- Taura was eight when she found out her aunt Laura Ann Aime was kidnapped and killed when she was just 17 years old.
- In 1974, Lauren went to a Halloween party with friends and she was thought to have gone hitch hiking, but sadly she was never seen again.
- Years on from her death, Taura will come to find out that her aunt was murdered at the hands of one of the world’s most merciless killers.
Here Taura Stucki, 30, tells her story in her own words.
The boho black and brown skirt swished around Mum’s hips above the glam black lace-up knee-high boots.
She looked wonderful.
‘These were your aunt Laura’s clothes. I’m wearing them in her honour,’ she smiled sadly.
When I was eight, my mum, Evelyn, had told me about my aunt Laura Ann Aime – Mum’s sister who’d died before I was born.
‘She was only 17 when she was kidnapped and found killed nearly a month later,’ she said.
Laura’s killer wasn’t known, but it was believed she could have been one of the many victims of evil serial killer Ted Bundy.
Her photo took pride of place in our lounge room, and with her long brown hair it struck me how similar we looked.
‘She was only 17 when she was kidnapped and found killed nearly a month later.’
Three years older than my mum, Laura had been six feet tall and so strong she’d helped their dad lift heavy paint buckets up ladders on his farm.
She was always getting her five siblings treats, and loved animals, especially her wild horse, Arab, and her dog, Prince.
‘And they loved her,’ Mum told me. ‘She was a great horserider, a free spirit, and so much fun.’
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Aunt Laura fascinated me, and I loved playing dress up in her long boots.
When Mum was 14, in 1974, Laura had driven her to stay with their grandparents.
As she was dropped off and said goodbye, Mum had no idea it’d be the last time she’d see her sister.
Laura went on to a Halloween party with friends, but then left to buy some cigarettes. She’s thought to have gone hitchhiking on the highway, hoping for a lift.
Instead, she’d vanished.
Mum’s parents had been frantic with worry, but their hearts were broken when, on November 27, Laura’s badly beaten body was discovered.
Two hikers had come across her beside an embankment off the road.
She was lying naked and, horrifically, it seemed she’d been strangled with a nylon stocking.
Laura’s body was so badly disfigured, my grandpa had identified her from scars on her arm that she’d got falling off her horse into barbed wire as a young girl.
I knew for the whole family the pain of losing Laura never subsided.
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It understandably made Mum incredibly protective of me and my siblings, Nathan, Preston, Aishia and Garth.
‘I’m sure she’s our guardian angel, protecting us all,’ Mum told me.
And over the years I’d see the cuttings Mum had kept of the newspaper stories about her big sister and about her case’s links to Ted Bundy.
‘I’m sure she’s our guardian angel, protecting us all.’
When I was 14, Bundy’s smug face flashed up on screen during a criminology class at school.
We were told that the rapist and killer lured young women and teens into his car.
He’d knock them out, take them somewhere remote and sexually assault them. And he often used stockings to choke his victims.
It was just like what happened to Laura.
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It was thought he’d begun killing in 1974, and he was finally tried in 1979.
Convicted of the murders of Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy at a student house and 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, Bundy was sentenced to death.
Before his execution in 1989, he confessed to killing 30 more women.
One of them was Laura.
As her photo came on the screen, the very one Mum had in our home, the enormity of it all hit me.
‘That’s my aunt!’
‘That’s my aunt!’ I gasped with horror.
‘No it’s not,’ my classmates jeered.
‘It is – look how alike we are,’ I said. They soon realised I was telling the truth.
My interest piqued, I trawled Mum’s newspaper cuttings. Then, speaking to Mum, she told me Bundy, who was 27 when he killed Laura, had stalked her for months before abducting her.
‘She said some boys were teasing her, trying to put leaves down her top. Bundy came over and put his arm around her and said he was her boyfriend,’ Mum explained.
‘I’m not your girlfriend,’ Laura had told him.
He’d lurked around, and approached her a few more times. But no-one had realised just how dangerous this stranger was until much later on.
And while losing Laura haunted Mum, the fact he’d never faced court over her murder was agonising too.
Then in 2019, a director making a doco on Ted Bundy contacted me via Instagram.
He put me in touch with former investigator Chris Eskridge who explained Laura’s case was still open and emailed me some notes.
I was shocked the case hadn’t been closed –although Bundy confessed there was no forensic evidence linking him to her death so there was doubt.
The information showed Bundy had approached Laura numerous times in a cafe, telling her he was going to assault her. She’d shoved him away.
It horrified me to think he might have followed her, lying in wait and struck when she hitchhiked.
Police were convinced Bundy kept her alive for several days after abducting her.
Strangely a necklace and a green ring were found on her body that weren’t hers.
Sadly, Mum passed away in May 2025, aged 65, before authorities could give her concrete answers.
This March I received a call from police confirming that advanced DNA technology had been used to extract a single male DNA profile from semen swabbed from Laura.
Despite degradation and fragility of the 51-year-old evidence, it matched DNA on file – Ted Bundy’s DNA.
Although technology was developed in 2023 to analyse old samples, it was so fragile that if they’d tried it then, it would likely have been damaged so badly we’d never have got that conclusive proof. In the three years since, the technology had improved.
I cried at justice finally being achieved for Aunt Laura. It was Bundy, and we’ve proved it.
To know that, 51 years after Laura’s death, she’d never been forgotten and we could finally lay our questions to rest meant the world to us.
My kids, Trazen, 11, Tyce, 10, Truvyn, nine, and Journey, seven, know all about their great-aunt.
It’s important Bundy’s victims’ names and legacies are heard, not just his. It’s believed there could be more than 100. That’s why I’m sharing Laura’s story.
I hope the new DNA technology helps families of other Bundy victims, as well as other cold cases, to uncover the truth about their lost loved ones.
It’s never too late.
