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The high school where Ted Bundy abducted Debra Jean Kent

Crime Scene Location in Bountiful, Utah, United States

This is the high school parking lot where Debra Jean Kent was abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy.

On the night of November 8th, 1974, Debra and her parents were attending a play at Viewmont High School in Bountiful.

When the show ran longer than expected, the 17-year-old volunteered to take the family car and pick up her two younger brothers, who were at a local skating rink.

The rink was only three miles away. If traffic was light, she'd be able to collect the two boys and return within 20 minutes.

However, 20 minutes soon turned into 40 minutes, and then an hour.

As time dragged on, Debra's parents grew so anxious about the situation that they decided to go outside and find a payphone.

After exiting the auditorium, they were met with a sight that filled them with panic. There, in the parking lot, was the family car.

It hadn't moved an inch.

Debra's parents knew that this was extremely out of character for their daughter, as she would never take off and leave her family in the lurch. She was the type of girl who would call if she was going to be 15 minutes late.

The search for Debra Jean Kent

Shortly afterwards, it emerged that their two sons were still at the skating rink.

Debra had never collected them.

That night, a search of the high school took place, and rooms were opened to make sure that the teenager hadn't been accidentally locked inside. Debra's family and friends also searched some of the hills and canyons around Bountiful.

Unfortunately, there was no trace of the missing teenager. From most people's perspective, it seemed as though she had somehow vanished into thin air.

Initially, the police told Debra's mother that they could not begin searching until 24 hours had passed. At the time, they assumed that she was just another teenage runaway.

However, they were soon pressured into taking action.

Handcuff key

The following day, the police investigated the parking lot at the high school.

Although they found no signs of a struggle, they did discover a handcuff key on the ground outside of the auditorium. Not long after, they determined that the key fit the handcuffs that had been used during the failed kidnapping of Carol DaRonch earlier that day.

It was now becoming apparent that DaRonch's assailant had fled the scene, driven north to Bountiful, and abducted Debra Kent.

Witness accounts

That evening, a man matching Bundy's description was lurking around the auditorium and asking women to help him identify a car in the parking lot.

However, the targets that he approached realized that something was "off" about him and politely declined.

A drama teacher that he repeatedly tried to lure outside said that he had a "nervousness" about him that made her feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, she did not like the way he was staring at her. Consequently, she told him that she was too busy to help.

Other witness reports state that they heard a woman screaming in the parking lot around the same time that Kent left the auditorium. Another person came forward and claimed that they saw a Volkswagen Bug speeding away from the school.

Despite all of these witness accounts, the police were still no closer to figuring out what had happened to Kent.

Her remains are discovered

Ted Bundy became the prime suspect behind Kent's disappearance after he was arrested for the abduction of Carol DaRonch. However, the police did not have enough evidence to charge him with the crime.

As the years passed by, it seemed increasingly unlikely that the young girl's remains would ever be found.

Then, right before he was put to death in 1989, Bundy finally admitted that he had killed the missing teenager.

During his confession, he said that he brought the 17-year-old back to his apartment in Salt Lake City. After "keeping her for a while," he murdered her and buried her body at a rural site in Fairview Canyon.

After searching the area, the authorities found a patella bone.

Although the medical examiner's office determined that the bone was human, they were unable to test it any further. As a result, they handed it over to Debra's mother, Belva, who kept it in a small memorial box.

In 2015, a cold-case detective discovered that Debra's DNA had never been entered into the NamUs database. At that point, he reached out to Belva and asked her if he could take the bone for testing.

Although she agreed to hand over the box, she told him that she didn't want to know the results. In her mind, it was her daughter's bone, and she didn't want to be told otherwise.

Five months later, the results were confirmed.

The bone belonged to Debra.

Where was Debra Jean Kent abducted?

Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location.

GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the school are:

40.900094, -111.883417

Map

To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below:

Google Maps Link

Address

The full address for this location is:

Viewmont High School
120 West 1000 North
Bountiful
Utah
UT 84010
United States

Directions

The entrance is about 500 feet east of the intersection between West 1000 North and North 200 West.

Details about the general area

Bountiful is a small commuter town that lies to the north of Salt Lake City. The high school is just minutes away from Interstate 15 and U.S. Route 89.

Photos

Photos of the school and other related images.

Debra Kent

According to her missing person poster, Debra Jean Kent was 5'1" and weighed 110 lbs. The 17-year-old had an oval face, long brown hair, and brown eyes.

Debra was the oldest of five siblings. She had plans to become a social worker before her life was cut short.

Her family described her as a caring "mother hen" who was so generous that she sometimes paid the parking meters of complete strangers.

Fairview Canyon

This is the location where Bundy buried Kent's remains.

The site is roughly 1.5 miles east of a small town called Fairview.

During his confession, Bundy stated that he drove his Volkswagen Bug onto a steep dirt road that "wound up to the left."

This site in question is 105 miles away from the high school where the 17-year-old was abducted.

Bundy claimed that he buried Kent's remains about 3 feet deep and then covered them with heavy rocks.

In 1989, a police search team discovered a human patella at the site. 26 years later, DNA testing confirmed that the bone belonged to the missing teenager.

It is likely that the other bones were scavenged by wildlife.

Coordinates: 39.645819, -111.406670

Google Maps Link

Viewmont High School

Kent's car was parked in a lot on the west side of the school. This is also the area where investigators discovered the handcuff key.

Remodel

Although the high school was remodeled between 2016 and 2018, the parking lot looks pretty similar to how it did back in 1974.

The police discovered the handcuff key over by the red circle.

Raelynn Shepherd

Raelynn Shepherd was a drama teacher at Viewmont High School.

According to Shepherd, Bundy approached her and attempted to lure her out into the parking lot. Although he was insistent, she declined his advances and told him that she was too busy.

Raelynn said that she saw him again in the auditorium at around 10.45 p.m. His hair was messed up, and he was breathing heavily.

Notably, that was roughly 20–30 minutes after Debra had left to collect her brothers.

If her memory is correct, then Bundy knocked Debra unconscious, put her in his car, and returned to the auditorium.

Bundy's motivations for doing such a thing are unclear. For example, he may have been attempting to create an alibi for himself by appearing in public directly after the attack. A far more sinister explanation is that he was looking for a second victim.

23 E 3500 South

Debra lived at 23 East 3500 South in Bountiful, Utah. After she went missing, her parents kept the porch light on for years in the hope that she'd come back.

Her disappearance devastated the Kent family.

Debra's younger brother, Bill, blamed himself and died in an alcohol-related auto accident on February 3rd, 1985.

Shortly afterwards, her father, Dean, started drinking, quit his job as an oil executive, walked out on his marriage, and fathered a child. He died from cancer on January 2nd, 2016, at the age of 78.

During an interview in 1989, her mother, Belva Kent, stated that Bundy was the "cancer" that tore her family apart.

Coordinates: 40.851108, -111.880702

Google Maps Link

Handcuff key

The police found a handcuff key on the western side of the school. Later, it was determined that the key was a perfect fit for the handcuffs that had been used on Carol DaRonch.