Ted Bundy - Escapes

Escapes

On June 7, 1977, Bundy was transported 40 miles (64 km) from the Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs to Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a preliminary hearing. He had elected to serve as his own attorney and as such was excused by the judge from wearing handcuffs or leg shackles. During a recess he asked to visit the courthouse's law library to research his case. Concealed behind a bookcase, he opened a window and jumped from the second story, spraining his right ankle as he landed. After shedding an outer layer of clothing he walked through Aspen as roadblocks were being set up on its outskirts, then hiked southward onto Aspen Mountain. Near its summit he broke into a hunting cabin and stole food, clothing, and a rifle. The following day he left the cabin and continued south toward the town of Crested Butte, but became lost in the forest. For two days he wandered aimlessly on the mountain, missing two trails that led downward to his intended destination. On June 10 Bundy broke into a camping trailer on Maroon Lake, 10 miles (16 km) south of Aspen, taking food and a ski parka; but instead of continuing southward he walked back north toward Aspen, eluding roadblocks and search parties. Three days later he stole a car at the edge of Aspen Golf Course. Cold, sleep-deprived, and in constant pain from his sprained ankle, he drove back into Aspen, where two police officers noticed his car weaving in and out of its lane and pulled him over. He had been a fugitive for six days. In the car were maps of the mountain area around Aspen that prosecutors were using to demonstrate the location of Caryn Campbell's body (as his own attorney, Bundy had rights of discovery), indicating that his escape had been planned in advance.

Back in jail in Glenwood Springs, Bundy ignored the advice of friends and legal advisors to stay put. The case against him, already weak at best, was deteriorating steadily as pretrial motions consistently resolved in his favor and significant bits of evidence were ruled inadmissible. "A more rational defendant might have realized that he stood a good chance of acquittal, and that beating the murder charge in Colorado would probably have dissuaded other prosecutors ... with as little as a year and a half to serve on the DaRonch conviction, had Ted persevered, he could have been a free man." Instead, Bundy devised a new escape plan. He acquired a hacksaw blade from another inmate and accumulated $500 in cash, smuggled in over a six-month period, he later said, by visitors—Carole Ann Boone in particular. During the evenings, while other prisoners were showering, he sawed a hole about one foot (0.30 m) square in the corner of his cell's ceiling and, after losing 35 pounds (16 kg), was able to wriggle through it into the crawl space above. In the weeks that followed he made multiple practice runs, exploring the perimeters of the space. An informant repeatedly told officers that he heard movement within the ceiling during the night, but the reports were not investigated. At a courtroom appearance on December 23, 1977, the Aspen trial judge approved a change of venue to Colorado Springs. On December 30, with most of the jail staff on Christmas break and the short-term prisoners released to spend the holidays with their families, Bundy piled books and files in his bunk bed under a blanket to simulate his sleeping body and slipped into the crawlspace. He broke through the ceiling into the apartment of the chief jailer — who was out for the evening with his wife—changed into street clothes from the jailer's closet, and walked out the front door to freedom.

After stealing a car, Bundy drove eastward out of Glenwood Springs, but the car soon broke down in the mountains on Interstate 70. A passing motorist gave him a ride into Vail, 60 miles (97 km) to the east. From there he caught a bus to Denver, where he boarded a flight to Chicago. In Glenwood Springs, the jail's skeleton crew did not discover the escape until noon on December 31, more than 17 hours later. By then Bundy was already in Chicago.