From 1973 to 1978, Ted Bundy would leave a trail of at least thirty-six murders across four states but

little specific evidence. His case is part of the evolution of forensic science and its use in identification of suspects and determining their guilt or innocence. His initial arrest was based on eye witness identification for attempted kidnapping in 1974. He was later intended for prosecution for multiple murders in 1977 based on circumstantial evidence. Eyewitnesses on the day of two of the murders had remembered someone named Ted and having a plaster cast on his arm. One of Bundys prior girlfriends had noted him having the materials to make a plaster cast. Bundy decided he would represent himself at trial thus giving him access to the legal library from which he escaped. Though recaptured a few days later, he once again escaped and ultimately travelled to Florida. He proceeded to perpetrate at least three other murders with eye witness testimony surrounding two of them before he was arrested again. But, with these last three murders, forensic scientific evidence was also presented. In the case of Lisa Levy, a sorority sister at Florida State University, bite mark injuries on the victim were compared to Bundys teeth. They were a unique match to his dental structures. In the case of Kimberly Leach, a twelve year old girl abducted in 1978, fiber matches from the clothes she was wearing at the time of her death and fibers found on Bundy and in his van sealed his fate. Eye witness testimonies gave presumptive evidence and enough to arrest and bring Bundy to trial but it was the scientific evidence that brought the verdict of guilt. Ted Bundy was put to death by electrocution in 1989. Forensic evidence was to play a part in resolving another murder of a young girl believed to have been one of Bundys victims. In December of 1973, a fifteen year old girl named Kathy Devine, disappeared in Washington State while hitchhiking. This was around the time of Ted Bundys first killing. She was found a short time later strangled, sodomized, and her throat cut. Because of the location, timing, and manner of death, it was believed she was probably one of Ted Bundys victims. It was not until 2001 that DNA comparisons were able to link her death to another man already in prison for rape. This scientific evidence exculpated Ted Bundy and identified the true killer. This was an early case where forensic evidence was used to disprove someones guilt. Forensic science looks at the evidence and attempts to make an objective determination of events from that evaluation hopefully ignoring other influences possibly skewing the results. Looking only at the evidence, William Cosden Jr. was identified as the killer of Kathy Devine. What was also evident from Bundys killing spree was the lack of national inter-agency networking of evidence and pattern or signature of his killings. As methodologies for evaluation of evidence have improved, so has communication between organizations on a local, state, national, and international level.