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Unlike Ted Bundy, Zac Efron isn’t faking his knee injury sustained while skiing

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February 9, 2019, 9:07 am
An injured Zac Efron on Instagram.
An injured Zac Efron on Instagram.

There’s a weird symmetry to the fact that actor Zac Efron is now recovering from a knee injury sustained while skiing, because that was exactly the M.O. of infamous ski-town serial killer Ted Bundy, whom Efron plays in the upcoming Netflix film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile.

Bundy would pretend to be injured and struggling on crutches to lure women to his Volkswagen Beetle, which he told former Vail Police detective Matt Lindvall was exactly how he got 26-year-old ski instructor and ski-shop worker Julie Cunningham into the trunk of his car in Vail in March of 1975. Lindvall knew Cunningham, lived in the same condo complex at one time, and is clearly still haunted by the case.

Bundy confessed Cunningham’s murder to Lindvall the day of his execution in Florida in 1989. Bundy also told Lindvall he buried Cunningham somewhere near Rifle – 90 miles west of Vail on Interstate 70 – but her body has never been found.

Zefron was chosen to play Bundy because of an obvious resemblance and because the actor exudes the charm Bundy used to murder at least three dozen women. The new film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, late last month, but it’s unclear if that’s where Zefron tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) while skiing.

“I tore my ACL shredding the gnar⛷ 😕 but all is good. I opted for surgery so I can come back stronger than ever,” Zefron posted Friday on Instagram.

Vail’s most famous skier – World Cup racer Lindsey Vonn, who’s retiring Sunday after battling multiple knee injuries – reached out to Efron on social media. “I know the feeling. Lmk if you need help rehabbing!” Vonn tweeted to Efron Friday.

Efron’s Bundy film will be shown on Netflix later this year, and in the meantime a four-part Netflix series called Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes features former 9News Denver reporter Ward Lucas.

Interest in the Cunningham case remains high in the Vail Valley. In 2017, Bundy photos that turned up in a safe in Glenwood Springs sparked renewed global media attention.

And in 2014, skeletal remains discovered during a construction project in Vail briefly fired up the Bundy speculation machine all over again, with Vail Police telling RealVail.com they were keeping Cunningham “in mind” as their only open and active missing-persons case while trying to figure out whose bones had been unearthed.

Lindvall, reached by RealVail.com at his home in Durango, turned out to be right when he doubted whether that skeleton belonged to Cunningham.

“Do I think it’s Julie Cunningham?” Lindvall said at the time. “That wasn’t the location that was given to us in confessions in 1989 but her remains have not been discovered. I’d be surprised if those remains are from Julie Cunningham, but I would hope that if it is it gives some rest to her family.”

It turned out the skeletal remains were from the late 1800s or early 1900s and belonged to a Caucasian man who died and was buried on one of the early homesteads long before Vail became an international ski destination.

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.