Evil Lives Here on ID: Was Katherine Devine one of Ted Bundy's victims?

The murder of Katherine Devine in 1973 led the Thurston County deputies to consider the possibility of her being one of Ted Bundy's victims. Katherine was found sodomized and strangled to death in Thurston County's Margaret McKenny Campground.

The modus operandi of the crime led Devine's family and the authorities to suspect the killer to be Ted Bundy. However, as DNA technology came into the picture, the killer was revealed to be William Cosden Jr. with the help of forensic profiling.

The Evil Lives Here episode, titled Sisters in Silence, showcases the horrific details of Katherine "Kathy" Devine's murder as it aired on June 21, 2024, at 7 p.m. EST on Investigation Discovery. The official synopsis reads:

"William Cosden Jr. coerced his much younger sisters, Karen and Susan, into keeping secrets about what he did; now the girls are adults, and with one facing death, they reunite to try to repair the trauma keeping those secrets caused them."

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Why was Katherine Devine suspected to be one of Ted Bundy's victims?

Episode 10 of Evil Lives Here season 13 brings the details of Katherine Devine's murder and how she was mistaken to be one of Ted Bundy's victims for years. The Katherine Devine murder case turned cold for almost thirty years before forensic DNA profiling became relevant in the field of crime investigation and intelligence.

Katherine's decomposed remains were found on December 6, 1973, at the McKenny Campground in Thurston County, per the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Devine was last seen on November 25, 1973, before she was reported as a runaway by her parents.

The timeline of events coincided with Ted Bundy's residence in Seattle’s University District. Bundy used to live in the Rogers Rooming house on 12th Avenue and had been in a relationship with Liz Kloepfer.

Simultaneously, he was pursuing a degree in law at Tacoma's University of Puget Sound. The distance between his residing quarters and the corner where Devine was last seen was reportedly two miles.

The reason why Katherine Devine was assumed to be Ted Bundy's victim was due to the manner of her death. The modus operandi of the murder was eerily similar to that of Bundy's subsequent crimes. Katherine's father, Bill Devine, spoke to the Seattle Post Intelligencer and shared:

"I clung to that [belief], because we needed to think it was somebody."

Katherine fit the description of the woman Ted Bundy took. Moreover, Bundy confessed to taking a hitchhiker in 1973 and leaving her remains in Millersylvania State Park, close to where Kathy Devine's remains were found. However, Bundy denied all claims of killing Devine when questioned about the same.

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Who killed Katherine Devine?

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Department officials had collected DNA evidence from the crime scene and had it tested in 2002. They had formerly used blood and hair samples to find the killer, but the result was incomplete.

According to the Everett Herald, Cosden's blood, hair, and saliva samples were collected again in 1986 and tested. However, the results from the 2002 match were used to arrest the identified killer, William Cosden Jr., who was then tried for the murder.

Katherine "Kathy" Devine's murder became the oldest murder case in the state of Washington to be solved using DNA technology, per the Connecticut Post.

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Watch all the details of Katherine Devine's murder on the Evil Lives Here episode as it streams on Discovery Plus.