Kimberly Leach

Kimberly Diane Leach (October 28, 1965 – February 9, 1978) was a 12 year old student at Lake City Junior High School, in Lake City, Florida. She was the final and youngest known murder victim of serial killer Ted Bundy.

On February 9, 1978, Kimberly left her purse in her homeroom class and, upon realizing this, went to retrieve it shortly after an assembly in the auditorium. She never returned. That morning, Lieutenant Clarence L. Anderson, an Emergency Medical Technician employed by the Lake City First Aid Rescue Department, saw a young girl in front of the school being led to a white van by a man he thought was her father. Later in court he identified the girl as Kimberly Leach and the man as the defendant Ted Bundy. After she was reported missing, a search in extent and intensity virtually unheard of in the annals of Florida history was conducted.

Two months later, on April 7, 1978, her partly decomposed body was found in a tin hog shed in a wooded area near the Suwannee River in Suwannee County, Florida, approximately 35 to 40 miles west of her school. [http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/59128/59128ini.pdf] She was wearing only a pullover shirt around her neck; the rest of her clothing was found nearby. Semen stains were found in her underwear. [ [http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/bundy106.htm Theodore Robert Bundy #106 ] ]

The medical examiner who examined Leach's decomposed remains indicated that she died of homicidal trauma to the neck area. Sales receipts indicated that several days prior to the murder, Bundy had purchased a 10" Buck hunting knife for $24.00 from a sporting goods store. The position and damage to Leach's decomposed body, as well as statements made by Bundy to investigators and journalists, indicated that he had raped her, slit her throat, and violated her genitalia with some sort of sharp object. Bundy was convicted, sentenced to death, and electrocuted by the State of Florida on January 24, 1989 for Leach's murder.

External links

* [http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/bundy/15.html The Kimberly Leach Trial]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6664667&pt=Kimberly%20Leach Memorial page with photo]
* [http://supreme.justia.com/us/479/894/case.html Court document]

References