COLD CASE: 52-Year Murder Cracked

Blue binder labeled 'cold case' with other colored binders in the background — Photo: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock

A Utah teenager killed 52 years ago finally has a name attached to her murder, and it belongs to America’s most infamous serial killer.

Quick Take

Summit County officials say DNA evidence connects Ted Bundy to the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith.
Lab testing matched a profile from Smith’s case to a profile already tied to victim Laura Aime, which had matched Bundy’s archived Florida DNA.
Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson says DNA, combined with pattern, motive, means and opportunity, points to Bundy.
Officials formally closed the decades-old cold case on October 27, 2026.

What Investigators Announced About Melissa Ann Smith’s Murder

Summit County Sheriff Kacey Bates stood at a podium and closed a case that had sat unsolved since 1974. “Today, I’m announcing the closure of the 1974 homicide investigation into the death of Melissa Ann Smith,” Bates said. Smith was 17 when she was killed, one more name added to Bundy’s long list of victims across several states decades after his 1989 execution.

Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson laid out the reasoning behind the announcement. “This DNA evidence, when considered alongside evidence related to pattern, motive, means and opportunity establishes that Ted Bundy was responsible for Melissa Ann Smith’s murder,” Olson said. Her office tied the physical evidence to a broader picture of how Bundy operated, where he traveled, and who he targeted during his killing spree.

The case had gone cold for over five decades before modern lab work gave investigators a new lead. Smith’s death joins a growing list of homicides tied back to Bundy through physical evidence that sat in storage for generations, waiting for forensic science to catch up.

How The Y Chromosome DNA Trail Connected Two Cold Cases

The Utah State Crime Lab used Y-STR testing, a method that reads DNA passed down the male line. The Park Record reported that investigators found this male-line DNA type in evidence from Smith’s case and matched it to the same chromosomal profile already found in the case of Laura Aime, another Utah teen killed in the 1970s. Aime’s profile had separately been matched to Bundy’s archived DNA from Florida.

That chain links Smith to Aime, and Aime to Bundy. Reports describe the Smith evidence as a direct match once compared against the Bundy reference profile. Investigators pulled this from preserved material collected decades ago, not from any new crime scene evidence, showing how cold-case labs are increasingly able to revisit old exhibits with far more sensitive testing than existed in the 1970s.

Why Y-STR Evidence Carries Real Power But Real Limits

Y-STR testing is a well-established forensic tool, especially useful for identifying a male contributor in cases where other DNA methods struggle. But scientists who study this method note an important wrinkle: a Y-STR profile traces a paternal lineage, not necessarily one specific man, because fathers, sons, brothers, and other male relatives along the same line often share the same profile. Researchers describe this as the central challenge of using Y-chromosome evidence for individual identification.

That doesn’t undercut what Utah investigators announced. It explains why prosecutors leaned on more than DNA alone, pairing the genetic match with pattern, motive, means and opportunity, the same framework good detectives have used for a century. Cold-case units across the country now prioritize files based on exactly this kind of evidence viability, since modern DNA tools make previously unsolvable cases newly workable.

Utah investigators say DNA evidence has linked Ted Bundy to the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith. The announcement comes 52 years after her body was discovered and more than 35 years after Bundy's execution.https://t.co/BTCuew3KC7 pic.twitter.com/R2mh4YVH8F

— Simon Williams (@SimonWPDE) October 28, 2026

Smith’s family waited 52 years for an answer. CNN, CBS News, Reuters, The Associated Press and multiple Utah outlets all reported the same conclusion on October 27, 2026: Bundy’s name now sits attached to another young woman’s murder file. For a case this old, that kind of closure, built on physical evidence and consistent official statements, is as solid an ending as grieving families typically get.