, 1978.

Two weeks later, her body was discovered by hunters in a dense forest area bordering Salt Lake County and Summit County.

How did DNA link Ted Bundy to Utah teen murder?

When Summit County Sheriff’s Lt Alan Siddoway approached case detective Ben Pender, who was leading the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office cold case unit, to see what evidentiary items they had.

They came to know the office had the complete case file.

Forensic experts from the Utah State Crime Lab developed a Y-STR profile from the Laura Ann Aime murder executed by Ted Bundy for direct comparison to the Y-STR profile in Smith’s case.

For context, an Y-STR profile is a DNA profile from the “Y” chromosome.

Bodily fluid extracted from Laura’s body matched Bundy’s known DNA profile, law enforcement officials said at the time.

The Y-STR profile in Aime’s case that was developed in 2006 was consistent with the profile in Smith’s case.

Who was Ted Bundy, the notorious serial killer in U.S. history?

Ted Bundy, a Vermont native, was born in 1946.

In 1974, he relocated to Salt Lake City, where he was enrolled at the University of Utah law school.

Bundy managed to escape custody twice in Colorado after he was convicted of aggravated kidnapping in the Daronch case.

Following his second escape, he murdered two women at the Chi Omega sorority house in Florida and 12-year-old Kinverly Leach.

Bundy reportedly confessed to 30 murders, but not every case was confirmed.

After his arrest in Florida in 1978, he was convicted of three murders: two Chi Omega students and 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, and executed in 1989.