The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History by Kevin M. Sullivan Page A

find her dog that we had taken to the picnic. She never returned and we began searching for her. We looked all afternoon and evening without finding her."44
    It is unknown the exact words the stranger used to convince Denise Naslund to follow him, first out to the parking lot and then into his VW, but it must be assumed it was similar to what he told Ott and the others. Despite her use of alcohol and drugs, Denise was a friendly young woman and considered a nice person by those she called friends. It would very much be in her nature, just as it was in Hawkins's and the others who went willingly with the killer, to help someone who was in need. But there just wasn't any way of detecting the monster behind the smile; it was simply these young women's misfortune to believe him.
    It was close to 9:00 P.M. when Ken Little drove up the driveway of Eleanore Rose's home, telling her Denise was missing. Struck with fear, she immediately called the police. She knew something terrible must have happened to her daughter, as Denise would never have left her car and gone anywhere. Her mother had purchased the vehicle for Denise and knew what it meant to her. Besides, Denise hadn't wanted to be burdened by having to watch out for her purse while at the park and had placed it in the trunk of her car, and her mother knew she wouldn't have left the park without that either. In the very difficult days and weeks ahead, Eleanore would try to maintain a positive attitude about Denise, but it would be almost impossible. When she gave a statement to King County Detective Roger Dunn at 5:45 P.M. on Wednesday, July 17, she spoke of her daughter in the present tense: "Denise is very loving, and would often pick me up a gift for no special occasion, and I have always felt very close to her. When she walks into my house, it's just like sunshine coming through the door."45
    An odd bit of information, totally inconsequential to what happened at Lake Sammamish, came to light during her statement. She happened to be telling the detective how Denise and Robin Woods enjoyed going to the various taverns in the area, and how Denise specifically mentioned visiting the Flame Tavern. This, of course, was the last known location of Brenda Ball before she fell into the abyss.

    When it became clear that Janice Ott and Denise Naslund were not coming back, metaphorical hell broke loose in the ranks of law enforcement and among the public alike. The obligatory searches began both in the air and on the ground, but they turned up nothing, and police scuba divers combed the bottom of the lake for bodies that weren't there. As shocking as it was, police were left with the mystery of not one, but two young women who seemed to vanish into thin air. And this time, they weren't in an alleyway behind a row of frat and sorority houses at 1:00 A.M., or on a darkened campus in Ellensburg or Olympia. This time, it happened in broad daylight, in front of tens of thousands of people. It was a jaw-dropping act and he'd gotten away with it, and in the eyes of the investigators, it didn't get any worse than this. Once again, with no physical evidence for investigators to latch onto, they were forced to watch as spectators as this new breed of killer flaunted his expertise as an abductor of females.
    Even so, Lake Sammamish would be the turning point in the investigation of the missing women of Washington state. It was the place where this abductor would extend his reach a little too far. Until now, law enforcement across the region was doing everything possible to locate the missing coeds. In June (the same month Brenda Ball and Georgann Hawkins vanished), a conference among some thirty different police departments in the state came together seeking the answers that would ultimately come later, as events continued to unfold. But now, in the midst of the horror which occurred at Lake Sammamish, a much-needed light at the end of the tunnel began to appear. It would be just a glimmer of