Noted
ladies' man and
serial killer, born 11/24/46, who brutally raped and murdered several young women and girls during the 1970s. Bundy was a very
good looking and
respectable guy, who was on the fast track in his local
Republican Party. Prison
psychologists didn't find any of
the usual stuff wrong with him when they profiled him, just an unusual amount of
dependence on women.
If anything can be used to explain Bundy's killing spree, it might be that he found out at the age of 23 that the woman the thought was his older sister was actually his mother, and the people he thought were his parents were actually his grandparents.
Bundy had one major love of his life, a high-class California girl named Stephanie Brooks. During college, she dumped him because he was kind of an outcast, and he didn't fit in with her lifestyle. Ted's revenge was pretty cold. In 1973, he hooked up with her on a trip for the GOP, wooed her back to loving him again, then severed all contact with her in early 1974. She was lucky. By that time, he had already started killing.
The first known victim of Bundy was Kathy Devine, a 15-year old hitchhiker, whose body was found in a park in Washington state. She had been strangled, sodomized, and had her throat cut. During most of 1974, Several young women in Washington, Oregon, and Utah were to meet a similar fate. Police were able to draw up a composite sketch of the killer that people close to Bundy recognized and reported, but because of his respectable status in the community, detectives were more inclined to follow other leads and tips, which were pouring in. Only in August of 1976 was Bundy first caught by the police after speeding away when a curious police officer drove up to his unfamiliar car.
Finding a crowbar, wires, rope, handcuffs and an ice pick in his beetle, offciers detained him on robbery charges. When the handcuffs were opened by a key found at an earlier Bundy crime scene, detectives started to probe deeper. A young woman came forward and identified Bundy as her attempted kidnapper one year ago (Bundy had posed as a police officer). The evidence from this case was enough to send Bundy to prison, but only for a very short time. In 1977, he was sent to a Colorado jail to await trial for a murder recently pinned on him. Bundy made a botched escape attempt, then another successful attempt seven months later in December. He fled to Tallahassee, Florida.
In January, Ted attacked and raped a number of Chi Omega sorority girls in their sleep at their house at FSU, killing three. Bundy would continue his work through February, but he was caught after a suspicious 14-year old reported that a 'fireman' in plain clothes asked her to get into an unmarked van. His last victim was only 12 years old.
This time, Ted didn't get away. Bundy was executed in Florida in 1989. He admitted to killing 28 women, but many believe the number is higher; one source puts the number at 36.
The above is a highly abridged version of the resources at www.crimelibrary.com
One anecdote told by Bundy, not in the above: He walked into a post office, past the wanted posters, where his name was on the top of the stack. He introduced himself to the security guard there as 'Ted Bundy', and asked where he might get something good to eat. The guard gave him directions to a restaurant, and Bundy left, untouched.