Ted Bundy's First Murder? Investigating the Tragic 1961 Disappearance of Ann Marie Burr

The haunting 1961 disappearance of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr left her family and community heartbroken. Strong circumstantial evidence points to the possible involvement of a then teenage Ted Bundy

Depiction of Ann Marie Burr

On December 14th, 1952, Beverly and Donald Burr welcomed their first child, Ann Marie Burr. Ann was the first of four children, and she and her younger siblings, Julie, Greg, and Mary, lived happily in their family home on North 14th Street in Tacoma, Washington.

The children spent most of their free time playing with friends in the neighborhood, and Beverly raised them with the belief that the world was a safe place full of good people. Ann took her mother’s teachings to heart. “Ann was so trusting,” Beverly said in a later interview with the Seattle Times.

In the late summer of 1961, Ann and her siblings were about to begin a new school year. Ann was starting third grade at nearby Grant Elementary. On August 30th, Ann asked her mother if she could spend the night at a friend’s house. Beverly told her daughter no because she wanted the children to focus on preparing for school.

Don and Beverly prepared their children for bed, put the family dog outside, and locked up the house. A thunderstorm had begun outside as the Burr family drifted off to sleep; none of them were aware that they were about to lose a member of their family that very night.

Photo of Ann Marie Burr (Missing Media Solutions Medium)

Disappearance

Sometime in the middle of the night, Ann woke her parents. She shared a bedroom with her youngest sister, Mary, who was only three. Mary had broken her arm during the summer and had it in a cast at the time. Mary complained that her arm hurt, so Ann brought her to their mother. Beverly did her best to comfort Mary and then sent the two girls back to bed. This was the last time she would ever see Ann.

According to Beverly’s account, she awoke just after 5 a.m. with a gut feeling that something was wrong. In the way that mothers often know, Beverly knew something was wrong.

She went to Ann and Mary’s upstairs bedroom and found Mary alone and crying. There was no sign of Ann. Beverly immediately began frantically searching the house, and she noticed that the front door was cracked ever so slightly open.

Beverly was certain that they’d locked the door before bed. Strangely, one of the windows in the living room was also wide open, and outside, a garden bench had been flipped and placed beneath the window up against the house.

Beverly went into a panic, desperately searching for her missing daughter. She went door to door in their neighborhood, waking neighbors to ask if they had seen Ann; none had.

Terrified, Beverly rushed home and woke her husband. Together, they called the police. When police arrived, they began sweeping the home for evidence.