The search for Ted Bundy murder victim Julie Cunningham will resume this summer, almost 50 years after she disappeared from Vail, Colorado.
Before being executed in 1989, serial killer Bundy confessed to murdering Cunningham – and a string of other young women – and burying her body “in the high desert” north of Rifle.
That’s where private investigator, Jason Jensen, and his trained human remains detection dog, Lily, plan to search for Cunningham.
The missing 26-year-old was last seen in the early evening of March 15, 1975, after she left her apartment to visit a local tavern.
Cunningham is one of four Bundy victims Jensen will be looking for this summer. He also plans to search for the gravesites of Susan Curtis, Debra Kent and Nancy Wilcox, who were all murdered in Utah. Bundy admitted to killing others, claiming some were thrown into rivers and elsewhere.
“We’re probably not going to find them this far down the road at all,” Jensen says. “But the four that he described to law enforcement were described well enough that we have target areas to search.”
In conjunction with the Cold Case Coalition, a missing person nonprofit he helped found, Jensen has long been planning to resume the search for Bundy’s victims and hopes to finally locate and bring the women’s bodies home.
“It’s like a dream come true, with all of my years of searching for missing people and experience culminating into this perfect moment.”
It’s an ambitious plan, Jensen admits, but he feels the time is right. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Bundy’s first proven murder of University of Washington co-ed Lynda Ann Healy in Seattle in 1974.
Prior to his execution in Florida, Bundy confessed to more than 30 murders across seven states — including Utah and Colorado — between 1974 and 1978, though some believe he killed many more.
Cunningham is said to have encountered Bundy when he lured her to his vehicle by posing as an injured skier on crutches and asking her to help carry his ski boots. He claims he knocked her unconscious, drove her to a remote area west of Vail, raped and then strangled her.
Jensen is based in Utah, where he runs an agency providing support services to customers involved in criminal and civil court actions, and hopes he can help finally bring closure to the families of Bundy’s victims.
“He was active in Utah when I was a small child, and we became accustomed to his name,” Jensen says. “It’s bothersome to realize that there are still remains out there that haven’t been recovered, and I want to find them.”
