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“ | You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God! | „ |
~ Ted Bundy |
Theodore "Ted" Robert Cowell Bundy (November 24th, 1946 - January 24th, 1989) was an American serial killer, burglar, and rapist. Being one of America's most notorious serial-killers and perhaps one of history's most well-known killers, he was active between 1974 to 1978.
He was believed to have committed anywhere up to 100 murders, of which he confessed to at least 30. His preferred method of execution for his victims was bludgeoning and strangulation. He was also a homophobe, a misogynist and necrophile: traits that only served to make him more reviled in the eyes of the public.
History
Many of Bundy's young female victims regarded him as handsome and charismatic, traits that he exploited to win their trust. He would typically approach them in public places, feigning injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them in secluded locations. He sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes, grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses until putrefaction and destruction by wild animals made any further interactions impossible. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept some of the severed heads as mementos in his apartment. On a few occasions, he broke into dwellings at night and bludgeoned his victims as they sleep.
In 1975, Bundy was jailed for the first time when he was incarcerated in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in several states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults in Florida, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in 1978.
Ted Bundy was eventually convicted of multiple murders and was executed in 1989 by the electric chair - however his legacy continued long after his death, as his name became associated with evil and depravity (like many serial-killers of history). Bundy was a manodepressive psychopath with co-morbid antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
Ann Rule, who wrote the book The Stranger Beside Me about Bundy, described him as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death, and even after." He once called himself "the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet." Attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, wrote he was "the very definition of heartless evil."
Ted Bundy's last interview with Dr. James Dobson before his execution.
Victims
Washington
Lonnie Trumbull; Seattle (6/23/66)
Kathy Devine; Seattle (11/25/73)
Lynda Ann Healy; University of Washington (2/1/74)
Donna Manson; Evergreen St. College, Olympia (3/12/74)
Susan Rancourt; Central Washington St. College, Ellensburg (4/17/74)
Brenda Baker; Seattle (5/25/74)
Brenda Ball; Burien (6/1/74)
Georgeann Hawkins; University of Washington (6/11/74)
Janice Ott; Lake Sammamish St. Park (7/14/74)
Denise Naslund; Lake Sammamish St. Park (7/14/74)
Oregon
Kathy Parks; Oregon St. (5/6/74)
Utah
Nancy Wilcox; (10/2/74)
Melissa Smith; Midvale (10/18/74)
Laura Aimee; Lehi (10/31/74)
Debbie Kent; Bountiful (11/8/74)
Susan Curtis; Brigham Young University (6/28/75)
Nancy Baird; Layton (7/4/75)
Debbie Smith; Salt Lake City (2/?/76)
Colorado
Caryn Campbell; Aspen (1/12/75)
Julie Cunningham; Vail (3/15/75)
Denise Oliverson; Grand Junction (4/6/75)
Melanie Cooley; Nederland (4/15/75)
Shelley Robertson; Golden (7/1/75)
Idaho
Lynette Culver; Pocatello (5/6/75)
Jane Doe; Boise (9/21/74)
Florida
Lisa Levy; Tallahassee (1/15/78)
Margaret Bowman; Tallahassee (1/15/74)
Kimberly Ann Leach; Lake City (2/9/78)
Portrayal in media
- The Deliberate Stranger (1986), played by Mark Harmon.
- This was the only film/TV movie about Ted made when he was still alive.
- Ted Bundy (2002), played by Michael Reilly Burke.
- Article on villains wiki on Ted Bundy.
- The Stranger Beside Me (2003), played by Billy Campbell.
- A South Park episode Hell on Earth 2006; features Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy as a Three Stooges gag trying to get a cake for Satan for his Halloween party.
- The Riverman (2004), played by Cary Elwes.
- The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008), played by James Marsters.
- Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), played by Zac Efron.
- Article on villains wiki on Ted Bundy.
Gallery
Images
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Bundy's true color during the Kimberly Leach trial.
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Ted and Elizabeth Kloepfer
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1977 ..
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Ted with Molly Kloepfer (part 1)
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Ted with Molly Kloepfer (part 2)
Videos
Trivia
- Before he was executed, he helped authorities catch Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
- Prior to beginning his murders, Bundy attended law school worked on various political campaigns, including at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign in 1968.
- Bundy's 1968 Volkswagen Beetle was displayed in the lobby of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C. until its closure in 2015. It is presently on exhibit at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
- According to Bundy's Florida Defense Team, Bundy was offered to plead guilty by the Florida prosecutors. Had Bundy taken the deal, he wouldn't have been executed and instead given a firm 75-year prison sentence.