DNA Links Ted Bundy to 1974 Killing of Utah Teen Melissa Ann Smith, Prosecutors Say

Summit County, Utah, authorities announced Tuesday that DNA evidence links serial killer Ted Bundy to the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith, 52 years to the day after a hunter found her body. Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson said the DNA, considered with evidence of pattern, motive, means and opportunity, establishes that Bundy was responsible. Smith disappeared on October 18, 1974, after meeting a friend at a pizza restaurant, and was found nine days later in the Summit Park area near Park City. An autopsy found she had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled. She was the daughter of then-Midvale Police Chief Louis Smith. It is the second Utah cold case tied to Bundy this year; in April, authorities attributed the death of 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime to him. Utah's crime lab began using new DNA technology in 2023 that builds full genetic profiles from degraded or mixed samples. Bundy was executed in Florida in 1989 and is tied to at least 30 killings in the 1970s. A vial of his blood, drawn in 1978 and found in 2011, gave the FBI database his full profile.

The right-leaning Daily Wire leads with the victim and the case: its headline stresses a murder victim linked to a killer 50 years later, and it details Smith's disappearance, her father's job as police chief, the autopsy findings, the Park City news conference and the crime lab's technology, quoting Olson. CBS News and The Washington Post, on the left, open with Bundy himself, noting his death in 1989, his growing tally of confirmed victims, the Florida execution and the blood vial that put his profile into the FBI database. They give less on Smith's family and the crime's details. Both sides agree on the date, the Aime connection and the DNA basis. The difference is emphasis: victim-focused versus Bundy- and database-focused. Straight Arrow News and the AP largely match the left's account.