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Utah authorities have identified notorious serial killer Ted Bundy as the killer of 17-year-old Melissa Ann Smith, closing a homicide investigation 52 years to the day after her body was discovered.

Smith's body was found by hunters on Oct. 27, 1974, in a wooded area near the border of Summit and Salt Lake counties. Despite years of speculation, authorities never officially named a suspect and the case remained open for more than five decades.

The breakthrough came after DNA evidence in the killing of another 17-year-old Utah girl , Laura Ann Aime, produced a hit to Bundy in the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS.

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Investigators then compared DNA evidence from the Aime case with evidence preserved from Smith's killing and determined the profiles matched.

Ted Bundy sits in a courtroom in Miami, Fla., July 13, 1979.…