Nancy Wilcox

Left and Right: Nancy circa, 1974

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: October 1, 1974

Missing From: Holladay, Salt Lake County, Utah

Classification: Non-Family Abduction

Date Of Birth: July 4, 1958

Age: 16 years old

Height and Weight: 5’6″ and 120 pounds

Distinguishing Characteristics: White Female, Blonde hair, Brown eyes

Clothing/Jewelry Description: A possibly tan colored blouse and blue corduroy slacks

Details of Disappearance

Nancy was last seen in Holladay, Utah on October 1st 1974. That evening, she was planning to hang out with her boyfriend of two years, John. However, he got to the house and had a slight argument with Nancy’s father, Herbert Wilcox. John’s old pickup truck had a bad habit of leaking oil and he was asked previously not to park in the family’s driveway. He did so however when her father arrived home from work.

John and Hebert exchanged some words before he drove away from the house. Nancy’s mother informed her that John had taken off and that she shouldn’t wait for him. Nancy became furious and had an argument with Herbert before she walked away from her residence on Arnett Drive at 9:00 pm. Connie said Nancy walked into the basement and exited the house through the basement door. She was never seen or heard from again.

After being unable to find her or anyone who knew of her whereabouts, Nancy’s parents called the police at 6:35 pm on October 2nd to report her missing. Due to her age, Nancy was initially written off as a runaway. Police didn’t begin to investigate her disappearance until October 29th, almost a month after she had been last seen.

According to her mother, Nancy was very high-strung, moody and did not get along with her father. She recalled the family was often trying to do things to not annoy Nancy. She did not do well in school, was known to show up late to classes, and had nearly been expelled several times. Connie said she felt her daughter only went to school to be around her friends. She suggested that maybe she should quit school and get a job but Nancy refused to do that.

Nancy’s relationship with her boyfriend was not healthy. He was known to put her down and also had no respect for the Wilcox’s or his own parents. Both John’s mother and Connie had been in contact with one another in attempts to end the relationship and keep them from seeing each other. John took another girl out for a date just before Nancy went missing but he doesn’t know if she was aware of it or not.

One of Nancy’s close friends stated that Nancy often talked about being depressed and that she didn’t like John, believing she was too good for him. Despite all of her troubles, Nancy had no prior history of running away. Her boyfriend said he suspected foul play was a factor in her disappearance. He recalled that about two months before she went missing, Nancy filed a report that she had been abducted and raped by a man who offered her a ride home from her job.

Nancy worked at Arctic Circle which was located on 33rd South and 20th East in Salt Lake City. A close friend of hers worked there with here and recalled Nancy would mention an older man who came into their job and gave her special attention. She said she thought he was a married man flirting with her. Another coworker also remembered Nancy mentioning an older man who would flirt with her and she actually witnessed him flirt with Wilcox on a few occasions while they were working.

On July 17th 1974, Nancy filed a report with the police that a man between the ages of 25-30 had abducted her after she finished her shift at the Arctic Circle before taking her to a residence near Millcreek Canyon. Wilcox alleged that he raped her at the residence and pointed out the address to police. The man was subsequently questioned about the incident but denied the accusations. Police declared her report as “unfounded.”

The individual was reinterviewed following Nancy’s disappearance and was given a polygraph test. He again denied that he had assaulted Wilcox in July 1974 and he denied being involved in her disappearance two months later. He was cleared as a suspect. Due to the fact he wasn’t charged with any offense related to Nancy, his name has not been publicly released. It’s unclear if the assault that Nancy reported in July had some relation to her disappearance.

Police now suspect Nancy was abducted and murdered on the night she disappeared. Several other young girls and women vanished across the state of Utah following Wilcox’s disappearance. Many were found murdered afterwards. Other women reported being abducted or attacked by an unidentified man.

On October 18th 1974, seventeen year old Melissa Anne Smith disappeared after leaving a local pizza parlor in Midvale, Utah at approximately 9:30 pm. She was last seen walking home that night but she never made it. A highly publicized search began for her but sadly ended on October 27th when a deer hunter found Melissa’s body. She was found on a hillside in the Summit Park area of Parley’s canyon. She had been raped, sodomized, before her killer bludgeoned her to death. One of her stockings was found wrapped around her neck, suggesting she also been strangled.

Investigators believe Smith was killed after being held captive for some time, possible a few days. Forensic experts said they felt she had died a few days after she disappeared.

On October 31st 1974, seventeen year old Laura Ann Aime disappeared after attending a Halloween party. She had been staying with friends in the northern end of Utah County for about a month by then. Aime was originally from Salem where her parents lived. She was last seen at midnight leaving the party to hitchhike and was never seen again afterwards.

On November 8th 1974, seventeen year old Carol DaRonch was shopping at the Fashion Place Mall in Murray, Utah when a man who claimed to be a police officer approached her. The man told DaRonch that his name was “Officer Roseland” and claimed he was investigating a break-in that happened to her vehicle. He led her outside of the mall to a light colored Volkswagen with rust spots. The suspect pointed a gun at her and forced her into his vehicle.

The man drove a half a mile away from the mall with Carol and tried to place her in handcuffs. However, the suspect put both cuffs on one of DaRonch’s wrists which left her unrestrained. She used this as an opportunity to jump out of the vehicle and attempt to flee the man. The suspect grabbed DaRonch and the two physically fought outside of his car with the man trying to bludgeon her into submission. The abduction and attack were foiled when witnesses approached the two and Carol fled from him.

She got into a passing vehicle and later reported her kidnapping to the police. Two hours after the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, seventeen year old Debra Jean Kent was reported missing from a high school in nearby Bountiful, Utah. She was attending a school play with her parents at Viewmont High School but left the building at 10:10 pm to go pick up her younger brother from a roller rink.

When the play finished, Debra’s parents left the auditorium at 10:30 pm and went outside the discover the family vehicle was parked in the exact spot they had left it. Debra’s purse was also inside the car. Fearing something horrible had happened, her parents notified Bountiful area police about Debra’s disappearance.

A small key was found in the parking lot when police arrived and searched the area. This was the only clue discovered in Kent’s disappearance. The key was found to unlock the handcuffs that were on Carol, meaning the man who tried to take her had abducted Debra.

Witnesses at the school reported observing a strange man lurking in the hallway outside the auditorium when Debra was at the play with her parents. Some people reported hearing one or two loud screams coming from the parking lot when Debra left the building. Another witness recalled seeing a light colored Volkswagen Bug speeding out of the parking lot at 10:30 when they arrived to the school. Kent was never seen again.

On November 27th 1974, the body of an unidentified teenager was located by a hiker near the Timpanogos Cave visitor center. She had been left part way down a 12 foot embankment, approximately 3 miles away from the mouth of American Fork Canyon. The girl had been raped, savagely beaten, and strangled with her stockings. Due to the violence endured by the victim, her face was unrecognizable.

The victim was originally believed to be Debra Kent but her dental records proved she wasn’t a match. The body was eventually identified as Laura Aime through dental records. Police suspected that both Laura and Melissa Smith had been killed by the same person. Their murders both bore similarities to one another and both victims were dumped in or near canyons.

Police also suspected that the murders of both Aime and Smith were committed by the same person who attacked DaRonch and abducted Kent. Nancy Wilcox’s disappearance was eventually linked to them as well due to age and the fact that she disappeared in the same general vicinity as all the other victims.

In December 1974, police and rescue units searched the canyons in Salt Lake County for the remains of Wilcox or Kent. The search was comprised of over 70 men. Butterfield, Rose, Corner, Parley’s, and Milcreek canyons were all searched with no success. Despite this, police still believed the two missing girls were also taken by whoever committed the murders and abduction attempt.

The cases all remained unsolved for nearly a year until detectives got a break. On August 16th 1975, an Utah Highway Patrol officer noticed a yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked in front of a home where two young women lived. The officer felt suspicious about the vehicle and put hush headlights on bright which prompted the individual in the car to speed off. The car eventually pulled over and the man inside was questioned about his vehicle.

The driver was identified as 28 year old Theodore “Ted” Robert Bundy, a University of Utah law student who resided in an apartment at 364 Douglas Street. Inside the car, the officer located handcuffs, a ski mask, pantyhose with holes cut in them, a crowbar, trash bags, a coil of rope, and an ice pick. The officer initially assumed the items were burglary tools and arrested Bundy on suspicion of that.

Police questioned Ted, he said the ski mask was for skiing and that he found the handcuffs in a dumpster. He also claimed the other items were common household objects. However, police were suspicious and almost immediately noted Bundy’s resemblance the unidentified man who attacked Carol DaRonch in November 1974. His vehicle also matched the description of the one used in the kidnapping attempt on her.

In a search of his apartment, police discovered a brochure advertising the Viewmont High School play in Bountiful where Debra Kent had been abducted. They also found a guide to Colorado ski resorts and a check mark next to Wildwood Inn. Police suspected he was involved in the cases but due to lack of evidence, he was released at the time.

On October 2nd 1975, Bundy was put into a police lineup by Salt Lake City detectives. Although he had altered his appearance, Carol DaRonch immediately identified him as the man who abducted her from the mall nearly a year earlier. Bundy was charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault but was released on a $15,000 bond paid by his family in November. He denied knowing DaRonch or being the one who attempted to kidnap her.

Bundy pleaded not guilty to the charges in December 1975 and claimed his innocence in the crime. Due to this, Bundy went on trial for the charges beginning in February of 1976. DaRonch testified at the trial and continued to affirm that Bundy was the man who attacked her that night in 1974.

Bundy claimed he was not at the Fashion Place Mall on the night in question. He said he went shopping at Cottonwood Mall on the day of November 8th 1974 before his car broke down on Highland Drive. Bundy said he spent most of the day getting his vehicle repaired at a service station before going back home between 5:00 and 5:30 pm.

He then claimed that his Volkswagen still wouldn’t drive well so he took a pickup truck to a movie on Trolley Square and then to a nearby pub. Bundy claimed he got back to his apartment at 11:50 pm before calling his girlfriend in Seattle, Washington. Investigators found he did make the phone call late that night but that his whereabouts before that could not be confirmed, meaning his alibi was cold.

Bundy additionally claimed he never owned a handgun or had a police badge like Carol’s abductor. His defense attempted to cast doubt on DaRonch’s credibility, citing that she had been shown two photos of Bundy before being asked to identify her attacker out of the lineup. The defense stated the police fed her information so that she would identify Bundy as the suspect.

Carol was shown a photograph of Bundy from 1975 but couldn’t be positively sure it was him. When detective were able to find a photo of him from a month after Carol’s attack, she immediately identified him as “Officer Roseland.”

On March 1st 1976, Bundy was convicted of DaRonch’s kidnapping and assault. He was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison and was sent to the Utah State Prison to serve out his sentence. Later that month, Bundy was questioned by Colorado authorities about a murder in that state.

On January 12th 1975, 23 year old Caryn Eileen Campbell disappeared from the Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village, Colorado.

Investigating Agency

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Holladay Police Department 801-468-2204

Source Information

Nancy Wilcox/ Ted Bundy Location Tour (2018)