Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

Ted Bundy

A Time of Terror

Linda Ann Healey
Lynda Ann Healy

Lynda Ann Healy was a very accomplished young woman. At age 21, morning radio listeners heard her friendly voice announce the ski conditions for the major ski areas in western Washington. She was a beautiful girl, tall and slim with shiny clean, long brown hair and a ready smile.

The product of a good family and an uppper-middle-class environment, she was an excellent singer and a senior at the University of Washington, majoring in psychology. She loved working with children who were mentally handicapped.

Lynda shared a house near the university with four other young women. On January 31, 1974, she and a few friends went for a few beers after dinner at Dante's, a tavern that was popular with the university students. They didn't stay long and Lynda went home to watch television and talk on the phone to her boyfriend. Then Lynda went to bed. The roommate in the room next to Lynda heard no noises coming from Lynda's room that night.

Lynda had to get up every morning at 5:30 to get to her job at the radio station. The roommmate heard Lynda's alarm go off at 5:30 as it did customarily. What was unusual was that the alarm kept buzzing. When the roommate finally went in to shut off the alarm, she heard the phone ring. It was the radio station calling to see where Lynda was. The bed in Lynda's room was made and nothing looked disturbed, so the roommate assumed that Lynda was on her way to work.

When her parents called that afternoon to find out why Lynda had not shown up for dinner as expected, everyone became worried. Nobody had seen her. She seemed to have vanished from the house.

Lynda's parents called the police. In Lynda's room, they found that her bed had been made up in a way that Lynda had never made it up before. In fact, Lynda was not normally one to make up her bed. Oddly, a pillowcase and the top sheet were missing on this carefully made-up bed.

A small bloodstain of the same blood type as Lydna's was found on the pillow and the bottom sheet. Blood was also on her nightgown that was carefully hung in the closet. An outfit of hers was missing.

Another alarming clue was that one of the doors to the house was unlocked when the girls were always vigilant about locking it.

The police were not initially convinced that Lynda had been a victim of foul play, so no fingerprint, hair or fiber evidence was gathered.

Ultimately, police realized that an intruder had somehow gotten into the house, removed her nightgown and hung it in the closet, dressed her in a change of clothes, made up the bed, wrapped Lynda in the top bed sheet and carried her out of the house — very quietly.

 

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