Ogden woman tells of friendship with serial killer Ted Bundy
Ogden, Utah — (KUTV) Marylynne Chino remembers the night -- in the fall of 1969 -- at the Sandpiper Lounge in Seattle, Washington, as if it was yesterday.
“I’ve never forgotten this,” Chino said. “I walked in, and across the room, I saw Ted (Bundy) for the first time. I will never forget the look on his face, it wasn’t evil but he was staring nursing a beer.”
Chino said her best friend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, eventually spent the night with Bundy. She said Kloepfer and Bundy began dating soon after. Chino, who says she and Kloepfer, who moved to Seattle from Ogden, were often going to bars, clubs and parties together.
“Ted was charismatic, he was nice.”
However, her opinion of Bundy began to change when Kleopher called her to tell her that she had found several odd, disturbing items in Bundy’s home.
“There were women’s underwear there and the plaster of Paris,” Chino said. Her friend eventually confronted Bundy about the items; Chino said her friend was threatened for asking.
“She (Kleopfer) said 'what is this?' And he (Bundy) said to her, ‘if you ever tell anyone this I’ll break your effing head,’” said Chino. Her friend decided to ignore the find according to Chino.
By 1974 women began disappearing in Washington state, including two who were kidnapped and murdered from Lake Sammamish near Issaquah, Washington.
The good news was, police had some clues to follow for the first time since the disappearances began. One of the women who Bundy approached, but did not abduct, told investigators that the man said his name was Ted, had a cast on his arm, and was driving a Volkswagen Beetle.
Police also published a composite sketch of the man they believed was the kidnapper. Kloepfer and Chino believed the man who killed those women could be their friend Ted Bundy.
“We were flabbergasted ourselves because we knew him.”
Kloepfer was reluctant to call police, but Chino said she convinced her they needed to know for sure.
“We went to a pay phone and I called, (and asked police )now you’re sure it was bronze, yes we’re absolutely sure, and I said ‘thank you’ I went back to Liz and I said, ‘we have nothing to worry about it’s a bronze Volkswagen.’”
Bundy’s Volkswagen was tan; this factual error may have kept the women from reporting him. Nonetheless, Chino still had her concerns, and one evening, those concerns turned into real fear, when Bundy offered to give Chino a ride home in his car.
“I didn’t want him to take me home but I live far enough away and she was there and she said I’ll take you home, and Ted jumped in, ‘oh no I’ll take her don’t worry.’”
Chino said the 30-minute ride was the longest of her life. She walked away from the encounter unhurt and soon after said goodbye to Bundy, as he packed his bags and moved to Utah to attend the University of Utah law school.
“He goes to Salt Lake, and guess what, people start to disappear from Salt Lake.”
When she heard about more murders, she convinced Kloepfer that they needed to call police.
“I remember calling my dad and he said, and I never forgot it, I just don’t know, and this I what he said to me: 'Marylynne, if he did it once he’ll do it again,’ and that’s’ exactly what happened.”
It took years for police to build a case against Bundy but they did it with some help from Chino and Kloepfer.
Forty years later, as Chino sorts through her old newspaper clippings, she wonders, why Bundy never hurt her.
“I’m lucky to be alive. Why not me? I don’t believe people who say he wouldn’t hurt people he knows. I don’t believe it. Why didn’t he hurt you? My honest answer, I think, I had more to do in this life that’s the only thing I can tell you,” Chino said.
