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Ted Bundy was an American serial killer who committed acts of murder, kidnapping, rape, and necrophilia against many young women and girls during the 1970s. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978, although the total cases are unknown.
His charismatic personality attracts women, which he exploits in a stylish way, and he wins the women’s trust before overpowering them. Bundy referred to himself as “the only Ph.D. in serial murder”. He could also be classified as a “power/control” or “anger-excitation” killer type.
Ted Bundy was born on November 24, 1946, to an unwed mother, Louise Cowell, age twenty-two, in Burlington, Vermont.
Ted Bundy’s mother was single and had become pregnant in Philadelphia. The story of who the father was remained obscure.
He was a trim man about six feet tall with wavy brown hair, penetrating eyes, and handsome, articulate, and even features.
Fatherless Bundy spent his early childhood living in the home of his maternal grandfather, believing that his biological mother was his sister. So, he grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister.
He grew up well-liked and did well in school. But he had disturbing behavior. He was an intelligent, happy, and popular child with many friends and a good academic record.
Once he was standing with his napping aunt with butcher knives and smiling as she awoke. All the knives were pointed at her. Bundy was ashamed of his family’s lower-class status, embarrassed to be seen in the family’s working-class Rambler automobile, and had an image of being adopted by TV cowboy actor Roy Rogers.
Bundy was threatened by the birth of four other children after his mother married John. Bundy’s playmates remember that he had a short temper.
His stepfather had a short temper but never abused Ted or his mother Ted Bundy’s brothers and sisters apparently had an excellent relationship with their elder half-brother.
Initially, he dropped out of college and felt awkward around wealthy peers when he attended college.
I was fairly introverted and awkward in my teenage years. His explosive temper was a profound form of masturbation and night-prowling peeping.
Ted Bundy graduated from the University of Washington, went partway through law school, and was very lively in both politics and community activities in Seattle.
In 1966, Ted Bundy met his first lover, Stephanie, at the University of Washington. She was a tall, attractive, beautiful, and elegant girl, intelligent, with long, dark hair parted down the middle. She belongs to a wealthy family in San Francisco, exactly what Bundy aspired to.
She was everything that Bundy dreamed of. For some time, Bundy admired her from afar but was too shy to approach her. But she broke up with him in 1968, which led to his dropping out of college due to extreme depression.
He found out the truth about his mother and grandparents and returned to college with new-found confidence; he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma.
Ted met a woman named Elizabeth, although he was supposedly cheating. At the same time, his first love came back to him, impressed with his confidence.
In 1969, Ted Bundy re-enters the University of Washington and meets Liz Kendall, whom he starts dating. Liz would be his girlfriend throughout most of his murders. Returns to school with a sense of purpose and becomes an honors student. It also becomes involved in local politics.
He became involved in politics after helping Dan Evans become governor of Washington. He had a promising future in politics.
Bundy was so organized that the police never located the crime scenes where his first seventeen victims were killed.
In May 1974, he attacked Joni Lenz in her Seattle apartment. Luckily, she survives.
Ted Bundy Crimes:
When he returned to college, some gave him the reputation of being a petty thief, but he had no other criminal history prior to 1974. So, in 1974, many girls from colleges in the Oregon and Washington areas started being reported missing.
When he moved to Utah for law school in 1974, Carol DaRonch escaped being kidnapped by a man dressed as a policeman. She described his appearance; his tan VW; and investigators found his blood. Another woman went missing in the next few months in the area.
Ted Bundy knew murder happened in Oregon and Washington when he was working at a government agency looking for a victim. Later, he killed many women in Utah, Colorado, and Idaho.
Also, in 1974, hikers found a boneyard in a forest in Washington. These remains were found to be those of all young, white, long-haired blond women.
A profile of a man named “Ted” came together who would approach young women and ask for help while wearing a fake cast or on crutches.
In 1975, six women, including Caryn Campbell, vanished from a ski resort in Colorado, whose bodies were found later with comparable head contusions.
Bundy was pulled over for a traffic violation in August 1976 in his tan VW and found with handcuffs, an ice pick, a crowbar, and a pair of pants with eye holes cut in them. He was arrested for a possible burglary.
At one point, Ted Bundy kept four of their girlfriend’s heads in his apartment. He burned the head of another in his girlfriend’s fireplace.
Carol DaRonch recognized many of Bundy’s tools as well as his vehicle and picked him out of a line-up. He was charged with kidnapping as well as Caryn Campbell’s murder. He was given a 15-year sentence. There was much speculation about his involvement in many of the above kidnappings and disappearances.
In 1977, he escaped from the law twice, once for only a week and again for a far longer period. Bundy had always liked college campuses. Ted Bundy escaped to Tallahassee, FL, and rented near a college. He was convicted of murdering two sorority girls and brutally injuring two others.
This information was found by one of their friends, Nita Neary, who saw a man walk away from the house. He may not have been convicted for these, but it is theorized by many reliable sources that he raped and murdered over 100 women in his life.
On Feb. 8, 1978, Ted Bundy killed a 12-year-old girl named “Kimberly Leach”. He was soon brought in again after being matched with evidence such as bite marks from one of the sorority girls, being identified by students, those at the college, and Leach’s school, and a mask found in the home of another strangled woman, which would later be found in Bundy’s van.
In July 1979, Bundy was found guilty of the murders of Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman and the assaults on the other women. For the assaults, he received sentences totaling 270 years. For the murders, Judge Edward Cowart invited him to ride the lightning.
Sentence and Death:
Bundy was offered a plea bargain of three sentences of 25 years each in exchange for the confession of the killing of the two sorority girls and Kimberly, but he turned down the offer.
Bundy’s trial was televised, and he represented himself in court most of the time. He was tried for the murders of the sorority women and received two death sentences. He was represented by an attorney after getting a third death sentence after being convicted of the murder of Leach.
After he knew he was completely screwed, he gave details of the murders of over fifty women, the fact that he committed necrophilia (raping corpses), and keeping the severed heads of some of his victims in his house. On January 17, 1989, the final death warrant was issued.
He was electrocuted on Jan. 24, 1989, at 7:13 a.m. on the front lawn of the prison he was serving time in. It was described as a “carnival-like atmosphere” as an audience gathered. Many cheered when he was declared dead.
Ted Bundy and the Anomie Theory:
Ted Bundy’s reason for his series of abominable acts such as rape, murder, sodomy, necrophilia, and postmortem (post-death) mutilation can be best explained by the anomie theory. The anomie theory states that crime happens when there is a strain between mores and the legitimate means to obtain them.
Individuals may start out trying to achieve their goal legitimately and try to conform to society. However, when they can’t, their goals go in the opposite direction society wants them to go. So they succumb to a life of deviance. Bundy was known for being awkward from a young age.
All though he was socially inept, his good looks and intelligence put him in a relationship with the woman he would grow to love. When she broke up with Bundy, it demoralized him. He may have thought he could never be in a happy relationship again. Since he may have either been too awkward or too unhappy to get his love back, or perhaps a new love,
He was predisposed to getting what he wanted through deviance. From then on, he kidnapped, raped, and killed numerous women, many with similar features shared between these victims and Bundy’s first love. Only through brutal rape and murder could he attempt to achieve the pleasure he had in his first relationship. This sickening mental process of his truly earned him his self-proclaimed title, “the most cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch you’ll ever meet.”
Ted Bundy the Lothario
From the television writer Tom Towler
“Ted Bundy, of course, portrayed himself as a Lothario who could attract women at will. In fact, he always used a ruse to get them to his VW—a fake cast on his arm, a crutch, etc. He’d removed the back seat from the VW and hidden a tire iron by the rear wheel.
He’d knock them out with the tire iron, load them into the car, then take them to a wooded location of his choosing, where he killed them and then had sex with them. He, like the Green River killer, returned often to his victims for sex and to watch them change colors”.
Ted Bundy maintained his innocence until the end of his life, but of course, he wasn’t innocent. On January 25, 1989, he went to his death in the electric chair.
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