Interview Identifies Victim, 12, In Idaho

Idaho authorities confirmed Tuesday that one of two murders Ted Bundy told them about in a weekend interview involved the disappearance almost 14 years ago of a 12-year-old girl.

Bundy knew details about Lynette Culver's family that he could have known only if he had talked to the girl, Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones said.

Culver was last seen in May 1975 walking away from her junior high school in Pocatello, which is in southeastern Idaho. It's three hours north of Salt Lake City, where Bundy lived at the time.

The case was very similar to the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Kimberly Leach, 12, of Lake City, whose murder Bundy was executed for Tuesday morning.

''He told us he had come to Pocatello to commit murder,'' said Jones. ''He said it was part of the madness.''

Bundy did not know the girl's name, but clearly remembered picking her up. Among other details, Bundy knew the girl's family had recently moved from one end of Pocatello to the other, where her parents worked, Jones said. Idaho authorities compared that information against missing persons reports and confirmed the details with Culver's parents on Monday.

Because a witness had reported seeing Lynette hitchhiking the day she disappeared, and because Bundy had time to talk to the girl, authorities speculate he didn't force her into his car.

Bundy gave an attorney general's investigator several details of what he did to the girl, but Jones would not discuss them. He did say that Bundy described a river where he threw her body. Authorities believe it to be the Snake River 15 to 20 miles north of Pocatello.

Lynette's body was never found.

Pocatello Police Capt. Mike Stayner said detectives wanted to question Bundy when he first became a suspect in Utah and Washington murders in late 1975. But the department never had the chance because Bundy refused to talk about any killings until last week.

Bundy also told an attorney general's investigator that he picked up a girl hitchhiking on a freeway near Boise in August 1974 as he moved from Seattle to Salt Lake City. Bundy said he strangled the girl, thought to be about 16 years old, and threw her body into a river. But by Tuesday, investigators had found no missing persons report that matched the killer's description of the girl.

Lynette Dawn Culver