Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy

Warning: Ted Bundy’s crimes were horrific, but I did my best to make them as vivid as possible in order for readers to understand his true nature. There are graphic descriptions in the following piece.

Nearly everyone who knew Ted Bundy saw him as handsome, ambitious, and confident, and he was. Unfortunately, he also happened to be a manic depressive and sociopath. Many find it difficult to believe those around Bundy didn’t see something wrong with him. Surely a man who murdered anywhere from 29 to 100 people would be unable to hide his sinister intentions from the rest of the world, but by putting on a charming and successful facade, Bundy was able to fool anyone he wanted to.

Bundy was born to Eleanor Louise Cowell (whom I will refer to as Louise to avoid confusion) as Theodore Robert Cowell in 1946 at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont. Though his birth certificate has a “Lloyd Marshall” as his father, Cowell claims she was actually seduced by a war veteran named “Jack Worthington”. To avoid any questions, his maternal parents, Simon and Eleanor Cowell raised him. Bundy grew up believing his mother was actually his older sister. For the first few years of his life, Bundy and his mother lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1950, Bundy and Louis, whom he still believed was his sister, moved to live with relatives in Tacoma, Washington. The next year, in 1951, Bundy’s mother met Johnny Culpepper Bundy. The two were married and Johnny Bundy adopted Ted, legally changing his last name to "Bundy". Johnny and Louise went on to have other children, but Johnny did his best to include Ted in father-son activities. Despite his best efforts, Ted didn’t seem to be interested in connecting to his stepfather.

Bundy was a good student throughout his schooling, an active boy scout, and very involved with his local Methodist church. Despite appearing to be active socially, he had a very hard time interacting with others. He didn’t understand how to naturally behave with others. After graduating high school, Bundy earned a scholarship to the University of Puget Sound, but after two semesters, he transferred to Seattle’s University of Washington (UW). As a part of his psychology curriculum, Bundy volunteered at Seattle's Suicide Hot Line. Ann Rule, a true crime writer and former Seattle policewomen, met Bundy during this time. She writes that after he discovered Louise was actually his mother and not his sister on a trip to Vermont, he became a very “focused and dominant” person. After coming back to school after his break, Bundy became very involved in politics. In 1968, he managed the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's Presidential campaign and attended the 1968 Republican convention in Miami, Florida as a Rockefeller supporter. Bundy became an honors student and was well liked by his professors. In 1969, he started dating Elizabeth Kloepfer, a divorced secretary with a daughter, who fell deeply in love with him. They would continue dating for more than six years, until he went to prison for kidnapping in 1976.

Bundy graduated in 1972 from UW with a degree in psychology. Soon afterward, he again went to work for the state Republican Party.

No one is quite sure when and where Bundy claimed his first victim. Ann Marie Burr, an eight-year-old girl from Tacoma, vanished from her home in 1961, when Bundy was 14 years old, though Bundy always denied killing her. Bundy's earliest known, identified murders were committed in 1974, when he was 27. Just after midnight one day in early January of 1974, Bundy entered the bedroom of an 18-year-old UW student and dancer named Joni Lenz. He promptly bludgeoned her with a metal rod and sexually assaulted her with the same rod. Lenz was found the next morning in a coma. Despite surviving the attack, she suffered permanent brain damage. Next, Bundy attacked another UW student named Lynda Ann Healy early one morning in February, 1974. He knocked her unconscious, dressed her in jeans and a shirt, wrapped her in a sheet, and carried her out. In March of 1974, in Olympia, Bundy kidnapped and murdered Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at The Evergreen State College. Then, in April, Susan Rancourt disappeared from the campus of Central Washington State College in Ellensburg. Next was Kathy Parks, last seen on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, in May of 1974. Then, Brenda Ball was never seen again after leaving The Flame Tavern in Burien on June. Again, in June, Bundy followed Georgeann Hawkins, a UW Kappa Alpha Theta sorority sister. Bundy's Washington killing spree culminated on July 14, 1974, with the daytime abduction of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund from Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah. Nearly eight people came to the police to describe a handsome man in the area claiming he was named “Ted” who was asking girls to help him with his boat. One witness claimed to see Ott follow “Ted”. She was not seen alive, again. Naslund would disappear hours later without a trace. The police put up fliers with a description of the suspect and his car. Ann Rule and one of Bundy’s psychology professors would suggest him to the police, but they didn’t pay any special attention to the law student. The fragmented remains of both Ott and Naslund were found in September of 1974 just off an interstate about one mile from where they were taken. In March of the next year, the bones of Healy, Rancourt, Parks and Ball were found on Taylor Mountain just east of Issaquah. Bundy also claims Donna Manson was dumped here, but there was no trace of her found.

In the fall of 1974, Bundy enrolled in law school at the University of Utah, but he did poorly and would eventually drop out within a year, but in October of 1974, he resumed killing.  Nancy Wilcox disappeared from Holladay, Utah, in early October and was last seen riding in a Volkswagen Beetle like many of the Washington victims. About two weeks later, Bundy raped, sodomized, and strangled Melissa Smith, who was the 17-year-old daughter of the local police chief. Next was Laura Aime, also 17, who disappeared when she left a Halloween party in Lehi, Utah, in October of 1947. She was found naked, beaten and strangled corpse nearly a month later by hikers on the banks of a river in American Fork Canyon. In Murray, Utah, in November of 1974, Carol DaRonch was approached by Bundy in a mall. He claimed that someone was trying to break into her car. She believed that he was a police officer, so she followed him to see if anything had been stolen. After assuring Bundy everything was there, DaRonch was asked to come with him to the police department and file a complaint. She rode in his car with him but didn’t put on her seatbelt. While driving, Bundy suddenly pulled off to the side of the road and attempted to handcuff her, but in his haste, he put both cuffs on the same wrist. She jumped from his car, narrowly escaping with her life. About an hour later, a man showed up Viewmont High School in Bountiful, Utah, where the drama club was putting on a play. The man asked a student and the drama teacher to come with him outside to identify a car. Both declined, but the drama teacher saw him again at the end of the play. He was breathing hard, his hair was messed up, and his shirt was untucked. Later, it would become clear that Debby Kent was missing. Kent, a 17-year-old Viewmont High student, left the play at intermission to go and pick up her brother, and was never seen again. Investigators found a key in the parking lot that unlocked the handcuffs on Carol DaRonch’s wrist.

After this, while still attending law school, Bundy shifted his crimes to Colorado. In January of 1975, Caryn Campbell disappeared from the Wildwood Inn at Snowmass, Colorado, where she had been vacationing with her fiancé and his children. Her body was found the next month in February.  Next, was Vail ski instructor Julie Cunningham disappeared in March and Denise Oliverson in Grand Junction in April. Meanwhile, back in Washington, investigators were using computers to cross-check different likely lists of suspects against each other. Theodore Bundy was one of the 25 suspects that turned up and he was put under a “To Be Investigative” file, but Bundy was arrested for failure in August of 1975, in Salt Lake City, for failure to stop for a police officer. The police searched his car and found several items they thought were burglary tools. A Utah detective, Jerry Thompson, connected Bundy and his Volkswagen to DaRonch’s kidnapping and the missing girls. The police went on to search his apartment, then the police brought Bundy in for a lineup before DaRonch and the Bountiful witnesses. Bundy was convicted of DaRonch's kidnapping on March 1, 1976, following a week-long trial, and was sentenced to 15 years in Utah State Prison. On top of that, Bundy was facing murder charges in Colorado, so he was sent there to stand trial. In June of 1977, in preparation for the Caryn Campbell murder trial, Bundy was taken to the Pitkin County courthouse in Aspen. During a court recess, he went to the courthouse's library, where he jumped out of the building from a second-story window and escaped. After his escape, Bundy made his way toward Aspen Mountain. He made it all the way to the top of Aspen Mountain without being detected, where he rested for two days in an abandoned hunting cabin. He intended to take one of two trails that led down the mountain toward Crested Butte, but missed both of them. A few days later, Bundy stole a car and drove back into Aspen. He was pulled over by an officer for having on low headlights while weaving in and out of traffic, but Bundy was recognized and promptly taken back to the station. Bunday was then taken to the jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. While there, another prisoner gave him a blade which he used to slowly cut away at the metal plate above his head and access the crawl space above. It was decided on December 23, 1977, that the Caryn Campbell murder trial would start in January of 1978, and the venue was changed Colorado Springs. Bundy realized that he had to make his escape before he was transferred out of the Glenwood Springs jail. Less than one week later, Bundy slipped into the crawlspace, dropped into a linen closet a few feet away, and walked out the door. He then stole another car, but it broke down in the mountains. Another driver saw him broken down, so he gave Bundy a ride to Vail. From there, Bundy caught a bus to Denver, then a flight to Chicago. By the time, his cell was found empty, Bundy was long gone.

Bundy proceeded to jump around from city to city. He went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, then Atlanta, Georgia, then Tallahassee, Florida. There, he rented a room at a boarding house under the alias of "Chris Hagen" and committed numerous petty crimes. After one week in Tallahassee, his insignificant crimes changed back to come out in his more homicidal urges. Bundy entered the Florida State University Chi Omega sorority house and killed two sleeping women, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman. Bundy bludgeoned and strangled both Levy and Bowman, but he also sexually assaulted Levy. He also bludgeoned two other Chi Omegas, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner. After leaving the Chi Omega house, Bundy broke into another home a few blocks away, clubbing and severely injuring Florida State University student Cheryl Thomas. Then, in February of 1978, Bundy traveled to Lake City, Florida. In Lake City, he abducted, raped, and murdered a 12-year-old named Kimberly Leach, then threw her body under a small pig shed. A few days later, Bundy stole another Volkswagen Beetle and headed west across Florida’s panhandle, but his journey was cut short. In the early morning hours, Bundy was stopped by yet another police officer and the plates came up as stolen. He was taken into custody and gave the name “Ken Misner”, but the department made a fingerprint identification the next day. He was transported to Tallahassee and was charged with his Florida murders. Bundy was convicted on all accounts and was sentenced to death. Bundy married his former coworker, Carole Ann Boone. Following numerous conjugal visits between Bundy and his new wife, Boone gave birth to a daughter in October 1982, but Boone and her daughter moved out of the state and changed their names. FBI profiler Robert K. Ressler visited Bundy while he was being housed in Starke prison, but Ressler described Bundy as manipulative and uncooperative. He would only refer to himself in the third-person and speak only in hypotheticals. It amazed Ressler that the media didn’t see him for what he was: an animal. But William Hagmaier, a special agent of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit also visited Bundy. The pair grew close and Bundy confided deeply in Hagmaier, going as far as to call the special agent his best friend. Bundy went on to confess details of the crimes that were either unknown or unconfirmed. One of the most bone-chilling pieces of information he would give while in custody was that he frequently returned to dumpsites to “be with the corpses”, even going as far as to have sex with them while they decomposed. The serial killer would do his best to use this to his advantage; he would give small details of his crimes and confess to more murders, claiming that he could give more if he was given more time, but the ploy failed and Bundy was killed on schedule. Late one day in January of 1989, Bundy was executed in the electric chair. His last words were, “I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends."

It seems as though Ted Bundy was born to kill. The thought is scary considering he hid his dark fantasies so well for years. While his crimes were tragic and terrible, psychologists and law enforcement alike learned a lot about minds like his.

Bibliography

Blanco, Juan Ignacio. "Ted Bundy | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers." Ted Bundy | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers. CrimeLibrary.com, Web. 25 Nov. 2016.

Truesdell, Jeff. "Who Was Ted Bundy? A Look at the Serial Killer’s Trail Of Terror." PEOPLE.com. Time Inc., 12 May 2016. Web. 25 Nov. 2016.