Kimberly Leach

Case background and investigation

Kimberly Dianne Leach was a 12-year-old seventh-grader at Lake City Junior High School in Lake City, Florida. According to the Wikipedia article on the case, she was born on October 28, 1965. She is widely described, including by ABC News, as the last known victim of Ted Bundy and the youngest of his known murder victims.

On the morning of February 9, 1978, Kimberly disappeared from her school during the school day. According to the Wikipedia account, she had been sent during first period to fetch a purse she had left in her homeroom and did not come back. Witnesses later described a white van near the school, and ABC News reported that a firefighter gave an account of seeing a man leading a young girl toward a white van.

Bundy was arrested in Pensacola on February 15, 1978, while driving a stolen vehicle, according to the Wikipedia article. ABC News reported that he was taken into custody before Kimberly had been found, and described him as a fugitive and convicted kidnapper who was on the FBI's Most Wanted list at the time. A large search followed her disappearance and lasted roughly two months.

Her remains were located in April 1978; the Wikipedia article gives the date as April 7. ABC News and Women's Health both reported that her body was found in a shed behind Suwannee River State Park, and the Wikipedia article describes the structure as an abandoned hog shed about 30 miles west of Lake City. The body was badly decomposed by the time it was found.

Bundy was tried for Kimberly's kidnapping and murder in Orlando in early 1980. According to ABC News, the evidence presented included eyewitness testimony, fiber evidence and hotel receipts that placed him in Lake City. The Wikipedia article states that the trial ran from January 7 to February 9, 1980, that the jury deliberated for about seven hours before finding him guilty of both kidnapping and murder, and that he was sentenced to death. Women's Health reported that it was the third death sentence he had received in Florida.

Bundy spent nearly nine years on Florida's death row. He was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989. ABC News reported that in the days before his execution he confessed to 30 murders, and that investigators have long suspected the true number may be higher.