Ted Bundy: America's Most Notorious Serial Killer

Theodore Robert Bundy is possibly the most well known serial killer in the western world. This bright, charismatic and personable young law student fooled even hardened investigators and, consequently, the young coeds and high school girls that he preyed upon never stood a chance.

The most perplexing thing about him is that there is absolutely nothing in his background to suggest that he would grow up to be the calculating killer that he became. Yes, he was raised by his grandparents instead of his parents and yes, he was rejected by his girlfriend...but thousands of young men go through comparable trauma and never feel the need to hurt so much as a fly. Bundy, on the other hand, blazed a trail of terror across Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Florida from 1974 until 1978, escaping from police custody twice and killing at least 30 young women.

No-one knows exactly when Bundy began killing and it could easily have been as early as 1961 when he was only 14 years old and an 8 year old girl who lived near him vanished and was presumed murdered. He began his life's work in earnest in Washington during the first half of 1974, however, when he killed at a rate of approximately one per month (this count included a brief foray into Oregon in May 1974 to abduct and kill a coed). His usual method was to lure the girls into his car on some pretext - "help me carry my briefcase to my car as my arm is broken" was a favorite - and to incapacitate them when they were so close to his car that he could bundle them in once they were unconscious. He would then drive them out to secluded stretches of countryside and bludgeon and / or strangle them to death. He would also rape them, either before or after they died; and he sometimes returned to their corpses for sex months after he had killed them.

Bundy moved to Salt Lake City in Utah in the autumn of 1974 and the killing, which had stopped in July, resumed in October. In January 1975 he relocated his hunting grounds to Colorado where he kidnapped and killed at least three women. May of 1975 found him in Idaho, where at least one coed vanished without a trace, and by June 1975 he was back in Utah, plying his usual trade. At that time, investigators in Washington were narrowing their search for their prime suspect and Bundy was definitely on their list. Before they could make their move, however, the news came through that he had been arrested in Utah.

On August 6^th 1975 Bundy had failed to stop when requested to do so by a police officer and this seemingly trivial offence led to the said police officer's searching Bundy's car and his finding what seemed to be burglary tools. Bundy's distinctive VW vehicle was then identified as the car belonging to the coed killer, descriptions of which had been provided to the police by those women lucky enough to have escaped him. He was then put on trial for, and convicted of, kidnapping one of his intended victims and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Extradition to Colorado to stand trial for murder followed but, in June 1977 while he was being held in Aspen awaiting trial, he escaped by jumping out of a second story window. Six days later he was once again taken into custody but he again managed to escape during December 1977, and this time he got all the way to Florida. The years of not being able to indulge his homicidal tendencies had taken their toll and he sated his desires almost immediately by assaulting two women and murdering three more. He also stole a car and this crime, albeit harmless compared to what he had done in the past, proved to be his undoing as he was picked up for car theft by the Pensacola police on February 15^th 1978.

It did not take long before he was placed on trial for the three Florida murders and he received the death sentence for all three crimes. He filed several appeals, however, and managed to drag the process out until January 1989, when he was executed by electric chair after he lost his final appeal. It is, furthermore, interesting to note that he was extremely active during his ten years on death row, confessing to several murders he had committed in Washington and assisting the police in locating his victims' remains. He also provided the police with his brand of assistance with their investigation into the Green River Killer (his and GR's stomping grounds and modus operandi were somewhat similar as they both killed women in the Washington area and they both dumped groups of bodies at secluded countryside locations). He was, furthermore, housed in the cell next to that containing Ottis Toole, the recently acclaimed murderer of 6 year old Adam Walsh and the vicious partner in crime of fellow serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.

It has been said that Bundy's greatest asset was that he looked like an everyman: pleasant enough to inspire confidence but not remarkable enough to be remembered with any degree of accuracy. Although his appearance may have been forgotten by those who witnessed him at the scenes of his crimes, his heinous deeds will live on forever in society's consciousness.

Sources:

Wilson, Colin. The History of Murder. Edison: Castle Books (2004)
Ted Bundy Ted Bundy Wikipedia
Ted Bundy Bio in the Serial Killer Calendar SerialKillerCalendar.com
David Lohr Ted Bundy: The Poster Boy of Serial Killers Crime Magazine