314 Forensic dentistry
and produced preorthodontic treatment dental models of five individuals
that had similar lower anterior teeth arrangement. It was a valid idea but a
tactical disaster for the defense, as these individuals were eleven to thirteen
years old, none of whom were in Tallahassee in January 1978, and none of
whom could have bitten the victim. Drs. Richard Souviron, Lowell Levine,
and Homer Campbell testified for the prosecution. Mr. Bundy was convicted
of the aggravated battery of three of the victims and the murder of the other
two Chi Omega sorority sisters, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman. He was
sentenced to death on both counts of murder and life without parole on the
aggravated batteries. Several months later in 1980, Mr. Bundy was again on
trial for the murder of twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach of Lake City and was
again sentenced to death. The appeals on the Leach murder were exhausted
before those of the Florida State University students. At 7:06 a.m. on January
24, 1989, forty-two-year-old Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair for
the murder of Kimberly Leach.^11
The Theodore Robert Bundy case was significant for forensic odontology.
Mr. Bundy was a suspect in approximately forty homicides of young females
from the states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida. From
a scientific viewpoint, the teeth of Mr. Bundy were very distinctive and the
bitemark recorded the pattern clearly and with little distortion. Mr. Bundy
acted as his own attorney, taking the deposition of the state’s odontologist,
Dr. Souviron, a unique occurrence in the history of bitemark cases. The
Bundy case brought bitemark evidence to national prominence. As a result,
a flood of additional cases in which bitemark evidence was used followed.
From 1950 through 1978, the number of “reported” bitemark cases in the
United States was fewer than twenty. From 1979 through 2000 the number of
cases challenged on appeal was in the hundreds.^6
14.1.2.8 Florida v. Stewart, 1979
Concurrent with the Bundy trial and at the same courthouse, there was
another murder trial involving bitemark evidence. Margaret Hazlip, a sev-
enty-seven-year-old woman, had been sexually assaulted and murdered in
February 1979. There were obvious teeth marks on the right hip of Ms. Hazlip.
Homicide detectives were of the unusual opinion that Ms. Hazlip had, in
effect, bitten herself. There were also pieces of bitten bologna at the crime
scene. Dr. Souviron, the prosecution expert, was asked whether the pieces of
bologna had been bitten by Ms. Hazlip and if she could have bitten herself
on her own hip. Ms. Hazlip had an upper removable partial denture that was
found next to the body. If she were lying on her partial it certainly could have
made “tooth marks” in the skin of her thigh. The odontologist compared
the partial denture to the bologna and in his opinion the bitemarks in the
bologna were not made by Ms. Hazlip. The bitemark on her hip was analyzed,
and it was determined that the biter profile would indicate that there was a