DNA Match Solves 52-Year-Old Utah Homicide

Fifty-two years after a 17-year-old girl was found dead in a Utah wooded area, detectives closed her murder case based on a new DNA match. The victim, Melissa Ann Smith, was the daughter of then-Midvale Police Chief Louis Smith. Her body was discovered on October 27, 1974, near the border of Summit and Salt Lake counties.

The breakthrough relied on evidence preserved from a separate 1974 homicide. In July, DNA from the killing of Laura Ann Aime, another 17-year-old Utah resident, was matched to Ted Bundy. Aime disappeared after a Halloween party in October 1974 and was found near American Fork Canyon. Authorities determined she had been raped, strangled, and killed. The match allowed investigators to compare remaining evidence from Aime’s case with material kept from Smith’s postmortem examination.

Utah County investigators requested that Summit County review the preserved evidence. Summit County then contacted the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, where Detective Ben Pender works in the unsolved homicide and missing person unit. The Salt Lake County office held items collected during Smith’s 1974 investigation. Working with the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services, the team confirmed that the DNA profiles from both cases matched.

Authorities combined the DNA results with evidence of Bundy’s pattern, motive, means, and opportunity to determine he killed Smith. The case was formally closed Tuesday, exactly 52 years after Smith’s body was found. Pender, a 35-year law enforcement veteran, stated that the match suggests more victims may exist that investigators have not yet identified.

Pender credited the long-term preservation of evidence for the success. He noted that not all old cases contain DNA and that material collected decades ago may have degraded or contained mixed genetic samples. He warned that cases cannot simply be run through a database without careful review. His current caseload includes 34 unsolved homicides and 14 adult missing person cases where foul play is suspected.

Among those cases is the disappearance of Nancy Wilcox. Pender said Bundy confessed to killing Wilcox, but her body has never been recovered. Because the body is missing, the case remains open. Pender said the Smith resolution does not end the investigation into Bundy, who was executed in 1989 for crimes committed in the late 1970s.

Investigators plan to retain the Smith evidence for use in other potential Bundy cases. Pender emphasized that proving specific crimes is necessary to avoid accusing the wrong person. He cited cooperation between Summit, Salt Lake, and Utah counties, along with the state crime lab, as essential to resolving the case for the victim and her family.