2000 NW Sammamish Rd, Issaquah, WA 98027
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Author: Jewls Krueger
On the sunny afternoon of Sunday, July 14, 1974, serial killer Ted Bundy abducted two young women, 23 year old Janice Anne Ott and 19 year old Denise Marie Naslund, in broad daylight from Lake Sammamish State Park, a busy public park roughly 15 miles east of Seattle, Washington. The Lake Sammamish abductions produced the first detailed physical description of Bundy and his car, and would eventually lead directly to his identification as the "Ted" killer.
Lake Sammamish State Park is a popular summertime destination for residents of Issaquah, a suburb of Seattle. The park has several beaches and tends to get crowded during the summer months.
On July 14, 1974, an estimated 40,000 people were at the park to take advantage of the unusually warm weather and to attend the annual employee picnic hosted by Seattle's Rainier Brewing Company, a large event that regularly filled the park with families, coworkers, and friends. It was under those crowded, celebratory conditions that Bundy chose to select his next two victims.
Janice Anne Ott was born in Spokane, Washington on December 21, 1950. By July 1974, the 23 year old newlywed had recently moved from Spokane to a small home on Front Avenue in Issaquah, only a few blocks from Lake Sammamish State Park. She worked as a probation caseworker at the King County Juvenile Court in Seattle. Her husband James was attending medical school in California. On the morning of July 14, 1974, Janice left a handwritten note for her roommate on the door of her home that said she was going to the park to sunbathe. She drew a small sun in the corner of the note. She rode her yellow Tiger brand bicycle roughly a mile to Lake Sammamish and set up a blanket near the beach.
Denise Marie Naslund was born on January 25, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. The 19 year old was studying to become a computer programmer. On the afternoon of July 14, 1974, she drove her Chevrolet to Lake Sammamish State Park with her boyfriend Robert Sargent and another couple to enjoy the good weather. Family members would later describe her as friendly and helpful, the kind of young woman who would immediately offer to help anyone she thought was in need.
On July 14th, 1974, Lake Sammamish State Park was in the midst of the popular season with hundreds of Pacific-Northwesterners eager to soak in the good weather at the beach. Ted Bundy was also at the park that day prowling for his next victims. Several witnesses reported seeing a young, good looking man with his arm in a sling asking women for help with a sailboat.
The man wore a white shirt, tennis shorts, and tennis shoes, and told the women his name was "Ted." His routine was consistent, telling each of them that he could not lift a sailboat onto the roof of his Volkswagen Beetle by himself and asking them to accompany him to his parents' house "just up the hill." Several women he approached that afternoon later reported that they had refused to help him and gone about their day.
Book Recommendation
Ann Rule's 'The Stranger Beside Me' is required reading for any true crime fan. Anne Rule was tasked with writing about a series of murders, all while working with the murderer, Ted Bundy, at a suicide hotline.
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At approximately 12:30 p.m., Janice Ott agreed to help him and accompanied him to his light colored VW Beetle. Although there was no sailboat with the car, he convinced her that it was located just a short distance away, and she agreed to accompany him. She was never seen alive again.
A few hours later, at approximately 4:30 p.m., Ted Bundy returned to the parking lot and started the ruse over, again asking young attractive women for help with his sailboat. This time, 19-year-old Denise Naslund agreed to help him after leaving her boyfriend and friends to visit a nearby restroom, and was never seen again.
When Denise had not returned to the group after roughly half an hour, her boyfriend Robert Sargent began searching the park for her. He found her Chevrolet, along with her sandals, her wallet, and other personal belongings, at the picnic table where she had left them. He and her friends drove back to Seattle without her, hoping she had found her way home. Denise was reported missing to police that evening. Janice was reported missing the following morning.
On September 6, 1974, two grouse hunters walking a wooded service road roughly two miles east of Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah stumbled across a large field of scattered skeletal remains. Over the following three days, King County police recovered two skulls, various long bones, and tufts of both reddish blonde and dark brown hair from the site. The remains were later identified as those of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund. A partial third set of remains was also recovered at the site; before his 1989 execution, Ted Bundy would confess to FBI Special Agent Bill Hagmaier that these were the remains of 18 year old University of Washington student Georgann Hawkins, whom he had abducted from a Seattle alley a month before the Lake Sammamish attacks. Bundy's claim about the remains has never been officially confirmed.
Because Bundy had unsuccessfully asked several women for help before finding his victims, police were able to put together a clear description of him and his car for the first time. Fliers were posted throughout the Seattle area and women were told to be weary of men matching the description.
The composite sketch of the "Ted" suspect was published in Seattle area newspapers and broadcast on local news that week. Four separate tips came in independently naming Ted Bundy, then a 27 year old University of Washington psychology graduate and law student with no criminal record. According to King County Police records, those tips came from his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, his former Seattle Crisis Clinic coworker and future true crime author Ann Rule, a coworker at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services where Bundy was then working, and a University of Washington psychology professor. However, because Bundy had no criminal record and had strong personal and professional references, investigators did not immediately pursue him as a serious suspect.
Ted Bundy formally confessed to the murders of both Janice Ott and Denise Naslund during his final interviews with investigators in the days before his execution in Florida's electric chair on January 24, 1989.
The park is located around 15 miles east of downtown Seattle, directly off of I-90. Ted Bundy likely parked his VW Beetle near the exit of the parking lot for Tibbet's beach in an effort to lure his victims away from others before abducting them. This is a public park, but be sure to head all posted signs and obey all park workers.
Please be respectful of all other visitors, families, and staff at the park during your visit, and remember that Lake Sammamish State Park remains a beloved summertime destination for local families more than five decades after these crimes.
The small apartment that serial killer Ted Bundy lived in while living in Utah
The Sorority House where Ted Bundy killed two women and severely injured two others.
The Seattle home where Ted Bundy killed his first confirmed victim, Lynda Ann Healy.
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