“Put on your seatbelt!” snarls Ted Bundy to an 18-year-old who has
just gotten into his Volkswagen Beetle after making the mortally serious mistake of believing
he’s a cop. Something’s not right. He stinks of booze. Minutes later, he stops the car. “What are you doing?” she asks, now petrified. “This isn’t the police station.” He offers no response. He doesn’t even look at her. The most evil man in America is about to have
the fight of his life. Day 1
1961. A girl in teenage Ted’s neighborhood in
Tacoma, Washington, has gone missing. Her name is Anne Marie Burr. All the kids in the neighborhood are talking
about it. Ted, who’s a bit of an outcast among his
peers, has a paper round that goes right past the girl’s house. He’s under no suspicion. He’s just a kid. But someone who is familiar with the young
Ted knows there’s something not quite right with him. This boy could kill. That’s his aunt Julia’s contention. In 1949, when Ted was three and she was 15,
she experienced something that would change her whole perspective on Ted. In the middle of the night, as she was sleeping,
she was awoken to find Ted slipping butcher’s knives under her blanket. “What are you doing,” she asked him, startled,
her face partly illuminated by the light on the landing. Ted said nothing. He just stood there grinning like a child
maniac before calmly walking out of her room. For those first years of his life, Ted watched
his grandfather fly into violent rages, swinging cats around by the tail, bashing his heavily
depressed wife after indulging in a bit too much whisky. Ted loved his father. He hated that his mother was so weak. Ted had been lied to, though. He thought his grandparents were his parents
and his mother his sister. It was no place for a child to grow up, so
Ted’s sister (mother) took him to Tacoma in Washington and, not long after, met a cook
named Johnny, Johnny Bundy. They legally adopted Ted, making Johnny his
father by law. Now Ted was Ted Bundy, and soon he’d have
four siblings, four contenders for the attention of his parents. Now at 14, Ted is a skinny kid with feminine
looks. He gets bullied by the older kids, and so,
in turn, he bullies the younger kids. He sometimes takes them out to the woods,
where he forces them to undress. One time he calls them over to show them how
he’s strung a cat up by the neck. This is the genesis of the making of a monster. If he’d had been properly treated then,
you wouldn’t be hearing the grisly details of the rest of this show. Year 3
Ted is now in high school. He has more friends, yet there’s something
insincere about him. He struggles to form close friendships, especially
with girls, who he still watches them from a distance. He’s now into petty crime, stealing equipment
so he can ski. When he’s not trying to show off, he’s
alone, often reading violent detective magazines and looking over pictures of naked women in
pornographic magazines. He hates his home life. He’s ashamed that his adoptive father, Johnny,
earns little money and drives cheap cars. Ted wants better clothes when he goes to Sears
with his mom. He wants fancy things. During the night, he often listens to talk
radio, pretending he is the rich and famous person being interviewed. He gets taken away with these fantasies, but
somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that will never be him. This is why the daydreaming of late has been
taking a darker turn. He can’t stop thinking about hurting people,
hurting women. He thinks about sex a lot – he is, after
all, in his teens – but his natural urges are often filled with unnatural violence. Try as he might, he can’t stop these thoughts. One night he’s doing what he likes to do
and sneaks around in the dark of his house when he comes across some of his mother’s
old documents. It’s there he finds his birth certificate. It says, “Father: Unknown.” Sometime later, he’s with his friend Terry
Storwick at Storwick’s parent’s beach house when they’re talking about Ted’s
dad. Ted looks at Terry and says, “That’s not
actually my dad.” Ted seems unbothered, but on the inside, he’s
raging with a fire he will never be able to quell. He’s attractive, he just doesn’t understand
love, or dating, or girls in general. He knows he’s supposed to like them, to
talk about their bodies or cute faces or what he’d like to do with them, but he doesn’t
feel it, not really. That’s not to say he hates all girls. Not long ago, he saved Terry’s sister, Wendy,
from drowning. He literally saved her life. But another part of him wants to sneak into
her room at night and pound her head with a hammer. Year 4
Ted is away at college. He’s free from that stepfather. He’s just spent $400 on a ’58 Volkswagen
Beetle, which he uses to go out on long trips by himself. In classes, he barely speaks. He has no friends, not male or female. He still feels like an outcast, but then after
walking into an international affairs lecture on China, he realizes that being an outcast
could be pretty cool. Year 5
He’s learning to speak Chinese. He imagines himself as an expert on Asia,
a specialist on everything exotic. Or what he thinks is exotic. He switches to the University of Washington
to study Asian studies. And with his new skills, he meets his first
love. A student impressed with his language skills
and expert use of Chinese chopsticks. But for some reason, when they’re alone
in his apartment at night, he can’t touch her. It’s as if he is afraid that any kind of
sexual advance will lead him into temptation, those dark, violent urges he’s had all his
young life. But this girl soon gets sick of him. Instead of acting like a man or taking her
in his arms, he’ll sneak up behind her, tap her on the shoulder, and run away. What is wrong with this jerk? They aren’t 13 anymore. She dumps him. He can’t understand it. After all, he’s tried to be nice. He’s tried to be normal. It hasn’t worked, so now it’s time to
be himself. Year 6
On June 23, an article in the Spokane Daily Chronicle reads:
“An airline stewardess is found beaten to death and one of her roommates critically
injured in their Queen Anne Hill Apartment.” Ted’s working as a busboy, and then when
he can’t hack that anymore, he gets a job stacking shelves at a Safeway store. He drives his car all over the place, seeing
his grandparents, the grandfather he still adores, who he knows now is his grandfather
and not his father. By this time, he’s already seen his official
birth records in Burlington. The article in the newspaper continues to
describe that Lonnie Trumbull, 20, was found in her bed bludgeoned to death. Lisa Wick was found in her bed, almost beaten
to death. Both were in their nightclothes. Wick’s hair was still in curlers. There were no signs of a struggle. Someone had sneaked into their room and just
gone crazy on them. Very soon, murders with this MO and signature
will be a common thing. Ted reads this newspaper. He smiles when he puts it down, thinking about
how tonight he’s going out to play one of his favorite games - letting car tires down
and seeing how the owner – always a young woman – deals with it as he watches from
a distance. This is practice. Years 7
Ted’s now back in Seattle at the University of Washington, and this is where he meets
Elizabeth Kloepfer and her three-year-old child. He seems clever and charming, and he gets
along with her kid, although the games he plays with the girl do sometimes seem strange
in nature. Elizabeth has no idea of Ted Bundy’s true
nature, but she likes what she sees at first. He’s a man on the up and up, or at least
it looks that way. Year 8
Ted still likes to drive around seeing relatives in various parts of the country. He’s in the Philadelphia area when two students,
both aged 19, have breakfast at a cafeteria and are later found tied to trees, both dead. The girls, Susan Margarite Davis and Elizabeth
Perry had their hair fastened to branches. Both had been stabbed to death. This happened on a weekend that Ted shouldn’t
have been able to drive, seeing as his aunt Julia had seen him that weekend with his leg
in a cast. He’d told her he’d been in a car accident. No records exist of such an accident, and
let’s just say Ted wearing casts is about to become a very common occurrence. Year 9
Ted is doing well in his new psychology major. If he’s honest with himself, he’s chosen
psychology because he’s so mixed up about his own dark thoughts and his dual personality. In one of his first papers, written about
schizophrenia, he gets an almost-perfect grade. He’s been working on a hotline advising
people that are going through the darkest parts of their lives not to hurt themselves. He prides himself on being good at speaking
to women, especially women who have abusive husbands or women who’ve been abandoned. Ted keeps them on the line, sometimes for
up to an hour, calming them down, letting them know someone loves them and that life
can improve. This makes Ted feel elated, knowing he can
save lives as well as take them. He muses that somehow, as ironic as it sounds,
both actions are kind of the same. Year 10
He’s a man of the community, one of the good guys. One evening he’s with a woman named Freida
in her kitchen having coffee, and a fly flies into the kitchen. She’s about to swat it with a newspaper
when Ted jumps up and screams, “Don’t kill it!” He makes sure it can escape through the window. Freida, who really likes Ted, later tells
her friend, “He’s so gentle.” One of his colleagues on the hotline is Anne
Rule, a woman who, in years to come, will have a lot to say about Ted Bundy. Right now, all she knows is that he spends
a hell of a lot of time traveling around in his beloved Beetle. Joyce LePage, 21, goes missing after leaving
her friend’s car close to the University of Washington. She’s been stabbed three times. Her body will be found soon. A woman tells police she saw a yellow Volkswagen
Beetle on campus that night LePage went missing. To make ends meet, Ted drives a delivery truck
for a medical supplies company called Ped-Line. He gets along well with the boss until he’s
caught stealing supplies. The boss is confused when he sees Ted has
been plundering his firm of plaster casting materials. What a strange thing to steal, he thinks,
but that’s only because he doesn’t know anything about Ted’s burgeoning hobby. Year 11
Ted gets a job working for a Republican governor on his election campaign. He’s now going places, or it seems that
way. He’s dated a few women already, but none
of them really knows who he is. He’s an enigma, a dog without a home, who
can be obedient, cute and nasty all at the same time. Elizabeth Kloepfer adores him, despite knowing
she probably shouldn’t. Something is not quite right about Ted Bundy,
even if he looks like a hot prospect in Republican politics who’s just been accepted into law
school. Ted’s also been seeing his former flame,
the one who’d dumped him before. After spending months re-charming her, enticing
her to become devoted to him, he just calls her out of the blue and dumps her right when
she thought they were going someplace. Call it revenge. Still, things could have ended worse. She has her head intact. Rejection is about as good as it gets with
Ted Bundy. Ted is now in a testing phase of what he thinks
will be perfect crimes. He’s following women around without being
seen. He knows he looks middle-class and respectable. He knows it makes him invisible, giving him
the anonymity any American psycho could wish for. In the parlance of the FBI, he’s “organized.” However, it will be some time before the FBI
gets serious about profiling killers. He will also become a lot less organized as
time goes on. To the world around him, Ted’s a law student
who’s worked with top politicians. He’s an educated young man with good looks
and an expansive vocabulary. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to take
home to meet your parents. The kind of person you’d stop to offer assistance
to in the street, just as 17-year-old Rita Lorraine Jolly might have done when she went
out walking near her home in Oregon. The same goes with Vicki Lynn Hollar, who
also goes missing in Oregon around this time, just as Bundy is going on those weekend journeys
around the Pacific Northwest in his car. Both women have never been found, but we know
that it was at this point in Ted’s life that he said his urge to kill had become so
irrepressible that murdering women is all he thought about. Still, in the 70s, during what’s sometimes
called the Golden Age of American serial killing, Ted Bundy was one of many so-called “lust
killers” on the loose. Year 12
Ted loves politics. He loves getting invited out for dinner with
bigwigs. Being among politicians, he feels empowered. They’re driven like him. They’ll do or say anything to get what they
want. In short, Ted was drawn to psychopaths. He will later say this life:
“Politics was perfect. You can move among various strata of society. You can talk to people whom you’d otherwise
have no access.” Ted also understands something very important. Cops don’t think killers go to university
and work for politicians. Ted reads detective books, too, which give
him all the forensic details he needs to know to get away with what he thinks are perfect
murders. And he’s about to get a lot of practice. Year 13 – month 1
Only he fails when it comes to killing 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a beautiful dancer who studies
at the University of Washington. As with most of his victims, he surveilled
her first - seen her get in and out of cars; seen where she goes for classes and where
she sleeps. One night he slips into her dorm, where she’s
fast asleep, and with furious anger, he beats her with a metal rod. She survives but with horrific injuries. The only reason she isn’t dead is her roommate,
a guy named Chuck, who’d talked in his sleep, making Ted think the guy had woken up. Meanwhile, his relationship with Elizabeth,
his coworker, is somewhat constrained at times - for her anyway. She knows Ted steals things. His house is full of stuff he’s taken. She doesn’t much like this. One time she joked about telling the cops. He said to her without any irony, “If you
do, I’ll break your neck.” One night while in her apartment, he asks
to tie her up, and she lets him do it. She’s taken aback by how fast he pulls out
a pair of stockings from one of her drawers. He must have known they were there. Ted is terrifying in many ways, but she is
very insecure. She’s willing to do as he asks because she
always thinks he’ll leave her for his new posh Republican buddies. It’s around this time that Ted writes a
paper for the Seattle Crime Commission on how women can protect themselves from abusive
and violent men. About a week later, he is with Elizabeth when
he chases down a purse snatcher in the street and holds him until the cops turn up. Ted gets in the Seattle Times for his good
deed. It won’t be the last time he features in
this newspaper. The story explains, “Police said Bundy chased
the man on foot in First Avenue Northeast and caught him as he was stuffing the purse
into a garbage can.” Soon after, Ted is given a job at the King
County Office of Law and Justice Planning to study why criminals commit more crimes
after they’ve been released from prison. What catches Ted’s attention is how police
departments from various jurisdictions often fail to work together. Criminals can be known to one police department,
so they just move cities to commit more crimes. It makes a life of crime that much easier. This, of course, is fabulous news for Ted. Now he has women's safety campaign experience,
some forensic knowledge, and he knows how police departments work. Could a murderer ask for more?!... Hmm…Yes. Month 2
Ted sometimes works for Ross Davis, a Republican politician. He’s in charge of looking at campaign costs
for Davis. The two become friends. Ross’s wife, Sarah, loves that Ted is so
good with her two young kids and how he always talks fondly about his beloved parents back
home. One day Ted goes over to their house to show
off his new ’68 Beetle. At one point, Ted has to get something from
the trunk, and as he’s rummaging through what looks like loads of junk, Ross notices
something peculiar. Ted has a pair of handcuffs in there. Ted’s currently in law school, but it’s
not what he expected. It’s a second-rate place full of people
he considers losers. None of them are smart, and they look like
they’ll never come to anything, unlike him, a budding politician. The problem is the majority of them are receiving
much better grades than Ted. This makes him furious. Someone will have to pay. One night Ted enters the dorm room of Lynda
Ann Healy. He bludgeons her to death in her sleep, then
dresses her in jeans and a white blouse and takes her body away. Why? Because Ted Bundy is not usually a “sadistic”
killer. He’s a “Power/Control” killer. He doesn’t want his victims to suffer in
front of him as he torments them. He wants power over them, and what more power
can you have than being the master of their bodies? He’s playing God. He likes to get the killing part done quickly,
preferably when they’re not looking at him. He sometimes stays with them as they decompose. He washes them and combs their hair. He revisits them until decomposition makes
the stench too much for him. He also sometimes takes heads for trophies. Month 3
The Evergreen State College is his next hunting ground. This victim is 19-year-old Donna Gail Manson. Manson is wearing a red, orange, and green
striped shirt. She is on her way to a jazz concert on campus. All we know is she doesn’t get there. Ted gets to her first. Instead of bashing her in her sleep, this
time, Ted uses his psychological manipulation routine on her to win her confidence. He’s been perfecting this, and soon, he’ll
think he’s the best there ever was. Month 4
The next victim is 18-year-old Susan Elaine Rancourt, who goes missing at Central Washington
State College. Ted has been skulking around this college
all week, trying to pick up quite a few girls. One of them was 21-year-old Kathleen Clara
D’Olivo. She sees Ted with his arm in a cast while
trying his darndest to carry some books. He politely asks her if she is on the way
to the library and can she please give him some much-needed assistance. Why not, she thinks. He is a well-dressed, well-spoken man in need. She is close enough to him for him to attack,
but in her good fortune, she never turns her back. Ted normally only strikes when backs are turned. He doesn’t even want to know their names. It’s hard to kill them when they have names. It humanizes them. Ted wants nameless bodies to have mastery
over, not real people with real lives. This breaks the fantasy. Ted purposefully drops some books, but again,
D’Olivo doesn’t turn her back. She helps him carry them over in the direction
of the library, trying to chat, although chatting is the last thing Ted wants to do. He’s thinking, “Just turn around, for
God’s sake.” When she sees he’s not actually heading
to the library, she parts ways with him. He calls her back and asks her if she can
help him get the books into his car, pointing towards a brown VW Beetle in the parking lot. D’Olivo might be kind, but she’s in no
mood to play mother to some guy. As she walks away again, Ted tries one last
thing. “I’ve dropped my keys,” he shouts. “If you could be so kind as just to help
me find them.” Now she’s suspicious. Like many people who’ve met Ted, her intuition
tells her something is not quite right about this guy. She agrees to help but keeps a yard away and
never moves in front of him. She then spots the keys that Ted just dropped
on purpose. He gives her that look as if to say, c’mon,
be a darling would you, and pick them up. I’ve got books in my hands. She just looks at him as if to say, no way. “Good luck with your arm,” she says and
walks away. That saves her life. She later explains all this to the cops. Her description of him will be vital down
the line. Jane Curtis is also unfortunate enough to
meet Ted Bundy just a few days later. She bumps into him at about 9 pm one evening
close to the library. This time Ted pretty much throws the books
in front of her and then apologizes, talking about his sling and how it’s hard to carry
things. She picks some of them up, and they walk toward
the library, Ted telling her that he’s really grateful. He gives her a strange look, and she notices
how dark his eyes are, as if the pupils are taking up all of the iris. He is actually looking at her, imagining what
her decapitated head would look like in his hands. “Skiing accident,” Ted says as she looks
at the splint on his fingers. This is more manipulation. Not only does he look vulnerable, but skiing
must mean he has money. It means he’s middle class. Another reason for her to trust him. But Curtis is having none of it. Not only does she think this guy is weird,
but that splint on his finger looks totally fake. So, when he asks her over to his car and for
her to kindly open the door, she refuses. He does it himself, and she sees the passenger
seat is missing. That’s Ted's way of making pushing unconscious
bodies into your car that much easier. Again, Curtis thinks this scene is too weird. When he asks her to get in the car with the
books, she just leaves, even as he’s moaning that his arm just started hurting a lot more. As she walks off into the distance, Ted spits
out curse words. He rips off the cast and throws it into the
back seat. Someone is going to pay for this. Month 6-10
Ted’s hardly been attending classes at all. He has other things on his mind. He’s been scouting victims. Staying up late at night, going out early
in the mornings looking for prey. Then he finds someone that fits perfectly
into his catalog of obsessions. Her name is Roberta Kathleen Parks. Like most of his victims, she’s pretty. She’s obviously educated since he knows
she’s a student at Oregon State University. He doesn’t know she’s a religious studies
student, but the smaller details have never bothered Ted. The day he takes her, her father has a heart
attack. She knows nothing of this bad news at the
time she unwittingly gets into Ted’s car. His victims so far have been from the Seattle
area, but this young woman is studying some 250 miles away. He knows that detectives tend to have what’s
called “linkage blindness”. Ted knows from his love of detective magazines
that murderers who kill again and again – there’s not yet the expression serial killer in the
police lexicon – tend to kill near home or at least in one area. Ted is branching out. While most killers lack the confidence to
kill in new areas, sometimes just because they don’t know the roads or escape routes,
Ted is supremely confident. He’s spreading his wings. He’s going to be a lust killer like none
other that came before him. He’s going to make it hard for the cops,
very hard, despite the fact numerous people have already given a fairly accurate description
of his appearance and have talked about a VW Beetle near crime scenes. Ted’s not been seeing much of Elizabeth,
not just because of the long-distance nature of the relationship - after all Ted loves
to drive – but he also seems preoccupied with something all the time. Even when they are sleeping together, he’ll
disappear for the weekend. Just the other day, he went out, not saying
where he was going, and then flew back into her room, explaining that he’d left his
crowbar behind. When she looked at one of his pockets, a surgical
glove was hanging out. Month 11
Ted makes his first big mistake. It involves a pair of handcuffs and a really
tough Mormon girl. An 18-year-old woman named Carol DaRonch parks
her Chevrolet Camaro in front of the Sears store at the Fashion Place Mall in Murry,
Utah. It’s evening, and outside is misty and cold. Notably, the town connects with another town
where a 17-year girl had gone missing three weeks prior. She’s at the mall to buy a birthday gift
for her cousin when she’s approached by a guy that identifies himself as Officer Roseland
of the Murry police. DaRonch comes from a very strict Mormon family,
and she’s always been told that you should respect authority. So, when Ted tells her there’s been a theft
in the car park, she doesn’t question it, even though Ted stinks of alcohol and is wearing
patent leather shoes not typically worn by cops. His hair is really greasy, too. This man looks nothing like an officer of
the law. But being the polite, respectful girl she
is, she follows him to her car, which he says is the one where the theft has taken place. When she sees this is not the case, he tells
her they need to go to the small substation, whereupon she finally has the courage to ask
for ID. Ted very quickly flashes his wallet, not giving
her time to see much. When they get to the substation, DaRonch immediately
thinks that the place looks more like a Laundromat. That’s because it is. Ted then says they will have to go to the
main station together, and that’s when she gets suspicious. Nonetheless, what if he is a cop and she refuses
to go? She’ll be the talk of the town for resisting
arrest. Her parents will be so ashamed. When they get to the police car, she finds
a tatty VW Beetle that has a large rip on the rear seat. The car is a mess. How could a cop be driving this, she thinks,
but the authority figure talking to her sounds so believable that she gets in. “Fasten your seatbelt,” says Ted, and
it seems the angels smile on DaRonch at that second because something in her head tells
her not to do that. He pulls over at the side of a school. She’s now scared out of her wits. This man is definitely not a cop. “What are you doing?” she says, telling
him this is not a police station. He grabs her hand, slipping on a pair of handcuffs. “What are you doing”!” she screams. Ted barely even looks at her. He says nothing. It’s a good job he only has one handcuff
on her because she’s able to claw at him like a wild animal. She scratches him so hard her fingernails
tear off his skin. “I’ll blow your head off,” Ted shouts,
and she just hits him more, kicking out, using her elbows. Out of nowhere, Ted pulls out a tire iron
and tries to bring it down on her head, only for her to grab it just in time. She then manages to get free from his grip
and pushes herself out of the car, landing in the street with just one shoe on. Screaming, thinking this man will soon be
on top of her, she runs up the road, only to hear not a panting man on her tail but
the car screeching into a U-turn. DaRonch keeps running. She sees headlights in the distance. The elderly couple Wilbur and Mary Walsh are,
as usual, driving at the recommended speed. It’s foggy outside, after all. Suddenly in the glare of their lights, they
see a girl waving her arms. As they slow almost to a halt, the girl pulls
open the door on Mary’s side. At first, they think this could be an attack,
but when they read the fright on the girl’s face, they know they’ve likely just saved
someone from something terrible. Trembling, crying, handcuffs still dangling
from her wrist, DaRonch jumps into the back of the car. They then make their way to the real Murray
police station. No survivor has been this close up to Ted
Bundy before and lived to tell the tale in such full detail. This matters, a lot. A couple of hours later
About 1,500 people are stuffed into an auditorium at Viewmont High School to watch the drama
club perform “The Redhead.” Just before it gets going, a good-looking
chap walks up to the drama teacher, Raelynne Shepard, in the hallway. He looks well-dressed in his patent leather
shoes. Something creeps her out, maybe the way he’s
looking at her breasts and neck. He almost looks like a hungry animal. The strange man asks her to go to the parking
lot to identify a car. She seems taken aback by the request. He tells her, “I’ve had my eye on you,
I know you have time to come outside and identify the car.” Creepily, he then gawps at her neck again
and tells her, “You have really nice hair.” A compliment from a good-looking dude on any
other occasion might be welcomed, but not from this man. She leaves, only to later see the guy in the
auditorium watching the last part of the play. He’s sitting right behind Dean and Belva
Kent, the parents of Debra, who’s also sitting close by. 16-year-old Katherine Ricks is also in the
audience. Raelynne doesn’t know it, but this creep
has asked her to go outside to the parking lot, too. At the intermission, Debra tells her parents
she’s going to pick up her brother at the ice-skating rink. “Don’t be too late getting back,” says
the mom, who will never speak to or see her daughter again. Outside, next to her car, police will find
a key, a very, very important key. Can you guess what it unlocks? After Kent’s disappearance becomes a police
matter, a local newspaper runs a story featuring a criminal profiler. The story talks about the “Utah Abductor,”
with the profiler saying this guy is likely a Jekyll and Hyde-type character, meaning
he can gain people’s trust as he is well-spoken and smart, the kind of guy you’d trust after
only meeting him once. He’s also an animal, says the profiler,
a brutal beast living behind a mask of normalcy. Now police in various parts of the Midwest
have data on file about a suspicious guy who drives a Volkswagen. They have plenty of accounts about a man with
his arm in a sling. What all these departments don’t have is
connectivity. One witness said a man had approached her
and, in what seemed like a British or Canadian accent, had introduced himself as Ted. Now they have a name, too. Five witnesses said they’d been approached
in Lake Sammamish State Park near Seattle just recently. This guy was wearing a tennis outfit – another
of Ted’s ploys to look affluent and harmless. They said he’d asked them for help to unload
a sailboat from his bronze-colored Volkswagen Beetle. He was struggling, his arm being in a sling
and all. Four of them refused, but one went with him
to his car, only to run away when she realized there was no boat. That same day, the pretty 23-year-old Janice
Ann Ott agreed to help him as she was sunbathing in her bikini in the park. Ted had said to her, “Excuse me, could you
help me move my sailboat? I can't do it by myself because I broke my
arm.” She replied, “Only if I get a ride in that
sailboat. I don't know how to sail.” Ted laughed and said no problem, he’ll teach
her. Not long after, Ted was in his apartment with
her doing what he loved best. Well, he took the head, not the rest of her. It’s hard to walk around with bodies. Heads might not afford complete gratification,
but they’re at least convenient. Later that same day, 19-year-old Denise Marie
Naslund was in a restroom. She was with two friends, feeling quite high
since they’d all taken valium. She came out of the restroom after splashing
her face with water when a polite, handsome man asked her for a favor. She agreed, and when she turned her back,
an iron bar came crashing down on her head. Eight weeks later, some hunters found her
body in the woods. This was massive news. A predator was abducting and killing pretty
women, almost all of them having a certain look and educational background. Sketches appeared in the newspapers again. Police knew this guy wore his arm in a cast. They had been told about the Beetle numerous
times. They now had the name Ted on file. The only problem was they were blind to the
fact that educated men who worked for politicians were capable of killing. Year 14 - month 2
Elizabeth has spoken to the cops, not to one department, but to King County and also Salt
Lake County Sheriff's Office. She still kind of loves Ted. They speak on the phone a lot. But after seeing those sketches and reading
about a VW Beetle, the fact the guy is likely handsome and well-spoken, well, she just put
two and two together. At one point, her colleague throws her a copy
of the Seattle Times, which contains the latest composite drawing. He says, “Don’t you think this looks like
someone you know?” Silence. He then asks, “Doesn’t your Ted have a
VW?” She also knows he always goes missing. She’s seen women’s panties in his drawers,
seen the crowbar. It just has to be him. She doesn’t see him much these days. When she does, it’s always weird. Just recently, she woke up in the middle of
the night, and he was sitting over her, staring at her. When she complained, she immediately apologized,
fearing she’d upset him. She will later tell people:
“When I felt his love, I was on top of the world; when I felt nothing from Ted, I felt
that I was nothing.” Month 3
Ted’s upset that the body of his winter victim in Colorado is now too decomposed for
what he considers his intimate time. He’d taken this young woman, Caryn Eileen
Campbell, and later hidden her body in the woods. Now that winter is coming to an end, he wants
a new body, a new love. So, he abducts 26-year-old Julie Cunningham
from near a tavern in Colorado. This ski instructor has just been through
a rough breakup when she bumps into Ted. After getting off the telephone with her mother,
she’s on her way to the bar for a few drinks. That’s when she sees a man hobbling down
the street carrying a pair of ski boots. She offers to help, and off they go toward
Ted’s car. When they get there, she turns her back. He hits her over the head with such force
that it almost kills her. He then shoves her in the trunk, drives about
90 miles, and stops the car. As he opens the trunk, she’s partly conscious,
looking at him with existential fear in her eyes. That’s when he strangles her. He just leaves her body and only returns a
few months later to bury it. In the next three months, he kills three more
women, 12, 15, and 25 years old. The victims are in Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. He’s still banking on that linkage blindness
to evade interest from the police. Cops have now heard the name Ted many times. One of his former colleagues at the Department
of Emergency Services has called them and explicitly said the guy they are looking for
is her friend, Ted. Month 7
Detectives in Washington state do something novel. They put names into a database, a computer
that has been a payroll machine in another life. The cops are getting in the region of 200
calls a day, so this computer helps. They put the name Ted into that database and
also add Volkswagen Beetle. Plus, they input all the names of the victims
and the victims’ friends in there. Thousands of names pop up, but one name is
on four different lists. That is Ted Bundy. He is literally top of the pile, but Ted isn’t
in Washington right now. He’s in Utah. Ted decides to get baptized into The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This makes him happy. He’s not such a bad guy. God loves him. He’s no saint, but not all bad, he thinks. Month 8
At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 16, 1975, Sgt. Robert A. Hayward spots a gray Volkswagen
pass by him as he’s sitting in his patrol car in a Salt Lake City suburb. He sees the same car a bit later, so he grows
suspicious. This looks like a prowler. He then goes after the car, only for it to
take off. They both run a stop sign when Hayward flashes
the spotlight at the car. The car attempts to get away and then pulls
over at a gas station. VW Beetles are not known for their speed. Hayward asks to see the man’s license. He reads under his breath:
“Theodore Robert Bundy, 565 1st Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah, DOB 11/24/46.” Ted tells Hayward he’s just been to see
the movie “The Towering Inferno.” Hayward peers inwards to see a crowbar and
other tools, which he thinks is strange, just because the guy doesn’t look like a mechanic
and who has drives around with tools so late. Then after some deputies arrive on the scene,
they spot what looks like some kind of crime kit. It’s Ted’s murder kit. They see a crowbar, some handcuffs, some rope,
an ice pick, some trash bags, a ski mask, and another mask made from pantyhose. Not the kind of stuff someone takes to the
movies, but at first, they only think this guy could be a burglar. Back at the police station, a large-bodied
detective Jerry Thompson starts to join the dots. He not only remembers very clearly the DaRonch
case, but he recalls a phone call Utah police had received from a woman named Elizabeth
Kloepfer. He is aware that whoever killed Debra Kent
could be the same man who tried to abduct DaRonch. At this point, Ted still thinks the cops are
stupid and that they just got lucky. He doesn’t think they’ll get him, though,
not for what he’s really done. Over 20 police agencies in five states are
looking for him, and yet, here he is, confident as anything, knowing the police are far from
seeing the big picture. After searching Ted’s house, they have no
choice but to let him go. They have nothing on him. It’s just a pity they didn’t find all
those photographs Ted has hidden, the ones of the bodies of his victims. His treasured trophy collection. Month 9
Now Ted is being monitored 24/7. Cops in Utah fly out to Seattle. They speak to Elizabeth face to face. She tells them she always did wonder why her
lover kept crutches and slings around the house when he wasn’t injured. She tells them he always has plenty of plaster
of Paris and that he definitely isn’t into modeling. She says he isn’t a surgeon and yet always
has surgical gloves around. He has big knives and meat cleavers, and yet
she can’t remember a time he cooked her dinner. As for the bags of women’s clothes, well,
Ted isn’t the charitable type. In fact, come to think of it, it was really
strange that she’d often wake up and find him staring at her neck. And why did he always get so angry when she
would tell him she wanted a haircut? Around this time, Ted sells his VW Beetle
to a local student. Now, police from all departments where Ted
has left a trail of blood get talking. This guy has to be a killer. They get hold of his car from the student
and impound it. They find women’s hair in there. Month 10
They arrest Ted again. Witnesses from all over come into the station,
including DaRonch, who has no problem picking this odious man out of a lineup. You don’t easily forget the face of the
man that wanted to murder you. As for the handcuffs she was wearing after
her escape, the key to them is the key police found next to the car of a missing girl, Debra
Kent. Her body has not been found. It won’t be until 2015. But the key is key to charging Ted with something
serious. They now have enough to at least charge him
with the DaRonch kidnapping. It’s a start. Still, they can’t pin the bigger crimes
on him and have no choice but to let him go when his parents pay his $15,000 bail. Strangely, now he spends most of his time
at either his parents’ house or Elizabeth’s house. Psycho Ted has no problem convincing her this
is all a big mix-up. Month 11
The cops are certain they have their man, a maniac who’s been on a killing spree throughout
several states. Detectives meet in Aspen, at what will later
be called the Aspen Summit. Year 15 – month 2
At trial, after DaRonch testifies, Ted is found guilty of her kidnapping. Month 5
Ted is told he’ll be spending the next 15 years of his life in the Utah State Prison
for the kidnapping case. He’s laughing inside. Month 10
Ted is caught in the prison yard in the midst of an escape. When guards pull him out of the bush he’s
hiding behind, they find what they later call an escape kit. He has somehow gotten his hands on a road
map, some airline schedules, and even a social security card. Ted still has people believing in his innocence,
including Elizabeth, who he’s brainwashed again. The same month, police have enough to charge
him with one of the murders. They know he killed more people, a lot more,
but they have to find proof. Year 16 – month 7
Seemingly, you just can’t hold a bad man down. Since Ted is representing himself, by law,
when he defends himself, he doesn’t have to wear shackles and handcuffs. This, he knows, will be of considerable help
soon. He’s been getting a lot of support so far. He’s written to his Republican friends saying
how he’s the victim of a setup or at least police incompetence. He says he’s scared for his life. Inmates are hardly nice to men that hurt women. His posh friends create the “Ted Bundy Defense
Fund” and raise about $4,000. As his trial approaches, he puts sticky notes
in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”. He means to show the court what police oppression
can do to a man. He will later admit that he was so proud of
himself for such trickery. In jail, Ted eats only healthy food. He has a plan. He’s working out and getting strong. He’s jumping from the top bunk to practice
landing well. He’s gotten his hands on maps, and he’s
memorizing every single street and mountain road in Aspen. He’s back in court on June 7. He already knows that a window in the courthouse
will be open. He knows he can safely jump from a second-story
window. He’s just had a haircut, so he looks quite
different. He’s hidden a red bandana in his pocket. He’s also attached some matches and some
vitamin pills to a piece of string and hidden them on his body. Under his brown corduroys, he has white tennis
shorts. On top, he has a t-shirt hidden under some
long johns, and over them is a turtleneck sweater. He’s also wearing hiking socks under his
boots. He’s ready for a long walk in the mountains. Even though he looks much bulkier than usual,
the guards taking him to the courthouse don’t seem to notice. One of the officers remarks about the lack
of handcuffs, to which another officer says confidently, “He’s not going to try to
get away from us.” During recess, Ted heads to the library. When he sees his chance, he jumps out of the
open window. Minutes later, a woman walks into the courthouse
and, with a shocked look on her face, tells an officer, “A man just jumped out of the
second-floor window and ran away.” Ted is running as fast as his legs can take
him, tearing off the top layer of his clothes. He jumps over a fence, runs down an alleyway
through Main Street, passed a restaurant where two guys give him funny looks, and after running
down another street, he finds a gorge where the Roaring Fork River runs through Aspen. A lot of people see him. His heart is beating out of his chest. But he’s free, and he’s staying free. When he gets to the foot of a mountain, he
starts climbing, and he gets so far up that when he looks around, he’s got a great view
of Aspen. Bliss. The Seattle Times publishes a story the next
day: “Theodore R. Bundy, former Seattleite charged
with murder in Colorado, and a suspect in murders of young women in Washington state
and Utah, leaped to freedom from the second floor of the Pitkin County courthouse in Aspen,
Colo., today. An extensive manhunt began. About 100 officers and others were hunting
him in nearby mountains and throughout the town.” Ted is high up in the mountains, loving the
views. He feels so content. He keeps telling himself, “I’m not a fugitive. I’m not Ted Bundy.” It’s so peaceful up here. He wonders about his mother and Elizabeth
but mostly just enjoys the view, ignorant of the fact that the tracking dogs sent to
find him have picked up the trail of a female hiker going in another direction. Six days later, hungry and cold and with a
sprained ankle, he heads back down into town, and after stealing a car near Aspen Golf Course,
he’s picked up again. Man, what a great experience that was while
it lasted, he thinks. Month 11
One of Ted’s former colleagues believes in his innocence. She’s madly in love with him. Her name is Carol Anne Boone. At this point, she is smuggling money in for
Ted, which he’ll need later. He’s on a strict diet. He’s already lost about one-fifth of his
total body weight. He’s skinny as anything, which will help
him squeeze between bars for his next escape. Thanks to Boone, he has cash and a hacksaw
blade. Ted also has the floor plans of the jail,
so he knows there’s a crawl space above his cell and he knows from there he can get
into the chief jailer’s room. Month 12
He does just that during the Christmas break after getting into the roof. He gets into the chief jailer’s civilian
clothes and takes off once more. Before fleeing, he placed a bunch of books
under the sheets, so the guards might think he’s fast asleep. This time he’s not looking for natural beauty. He wants blood. Year 16 – month 1
After stealing cars and hitchhiking, Ted makes it all the way to Florida. He gets a room close to the Florida State
University campus, which we might call a very bad case of putting the cat among the pigeons. For a short time, he gets by stealing wallets
and shoplifting, but he knows this won’t work long term. What he wants now is one final dance with
darkness. He’s furious at everything, including his
$ 80-a-month room, which is filthy and situated in an apartment block he considers is for
low-lifes. This is the same man who, to get money, breaks
into a 1971 Toyota to steal a new Panasonic TV, a Sony transistor radio, and a Smith-Corona
typewriter. He then gets into a 1976 Mustang and takes
a golf umbrella and a notebook. Why? He can’t really sell them. He’s just addicted to stealing. He always has been. For sustenance, he shoplifts jars of peanut
butter, cans of sardines, and other small items he can fit in his pockets. It’s shortly after he steals a chicken and
potato salad from the deli part of a supermarket that he’s seen close to the sorority house. As three female students are fast asleep in
their beds at the sorority house, Ted sneaks into their rooms one by one. He beats them wildly over the head, knocking
them unconscious with a hammer. He rips at one girl with his teeth. Some things are unmentionable, but even for
Ted, this is overkill. These girls ended up looking like a ravenous
bear had attacked them. Two of the three victims survive, but with
horrific life-changing injuries. He walks eight blocks and attacks another
woman, who also barely survives. Later that night, Ted walks back to his apartment. There, as he’s standing outside on some
cement steps, two other residents bump into him. Later in court they testify, “He was in
complete silence. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there.” That’s Ted, relaxed and satiated after murder. Ted will explain in time to an interviewer
what it was like, becoming this wild beast of a man. He said, “The more an actor acts in a role,
the better he becomes at it, the more he is apt to feel comfortable in it, to be able
to do things spontaneously.” Month 2
Ted kills Kimberly Dianne Leach after abducting her from Lake City Junior High School in Florida. One minute she’d told a teacher in her homeroom
she was just going to get a purse and the next she was gone. She’d fallen for that old Ted Bundy confidence
trick. For this, her throat is slit with a sharp
knife. A few days later, out on the prowl looking
for victims or people to steal from, Ted’s driving a stolen car when he’s pulled over. This isn’t long after he’s run from a
Holiday Inn after failing to pay for his breakfast with stolen credit cards. He’d also been thrown out of a bar after
trying to take money from people’s handbags. The bartender spotted him, and soon Ted was
being chased away by bouncers. There was literally nowhere for him to go
now. He’s drunk out of his mind. He knows this is the end of his time on the
run. The cop who pulls him over questions him outside
the car, during which time Ted kicks him in the legs and runs as the officer fires warning
shots into the air. He doesn’t get far and is soon tackled to
the ground and thrown into the back of the police car. This Florida cop has no idea who he has in
his car. He is not aware that he is currently carrying
one of the USA’s most vile creatures. Ted knows the jig is up. That’s why he says to the officer, “I
wish you had killed me.” Month 5
Ted writes a letter to a local newspaper. It says, “I have killed no one. Outside of a few minor thefts, I have done
nothing wrong…What the media reports now is completely one-sided, nothing but accusation
and insinuation — spoon-fed by investigative authorities.” Month 8
The evidence is stacking up. More bodies are given the Ted Bundy signature. Ted calls for his lawyer. From his cell, he says, “I want you to explore
the possibility of a plea bargain.” Year 17
The newspapers write about Ted Bundy in a way they certainly wouldn’t write about
other killers, or even drug dealers or street hustlers. The tone in the articles feels almost exculpatory. The New York Times writes a story with the
headline, “ALL‐AMERICAN BOY ON TRIAL.” The article says, “He seemed so relaxed
in the courtroom, which some onlookers explained was natural for a young man with two years’
experience in law school.” The general gist is, how could such a nice
young man in a suit with a college education do such bad things? It will be decades until academic papers and
books start talking about how many psychopaths live among us in positions of power. Year 18
The Miami Herald runs the headline, “NATION’S EYES ON BUNDY.” The story starts:
“Theodore Robert Bundy, a native of Vermont, a resident of Washington, a convict of Utah,
an escapee of Colorado, a prisoner of Florida, is now perhaps the most famous criminal defendant
in America.” During the trial in Florida, Ted marries Boone. He’d read in some law book that, despite
his precarious position, this is actually possible during a trial. This marriage takes place after witnesses
have said things that make the jury’s skin crawl. One survivor explains, “I had five skull
fractures and multiple contusions in my head. The eighth nerve was damaged, and I lost the
hearing of my left ear and my equilibrium. And I had a broken jaw, and my left shoulder
was pulled out of joint.” Boone doesn’t believe a word of it, or at
least she thinks that her Ted wouldn’t do that. Year 19
Outside the court, protestors hold placards. One reads, “Ted Should Be Dead.” Another says, “Juice Ted’s Caboose.” The court hears that Ted was a traumatized
youth. His aunt Julia, now a grown woman, explains
how he used to put those butchers’ knives in her blankets as she slept at night. Psychiatrists talked about his depressed grandmother
and violent grandfather. This is what created Ted’s bipolarity, they
say. Ted is handed the death penalty. It’s the third time this has been handed
down to him. But this will be the last one. Ted is now a celebrity killer, despite being
the most wretched human on Earth that has caused unimaginable pain to so many families. The courtroom is always filled with women
who have dressed and cut their hair in the style of Ted’s preferred victims. These women are being called Bundy groupies. Even after the heinous things Ted has done,
the judge seems to take pity on him, speaking in a way he certainly would not speak to a
poor thief or consumer of heroin. Ted is also still fooling people, continuing
to portray an image of innocence, as is evident when the judge tells him: “It’s a tragedy for this course to see
such a total waste of humanity, You’re a bright young man. You’d have made a good lawyer. Take care of yourself. I don’t have any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Take care.” Year 20
Ted’s daughter Rose is born. That comes as some surprise to everyone. Some people believe Ted and Carol Boone sneaked
off to have sex either when the guard wasn’t looking or when the guard was away. Others believe Ted had squirted his life juice
into a container and passed it to Carol, after which she artificially inseminated herself
in the bathroom. Year 23
Agents from the FBI’s fairly new Behavioral Science Unit visit Ted numerous times. They want to know what makes a serial killer. One time, Ted tells an agent, “The fisherman
drowns going underwater. But I can take you there without you drowning. If I trust you. And if I decide.” Speaking of killing, Ted explains:
“It becomes possession. They are part of you. After a while, when you plan these, that person
becomes a part of you, and you two are forever one…You feel the last bit of breath leaving
their body…You’re looking into their eyes and basically, a person in that situation
is God! You then possess them, and they shall forever
be a part of you.” Little by little, he tells them of other victims,
ones he decapitated, heads he kept as trophies, bodies he caressed and slept with after shampooing
their hair and putting lipstick on them. Year 27
Up to this point, Ted has confessed to 30 murders, but he’s certainly killed more
than that. Maybe even 100, but likely closer to 50. He’s now finished talking to reporters,
to psychologists, to his adoring fans. He’s admitted what he used to do with those
putrefying bodies, perhaps the hardest thing for him to admit because it’s so disgusting. Last day
His head is now shaven. He’s refused to eat the last meal of steak
and eggs that’s been handed to him. At age 42, right before Ted takes his final
breaths in the electric chair, he shows again how warped and out of touch he is when in
his final words he says, “I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends.” The executioner sends 2,000 volts of current
flowing through Ted’s copper-lined skullcap. His fists clench as his body jolts. After a minute, a paramedic walks over to
check his pulse. The silence is deafening. A few minutes later, Dr. Frank Kilgo walks
up to Ted’s still body and takes the hood from the head. As the witnesses watch still in shock, some
angry, some relieved, the doctor says, “He’s dead.” Now you need to hear about the ones that got
away in “How These Sneaky Serial Killers Finally Got Caught.” Or, have a look at “Who is Zodiac Killer,
Why Was He Never Found and Other Important Things Him or Her (Compilation).” 7
