ID ID - Lynette Culver, 12, Pocatello, 6 May 1975

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Lynette Culver was confirmed as being a Ted Bundy victim after a 1989 police interrogation. He didn't know her name but he gave enough details that investigators felt confident he was responsible. Lynette's case was closed but her remains have never been found.

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Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
• Missing Since: May 6, 1975 from Pocatello, Idaho
• Classification: Endangered Missing
• Date of Birth: July 31, 1962
• Age: 12 years old
• Height and Weight: 5'2 - 5'3, 110 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue/hazel eyes. Lynette appeared older than her actual age in 1975. She has a mole on her lower left cheek.
• Clothing/Jewelry Description: A maroon jacket with a fur collar, a red checkered shirt and blue jeans.

Details of Disappearance
Lynette was last seen in Pocatello, Idaho on May 6, 1975. She left Alameda Junior High School for her lunch break and never returned. That afternoon, she boarded a bus at Hawthorne Junior High School, bound for Fort Hall. She has never been heard from again. Investigators initially believed she ran away, perhaps to a nearby Indian reservation, but they began to suspect foul play as time passed and nobody saw or heard from her.

Serial killer Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy confessed to Lynette's murder shortly before his 1989 execution. A photo of Bundy is posted below this case summary. He claimed he abducted Lynette and took her to a room at a Holiday Inn, where he raped her, drowned her in the bathtub and dumped her body in the Snake River. He provided details about Lynette's life that only she could have told him. Bundy is a suspect in many disappearances, including those of Nancy Baird, Ann Marie Burr, Julie Cunningham, Susan Curtis, Georgeann Hawkins, Vicki Hollar, Rita Jolly, Debra Kent, Donna Manson, Denise Oliverson, Nancy Wilcox and other young women. The women continue to be listed as missing persons. Their remains have never been recovered.

Lynette was the youngest of three children in a middle-class family, and lived with them on Fairbanks Street. One of her siblings died prior to her disappearance. She was born in Washington and moved to Idaho in 1967. Lynette had a good relationship with her family in 1975. She was in the seventh grade, was a good student and was considered a normal preteen, although she did have some problems with school truancy. Her body has never been found.


Police say they are "99 percent" sure that executed serial killer Ted Bundy abducted and killed 12-year-old Lynette Culver in May 1975.
 
Lengthy article.
August 19 2018 rbbm.
Pocatello police looking for cold case connections, including girl supposedly killed by Ted Bundy
"Pocatello police looking for cold case connections, including girl supposedly killed by Ted Bundy"
“We don’t have a body and (Culver) is still a missing person,” said Pocatello police Capt. James McCoy, referring to the fact that Culver’s body was never found. “During the initial investigation, there were multiple individuals who came forward with conflicting information. And until we can find her remains or there is absolutely nothing else we can do, we are going to continue to look into this.”

The investigation into what happened to Culver has not been reopened, as it has never officially been closed, said McCoy, adding that Culver’s case is one of several from the late 1970s and early 1980s involving Pocatello girls who were abducted and killed. Pocatello police recently announced that they are reinvestigating the cases involving the girls as well as other cases that have gone cold in the last 20 years.

The big difference between this and previous reinvestigations of these cold cases is that Pocatello police are looking at all the disappearances and deaths collectively this time around to see if there are commonalities."

Police aren’t ready to say a serial killer might have been behind at least some of the cases but it’s clear that possibility is being examined."
"McCoy admitted the Pocatello Police Department doesn’t have any information that indicates whether any of the cold cases are definitively linked. But he said several of the department’s investigative reports regarding the disappearances and deaths of the girls include some of the same names and dates. This is in addition to most of the girls attending the same school — Alameda Junior High — and all being around the same age.

Culver was the first of the five girls to go missing in Pocatello between 1975 and 1983.
She was reported missing in May 1975 — three months before Bundy was arrested by a Utah Highway Patrol officer in Granger, a Salt Lake City suburb".



 
Lengthy article.
August 19 2018 rbbm.
Pocatello police looking for cold case connections, including girl supposedly killed by Ted Bundy
"Pocatello police looking for cold case connections, including girl supposedly killed by Ted Bundy"
“We don’t have a body and (Culver) is still a missing person,” said Pocatello police Capt. James McCoy, referring to the fact that Culver’s body was never found. “During the initial investigation, there were multiple individuals who came forward with conflicting information. And until we can find her remains or there is absolutely nothing else we can do, we are going to continue to look into this.”

The investigation into what happened to Culver has not been reopened, as it has never officially been closed, said McCoy, adding that Culver’s case is one of several from the late 1970s and early 1980s involving Pocatello girls who were abducted and killed. Pocatello police recently announced that they are reinvestigating the cases involving the girls as well as other cases that have gone cold in the last 20 years.

The big difference between this and previous reinvestigations of these cold cases is that Pocatello police are looking at all the disappearances and deaths collectively this time around to see if there are commonalities."

Police aren’t ready to say a serial killer might have been behind at least some of the cases but it’s clear that possibility is being examined."
"McCoy admitted the Pocatello Police Department doesn’t have any information that indicates whether any of the cold cases are definitively linked. But he said several of the department’s investigative reports regarding the disappearances and deaths of the girls include some of the same names and dates. This is in addition to most of the girls attending the same school — Alameda Junior High — and all being around the same age.

Culver was the first of the five girls to go missing in Pocatello between 1975 and 1983. She was reported missing in May 1975 — three months before Bundy was arrested by a Utah Highway Patrol officer in Granger, a Salt Lake City suburb".


Interesting. Wonder if it’s a serial killer we don’t know about yet!?
 
Today I found a video on YouTube going in-depth into Lynette's disappearance, which includes interviews of her older sister and mother, a tour of the area she went missing, and even more photos of Lynette.

View the video here

The creator of the video also made a for a memorial bench for Lynette, if you want to check that out.
 
Here is a really recent video about the case:
 
I honestly think bundy was responsible for this case. He knew details about Lynette that he would have only known if he had talked to her. Also her case wasn’t a well known case so it was pretty random for him to confess to.

“The trail went cold” did a good episode on this case as well as the other murdered girls from the area. I used to believe there was a serial killer in the area (and perhaps there was) but after hearing about each case, it seems like cops have a good idea of who was responsible but don’t have the evidence to charge. They don’t seem connected to me, as weird that the coincidence is.
 
Bundy seems to have known details about Lynette and her disappearance “only the killer could have known” but we know how that works. Bundy is not known to have made any false confessions but during his last days he sees to have been trying to cut a deal where he would offer up more resolutions to crimes he committed in exchange for postponing his execution.

It is possible there are other murders that could have been unsolved cases that Bundy was good for that now remain unsolved but Bundy could have just been pulling off one of his scams.

What we do not know is whether Bundy was interviewed by the FBI or the local Idaho Law Enforcement regarding Lynette. The FBI does not appear to have been soliciting false confessions to close the book on unsolved crimes but I wouldn’t put it past local Law Enforcement.

Pocatello has way too many unsolved murdered/disappeared young girls during that period. There may have been a serial killer operating but there may have been a pattern of dismissing these cases as runaways until a body turns up.
 
yeah Bundy knew things he would have only known by talking with her and it doesn't sound like her case particularly high profile so it would have been unusual for him to just come out and say he did it.

Also, correct me if i'm wrong but I listened to a podcast on the case (The trail went cold) and all the cases of missing/murdered girls in Pocatello don't seem connected to me. People theorised there was a serial killer but from hearing the circumstances and evidence, it sounds like they were not committed by a serial killer
 
Today I found a video on YouTube going in-depth into Lynette's disappearance, which includes interviews of her older sister and mother, a tour of the area she went missing, and even more photos of Lynette.

View the video here

The creator of the video also made a for a memorial bench for Lynette, if you want to check that out.
The video is gone now.
 
@Caring1 Hey could you post the current NamUs Exclusion List for Lynette Dawn Culver? I would greatly appreciate it.
 

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