Ted Bundy: The Poster Boy of
Serial Killers
by David Lohr
Mention
the term "serial killer" and Ted Bundy's name is frequently the first to pop
into mind. Before he was executed in 1989, he admitted to murdering 40 young
women in almost a dozen states during his four-year reign of terror in the
mid-'70s. In the process he became one of the most feared and prolific serial
killers in U.S. history. But what sets Bundy apart is how different he was from
the stereotype of the homicidal madman: He was so mainstream that the Washington
State Republican Party hired him, so cunning that he twice escaped from jail, so
dashing a figure that women sent marriage proposals to him on death row.
What caused Ted Bundy to snap and murder
countless young women and girls as young as 12 years old for no apparent reason?
The devil is in the details. Many of his early victims bore a physical
resemblance to Bundy's first girlfriend, who was tall and slender and wore her
long brown hair with a part in the middle.
Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November
24, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont. Bundy’s mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, was
unmarried and just 22-years-old at the time of his birth. Bundy’s father,
Lloyd Marshall, apparently wanted nothing to do with him, so he and his mother
moved to Philadelphia to live with her parents. In an unusual twist, Eleanor’s
parents, out of fear that their daughter would be criticized for having a
bastard child, raised Bundy as their own son, leaving him to believe that his
mother was his older sister.
In 1950, Eleanor and Bundy moved to Tacoma,
Wash., to live with relatives. Once there, Eleanor legally changed their names.
Ted Cowell became Theodore Robert Nelson, and Eleanor became Louise Cowell. A
year after their move, Eleanor married a military cook by the name of Johnnie
Culpepper Bundy. From then on Ted Cowell became known as Ted Bundy.
As time went by Louise and Johnnie had four other children of their own, whom
Bundy spent much of his time looking after. Ted never seemed to form a bond with
his stepfather. He had his own ideas of how things should have been and
considered himself a Cowell rather than a Bundy. In the book
The
Only Living Witness, by Stephen G. Michaud, Bundy’s adolescent years
are described as unhappy ones. As a child, Bundy was shy and often teased by
bullies.
Bundy graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1965, and by way of a
scholarship began attending the University of Puget Sound. He took courses in
psychology and Asian studies, but after attending just two semesters, he
transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle.
In 1967, Bundy met a beautiful young woman named
Stephanie Brooks. The two hit it off quickly and Bundy was soon head over heals
in love. It was the first time in his life that he ever felt close to a woman
and also, according to the book
The
Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, the first time he engaged in any form of
sexual activity. During the fall of 1968, Bundy once again transferred,
enrolling in Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Shortly thereafter,
Stephanie graduated from the University of Washington and abruptly ended their
relationship. She later explained that she felt like Bundy had no real direction
or future goals and that she had not been not ready to commit. Bundy was
devastated at loosing his first love and was unable to concentrate on anything.
Eventually his grades suffered so badly that he decided to drop out of college.
As Bundy tried to get his life back on track, he
began traveling around the country. He eventually decided to visit his birth
town in Vermont, where he was dealt yet another damaging blow while looking up
the record of his birth: He discovered that his sister was actually his mother,
and the woman who had raised him as her son was actually his grandmother.
During the fall of 1969, Bundy re-entered the
University of Washington and excelled in all of his classes. He was a man on a
mission, hoping to win Stephanie back. Nonetheless, she still had no interest in
rekindling their previous romance. Undaunted, Bundy worked harder and became
increasingly involved in local politics, working on and off for various
campaigns. In his spare time he worked the phones at the Seattle Crisis Clinic,
where he soon met and befriended Ann Rule, the woman who years later would write
of Bundy’s life and crimes in her best-selling book, The Stranger Beside Me.
It was also during this time that Bundy met Meg Anders, a divorcee who worked as
a secretary. The two began dating and Meg was soon deeply in love. Bundy treated
her well and took on the role of a father figure for her young daughter.
Regardless, Bundy was not yet ready to settle down and unbeknownst to her
continued to keep in contact with Stephanie through letters and phone calls.
Bundy spent the next two years working on
political campaigns and applying to various law schools. At one point during
this time he was commended by the Seattle Police as a "hero" for
saving the life of a 3-year-old boy whom he rescued from drowning. With his life
on track and his future looking up, Bundy graduated from the University of
Washington in the summer of 1973, and was quickly accepted into the University
of Utah Law School. However, whether it was because of his ongoing relationship
with Meg, or his job with the Washington State Republican Party, he chose not to
attend until the following school year.
During one of Bundy’s business trips for the
Republican Party, he decided to meet up with Stephanie, to reminisce about old
times. The new Bundy profoundly impressed Stephanie and sparks began to fly once
again. The two began spending as much time together as possible and even talked
of marriage. Meg had no idea Bundy was secretly meeting Stephanie, all the while
he continued to profess his love to her. Stephanie felt that Bundy was now the
man of her dreams and began looking forward to their future together. While
neither woman knew about the other, they were also unaware of the transformation
Bundy was undergoing. For unknown reasons, he began focusing his energy into a
murderous downward spiral, which began just three days after New Years. Each
victim was methodically chosen and each evoked Stephanie's slender build and
hairstyle.
On January 4, 1974, 18-year-old Joni Lentz became
Bundy’s first victim. Joni shared a large house in Seattle with several
roommates. No one suspected anything was wrong when she failed to come down for
breakfast. As the day drew on, her friends grew concerned and decided to check
on her. Joni appeared to be asleep when her roommates walked in, but upon closer
inspection they were horrified when they noticed that she was lying in a pool of
blood. When they pulled back the covers, the seriousness of the situation was
amplified to that of pure terror – a bed rod had been broken off and rammed
deep into her vagina. Joni appeared to still be breathing, so her roommates
quickly called paramedics and local police. Joni was in a comatose state when
the EMT’s arrived, but she had amazingly survived the attack.
Bundy’s next known victim was Lynda Ann Healy,
a 21-year-old weather forecaster and law student at Seattle's University of
Washington Law School. On Jan. 31, 1974, one of Lynda’s roommates received a
call from Lynda’s boss saying Lynda had not shown up for work. The roommate
went into Lynda’s basement bedroom and saw that her bed was made and her
bicycle was sitting in the corner. As day turned to night and no one heard from
her, her worried parents called the police and asked them to look into their
daughter’s disappearance. As part of their investigation the police performed
a routine search of Lynda’s room. When one of the officers decided to pull
back her bedcovers, he was shocked to discover that the pillowcase and sheets
were soaked in blood. Another officer soon found Lynda’s nightgown, the
neckline of which was crusted with dried blood. The investigators were unable to
find any evidence pointing to a suspect. As local law enforcement kept busy
searching for Lynda, Bundy kept busy going about his everyday life with little
concern that he would be discovered.
In February 1974, without warning, and for no
apparent reason, Bundy dumped Stephanie Brooks, just as she had him years
earlier. Stephanie never saw or heard from Bundy again.
Over the course of the next few months, seven
more women mysteriously vanished within the states of Utah, Oregon, and
Washington. Each case was remarkably similar: each of the victim’s was a
slender Caucasian female, wore her hair parted in the middle, and had
disappeared in the evening hours. As the investigation of the disappearances
intensified, investigators learned from several witnesses that a handsome man,
driving a VW bug, and wearing a cast on either his arm or leg, had been seen
during many of the incidents. Several women who had been approached by him
recalled him mentioning his name was Ted.
No one knew what happened to the girls until two
bodies were found in Washington in August of 1974, just four miles from Lake
Sammamish. It appeared to investigators that the victims, Denise Naslund and
Janice Ott, had been murdered during a crazed sexual frenzy. There was little
evidence at the scene, but the similarities between the Washington and Oregon
murders quickly caught the attention of investigators in Utah. The three states
began working together and soon agreed that one man was committing the crimes.
Investigators got their first break on Nov. 8, 1974, when a man driving a VW bug
attempted to kidnap 18-year-old Carol DaRonch from a mall in Salt Lake City. The
young woman managed to escape and was able to give investigators a description
of the man and his vehicle. As investigators in Salt Lake City looked for their
suspect, authorities in Bountiful, Utah, were notified that a 17-year-old girl,
Debby Kent, had disappeared from Viewmont High School. A witness later reported
seeing a tan Volkswagen bug speed away from the high school parking lot.
The killings stopped for four months before
resuming in Colorado where at least four women mysteriously vanished. Almost a
month later, one of those missing women was found just miles from where she had
disappeared. Following an autopsy, it was discovered that she had been sexually
assaulted and murdered with a blunt instrument. Back In Washington, the Taylor
Mountains were becoming well known as the burial site for the killer, as the
mountain slowly revealed the remains of several women, one of which was later
identified as 21-year-old Lynda Ann Healy.
On Aug. 16, 1975, investigators finally got the
break they were hoping for when a highway patrolman in Granger, Utah, noticed an
unfamiliar man in a VW bug. When the officer turned on his spotlight to look at
the plate, the driver sped away. A chase ensued, but after just a few blocks the
VW pulled off to the side of the road. When the officer asked the driver for
identification, he was given a driver's license with the name Theodore Robert
Bundy. Suspecting the man was up to no good, the officer searched the vehicle,
discovering a pair of handcuffs, a length of rope, a crowbar, a ski mask, an ice
pick, and a nylon stocking. Bundy was placed under arrest for suspicion of
burglary.
It did not take long for investigators to notice
the physical similarities between Bundy and the suspect wanted in the attempted
kidnapping of Carol DaRonch. However, they knew that they would need more
evidence to support their suspicions. Shortly after Bundy’s arrest, Carol
DaRonch and several other witnesses were able to pick Bundy out of a police line
up. Although he denied having any knowledge of the attempted kidnapping or
murders, police were convinced they had their man and launched an extensive
investigation into his background.
Over the course of the next several weeks,
several witnesses from Lake Sammamish Park came forward and identified Bundy as
the man named Ted that they had seen walking around the area in an arm or leg
cast. During a subsequent search of Bundy’s apartment, investigators
discovered plaster of Paris, a substance used in the making of casts. It was
also learned that Bundy was very familiar with the Taylor Mountains, where
several bodies of victims had been found and that he had used his credit card to
purchase gas in the towns where some of the victims had initially disappeared.
The evidence against Bundy was mounting up, but he continued to claim his
innocence.
As Bundy went to trial on February 23, 1976, for
the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, investigators scrambled to link him
to the murders. According to the book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann
Rule, the 29-year-old Bundy, always the polite and handsome charmer, made a
great impression on the Utah courtroom. He was confident, unnerved, and
apparently highly offended by the charges against him. While he denied ever
meeting DaRonch, he was unable to provide a solid alibi of his whereabouts the
day of the attack. Even though Bundy was confident he would beat the charges,
the judge found him guilty of aggravated kidnapping, sentencing him to one to 15
years in prison.
On Oct. 22, 1976, Colorado police charged Bundy
with the murder of 23-year-old Caryn Campbell. Her raped and battered body had
been found on Feb. 17, 1975, and investigators felt they had sufficient evidence
to link him to the crime. During April of 1977, Bundy was extradited to Colorado
and placed in the Garfield County Jail in Colorado, to await trial for Campbell’s
murder, which was scheduled for Nov. 14, 1977. Faced with prison time already,
Bundy had no desire to sit through another trial and began planning his escape.
Having been given special privileges to use the Pitkin County Courthouse library
in Aspen, Bundy waited until no one was looking and jumped out a second story
window on June 7, 1977. He was recaptured eight days later while trying to leave
town in a stolen car.
Almost seven months later, on December 30, 1977,
Bundy would escape again. In the intervening months he had eaten very little
food and had shed 30 pounds, enough to allow him to shimmy through a small light
fixture hole in the ceiling of his cell at the Garfield County Jail. Once inside
the ceiling, Bundy made his way through a crawl space and into the closet of his
jailer's apartment. He waited until all was quiet and then casually walked out
the front door. It took jailers nearly 15 hours to realize he was gone. After
making his way to Chicago, Bundy boarded a plane for Florida. Investigators were
stumped and had no idea where he had gone.
By January of 1978, Bundy had acquired an
apartment near Florida State University. He supported himself by committing
petty thefts. He went by the alias Chris Hagen, and grew a beard in order to
change his appearance. According to the book The Only Living Witness by
Stephen G. Michaud, Bundy was not content with his newfound freedom and was
unable to control his murderous impulses. On the night of Saturday Jan. 14,
1978, he entered the Chi Omega House and attacked four sleeping coeds one at a
time by sneaking into each victim's room and knocking the victim unconscious.
Two of the young women suffered such severe injuries that they died as a
result, while the other two survived the brutal attack. The pathologist who
performed the autopsies discovered that one of the coeds had been beaten with a
club, raped, and strangled. He also discovered bite marks on her buttocks and
nipples. In addition, she had been sexually assaulted with a metal hair spray
can. The autopsy on the other victim showed that she had also been beaten with a
club and strangled.
Bundy waited less than a month before striking
again. On Feb. 9, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach was reported missing by her
parents. Even though police were quick to launch an extensive search, they were
unable to locate her.
Just six days after Kimberly’s disappearance, a
Pensacola police officer, patrolling a residential area, noticed a man who
seemed to be casing the neighborhood in an orange VW bug. The officer ran a
routine check on the plates and discovered that the plates had been stolen. The
officer quickly turned on his lights and moved in. The suspect sped away but
after a brief chase, pulled off to the side of the road. The officer ordered the
driver out of the car and instructed him to lie down on the ground. As the
officer attempted to apply handcuffs, a brief scuffle ensued and the suspect
attempted to run off. The officer fired one shot at the suspect and the suspect
fell to the ground. As the officer approached, the suspect jumped up and
attacked him. Another brief scuffle took place, but this time the officer was
able to subdue the man and handcuff him.
Once the Pensacola police were able to identify
the suspect as Theodore Robert Bundy, Florida investigators immediately ordered
impressions of his teeth, to compare with bite marks on one of the Chi Omega
victims. The match was indisputable and would seal Bundy's fate once and for
all.
On July 23, 1980, Bundy was convicted on two
counts of murder and sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair. Subsequently,
a third conviction and death sentence was also obtained in the case of
12-year-old Kimberly Leach, whose body had been discovered just weeks after his
arrest.
Following Bundy's arrest, authorities in Seattle
were convinced that Bundy’s first victim was 15-year-old Kathy Devine, who had
disappeared on November 25, 1973, and whose mutilated corpse was found less than
a month later. While Bundy freely confessed to every murder prior to his death,
he always maintained his innocence in that particular case. Regardless,
authorities labeled the girl a "Bundy victim" and gave it little more
thought. However, on March 8, 2002, a man named William E. Cosden, Jr., 55, was
arrested for the murder after DNA evidence, which had been preserved from
Devine's body, linked him to her murder. Cosden has subsequently been tried and
found guilty of the crime.
After nearly 10 years of appeals, Bundy was
executed on Jan. 24, 1989. During his final interview, he confessed to a total
of 40 murders. One of Bundy’s most famous quotes regarding his crimes can be
found in Dr. James Dobson’s book, Life on the Edge: "We serial
killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will
be more of your children dead tomorrow."
Following Bundy's execution, in an unusual twist,
his remains were cremated at the request of his family and spread over the
mountains in Washington State, where the bodies of several of his victims had
been discovered.
Additional Reading:
The
Only Living Witness, by Stephen G. Michaud.
The
Stranger Beside Me, by Ann Rule.
Life
on the Edge, by Dr. James Dobson.
