Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Campus Killer” Pt. 2: Ted Bundy

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

In 1974, Ted Bundy embarked on a murderous roadtrip across America committing dozens of murders from Colorado to as far as Florida. But after two prison escapes, and multiple trials, Bundy was far from finished. In 1979, he captivated the entire country by representing himself in the first televised murder trial in U.S. history. 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 ZipRecruiter.

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December 31, 1977. Another freezing morning at the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. As the early guard began his shift, he whistled to himself, desperately trying to inject some cheer into the place. It was New Year's after all. But as he made his way further down the row of cells, his whistling stopped. At the end of the hall was one cell he dreaded visiting. Ted Bundy was nice enough, charming even, but the guard knew what he was in for. Murder. The thought gave him chills.

So as he approached Mr. Bundy's cell at the end of the hall, he steeled himself. but what he saw when he arrived was off. Ted's dinner tray from the night before had been left untouched. This alone was nothing unusual. Ted had lost his appetite in the last few weeks, sometimes only taking a few bites of meals. Every day it seemed he got skinnier. But it wasn't the uneaten food in Ted's cell that made the guard uneasy.

It was the fact that Ted wasn't up. Usually at that hour, he was wide awake, reading or clacking away in his typewriter. The guard looked over at Ted, asleep under some blankets, and called his name. Ted didn't stir. Then he called again, louder this time. Still nothing. The guard's mind began to race. Oh, God, was he dead? The guard unlocked the cell and rushed inside the tiny white-walled broom. When he pulled back the blanket at the bunk, his heart nearly stopped. Underneath was nothing but a pile of books.

Ted Bundy had escaped again. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a podcast original. Every Monday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This is our second episode on Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century. I'm here with my co-examination. host Vanessa Richardson.

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. 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. Last week, we covered Ted Bundy's background, from his chaotic childhood to a struggle with identity and rejection as a young man. We also followed his slow metamorphosis into a killer, leaving nearly a dozen murders in his wake in 1974. This week will track Ted as he continues his killing spree, mutilating and murdering. nearly 40 young women in cities across America. It was a bloody rampage that spurred multiple arrests and trials,

leading him to become one of America's most infamous killers. By the summer of 1974, Ted Bundy's transformation into a serial killer was complete. For the previous six months, 27-year-old Ted had terrorized the Pacific Northwest. He began in Seattle, targeting female co-eds at the University of Washington, but eventually expanded his hunting grounds. Ted abducted and murdered college-aged women on university campuses in alleys and hitchhiking off the interstate. But no matter where his victims were from, they all looked the same. Police and the media noted that each victim was white, young, attractive, and had long brunette hair,

parted down the middle. Across the Northwest, young women started bleaching their hair blonde in a desperate attempt to avoid the same fate. With no reliable evidence or witnesses, the Seattle PD was at a loss, watching helplessly as women continued to disappear. But they still had hope a lead would emerge. The killer was growing more brazen, abducting multiple women in a single month, sometimes even mere blocks away from the last crime scene. They knew it was only a matter of time before he made a critical mistake. Then finally, on July 14, 1974, Ted's violent sexual desires got the better of his caution. He abducted both 19-year-old Denise Nassland and 23-year-old Janice Ott at Lake Sammamish Park, back-to-back in broad daylight. One of Ted's defining

characteristics as a killer was his boldness. Ted was a risk-taker and he prided himself in testing his limits. In fact, it's possible that Ted's overwhelming desire to push the envelope obscured the possible ramifications of his actions, almost as if he believed he was immune, like there was no situation he couldn't slip out of. 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. Many researchers and psychologists have found a link between boldness and psychopathy, and according to psychological researcher, Shannon J. Fernandez in her article entitled, Prediction of a Rise of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, this connection may be explained

by the brain activity of adolescence. Risk-taking in teenagers is caused by an undeveloped cognitive control system, the areas of the brain responsible for regulating impulses and making positive long-term decisions. However, though most individuals see a decline in risk-taking behavior as these areas of the brain mature, psychopaths continue these tendencies well into adulthood. If risk is consistently met by reward, some adults may develop a kind of fixation on the behavior associated with that risk. And if left unchecked, these tendencies may progress years and even decades past adolescence. This may lead to what Fernandez describes as desensitization and fearlessness, and a need for higher-level risk-taking in order to achieve stimulation.

For Ted, this behavior most likely stemmed from his peeping Tom days as a teenager. For over a decade, his voyeuristic habit went unchecked, meaning the only outcome Ted faced was his own sexual gratification. However, once the thrill of peering into women's bedroom windows no longer scratched that itch, Ted's fixation gradually progressed into something much more violating. It's important to note, however, that not all risk-taking behaviors from adolescents may develop into violence. Depending on the objective associated with this risk, desensitization may have different outcomes, such as drug addiction. But if an individual's stimulation is achieved through antisocial behavior, psychopathic tendencies may be born. For months, each murder Ted committed had been met with nothing but reward. He had killed nearly a dozen women, and in return, he received sexual release and escaped entirely without consequence.

But that changed with the murders of Denise Nassland and Janice Ott in July of 1974. This time, his boldness had made him slip up. Before he abducted Janet, Ted had introduced himself to her within earshot of witnesses, and now the authorities were onto him. Now they had his name. Though police weren't positive that Ted was the real name of the killer, they had good reason to believe that they were on the right. trail. As soon as they released the information to the public, they were flooded with thousands of

leads. People across Washington State called in with their hunches, and soon by cross-referencing which of those men also drove a tan VW bug, they narrowed down their suspects from thousands to just 100. On that list was 27-year-old Theodore Bundy. A co-worker of Ted's, as well as one of his former professors submitted his name to the Seattle PD. But when asked by police, if they observed suspicious behavior outside of his similarities to the suspect, neither had an answer. They were mere acquaintances with a hunch, nothing more. And on paper, Ted was practically a Boy Scout, a well-liked young law student with a squeaky clean record. So detectives simply put his name on a list and moved on. There was only one person who could blow the lid off.

of Ted's facade, and she wasn't talking yet. For almost a year, Ted's long-term girlfriend, Elizabeth Klepfer, observed that there was something strange going on with Ted. He often disappeared in the middle of the night after they'd gone to sleep. And once, Liz even found a bag of unfamiliar women's clothing in his apartment. But at the time, she didn't think her boyfriend could be a killer. She assumed he was cheating on her. This devastated Liz, so much so that she was too absorbed with his possible infidelity to realize the striking connection between her Ted and the one at Lake Sammamish.

That was the case, at least until he left. Ted had decided to try his hand at law school once again, this time at the University of Utah. And so, when Ted left Washington near the end of the summer in 1974, Liz's was left with the space to put it all together. The nighttime disappearances, the clothes, all of it was deeply troubling. For weeks, friends urged her to call the police, and for weeks she resisted. Then, finally, on August 8, 1974, Liz called the Seattle PD. But when detectives took down her tip, they simply filed it among all the others,

Without further evidence matching their killer with Liz's description, Liz's lead was just another call from a jilted girlfriend, and they'd had plenty of those. Seattle detectives were at a loss. With no promising leads, their trail went cold, and suddenly, after nearly a year, women stopped disappearing. Ted Bundy had moved on to another hunting ground, Salt Lake City. As Ted drove south on the interstate toward Utah, he remembered feeling euphoric.

Once again, he was going to pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer, and leaving Washington was a relief. Now that the police had his first name, he knew his time was limited before they caught on to him. In Utah, he'd be safe. He'd have a fresh start. Ted arrived in Salt Lake City, and he did what he was best at. He blended in. He threw himself into his studies and quickly made friends at the University of Utah. And though he and Liz kept in touch and continued their relationship long distance,

he started dating another law student, Sharon Hour. That year he was baptized and became an involved member of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, attending congregation meetings and church functions. But no matter what identity Ted put on, he was still a wolf in sheep's clothing. and Salt Lake City had plenty of lambs. Once again, Ted found himself surrounded by young, beautiful college students. And once again, his violent urges became too overwhelming to contain. In the fall of 1974, he began his second murder spree.

Sources vary on some of the details and circumstances of each of Ted's kills. But according to author Anne Rule's book, The Stranger Beside Me, Ted's next victims were claimed in the following order. On October 2nd, Ted broke his abstinence and murdered 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox. Her body was never found. That same month, on October 18th, Ted killed 17-year-old Melissa Smith, the daughter of a local police chief. She was last seen by her father at home before she left to meet a friend for dinner.

Nine days later, her body was found in the wilderness. a nylon stalking around her neck. She'd been beaten, raped, and strangled. On Halloween, less than two weeks later, 17-year-old Laura Aime vanished. Her body was found in the Wasatch Mountains on Thanksgiving Day. But not all of Ted's attacks were successful.

On November 8, 1974, one victim escaped. 18-year-old Carol de Ranch was window shopping at a local mall, when a man claiming to be a police officer approached her. He told Carol he'd seen someone break into her car and asked her to come with him to the parking lot. She needed to verify if anything was missing from her vehicle. Carol was caught off guard by the seemingly normal-looking man.

He was just wearing street clothes, no uniform. But she figured the officer was working under cover, so she followed him outside. Once Carol looked through her car, she grew suspicious. Nothing, it seemed, was missing, but the officer insisted she keep looking. Then he asked her to come with him back to the station to file a report. Finally, Carol had enough. She wasn't getting in the car with a stranger.

She asked to see some kind of identification. The officer pulled out his wallet and showed her his badge. Embarrassed that she doubted him. She agreed to go to the station. When they approached the officer's car, Carol thought it was strange that he drove a VW bug, but still tasting her earlier embarrassment, she didn't say a word. They drove off in silence away from the mall. After a moment, the officer suddenly pulled the car over and parked.

Kare asked him what he was doing, but instead of answering, he grabbed her wrist and handcuffed it. Carol panicked. She struggled as the man attempted to secure the second handcuff, but he pulled out a gun. He threatened, I'll blow your head off. But this only spurred Carol into action. She opened the car door and jumped out. The man followed and tackled her to the ground. Carol kept fighting. She thrashed and scratched, but he seemed unaffected. When Carol looked up at her attacker, There was no range on his face. What she saw was far more terrifying. His eyes were blank. Deadened.

Finally, Carol broke free from his grasp and sprinted toward an approaching car. She opened the door and jumped in the back seat. Crying and hysterical, she begged the driver to take her to the police station. Carol Durantz nearly escaped an awful fate. But she hadn't just fled with her life. She knew her abductor's identity, his face. Coming up, Ted Bundy continues his murderous rampage in Colorado and faces the first of many trials.

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wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now back to the story. In the summer of 1974, 27-year-old Ted Bundy's brazen murders in the Pacific Northwest finally drew the attention of the Seattle PD.

Ted sought out a fresh start in another state. That fall, he left Washington to enroll in law school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. But once again, his dark urges followed him. In less than three months, he killed four more victims, but one woman managed to escape. Ted had left his first living witness, 18-year-old Carol Derange. In November of 1974, immediately after escaping, Carol went to the police to report her abductor. She had no name or concrete evidence, just the handcuffs still attached.

to her wrist, and the image of his face burned into her mind. For months, police kept their eyes open for the perp, but came up empty-handed. After the day of Carol's escape, Ted tried to ignore his bloodl lust and keep his head down, but even still, his darker impulses had gotten in the way of his education. He failed out of law school for the second time. Twenty-eight-year-old Ted returned to Seattle, in January of 1975 to visit Liz. After spending almost half a year apart, she observed that Ted had seemingly changed for the better. His temperamental nature was long gone.

The tender, warm-hearted man she loved had returned. Liz felt an enormous amount of guilt for ever giving his name to the Seattle PD. But little did she know. Ted had committed his own betrayal. He was still dating Sharon. hour in Utah. Neither Liz nor Ted revealed their respective secrets. Instead, they made plans to get married and decided to have their wedding the following winter. Then, as quickly as he came,

Ted was gone again. He told Liz he was returning to the University of Utah for his spring semester. But that was just one more lie, designed to conceal his biggest secret of all. Instead, Ted left Washington to kill again. By this point, Ted had been murdering for almost exactly one year. In that time, he established a sort of pattern or cycle. He would kill in a frenzy for months, consumed entirely by his bloodlust. Then he would suddenly stop for a time, as if the urge had simply passed. That January, when he returned to Washington and saw Liz, Ted was in this dormant period, charming and collected. It was a kind of calm before the storm of his next murderous rampage. Dr. Frederick Wortham defines these stages of criminal action as a catathymic crisis.

Wortham breaks down the concept into a series of steps. These include an emotional buildup that precipitates into the crime, a calmness after the crime that allows the person to behave normally, and finally a resolution. A stage in which the individual self-regulates, adjusting so that the act won't be repeated. However, according to criminologist Donald J. Sears, serial killers never reached this final stage of resolution. Instead, they'll be caught in a perpetual cycle of build-up and release. As this pattern continues, Sears explains that each crime will only become more violent and more frequent than the last. And for Ted, there was no doubt that he'd been consumed by this bloody feedback loop.

For a year, Ted had held on to a small semblance of normalcy, his dream of becoming a lawyer. But by January of 1975, it seemed as if Ted had given that up to, succumbing to his bloodlust. When he left Liz in Seattle, he didn't go back to Utah to continue his law degree. Instead, he went to Colorado with only one goal in mind, to rape and rape. slaughter as many women as he could. On January 12, 1975, 28-year-old Ted made his way to the ski town of Snowmass Village, Colorado, where he abducted 23-year-old Karen Campbell from the Wildwood Inn. Karen was staying at the inn while on a ski vacation with her fiancé. That evening, the couple was relaxing by the fire in the lobby when she left to grab a magazine from their room.

She stepped into the hotel elevator and was never seen again. 36 days later, her body was found naked and ravaged by animals in the surrounding mountains, and soon there were more. From January to July of 1975, Ted killed four more victims. The same epidemic of missing women that plagued the Pacific Northwest and Utah was now happening in Colorado. But before authorities could find a lead, the murder stopped. Ted once again moved on. It's unclear why, but Ted traveled back to Salt Lake City in early July.

Perhaps it was to visit his second long-distance girlfriend, Sharon Hour. Whatever the reason, his return to Utah was his biggest misstep yet. On August 16, 1975 at 2 a.m., Ted was pulled over by Paul. police, and his car was searched. Inside, they found a series of suspicious items, rope, an ice pick, a crowbar, and handcuffs, among others. But to the police officer, these weren't weapons of murder. They were burglary tools. Ted was arrested, but ultimately released without bail. It was only after he'd walked back into the night that the police noticed something chilling. Ted matched the description of a wanted

suspect, Carol Derange's kidnapper. A few days later, Ted was brought back to the station to participate in a lineup of suspects for Carol to identify. In preparation, Ted entirely altered his appearance, shaving his mustache and changing his haircut. But nothing would make Carol forget the face of her would-be killer, those thin lips, that straight, pointed nose. It was him. Ted was arrested and charged with Carol Durant's abduction. For months as he languished in jail awaiting trial, Ted wasn't identified for a single other crime.

And so, on February 23, 1976, 29-year-old Ted was tried for kidnapping, and nothing more. At the trial, Ted was anything but defeated or remorseful. He felt exhilarated. He loved the intensity. of the courtroom. He may not have finished law school, but he used his own case as a way to flex his legal know-how. Ted wanted to be as involved as possible in his defense. He did extensive research and frequently consulted with his attorney. He strutted around the courtroom,

confident that he would win the fight. He was wrong. On March 1st, Ted was found guilty and sentenced to one to 15 years in prison. For the first time, he was found guilty. For the first time, he'd have to suffer the consequences of his actions, and it wasn't long before his true crimes came back to haunt him. Eight months into a sentence, Ted was charged with Karen Campbell's murder. For months, detectives in Colorado had been gathering circumstantial evidence that placed Ted at the Wildwood Inn at the time Karen went missing. When they learned their prime suspect had already been imprisoned for kidnapping,

they believed they had their man. 30-year-old Ted was extradited to Colorado. That winter, Ted lost his biggest supporters, Liz Klepfer and Sharon Hour. Liz and Sharon had stood by Ted's side throughout the Carol Durant's trial, completely unaware that he was seeing both of them. But with the murder charge,

the two women reached their breaking points. They both left him, and so with few supporters left, and with the looming possibility of a death sentence, Ted took matters into his own hands. On July 7, 1977, Ted attended a pretrial hearing in Aspen, Colorado, that would determine whether or not he would face the death penalty. That morning, during a court recess, Ted asked to use the courthouse's law library. This was not an unusual request, just like he had with the Carol Durantz trial,

Ted was adamant about researching his own defense. And so the deputies allowed Ted access, alone and unshackled. As the deputies waited in the hallway outside, Ted opened the library's second-story window and jumped. As soon as he hit the ground, he felt a searing pain chewed up his leg. The impact tore a ligament in his ankle. But Ted didn't stop. He scrambled to his feet. and sprinted toward the surrounding mountains.

By the time deputies realized he was gone, he'd already disappeared into the Colorado wilderness. Ted's escape was no impulsive decision. For weeks, he'd been planning his escape, and he'd worn multiple layers of clothing for the occasion. He was going to need all the warmth he could get to survive freezing nights at elevated altitudes. Ted was determined to go as high

and as far as he could. Ted remembered psyching himself up as he made his way into the mountains. He later told journalists, I was saying to myself again and again, you must go, you must go. Don't hesitate. Don't stop. Don't stop.

Ted had good reason to keep running because very soon an army of Coloradoans rallied together to hunt him down. Authorities orchestrated us sweeping manhunt. Locals from the area even showed up to volunteer on horseback, armed with rifles. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to track Ted Bundy down. Police set up checkpoints on the only two roads out of Aspen, hoping they'd catch the killer as he tried to flee town, but not a single vehicle contained the runaway murderer. That was because Ted hadn't left. His first night on the

lamb, he broke into an empty hunting cabin, only part way up the mountain. He spent every night after outside in the freezing woods, trekking the wilderness with his injured ankle, just steps ahead of a team of search dogs. But eventually, a brutal rainstorm forced Ted from his hiding place in the mountains. Exhausted, starving, and nearly 25 pounds lighter, he made his way to a small town below, got a meal, and stole a car. It was time to get out of Dodge. But Ted's road to freedom was short. On July 13, 1977, at 2 a.m., police stopped a car driving erratically on the highway. Inside, a haggard-looking man with wild eyes squinted into the beam of the officer's flashlight. Finally, they'd found Ted. Bundy was on the run for nearly a week.

before he was apprehended. When he returned to prison, he flashed his signature grin for the cameras. And as reporters crowded around him, he cracked jokes, downplaying his escape. He told them, honest to God, I just got sick and tired of being locked up. For the next five and a half months, Ted languished in prison, awaiting his murder trial. But he had no intention of setting foot in court. With a 25-pound head starred after his escape, He continued to starve himself until he was thin enough to fit through an opening in the ceiling of a cell, where a light fixture hadn't yet been installed. In the early hours of December 31st, 1977, Ted made his move. At less than 140 pounds, he lifted himself through the hole in his ceiling and army crawled through the air shafts into the guards' apartment located above his cell.

From there, he dropped into the room and stole a set of clothes. Then he walked out the front door. Ted Bundy, America's most prolific serial killer, escaped for the second time and slipped into the winter night. Ted Bundy goes on a bloody road trip across America and captures the fascination of the entire country. Now back to the story. From 1974 to 1975, Ted Bundy murdered at least 17 women, moving his killing spree from the Pacific Northwest to Utah, then Colorado. But when an unrelated arrest led to his first murder charge, Ted realized his time was fleeting. In the months following his extradition to Colorado, he made not one, but two escapes.

and on New Year's Eve of 1977, 31-year-old Ted broke out of prison and disappeared into the night. That morning, using money donated for his defense fund, Ted secured his exit out of Colorado. He hopped on a bus to the Denver airport and then took a plane to Chicago. From there, he rode a train to Ann Arbor, Michigan. But at the time, Ted's priority wasn't hiding out. It was college football. On January 2nd, Ted cheered on his alma mater, University of Washington, as they defeated the University of Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Then that night, without a single cent to his name, he slept in the sanctuary of a local Methodist church. The next morning, he stole a car. Ted decided he needed to be as far away from the northwest as possible, so he set his sights on the opposite corner of the country. He went to Florida. Ted figured that in Florida, no one would be looking for him. He wasn't wrong.

Due to a lack of expedient communication between police departments, the Sunshine State was left in the dark. After his escape in Colorado, the feds got involved in the haunt for Ted, and soon he was placed on the FBI's most wanted list. But even so, with no computers and no central database, Authorities on the East Coast had little idea that a killer from the West may be headed their way. On January 8, 1978, one week after escaping prison in Colorado, Ted Bundy drove to Tallahassee. In Tallahassee, Ted told people his name was Chris Hagen.

And after stealing a handful of strangers' credit cards from a local bar, he secured himself a room in an apartment complex next door to a sorority house. Chi Omega. Just one week later, in the early morning hours of January 15, 1978, 31-year-old Ted embarked on his boldest crime yet. Ted watched as the sisters of the Chi Omega sorority trickled back to the house from their dates and headed to bed. By 2.30 a.m., when it seemed the last girl had fallen asleep,

he made his move. Ted slipped through the sorority house's back door, carrying a small oak tree limb he found in the backyard. As he walked quietly through the house, passing portrait after portrait of sorority sisters past, he could feel his heart pound. Finally, he approached the room of 21-year-old Margaret Bowman. Inside, Margaret was fast asleep. In the span of just minutes, Ted had beaten, and strangled her to death. Now panting and spattered with blood, Ted could feel himself losing all control.

Without hesitation, he moved on to his next victim. Ted entered the room of 20-year-old Lisa Levy. She was strangled and clubbed to death, like Margaret, but Ted's attack on Lisa was particularly vicious. As he assaulted her, Ted bit Lisa's body. Ted had lost himself entirely in his bloodlust. He sunk his teeth into her buttocks and tore away a nipple on her right breast. Ted continued to make his way down the hall of the sorority house,

attacking two more women there that night, 21-year-old Karen Chandler and 20-year-old Kathy Kleiner. Like Margaret and Lisa, Karen and Kathy were unconscious during the attacks, But fortunately, they survived, just barely. When EMTs later arrived at the scene, they weren't sure if they were alive or dead. As he watched the girls' beaten bodies being loaded into ambulances, Sheriff Ken Kassaris wondered what kind of monster could have committed a crime so heinous. But before he could ponder the answer, he heard a call over his radio.

Another young woman had been brutally beaten only blocks away. Ted had barely made it down the street before succumbing to his murderous urges again. Ted's brazen behavior had reached new heights. This time, he'd left evidence behind. When Caceres raced to the scene, he found a mask made out of women's nylons and a semen stain in the woman's bedroom. Ted had gotten so absorbed in the thrill of the kill, he'd sabotaged himself. Criminologists commonly classify serial killers based on a distinct dichotomy,

organized and disorganized murderers. For years, Ted's crimes had placed him neatly in the former. He was a textbook organized killer, socially competent and high-functioning. He always planned his murders in advance, sometimes elaborately, and took pride in his ability to leave without a trace. But over time, Ted's classification dramatically shifted. According to researchers Barney Worf and Cynthia Waddell, the lines between organized and disorganized killers is commonly blurred when a murderer is left to murder over an extended period of time. Worf and Wadell explained that as a killer's urges heightened, their psychosis intensifies,

often changing their previously well-established habits. And for Ted, this transition happened quickly. When he entered the Chi Omega House that night, Ted was an organized killer, but when he walked out, he'd seemingly devolved. Ted's subsequent kills only became more chaotic. He was no longer following a plan, propelled only by lust. Ted murdered multiple women in quick succession and left their body. bodies at the crime scene. He was spiraling out of control.

Soon, propelled by the chaos of the Chi Omega murders, Ted fled Tallahassee and headed southeast to the small town of Lake City, Florida. There, he would deviate even further, abandoning the one characteristic that had defined all his other murders, his victim profile. On February 9, 1978, Ted spotted 12-year-old Kimberly Lee. crossing the basketball court of her junior high school. The last anyone saw of Kim, she was climbing into a white van looking upset. After murdering nearly three dozen white college-age women with long dark hair, Ted had taken an entirely new type of victim.

He murdered a young child. This signified an extreme turning point in Ted. He was no longer the slick, deceptive killer with a crystal clear intent. As the stress of his life on the run intensified, and his inevitable fate in prison loomed larger, it didn't matter who he killed anymore. He simply needed to keep feeding the ravenous part of himself that urged him to continue. Five days later, on Valentine's Day, an officer noticed Ted driving under the speed limit in an orange VW bug. Following his instincts, the officer decided to pull the vehicle over.

Instead, Ted panicked and sped off. A high-speed chase ensued, and then a fight. Once the officer managed to corner Ted, he lashed out, even reaching for the policeman's gun. But the struggle was futile, and Ted was arrested and searched. Officers found more than 21 credit cards in his possession, with a variety of names. They were all stolen, as was the car. Ted refused to reveal his identity. Authorities were baffled and suspicious.

Who was this mystery man? By the next day, they had a hunch. By tracing the VW's plates, they discovered it had been stolen in Tallahassee near the Chi Omega sorority house. Soon, the Pensacola PD called up Sheriff Ken Cassaris of Tallahassee and broke the news. They believed they had the Coed Killer

in their custody. For days, Ken and his detectives questioned Ted. They brought him cigarettes to win him over, and eventually Ted agreed to reveal his identity on one condition. He wanted a phone call. He wanted to call Liz Klepfer. He warned her that she'd soon see really ugly stories about him on the news. He was right.

Once the media got a hold of the story, Ted's name was everywhere. At the time, he was already one of the ten most wanted men in the U.S. The Chi Omega murders only raised his profile. But the thing that truly sealed Ted Bundy and America's collective consciousness was perhaps not the details of his crimes, but his bizarre performance at his own murder trials. Following Ted's indictment, the Florida State Supreme Court made an unprecedented ruling

Due to the high level of public interest in the case, Ted's trial would not only be open to Florida residents, it would be the first murder trial to be nationally televised. In June of 1979, hundreds of people flooded the Miami courtroom for the first day of proceedings. Television crews from all 50 states and nine countries set up lights and rolled cameras. And spectators, many of them young women, fascinated by the cute. curiously charming murderer filled seats. As 32-year-old Ted entered the courtroom, he beamed at the crowds and winked at cameras. He had an audience. The entire nation was watching. Ever the showman, the spectators only emboldened Ted.

He made impassioned speeches and cracked jokes, making the courtroom roar with laughter. Just as he did during the Carol Durant case, And despite his lack of a law degree, Ted led his own defense. Though a team of young public defenders was assigned to his case, Ted assumed the position of lead counsel, much to their annoyance. Multiple times, he drove his lawyers to walk out of the courtroom in frustration. Ted insisted on cross-examining witnesses, often undermining his own argument in the process. And in the end, there was little his attorneys could do to stop him.

Ted was too caught up playing lawyer in the role of a lifetime. But the stakes couldn't be higher. For all of his showmanship, his impassioned speeches and theatrics, Ted was still dealt the death penalty. On July 31, 1979, in his thick southern drawl, Judge Edward Cowart sentenced Ted to the electric chair. But it seemed that even though, the judge at Ted's murder trial hadn't escaped the serial killer's charms. After he delivered

his verdict, coward lamented that he saw a bright young man's potential wasted. He stated, take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely. It is a tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity. You're a bright young man. You'd have made a good lawyer, and I'd have loved to have you practice in front of me. But you went another way, partner. I don't have any animosity to you. I want you to know that. But even after being sentenced to death, Ted's antics were far from over. In January of 1980, Ted represented himself for the last time in the murder trial of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

And once again, he was given the death penalty. But it was nearly a decade before he saw his sentence through. In that time, Ted Bundy lingered on death row, taking interviews with journalists and psychologists, and as his execution grew closer, he began admitting to more murders just to delay his sentence. Ultimately, he admitted to 31 in total. But Ted could only delay fate for so long. On January 24, 1989, 42-year-old Ted took his seat. in the electric chair in front of a large picture window.

Behind it was a gallery of onlookers, many of whom were witnesses at his trial. In his last words to his very last audience, Ted apologized for all the trouble he'd caused. Then a metal skull cap was placed on his head, followed by a black hood. The executioner flipped the switch. And moments later, at 7.16 a.m., Ted Bundy was pronounced dead.

At his request, Ted was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location in the Cascades in Washington State. After his death, Ted Bundy took his place among a class of America's most prolific serial killers. But his bloody legacy lives on, not because of the number of his crimes, but because of Ted himself. Americans were and still are fascinated with the good. good-looking charmer with a capacity to kill. It's this duality that we fixate on, the shadowy boundary between all-American man and notorious murderer that he embodied so well. Countless movies, documentaries, and books, both fiction and not, have been inspired by his brutality and his charisma, making him into a kind of macabre celebrity. Ted Bundy has become synonymous with the idea of a

serial killer, the prototype of a psychopathic lust murderer. But as the media's love affair with Ted rages on, it begs the question, was this what he ultimately wanted? There's no doubt Ted used his unique position at his televised trial to his benefit, but perhaps he'd always intended to make a lasting impression that would live on long past his inevitable death. In Ted's last act, he'd manipulated an entire nation, creating a dark stain on our collective consciousness. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back Monday with a new episode. 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 all episodes of serial killers and all other partcast originals for free on Spotify. or anywhere you listen to podcasts. 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 and type Serial Killers in the search bar.

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 podcast studios original. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, Isabella Way, and Joel Stein. This episode of serial killers was written by Alex Garland, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson.

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