Lake Sammamish State Park

Lake Sammamish map

This aerial map of Lake Sammamish State Park highlights the locations where Bundy approached Janice Ott and Denise Naslund. It also illustrates the general area where Bundy's Volkswagen Bug was parked.

He approached Ott at 12.30 p.m. while she was sunbathing on the beach. Then, four hours later, he lured Naslund away from the restrooms by the parking lot.

These days, the restroom no longer exists.

Janice Graham

Early that afternoon, Bundy put a beige sling on his arm and approached 22-year-old Janice Graham near the bandstand at Lake Sammamish.

After politely saying hello and introducing himself, he asked Graham if she could help him load a sailboat onto his car.

She agreed to lend a hand, and the pair started walking toward the parking lot. While they were walking across the grass, Bundy paused three times to hold his arm, which he claimed he had injured playing racket ball.

When they reached the parking lot, Graham saw that there was a tan-colored Volkswagen Bug. However, there was no boat.

Upon noticing her confusion, Bundy motioned toward the passenger-side door and explained that the boat was at his parents' house, which was "just up the hill."

Graham refused to get in the car and leave with him, as her husband and parents were due to arrive at the park any minute.

When Bundy learned that she couldn't leave the park, he said, "Oh, that's OK. I should have told you that it wasn't in the parking lot." He then accompanied Graham back towards the bandstand before apologizing again and veering off to his right.

Seconds later, he noticed Janice Ott sunbathing on the beach by herself.

The park was extremely busy that day

Roughly 40,000 people visited Lake Sammamish State Park that afternoon.

It was sunny, and the temperature ranged between 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The nice weather provided people with a much-needed break from the typical damp and gloomy climate of the Pacific Northwest.

Kelly Snyder

An off-duty DEA agent named Kelly Snyder was on the beach that day.

He was close enough to witness Bundy approaching Ott:

"I noticed a guy walking down the beach. A young man, probably in his mid-to-late twenties. He was wearing white shorts, and they had a red stripe, which immediately caught my eye.

When he got close, I noticed he had really curly hair, and his left arm was in a sling. It piqued my interest because every time he approached a woman, or a group of two or three women, he was getting turned down.

And I just kept watching him, and he eventually ended up being right in front of me, where he approached a young girl.

She was a young and attractive blonde girl. And he asked her—words to the effect of, 'I need some help.' She's saying that she just got here.

So obviously, going through her mind is 'I'd like to help you out, but I'm here to relax.' He kept on and on and on, and he talked her into whatever he talked her into. He said something about a catamaran.

And ultimately, she gets up—reluctantly—because her head is down and she is like, 'I can't believe I'm doing this.' And then she started walking back past me. She had this frown on her face, like, 'I'm helping this guy when I should be enjoying myself on the beach.'

And the end result is she's no longer with us because she was a nice person."

The police arrive at Lake Sammamish

At around 4.30 p.m., Naslund went to the restroom by the parking lot and never returned. It wasn't long before her boyfriend and friends realized that something was wrong.

Everyone was aware that a predator was on the loose, as a number of women had recently gone missing in the Seattle area.

For example, only 34 days prior, university student Georgann Hawkins had seemingly vanished from the alley beside her sorority house.

Although a number of photographs show the police at Lake Sammamish on July 14th, 1974, they were not there because of the abductions. Instead, they were responding to reports that a group of bikers were disturbing the peace.

Naslund and Ott were not officially reported missing until the following day.

Police map

This map from the King County Sheriff's Office pinpoints the exact locations where Bundy approached several women.

Besides Ott and Naslund, he also approached Janice Graham, Sylvia Valint, Sonia Siebenbaum, Patricia Turner, and Jacqueline Plischke.

A number of other sources place Ott's location in the middle of the park, between the concession stand and the parking lot. However, both this map and several witness statements indicate that she was closer to the beach. It is possible that someone confused Ott's location with the area where Bundy parted ways with Graham.

The following is an excerpt from a police report:

At about 12:30 hours, Sylvia Valint was laying on the beach at the park with her two friends. Jerry Snyder was about 15 feet from Valint with his wife. Theresa Sharp was with her family about 10 feet from Valint. They were all on the beach, about 200 yards directly in front of the east restroom. The above three witnesses all observed Janice Ott arrive on the beach and position herself between them.

Route

It would have taken Bundy roughly 10–15 minutes to drive between the state park and the dump site at Issaquah. The route in question is about four miles long.

Did Bundy kill Ott and Naslund at the same time?

Bundy's decision to kidnap two women within four hours of each other was a brazen deviation from the norm.

Because of this, many authors have speculated that he was aiming to "increase his high" by attacking two women at the same time. In other words, he may have incapacitated Ott, gagged her, and then returned to the park to search for a second victim.

Although Bundy did imply that one had to watch the other die, that statement was made during one of his third-person pseudo-confessions. We also know that he was a narcissist and a habitual liar who loved to paint himself as a daring and sophisticated serial killer.

Therefore, we need to be extremely careful about taking his word as fact.

It is possible that he tied Ott to a tree and then left her there. The area in question was secluded, and it is unlikely that someone would have discovered her in time, especially if she was gagged.

Another plausible theory is that Bundy murdered Ott before he returned to Lake Sammamish. There is a noticeable gap between the abduction of Ott at 12.30 p.m. and Bundy's return to the park at around 4 p.m. If we take the length of the journey between the park and the dump site into account, then it means that he was gone for 2–3 hours.

That seems like a lot of time if the original plan was to kidnap two women and then kill them at the same time.

It is the author's opinion that his decision to hunt for a second victim was motivated by other factors. Most likely, an event occurred during the murder of Ott that prevented Bundy from achieving sexual gratification.

This left him so desperate for a "release" that he felt compelled to return to the park to look for another victim.

For example, she may have struggled or escaped, leading to a situation where she died "too soon".

1977

Image source: USGS

This aerial photograph of the park was taken in 1977.

As you can see, the layout of the park has remained the same.

The Volkswagen Beetle photograph

One photograph that was taken in the park that day shows a Volkswagen Beetle in the background.

Although a number of media outlets have claimed that it belonged to Bundy, this seems to be false.

Firstly, the Volkswagen Beetle was an extremely popular model during the 1970s. For example, if you look closely, you will see that there is another Beetle on the left.

Secondly, Bundy's vehicle had a roof rack installed that day.

Lastly, Bundy actually denied that it was his. During one interview with detective Robert Keppel, he stated:

"You would have never seen me in Lake Sammamish State Park again with all that heat. [laughs] That's a lot of heat there."

Bikers

The police showed up at the park to deal with a group of bikers.