Oregon State University

Author: Jewls Krueger

On the night of May 6, 1974, 20 year old Roberta Kathleen "Kathy" Parks was abducted from the Memorial Union commons cafeteria on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, Oregon by serial killer Ted Bundy. She became his fourth known murder victim, and the first he had targeted outside of Washington state. He drove her roughly 250 miles north to Taylor Mountain in Washington, where he killed her.

Kathy Parks

Roberta Kathleen "Kathy" Parks was born on February 27, 1954 in Lakewood, Ohio and raised in Lafayette, California. She graduated from Acalanes High School in 1972, attended Diablo Valley College in 1973, and enrolled at Oregon State University in early 1974, where she was majoring in religious studies and living in the freshman dorm Sackett Hall. Standing 5'7" with waist length brown hair parted down the middle, Kathy fit the general physical description of many of Ted Bundy's other Washington and Oregon victims. Friends described her as demure, thoughtful, and a talented writer.

By the spring of 1974, Kathy had been struggling with depression, worries about her long distance relationship with her boyfriend Christy McPhee, and falling grades. On the morning of May 6, 1974, she received a phone call from her sister letting her know that their father had suffered a heart attack. He was expected to recover, but she reportedly felt guilt over an earlier argument with him and spent much of the day writing a letter to her boyfriend Christy that ended, "I'm feeling down right now, due to a combination of things, I suppose ... I think I'll go for a walk outside a while."

The Night of May 6, 1974

Around 11 p.m. on Monday, May 6, 1974, Kathy Parks left her dorm room in Sackett Hall on the OSU campus to walk roughly 350 yards eastward across campus to the Memorial Union commons cafeteria to meet friends. She was tired, had been crying earlier in the evening, and was headed to the commons for a hot fudge sundae before the cafeteria closed at 11 p.m.

Kathy stopped and chatted briefly with friend and fellow OSU student Lorraine Fargo at the corner of Jefferson Way and 26th Street, before continuing on toward the Memorial Union alone. Unfortunately, she never made it to dinner with her friends. Ted Bundy, who had already killed at least three young women in Washington in the previous four months, had come south to Oregon that night in an apparent effort to throw off investigators. According to Bundy's own later description of the killing, he was inside the Memorial Union commons cafeteria as it was closing down for the night, spotted Kathy, and approached her. Fargo would later tell investigators that a man had also followed her around the campus library earlier that evening and tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation with her, suggesting she may have been Bundy's original target that night before he switched to the more emotionally vulnerable looking Kathy.

Further Reading

The Stranger Beside Me

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.

Buy on Amazon →

Bundy's MO

Bundy would later confess that he had convinced Kathy to accompany him to his yellow Volkswagen Beetle by suggesting they leave campus for a bar. Unlike most of his other Washington victims, whom he typically knocked unconscious with a tire iron or crowbar before removing them from the abduction scene, Kathy appears to have gotten into his car alive and largely under her own power. Once inside the vehicle, he bound and gagged her.

Bundy then drove Kathy roughly 250 miles north on Interstate 5 back to Washington. Along the way, he stopped at a remote location and sexually assaulted her. Investigators believe she was killed in the early morning hours of May 7, 1974 at Taylor Mountain, roughly 20 miles east of Seattle, in a wooded area that Bundy had already used as a body disposal site.

The Discovery of Her Remains

On March 3, 1975, forestry students from Green River Community College found human skeletal remains at Taylor Mountain. Kathy Parks' skull and mandible were among four sets of remains eventually identified from the site, along with those of Lynda Ann Healy, Susan Rancourt, and Brenda Ball. Kathy was identified four days later, on March 7, 1975. Her skull showed evidence of massive blunt force trauma so severe that her official cause of death could not be definitively determined at the time of the identification, though the manner of death was ruled homicide. Ted Bundy formally confessed to Kathy's murder in the days leading up to his execution in January 1989.

The Campus Today

The Memorial Union cafeteria where Kathy Parks met Ted Bundy is located almost directly in the center of the campus of Oregon State University, and is just west of the Valley Library where Bundy may have been stalking a potential victim before spotting Parks.