1961 Disappearance - Did Ted Bundy Kidnap Little Ann Marie Burr?

It was the summer of 1961, playful Ann Marie Burr was a beautiful eight-year-old girl with golden blonde hair, hazel eyes, and a smile that could light up a room. On August 31, 1961, Ann Marie vanished.

The Burr family had been living in a house near the 3000 block of North 14th Street in Tacoma,

Washington, where Ann Marie was one of five siblings and shared her bedroom with her three-year-old little sister Julie. Julie had recently injured her arm, so Ann Marie brought her to their parent’s room in the middle of the night to tell them the cast was bothering Julie's arm. Their parents told them to go back to their room. That was the last time anyone ever saw Ann Marie.

The following morning at approximately 5:30 a.m., Ann Marie’s mother went into the girls' room and found Ann Marie missing. There was no sign of a struggle. Although she had locked and chained the front door the night before, Ann Marie’s mother found the front door had been unlocked from the inside and left partly open. She also found the living room window open wide (a window the family always left slightly ajar to accommodate a TV antennae wire), along with the garden bench from the back yard moved in front of the open window.

Ann Marie’s parents had recalled the family dog barking that night but had dismissed any danger, thinking the heavy rainstorm had frightened the dog. Ann Marie’s two brothers slept in the basement but had not been awakened.

Both of Ann Marie’s parents frantically searched the home, opening kitchen doors and looking under beds. They called police. When authorities arrived, they discovered a slight sneaker print outside the living room window, leading investigators to believe the kidnapper entered through the open window, abducted Ann Marie from her room, and left through the front door. Aside from the shoe print (which investigators believe was from a size 6 or 7 Keds sneaker), they also found a strand of red thread stuck in the window jamb. There was little evidence at the scene to go on.

The Burrs’ neighbors had reported seeing someone in their yard peeping into windows a couple days prior to Ann Marie’s disappearance. Ann Marie’s disappearance was classified a kidnapping from the outset but left police baffled. Investigators questioned known sex-offenders in the area but speculated she may have known her abductor. A month after her disappearance, on September 2, the Tacoma News Tribune reported intensive ongoing searches that included soldiers, police, and volunteers. Nearly 52 years later, Ann Marie remains missing.

Ted Bundy, Serial Killer Next Door

At age 14, notorious serial killer Ted Bundy lived only a few blocks away from Ann Marie. No one suspected the 14 year-old boy of anything then, and it would be another 14 years before the police would finally become suspicious of Bundy.

Around 1951, Bundy’s mother, Louise, had brought him with her to Tacoma to be closer to Bundy’s great-uncle Jack Cowell, a music professor at a local University. Cowell was also Ann Marie’s piano teacher. Bundy went to Mason Middle School and is said to have worked an early morning newspaper route at the time of Ann Marie’s disappearance. However, authorities did not consider the teen a person of interest in the case. A decade later, Ann Marie’s relatives would tell authorities that Bundy and Ann Marie did know each other and were friendly. She would not have feared him.

Bundy displayed disturbing behavior early on in his childhood; stories emerged about animal mutilation, violence, and incidents of sexual deviancy. One family story was that Bundy’s aunt had awoken from a nap to find that three-year-old Bundy had removed knives from the kitchen and placed them around her while she was sleeping. It was not until the 1970's arrest of Bundy that Tacoma police began taking a closer look at his potential involvement in Ann Marie’s kidnapping. In fact, there are many who believe Ann Marie was Bundy’s first victim.

First Victim?

According to author Rebecca Morris, Bundy confessed to Ann Marie’s abduction and murder to a college professor who was researching serial killers and interviewed him in prison. For her book, Ted and Ann—The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy, Morris spent four years researching Bundy's potential connection to Ann Marie's disappearance. Throughout the years, investigators that spent time with the serial killer have said that Bundy would often talk in third person and speak hypothetically when discussing how serial killers operated. Those who interviewed him over the years are confident he was speaking about his own crimes, but Bundy believed communicating in third person shielded him from prosecution for crimes he had not directly admitted to.

Bundy is believed to be responsible for killing 30 to 36 women, according to several police officials. However, it was also reported that Bundy once commented to police officer, “Add one digit to that and you’ll have it.” Based on Bundy’s own stories, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Bundy began actively killing in the 1960’s and not a decade later, as thought.

Bundy’s attorney, John Henry Browne, agrees. He reportedly wrote a memoir that details conversations with his client prior to Bundy's execution. Bundy had provided Browne, a Seattle criminal defense attorney, with a signed release of attorney-client privilege prior to his execution. Browne, who may have known Bundy better than anyone, claims Bundy told him he killed more than a hundred people, and not only women.

A Mother's Desperate Letter to Ted Bundy

In 1986, Ann Marie’s mother Beverly Ann Burr wrote Ted Bundy this heartbreaking letter:

Dear Ted,

On August 31, 1961, just before school was to start for you and our children, there came a black rainy night with lots of heavy winds. You were 15 and had been wandering the streets late at night and peeping in windows and taking cars. I feel your FIRST MURDER WAS OUR ANN MARIE BURR. The bench from the back yard was used to climb in the living room; the orchard next door was a dark setting for a murder. What did you do with the tiny body? God can forgive you.

With all appeals likely to be refused and soon, there is nothing left for you in this world; there can STILL be everything good for you in the next.

Your life started going wrong somewhere when you were very young. There had to be a lot of bad things happen to make you have your strong feelings of hatred.

I came close to ruining my life because of my cruel actions and feeling no sorrow about them. A lot of strange circumstances brought help to me or I would not have found myself, even though I knew I needed help and my actions were getting out of control. You should have received that same help when you needed it.

God can still give the help to you – if you can gather together any strength you have left and try to feel a real sorrow inside for the horrors you have brought so many. You will face these horrors alone if there is no chance to be with God after you die.

You have NOTHING MORE TO LOSE IN THIS WORLD. By explaining your sickness, you will feel sorrow and gain everything in the next life, as God promised you and all of us. Please try. There isn’t much time. I am deeply sorry you did not get help when you needed it. I have not written until now because the end of life for you did not seem near until now.

Will you write back to me regarding Ann Marie?

Bundy replied in 1986 but never admitted to abducting the little girl. The Burrs adopted a daughter several years after Ann Marie’s disappearance, but both spent their lives haunted by questions. Ann Marie’s father died 2003, followed by her mother in 2008. Both passed away never knowing what happened to their precious child.

Never a Formal Admission

In 2011, fifty years after Ann Marie’s disappearance, authorities submitted evidence to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab for DNA testing. Authorities had developed a DNA profile utilizing a vial of Bundy's blood that has been preserved for decades. Several weeks later, they reported that the evidence gathered at the scene of Ann Marie’s disappearance did not contain enough measurable DNA to produce a complete profile.

Mark Fulghum, former public information officer for the Tacoma Police Department, told The Tacoma Herald, “This avenue hit a dead end, but the investigation itself is not over.” Though the results were discouraging for everyone involved with Anne Marie's case, police across the country with unsolved murder cases remain committed to investigating every potential connection to provide answers to the families of Bundy's victims.

At age 42, Theodore Robert Bundy was executed by electrocution on January 24, 1989 in a Florida prison. If Bundy was responsible for Ann Marie’s death and the deaths of approximately 70 other victims never been accounted for, then he took that answer to his grave. Truly a beast who was void of compassion for any of his victims, or their families. However, there is still hope. Police collected a sample of the serial killer's blood on March 17, 1978. Through DNA, Bundy may still speak from the grave.

Ann Marie’s four siblings still wait for answers.

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Written by Kym L. Pasqualini

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