The Crime Book

278

T

ed Bundy was a good-

looking law student. He

seemed charming and

bright. No one would ever take

him for a serial killer, like Charles

Manson or Dennis Nilsen. Ted’s

many victims were different, too.

They were mostly pretty, white,

middle-class college students, and

not the vulnerable women serial

killers usually preyed upon.

Ted Bundy’s 30 known victims

did not realize they were

vulnerable. They often became

victims because they stopped to

help him out in some way. Bundy

would pose as a young man in need

• wearing a fake cast on his arm,
  with his arm in a sling, or hobbling
  on crutches – eager for help with a
  sailboat or his schoolbooks. Once
  he had lured them close to his
  Volkswagen Beetle, Bundy reached
  under the car for his tyre iron and
  hit them on the head. He then
  bundled them into the car and
  handcuffed them.

Theatrical psychopath

Bundy loved the play-acting, the

setup. He would also enter

apartments – and even a student

TED BUNDY

residence – at night to abduct and

kill. He was particularly drawn to

college girls with long, brown hair

parted in the middle. It was the

style of the day, but some wondered

if he was unconsciously taking his

revenge on a girlfriend who had

worn her hair that way. Perhaps,

they speculated, she dumped him

or belittled him.

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Seven US states, from

Washington to Florida

THEME

College student killer

BEFORE

1966 Richard Speck receives

life imprisonment for

strangling and stabbing eight

student nurses in Chicago.

1973 Known as the Co-ed

Killer, Edmund Kemper

receives concurrent life

sentences for the murders

of at least six female students

in California, as well as

those of his own mother

and best friend.

AFTER

2004 Derrick Todd Lee is

convicted of murder after DNA

evidence links him to a string

of murders committed around

Louisiana State University.

Smooth operator Ted Bundy

(centre), in consultation with the

Assistant Public Defender Ed Harvey

(left) and a Leon County police officer,

during his trial in 1979.

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279

See also: Jack the Ripper 266–73 ■ Harvey Glatman 274–75 ■ Colin Pitchfork 294–97

SERIAL KILLERS

Murders the woman and drives

her corpse to a national park

nature reserve for burial

Bundy attracts sympathy by wearing a sling,

putting on a fake cast, or using crutches

He hits the woman with a tyre iron, handcuffs her,

and drives her away

He lures the woman to his Volkswagen car

He asks a young woman for help gathering his

books or crossing the road

Disturbed child

Bundy’s family background was

complicated. He grew up in

Philadelphia believing that his

grandparents were his parents and

that his real mother, Eleanor, was

his sister.

From a very early age, Teddy –

then Theodore Robert Cowell –

enjoyed scaring people. His family

later revealed how, as a three-year-

old, he had delighted in placing

large, sharp kitchen knives around

his teenage aunt as she slept.

When his aunt awoke, she was

terrified, and her reaction thrilled

the laughing toddler.

Dr Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a

psychiatrist who has researched

the mental makeup and motives

of serial killers and got to know

Bundy when he was on death row,

described this behaviour as

“extraordinarily bizarre” for such a

young child. It suggests Bundy may

have endured trauma at a very

young age: perhaps he experienced

abuse himself, or witnessed

extreme violence between

members of his family.

Whether it was because of the

incident with the knives, or for

other reasons, Teddy and Eleanor

were sent away when Bundy was

four or five years old. They went

as far west as possible, to Tacoma,

Washington, to live with an uncle.

Eleanor began to use her middle

name, Louise, and passed herself

off as a widow or a divorcée.

In 1951, Eleanor met and later

married a hospital cook named

Johnnie Bundy. Together they had

four children. Ted now had to share

what little emotional connection

he had with his mother with two

brothers and two sisters. In an

attempt to tighten the family ties

and make Johnnie Bundy a father

figure for the young Teddy, he was

renamed Theodore Robert Bundy.

However, Teddy was missing

something – and it was more than

a father, a mother who wanted him,

or a home life devoid of violence.

Teddy was missing empathy. He

was missing an ability to form ❯❯

I don’t feel guilty for

anything. I feel sorry for

people who feel guilt.

Ted Bundy

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