Oz True Crime: Sheriff Ken Katsaris reveals how Ted Bundy was caught without DNA testing

Oz True Crime's latest segment has revealed how Sheriff Ken Katsaris was the one who caught Ted Bundy without DNA testing. It is an understatement to say that Ted Bundy was one of the most dangerous serial killers the world had ever seen. Bundy was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder.

Before dying, Bundy confessed to having committed 30 murders. However, as Oz True Crime discusses, he wouldn't have been indicted for his crimes if it weren't for Sheriff Ken Katsaris. Katsaris was the one who got a mold made of Bundy's teeth, which then tied him to the Chi Omega murders.

Sheriff Ken Katsaris reveals on Oz True Crime how he took Ted Bundy's teeth mold

Sheriff Ken Katsaris was Leon County sheriff when the Chi Omega Murders took place on January 15, 1978. Bundy killed 21-year-old Margaret Bowman and 20-year-old Lisa Levy and injured two other sorority members. However, Bundy wasn't caught until February 1978.

As Sheriff Ken Katsaris stated on Oz True Crime, while investigating the Chi Omega murders, he examined the bodies of Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy. He found bite marks on Levy's body and made sure that the bite marks' impressions were preserved. As he said:

"I wanted to examine the bodies and I did. It really was the only time we had any warm bodies that were just killed by Ted Bundy."

By the time of the Chi Omega murders, the bodies of Bundy's other victims had decomposed. After Bundy was arrested and identified in February 1978, he was transported to the Leon County Jail, where he was under Katsaris' custody.

As revealed on Oz True Crime, Katsaris obtained a search warrant to take a molding of Bundy's teeth, hoping it would match the ones on Levy's body. DNA testing was yet to be invented, and thus one couldn't just match Bundy's DNA with that found on Levy's bite marks. Thus, Katsaris had to take a different route.

As he said to Dr. Oz on Oz True Crime:

"One night, I did something unusual. I went to his cell and I said, "Ted, you're coming with me." And he said, "This is a change up. this is different." I said, "We're going for a ride." And that didn't go over real well. I believe he thought I was going to take him for a ride for which he would never return. That I was going to exercise some kind of authority as the sheriff to do him in."

Bundy hadn't anticipated what Katsaris had planned and didn't see a dentist appointment coming. As Katsaris continued:

"We transported him with a series of cars. And as we opened the back door to go up the stairway, the back entrance, doors swung open and there stood these three doctors. There are white smocks on and behind them was a dental chair and he lost it. Opened his mouth. He said, "Do what you have to do."

Even then, Bundy hadn't quite realized that Katsaris would be obtaining a mold of his teeth, which would then match the bite marks on Levy's body and lead to his indictment.

When Oz True Crime's Dr. Oz asked him whether this technique sent Bundy a message that he was perhaps not as smart as he thought he was. Responding to that, Katsaris said:

"I think he started to have some diminishing thoughts of what he was up against. He always had the arrogance if I'm smarter, brighter, I can outwit, outsmart anybody, anywhere. I don't want to say that I was the one who outsmarted him, but I had been teaching advanced forensics for 10 years. I was aware of what the future was holding, and I knew this forensic could be used if we handled it appropriately."

Sheriff Ken Kataris was thus right to preserve the bite marks' impression, which then matched Bundy's teeth mold, becoming a crucial piece of evidence against him. Thanks to that evidence, Ted Bundy was indicted and eventually sentenced to three death sentences by electrocution.

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