Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in history, noted for his intelligence and evil nature, has emerged again as a suspect in a murder. In 1961, 8 year old Ann Marie Burr was abducted and killed, and now the cold case detectives hope that DNA from Bundy will solve this case.

“Ted Bundy was one of the biggest serial murderers in this state’s history,” Keith Kameg, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday in a telephone interview. “He often boasted that he had killed 30 people but there always a belief that was low.” He enjoyed the spotlight, and actually defended himself at trial. He was charismatic and that helped his cause, as he played victim, sporting crutches or a sling to lure a young female to his vehicle under the pretense to help him out. He took advantage and murdered many women, escaped from prison, and did it again, while professing his innocence the whole time.

Executed in January 1989, Bundy was linked to brutal murders in at least six states before he was captured in Florida after daring escapes elsewhere. He received three death sentences in two separate trials for three known Florida murders, perhaps the most famous of which was that of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

Bundy’s DNA profile was obtained recently from a blood sample he had given at one time in Florida. On Friday, his DNA was uploaded into a national database in the hope that the new material will help solve murder cases that have gone cold over the years. It was uploaded to the national Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database, where it will be stored with 10 million profiles from other felons.

“As technology gets better, there is a larger possibility that some cold cases could be solved,” Kameg said. “People want closure and law enforcement can provide that.”

-articles by Geno McGahee and Michael Muskal rewritten and adapted by admin-

In order to catch a serial killer who has claimed the lives of at least 11 South L.A. prostitutes, police announced that they will release a recording of the mysterious phone call to the public; After murder of Barbara Ware, an informant called the police, telling them about the body.

It’s been over two decades since LA detectives were trying to solve the murders of at least 11 prostitutes, with no luck, as there were no clues to follow. One night in 1987, however, offered a tantalizing, agonizing clue. Shortly after midnight on Jan. 10, a man called police from a pay phone to report that he had seen someone dump a woman’s body out of the back of a van and leave it in an alley. He gave the address, a description of the van and its license plate number.

“Is that T like Tom?” the dispatcher asked, according to several Los Angeles Police Department detectives who have heard a recording of the call.

“No, P like puppy,” the man said, speaking in a raspy, deep voice.

The call lasted no more than 30 seconds. At the end, the dispatcher asked for the man’s name.

He chuckled nervously at the question. “I know too many people. OK, then, bye-bye,” he said, hanging up the phone.

Now, more than twenty years later, police believe that the call may still hold the key to identifying the elusive killer. “There has got to be something to this. There is just too much information here for there not to be something of value for us,” said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who heads a task force charged with catching the killer. “We’re hoping somebody out there will be able to help us make the connection between this body, the van and the caller.”

So far, police couldn’t find any vital information that would help them solve the case. They have the killer’s DNA profile but it failed to match any of the millions stored in state felon databases. They have even found a vain, that the mysterious caller had described – registration records showed that the van was owned by the nearby Cosmopolitan Church. It turned out that couldn’t help any in way, since the church did not keep close tabs on who drove the van, which was used to pick up elderly members from home.

In all, detectives have tracked down about 10 men associated with the now-defunct church, including one who worked as a driver, and taken DNA samples to test against the suspected killer’s, and got no results. With no blood or other physical evidence found in the van that proves it was actually used to dump Ware’s body, detectives are not dismissing the possibility that the caller that night was lying in an effort to mislead police. And Kilcoyne is the first to acknowledge that releasing the tape is a long shot, but with little else to go on, he’s hoping former church parishioners will hear the tape and come forward with clues.

-article from LA Times, rewritten and adapted by admin-

New Evidence suggest that notorious serial killer, Jack The Ripper, who stalked London’s East End, butchering prostitutes and terrorizing the population, might have been a woman. This story first appeared on May, 2006, but now there is more reason to believe those speculations are true. His victims were all prostitutes, murdered and mutilated in the foggy alleyways of Whitechapel. By the surgical nature of the wounds, the killer was assumed to have some surgical knowledge.

An Australian scientist has used swabs from letters supposedly sent to police by the Ripper to build a partial DNA profile of the killer. The results suggest that the person who murdered and mutilated at least five women from 1888 onwards may have been a woman.

Ian Findlay, a professor of molecular and forensic diagnostics had developed a profiling technique that could extract DNA from a single cell or strand of hair up to 160 years old, while conventional DNA sampling methods required at least 200 cells.

He examined the material, which was kept by Scotland Yard until 1961. It includes letters sent to police at the time, some of them signed “Jack the Ripper”. Most are believed to be fakes, but a handful are thought to have been written by the killer. Dr Findlay took swabs from the back of stamps and from the gum used to seal envelopes, and possible bloodstains. He took his haul back to Brisbane, where – concentrating on swabs from the so-called “Openshaw letter” (click on the picture for the full size view of the letter), the one believed most likely to be genuine – he extracted the DNA and then amplified the information to create a profile. The results were “inconclusive” and not forensically reliable, but he did construct a partial profile and based on this analysis, he said, “it’s possible the Ripper could be female”.

The chief suspects were all man, and only Frederick Abberline, the detective who led the investigation, thought it possible the killer was a woman. This was because the fifth victim, Mary Kelly, was “seen” by witnesses hours after she was killed. Abberline thought this was the murderer running away, in Kelly’s clothes.

The only female suspect was Mary Pearcey, who was convicted of murdering her lover’s wife, Phoebe Hogg, in 1890 and hanged. She apparently employed a similar modus operandi to the Ripper.

-article by Kathy Marks, rewritten and addapted by admin-