Blamed on Bundy | Everyone Knew Everyone | 1

Dave Cawley (0:00)

This story includes discussion of murder and child sex abuse. Please keep that in mind when choosing where, when, and with whom you listen.

You unlock your phone, go to your podcast app and start an episode. You hear a story about a woman named Nancy who disappeared.

Heidi Holmberg (0:20)

My mom and Nancy were friends in school.

Dave Cawley (0:23)

A woman who's never been found.

Heidi Holmberg (0:26)

So my mom always talked about how her best friend was taken by Ted Bundy.

Dave Cawley (0:31)

An unsolved crime from your own hometown.

Heidi Holmberg (0:34)

Small town East Layton. Everybody, I think, knew everybody.

Dave Cawley (0:38)

On the very street where you once lived.

Heidi Holmberg (0:41)

When I heard the podcast, I was like, you know what, talked about Nancy and Ted Bundy.

Dave Cawley (0:47)

But as you listen, you hear the host of the podcast introduce someone.

Heidi Holmberg (0:51)

His interview was exactly an hour into the podcast.

Dave Cawley (0:55)

A former cop.

Heidi Holmberg (0:57)

He was a good looking guy and I don't think he got told no.

Dave Cawley (1:00)

With a troubled past.

Heidi Holmberg (1:02)

When he did, you saw his angry side.

Dave Cawley (1:05)

The shock hits hard because this guy, he's not just a cop. He's your dad.

Heidi Holmberg (1:13)

Like, do you think he could have really taken this woman?

Dave Cawley (1:18)

And you know he's done terrible things.

Heidi Holmberg (1:21)

We know he's a child molester, but this is a whole other level.

Dave Cawley (1:26)

That's the voice of Heidi Holmberg. And this really happened to her. The podcast she was listening to was this one.

My name is Dave Cawley. I'm an investigative journalist based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and for the better part of a decade, I've investigated and reported on stories of missing and murdered women, cases that have gone cold. In 2023, I traveled to Idaho to interview Tom Jackson, the last surviving member of the police force in East Layton, Utah, that first investigated the unsolved disappearance of Nancy Perry Baird in 1975, a case blamed on serial killer Ted Bundy.

Tom Jackson (2:05)

You remember how Bundy would draw some of the women in was with a badge.

Heidi Holmberg (2:09)

They dismissed it as a Ted Bundy case.

Dave Cawley (2:12)

Bundy was in Utah during the summer of 75, but a few years ago, I learned Bundy didn't kill Nancy Baird. He was 100 miles away on the day it happened. So I wanted to know who else Tom Jackson might have considered a suspect back when he was a cop working the case.

Tom Jackson (2:29)

I've gone through a hundred thousand things and since then, what could have happened? Who could have done it? And boy, whoever did it, he's another Bundy.

Heidi Holmberg (2:41)

And I was like, wow.

Tom Jackson (2:44)

I wouldn't doubt if I was a suspect and all that. That's okay with me.

Dave Cawley (2:49)

I had no idea that by interviewing Tom and publishing what he said, I was kicking a hornet's nest.

Heidi Holmberg (2:58)

I was angry at you at first. Like, on my side looked like he was being made more of a resource than a monster.

Dave Cawley (3:11)

The story you were about to hear is a deep dive into the Nancy Baird cold case. But it's also about how this one interview set events in motion.

Heidi Holmberg (3:20)

Hello?

Hello? Hey.

Dave Cawley (3:24)

Compelling Heidi and others in her family to confront a dark shadow from their past. Is this Heidi?

Heidi Holmberg (3:31)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_5 (3:32)

Holy cow.

Dave Cawley (3:34)

It's about how survivors of childhood abuse can find their voice.

SPEAKER_5 (3:39)

I wish I hadn't been a good dad to you.

Heidi Holmberg (3:41)

Yeah. Well, that makes two of us.

Dave Cawley (3:44)

And even decades later, take power back. This is COLD, Season 4, Episode 1, Everyone Knew Everyone.

Red, white and blue bunting hung in the window of a small convenience store on the side of US. Highway 89 Cars whizzed past as a TV news reporter stood next to the gas pumps clutching his microphone.

Steve Schwartz (4:27)

Nancy Perry Baird worked at this FINA station in East Layton. Worked there until Friday afternoon at 5.3 when she disappeared.

Dave Cawley (4:35)

Friday July 4th, 1975, Independence Day.

Steve Schwartz (4:41)

About 10 minutes before the 24-year-old divorcee was discovered missing, an East Layton police officer saw her at work. He left and then returned at 5.30, but Nancy Baird was gone.

Dave Cawley (4:51)

This reporter had the story mostly correct. Nancy was 23, not 24