Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - The Serial ‘70s: Ted Bundy

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

He kidnapped, raped, and murdered more than 30 women. There's a belief that Ted Bundy got away with these crimes because he was a confident and savvy manipulator. But a look back shows that because he was young, educated, and conventionally attractive, he could hide in plain sight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa. For years, Parcast has worked tirelessly to bring you an unprecedented look at history's most radical true crime events. Your support has not only allowed us to keep exploring these stories, but has driven us to keep expanding as well. So as a thank you to the Parcast listeners, I am honored to announce the release of our first book, Cults, Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups, and Understanding the People Who Join Them. It's available on July 12th, and you can pre-order it today at parcast.com slash cults. The Branch Davidians, the Ant Hill Kids, Heaven's Gate, and more. Cults combs through the terrifying details never explored in any of Parcast's series before.

This is a passion project only made possible by you, so we truly hope you'll enjoy it. Visit parcast.com slash cults to pre-order your copy of Cults inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who joined them. Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, sexual assault, and child abuse. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Carol Durant loved them all. Throughout high school, whenever she felt sad or overwhelmed, the fashion place mall had met her refuge.

It felt like a window into the adult life she longed for, even at 18. She'd get lost in the thrum of shoppers, try on clothes at the gap, drink an orange Julius at the food court. Sometimes she'd even venture into the fancy department store and sample perfumes, trying to decide what her signature scent should be when she grew up. On this November evening, Carol was on a mission, Christmas shopping. But as she headed towards Sears, she noticed a man walking straight towards her. He seemed to be in his early 20s and wasn't bad-looking. He had tussled hair and a chiseled jaw, and he was smiling reassuringly at her, holding up a police badge.

The man told Carol that her car had been broken into, inside the mall parking lot. They had a suspect in custody, he said, but she'd need to come down to the police station to make a complaint. Carol hesitated. Something about the cop seemed off. When he stepped closer to her, she could smell alcohol on his breath. But it's not like she could argue with a police officer, right? besides, her parents would be furious with her if the car was damaged. Sensing her hesitation, the man said, I can give you a ride to the station if you like. This should only take a few minutes.

As she followed him out of the mall, Carol told herself that there was nothing wrong with the guy, that she was being paranoid. But she wasn't. In fact, within moments, she'd be fighting for her life. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. Welcome to the third episode of our special serial killers fifth anniversary series. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We've reached the midpoint of this mini-series, where we're exploring the origins of America's serial killer obsession by re-examining the mythology surrounding four legendary murderers. So far, we've discussed two men whose crimes shaped our understanding of what a serial killer looks like. Edmund Kemper was a genius driven to kill by his abusive overbeckers, bearing mother. John Wayne Gacy was a seemingly ordinary guy who used his suburban basement as a

torture chamber. Today, we're focusing on another killer who hid in plain sight for years. Like Gacy, Ted Bundy was a wolf and sheep's clothing. He was young, educated, and conventionally attractive. Nobody's idea of a monster. And he used that to his advantage as he kidnapped, raped, and murdered more than 30 women. His murder trial, one of the first televised court cases in American history was the dawn of true crime culture as we know it today. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting.

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Was Ted Bundy hot? That bizarre question consumed a corner of the internet a few years back, thanks to a double bill of Netflix releases. In 2019, the streaming platform released both a documentary series about Bundy and a biographical movie starring former teen heartthrobs Zach Ephron in the lead role. In response, some viewers took to social media to publish lust after Bundy. If you know anything about Bundy's crimes, this probably makes you uncomfortable,

and you're not alone. A lot of people at the time, including whoever was running Netflix's Twitter, called out the comments as inappropriate. But Ted Bundy's looks have always been a huge part of his mythology. So when we're looking into that mythos, it's a pretty good place to start. While he was in jail, Bundy received love letters and marriage proposals from countless women. During his trial, female fans showed up at the courthouse to support their idol. Some of these groupies even styled themselves to resemble Bundy's victims, dyeing their hair dark brown, parting it in the middle and wearing hoop earrings, which is, well, it's definitely worth talking about.

Before we continue with the psychology for this episode, please keep in mind that neither Vanessa nor myself are licensed psychologist or psychiatrist. But we've done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Bundy's far from the only male serial killer with a fervent female fan base. There's actually a term for this, hybristophilia, which was coined during the 1980s by sexologist Professor John Money. This is a rare parapheria that's not in the DSM-5, but describes an individual who is sexually aroused by knowing that their partner has committed a violent crime. However, it's not clear that this is exactly what was going on with Bundy's fans, at least not all of them. Many believed he was innocent, while others believed that although he was guilty, they could fix him. It seems like they were entranced not so much by his crimes, but by the possibility that he could change for them.

According to forensic psychology professor Catherine Ramsland, this delusional belief wouldn't exist if Bundy weren't attractive. She wrote, this hyper fascination with killers like Bundy grows from media portrayals of him as a handsome, articulate man who could sometimes be gentle and gentle. caring. You probably notice that word again, handsome. The fact that Bundy's appearance comes up so often speaks to our assumptions about what evil is supposed to look like and what it isn't. There's a halo effect associated with being attractive. Studies dating back to the 1970s indicate that we tend to assume beautiful people are smarter, more generous, and even morally superior. So perhaps this is why Bundy attracted such fervent attention. His good looks juxtaposed with his vicious crimes were an irresistible contradiction. People were desperate to understand him.

But of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For every person calling Bundy handsome, there's someone else calling him average-looking. What we can say for sure is that Bundy was a white, educated cisgender man, and those factors alone gave him enormous power. In a paper entitled, Consuming Cannibals, Psychopathic Killers as Arctotypes and Cultural Icons, researcher Joseph Grixie argues that Bundy's case was disorienting for many people at the time because he embodied, quote, many of the most cherished American notions of wholesomeness. His good looks were part of this, but so was his race, his educational background, his clean-cut appearance, and his ties to both the Republican Party and the Mormon Church.

When Bundy joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his enthusiasm seemed genuine. His branch president at the time, Michael Priest, recalled that he was active in the church, regularly attended meetings, and was even baptized. Being part of the church was yet another layer of cover for Bundy. During his trial, his fellow Mormons leapt to his defense. As far as they were concerned, it was impossible for one of their own to be guilty of murder. Perhaps Bundy sought out the church for precisely this reason, to burnish his image as an all-American golden boy.

But that's not the only possible of it. explanation. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger, who directed a 2019 documentary series about Bundy, has a different take. In his opinion, Bundy joined the church not for cynical reasons, but because he craved normalcy. Based on what we know about his childhood, it's easy to see why this might be the case. According to Bundy himself, his early years were idyllic. Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Lewis, who interviewed Bundy several times in prison, said that he used euphoric terms to describe his childhood. But when Lewis did a little digging, she uncovered

a very different picture of Bundy's origins. Through interviews with his relatives, she discovered that Bundy's grandfather was a violent and unstable man, who likely abused him during his first three years of his life. Bundy himself had no memory of this, but he would sometimes sign letters using his grandfather's name, Sam. Lewis said, it's not unusual for a child who has been horribly abused throughout childhood to at times take on the persona of the abuser and do to others what the abuser did to him. It's also not unusual for a person to suppress early memories of distressing events. A 2015 study from Northwestern University indicates that childhood trauma can affect the way

the brain forms memories. In some cases, the memory of trauma and traumatic experiences, like abuse, may be suppressed. When the brain creates a memory in a particular state of stress, or arousal, that memory can become inaccessible unless the brain is back in that state. This is known as state-dependent learning. Though this functions as a defense mechanism to protect a person from upsetting memories, suppress trauma can also cause a number of psychological conditions. These include anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders.

Bundy may have fallen into the latter category. There's evidence that he dissociated on a number of occasions, not just in childhood, but throughout his life. We discussed dissociative identity disorder in the last episode. During his trial, John Wayne Gacy claimed, unsuccessfully, that he lived with this disorder. That claim was easy to disprove, since there was no indication that Gacy had distinct personalities, which is the main diagnostic criteria for DID. Bundy, on the other hand, may have had alternates. According to Lewis, he signed letters using different names and even different handwriting. There's no way to know for sure whether Bundy did have DID.

Lewis's discoveries about his childhood and his symptoms came years after he was executed. But the possibility that Bundy was mentally ill casts his legacy in a different light, something to keep in mind when we dive into a story later in this episode. Mental illness and trauma don't really factor into Bundy's mythology. Despite his heinous crimes, most people picture him as a supremely confident, well-adjusted, master manipulator. And there's also a perception that he was a genius. Throughout this series, we've been spotlighting some widely held beliefs about serial killers.

We discussed how Edmund Kemper's unusually high IQ factored into his legacy, and the same is true of Bundy. Except that unlike Kemper, Bundy didn't have an especially high IQ. In her book, The Stranger Beside Me, Bundy's colleague and friend Anne Rule wrote that his IQ was 124. This is a slightly above-average score, but nowhere close to genius level. He was also an unexceptional student. In fact, he was admitted to law school despite a mediocre result on the LSAT test. Yet in the public retelling of his story, Bundy's intellect becomes larger than life. It's easy to see every decision he made as part of some master plan.

He studied psychology so that he could ensnare more victims. He studied law so that he could evade the authorities and later represent himself in court. But when you take a closer look at Bundy's actions, the chaos becomes clear. He wasn't especially careful or strategic. He often attacked in broad daylight. He used his real name when he introduced himself to prospective victims. Several times, witnesses were able to give a description of him to the police. Bundy avoided capture for so long, not because he was careful, but because law enforcement wasn't equipped to handle a killer like him. For one thing, he committed his crimes across seven states. The FBI didn't yet have a system in place to catch

serial violent criminals, and information sharing between states was minimal at the time. And even when the authorities were pointed directly at Bundy, they failed to act. Several tips were dismissed once the police looked into his background. He was a law student with a squeaky clean record. Surely he was harmless. So contrary to the myth, Ted Bundy wasn't all that handsome and he wasn't all that smart. He was simply the epitome of what 1970s America celebrated, a white, educated. conservative. And that suit of armor allowed him to get away with the unthinkable. In a moment, we'll take a closer look at the facts behind Bundy's mythology.

Listeners, I have a very special announcement. Parcast is releasing its first book on July 12th, and you can help us celebrate. It's called cults, inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who joined them. And you can pre-order it today at Parcast. com slash cults. This book was written for the fans, so to commemorate its launch, Parcast will be throwing some exclusive in-person and online events, featuring popular true crime hosts such as Ashley Flowers from Crime Junkie, Christine and M from And That's Why We Drink, and more. Just visit parcast.com slash cults for event dates, locations, and how to sign up.

See your favorite true crime authors and podcasters discuss the cults book and have a chance to participate in live Q&As. These events have limited space, so don't miss out. RSVP today. None of this would be possible without your support, so we truly hope you'll join us. Pre-order your copy of cults and sign up for upcoming events at parkast.com slash cults.

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and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. Now back to the story. Despite differing opinions on his hotness, one thing that everybody can agree on is that Ted Bundy was a masterful liar. He was extraordinarily good at appearing to be something he wasn't. He might have learned that from his childhood, which was built around an elaborate lie, Bundy's mother, Louise Cowell, gave birth to him in 1946 in Burlington, Vermont. The identity of Bundy's father has never been confirmed, but we do know that he was never married to Louise. Babies born out of wedlock were heavily stigmatized at the time, and Louise's family were determined not to let their daughter be disgraced.

So, her parents agreed to raise Ted as their own son. For the first several years of his life, Bundy believed that his grandparents, Samuel and Eleanor, were his parents, and that his mother was his older sister. As we discussed earlier, Samuel was a violent and volatile man. He was abusive towards the entire family, including Bundy. By the time Bundy was four, Louise knew something had to change. She'd endured her father's abuse long enough

and didn't want her son to grow up in the same environment she had. So she packed up and headed west. She and Bundy moved in with relatives in Tacoma, Washington for a while, but Louise soon remarried and her husband, Johnny, formally adopted Bundy. It's not clear exactly when Bundy discovered the truth about his parentage, but the lies in instability made for an uneasy childhood and a twisted adolescence. As a teenager, Bundy did everything he could to find pictures of naked women. This might sound like typical teenage behavior, except that Bundy took it a little further than most.

He'd prowl his suburban neighborhood rummaging through trash cans. And it wasn't just porn he was looking for. Bundy was obsessed with stories that involved sexual violence, especially when they came with illustrations. And he could find those in what were called fact crime magazines, publications that offered lurid descriptions of real criminal cases. That's right. Ted Bundy was a true crime fan. But he was also a budding criminal in his own right. At night, he roamed the quiet streets of Tacoma, searching for windows with their curtains drawn.

His goal, of course, was to catch unsuspecting women in the nude. Bundy's parents and peers had no idea about his nighttime activities. At high school, he was seen as serious and aloof, but not as a creep or an outcast. That's probably because Bundy found social interactions confusing, so he chose to keep to himself. This is a striking contrary. to the image we all have of Bundy, as a smooth, charming, social chameleon.

That side didn't begin to emerge until a senior year when he started volunteering in local politics. Working on a local Republican campaign, Bundy blossomed. He felt more at home with his older colleagues than he ever had at school, and he finally developed a social circle. After he graduated from high school in 1965, Bundy enrolled at the local University of Puget Sound before transferring to the University of Washington in Seattle a year later. There at 21, Bundy met his first real girlfriend, Diane Edwards. He fell hard. In Bundy's eyes,

Diane was the perfect girl. She was intelligent from a wealthy family, and she was so beautiful that she'd once worked as a model. Frankly, he worried she was out of his league. And in a way, he was right. Diane had her doubts about Bundy. She felt he was a doormat who was overly worried about pleasing others. Whenever they fought, he kowd to her, which he found off-putting, and she also worried that he lacked ambition. So after about a year and a half, Diane broke things off. Bundy was so devastated that he dropped out of college. After that, he floated aimlessly through life for a while, working a series of odd jobs and volunteering for more political campaigns. Feeling restless in Washington, he hit the road for a while, living for brief stints in Colorado

in Philadelphia. To be clear, he was dejected, but not defeated. He knew he had a lot to offer the world if he could just figure out where to focus his attention. He refused to resign himself to failure. So, in the fall of 1969, Bundy returned to Seattle, determined to turn over a new leaf and delve back into his studies. He re-enrolled at UW, where he majored in psychology and made the honor role. His personal life also took an upturn. Soon after arriving back in town, he started dating Elizabeth Klepfer, a 24-year-old single mother who worked as a secretary at UW, and he made himself into the perfect partner for her. Elizabeth had a three-year-old daughter, Molly, who quickly bonded with Bundy.

He seemed to relish being a father figure and often took Molly on biking and skiing adventures. From the outside, the three of them were a tight-knit family. But behind closed doors, Bundy's monstrous true self emerged. When he was alone with Molly, he began sexually abusing her. Elizabeth had no idea this was going on. Bundy's perfect boyfriend persona was too well-constructed for her to question it. To her and to the world, he was an accomplished and ambitious young man with a passion for helping people. Given how he spent his downtime, how could they think anything else?

In between classes, Bundy worked at a suicide hotline, counseling people in the depths of despair. He befriended a colleague there, Anne Ruhl, who was impressed by his empathy and patience with callers. In her book, The Stranger Beside Me, Rule wrote that Bundy was one of those rare people who listened with full attention. You could tell things to Ted you might never tell anyone else. And that charisma served him well after he graduated from UW in 1972. Bundy jumped back into politics, working on the re-election campaign for then-governor Daniel Evans, and later as an assistant to the chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. A year later, Bundy applied to law school at the University of Puget Sound.

Though his test scores were average, his letters of recommendation were glowing, so he was accepted. In just a few years, Bundy had completely turned his life around. He was on top of the world, and he knew just the person he wanted to share this moment with. During the summer of 1973, Bundy's work with the Republican Party took him to California. where his ex-girlfriend Diane now lived. When he reached out to her, Diane was impressed by his transformation. Before, she'd seen him as weak and directionless. But now, he was the opposite.

Though Bundy was still seeing Elizabeth, he rekindled his relationship with Diane. After he enrolled in law school that fall, Diane often flew to Seattle to visit him. But Bundy coordinated these visits carefully, and neither Diane nor Elizabeth knew about each other. Things between Bundy and Diane got serious quickly. They even spoke about getting married.

But about six months into their rekindled relationship, something changed. In January of 1974, Bundy abruptly ghosted Diane. He ignored her numerous phone calls and letters, leaving her confused and distraught. The truth was that Bundy never had any intention of marrying Diane. He simply wanted to prove that he could have her if he wanted to. He'd seduced her all over again. just to have the satisfaction of breaking her heart. This proved to be a deadly turning point for Bundy.

Ever since he was a teenager, he'd been fascinated by images of violence against women and girls. Perhaps it was a manifestation of some unresolved anger he might have felt toward his mother for hiding the truth about his real parentage. But as far as we know, he never acted on that anger, not until he started molesting Molly. Getting away with that abuse,

on top of viciously humiliating his first love, Diane, had brought out a sadistic streak in Bundy, and he didn't stop at emotional cruelty. Just two days after he stopped speaking to Diane, he finally acted on an impulse that had been simmering for months, perhaps even for years. On January 4th, Bundy broke into a basement apartment in Seattle's University District. Inside, he found 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a UW student. Bundy wrenched a metal rod off Karen's bedframe and bludgeoned her with it. He also sexually sexual assaulted her with the rod, then left her for dead. Miraculously, Karen survived this brutal attack. Her roommate found her hours later and got her to a

hospital, but she was left with permanent brain damage and physical disabilities. Bundy kept up with the local news, so he surely found out that Karen had lived. Knowing what we do about Bundy's behavior, it's possible that the discovery bothered him, made him feel like a failure, which he'd sworn never to be again. That might be why just a few weeks later, on February 1st, he returned to the same neighborhood and broke into another basement apartment. 21-year-old Linda Anne Healy was asleep inside. Like Karen, Linda was a UW student and worked at a local radio station where she broadcast

morning weather reports. But to Bundy, who she was was meaningless. She was just prey. Bundy beat Linda unconscious, then carried her out of the apartment. As with most of Bundy's victims, the details of exactly what happened to Linda are fuzzy, but based on the limited information we have, we can take an educated guess. Bundy bound and gagged Linda, then drove her out to Taylor Mountain, a secluded hiking spot about 40 miles south of Seattle.

There he sexually assaulted her, then strangled her to death. Afterwards, he felt immense relief and a sense of accomplishment. He'd proved to himself that he never had to feel like a failure, Again. In murder, he'd found an arena in which he knew he could excel, and he was excited to get to work. Coming up, Bundy embarks on his interstate killing spree. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today.

Enjoying activity twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavaheater.com. Only a Yamava resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. Now back to the story. In early 1974, Ted Bundy finally achieved his full potential.

He was a college graduate with a promising legal career ahead of him. Oh, and he was also on the cusp of becoming one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. After killing Linda Anne Healy, 27-year-old. old Bundy was on a role. He developed a trusty method for reeling victims in. He'd wrap his arm in a cast or a sling, then approach a young woman. As far as first impressions went, he came off as handsome, well-spoken, and vulnerable. It was an irresistible combination. With a sheepish smile, he'd ask her for assistance with some physical task, lifting a sailboat onto the roof of his car, for example. So many were more than happy to help. Using this tactic, he kidnapped and murdered

at least five more young women and dumped their bodies at Taylor Mountain. But that summer, Bundy got sloppy. On July 14th, he abducted and killed two women at Lake Sammamish State Park. It was a popular spot for picnics and kayaking, especially on a perfect summer's day like the 14th was. So there were a lot of eyewitnesses around. After 23-year-old Janice Ann Ott and 19-year-old Denise Marie Naslin went missing. Several people reported that they'd say.

seen him walking with a man who had his arm in a sling. That wasn't all. Bundy had approached multiple women that day and introduced himself by his real name, Ted. That made him a chief suspect. The police had enough details to create a composite sketch of Ted. They even knew what car he was driving, a brown Volkswagen Beetle, and when Elizabeth Klepfer saw the description in a local paper, she was chilled. She contacted the police and told them the suspect sounded like her boyfriend. bizarrely, Elizabeth had to call repeatedly before the cops took her seriously. In fairness to the police, they were receiving hundreds of tips every day, many of them worthless, and they just couldn't square these brutal crimes with Bundy, a squeaky clean law student with no criminal record.

Still, they eventually began investigating him. Sensing the heat, Bundy found a way to get out of town. He applied to law school at the University of Utah and transferred there in August, just a month after the Lake Sammamish murders. He knew he'd been careless in Washington, and he needed cover now more than ever, so he became involved with the Mormon Church strengthening his reputation as a clean-cut, law-abiding citizen.

But less than two months after he arrived in Salt Lake City, he went back to killing. He abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered five women throughout October and November of 1974 and ditched their bodies in the mountainous areas outside of the city. Importantly, one of his victims from this period survived to tell the tale. In November, Bundy headed for the fashion place mall in the city of Murray, Utah. 18-year-old Carol Durantz was doing some Christmas shopping that day when Bundy approached her.

He held up a fake police badge and told her that her car had been broken into, so she needed to go with him to the police station. Carol went with Bundy and got into his car, but as he started to drive, she sensed that something was wrong. After pulling out of the mall parking lot, he headed down a side street and parked. Then he turned to Carol with a strange look on his face. He grabbed hold of her wrist and tried to handcuff her, but Carol fought back and managed to escape into some nearby woods.

She reported the attempted abduction to the police, but it's not clear how much information she was able to give them. Back in Seattle, Elizabeth saw the news reports about young women going missing in Salt Lake City, alarmed, she redoubled her efforts, telling the police in both Washington and Utah that the description matched Bundy, but both investigations moved at a snail's pace. Which meant Bundy was free to continue his vicious spree. The following year, he headed east to Colorado for a while, killing at least three women before returning to Utah.

On August 18, 1975, a Salt Lake City police officer noticed Bundy driving around his precinct, Something about the Volkswagen made him suspicious, so he pulled Bundy over and searched the car. In the back seat, he found a pair of handcuffs, a ski mask, a crowbar, and a pair of pantyhose. Now on high alert, he arrested Bundy. Once Bundy was in custody, the police quickly linked him to Carol DeRanch's attempted kidnapping. They also connected the dots to Elizabeth Klepfer's description of her boyfriend. A search of Bundy's apartment didn't turn up anything conclusive, so he was a But the police weren't about to just let him walk free.

They placed him under surveillance as they kept searching for evidence. Now panicking, Bundy sold his Volkswagen Beetle, but this turned out to be a serious misstep. Within hours, the police had impounded the car and sent it to the FBI for analysis. Inside, the forensics team found hairs that belonged to Carol Durant. And a few weeks later, Carol herself picked Bundy out of a lineup. At last, the authorities had him nailed. On October 2nd, 1975, Bundy was arrested for aggravated kidnapping. Five months later, he was found guilty and sentenced to one to 15 years in prison.

But the police suspected he was guilty of far more than one attempted kidnapping. By now, the remains of many of Bundy's victims had been found in Washington, Colorado, and Utah. As Bundy languished behind bars, investigators in all three states coordinated to try and link him to a sluble. of unsolved murders, and by the following year, the Colorado authorities had enough to charge him. In October of 1976, he was extradited to Aspen to face trial for murdering 23-year-old Karen Campbell. Her hair had turned up in the back of his Volkswagen. It was during this time in Aspen that the next phase of Bundy's infamy began. As the reality of his situation began to sink in, he became increasingly desperate. He knew he couldn't charm his

way out of this situation. The evidence against him was mounting. There was only one thing for it. So, in June of 1977, Bundy escaped custody, fleeing through a second-story window at the Aspen courthouse. Though he was quickly recaptured, it wasn't his last Houdini moment. Just six months later, on New Year's Eve, Bundy escaped again. This time he fled from his jail cell in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Squeezing through a hole in the ceiling, Bundy made it into an apartment that was usually occupied by the prison warden. The warden was out for the evening, so Bundy stole some clothes from his closet, then walked out of the jail without drawing any attention at all.

Thanks to understaffing over the holiday, no one noticed until it was too late. The fact that Bundy was able to pull off not one but two jail breaks is pretty remarkable. His sheer audacity plays a huge role in his mythology. It falls right in line with our image of Bundy as a shrewd, jewell, But Bundy's intellect had nothing to do with his escapes. He got away because the systems and institutions around him failed. And because of that failure, he was unleashed yet again on an unsuspecting public. Bundy stole a car, drove east, and made it all the way to Tallahassee, Florida. There, he rented a room under a fake name, but he knew he couldn't hide for long. He'd been added

to the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives list, and the manhunt was covered by news outlets across state lines. So he went back to killing while he still could. On January 15th, 1978, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. Intoxicated by the prospect of killing for the first time in more than two years, he went berserk. He bludgeoned two women to death and beat two others into unconsciousness. But Bundy's MO had changed. He didn't linger or tried to take any of his victims with him to a second location. Instead, he left the sorority house and broke into a basement apartment just a few blocks away. There, he savagely beat 21-year-old Cheryl Thomas, leaving her with brain damage.

Cheryl's roommates heard her screaming and called the police, so Bundy fled. But it's clear he wasn't really trying that hard to evade capture anymore. He knew he was living on borrowed time and wanted to get as many. sick thrills in as he could before the inevitable. On February 9th, Bundy claimed his last and youngest known victim in Lake City, Florida. As 12-year-old Kimberly Leach was leaving school, he abducted her. He sexually assaulted her and strangled her to death, then left her body inside a shed in a secluded woodland area. It was perhaps as boldest murder to date, but in the end, it wasn't Bundy's murders that led to his capture. A week after he killed Kimberton,

Bundy was pulled over for driving a stolen car in Pensacola. He tried to flee on foot, but the police subdued and arrested him. Finally, after six weeks on the lamb, Bundy was back in the authorities' clutches, and they weren't about to let him go again. Bundy was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, and two counts of burglary. When his trial began in June of 1979, it became one of the very first criminal. criminal trials ever televised in America. The courtroom became a television studio, packed with journalists and camera crews from media outlets across the country. But not everyone attending the

trial was there for professional reasons. Hordes of female groupies descended on the courthouse, affirming Bundy's status as a sinister sex symbol. Many of these women styled themselves to look like Bundy's victims. Some insisted that he was innocent and had been railroaded by an unjust system, while others knew full well that he was guilty. None of them knew him personally, but that didn't matter. By then, his media persona was so larger than life that his fans felt they knew him. Though the 24-hour news cycle was still a couple of decades away, the news media was already hungry for stories that would drive viewers, and the story of a handsome, charismatic young murderer fit the bill beautifully. To quote crime historian Peter Vronsky, the decision to televise Bundy's

trial elevated him to the first of our postmodern superstar serial killers. And Bundy relished the limelight. In fact, he courted it. Despite the fact that he was nowhere near graduating from law school, he opted to represent himself. He seized this opportunity to showboat for a rapt audience, insisting that he was innocent. He deliberately wasted the court's time with irrelevant requests, at one point filing a motion for a change of menu, because he didn't like the sandwiches he'd been served. In one of the trial's most bizarre moments, Bundy's female fam base spilled into the courtroom. Carol Ann Boone, a woman who Bundy had known since 1974, had uprooted her life and moved halfway across the country to support him in Florida.

She testified on his behalf as a character witness, and midway through questioning her, Bundy dramatically proposed to Carol Ann, who accepted without hesitation. Not satisfied with making a mockery of the courtroom. Bundy also seemed to take a perverse pleasure in reliving the details of his murders. He made a meal of cross-examining first responders who'd seen the crime scenes, forcing them to describe what they'd seen in gruesome detail. Unsurprisingly, Bundy did not win the jury over, and his hubris proved to be the nail in his coffin.

In July of 1979, he was found guilty on all counts. At this point, it became clear to Bundy just how much of a miscalculation he'd made by fleeing to Florida, a death penalty state. He was ultimately given three death sentences for the murders of 21-year-old Margaret Bowman, 20-year-old Lisa Levy, and Kimberly Leach. Eventually, after almost a decade of unsuccessful appeals, Bundy's number was up. Just like his trial, his execution was catnip to the press, who reported on every detail, down to his last meal. It seems that a decade behind bars had dampened Bundy's appeal. The night before he was due to be executed, hundreds of people camped outside the prison.

But this time, the mood was overwhelmingly hostile. The crowd chanted, burn Bundy, burn. It's unclear whether Bundy heard that taunt. But in his last hours, perhaps he sensed how truly alone he was. He reportedly left his last meal untouched and was subdued as he was led to the execution chamber. Early in the morning on January 24, 1989, Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison. He was calm during his final moments, and his last words were, Give my love to my family and friends.

But what Bundy said at his execution didn't really matter. In a sense, he'd already had the last word. His televised trial had given him an unprecedented platform, from which he defended and justified. his own actions, made a mockery of the justice system, and re-traumatized his surviving victims. The very fact that he was permitted to represent himself says a lot about the level of privilege Bundy had. Even after being apprehended and charged with multiple murders, his education and charisma continued to give advantages that set him apart from most criminals.

Those advantages have also shaped his legacy. Ted Bundy is arguably the most notorious American serial killer of all time, because his privilege allowed him to be so bold and so shameless. He took endless advantage of the benefit of the doubt, and unfortunately, he wasn't alone in that. But we'll get to that soon, because we've got one more story for you next time. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with the fourth and final chapter in our anniversary series about the mythology of American murderers. We'll close out this series by discussing a cannibalistic serial killer

whose unspeakably grisly crimes defy understanding. But you know us, we're going to try all the same. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all of the Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler. Sound design by Carrie Murphy, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro,

Trent Williamson, Nick Johnson, and Carly Madden. This episode of serial killers was written by Emma Dibdin, edited by Joel Callan, fact-checked by Haley Milliken, researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood, and produced by Joshua Kern. Serial killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. exciting news, Parcast's first book, Cults inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who join them, is now available for pre-order at parcast.com slash cults.

Thanks to your support, we've compiled years of research, insights, and a catalog of case studies to expose more about these cults and the people behind them than ever before. Details which haven't even been explored in our cults podcast. Visit parcast.com slash cults to pre-order your copy of cults inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who join them. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm global news crime reporter Nancy Hicks.

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