Was Ted Bundy Born To Kill? | Our History

Ted Bundy would savagely snuff out the lives of America's brightest and most beautiful it was almost as if he was on a mission of the dispatchers are at Sarge we've got two dead and to die a charismatic killer who fooled even his closest friends well I just spent with the most dangerous man in in the western states never had a clue and ran rings around law enforcement he was a master Predator it was as well planned as military action he's become the most infamous serial killer in American history but was Ted Bundy Born To Kill [Music] Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell in 1946 at the Elizabeth Lund home for unwed mothers in Vermont 22 years old at the time his mother Louise faced the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock to a mysterious absent father in order to protect his mother her parents felt that they could not acknowledge the three months that she had spent in the home for unwed mothers in Vermont so he was raised believing that his grandparents were his parents his mother was his older sister and in his life that had to have been very confusing to him he didn't know who he was when Ted was full the mother he thought of as his sister took him to Tacoma Washington to start a new life there she married a military cook Johnny Bundy who adopted Ted as his own it was in this environment of half-truths and uncertainty the Ted Bundy grew up his high school days he was in a crowd where everybody else was a big wheel but he never was we do know that he was terribly teased he was considered not a nerd although he was a somewhat handsome young child but he didn't fit his basic personality if there was such a thing is shy afraid to take chances of probably afraid to give away his inner thoughts in adolescence Bundy finally discovered for himself the truth about his parentage everything he'd previously been told to believe was in fact a lie in those circumstances it would be natural to distrust it would be natural to find it very difficult to form lasting attachments to those people who had lied to him the young Bundy began to get in trouble with the law committing a number of petty crimes and struggling to hold down a job [Music] but in 1966 he enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle and suddenly appeared to Blossom he was considered Charming he was considered well-dressed he was considered educated and at that time that was the only thing that people really paid much attention to Ted was popular at the University of Washington his professors thought he was great that he was brilliant research has shown that the prettier people get the better grades and better placements and the not so pretty people don't do quite so well and that I think came to the point where people because he was such a handsome young man basically overlooked any type of emptiness that was the core of him and Rule now a best-selling author was a volunteer at the crisis clinic a suicide helpline when she met the attractive charismatic young Bundy Ted and I would work as a team Ted was wonderful on the phone he was sounded caring he was interested in people I can I can still picture him hunched over the desk with a phone to his head and many times we saved lives which seems very ironic to me now but I got the the sweet Ted and who would walk me out to my car at two in the morning when my shift was over and he'd say Anne please lock the doors I don't want anything bad to happen to you on the way home well I just been locked up with probably the most dangerous man in in the western states never had a clue Dan lazares a young law student shared the same boarding house as the seemingly bright and gifted Bundy Monday that I knew there were things about him that were were special I would want to say Charisma I remember thinking what a handsome man he was and probably wistfully myself wishing that I were so I remember him being well spoken intellectual um unassuming arrogant but unassuming in the sense of I would say disarming while Ted was at the University he met the woman of his dreams and he told me she's everything I want she was beautiful she was rich she was popular and he was he was really in love with her but after more than a Year's romance Bundy's dream girl began having second thoughts she realized that Ted wasn't going anyplace he didn't have any real he talked about politics and he talked about being a lawyer but he really wasn't going anyplace he wasn't carrying out things and um she broke off with him and that just devastated him that was the Catalyst I always thought Bundy took that rejection very badly and then went out of his way to find the way of worrying her back Bundy threw himself into the dynamic world of Law and politics gaining a reputation as a rising star of the Republican Party all the while he refused to give up on his dream girl early 1974 the now seemingly High achieving Bundy had won her back so completely they began talking of marriage then abruptly and unexpectedly he broke off all contact foreign on the 1st of February 1974 beautiful and musically gifted 21 year old student Linda Anne Healy had been due to record her daily ski report for the local radio station she never arrived nor did she turn up for classes that day when she finally failed to show for a family meal her housemates began to worry the police were called and what they discovered was puzzling she disappeared her bed was made but when they pulled her bed back there was enough blood staining the mattress and the bedding that someone had to either be dead or seriously injured she had been in her nightgown because there was blood around the back of her neck gum he'd taken that off and dressed her she was just gone over the next six months the Seattle Police wrestled with the mystifying disappearance of the 21 year old then one after the other more young female college students began Vanishing 19 year old Donna Mason was last seen heading to a concert she never got there eighteen-year-old Susan Rancourt disappeared as she walked across Ellensburg Washington State College campus at night 22 year old Roberta Parks vanished from Oregon State University 22 year old Brenda ball disappeared as she left the flame Tavern in a district of Seattle [Music] and eighteen-year-old George Ann Hawkins who was only days away from completing her first year of studies mysteriously vanished as she walked between sorority houses after visiting fellow students all she had to do was come down four houses between that and and her house she never got down each victim had Center parted long dark hair each was slim attractive and bright each resembled Bundy's dream girl [Music] generally is a lot of similarity among victims of serial killers serial killers in general have a type it was almost as if Bundy was trying to gain revenge over this particular woman a particular class a particular type of woman it was almost as if he was on a mission six young women had simply disappeared leaving behind only a question how had they been abducted with seemingly no struggle no clues and no witnesses as Bundy's reign of terror continued the chilling answer would be revealed foreign foreign [Music] 1974 in and around Washington State six bright attractive young women had been abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy the girls had simply disappeared leaving law enforcement confused and without a clear suspect how was Bundy kidnapping his victims unnoticed and without a struggle [Music] he knew he had to create access to a suitable victim but how would he go about being able to convince this woman to come with him in the car to walk with them some way away from where she might be socializing with her friends the mystery was about to be revealed Lake Sammamish State Park was a popular hangout for Seattle's young men and women [Music] on July the 14th 1974 teenager Dawn Sanders was one of many young girls heading to the lake well it was a nice sunny warm Sunday afternoon we always like to go down to the park as much as possible and my girlfriend and I typical you know we're 14 15 years old headed down to the park to see what who was there and who what kind of trouble we could get into basically that Sunday in July it was really hot and the state park was always crowded on hot weekends they would line up in their cars trying to get one of the few parking spots at the state park and it's a very large Park it's one of the busiest in the state a friend of ours was approached by a young man in a cast he asked her to help him get something off the roof of his car the girl was one of several to be approached by a man with what looked like a broken arm [Music] she was 17 beautiful shoulder length brown hair brown eyes she didn't go with them anywhere it didn't go any further than that it's likely the man was Bundy wearing a fake plaster cast [Music] Witnesses saw the same approach made to an attractive lone 23 year old Janice was sitting on a towel by herself in a good-looking man came up to her and asked her if she would help get his canoe off his car he said it's just up in the parking lot she said Okay and she went with him that's the last time she was seen the nature of Janice alt's disappearance would provide an insight into how Bundy had abducted at least seven young women without so far drawing attention to himself what Bundy did seemed to me to be incredibly clever he would wear casts on his arm he'd pretend to be injured in some way and ask for help now of course what this is doing is simply creating access once he has that access he uses the opportunity that that access gives him to facilitate the kill but the extraordinary events of the hot July day would not end with The Disappearance of Janice Ott only hours later as 40 000 people reveled in the sunshine Bundy was back and roaming freely amongst them a little later in the afternoon Denise nasland was there with her boyfriend and another couple and she had to go to the restroom and it's kind of a concrete little box setting off by itself she went never came back Bundy had abducted two young women from the same busy location on the same day in broad daylight the psychological gain that he got from the first murder wasn't enough to sustain him he needed more serial killing stars as a consequence of a fantasy the fantasy becomes refined over time so one ultimately wasn't enough the fantasy demanded that two were necessary foreign ters and dogs the police began a massive search of some 400 Acres around Lake Sammamish Park not a trace was found girls had simply disappeared I recall her boyfriend who'd been at the park with her that day I remember him being there while during the search and leaning on his car and and just crying just sobbing that it was you know fearing the worst but Bundy's audacity had betrayed him the park was so busy that day that it was easy for them to put together some profiles that quickly identified this person that they identified as Ted people at the park heard him introduce himself to to genocide and saw her leave with him within that week they had a composite sketch of the man that they believed who turned out to be Ted Bundy [Music] when I look back on that day now I don't remember it as as innocent as it was [Applause] despite having a name and description for the suspect no one who knew him would connect the charismatic Young Ted Bundy with the man who'd now abducted at least eight women [Music] my friend and myself commented when when it came up that summer that that there was a clue of somebody by the name of Ted that had a Volkswagen and we commented and joked that you know maybe it's Ted because he's never here but of course that that was really something we didn't consider because of his characteristics you would never imagine that he would be involved in something like that if serial killers came with horns on their heads we could avoid them unfortunately serial killers are often very Charming very seducing so we shouldn't imagine somehow serial killers are Hollywood Devils because actually it's the banality of evil that we're dealing with in serial killers by mid-september 1974 Bundy was on the move headed to Salt Lake City where he'd enrolled at the University of Utah to study law he went to Utah and girls started disappearing in Salt Lake City suburbs around there much in the same way that girls had been disappearing in in Washington State over the next three months four young girls were discovered sexually assaulted and murdered Bundy was seemingly Unstoppable it was as well planned as as in our military action every time he selected a murder to do he had procedures that he followed he had certain tools that he brought with him he had everything laid out completely and he thought through all this stuff he did very well at getting away and avoiding being arrested and avoiding law enforcement he was a master predator but in November 1974 Bundy made his first major mistake he attempted to kidnap a young woman named named Carol durage in Salt Lake City uh alleged to her that he was a police officer that there had been attempt to steal her car and when they couldn't get into a back door of a mall where he said was the police substation he took her over to his Volkswagen and attempted to drive away with her she figured something was happening when he tried to handcuff her jumped out of the car of the moving vehicle was able to escape Carol de Ranch had escaped but her attacker was still on the loose over the next seven months six more young women were abducted in Utah and neighboring Colorado but on August the 16th Bundy's luck finally ran out but after the Utah State Police Officer saw him prowling around a neighborhood in the Volkswagen stopped him they charged him with possession of burglary tools were able to use his photograph in a photographic lineup in Carol Duran she was able to pick him out Ted Bundy had been caught he was charged and convicted of the kidnapping of Carol de Ranch and sentenced to between 1 and 15 years but Ted Bundy was about to pull off an extraordinary feat that would see him free again to kill at will [Music] in 1977 Ted Bundy had been convicted for the attempted kidnapping of Carol de Ranch in Utah police were now convinced Bundy was a serial killer and moved him to Colorado to face charges for the abduction and murder of 24 year old Karen Campbell in Snowmass Bundy was to be tried in Aspen if convicted he would face the rest of his life Behind Bars but Ted Bundy had other plans he petitioned the court to allow him to defend himself and by doing so required that they would take him out of the setting of as a normal inmate and put him into say the law library or places that weren't as secure as what his cell might be on June 7 1977 during a recess in the case Bundy asked to be allowed access to legal research material [Music] he was acting as over Council he was working in the law library in the courthouse he jumped out the window and fled [Music] Bundy had outwitted his captors and was free he blended into the crowds on the busy Aspen streets and headed for the surrounding mountains Bundy would interpret that as his ability to overcome the criminal justice system he would see himself as cleverer than all those police officers all those detectives who allowed him access to the library so that he could do research for his upcoming court case for the next eight days Bundy hid in the wilderness Sheltering in disused cabins and stealing food from campers while embarrassed law enforcement frantically searched for him there is a self-centeredness about serial killers where they see themselves as the most clever as the most talented the most intelligent because the whole world revolves around them after days in the wild Bundy audaciously walked back into Aspen and stole a car but his luck was about to run out he had approached police roadblock and was was observed they went back when you turned went back and chased him down placed him under arrest Bundy was returned to Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs Colorado security was raised and authorities were confident they had the prisoners safely interred again Bundy had other ideas he was always thinking you had to keep that in mind when you dealt with them on December the 30th 1977 Ted Bundy made his move he lost weight he was able to move Assad a neon light fixture slid up through the ceiling went over to the the ceiling of a closet into the the jailer's home and dropped in there by the time his jailers discovered he was gone Bundy was already a thousand miles away in Chicago after spending New Year's Eve in a bar in Ann Arbor Michigan Bundy took a bus to Tallahassee in Florida with a new identity he rented a room in the Oaks lodging house in the heart of the Florida State University student area after 18 months of imprisonment Bundy's scheming had paid off he'd made fools of the law and was finally free but for Ted Bundy it wasn't enough serial killers loved being at the heart of the drama that's unfolding around them when Bundy moved to Florida he no longer had the status that he was able to follow vicariously in the print or broadcast media as he would have been able to do in Utah and Colorado or Washington he was a nobody again rather than a somebody and that's what Bundy ultimately wanted to be so he has to do something again to gain the attention that he craves so he can demonstrate his gross form of power over the culture that he abhores in the early hours of January the 14th 1978 just one week after arriving in Tallahassee Ted Bundy struck again [Music] about three o'clock in the morning a young woman named ninaire was returning to her sorority house she entered the downstairs she saw a man run out of the house carrying what appeared to be a stick in his hand she went upstairs and you know woke the the sorority president when Karen Chandler walked out of her room he turned Karen and said did you see and realize that the Karen was bleeding Jim Sewell was a sergeant and assistant to the chief of police when his phone rang that night on the dispatch recalled and Sarge we've got two dead and two dying Sewell was the first plane closed officer on the scene when I got to the house upstairs I went into Bowman's room Margaret Bowman had been strangled and was dead upon review by our officers a night on Stocking was tied tightly around Margaret Bowman's neck she'd been clubbed with a brunch so hard that her skull had been shattered it was everything you think about a beating victim what what she would say across the hall another victim was discovered Lisa Levy she had also been been beaten and appeared to be surroundled twenty-year-old Lisa Levy was in bed dead lying on her side the covers pulled up over her shoulders she'd been sexually assaulted with an object the attack had been Savage Lisa had also been bitten on the on the breast and on the buttocks two more girls Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner had also been bludgeoned they only just survived the brutal attack all that that the built up feelings burst out in in a shark frenzy in that sorority house that was a shark Frenzy the serial murderer doesn't have boundaries so it's as if a trigger is set off and they become not angry they become rageful to the point that when you see the viciousness of the killings that they commit you you're taken aback you think well how could this mild-mannered person do such horrendous things to another person a human being [Music] it had been just two weeks since Bundy had escaped from Colorado almost three weeks after the kai Omega attacks a white Dodge van was reported stolen from the media Department of the Florida State University four days later it would resurface [Music] 100 miles away in Lake City [Applause] twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach was attending Junior High School about to start a PE lesson she realized she'd left her bag in her homeroom she was given permission to return to the other building to get it [Music] she did not return that morning a witness saw a young girl close to tears being pushed into the passenger seat of a white van by a scowling man he assumed him to be an angry parent that same morning another witness saw a white van swerving almost out of control on the highway the angry driver shouting towards the passenger seat just days later the white van that had been stolen from the University in Tallahassee was recovered very very driven and driven some 500 or so miles and we found signs of trauma in there there were branches and leaves and and hair and fiber evidence uh price tag with a 26 dollar figure on it we think that he went by Green Acres Sporting Goods store and bought a very large knife which was a hunting knife and and we believe that he used that when he killed Kimberly it would be two months before police officers discovered Kimberly's 12 year old body dumped in an unused pig pen in woods 25 miles from her home at 1 30 a.m on the 15th of February in Pensacola Florida a man was spotted in his VW Bug acting suspiciously an individual driving a Volkswagen was kind of lawyering behind some stores over in Pensacola was observed by police officer Ben Pensacola tried to stop him the guy ran first in the car and then fled the vehicle and the officer chased him down there was a there was an altercation a shot was fired missed the person but he was taken in custody initially he told us that his name was Ken Meisner then later on he told us his name was Theodore Robert Bundy those that had known the charismatic Young Ted were dumbstruck when Ted Bundy was arrested I was absolutely flabbergasted just I remember my stomach dropping out Ted Bundy was in custody again but his capture would spell just the beginning of an extraordinary 11-year circus foreign 1979 Florida Ted Bundy had abducted and murdered dozens of young women across five different states and escaped from capture twice he would stand trial Bundy would be tried twice first for the brutal attacks on the students in the kai Omega sorority house in Tallahassee then for the kidnap and murder of twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach in Lake City on the 25th of June Ted Bundy took the stand s the former law student against the advice of his Council had decided to defend himself serial killers are desperate to be at the heart of the story [Music] defending yourself clearly is going to allow you to draw a great deal of attention to yourself and Bundy of course had this fantasy that he was a very good law student and could have been a good lawyer this is all part of the the fact that serial killers often operate on a surface level they don't have the depth to commit to a period of studying for a law degree so it's all surface it's all froth it's all fantasy but by engaging in that Fantasy by defending himself he's at the heart of things say you knew Theodore Robert Bundy on August 16 1975. what we have to prove in a criminal case of the United States is in essence guilt to to Beyond into the exclusion of A Reasonable Doubt he thought he could create this serious doubt and that he would be found not guilty he was very sure of himself he asked very good questions but he didn't learn the first lesson in law school the first lesson you learned in law school is never represent yourself [Music] Bundy chose to cross-examine vulnerable Witnesses and victims a tactic that forever damaged His Image in the eyes of the jury [Music] in the adversarial world of the courtroom his lack of knowledge his inability to defend himself because he's guilty is going to be laid bare so this is really one of the the miscalculations it seems to me that Bundy makes replace you don't shake your finger at me young man during the trial two events would seal his fate Carol de Ranch positively identified Bundy as the man who tried to kidnap her from the shopping mall in Utah most damning of all would be the bite marks recovered from the body of Lisa Levy Anne rule attended the trial she still found it hard to believe the friend she'd once worked side by side with on a suicide helpline could possibly be a Savage serial killer the afternoon testimony came from Dr Richard silveron who is a forensic dentist he testified that there had bitten two of the chi omegas and left teeth marks in the breasts and buttocks of one of the Dead girls our teeth are almost as good at identifying us as our fingerprints and Dr suvarna was explaining where all these marks and holiday match exactly with kids he had very unusual teeth and he said there's no question but Ted Bundy bit this girl either before or after he killed him the court was over and Ted was walking out of the room and he was always handcuffed manacled and he was carrying his his files as he usually did and he looked at me and he went like I didn't do it I have no I have no part of this but I knew he did do it I went down the hall and threw up because I had to accept it at that point Theodore Robert Bundy was found guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt Ted Bundy's fate is now in the hands of Judge Edward Cowart the judge will announce this afternoon whether he will send the former law student to the electric chair yesterday the jury heard Bundy's mother asked that her son be spared but the state reminded the jury of the victims how nice it would have been if Lisa Lee and Marvin Bowman's mother could have could have been and asked for Mercy for them Bundy was sentenced to death by electrocution but the conviction would be just the beginning of years of schemes and appeals as bundes celebrity grew on death row when he would talk to you you'd have one face that would be looking at you but you always felt like there was a game going on foreign law enforcement had lists of missing girls that they and their families wanted information on but all the while Bundy continued to plead his innocence the serial murderer doesn't necessarily want anything more than to demonstrate that he is the most valuable individual at that point in time getting them all wound up getting them to the point where they're frenetic about getting him to confess to his crimes but all the time he is in total control of his world and that's basically what it is total control of the world only when facing almost certain execution after 11 years on death row did Bundy finally start to confess he lied to his family about it his mother and his wife at that time completely thought he was innocent and in the last really in the last couple days he told them the truth and had committed these murders there wasn't a big humanitarian effort on his part he wanted something out of it and I'm sure it was probably if it only took prolong his life for another few weeks or whatever it was that he was able to manage foreign [Music] just days before he was to be executed Ted Bundy began admitting the Hideous murders of at least 36 young girls across America he had dumped many of the bodies in the mountains or in woods and he had often returned to them to commit necrophilia he had sometimes brought the heads home laughs Ted Bundy was executed by electrocution on the 24th of January 1989. but was this killer of innocent young women created by nature or nurture was he damaged as a child by the lie that his mother was his sister was his latter rejection by his dream girl the Catalyst for his crimes or was Ted Bundy simply Born To Kill I've never wanted to believe in The Bad Seed that a child is doomed from the beginning but if a child with the tendency to violence is born into an abusive household then you have the perfect soil to grow a sadistic sociopath he wasn't crazy he was not crazy he knew what he was doing he covered his tracks but he he was addicted there seems to be some indication that even when he was a child he had no real close emotional attachment to anyone the basic personality is there when the child is born it's acted upon by the environment so was he born to kill there had to be something in this child's genetic makeup that said all you need is this certain environmental trigger and then you'll be able to start your fate I've absolutely no doubt that Ted Bundy had a set of circumstances in his childhood which were very unusual and potentially incredibly damaging Ted Bundy was not born to be a serial killer it was a choice that he made as he grew up and felt that there was no other way of resolving some of his underlying psychological problems Bundy himself gave corrections officer Paul Decker chilling inside into the motives for his crimes he was resting and kind of relaxed at that point and I said something to him about Ted why did you you know what would you do all this for he says I liked it it was just there was no discussion about oh it was a mental problem that drove me to it or any kind of a thing like that he just enjoyed it that it's a terrifying thought [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Our History

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Keywords: our history, documentary, world history documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history, historical, history documentary, ted bundy, crime documentary, crime, ted bundy documentary

Id: NOS4f7aV__Q

Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 04 2023