Is Ted Bundy still alive? No, but DNA keeps closing his cases. Here are the Utah ones still open

Ted Bundy’s name was back in the headlines this week, and that has led some readers to wonder whether he is still alive. He isn’t. Bundy was executed in Florida’s electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. What’s new is that investigators are still linking him to old killings decades after his death.

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, Utah authorities said DNA evidence and other proof show Bundy killed Melissa Ann Smith, a 17-year-old from Midvale whose body was found on Oct. 27, 1974. (Our earlier coverage has the full announcement.) Here’s how a dead man’s DNA keeps closing cases, and what is still unresolved.

Is Ted Bundy still alive?

No. Florida executed Bundy for the 1978 murders of two women at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University, CBS News reported. He had also been convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl in Lake City, Florida, according to the Tribune. Before his execution, he confessed to killing at least 30 young women. Not all of those confessions have been confirmed, CBS noted, and some were to crimes that police didn’t know about.

How DNA from 1978 still solves cases

Two developments, decades apart, made this week’s announcement possible:

1. A preserved blood sample. In 2011, a vial of Bundy’s blood drawn in 1978 turned up in Florida, CBS reported. His full DNA profile was then entered into the FBI’s national database, so investigators anywhere could compare evidence against it.
2. Better lab tools. In 2023, Utah’s crime lab began using new genotyping technology that can build full DNA profiles from degraded or mixed samples that older methods couldn’t fully analyze, the Tribune reported.

That technology first closed the Laura Ann Aime case in April 2026. Aime was a 17-year-old whose body was found in American Fork Canyon in 1974. Then, on July 14, investigators compared DNA from the Aime case with evidence from Smith’s autopsy and found a match, according to the Tribune. Utah County Sgt. Mike Reynolds said a “highly similar DNA profile” linked to Bundy was found in the Smith evidence, CBS reported.

Prosecutors didn’t rely on DNA alone. Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson said the evidence, “when considered alongside evidence related to pattern, motive, means and opportunity,” established Bundy’s responsibility.

“This case demonstrates the importance of preserving evidence,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said.

Investigators eyed Bundy as early as 1976

Suspicion isn’t new. In October 1976, the Tribune reported that Utah investigators were looking at whether Smith’s and Aime’s deaths, plus a missing-person case, might be connected to Bundy. At the time he was in the Utah State Prison for the November 1974 kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl near Fashion Place Mall. He was later sent to Colorado to face a murder charge, escaped custody twice and fled to Florida, where he was arrested in Pensacola in February 1978.

Smith’s family didn’t live to see the case closed. Her father, Midvale Police Chief Louis S. Smith, died in 1985, her sister Jolene in 2014 and her mother, Joan, in 2024, according to the Tribune. Officials said remaining relatives were notified and none live in the area.

The Utah cases still open

Utah closed two Bundy-linked cases this year. A Utah Department of Public Safety spokesperson said in April that three more were believed to be connected to him, the Tribune reported:

According to the Tribune, Bundy is believed to have killed at least five, and possibly eight, young women in Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Some of their bodies have never been found.

Officials struck a pointed tone about the man himself. “With every case closure, may we stomp the memory of Ted Bundy out,” Reynolds said, per CBS.

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Earlier coverage: Ted Bundy Named in 1974 Killing of Melissa Ann Smith as DNA Closes Utah Cold Case (Oct 27)