Ted Bundy

Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy (November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was one of the most notorious murderers in U.S. history, an American serial killer and rapist who murdered numerous young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. His total number of victims remains unknown to this day. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, Bundy eventually confessed to over 30 murders, although some of the detectives who worked on his case believe (based partly on several cryptic comments Bundy made) that the actual number of his victims may have been far higher, perhaps over 100. Bundy is considered by some to be the prototypical serial killer.

Bundy is believed to have been a sociopath. He is usually described as an educated, handsome and charming young man despite the brutality of his crimes. Typically, he raped then murdered young women and girls by bludgeoning them, and sometimes by strangulation.

Biography

Youth

Bundy was born on November 24, 1946, at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont. His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, was a young department store clerk. His father's identity has never been authoritatively established. For the first nine years of his life, Bundy and his mother lived with his maternal grandfather (who, according to some family members, was mentally unstable and prone to violence) in Philadelphia. To avoid the stigma of an illegitimate pregnancy, many neighbors and friends were told that Eleanor's parents had adopted Bundy, and that he was actually Eleanor's younger brother. According to some sources, Bundy may have believed his mother was actually his older sister throughout most of his childhood and adolescence. When he was three years old, Bundy is alleged to have appeared at his aunt Julia's bedside, smiling as he brandished several knives and laid them beside her on the bed. (Rule 2000).

Bundy and his mother eventually moved to Tacoma, Washington, where Eleanor's uncle Jack taught music at the University of Puget Sound. Not long thereafter, she married Johnny Culpepper Bundy, a hospital cook from Pasquotank County, North Carolina, whom she met at a church social function.

Bundy was a good student at Woodrow Wilson High School, and was active in the local Methodist Church and the Boy Scouts. However, as he told Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, authors of The Only Living Witness, he had no natural sense of how to get along with other people. "I didn't know what made people want to be friends," he told the authors. "I didn't know what made people attractive to one another. I didn't know what underlay social interactions." Bundy remained shy and introverted throughout most of his high school and early college years.

Bundy's criminal activities began at an early age, before he was even out of high school. He was a compulsive thief, a shoplifter, and on his way to becoming an amateur con artist.

Bundy described the part of himself that, from a very young age, was fascinated by images of sex and violence as "the entity," and kept it very well hidden. However, by the time Bundy was talking about "other selves" he was trying to appeal his death sentence. Later, friends and acquaintances would remember a handsome, articulate young man. Bundy worked and campaigned for the Washington State Republican Party as an adult. He also worked as a volunteer at a Seattle suicide crisis center, alongside fledgling crime reporter Ann Rule. Ironically, at the time Rule wrote articles on the "Ted" murders that, unbeknownst to her, her young friend was committing. (Rule would go on to write a biography of Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me.)

Bundy had one serious relationship with a college freshman whom Rule referred to by the pseudonym "Stephanie Brooks." She ended the relationship, fed up with what she described as Bundy's immaturity and lack of ambition, and they separated for a period of roughly two years. He eventually came back into her life with a new look and attitude as a serious, dedicated professional man; he courted her once more and then proposed, an offer she accepted. Two days later, Bundy unceremoniously dumped her by ceasing to return her phone calls. He would later dismiss the proposal and break-up as part of a challenge he undertook, saying "I just wanted to prove to myself that I could have her." It was shortly after this final breakup that Bundy began a homicidal rampage lasting three years.

Rule theorized that "Stephanie" formed the archetype for Bundy's preferred victim: young, white, female, with long dark hair parted in the middle.

Murders

While many Bundy experts, including Rule and former King County detective Robert D. Keppel, believe Bundy may have started killing as far back as his early teens (an eight-year-old girl from Tacoma, Ann Marie Burr, vanished from her home in Bundy's neighborhood when Bundy was 15, and in one interview, Bundy made reference to a situation very similar), his earliest confirmed murders were committed in 1974, when he was 27.

Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1974, Bundy entered the basement bedroom of Karen Sparks, an 18-year-old student at the University of Washington, and bludgeoned her with a crowbar while she slept. Bundy also removed a steel rod from Sparks' bed frame and sexually assaulted her with it. She was found the next morning, in a coma, lying in a pool of her own blood. She survived the attack, but suffered permanent brain damage.

Bundy's next victim was Lynda Ann Healy, a senior at the University of Washington and roommate of a friend of Bundy's. On January 31, 1974, Bundy broke into Healy's basement room, knocked her unconscious, dressed her in jeans and a shirt, wrapped her in a bed sheet, and carried her away. A year would pass before her decapitated remains were found in the mountains east of Seattle.

Between January and July of 1974, Bundy stalked and killed at least eight young women in Washington State alone, a spree that culminated on July 14 with the abduction, in broad daylight, of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish State Park near Seattle. Five different women would testify about that day and about the man wearing a sling on his arm who called himself "Ted". The man had approached each of them asking for help unloading a sailboat from his car. One went with Bundy as far as his Volkswagen, where there was no sailboat, before refusing to accompany him further. Two more witnesses testified to seeing the man approach Janice Ott with the story about the sailboat, and to seeing Ott walk away from the beach in his company — the last time she was ever seen alive. From this, King County detectives were able get a description both of the suspect and his brown VW bug. Both Ted's girlfriend and Ann Rule reported him as a possible suspect, but the King County police, deluged with hundreds of tips, did not have any reason to pick out the unassuming Bundy from the long list of leads to be investigated.

That autumn, Bundy moved to Utah to attend law school in Salt Lake City, where he resumed killing in October. Nancy Wilcox disappeared on October 2. On October 18, Bundy murdered Melissa Smith, the 17-year-old daughter of Midvale police chief Louis Smith. Bundy raped, sodomized, and strangled Smith. Her body was found nine days later.

Next was Laura Aime, also 17, who disappeared when she left a Halloween party in Lehi, Utah on October 31, 1974. Her remains were found nearly a month later, by hikers on Thanksgiving Day, on the banks of a river in the American Fork Canyon. She was found naked, beaten beyond recognition, sodomized, and strangled with her own sock.

Further murders, first trial, and Bundy's escapes

Bundy smiles as he is placed under oath at his murder trial, February 1976

In Murray, Utah, on November 8, 1974, Carol DaRonch narrowly escaped with her life. Claiming to be Officer Roseland of the Murray Police Department, Bundy lured DaRonch into his car where he then attempted to slap a pair of handcuffs on her. Fortunately for DaRonch, he only got one wrist. She wrenched her door open with the other hand, rolled out of the car onto the highway and escaped with contusions to the head given to her via a blunt instrument which Bundy had taped underneath the car seat. Frustrated in his attempt to kill DaRonch, Bundy snatched Debbie Kent, who was attending a school play in Bountiful, Utah, mere hours later. Her body has never been found.

In 1975, while still attending law school at the University of Utah, Bundy shifted his crimes to Colorado. Caryn Campbell disappeared from the Wildwood Inn at Snowmass, Colorado, where she had been vacationing, on 12 January. Her body was found on 17 February. Julie Cunningham disappeared on 15 March, and Denise Oliverson on 6 April. Lynette Culver went missing in Pocatello, Idaho on 6 May. Back in Utah, Susan Curtis vanished on 28 June.

Bundy was arrested on August 16, 1975, in Salt Lake City, for failure to stop for a police officer. A search of his car revealed a ski mask, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, and other items which were thought by the police to be burglary tools. Bundy was arrested for this charge on 21 August. Utah police connected Bundy and his Volkswagen with the DaRonch kidnapping and with the murdered and missing women in Utah and Colorado. Following a week-long trial, Bundy was convicted of DaRonch's kidnapping on March 1, 1976. He was sentenced to 15 years in Utah State Prison. Colorado authorities, however, were pursuing their murder cases.

On June 7, 1977, in preparation for a hearing in the Caryn Campbell murder trial, Bundy was transported to the Pitkin County, Colorado, courthouse. During a court recess, he was allowed to visit the courthouse's law library. Bundy then jumped out of the building from a second-story window and escaped. The two-story fall injured Bundy's ankle, which caused him to remain in the area, and he was recaptured a week later. Back in jail awaiting the start of his trial, Bundy escaped again. He somehow acquired a hacksaw and, over time, sawed a square hole in the ceiling of his cell in the Glenwood Springs, Colorado, lockup. On the night of December 30, 1977, Bundy climbed out of the hole, managed to walk right out of the jail's front door (the jailor was out for the evening) and reach the main hallway. Bundy stole a car in the car park and drove off.

Bundy's final rampage — Florida

With around $510 in cash given to him by his friends during jail visits, Bundy bought a one-way plane ticket and flew TWA from Denver to Chicago the night he escaped. He then caught an Amtrak train to Ann Arbor, Michigan, then stole a car which he ditched in Atlanta before boarding a bus for Tallahassee, Florida. There, in the early hours of Super Bowl Sunday on January 15, 1978, he bludgeoned to death two sleeping women, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, and seriously wounded two others inside their Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house. He then clubbed and severely injured another young woman in her home a few blocks away.

On February 9, 1978, Bundy traveled to Lake City, Florida. While there, he abducted, raped and murdered 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, throwing her body under a small shed. She would be his final victim. Shortly after 1 a.m. on February 15, Bundy was stopped by a police officer in Pensacola, Florida. When the officer called in a check of Bundy's license plate, the orange VW he was driving came up as stolen. Bundy then scuffled briefly with the officer before he was finally subdued. Before long, Bundy was identified and taken to Miami to stand trial for the FSU murders.

Conviction and execution

Bundy's emotional reaction following his conviction.

Bundy's trial for the Chi Omega murders was held from June 25 to July 31, 1979. Despite his five court-appointed defense lawyers, Bundy represented himself as his own legal counsel. After being convicted, Bundy was sentenced to death by Judge Edward Cowart. During his trial for the Kimberly Leach murder, while Bundy was acting as his own attorney, he married former coworker Carole Ann Boone in the courtroom as the trial was being conducted. During his incarceration, Bundy received about two hundred fan letters each day from female admirers.

Judge Edward Cowart said, when sentencing Bundy to death:

"It is ordered that you be put to death by a current of electricity, that current be passed through your body until you are dead. Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself. It's a tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity as I've experienced in this courtroom. You're a bright young man. You'd have made a good lawyer, and I'd have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. Take care of yourself. I don't have any animosity to you. I want you to know that. Take care of yourself."

In October 1982, Boone gave birth to a girl. Eventually, however, Boone moved away, divorced Bundy, and changed her and her daughter's last name. Both of their whereabouts are today unknown.

In the years Bundy was on death row (at Florida State Prison), he was often visited by Special Agent William Hagmaier of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit. Bundy would come to confide in Hagmaier, going so far as to call him his best friend. Eventually, Bundy confessed to Hagmaier many details of the murders that had until then been unknown or unconfirmed.

In 1984, Bundy contacted former King County homicide detective Robert D. Keppel and offered to assist in the ongoing search for the Green River Killer by providing his own insights and analysis. Keppel and Green River Task Force detective Dave Reichert traveled to Florida's death row to interview Bundy. Both detectives later stated that these interviews were of little actual help in the Green River investigation; they provided far greater insight into Bundy's own mind, and were primarily pursued in the hope of learning the details of unsolved murders that Bundy was suspected of committing but had never been charged with, let alone tried or convicted.

Bundy contacted Keppel again in 1988. With his appeals exhausted and execution imminent, Bundy confessed to eight official unsolved murders in Washington State, for which he was the prime suspect. Bundy also hoped to manipulate the confessions into another stay of execution or possibly commutation to life imprisonment, as Keppel reported that he frequently gave scant detail and promised to reveal more and other body dump sites if he were given "more time," but the ploy failed and Bundy was executed on schedule.

The night before Bundy was executed, he gave a television interview to Dr. James Dobson, head of the evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family. During the interview, Bundy made repeated claims as to the pornographic "roots" behind his sexually driven violence. He stated that, while pornography didn't cause him to commit his crimes, the consumption of violent pornography helped "shape and mold" his violence into "behavior too terrible to describe." He said that he felt that violence in the media, "particularly sexualized violence," sent boys "down the road to being Ted Bundys". In the same interview, hours before his execution, Bundy stated:[1]

"You are going to kill me, and that will protect society from me. But out there are many, many more people who are addicted to pornography, and you are doing nothing about that."

While embraced by Dobson and others, many found Bundy's allegations to be fabricated and another last ditch effort to elicit sympathy. According to Hagmaier, Bundy also contemplated suicide in the days leading up to his execution, but eventually decided against it.

At 7:06 a.m. on January 24, 1989, 42-year-old Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair by the State of Florida for the murder of Kimberly Leach. His last words were, "I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends." Then, a voltage of more than 2,000 volts was applied across his body for less than two minutes. He was pronounced dead at 7:16 a.m.

Modus operandi and victim profile

When discussing the Green River Killer with Bob Keppel, Bundy said that serial killers are not automatons, but will change their modus operandi as time passes and circumstances change. This was true of Bundy himself. He entered into the homes of his first two known victims, Karen Sparks and Lynda Healy, but would not attack a victim in her home again until the night of the Chi Omega murders, shortly before his final arrest.

Nevertheless, Bundy did have a pattern that held true for most of his criminal career. He would approach a potential victim in a public place, even in daylight or amongst a crowd, as when he abducted Ott and Naslund at Lake Sammamish. Bundy had two ways of gaining a victim's trust. Sometimes, he would feign injury, wearing his arm in a sling or wearing a fake cast. At Lake Sammamish, Bundy was seen wearing a sling. Another witness was approached by a man with his arm in a sling, asking for help carrying a load of books, on the night Susan Rancourt disappeared. Bundy also confessed to using the injury ruse to lure Georgeann Hawkins to her death. At other times Bundy would impersonate an authority figure. He pretended to be a policeman when approaching Carol DaRonch. The day before Kimberly Leach was murdered, Bundy approached another young Florida girl pretending to be "Richard Burton, Fire Department," but left hurriedly after her older brother arrived. Bundy had a remarkable advantage as his facial features were attractive, yet not especially memorable. In later years, he would often be described as a chameleon, able to look totally different by making only minor adjustments to his appearance, e.g., shaving or changing his hairstyle.

All of Ted Bundy's victims were White American females. Most were of middle-class background. Almost all were between the ages of 15 and 25. All had long, straight hair. Many were college students. After luring a victim to his car, Bundy would hit her in the head with a crowbar he had placed underneath his Volkswagen or hidden inside it. Every recovered skull, except for that of Kimberly Leach, showed blunt force trauma. Every recovered body, again except for that of Leach, showed signs of strangulation. Many of Bundy's victims were transported a considerable distance from where they disappeared (Bundy drove Roberta Parks more than 260 miles, from Oregon to Washington, after abducting her). Bundy often would drink alcohol prior to finding a victim; Carol DaRonch testified to smelling alcohol on his breath.

List of victims

The following is a chronological list of the victims of Ted Bundy. This list is largely based on the 1992 "Ted Bundy Multiagency Investigative Team Report", a document assembled by the FBI and various state agencies from states where Bundy committed murders. Bundy never made a comprehensive confession of his crimes. The true toll of Ted Bundy's victims will never be known, but the names listed below are victims whom almost all authorities attribute to Bundy. All the victims listed were killed, unless otherwise noted.

• July 1973: Unknown hitchhiker. Abducted from California.
• Jan. 4, 1974: Karen Sparks (survived). Battered in her bed as she slept. Remained comatose for several months, but eventually awoke.
• Jan. 31, 1974: Lynda Healy (21). Battered unconscious while asleep and abducted from the house she shared with other University of Washington co-eds.
• Mar. 12, 1974: Donna Manson (19). Abducted after walking to a jazz concert on Evergreen campus, Washington.
• Apr. 17, 1974: Susan Rancourt (18). Disappeared as she walked across Central Washington State College lawns.
• May 6, 1974: Roberta Kathleen Parks (22). Vanishes while walking to another dorm hall to have coffee with friends.
• Jun. 1, 1974: Brenda Ball (22). Disappears from the Flame Tavern in Burien, Washington.
• Jun. 11, 1974: Georgeann Hawkins (18). Disappears from behind her sorority house, Kappa Alpha Theta, in Seattle, Washington.
• Jul. 14, 1974: Janice Ott (23) and Denise Naslund (19), both from Lake Sammamish State Park.
• Aug. 2, 1974: Carol Valenzuela (20). Last seen at a welfare office in Vancouver.
• Sep. 2, 1974: Unknown hitchhiker (17-23). Abducted from Boise, Idaho.
• Oct. 2, 1974: Nancy Wilcox (16). Disappeared in Holladay, Utah.
• Oct. 18, 1974: Melissa Smith (17). Vanished from Midvale, Utah on her way to a friends house.
• Oct. 31, 1974: Laura Aime (17). Disappeared from a Halloween party at Lehi, Utah.
• Nov. 8, 1974: Carol DaRonch (19, survived). Escaped Bundy by jumping from his moving car.
• Nov. 8, 1974: Debbie Kent (17). Vanished hours after DaRonch escaped from Bundy.
• Jan. 12, 1975: Caryn Campbell (23). Abducted while on a ski trip in Aspen, Colorado.
• Mar. 15, 1975: Julie Cunningham (26). Disappeared while on her way to a nearby tavern in Vail, Colorado.
• Apr. 6, 1975: Denise Oliverson (25). Abducted while visiting her parents in Grand Junction.
• May 6, 1975: Lynette Culver (13). Snatched from a school playground at Alameda Junior High School, Pocatello, Idaho.
• June. 28, 1975: Susan Curtis (15). Abducted from the campus of Brigham Young University.
• Jan. 15, 1978: Lisa Levy (20), Margaret Bowman (21), Karen Chandler (survived), Kathy Kleiner (survived). The Chi Omega killings, Tallahasse, Florida.
• Jan. 15, 1978: Cheryl Thomas (survived). Bludgeoned in her bed, eight blocks away from the Chi Omega house.
• Feb. 9, 1978: Kimberly Leach (12), kidnapped from her junior high school, Lake City, Florida..

Movies about Ted Bundy

Three TV movies and one feature film have been produced about Bundy and his crimes.

• The Deliberate Stranger, a two-part network TV movie aired in 1986 and starred Mark Harmon as Bundy.
• Written by Stephen Johnston and Directed by Matthew Bright, Ted Bundy was released in 2002. Michael Reilly Burke starred as Bundy.</p>
• The Stranger Beside Me aired on the USA Network in 2003, and starred Billy Campbell as Bundy and Barbara Hershey as Ann Rule.
• In 2004 the A&E Network produced an adaptation of Robert Keppel's book Riverman, which starred Cary Elwes as Bundy and Bruce Greenwood as Keppel.

References in popular culture

• Thomas Harris was in court the day of the infamous bite mark testimony in Bundy's 1979 trial (he had a press pass.) Harris was then was inspired to create the character Francis Dolarhyde for his novel Red Dragon. Also, many references to Bundy abound in Red Dragon: the teeth the killer uses are identical to Bundy's; and t-shirt slogans that appeared after Bundy's second escape (e.g. "Ted Bundy Is A One Night Stand") are attributed to the fictional killer in the novel.

• One of Marilyn Manson's ex bandmates was named Olivia Newton Bundy. The name "Olivia Newton Bundy" comes from actress Olivia Newton-John and Ted Bundy.

• For his novel The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris based the character of Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in part on Bundy. (His other inspirations were Gary M. Heidnik, Edmund Kemper, and Ed Gein.) Like Bundy, Bill would put his arm in a sling, approach the women he intended to murder by asking them for help, and then incapacitate them.

• In American Psycho, Christian Bale, who portrayed serial killer Patrick Bateman, makes a reference to Ted Bundy, asking his friend if she knew that Bundy had a dog named Lassie.

• The Jane's Addiction song "Ted, Just Admit It" on their 1988 album Nothing's Shocking features sound bites of Ted Bundy speaking.

• In the film Serial Mom, Bundy leaves a message for the title character saying "It's lonely here on Death Row."

• The song titled "Meticulous Invagination," by the Gore Metal band Aborted, is about the crime Bundy committed on January 4.

• Japanese doom metal band Church of Misery wrote a song entitled "I, Motherfucker (Ted Bundy)," which appears on their latest album "The Second Coming". The cover features Bundy's picture and the back cover has a grainy black and white photo of the infamous VW Beetle.

• KoRn lead vocalist, Jonathan Davis owns Bundy's old VW car as part of his serial killer memorabilia.

• In Natural Born Killers, protagonist Mickey Knox is told that the TV episode about him received higher ratings than the one about Ted Bundy, among other murderers.

• Ted Bundy's picture, along with the pictures of other famous killers, appears in the opening credits of Criminal Minds.

• Ted Bundy is one of the serial killers named in the Combichrist song "God Bless".

• In the episode of the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros, titled Viva Los Muertos, the parody of Fred Jones, of Scooby-Doo fame, named Ted was based off of Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and David Koresh.

• In the episode of South Park that aired on October 25, 2006, Ted Bundy is depicted with John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. The three parody the three stooges, he plays Moe Howard with Gacy being Jerome "Curly" Howard and Dahmer playing Larry Fine.

References

• The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, W.W. Norton, 2000, hardcover, 456 pages, ISBN 0-393-05029-7 Updated 20th anniversary edition
• Bundy: The Deliberate Stranger by Richard W. Larsen, 1980, hardcover, ISBN 0-13-089185-1
• The Phantom Prince by Liz Kendall
• The Only Living Witness by Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, Authorlink 1999, 344 pages. ISBN 1-928704-11-5
• The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer by Robert Keppel, 1995, hardcover, 448 pages, ISBN 0-09-472210-2
• Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer by Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aywnesworth
• Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer by Polly Nelson

External links

• Ted Bundy at CrimeLibrary.com
• Find A Grave Entry
• Ted Bundy at charliemanson.com
• Ted Bundy's final interview with Dr. James Dobson
• Ted Bundy (the film), The Deliberate Stranger, and The Stranger Beside Me at imdb.com

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