Update On Ted Bundy's Victim Debra Kent

17 year old Debra Kent went missing from her school parking lot during a high school play at Viewmont High School in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1974.

Before his execution in 1989, convicted serial killer Ted Bundy admitted to killing Debra. Apparently when police searched the location in Fairview Canyon, they found a human knee cap among hundreds of animal bones. That patella eventually was given to her family. 

Then in 2015, human remains were found in Fruit Heights, this lead investigators to review missing persons files. Two of the cold cases for the city were women who'd gone missing,one of them was Debra. They came across news reports of Debra's mother, Belva Kent, pulling out a box with a human patella bone, or kneecap, that had been found where Bundy said he left her remains. Investigators retrieved the knee cap from the family to use for DNA testing.  It matched the family's DNA. The authorities gave the bone back to the family along with Debra's death certificate.

Now with the Netflix film about Ted Bundy gaining so much popularity, police decided to release their revelation of this evidence to the public.

Ted Bundy Confessed To Killing Her, But Her Body Has Never Been Found.

Debra Jean Kent

She was born on March 12th, 1957 to Belva and Harvey Dean Kent in Bountiful, Utah.

She was kind and caring and had thought about becoming a social worker after being graduated from Viewmont High.

She was a member of the high school drama club.

On November  8, 1974,  17 year old Debi took her parents to a production of "The Redhead" at her high school.

Debi had already seen the musical but wanted her family to enjoy it, too. 

It would be her father's first outing since suffering a massive heart attack.

Her brother was at the roller rink and she was suppose to pick him up after the play.
When the play ran late, Debi was worried about her brother and left early to pick him up because the Rustic Roller Rink closed at 10:00 p.m and it was already 10:30 p.m.

Her parents would wait for her to drive back for them.

Debra was last seen in the school's parking lot shortly after she exited the building.

An hour passed and Debi wasn't back yet.

It was about midnight and the janitor locked up the school auditorium, so the Kents decided to walk to a nearby friend's house for a ride home.

The parents walked down the side walk and they went into the parking lot. 
They were surprised when their car was still there.

The doors were still locked, and Debi's purse was still inside where she had left it.

Debi never made it to pick up her brother either.

At the Bountiful police station that night, the Kents were told that Debi was probably just another runaway and that no search could begin for 24 hours, when Debi would officially be listed as a missing person.

Her parents were insistent that she wasn't a runaway.

That she would never have let her father wait outside in the cold when he was still so weak.

Neighbors and friends from the family's Mormon church organized their own search that night.

They searched the school grounds and the hills near Bountiful.

The next morning, the police found no evidence of a struggle and no trace of Debi.

They did find a tiny handcuff key outside the auditorium.

Later, witnesses told authorities that they heard one or two screams originating from the parking lot around 10:30 p.m. that evening. Another witness stated that he arrived at the school at 10:30 p.m. and saw a light-colored Volkswagen Bug speeding away from the lot.

Earlier on the night of the disappearance, 18-year-old, Carol DaRonch, 17 miles from Bountiful, stumbled into the Murry Police Station.

Handcuffs dangling from her wrist, she gave a horrifying story about being kidnapped and nearly killed by a handsome man who had lured her into his Volkswagen.

Bountiful police discovered that the key found at Viewmont High fit the type of cuffs used on Carol.

Ted Bundy was arrested after a routine traffic stop in Utah.

He was driving a Volkswagen.

Carol DaRonch identified him as the man that assaulted her and attempted to abduct and kill her.

Bundy was convicted, police had only circumstantial evidence but felt certain that Bundy had kidnapped Debi Kent also.

The drama teacher and some of students remembered seeing him in the auditorium that night.

In 1989, Just hours away from execution by electric chair, in Florida, serial killer Ted Bundy confessed that he had kidnapped Debi from the parking lot the night she had disappeared and killed her.

On a highway map, Bundy showed investigators the mountains where he said he had buried Debi and another Utah victim, Nancy Wilcox.

Their bodies were never found.
Three years before Bundy's execution, one of Debi's brothers, Bill Kent was killed by a drunk driver.
It wasn't until they had to bury their eldest son that the Kents decided to buy a grave for their eldest daughter.

A year later, they put up a headstone inscribed with ballet slippers and memories of Debi as a loving daughter, a caring sister, "a friend to everyone."

At the time she went missing, Debra was 5'1" tall, 110 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

She was dark blue waist-length coat with navy blue trim, a medium blue long-sleeved sweater with a white flower in the middle, long white pants, two-toned brown and black lace-up shoes, possibly white underwear, a small gold chain necklace and a Viewmont High School class ring. 

She had a mole on the front of her neck just under her chin, a fine surgical scar across her neck, a smallpox vaccination scar on her left arm, and pierced ears. 

Her rib-cage was very small, she is right-handed, and half of the nail on her right big toe is missing. 

Her dress size is 3 or 5, pants size is 5 or 7, shoe size is 6 and her bra size is 36 C.

She would be 61 years old today.

Debra Kent UPDATE

Is She One of Ted Bundy's Victims?

Nancy Perry Baird

She was 23 years old when she went missing from East Layton, Utah on July 4, 1975.

She was last seen at the Fina gas station in the 200 block of south Highway 89.

She worked there as a service station attendant. 

A police officer on patrol saw her working alone there, and at 5:30 p.m.

Less than fifteen minutes later, she was discovered missing.
There was no evidence of robbery and no indications of a struggle. There, however was about $10 worth of gasoline from pumps had not been paid for. 

Her car was found locked and parked in the station lot, and her purse was inside the station, containing her medication and $167.
Her ex-husband and two male friends were questioned.

All of them had been out of state at the time she disappeared and passed polygraph examinations.

Baird left behind a four-year-old son. 

Witnesses saw a truck at the station just before her disappearance. It was never identified and it's unclear whether it had anything to do with her case.

Authorities believe Baird was a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy, however Bundy never confessed to her murder.

Bundy never drove a truck, and Baird was the only presumed victim to be abducted from a gas station. 

Baird's case remains open and unsolved.

Just Before His Execution, He Confessed He Killed Her, But Her Body Has Never Been Found.

Susan Curtis

She was a 15 year old student at Woods Cross High School when she went missing on June 27, 1975 from Provo, Utah.

Susan was on the track team and the girl's baseball team during her freshman year.

She is from Bountiful, Utah and was attending the Bountiful Orchard Youth Conference at Brigham Young University in Provo when she went missing.

She'd ridden her bicycle fifty miles from Bountiful to Provo to attend the two day conference.

Susan was last seen on evening of the conference.
Following a formal banquet at the Wilkinson Student Center, she left her friends to walk back to her dormitory and brush her teeth., which was about a quarter of a mile away. 

Authorities don't believe she ever arrived at her dormitory, because her toothbrush it was dry.

She has never been heard from again.

At the time of her disappearance Susan was 5'7 tall,120 pounds with light brown hair and hazel eyes.
She was last seen wearing a full-length yellow evening gown.

She wore braces on her teeth and her ears are pierced.
Her nicknames are Sue and Sue-Sue. 

Serial killer Ted Bundy confessed to Susan's murder before his 1989 execution. 

He said that he had buried her body along a highway near Price, Utah.

The search of the site turned up no evidence. 

Ted Bundy's first victim was Nancy Wilcox. Can you help find her body?

Nancy Wilcox was a 16 year old cheerleader when she went missing on October 2, 1974.
She was last seen riding with a man in a yellow Volkswagen Bug near her home in Holiday, Utah.
At the time of her disappearance she was 5ft 5in tall, 120lbs with brown hair and brown eyes.
Two days before his execution, serial killer Ted Bundy confessed to kidnapping her from her front yard, sexual assaulting and then murdering her.
She was his first victim.
Her body has never been found.

Ann Rule and her "friend" Ted Bundy

Ann Rae Rule was born on October 22, 1931, in Lowell, Michigan to Chester R. Stackhouse and Sophie Marie Hansen.
She was a former police officer and an American author of true crime books and articles. 
She is best-known for The Stranger Beside Me.
It is about the serial killer Ted Bundy with whom she worked and who she considered a friend.
He was later revealed to be a murderer. 

Her mother was a teacher, specializing in developmentally disabled children, and her father was a sports coach.
As a child, she was surrounded by relatives in law enforcement: two sheriffs, a prosecuting attorney and a medical examiner
On summer vacations Michigan, she helped her grandmother prepare meals for the prisoners that shared the same building as her grandparents lived.

“I would pass the tray through the slot in the pantry to the prisoners, and they were so nice,” she said in a 2004 interview. “So I would always ask my grandpa, ‘How come they’re locked up?’ I wanted to know why some kids grew up to be criminals and why other people didn’t. That is still the main thrust behind my books: I want to know why these things happen, and so do my readers.”

Rule graduated from Coatesville High School in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Later she earned an associate degree from Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington. She also attended the University of Washington, studying creative writing, criminology, and psychology.

She worked as a law enforcement officer for the Seattle Police Department.
In 1969, she wrote for True Detective magazine under the pen name "Andy Stack".

She met Ted Bundy while volunteering at a suicide crisis hotline center in Seattle in 1971.
Bundy was a work-study student who was studying psychology at the University of Washington. 
He moved to Utah for law school.
He was arrested in 1975 for kidnapping a young woman and later identified as a serial murderer with dozens of victims dating to at least 1974 if not earlier.
Rule observed nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality, and saw him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic".
Her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, was first published in 1980, the year Bundy was convicted of murder.
At first she refused to believe that Bundy was the killer. 
“For a long time I was holding out hope that he was innocent, that somehow this all was a terrible mistake,” she said in  an interview in 2003. “And it wasn’t just me, it was all the people who worked with him.”
After Bundy escaped from jail and went on a killing spree in Florida, she changed her mind.

48 Hours Mystery  in April 2012, covered Rule's successful effort to help a mother prove her daughter's 1998 death was actually a murder. 
The book was In the Still of the Night.

She had four children, including author Leslie Rule. Rule's family also included a foster son 
She was married to Bill Rule, whom she divorced in 1972.

April 2015 two of her sons, Michael Rule and Andrew Rule, had been charged with crimes related to the theft of money from her.
Both sons had taken "more than $100,000 from her.
Michael Rule, 51, is charged with first-degree theft and forgery.
He is accused of writing checks from Rule's bank account totaling $103,628. 
Andrew Rule, 54, also charged with first-degree theft, is accused of convincing his mother to give him $23,327.
She had been in declining health since October 2013 as a result of her broken hip. 
She was on oxygen at all times and was suffering from extreme confusion. 
She was unable to perform many activities of daily living without assistance.

She went to the emergency room for treatment due to a heart attack.
Rule had been moved to hospice care one day before she died.
She died on July 26, 2015, as a result of congestive heart failure.