Ted Bundy's Murderous Mysteries

by Kevin Sullivan

  When writing the first book, I had a general idea where Bundy parked his car, where the railroad trestle might have been located, and the approximated distance Bundy had walked with his intended victims, including his actual victim Susan Rancourt, but I had no knowledge of where the pond was located or the bridge which spanned it. Not until a Facebook friend who had, through much research, figured out conclusively where they were located. Knowing this allowed me to recreate for the printed page, step by step, where the path was located that Bundy and Rancourt took to his car.

  What follows is from The Trail of Ted Bundy, and the information contained herein will give you a good picture of how this abduction unfolded. Never leaving things to chance, the scheming Bundy parked his VW in what may have been the most isolated spot on campus:

  The area of Bundy’s hunting centered on the Bouillon Library (now Bouillon Hall), which sits between Walnut Street, in front, and Chestnut Street, which runs along the rear of the library. If one stands in front of the library, Black Hall is on the left, facing the side of the library. Squeezed in between these two buildings was a round structure known as the Grupe Conference Center (still standing today). In 1974, there was a small man-made pond that ran between the conference center and Bouillon, and the bridge spoken of in the record ran over this pond and parallel to the library. So, walking this bridge means you’re either walking toward the library or away from it, as students could only enter the building through the main front doors. Knowing this is critical to understanding Bundy’s movements in conjunction with one of his potential victims, and I’ll have more about this shortly.

  At one time, the Milwaukee rail line angled its way through the campus, but the railroad trestle Bundy made use of is now long gone. I brought along for my visit a copy of a map of this area that investigators used and on which they had marked locations pertaining to the murder victim, potential victims, and location of Bundy’s parked car. At the time Bundy pulled into this area, which is approximately 150-plus feet from the library (and only a slightly bit closer to Black Hall), it was very much a desolate area. The closest building, Black Hall (not the Black Hall of today, where additions have been added, making it appear from the air like an “H” shape rather than one elongated structure), was not giving off much light. And the two parking lots available to students for this area were both north and south of this location and too far away to provide sufficient illumination.

  Today, buildings sit all around this location, and the two parking lots have now joined to become one massive parking area, essentially gobbling up this infamous spot. So, with the trestle removed and the uninhabited now habited, you must, while standing there, mentally visualize what it must have looked like as Susan Rancourt walked with Ted Bundy to his Volkswagen on that dark night of April 17, 1974.

  My first Bundy book told the story of the abduction (using case file material), and the second book answered some important geographic questions pertaining to the murder, as well as an in-depth look at Kent Barnard’s experiences with Bundy that day. Barnard was at the campus that day visiting his girlfriend, and encountered Bundy while he was seeking a victim, both in the afternoon and again in the evening. This current work will be taking a closer look at the actual verbatim investigative reports on the Rancourt abduction, which will allow the reader to comprehend firsthand what the investigators had to work with as they searched for the answers as to what happened to Susan Rancourt.

  What follows is from my book, The Bundy Murders, and tells of the events leading up to the abduction of Susan Rancourt:

  A little before 8:00 p.m., and only moments before Kathleen D’Olivo would be entering the Bouillion Library for two hours of uninterrupted study, Susan Rancourt placed some clothes into one of her dorm’s washing machines and walked to Munson Hall, located at the southern end of the campus, where she attended a meeting for those wanting to be dorm counselors. The meeting was due to end about ten. The last people to see Susan said she was wearing a yellow, short-sleeved sweater, grey corduroy pants, a yellow coat, and a pair of brown Hush Puppies. At 10:15, as Barbara Blair was crossing Walnut Street at Eighth Street (the location of Munson Hall and close to the library, which is also on Walnut), she saw a man “in a green ski parka, who acted as though he were in a daze,” as well as a young white female “wearing a yellow low coat going north on the Walnut Mall.” This was no doubt Susan on her way home, on a path which would take her past the library, where she would turn right, and keeping to the sidewalk between Black Hall and the Bouillon Library, take a left on Chestnut and continue north towards Barto Hall where she lived. She was, in fact, traveling almost the exact route Kathleen D’Olivo had taken a short time earlier. But Susan never made it to her residence. And like Lynda Ann Healy and Donna Gail Manson, Susan Elaine Rancourt appears to have vanished into thin air.

  What follows are the transcripts of Jane Curtis and Katherine D’Olivo, and they are presented in their entirety:

  INTERVIEW WITH JANE CURTIS, 12/10/74 at 12:15 hrs

  With DETECTIVE ROBERT R. KEPPEL

  My name is JANE CURTIS; I am 21 years old, 5’8”, about 140 lbs., hazel eyes, washed-out blond hair, a little bit over my shoulders. My birth date is March 10, 1953.

  What day did your incident occur on?

  JANE: Okay, it occurred on a Sunday evening after I worked a Curriculum Lab at Central Washington State College. It happened – I was leaving the college library between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m.

  DETECTIVE: Were you in the Curriculum Lab with anyone else?

  JANE: Yes… it’s kind of busy as it’s used mostly by education students in the evenings, and I work shelving books for about two hours in the evenings. It’s usually the same persons who come up during the evening.

  DETECTIVE: Is this in the library, itself?

  JANE: Yes … upstairs on the second floor.

  DETECTIVE: What did you do after you left the library?

  JANE: After I finished work, I walked out the main entrance of the library, and was just minding my own business, I walked straight out, and I was approached … well, there was this guy coming along and he had this huge stack of books, like about 8 or 9 books, and he had a cast on his left arm as I recalled later … but he was carrying these books and all of a sudden he kind of drops them, right in the direction that I was walking in, so I just more or less … offered assistance. I said, “Gee, well it looks like you have quite a load, would you like some help? So I helped him pick up the books … no big deal, ‘cause he didn’t act like, uh, he acted like a very nice person. So I said, “Do you need any help?” He said that he could, so I … he just happened to be walking in the same direction I was, so I thought it was no big deal if I helped him carry his books out to the car, ‘cause the parking lot … they usually park right behind the library which is just like across, or not even a block away, so I just more or less just helped him carry his books. We went past Black Hall and I was on his right-hand side, and he was on the left, and I remember he was shorter than I was, because I was wearing kinda high shoes, it gave me a couple inches, it made me about 5’9”. I remember he was shorter than I.

  DETECTIVE: What were you wearing that day?

  JANE. I remember wearing my jeans, a sweater, and probably my ski parka.

  DETECTIVE: Were they faded blue tight jeans … baggy blue jeans?

  JANE: No … they were high waisted … the one girls usually wear, those Navy blue jeans … the ones that you buy down at the Navy store.

  DETECTIVE: What kind of coat?

  JANE: Uh … my pink ski parka.

  DETECTIVE: Is it a full-length coat, or …

  JANE: Just the waist length.

  DETECTIVE: Did you have anything on your head?

  JANE: No.

  DETECTIVE: Was it dark outside?

  JANE: Yes, it was dark.

  DETECTIVE: Describe the person that you met.

  J
ANE. Okay, the person I met was definitely shorter than I. I remember he had a stocking wool hat on his head.

  DETECTIVE: What color was it?

  JANE: You see, it was dark, so if it was a bright color it didn’t stand out, so considering the lighting was kind of … the lighting is the high lighting across the sidewalks and his clothes were a dark color, and he had on what would now be called hippie clothes, he had on kind of a long coat, kind of grubby, a wool hat with a brim that went up. I remember he kind of … I can’t recall the length of his hair…

  DETECTIVE: What color was his hair?

  JANE: It was dark.

  DETECTIVE: Dark colored?

  JANE: … dark … I remember that everything about him was lacking color … no outstanding colors like red or yellow.

  DETECTIVE: Did he have a mustache?

  JANE: No.

  DETECTIVE: Beard?

  JANE: No beard.

  DETECTIVE: How about glasses?

  JANE: … that’s the thing that’s been bothering me … I’ve been thinking about that. He kind of looked at me sideways … kind of turned his head and looked at me kind of funny like. He looked at me strangely. His eyes seemed weird. That’s one thing I remembered, but I can’t remember whether he had glasses on or not. And I remember his cast … when we were walking it was on this … side, so it would have been his left hand because his fingers were in my direction because I noticed that there was on one of his fingers some metal, kind of a metal type cast on his fingers, silver, splint-like. I asked him how that happened and he said it was a skiing accident. I asked where it happened and he said it happened at Crystal Mountain, and that he ran into a tree up there. I kind of stereo-type skiers, he didn’t look like a skier-type to me. He didn’t look like the athlete out there skiing.

  DETECTIVE: Did the whole situation seem like a “line” to you?

  JANE: In a way … it didn’t click because I asked how it happened, and he said he ran into a tree. Well, it could happen up at Crystal, but it’s not very logical … I don’t know how that would be able to happen.

  DETECTIVE: Do most skiers from Central go to Crystal, or Snoqualmie Pass?

  JANE: It depends … a lot of them go to Mission Ridge in Wenatchee. A lot of them don’t go clear over to Crystal unless it’s for the holidays or something.

  DETECTIVE: Okay, with respect with the sling on his arm, was it in a sling?

  JANE: No. It looked like … when I was at Western I was in a cast for several months, and it looked like it wasn’t hard … not the plaster. It looked like the wrapping of gauze-type.

  DETECTIVE: What color?

  JANE: It was white. It was white wrapping. It was completely around his fingers, across here, around his thumb and up his arm, but he had his coat on. The coat was over it, but only part way so you could see it. Then he had that metal thing on his finger … it looks like maybe it was something you could do yourself.

  DETECTIVE: Does that seem unusual to you for him to have a broken arm and not have a cast on it?

  JANE: Uh … no, because I had the gauze on before the swelling went down, then they put a hard cast on. It looked like something anybody could do if they wanted to. I just sorta glanced at it, but it didn’t look like a professional job. That little metal thing over his finger looked like it was just taped on.

  DETECTIVE: Did you get the impression he was skinny?

  JANE: No. His coat was big, kinda bulky looking – slouched over.

  DETECTIVE: On the way to wherever you were going, did he wince, or say anything about his arm hurting?

  JANE: No. That was the surprising thing … the only thing … only the times when he needed help, like when I was leaving, when I approached the car, then he wanted me to get in, then all of a sudden he started, like, ohhh, my arm … he went on about his arm hurting him, and he said don’t forget I have a broken arm – you feel sorry for me … get in …

  DETECTIVE: Were those the words he used?

  JANE: No. But more or less, that was the way he wanted you to think. Okay, when I approached his car, I remember it was parked on the side where you go under the railroad trestle there’s a right road that goes out to another road by Big John’s, kind of a drive-in, and it says no parking. His car was parked there on the side, and it’s kind of like tall grass, and we went around to the passenger’s side of the car.

  DETECTIVE: Did he go with you?

  JANE: Yes, he was right at my side … my right-hand side, I was near the car door so he would have been behind the door if it had been open.

  DETECTIVE: Okay, what happened then?

  JANE: When we approached the door, he said for me to open it up.

  DETECTIVE: Was he carrying any books?

  JANE: Yes. He was carrying a couple of books, but I was carrying the majority of books. He said, “Open it up.” I said, “What?” Then he handed me the keys.

  DETECTIVE: He handed you the keys?

  JANE: Yes. He got his keys for me.

  DETECTIVE: Was the car locked?

  JANE: Yes, the car was locked. So I said, no. He then unlocked it. I looked inside of the car, and the first thing that struck me was that the passenger’s seat was gone.

  DETECTIVE: What did he unlock the car with? A key? With his right or left hand?

  JANE: The Key. That’s a good question … I can’t remember that …

  DETECTIVE: What did he do with the books?

  JANE: I can’t remember if he gave them to me … I was holding a bunch of them … I can’t remember if he … I remember he unlocked the door, that it wasn’t me that unlocked it.

  DETECTIVE: What was he saying at the time?

  JANE: He wasn’t saying anything. He unlocked it, then he told me after he opened it up, “Get in.” I said, “What?” Then he said, “Ohhh, could you get in and start the car for me?” I said, “I can’t”.

  DETECTIVE: So he was wincing at the time about his arm?

  JANE: On his arm more or less to make me feel sorry for him … then when I looked, what really got me was that the passenger’s seat was gone. That’s what really bothered me was that it was gone.

  DETECTIVE: It was completely gone?

  JANE: It was completely gone … it was just out.

  DETECTIVE: What was there in its place?

  JANE: Nothing … it was just the flat surface of the regular car. It had a backseat, and it had those high back seats.

  DETECTIVE: What color was it?

  JANE: Yellow.

  DETECTIVE: Yellow Volkswagen?

  JANE: A yellow VW with the high back, black seats.

  DETECTIVE: The Bug?

  JANE: Yes, the Bug-type. We have one, and I know what a VW is. It was yellow because I remember looking right at the car, standing there, it was yellow.

  The VW appeared yellow, instead of the light tan color it actually was, due to the poor lighting, the closest of which was at Black Hall.

  DETECTIVE: Did the interior light come on?

  JANE: No, it did not. I remember that it was dark, that when I looked in there it was really dark. The light never came on.

  DETECTIVE: What else did you notice about the inside of the car? Anything? Any articles in the car at all?

  JANE: No, it was just plain … just the black seats; there was nothing … wait a second … I was thinking about that … if there was a square box in the back, way in the back in a cubby hole behind the back seat. There was something back there, but there was nothing unusual that struck me except the whole passenger seat was gone.

  The following Q & A’s concern the exact date on which this occurred:

  DETECTIVE: Okay, while you were in the Curriculum Lab, were there … did you get the indications that anyone was watching you?

  JANE: No … never.

  DETECTIVE: Had you ever seen this particular
individual who confronted you before?

  JANE: No. That’s it … I remember … I spent a lot of hours in the “Sub” with friends, and a lot of kids come in there during the hours because Central is a small school and you look at faces. You recall them. I remember I looked around the next couple of days at school after this incident to see if I could see this person, as it would be easy to see if a person had a cast on his arm or not. It would be something you would remember as not too many people have casts on, or broken arms, and if you looked at them you would kind of recall. I never saw that person again. I remember before when I looked at him I had never seen that person before at Central. I mean he was definitely older.

  DETECTIVE: What age?

  JANE: He was definitely over 25 years. He was an older guy, because just being around kids my age you just can sorta tell. He just looked older from his appearance when I looked at him.

  DETECTIVE: Did you notice what he had on his feet? What type of shoes?

  DETECTIVE: How was his speech?

  JANE: There was no accent or anything to it.

  DETECTIVE: Did he swear?

  JANE: No.

  DETECTIVE: No profanity?

  JANE: No, no profanity.

  DETECTIVE: Did he seem to have an answer or explanation for anything you wanted to know?

  JANE: Well, I asked him a question and he gave me an answer, like the accident.

  DETECTIVE: Was it quick, or did he have to think about it?

  JANE: Uh, think about it. Because I’m the one who more or less edged him on, like how did it happen … he said he’d had a skiing accident, and I said, oh, I do a lot of skiing, where did it happen? He said Crystal Mountain, so he was aware it was a skiing area. When I said, how did it happen? He said he ran into a tree. I said, you ran into a tree … I didn’t question him anymore. It kind of struck me though, Crystal Mountain, and he ran into a tree??? It didn’t seem to fit in because I’ve seen Crystal and there aren’t that many trees around, especially in the main track. In the main track there aren’t any trees.