American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, burglar, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. Charismatic and boyishly handsome, he was an “All-American boy” type, always favored and successful with women. He fit the frightening profile of the serial killer, white, male, above average in intelligence, and adroit at wearing a mask of charm and sanity. They are men clever enough to avoid detection as they kill time and time again. Bundy wore the mask better than most, moving in better circles.
He was the illegitimate son of an unknown sailor and a very religious 22-year-old girl from a respectable Philadelphia family. Ted’s mom, Louise, was the oldest of three sisters. When she got pregnant, she was sent away to have the baby at a home for unwed mothers and her shame was never spoken of in the family. The birth of the 7 lb. 9 oz (3430 g) boy was normal. For two months, he was left at the home while the family decided whether or not to keep him. It was Grandfather Cowell who made the decision to bring the baby home as their own. With the mystery of Bundy’s parentage, it was even speculated that Cowell might have been his biological father. The family secrets were well guarded.
When he was four, his mom took him and moved to Tacoma, Washington where she married John Bundy a year later. They added four half-brothers and sisters to the family. Ted never accepted Johnny as a father figure, preferring his beloved grandfather. Grandfather Cowell was a man with a violent temper, a man who brooked no dissent. His wife was repeatedly taken to hospitals for shock treatment for depression. Her fears grew until she refused to leave the house, a victim of agoraphobia.
Though Louise Bundy portrayed her son as a sweet, darling boy, a model son, he told his psychiatrist of his fascination with stories of murder and death while still a boy. Later, these stories blended with his interest in pornography. By the time he was a pre-teen, he was obsessed with detective magazines and their gory pictures of sexually assaulted bodies.
He vacillated between being a brilliant student and the class low-ball. Along with A’s and B’s, he brought home notes about helping him control his temper. Despite his mom’s assurance that he was well loved and a normal boy, he told of an extreme lack of self-esteem and deep insecurities during adolescence, a time when he had few friends or dates. He apparently was never able to deal with his anger toward his mother.
After earning a BS in psychology, he entered politics in 1972. He did key staff work as a spy for the Washington State Republican Party Chairman. The perfect little boy and pleasant adolescent became a rising star in state politics.
Though he did not evidence multiple personalities, he did have periods of metamorphosis, times when he went into a trance state, accompanied by an odor, a weirdness and mental disorientation. For a time, he even heard voices, but he was still one person, albeit living two lives. His doctors believed that he was a severe manic-depressive from at least 1967. Vice-president of the Methodist Youth Fellowship by day, he was a voyeur by night, sneaking out to peer in windows to watch women undress, a classic early route for rapists and serial killers. He showed other signs of sexual maladjustment, such as excessive and compulsive masturbation. He was a shoplifter and petty thief. However, he was also able to have normal sexual relationships. In his perception, there were two kinds of sex, that with consenting adults and that with murder. During the latter, he recreated the goriest fantasies that came to mind, including the grisly gratification of necrophilia.
Bundy had a great romance with a beautiful, wealthy coed, who jilted him when he was a college Junior. Soon after, he dropped out of school, immersed in a deep depression. He recreated himself into a more sophisticated image, and won her back a few years later. Before long, she was under the impression that they were engaged when he abruptly dumped her, refusing to write or phone.
No one knows exactly when Bundy committed his first murder, though he claims that it was in May 1973. His pattern began in earnest in January 1974, just a month after he took his revenge on his coed girlfriend. He had several other girlfriends, Pandora, Carole Boone, and Liz Kendall, who later wrote a book about their relationship.
One of Bundy’s ploys was that of wearing a cast. Woman after woman went to her death when a handsome, polite young man, arm in a cast, on crutches, asked if she would help carry his books to his car. His Volkswagen was in a secluded parking lot, only yards from the spot where he would pick up a girl, and his crowbar was lying beside it. The young woman would never be seen again. In all the Washington cases, so much time had elapsed before the bodies were discovered that nothing was found but bones. For 13 years, one of the many mysteries was an extra leg bone at one of his dump sites.
Bundy could not stop his terrible killing, but like most serial killers, he was desperate to keep it hidden. From childhood he had learned denial, repression and secrecy, and these qualities were now the timbre of his life. For years he proclaimed his innocence, but paradoxically, also felt the need to confess, resorting to graphic and sickening third-person “theories.”
His final killings were done in a crude, careless, animal frenzy. On a cold winter night he entered a sorority house, where, in the darkness, he strangled and bludgeoned Margaret Bowman. Careened down the hall, he then killed Lisa Levy in another room and savagely attacked two other women, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, who survived. One of the murdered girls had been sodomized with a hair-spray bottle. There were deep bite marks on her left buttock and one nipple was nearly bitten off. The other girls had broken jaws, gashes and abrasions, with teeth knocked out in a frenzy that left blood splattered on the ceiling. Bundy was not through with his frenzy. He lurched down the street to find another woman to attack who survived when coeds overheard the attack. He killed his last victim, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, a few weeks later. Her raped and mutilated body was found under a hog shed.
A few weeks later, Ted Bundy was pulled over by a Pensacola policeman for driving erratically.
On 24 February 1979, Bundy was convicted of the murder of three women who had been strangled and beaten, plus the attempted murder of three others. He was suspected in as many as 39 murders and rapes across the country.
He refused to attempt the insanity defense, as he did not wish to be thought mad; he wanted to be thought brilliant. A failed law student, he applied for the appointment of special counsel to argue on his behalf that he was competent to assist in his own defense at his original trial in 1979. Just prior to his sentencing, Bundy married Carole Ann Boone in the very courtroom of his murder trials. She later bore his child, a girl. True to his nature, his courtroom style was bizarre to the end.
Given the death penalty after spending nearly ten years on death row, Bundy, ashen-faced, was taken to the death chamber in Starke, Florida. His arms and legs were strapped against the shiny wooden chair. His head had been shaven and his skull glistened where an ointment had been applied to facilitate the work of the electrodes. For his last words, he said, “Jim and Fred, I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.” His lawyer and minister nodded assent. It was time. Ted Bundy was electrocuted on 24 January 1989 at 7:06 AM EST. He was declared officially dead at 7:16 AM.
His victims included: Denise Naslund, 19, Kimberly Leach, 12, Georgann Hawkins, 18, Janice Ott, 23, Roberta Parks, 20, Lisa Levy, 20, Laura Alme, 17, Susan Rancourt, 18, Donna Manson, 19, Lynda Healy, 21, Caryn Campbell, 24, Debra Kent, 17, Margaret Bowman, 21, and Melissa Smith, 17.
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