The Story Of A Killer: How Ted Bundy Become The Man We Know

Table of Contents

This is the beginning

How did Ted Bundy become what we now know as Ted Bundy?

Cites

Starting off

Ted Bundy’s famous quote, “I’m one of the most cold-hearted bitch sons you’ll ever see” is one of his most memorable quotes. Ted Bundy, serial killer, rapist and kidnapper who went on a murderous rampage in the 1970’s, was also a necrophiliac. His prolific terror attacks on the east coast of America continued to the west coast. He was convicted in late 1970 of murdering 28 females. The term “serial killer” was used for the first time on an individual. By definition, a serial killer is one who kills more people than three times at different places and times. This person fits that description. Ted Bundy was who?

How did Ted Bundy get to be the man we know today? Eleanor Louise Cowell was the mother of Theodore Robert Cowell. Eleanor, having had a child out to wedlock with an unknown father, moved back home to Philadelphia. Eleanor’s parents Samuel and Eleanor Cowell raised the infant while his grandmother would often abuse the boy. His mother had had enough of the abusers by 1951 and moved her five-yearold son to Tacoma. She moved in with her aunts and changed her lastname from Cowell, to Nelson. Johnnie Culpepper Bundy – an ex-military soldier who was then a hospital kitchen cook – met her there. She met and married Bundy while she was there, which led to Ted Bundy becoming Ted Bundy. His mother, who he believed to still be his sister, was also his father-in law. They had four children together, so his mother took care and all his siblings. Ted’s introversion and developmental problems were not noticed.

Ted was an introverted child who became an attractive teenager in high school. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1965 and began his voyeurism spree, breaking into homes and cars, looking for pornography, and searching for it. He claimed that he had broken into people’s homes to steal ski and pass passes.

He also enrolled in the University of Puget Sound School of Law. After a year, he transferred to the University of Washington and began his Chinese studies. Bundy later explained that he had issues with his Puget Sound peers because most of them were from well-off backgrounds, which was increasing Bundy’s inferiority complex. Bundy didn’t feel socially accepted at the university. But that changed in 1967.

Ted met his woman of dreams. She was smart, beautiful, and came from a wealthy family. He enjoyed the fact that she was as passionate about skiing and had the same skill level. He enjoyed his life, but struggled to be a worker, a student, or have a partner. Bundy left school to pursue other jobs.

He worked in Miami on Rockefeller’s 1968 presidential campaign. His girlfriend decided that his lacklustre ambition wasn’t enough to make him a proper husband and ended the relationship. The breakup broke his heart, and he was plagued for many years. He moved around a lot after this breakup. He traveled from Colorado to Arkansas and Philadelphia before enrolling at Temple University. This was his first semester there. In 1969, he returned home to Washington. This was the turning point in Ted Bundy’s life. He found out that his parents were not his sister, which he mistakenly believed was his mother.

Bundy felt more confident after learning new things. After returning to University of Washington in 1972, Bundy applied himself to psychology and was awarded a bachelor’s degree. We see today the man we have become only a few years later.

1974 was the year that women all over campus in Washington, Oregon and Washington began to disappear. Two women reported that Ted, a handsome man from Seattle approached them. He approached the women and asked them if they wanted to help him with his sailboat. Bundy also enrolled in the University of Utah’s law school that year and moved to Salt Lake City.

Bundy started to lure women to their deaths during this period. To pretend to be injured, Bundy would use a sling or a cast on his legs. He even tried to impersonate firefighters and police officers in an attempt to gain their trust. Once he got them near his 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, the blunt object he used to make their trust was a crowbar and pipe. He removed the passenger seat from the car and put it in the trunk or backseat so that he could handcuff his victims and lay them down on the ground.

His preferred method of operation was to strangle, bludgeon or kill his victims. He also mutilated them after their deaths. For sexual pleasure, he was said to have returned to the exact locations where they were dumped. According to some reports, he even took the heads and displayed them in his apartment. He even slept with the corpses until it became unbearable.

Bundy was a serial killer throughout the entire year. Utah, Oregon, Washington felt the fear of young women being murdered and no one was arrested. A man attacked Carol DaRonch in 1974. She managed escape and provided a description about the attacker. Utah police caught Ted Bundy, who was being held for traffic violations, on August 16, 1975. The police found masks, ropes, handcuffs and other items in Ted Bundy’s car, but none of them linked him to the crimes. The police thought they had caught the tri-state crime when Daronch selected him from a police lineup.

Bundy, in 1977, was his own lawyer during a Colorado trial (Jenkins n.d.). Bundy was able to access the courthouse’s law library without being confined. Bundy managed to escape through a window while he waited for proceedings. After fleeing, Bundy set off on his way to Florida. Ted Bundy was again arrested on February 15, 1979 for traffic violations. Bundy, in multiple interviews, confessed that he had murdered a variety of women. In 1980, Bundy married Carole Ann Boone and pleaded that it was a good thing.

While Bundy was initially charged with the murders 30 women by police, the courts found him guilty of the same crime with 28 other people. He was sentenced to the death row. Bundy told police that Bundy was a much higher number than he had stated. Bundy stated that they could add an additional digit to get closer to the number. Ted Bundy conceived Rose Bundy while on death row in 1982. Carole Ann Boone was divorced in 1986 after she gave birth to her child. She died at Florida State Prison, Starke, Florida on January 24, 1989. Ted Bundy, surrounded by hundreds of mourners, was killed.

Ted’s accounts of why he committed this crime were contradictory during an interview. He did however mention that he became obsessed with pornography after being exposed. His victims were mostly young women with straight, straight hair and white skin. His victims were between 12 and 25 years old.

Sources

During his interrogation following his arrest at Pensacola in Florida. (1978). Hare D. (1999). Without Conscience: A Disturbing World for the Psychopath Among Us. The Guildford Press published in New York. p. 23

Ted Bundy’s birthplace. On April 2nd, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/birthplace-ted-bundy

Montaldo, C. (2018, July 6). Profile of Ted Bundy: Serial Killer. Rapist. Necrophile. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-serial-killer-ted-bundy-973178

Montaldo, C. (2018, September 19). How one serial killer got caught. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://www.thoughtco.com/ted-bundy-gets-caught-973179

Jenkins, J. P. (n.d.). Ted Bundy | Biography, Crimes, & Facts. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ted-Bundy

Paoletti G. (2019.02.28). “The Very Definitions Of Heartless Evil”: Ted Bundy’s Story. Retrieved March 30, 2019, from https://allthatsinteresting.com/ted-bundy

Crime Museum. (n.d.). Theodore Robert Bundy, also known as Ted Bundy, was an American serial killer. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/ted-bundy/