Ted Bundy, His Timeline, and Sotria Kritsonis' news -- Filling in a Gap

Author: Shane Lambert

Who really knows how many people convicted killer Ted (Theodore) Bundy disappeared? Conventionally, when he is looked at the number of victims that is mentioned is in the 30s. However, there could be scores more. Accordingly, his timeline is important to be aware of when it comes to missing person's cases.

The timeline for Bundy's life was looked at a number of years ago. the US Department of Justice commissioned the Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992. At the time it was called an "exhaustive documentation of Bundy's activities...in the hopes that Bundy's suspected participation in crimes other than those he confessed to can be clarified" (from the report's "Director's Comments).

The full report can be found here: Ted Bundy's Timeline (if the link goes bad, comment and I can email you a copy of the report). It contains major events in his criminal career, such as the time and places of his known abductions. Furthermore, it contains banal day-to-day events -- like where he bought gas. 

In 2018 there was a news story from Kiro 7 News in the Seattle area. The topic of the story was a woman's recounting of an experience with Ted Bundy. She was named Sotria Kritsonis and the news piece is below.

Although it contains information regarding Bundy's double-abduction day at Lake Sammamish, there is information that was fresh as of 2018 and it could also be added to the Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992. Please, take a few minutes to review the video, feeling free to skip the parts about Lake Sammamish.

Featured eBook: The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

Dive into a chilling true crime classic with *The Stranger Beside Me* by Ann Rule, offering an insider’s view of the Ted Bundy case—a must-read for fans of missing persons and forensic mysteries featured on this blog!

Available now: Buy it here.

I do receive a commission from qualifying sales through Amazon's affiliate program. It supports my efforts!

</p><p><iframe allow=" picture-in-picture="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nDUr4mNHPIU" width="560">

The news piece does not contain complete information. The exact date of Bundy's and Kritsonis's encounter is not mentioned, nor is the exact address. However, the time frame in question can be deduced, the location can be found, and certain other important probably-true assumptions can be made.

The time frame in question was described as the winter of 1972 in the news piece. That did make me wonder if we were talking about the late months in 1972 or the early ones. Technically, winter starts on December 21st and goes to March 20th so, as the only season that covers two separate calendar years, there's a bit of question as to what someone means when they say "winter of 1972."

In answering that, I think the story that Sotria Kritsonis is telling is for some time in the months of January, February, or March of that year. The news piece says that she was 22 at the time. At the tail end of 1972, she would have been 23 by my research.

Thus, the time frame in question is January to March of 1972 and that's actually an empty spot for Ted Bundy in the Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992. See the snipping below of that report which shows an entry on New Year's Eve of 1971 and then no entry until April 15th, 1972. The encounter between Bundy and Kritsonis appears to be somewhere in that gap and if we take her accounting as true, then it shows that he was active during this unknown period.

The location of Kritsonis's abduction would have been near the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and Orcas Street. The following still, taken from the Youtube video, shows her walking south on what would be the west side of Rainier Avenue South. She says she encountered Bundy at a place very near the point in the still below.

If we take everything she says as true, then there's something important to note. Bundy did not just happen upon her and offer her a ride. Kritsonis made a statement that would suggest that Bundy was familiar with her changing hairstyle. That suggests a degree of stalker behavior or it could just be that he saw her at the bus stop on many different occasions. Kritsonis claimed that she cut her hair about a week earlier so that would put Bundy in the area of Rainier Avenue South and Orca Street for a period of at least a week.

The news piece says that Kritsonis saw Bundy on television a year and a half later. It's not really clear what she would have been watching in the summer of 1973 regarding Bundy. Most of his known crimes are from 1974 onward.

Ricky Jean Bryant (NamUs MP #5890) - Very Likely Dead in Fire

Author: Shane Lambert

I read about the missing-person case of Ricky Jean Bryant tonight and did some research on it using online newspaper databases. I thought, for a short time, maybe she was kidnapped and alive somewhere. However, after researching this case, I think Ricky Jean Bryant simply died in a house fire that occurred the day she went missing. Furthermore, I think it's futile for websleuths or amateur investigators to work on this case any further.

Ricky Jean Bryant, the missing person, disappeared at the age of four in December of 1949 in Wisconsin as the house on her family's farm burned down. As described at Doenetwork.com, the case sounds as though a "tall blonde lady in a new car" kidnapped 'Jeannie' as flames leveled the house.

Jeannie and two of her siblings were home with their grandparents, who also lived on the farm. Ricky's brother, who was 5 years old at the time, remembers leaving Jeannie and their younger sister outside, when a tall blonde lady in a new car, drove up and told him to run to a neighbor's house for help. He said the woman sent him to a home further away and told him the phone wasn't working at the nearby house. When he came back with a neighbor, Jeannie was gone, and the lady and the car were nowhere to be found. The neighbor said she put the children in the family car and then went inside to look for Jeannie. She found the grandmother in the kitchen collecting canned goods, and she said that Jeannie was gone. As the house continued to burn, the neighbor kept searching for Jeannie. Finally, the grandmother told her to stop worrying about Jeannie because she was with relatives.

After the fire, Jeannie's father had the local authorities, state police and the FBI searching the ruins of the fire for any possible human remains. No remains were found during the search and her father searched the property three additional times by himself. Each time he found nothing. He never believed that Jeannie perished in the fire.

The description above leaves a lot to be desired. For starters, the timing seems a little strange.

Ricky's brother, whose name is Forrest, supposedly runs to a neighbor's house to get help, and when he returns the grandmother is in the house collecting canned goods. Seems to me that the house would be burning this entire time and wouldn't be safe enough to enter. I do find the story details strange and I find it strange that the grandmother, who is one Mrs. Casper Halverson, would advise stopping looking for Jeannie as though canned goods were more important.

One major fact that I did not ignore during my research was that, according to the original journalist back in 1949, Jeannie was considered dead in the fire. The Daily Tribune out of Wisconsin Rapids on December 21st, 1949 calls Jean Bryant "the little girl who lost her life as fire destroyed the Bryant farm dwelling" (no author listed).

Mrs. Casper Halverson, the grandmother, reportedly got the children out of the house and then climbed a ladder to rescue her husband, "an invalid," from "an upstairs bedroom." If there was a time frame where Mrs. Halverson was preoccupied with getting that ladder, setting it, climbing it, and getting her husband out of the house while Forrest went for help then that leaves the two-year-old child and Jeannie unsupervised. For those playing the entire scenario out, be sure to include a scene in your mind where the invalid grandfather suffers burns to his body: his rescue was a narrow one and certainly would have had Mrs. Halverson's undivided attention.

Could be that the four-year-old Ricky Jean Bryant wandered back into the house while unsupervised. Why wouldn't she? If the grandmother felt that it was safe enough to retrieve canned goods then a part of the house might have looked safe to a four-year-old. Then maybe Mrs. Halverson just assumed that Jeannie was in safe hands when she was able to face the issue.

A big part of this missing-person case is that the Doenetwork says no human remains were found in the fire. The Daily Tribune article might contradict that: it says that "bone particles" that were found "were sent to the state crime laboratory" for testing and that the fire was hot enough to melt metal.

As for the father not believing that his daughter had died in the fire, it's not something to criticize him for. The death of a child is hard to accept. You might settle on remote possibilities instead. In fact, I have a great deal of experience talking with people and/or reading reports that include opinions of loved ones in regard to their missing relatives. Sometimes people think that someone is alive in lieu of much-much more likely scenarios. It seems that the death of a loved one is just unfaceable for some.

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – 9 · Eau Claire Leader (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com

My guess is that the fire cremated Ricky Jean Bryant. I'm aware that skeletons usually survive house fires but I wonder if that's the case for such young victims, victims who might not have completely developed bones of adult volume. The elephant in the room, in this case, is that firefighters heard screams that originated from inside the house, ones that were attributed to a little "tyke."

Take it or leave it, but I think this missing person will be missing for all time and that those researching this mystery should focus their efforts elsewhere. That Ricky Jean Bryant died in a fire and that her parents had trouble accepting that is, in my opinion, much more likely than a tall-blonde woman of mystery kidnapping the girl as the house burned down. That would be one on-the-spot child abductor operating in a hurry with witnesses both already present on the scene and converging on the scene.

This is not a good case for Websleuths or amateurs to be working on at all. Make sure you aren't being too imaginative or fanciful when trying to think of leads. You could spend loads of time with basically a 0% chance of producing any kind of results.

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – Page 1 · The Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com

NamUs MP #5890 · Wed, Dec 21, 1949 – Page 1 · Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com