By now, everyone has heard the news, Zac Efron was in town for Sundance for the world premiere of his film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. In the film, he stars alongside Lily Collins, playing the infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy who admitted to raping, decapitating and killing over 30 women across 17 states, from 1974 to 1978.

Netflix has also come out with a new documentary, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, which show the true depiction of the dark serial killer’s life through numerous interrogation recordings.

While the Sundance film has been criticized to glorify the serial killer as a “charismatic family man”, the Netflix documentary brought awareness to the real legacy of Bundy.

With the recent reintroduction of the killer’s tales, we’ve come to learn that one of Park City High School’s very own teachers, Mrs. Pinkney a social studies teacher, had an experience with Bundy himself.

A teenager at the time, Ms. Pinkney, encountered the criminal back in the ’70s. Ted Bundy, originally from Vermont, reigned terror in Utah starting in 1974. His murders, which were all white brunettes, occurred from Bountiful to Murray 20 miles up North. Though, one of his preferred hunting ground was Fashion Place Mall in 1971.

Ms. Pinkney and her friend were shopping at the Fashion Place Mall, waiting for the bus around dusk, as neither of them was able to drive. That’s when they were approached by Bundy.

“He pulled up in a really nice Mercedes, wearing a suit. He rolled down the passenger window and said, ‘Do you girls want a ride?’”

Ms. Pinkney didn’t have an elevated ‘streetsmart sense’, so her friend pulled her aside, “Why would a guy in a Mercedes want to give us a ride?”

Very casually, they said, “No thank you, our bus will be here soon.” They watched him drive off to the other side of the mall, where he picked up two other girls. A couple of days later, the police found their bodies in The Great Salt Lake.

At the time, they didn’t realize who he was, they just got a “weird vibe”, and it “didn’t sit well”.

In the beginning, the whole idea of Ted Bundy was just a “conjecture from the police”, but after finding the bodies at the Great Salt Lake the police were able to link it to Ted Bundy. Seeing it on the news later on only then did Ms. Pinkney and her friend realizes the seemingly polite man was the killer himself.

He was eventually arrested and got sentenced to the electric chair in ‘89. To this day there are still numerous missing bodies many of which are assumed to be his victims. Ms. Pinkey is one of many who nearly got killed by the notorious serial killer.