The Only Living Witness by Stephen G. Michaud & Hugh Aynesworth

Author:Stephen G. Michaud & Hugh Aynesworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Authorlink
Published: 2012-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Judge Hanson sentenced Ted to a term of one to fifteen years in the Utah State Prison. The punishment was comparatively light; Bundy would be eligible for parole in less than three years.

Once again, after he conquered his initial fright at being behind bars, Ted found the environment almost congenial. He blossomed as a jail house lawyer, exchanging his minimal legal expertise for favors — principally dope. In time, Bundy grew so comfortable with his environment and with himself that he began to forget what he was and the brutal urges he had felt in the outside world. The lack of stress in a simple, elemental existence deceived him into thinking he had rid himself of his deadly compulsion. But the entity was only dormant.

In January, just weeks before the DaRonch trial began, Mike Fisher and Barry Bryant, a prosecutor from Aspen, had met secretly in a Salt Lake City civil defense air raid shelter with David Yocom, Jerry Thompson, Bob Keppel, and a prosecutor from Seattle, Phil Killien. Their purpose was to determine if anyone had a strong enough case to indict Bundy for murder. Already concerned about the potential legal issue of pretrial publicity, they did not want news of their meeting leaked to the press.

Yocom was loath to prosecute Ted for kidnapping if a murder charge could be brought, but in the four months since Bundy’s arrest, Thompson and the rest of the Utah investigators had turned up only a single piece of substantive new evidence against Ted. This was the pubic hair, vacuumed from his impounded VW, which was microscopically indistinguishable from Melissa Smith’s. Not enough for an indictment.

Bob Keppel and Phil Killien reported that they were no closer to an indictment in Seattle, and didn’t think they would, ever get one, barring a confession from Bundy.

That left Mike Fisher, who had the ski brochure from Ted’s apartment, the gas-card receipts, the hair match between Caryn Campbell and a sample from Ted’s car, and, just recently, a witness who might be able to place Ted inside the Wildwood Inn within minutes of Caryn Campbell’s disappearance.

While the others waited in Salt Lake, Fisher and Bryant flew to Aspen and presented their evidence to Judge George Lohr, a highly respected jurist known for his regard for defendants’ rights. Lohr was unconvinced that Fisher had established probable cause to believe Bundy had murdered Caryn Campbell. He would authorize no indictment or extradition order. Back in the air raid shelter, Fisher reported his disappointment. Bundy would be tried for kidnap only.

But Fisher didn’t give up. After the DaRonch trial, the FBI lab reported another hair match; they could now link Carol DaRonch to Ted’s car. Beyond Fisher’s witness, a doctor’s wife from California who had tentatively picked Ted’s photo as that of the man she saw January 12, 1975, at the Wildwood Inn, a new witness had also come forward to report that she’d seen Bundy hobbling around on crutches in Aspen that spring.

Before going back to Judge Lohr, however, Fisher decided upon a gamble.

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