A Victim of Ted Bundy

DNA testing helped police confirm missing Utah  teen was murdered by Ted Bundy! 

The revived interest in infamous serial killer Ted Bundy led police to announce on Monday that DNA testing enabled them to confirm he also murdered a Bountiful, UT teen.

In November 1974, 17-year-old Debra Kent was with her parents at a Viewmont High School play when she left during hiatus to pick up her brother at an ice skating rink, Bountiful Police Sgt. Shane Alexander said.

"After she left, she never came back," he said.

The public attention aroused by the recent Netflix documentary series "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" and the movie "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" provoked police to announce the finding that was made more than three years ago.

Thirty-six hours before his enactment, Bundy admitted to murdering Debra and other young women and told police where he left Debra's corpse, according to Alexander.

But her body wasn't discovered, Alexander said, and police were not capable to officially close the case.

That is, until 2015 when human remains were discovered in Fruit Heights, UT leading detectives to review missing person files. Two of the cold cases for the city were women who'd gone missing, Alexander said.

As they examined Debra, they came across news reports. In one of the reports, her mother, Belva Kent, pulled out a box with a human patella bone, or kneecap, that had been discovered where Bundy said he left the teen's remains.

In spring of 1989, officials had searched the Fairview Canyon region and discovered hundreds of bones. The only human bone had been the patella, Alexander said.

Police had given the bone to Debra's family.

"At that time, this is your closure that we can give you right now," Alexander said of that gesture. He told it is uncertain why police at the time gave the family that evidence, nonetheless.

Three and a half years ago, after learning the family had the patella, operatives procured it from the family to use for DNA testing.

"(Belva Kent) was very reluctant at first, but finally she agreed, believing that it would be a good thing to know and have that confirmation," Alexander said. "I sent the patella to the University of North Texas as well as the samples that were obtained, and then they were able to infer that the patella matched the family DNA that was collected."

The family received an official death certificate and got the patella back.

Alexander said the Kent family was thankful for the DNA confirmation.

"That was possibly one of the enormous moments in my career," he recalled.

"To eventually be able to go to this family and say, 'kay, here it is, here's the scientific evidence now, this is your daughter.' To me, that just was an incredible feeling of accomplishment, knowing that I can help this family hopefully have closure and help them move on," Alexander said.