The bar where Brenda Carol Ball was abducted

This is the bar where Brenda Carol Ball was last seen.

It is located at 12803 Ambaum Boulevard SW in Burien, Washington.

Serial killer Ted Bundy abducted Ball after she left the Flame Tavern during the early hours of June 1, 1974.

Ten months later, her skull was discovered on Taylor Mountain.

Disappearance

Ball spent the night of May 31, 1974, at the tavern. When the bar closed around 2 a.m., she asked a friend for a ride home. However, the friend declined, as he was driving in a different direction.

One patron reportedly witnessed Ball talking to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling. If accurate, this sighting aligns with Bundy's modus operandi, as he frequently faked injuries to lure victims.

Doubts surround this sighting, however, as others reported that Ball left the bar alone, intending to hitchhike home. Furthermore, details regarding the "man in the sling" did not emerge until after Bundy's conviction, by which time his injury ruses were common knowledge.

Regardless of how Ball left the Flame Tavern, it was the last time she was seen alive. Sometime in the early hours of June 1, she crossed paths with Bundy, who by that stage had already abducted and murdered at least four women.

At the time of her disappearance, the 22-year-old had recently dropped out of college and was looking forward to the summer of 1974. Known as a free spirit, Ball frequently partied, couch-surfed, and hitchhiked. Due to her lifestyle, her roommates did not realize something was amiss until two weeks after she was last seen.

Investigation

News reports regarding Ball's disappearance did not appear until two months later. Initially, police did not link her case to the other missing girls. Ball was slightly older and not a college student. Additionally, she was last seen leaving a dive bar, whereas the previous victims had been abducted from college campuses.

Ironically, Ball's remains eventually led investigators to the other victims on Taylor Mountain. Had two forestry students not stumbled upon her skull, the other three women might still be missing.

Bundy's former girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer, later recalled that he hurriedly left a dinner with her parents on the day Ball went missing. He also missed her daughter's baptism the following day, blaming car trouble.

Bundy may have missed the baptism because he was preoccupied with disposing of Ball's remains, destroying evidence, or tying up other loose ends.

Shortly before his execution in 1989, he admitted to investigators that he revisited many of his crime scenes, often driving for several hours to reach them.

Bundy's pseudo-confession

While on death row, Bundy "speculated" about what "the killer" might have done during interviews with journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.

This format allowed him to discuss his crimes in the third person without formally confessing. It also gave him the opportunity to insert strategic lies.

In Ball's case, he suggested that "the killer" may have picked her up while she was hitchhiking, drove her to his home for consensual sex, and later strangled her while she slept. When Michaud pointed out that bringing a victim home would have been risky, Bundy countered that "the killer" may have lived alone in his own house.

There are several inconsistencies in Bundy's story.

First, the right side of Ball's skull was missing. This suggests she was struck with a heavy object, which aligns with his preferred modus operandi of striking victims with a crowbar when they weren't looking, rather than strangulation.

Second, he did not live alone. At the time, he was renting a room at the Rogers' rooming house, which was occupied by other tenants.

Finally, accounts from survivors indicate that Bundy struggled to control his impulses when near a potential target. Therefore, it is highly unlikely he drove from Burien to Seattle in the middle of the night with a woman in his passenger seat.

A more plausible scenario is that he picked Ball up, drove to a nearby secluded spot, and immediately incapacitated her with a crowbar.

Rhonda Louise Burse

Ball was not the only person to disappear from the Flame Tavern. On August 8, 1977, Rhonda Louise Burse, a 21-year-old exotic dancer, vanished after entering a car outside the bar.

Burse, who used the alias Lisa Fisher or the surname "Weeks," had just finished her shift. On the day of her disappearance, she was wearing cutoff jeans and a blue and white striped top, along with expensive rings, two gold chains, and small gold earrings.

She remains missing to this day.

The former Flame Tavern

Built in 1928, the property was last sold for $990,000 in 2007. During the 1970s, it operated as a working-class dive bar called the Flame Tavern, known for live music and a sign that advertised "Dancing Nightly."

The venue had a reputation as a "rough" place where fistfights often broke out in the parking lot.

Recently, the property housed restaurants such as Fiesta Del Mar, the MVP Sports Bar, and El Baron Rojo.

The location has a turbulent history beyond the Bundy connection. In 2008, a man was fatally shot with an AK-47 assault rifle at the venue.

In March 2020, the owner of El Baron Rojo, Sonia Olvera Jimenez, was arrested for murdering a tenant in her home.