Free The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer by Robert Keppel

from her basement bedroom at the University of Washington on January 31, 1974.
Lynda Healy
     
    The Lynda Healy disappearance was one of the most intriguing and sinister aspects of Ted’s career as a serial killer. Lynda Healy was probably Ted’s first victim. Had that case been investigated more carefully in the beginning, we might have picked up the cousin of one of Lynda’s old roommates by the name of Theodore Robert Bundy. Lynda, an aspiring psychology student, 5 feet 7 inches tall, slender, with long, dark brown hair, was a truly beautiful young woman. She worked at Northwest Ski Productions, where she broadcast the daily ski report for Crystal Mountain, Snoqualamie Pass, and Mt. Baker. She was expected early at work on that morning of February 1, 1974, to give the report. She was a no-show, unusual for Lynda, who had been well known as a very reliable person. When she didn’t show, someone from Northwest Ski called her house and her housemate checked Lynda’s room only to find the bed neatly made and Lynda nowhere to be seen. The bicycle Lynda sometimes rode the 10-block route to work was still at the house. Because this disappearance just wasn’t like Lynda, the police were called immediately and a missing-person report was filed. Later that day, Lynda’s friends and family checked her room. When covers to her bed were pulled back, a large amount of blood was found near where her head would have rested on her pillow. Further searching revealed that her nightgown was neatly hung behind the strings of beads that were the door to her closet. The nightgown was bloody also. The clothing she was wearing the day she was last seen, as well as her red nylon backpack, was missing. The clothing and jewelry missing were a pair of blue jeans, a white smock blouse with blue trim, a pair of brown waffle-stomper boots, a brown belt, and a number of turquoise rings. Also, the top sheet of her bedding was gone.
    When the evidence was discovered, the police were called backto the green three-story residence. The house was a typical multi-person dwelling in the university district. It had several rooms on each floor, a common bathroom on each floor, a front door, a rear door, and a side door. It was, in fact, identical in layout to Ted Bundy’s residence eight blocks away and similar to Bundy’s girlfriend’s house three blocks away. By car, the house was accessible from 17th Northeast and from an alley that parallels 17th Northeast near the rear of the house. Lynda’s room was located on the basement floor, just a small flight of cement stairs down from the side door to the house.
    Police officers photographed the front and side exterior of the house, the stairs to the basement, and Lynda’s room. They quickly collected the sheet, pillow, and nightgown, and restricted access to the room so that they could look for additional evidence. After that, no further processing of the crime scene took place.
    No sign of Lynda would ever be found until her lower jawbone was discovered by the search dogs on Taylor Mountain. I put the very highest personal priority on solving this case and when we finally solved it, we understood that Ted had behaved just like a stalker. Had we investigated Lynda’s death more thoroughly, we might have had Ted in our sights a full six months or more before he showed up that fateful day at Lake Sammamish.
Donna Manson
     
    About 60 miles to the south of Seattle is Olympia, the capital of Washington. Nestled in the woods about five miles west of downtown is the campus of Evergreen State College, a nontraditional school where the students could immediately enroll in classes with a focus on what interested them. This was an alternative college where the rigid core course requirements of the other state institutions did not apply.
    It was early evening on March 12, 1974, when Donna Gail Manson was last seen walking across the campus to attend a jazz concert. Like Lynda Healy, she was an attractive coed with