Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Campus Killer” Pt. 1: Ted Bundy

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

He’s one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, murdering dozens of young women on a bloody rampage across America that spanned four years. But Ted Bundy’s metamorphosis as a killer began during childhood—long before his first murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Listeners, if you enjoy the podcast, Serial Killers, you can find our entire catalog of episodes, plus new ones each week, free, and only on Spotify. That's hundreds of episodes you won't hear anywhere else, all in one place. All you have to do is download the Spotify app for free and follow Serial Killers to ensure you don't miss out on any accounts of history's most notorious murderers. Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, and we'll see you on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers,

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That's ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Own it all. Pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily

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Lush green fields stretched as far as the eye. could see, insects hummed. But once Stephen passed through the gates of the Florida State prison, he entered a different world. Inside, blue skies gave way to hard fluorescent lit interiors, and despite the chilly temperature, Stephen began to sweat. Stephen was about to enter one of the highest security facilities the state could offer, as he was escorted down the prison corridor by a team of armed guards. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. After all, Stephen was no FBI profiler or police detective. He was just a journalist. His entourage of guards took him through one last secure door. Stephen steeled himself as it swung open. Inside, a man sat at a metal table

dressed in a pale orange prison-issued uniform, a chain around his waist. Stephen had hesitated, almost shocked. The inmate before him was a regular-looking guy in his 30s, handsome even, with eyes as clear blue as the Florida skies. The man smiled widely at the journalist, beckoning him to sit down. As Stephen took a seat across from him and hit record on his tape player, he had to remind himself who the man on the other side of the table was. He was no ordinary prisoner. or just a charming acquaintance, he was a monster incarnate. Stephen was face to face with Ted Bundy.

I'm Greg Polson. This is serial killers, a podcast original. Every Monday we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This week, we're covering the brutal murders committed by one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, Ted Bundy. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richard. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Parcast originals for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type Serial Killers in the search bar. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing.

Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. This week, we'll unpack Ted Bundy's traumatic early childhood, as well as the events that chipped away at the last of his humanity, precipitating his first eight confirmed murders. Next week, we'll track Ted as he embarks on a killing spree that ends in the mutilation and murder of dozens of young women in cities across. the U.S., a bloody rampage that spurred multiple arrests and trials, leading him to become one of America's most iconic murderers. Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont. His mother, 22-year-old Louise Cowell gave birth to Ted in a home

for unwed mothers. The identity of Ted's father to this day is unknown. On his birth certificate, a man named Lloyd Marshall is listed. Ted's mother claimed that Marshall was a 30-year-old former Air Force pilot. However, years later, she mentioned another man, a sailor by the name Jack Worthington. Neither of these men, however, have been confirmed as Ted's true biological father. Some theories suggest that neither Lloyd Marshall nor Jack Worthington existed at all, leaving Ted for all intents and purposes, fatherless. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot

of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Researchers have found that young children lacking a parent have difficulty forming deep interpersonal bonds and can develop serious emotional issues in adulthood. These individuals sometimes have a tendency to react. aggressively or angrily to situations others might consider to be neutral. According to mental health expert Jared Brown with the Minnesota Psychological Association, this behavior stems from a combination of perceived abandonment and attachment issues.

But despite the absence of a biological father, Ted Bundy was raised in the shadow of a different father figure, one far from the example of empathy that he so desperately needed. After giving birth, Louise didn't intend to keep her son. She left the baby boy at the home for unwed mothers in Vermont and returned to Philadelphia to live with her parents. But for months, his mother agonized over the decision to give him up. Ted's grandfather demanded that she bring the boy home. Louise's father, Sam Cowell, decided that he and Louise's mother, Eleanor, would raise Ted as their own. They would tell him and everyone outside the Cowell family that they had adopted the three-month-old.

They would be his parents, not Louise, and Louise was to play the part of her son's much older sister. This was not unheard of at the time. Some families decided to keep their illegitimate grandchildren a secret by claiming them as their own, rather than face ridicule from their communities. But in Ted Bundy's case, being in his grandparents' care was far more to more. tumultuous than being raised by a young, single mother. Sam Cowell, Ted's grandfather, was known to be an exceptionally ruthless man. He was an alcoholic with a violent temper and was reportedly cruel to animals.

Some accounts claim that Sam kicked the family dogs and would throw the neighborhood cats around by the tails. But his abuse wasn't just limited to pets. Sam also went on frequent violent rampages in the family home, He's said to have pushed one of his daughters down the stairs because she overslept, and may have also abused his wife, Eleanor, a timid woman who suffered from severe depression and agoraphobia. Eventually, Eleanor never left the house. It seemed no one was left unscathed from Sam Cowell's wrath, or at least no one but Little Theodore. There's no evidence that Sam abused his grandson.

According to Ted, he was never the victim of his death. of his grandfather's violence, or of any abuse for that matter. In fact, he loved Sam and even looked up to him. Ted often recounted his childhood in an idyllic, almost unrealistic way. And though he was far from a reliable narrator, because there are no documented accounts that he suffered childhood abuse, he very well may have been telling the truth. Though we'll never know definitively if Ted suffered any sort of abuse, physical or psychological at the hands of his grandfather, there's no doubt that he witnessed the abuse of

his female relatives at a very early age. This experience would have surely shaped his perception of manhood, and very possibly, his violent tendencies. According to social psychologist and abuse specialist, Donald Dutton, children who experience domestic violence are more likely to develop an abusive personality. Dutton found that male children in particular, were at a greater risk than their female counterparts of becoming abusers. This was especially true in the case of young boys who witnessed abuse against others, rather than being directly victimized themselves, a circumstance strikingly similar to the one young Ted Bundy was raised in.

However, Ted only lived under Sam Cowell's tyranny for the first few years of his life. In 1950, when he was four, Ted and his mother Louise moved to Tacoma, Washington, to live with relatives. Ted was devastated to be taken from his beloved grandparents, who he still believed were his adoptive parents. But Louise was determined to start a new life with her son, far from the abusive household she'd grown up in. In the summer of 1951, Louise met Johnny Bundy

at an adult singles night at the local Methodist church. The two quickly fell in love, and it wasn't long before they were married. Afterward, Johnny formally adopted Ted, giving him the name that would become so infamous decades later. Ted Bundy. But despite this gesture of love and acceptance, Ted was never very fond of his stepfather. He described Johnny as dim-witted and resented the fact that he didn't earn much money as a military cook. Over the next 10 years, as Louise and Johnny added four more children to the family,

Ted became emotionally detached, preferring to spend his time alone. As a kid, and especially as an adolescent, Ted was incredibly shy and self-conscious. He had a speech impediment that often left him stuttering, and he had few friends. Throughout his school years, he generally struggled to fit in. However, Ted's memory of his own childhood was entirely different. The picture that Ted constructed of his youth for psychologists and journalists was like a Norman Rockwell painting. He recalled summer days catching frogs and playing marbles and pee-wee football with neighborhood kids. He played up the fact that he was a Boy Scout and that every

Sunday, the entire Bundy clan went to church. Strangely, Ted's mother Louise echoed this saccharine picture of his youth. Even after his crimes were revealed, she described Ted as a very normal, active boy. Our son is the best son in the world. And perhaps Louise truly did believe this about Ted. After all, he became increasingly skilled at hiding his less savory activities. During his adolescence, Ted began his criminal career as a peeping Tom. He would sneak off into evenings and prowl his middle-class neighborhood to masturbate while he watched women through the windows of their homes. This voyeuristic streak eventually dominated more and more of Ted's life as a teenager.

It became an all-consuming routine, and he would return to the same houses to watch the same women until the early hours of the morning. As far as we know, Ted was never caught, and as a result, Louise was never conscious of this deviant side of her son. In fact, it seems no one was explicitly aware of Ted's darker inclinations, but his peers always knew there was something off about Ted. In high school, his classmates often said that Ted didn't seem to be all there. He was aloof and never got too close to anyone. He never went drinking, and despite developing into a relatively handsome young man, he never attended school dances or dated. At school, just like at home, Ted was a loner.

Of course, Ted's memory of his time in high school was, once again, different from reality. He recounted being perhaps a bit, straight edge, but also claimed he was a good student and a talented athlete. In truth, Ted's classmates remember him being both a mediocre student and a lackluster athlete. It seems Ted later overwrote his entire history with the version he wanted to be true. This is in part because Ted had big ambitions for himself, resentful of his family's lower middle class economic status. He was obsessed with elevating himself to something he felt was greater, more elite.

Ted desperately wanted to be a successful lawyer or even president, but he knew he'd only be able to accomplish these goals if he became a particular kind of person, someone suave and intelligent, popular, and capable. So he started rewriting the parts of his life that didn't fit the mold. And soon, he was given the ultimate opportunity to reinvent himself. He went to college. After a year at the University of Puget Sound, in 1966, 19-year-old Ted transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle and went to work reconstructing his identity. He threw out his timid personality and formed an entirely new persona, one that was intense but likable, intellectual, yet all-American. He taught himself to smile with ease and talk with steady, unwavering eye contact.

With each new person he met, he tried out this new self until he honed it to near perfection. Essentially, Ted was practicing the charisma and charm of the kind of politician he thought he wanted to be. To gain more experience with this political persona firsthand, he volunteered on a local campaign. Around 1967, Ted volunteered for Republican Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign. Working on the campaign trail gave him a built-in social life he needed. never had. Suddenly, he had a group of friends, campaign staffers and other volunteers, and a variety of political functions to attend. These events gave Ted real opportunities to test drive his sparkling personality. With practice, he found he could strike up a conversation easily and fit in

at any function. These newfound social skills also landed him his first girlfriend. In 1967, 20-year-old Ted met Diane Edwards, a fellow student at the University of Washington. Diane was the kind of woman Ted dreamed of. She was tall and beautiful, with long dark hair. But it wasn't just Diane's looks that Ted adored. She also came from a wealthy family near San Francisco. She was worldly, sophisticated, upper class. Ted swiftly fell in love. The two spent much of their time together going on drives. They traveled across Washington State through dense forests, seeking out beautiful views on the mountains. Ted later said they also spent hours kissing in Diane's expensive car, whispering sweet

nothings to one another. Diane was most likely the first person to truly get close to Ted. She saw potential in him. She was attracted to his confidence and charm. But she felt he could make something more of himself. She came from a wealthy, influential family. Diane was looking to be with someone who could one day provide her with the lifestyle she'd become accustomed to, meaning Ted, with his humble middle-class roots, had everything to prove.

Being with Diane meant becoming the kind of man she wanted him to be, and her expectations began to compound the pressures Ted already put on himself. It only inflamed his insecurity. Diane graduated from college in 1968, she returned home to California. The anxiety Ted harbored about whether or not he was good enough to stay with Diane began to devour him. They tried to make the long-distance relationship work, but that summer, Diane's letters began to dwindle, and her calls became less frequent. Then she didn't write at all. Ted was devastated. Later, he recounted very little about this time, other than a consuming emptiness.

He said, in there somewhere was a desire to have some sort of revenge on Diane. But toward the end of that summer, I'm serious. I just, it's blank. I don't know what the hell I did. In that blind spot was Ted's dark descent, his slow metamorphosis into the killer he was fated to become. and when he finally arrived, there would be no turning back. When we return, Ted Bundy's composure begins to crumble, revealing the murderer underneath the facade. You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band teas, but on Deep Hop, people are searching for exactly what you've got.

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In 1968, 21-year-old Ted Bundy found himself utterly alone, his life in a tailspin. It seemed that he'd been fated to live masquerading as something he was not. No matter how he changed himself or how desperately he wanted it, he would never be the powerful debonair man he imagined. His efforts at self-improvement had led to his first girlfriend, Diane Edwards, but eventually she had seen him for what he truly was, and then she'd abandoned him. It was perhaps the most painful thing he'd ever experienced. The end of Ted's relationship with Diane was the first domino to fall in his twisted metamorphosis.

The next, his failed plans for the future. That year, Ted dropped out of college. Records of what he did during the end of 1968 and 1969 are unclear. But some accounts report that it was during this time he learned the truth about his identity, about his birth. We don't know if Louise ever intended to tell Ted the truth, that she was, She was his mother and not his older sister, but regardless of her intentions, Ted beat her to the punch. He found a copy of his birth certificate with Louise's name listed as his biological mother,

and the word illegitimate listed near his own. Before that summer, Ted knew who he was. He was the son of Sam and Eleanor Cowell. He was a student at the University of Washington, and he was Diane Edwards' boyfriend. Then over a period of just one year, each of those truths crumbled. He had a true crisis of identity. According to psychiatrist and Harvard researcher Judith Herman, trauma dismantles the systems that help support us.

Whether they be social, cultural, or economic, when traumatic events destroy these protections, we are disempowered. Therefore, the process of trauma rehabilitation requires us to rebuild these systems to restore control over our own lives. For Ted Bundy, his trauma recovery fueled his second transformation, and he was hell-bent to take back the power he felt had been taken from him. In 1969, at 22 years old, he seemingly became determined to pull himself up by his bootstraps. That fall, he re-enrolled at the University of Washington and met another woman, Elizabeth Klepfer.

Elizabeth, or Liz, had long brown hair. She was a plain, soft-spoken woman from a Mormon family and the single mother of a young daughter. She was Ted's on-again-off-again girlfriend for the next six years. Ted claimed he loved Liz so much that it was destabilizing. Yet he felt he could never fully open up to her. Instead, he simply went through the motions of companionship, helping her raise her young daughter, washing the dishes, taking out the garbage.

But in reality, the entire time he was with Liz, Ted was still obsessed with his first girlfriend, Diane Edwards. Over the next three years, Ted did whatever he could to make himself into the kind of man Diane had wanted. Even while he was with Liz, he was determined to win Diane back. Ted threw himself into school and even into more alteration. activities. In 1971 at 22, he began volunteering at the Seattle Crisis Clinic, a suicide prevention hotline. Ironically, during this time, Ted Bundy actually saved lives. In 1972, he graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology and began applying to law schools. He aimed high, submitting himself to Ivy League institutions. At the same time, he had

also continued his political pursuits working for the Washington State Republican Party. For the first time, Ted felt he was gaining traction. He had a promising career, some money, and was about to enroll in law school. It had taken time, but he'd rebuilt himself. And in 1973, Ted finally felt he was ready to win Diane back. So, while on a business trip in California that summer, he contacted her and asked her to dinner. That night, Bundy was clean cut, quaffed, and as charming as Diane remembered, but he was more mature, more sure of himself. She marveled at the confident way he ordered for them both, and the prestigious law schools he casually mentioned he'd applied to. By the end of the night, Diane was captivated by the brand-new Ted Bundy, and when he invited her to visit him in Seattle, she eagerly agreed.

All the while, Ted continued. to see Liz Klepfer. One day he would be at Liz's house eating dinner with her and her daughter. The next he would be whining and dining Diane and staying in expensive ski resorts. For months, he lived a double life, and neither Liz nor Diane was the wiser. He'd become incredibly adept at keeping these parts of his life separate. This ability to live two different existences simultaneously was one of Ted Bundy's most defining features. Al Carlyle, the prison psychologist who analyzed Ted years later, called this tendency compartmentalization. Carlisle explained compartmentalization as a sectioning off of ideas or events into specific mental frames.

A person keeps distinct psychological boundaries between each of these frames in order to keep them separate, like different realities inside the same mind. Carlisle went on to say these so-called compartments help protect the ability of the person to live multiple and often opposing lifestyles, which are relatively immune from detection. This came in handy for Ted. In 1973, the 26-year-old seamlessly juggled his two relationships with Liz and Diane for the better part of a year. During that time, Diane fell deeply back in love with him, and Ted seemingly felt the same way. He and Diane even discussed marriage, and Ted introduced her as his fiancé to his friends at parties. But that winter, everything changed. After the holidays, Ted suddenly distanced himself from Diane.

With no explanation, he halted any discussion about marriage plans, and when she came to visit him, he was irritable and antagonistic. After pursuing her for six years, and after a month's long, passionate affair, Ted suddenly, turned cold. Diane was heartbroken. When she returned to San Francisco, she wrote to him, begging for an explanation, but he never wrote back.

She eventually called Ted, furious, and yelled at him, why was he doing this? His reply chilled her to the bone. He said flatly, I have no idea what you mean. Then he hung up. It's possible that Ted's pursuit of Diane

after all those years was nothing but a power move, a way to hurt her in the same way that she hurt him, an eye for an eye. If this is true and he had always intended to make her fall in love with him only to reject her, it would mean the moment was literally years in the making, a deliberate sadistic plan. However, there's a possibility that Ted hadn't intended to break up with Diane. Perhaps there were other factors at play. Shortly before the breakup, his grand plans of attending a prestigious law school fell through.

His Ivy League applications were rejected. His LSAT score didn't make the cut. Instead, he was forced to accept admission to the University of Puget Sound, a small college located in his hometown of Tacoma. Ted was devastated. He hated himself for not being better. For years, he dreamed of becoming a success. a successful lawyer, and in some ways it was the entire premise of his rekindled relationship with Diane. Without that future, he may have felt the need to reject Diane before she learned the truth.

He certainly felt a consuming sense of failure. As Ted saw it, his future was dimming. The goals he had pursued for more than half a decade had disappeared in a puff of smoke. And so did his self-control. On January 4, 1974, 27-year-old Ted took a short walk from his apartment at the University of Washington to a nearby housing complex. It was a familiar stroll he'd made several times before. For days, Ted had observed the building's bottom unit from his car. He'd discovered four university students lived there, three young men and their lone female roommate, 18-year-old Karen Sparks.

Karen was a freshman at UW and a dancer. She had a pretty girl-next-door look with a kind face and long dark hair. She slept in the apartment's basement bedroom, fairly separated from her male roommates. Just after midnight, Ted quietly broke into the apartment and entered Karen's bedroom. There, Ted stood in the doorway, crowbar in hand. He approached the bed where the young woman slept peacefully, her briefed, breathing steady. Ted's breath, however, was rapid. As he watched Karen's unconscious body, her dark hair

splayed on the pillow, he felt his mind begin to spiral. His blood surged through every artery. Then he slammed the crowbar into her skull. Once he started, he couldn't stop. Again and again he bludgeoned Karen. Blood spattered his face and his clothes. In his rage, he broke a metal rod from her bed frame and sexually assaulted her concussed body. After he was satisfied, he slipped out of her bedroom door and into the night. The next day, Karen's roommates assumed she was sleeping in for most of the afternoon. It wasn't until 7 p.m. the following night that they found her unconscious, lying in a pool of her own blood. But miraculously, she was still alive.

The injuries Karen Spark sustained that night left her with permanent brain damage and physical disabilities. But it was only the start of Ted Bundy's reign of terror, one that continued for the next four years. Coming up, Ted Bundy commits his first documented kill and begins a murderous rampage that rocked the Pacific Northwest. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

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In January of 1974, 27-year-old Ted Bundy committed his first known attack and sexual assault on 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a freshman at the University of Washington. Karen managed to survive the brutal attack. Ted had attempted murder and failed, but it wouldn't be long until he tried again. That winter, Ted was enrolled in law school at the University of Puget. sound. At the beginning of the semester, Ted diligently attended his classes, but soon, his normally perfect attendance faltered. Ted began skipping class to stalk young women around campus. He cased their apartments, observing their comings and goings while sitting in his tan Volkswagen bug. He also resurrected his old peeping Tom habits. He watched beautiful co-eds for hours through their bedroom windows as they went about their nightly routines. It was better than anything

he could find on TV. However, Ted found his next victim, not by prowling the streets around campus, but by tuning into the radio. Twenty-one-year-old Linda Ann Healy was a senior at the University of Washington, as well as the host of a popular radio show that reported the weather conditions for local ski slopes. She was well known among Snow Bunnies and the Seattle area. Ted was an avid skier. He picked up the sport while dating Diane when he was trying desperately to rub elbows with his wealthier peers. While Ted's love for Diane had died, his passion for skiing lived on. Like many skiers in the area, Ted undoubtedly tuned into Linda's reports, but eventually he was listening for more than just a friendly voice announcing the daily snow conditions.

He was casing his next victim. In the early morning hours of February 1, 1974, less than a month after breaking into Karen Sparks' basement apartment, Ted broke into Linda Healy's home. He snuck past the rooms of her four sleeping roommates and into Linda's bedroom. There she lay fast asleep. But Ted didn't take any chances. He immediately bludgeoned her in the head, knocking her unconscious. This time, Ted had a new plan.

He wasn't going to murder Linda in her bedroom and risk being caught. Instead, he abducted her. With Linda out cold, Ted removed her now bloodstained nightgown and dressed her in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He then made her bed, concealing her bloody sheets, and carried her away. Where Ted took Linda next is unclear. Wherever it was, he raped her and murdered her. Then he left her body on the side of Taylor Mountain, over 30 miles east of Seattle.

It was a horrific sequence of events, the first performance of a routine that Ted would repeat dozens of times. But Linda Healy's disappearance wasn't just the beginning of Ted's bloodlust. It was also the start of a massive investigation. The next morning, when Linda failed to show up to the radio station to broadcast her daily ski report, her co-workers knew there was something amiss. Linda would never just not show up to work. She was a responsible girl, bright, successful, and well-known in the community, not the kind of college student to disappear into thin air.

The authorities expected foul play from the very beginning. When police searched Linda's bedroom, they found several items missing, including a few pieces of Linda's clothes and her house keys. Mysteriously, the back door was also left unlocked, something Linda's roommates insisted she had never done before. When detectives peeled back the sheets on her perfectly made bed, they discovered a small blood stain. Upon further investigation, they found Linda's blood-soaked nightgown in the closet. It was clear now. Someone had taken Linda Healy. It was all too familiar to the Seattle PD.

They had seen a crime just as brutal barely a month before and only blocks away, the attempted murder of Karen Sparks. Finally, the police had made a connection, but it would be months before the investigation would gain traction. After Linda's murder, Ted was exhilarated. And around this time, Liz Klepfer, his long-term girlfriend, noticed a distinct change in him. His mood shifted at the drop of a hat.

One minute he was in high spirits, as charming as ever, and in the next, his eyes went dark. Simple arguments escalated into threats and broken furniture. It was the first time Liz had seen him skirt towards violence. His sexual habits changed as well. Though Liz and Ted reportedly had a tender love life up to that point, he became aggressive, coercing her into anal sex and insisting they experiment with bondage. But handcuffs in the bedroom with Liz wasn't enough to satisfy Ted. He continued prowling the streets of Seattle, hunting for his next victim.

And during the spring and summer of 1974, he killed half a dozen young women in quick succession. Sources vary on the timeline of Ted Bundy's killing spree, but according to author Anne Rule's book, The Stranger Beside Me, Ted's next victims were claimed in the following order. In March, Ted abducted 19-year-old Donna Manson from Evergreen State College in Olympia while she was on her way to a concert. Later, he confessed to decapitating her and cremating her head in Liz's fireplace. Her remains were never found. In April, almost exactly a month later, Ted abducted 18-year-old Susan Rancourt from Central Washington State College in Ellensburg as she was walking to a film screening.

He murdered her and left her body on Taylor Mountain. Only a couple of weeks later on May 6th, Ted expanded his hunting grounds. He murdered 20-year-old Roberta Parks, a student at Oregon State University, four hours south of Seattle. Three weeks after he returned from Oregon, Ted spent the evening with Liz and her family. Liz's relatives had gathered to celebrate her daughter's baptism the next morning. Everyone was in high spirits. Liz, who had been feeling troubled about Ted and his recent bizarre behavior, felt her worry's ease as she watched him chat with a family member, laughing in his big, infectious way. He was back to his usual, charming self.

Then, suddenly, Liz watched as Ted's expression changed. It was like witnessing a storm drift across a bright sky. Suddenly, his face went dark, and he excused himself from the table. Ted left early that night without a word of explanation. The next morning, he was late to Liz's daughter's baptism. Liz's thoughts immediately flew to her greatest fear. Ted was cheating on her with another woman, but the truth was so much worse.

After he'd excused himself from Liz's family gathering, Ted raped and murdered, 22-year-old Brenda Ball, his fifth confirmed victim. After a night of butchery, he spent the next morning at a baptism. Ted's sudden departure soon became a common occurrence. More than a few times, Liz fell asleep next to Ted, only to wake up in the morning to find he disappeared in the middle of the night. While Liz silently kept note of Ted's strange behavior,

the authorities also identified a disturbing trend. Every month, a new college-aged co-ed seemed to disappear into thin air. And by that summer, the Pacific Northwest was gripped in terror. Walking around college campuses began to feel like a living horror film. Hitchhiking, which was a popular way for young people to get around at the time, stopped almost entirely. Girls in Seattle were even advised to travel in groups and to avoid walking through alleys. Perhaps the most eerie detail of the mysterious disappearances

was the fact that each of the missing women bore a striking resemblance to one another. Almost every single victim was young, white, attractive, and had long, dark hair parted down the middle. They looked like Diane Edwards. The tendency to target victims who have a particular appearance or who resemble someone a killer knows isn't uncommon. These shared characteristics between victims are referred to as a victim, profile, and Ted Bundy's was incredibly specific. While we don't know if Ted's gravitation toward

young women who looked like Diane was conscious, it's doubtful that his victim's resemblance to his first love was a coincidence. However, Ted later denied that he deliberately sought out a particular type of target. Instead, he claimed that the only common denominator between his victims was that they were young and fairly attractive. But it's very very important. But it's very very likely that the strong pattern in Ted's victim profiles was born of his breakup with Diane. According to Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI profiler specializing in psychopathy, a killer's victim preference is often developed based on a combination of what victims are available, accessible, and desirable at the time when a killer begins their murders.

And for Ted, doppelgangers of Diane Edwards were most likely the focus of his blood. bloodlust. In the winter of 1974, when Ted first began killing, he was right on the heels of his second breakup with Diane. It's very possible that, at that time, Ted had an insatiable urge to keep hurting her, even after unceremoniously cutting off the relationship. So he presumably would have been looking for a sort of surrogate for Diane,

on whom he could inflict pain. With that desire in place, Ted looked around to see who was, was available and accessible. And for Ted, a law student who lived very near the University of Washington campus, female college students were in high supply. Thus, Ted's victim profile was born. And Ted's profile was more precise than most.

Throughout his four-year killing streak, he rarely strayed from murdering his victims who fell exactly in line with the characteristics he was looking for. Essentially, Ted had a type. And the Seattle police took notice. But while they recognized the pattern of victims, police had no leads on the killer himself, no suspects. All they could do was watch helplessly as women continue to disappear

across the Pacific Northwest. Their only hope was that the next time the predator struck, he'd make a misstep, leave something behind, or botch a murder attempt. Detectives knew that in order for a killer to become so careless, they first had to grow comfortable, and for Ted Bundy, murder felt all too natural. By the summer of 1974, Ted's transformation into a serial killer was complete. With each and every murder, his ego only grew, and his kills became more and more brazen.

That July, his arrogance finally outranked his own. good judgment. Ted abducted and murdered two women on the same day in broad daylight. July 14, 1974 was a beautiful Sunday afternoon at Lake Sammamish, just east of Seattle. It was a busy day for the park. Nearly 40,000 people had come to enjoy the lake's cool waters and to picnic on its shores, but Ted Bundy had different plans. Ted arrived at the lake in the lake, and in casual beach clothing and wearing an arm sling. He began approaching young women, explaining he was having a hard time loading his sailboat into his car with his injured arm.

Then he asked them if they would be willing to come to the parking lot and help him out. Many women politely declined, but two agreed to help the poor injured man. 19-year-old Denise Nasland, Ted's second victim that day, had left her friends to use the park bathrooms when she encountered the seemingly helpless Ted. Undoubtedly, she realized her mistake as they approached his car. It wasn't a pickup, but rather a tiny VW bug with no sailboat in sight. But by that point, far from the crowds of people at the beach, it was too late. Its first victim that day had been a beautiful young woman he spotted sitting on a blanket in a yellow bikini.

Twenty-three-year-old Janice Aunt. Witnesses observed a man approached Janice. They described him as handsome with an unidentifiable, vaguely British accent. Before Janice walked off with him, they heard Janice introduce herself. Then so did the stranger. His name was Ted. mysterious co-ed killer had finally made a critical mistake. He'd left behind one vital clue, his real name. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Monday with part two of

Ted Bundy. We'll continue to track Ted's prolific and gruesome killing spree and explore his sadistic evolution into one of America's most infamous murderers. For more information on Ted Bundy, Amongst the many sources we used, we found the book, The Stranger Beside Me, by Anne Rule, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other parcast originals for free on Spotify. Not only does Spotify already have all of your favorite music, but now Spotify is making it easy for you to enjoy all of your favorite parcast originals like serial killers for free from your phone, desktop, or smart speaker. To stream serial killers on Spotify, just open the app. app and type serial killers in the search bar. Several of you have asked how to help the show,

and if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and is a Parcast Studios original.

Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, Travis Clark, and Juan Borda. This episode of serial killers was written by Alex Garland, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon, and stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson. Thanks for tuning into serial killers.

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