Estimated read time: 13-14 minutes
MILLCREEK — Susie Nelson vividly remembers the night her big sister Nancy Wilcox vanished 50 years ago.
"We were in watching TV," Nelson said. "She was waiting for her boyfriend."
Nancy Wilcox, 16, lived near 2300 East and 3900 South, in what is today the city of Millcreek. She'd just started her junior year at Olympus High School and was dating a boy named John, who was a star athlete a grade above.
On this particular autumn evening, John arrived at the Wilcox house to pick up Nancy. He pulled his truck into the driveway and was met by Wilcox's father. Herbert Wilcox didn't care for his daughter's boyfriend, or the oil stains John's truck left on the concrete. Herbert told John to move his truck to the street.
"I don't know what happened. Maybe (John) got mad and he took off," Nelson said.
Nancy's mother, Connie Wilcox, informed her daughter that Herbert and John had argued, and John left in a huff. Susie, who was 10 years old, recalled her sister Nancy becoming upset.
"I could hear her talking to my dad and he says, 'I just asked (John) to back up his truck. That's all I asked,' And she just goes, 'Well, did you yell,'" Nelson said.
Nancy then rushed out of the house.
"She was hoping that she'd just find (John) because he just barely took off," Nelson said. "That's all I saw, was her going out of the house, down the driveway, and then we didn't see her again."
Ted Bundy encounters Nancy Wilcox
Serial killer Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy was driving his tan Volkswagen Beetle through the suburbs of Salt Lake City on that same October evening. He was new to Utah at the time, having moved from Seattle a month prior to begin classes at the University of Utah law school. Bundy spotted Wilcox walking alone on a dimly lit street.
"She was ushered into (a small orchard) and restrained, and then placed in the car and taken to the apartment," Bundy said in an audiotaped confession, recorded days before his execution in January of 1989.
Bundy provided the confession hoping police in Utah would locate and recover Wilcox's remains, then urge officials in Florida to postpone the impending execution. He told a detective from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office he'd kept Wilcox at his apartment for 24 hours, then driven her to a remote location in south-central Utah and buried her. Bundy was uncertain about the precise place but instructed the detective to search along the Notom-Bullfrog Road near Capitol Reef National Park.
"I hope a serious attempt is mounted to find something," Bundy said.
Bundy's plan, sometimes called "bones for time," didn't work. Florida executed him by electrocution on Jan. 24, 1989. A preliminary search for Wilcox's remains began days later, but it was hampered by snow. Additional searches occurred throughout the spring and summer of 1989, but they did not yield any sign of Wilcox's remains. The Salt Lake County Sheriff declared the Wilcox case closed that August.
Susie Nelson was 24 years old by then. Her family had lived in denial during the 14 years between Nancy Wilcox's disappearance and Bundy's confession. Learning her sweet, shy sister died at Bundy's hands, likely as his first victim in Utah, was a shock.
"We tried not to talk about it ever, at all," Nelson said. "My mom would just, she'd get really sad."
Ted Bundy myths
That account of Nancy Wilcox's disappearance is not the one you'll find in most books or news articles about Ted Bundy. It's also not the story you'll find on Utah's official state cold case website, or on the U.S. missing persons database, NamUs.
"I was frustrated by how much misinformation was out there," said Tiffany Jean, a professional archivist who's done extensive research on the victims of Ted Bundy.
Jean obtained a copy of the Nancy Wilcox case file from Unified Police in 2021 using GRAMA, Utah's public records law. In doing so, she became the first person outside of law enforcement to review the Wilcox case file in almost five decades. Jean quickly realized the story in the case file was different than accounts of Wilcox's disappearance she'd seen in other places.
"A lot of myths have emerged about (Wilcox's) story, and those are proven incorrect by the information that's in that case file," Jean said in an exclusive interview with KSL.
Jean has published much of her research about the women Bundy murdered on her blog A Killer in the Archives.
"I think it's important to remember the stories of the victims and not just the people who harm them," Jean said.
Jean shared the Nancy Wilcox case file with KSL. Our independent review confirms much of the previously published information about the case is incomplete, incorrect or lacking critical context.
The fight for the Nancy Wilcox case file
Nancy Wilcox's disappearance was initially investigated by the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office. It later came under the jurisdiction of the Unified Police Department, when that agency was ormed to provide police services in what is today the city of Millcreek.
Tiffany Jean first requested a copy of the Wilcox case file from Unified Police in 2019. At that time, the department's website included a page about cold cases, which listed Wilcox's case as "solved."
"The request for that case file was denied multiple times," Jean said. "I was surprised because they told me that her case was considered unsolved and that it was still open. And I thought, 'That's ridiculous.'"
Jean appealed the denial to Utah's State Records Committee, which held a hearing on the dispute in March of 2021. Unified Police's chief legal counsel, Harry Souval, told the records committee the agency harbored doubts about whether Bundy was actually responsible for Wilcox's suspected murder.
"Nobody knew about Bundy when this happened and he wasn't a suspect until later," Souval told the records committee.
Souval said because Wilcox's remains had never been located, police could not rule out the possibility Bundy made a false confession. They said other potential suspects were identified in the case files, and releasing those names could harm an ongoing investigation.
"Releasing all the early information about the early suspects is, in fact, something we don't want to release in case they ever turn up to be actual suspects," Souval said.
Jean argued that to the contrary, Bundy's confession was likely truthful because it was part of his strategy to delay execution. The records committee, after considering the arguments and reviewing the police reports, ruled in Jean's favor. It ordered Unified Police to release the Wilcox case file.
Folklore #1 - Nancy Wilcox disappearance date
The Nancy Wilcox case file showed the most basic fact, the date she disappeared, is wrong in nearly every previously published account.
"October 2nd is the date that's been reported in almost any publication that talks about Nancy Wilcox," Jean said. "That's actually not true. If you look at the police report in her case file, her parents reported her missing that day, but she had actually disappeared the night before."
The initial report, which is the very first document authored by police in the case, was dated Oct. 2, 1974. But it stated Wilcox's father "reports that about 2100 hours last evening, he and (Nancy Wilcox) had words regarding her boyfriend, suspect got mad and left the house."
The hand-written report listed the date and time Wilcox was last seen as 2100 hours, or 9 p.m., on Oct. 1, 1974.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office assigned Wilcox's case to its juvenile division, on the assumption Wilcox ran away. Deputies from that unit spent the next few months interviewing Wilcox's friends and relatives. They considered Wilcox's boyfriend, John, a prime suspect and questioned him repeatedly. Deputies also staked out the home of Wilcox's cousin, Jamie Hayden, believing Hayden might be harboring Wilcox.
Nancy Wilcox's disappearance didn't appear in the news until the start of December 1974. Those early stories erroneously reported Wilcox was last seen on Oct. 2. The error went uncorrected and later made its way into many other books and articles about Ted Bundy.
Unified Police records show a detective reviewed the Nancy Wilcox case file in 2015. That detective apparently failed to notice the date discrepancy. When Unified Police submitted Nancy Wilcox's case to the national missing persons database NamUs a short time later, they incorrectly listed Wilcox's "date of last contact" as Oct. 2, 1974.
Unified Police also submitted Wilcox's case to Utah's state cold case website in 2019. Again, the agency incorrectly listed Wilcox as "missing since" Oct. 2, 1974.
Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office cold case detective Ben Pender told KSL this was likely a clerical error that will be corrected.
Folklore #2 - Circumstances of Nancy Wilcox's disappearance
The NamUs database includes just a single sentence about Nancy Wilcox's "circumstances of disappearance." It reads: "Nancy left her high school to buy a package of gum and never returned."
"That's a strange story," Jean said. "No mention of gum is ever made in the case file."
The likely source for this bit of misinformation is a People magazine article published a week following Ted Bundy's execution in 1989. The article included the line, "If only Nancy hadn't gone out for a pack of gum." The article presented the line as if it were a thought from Wilcox's mother, Connie Wilcox, but it is not a direct quote.
Utah's cold case database, created in 2018, lists yet another version of the story. It says Nancy Wilcox was "a cheerleader" who was "last seen riding with a man in a yellow Volkswagen bug near her home in Holladay, Utah, on the afternoon of October 2, 1974."
Nancy Wilcox was not a cheerleader. The case file makes no mention of her being a cheerleader. Wilcox does not appear among the cheerleaders in the 1974 or 1975 editions of the Olympus High School yearbook, when she was a sophomore and junior, respectively.
"I was actually the cheerleader at Evergreen (Junior High)," Wilcox's sister Susie Nelson said. "I don't know if my mom got mixed up or if somebody heard that and then they put it that way."
The claim Wilcox was last seen with a man in a yellow Volkswagen is also false.
"The case file never says that Nancy Wilcox was last seen riding in a yellow VW," Jean said.
This piece of misinformation likely originates from a tip deputies received in December of 1974, two months after Nancy Wilcox disappeared. The tip coincided with Wilcox's case first appearing in the news media.
"A woman watching the news saw (Wilcox's) picture and thought that she had seen her in Lake Point, Utah, a few days prior," Jean said.
The tipster said a young woman who resembled Wilcox had been at a restaurant with several other people, including a man with a mustache who drove a yellow Volkswagen. Deputies investigated the tip but were unable to identify the man or locate the yellow Volkswagen.
Months later, in August of 1975, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper encountered Ted Bundy in what is today West Valley City. Bundy attempted to flee from a traffic stop but was arrested following a short pursuit. Police subsequently identified Bundy as a suspect in the Nov. 8, 1974, attempted abduction of Carol DaRonch. Bundy had lured DaRonch to his tan Volkswagen Beetle near the Fashion Place Mall while wearing a fake mustache and posing as a plainclothes police officer.
Bundy was charged and convicted of aggravated kidnapping in the DaRonch case. Detectives also suspected Bundy in the disappearances and deaths of three young women from around northern Utah: Melissa Smith, Laura Aime and Debra Kent. Investigators lacked sufficient evidence to secure criminal charges in those cases.
In the aftermath of Bundy's arrest, people conflated his tan Volkswagen with the yellow Volkswagen from the Lake Point tip. True crime author Ann Rule even asserted Wilcox was last seen with a man "in a light-colored Volkswagen bug" in her book, The Stranger Beside Me. That is false.
The look-alike from the Lake Point tip could not have been Nancy Wilcox, because by Ted Bundy's own admission, Wilcox had been dead for weeks before the supposed sighting occurred.
"So definitively not Nancy Wilcox," Jean said. "That's one of the mix-ups that's become part of the popular knowledge of the case that just isn't true."
Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office detective Ben Pender told KSL he acknowledged the narrative of Nancy Wilcox being last seen with a man in a yellow Volkswagen is in error. Salt Lake County submitted an update to the state cold case website after being contacted by KSL to correct the misinformation. The Utah Department of Public Safety also provided a statement to KSL saying local agencies are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of data provided for inclusion on the state website, and victims' families are encouraged to contact DPS if they notice missing or incorrect information on the site.
Folklore #3 - The man at Nancy Wilcox's work
Another piece of "popular knowledge" surrounding the Wilcox case is a story that Ted Bundy stalked or befriended Wilcox at her workplace during the summer of 1974, months before Wilcox disappeared.
Wilcox had a part-time job at an Arctic Circle Drive-in restaurant on the corner of 3300 South and 2000 East. The case files indicate a man had been visiting the restaurant that summer, flirting with Wilcox and "giving her a lot of attention." The man offered Wilcox a ride home from work on one occasion in mid-July.
Instead of driving Wilcox home, the man allegedly took Wilcox to a house near the mouth of Millcreek Canyon and sexually assaulted her. KSL does not normally identify victims of sexual assaults but is making an exception in this situation because it is impossible to correct misinformation about the Nancy Wilcox case without doing so.
Wilcox reported the alleged assault to the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office on July 17, 1974. She showed a detective the address where she'd been taken. The detective questioned the man who lived at the house Wilcox indicated, but closed the case as "unfounded."
The case file identifies this man by name. He was not Ted Bundy. The address Wilcox pointed out also has no association with Bundy. The resident of that home agreed to take a lie detector test after Wilcox disappeared. A sheriff's sergeant determined the man "was truthful when he denied involvement with Nancy Wilcox."
KSL is not identifying the man, who is deceased, because he was never arrested or charged with a crime in connection with the Wilcox case.
Additional evidence supports the conclusion the man who'd "flirted" with Wilcox at her work could not have been Ted Bundy. The alleged assault took place just days after Bundy abducted and murdered two women from Lake Sammamish in Washington state.
Credit card receipts obtained by detectives who investigated those murders revealed Bundy was traveling between Seattle and Olympia on July 17, 1974, the same day Nancy Wilcox reported the alleged sexual assault more than 800 miles away in Salt Lake County.
For all of his skills of deception, Bundy could not have been in two places at once.
If you have experienced sexual violence, you can access help and resources by calling Utah's 24-hour Sexual Violence Help Line at 1-801-736-4356 (English) or 1-801-924-0860 (Spanish). You can also call the Rape Recovery Center office line during office hours at 801-467-7282 or the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 for free, confidential counseling.
