The 1974 cluster of missing women that drew police to Ted Bundy's trail

Her bed was made. Her nightgown was gone.

In early 1974, a University of Washington student named Lynda Ann Healy vanished from her Seattle room. A roommate reported her missing after finding the bed made but the nightgown absent, according to the case file.

She was one of several that year. Young women, mostly college students, were going missing across Washington state.

Police initially treated each case separately. But a pattern emerged: the women were similar in age and appearance, and they vanished without a trace.

The families pushed for answers. They spoke publicly, urging police to connect the cases.

Lynda Ann Healy's family was among them. They wanted someone to see the whole picture, to ask why these women kept disappearing.

Not because the cases were identical in every detail. But because the silence after each disappearance felt the same.

Was there a single suspect? A common thread the police were missing? A reason these particular women were chosen?

That would require evidence.

At this point in the record, no single suspect is identified. The case file does not establish that anyone was named in connection with these disappearances yet.

The families were left with questions and a made bed.

THE CLUSTER

Spring came, and the list lengthened.

A student at Evergreen State College vanished. A student at Central Washington State College vanished. A student at Oregon State University vanished. A woman disappeared from Burien, Washington.

A University of Washington student also vanished near her campus.

The case file records each disappearance separately. Names, dates, last known locations. It does not record a single suspect.

Then came July. Two women disappeared from Lake Sammamish State Park on the same day.

A witness later reported seeing a man with his arm in a sling asking for help loading a boat. The record does not confirm that man as anyone in particular. It is a description, nothing more.

Detective Robert Keppel of the King County Sheriff's Office tracked these disappearances. According to the case file, he linked them through patterns: age, appearance, method.

The women were similar. The circumstances were similar. The method, the file suggests, was similar.

That would require evidence. At this point, the pattern was a working theory.

The families of the victims, including Healy's, testified or gave statements. They kept the cases in public view. They named their daughters. They asked the questions no one could answer.

The list grew. The dread settled in.

Each name was a person. Each person had a family. Each family had a made bed that stayed empty.

THE VOLKSWAGEN

By 1975, the trail had moved to Utah.

Ted Bundy was arrested there for possession of burglary tools, the case file states.

Evidence from that arrest connected him to the disappearance of a young woman who had vanished from Aspen, Colorado.

Her name was Caryn Campbell. The record does not specify the exact nature of the evidence tying Bundy to the Washington disappearances.

That link would require evidence. The file does not provide it.

What the record does specify is the car.

Bundy's Volkswagen Beetle became a key piece of evidence in the investigation, according to the case file.

The Beetle was searched. The Beetle was examined. The Beetle was the object police kept returning to.