1989: Ted Bundy, psycho killer

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It was 20 years today that Ted Bundy, the signature sexual psychopath in a golden age of serial killers,* rode the lightning in Florida’s Starke Prison.

Executed Today is pleased to mark the occasion with a conversation with Louisville crime writer Kevin M. Sullivan, author of a forthcoming2009 book on Ted Bundy … and a man who knows how the world looks from inside Bundy’s ski mask.

Ted Bundy is obviously one of the most iconic, written-about serial killers in history. Why a book about Ted Bundy? What’s the untold story that you set out to uncover?

The desire, or drive, if you will, to write an article about Ted Bundy and then create a 120,000 plus word book about the murders, was born out of my crossing paths with his infamous murder kit. Had Jerry Thompson [a key detective on the Bundy case -ed.] left Bundy’s stuff in Utah that May of 2005, well, it would have been an enjoyable meeting with the former detective, but I’m certain it would have all ended quietly there. Indeed, I doubt if I’d even considered writing an article for Snitch [a now-defunct crime magazine -ed.], much less a book about the killings. But it was having all that stuff in my hands, and in my home, and then being given one of the Glad bags from Ted’s VW that made it very real (or surreal) to me, and from this, a hunger to find out more about the crimes led me forward.


Ted Bundy’s gear, right where you want it — image courtesy of Kevin M. Sullivan. (Check the 1975 police photo for confirmation.)

Believe me, in a thousand years, I never would have expected such a thing to ever come my way. I can’t think of anything more odd or surreal.

ET: You mentioned that you think you’ve been able to answer some longstanding questions about Bundy’s career. Can you give us some hints? What don’t people know about Ted Bundy that they ought to know?

I must admit, when I first decided to write a book about the crimes, I wasn’t sure what I’d find, so the first thing I had to do was read every book ever written about Bundy, which took the better portion of three or four months.

From this I took a trip to Utah to again meet with Thompson and check out the sites pertaining to Bundy and the murders in that state. Next came the acquisition of case files from the various states and the tracking down of those detectives who participated in the hunt for the elusive killer.

Now, no one could have been more surprised than me to begin discovering what I was discovering about some of these murders. But as I kept hunting down the right people and the right documents, I was able to confirm these “finds” at every turn. And while I cannot reveal everything here, It’s all in the book in great detail. Indeed, you could say that my book is not a biography in the truest sense, but rather an in-depth look at Bundy and the murders from a vantage point that is quite unique. I wish I could delve further into these things now , but I must wait until it’s published.

The Bundy story has a magnetic villain and a host of victims … was there a hero? Was there a lesson?

The real heroes in this story are the detectives who worked day and night for years to bring Ted Bundy to justice. And if there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is this: It doesn’t matter how handsome or articulate a person might be, or how nicely they smile at you, for behind it all, there could reside the most diabolical person you’ll ever meet! We need to remember this.

But how can you act on that lesson without living in a continual state of terror? Bundy strikes me as so far outside our normal experience, even the normal experience of criminality, that I’m inclined to wonder how much can be generalized from him.

Actually, (and I might say, thank God here!) people as “successful” as Ted Bundy don’t come our way very often. I mean, the guy was a rising star in the Republican Party in Washington, had influential friends, a law student, and certainly appeared to be going places in life. Some were even quite envious of his ascension in life. However, it was all a well-placed mask that he wore to cover his true feelings and intentions. On the outside he was perfect, but on the inside a monster. He just didn’t fit the mold we’re used to when we think of a terrible killer, does he?

Now, there are those among us — sociopaths — who can kill or do all manner of terrible things in life and maintain the nicest smile upon their faces, but again, just beneath the surface ticks the heart of a monster, or predator, or what ever you might want to call them. Having said that, I’m not a suspicious person by nature, and so I personally judge people by their outward appearance until shown otherwise. Still, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to see the “real” individual behind the person they present to us on a daily basis.

You worked with case detectives in researching your book. How did the Ted Bundy case affect the way law enforcement has subsequently investigated serial killers? If they had it to do over again, what’s the thing you think they’d have done differently?

They all agree that today, DNA would play a part of the investigation that wasn’t available then. However, in the early portion of the murders, Bundy made few if any mistakes, as he had done his homework so as to avoid detection. As such, even this wouldn’t be a panacea when it came to a very mobile killer like Bundy who understood the very real limitations sometimes surrounding homicide investigations.

I can’t help but ask about these detectives as human beings, too. Clearly they’re in a position to deal with the heart of darkness in the human soul day in and day out and still lead normal lives … is a Ted Bundy the kind of killer that haunts or scars investigators years later, or is this something most can set aside as all in a day’s work?

They are, first of all, very nice people. And you can’t be around them (either in person, or through numerous phone calls or emails) for very long before you understand how dedicated they are (or were) in their careers as police officers. They are honorable people, with a clear sense of duty, and without such people, we, as a society, would be in dire circumstances indeed.

Even before Bundy came along, these men were veteran investigators who had seen many bad things in life, so they carried a toughness which allowed them to deal with the situations they came up against in a professional manner. That said, I remember Jerry Thompson telling me how he looked at Ted one day and thought how much he reminded him of a monster, or a vampire of sorts. And my book contains a number of exchanges between the two men (including a chilling telephone call) which demonstrate why he felt this way

How about for you, as a writer — was there a frightening, creepy, traumatic moment in your research that really shook you? Was there an emotional toll for you?

Absolutely. But the degree of “shock”, if you will, depends (at least for me) on what I know as I first delve into each murder. In the Bundy cases I had a general knowledge of how Bundy killed, so there wasn’t a great deal that caught me by surprise, as it were. Even so, as a writer, you tend to get to know the victims very well through the case files, their family members or friends, and so on. Hence, I’ll continue to carry with me many of the details of their lives and deaths for the remainder of my life. And so, lasting changes are a part of what we do.

However, I did a story a few years back about a 16 year old girl who was horribly murdered here in Kentucky, and this case did cause me to wake up in the night in a cold sweat. Perhaps it was because I have a daughter that was, at the time, only a few years younger than this girl, and that some of what transpired did catch me off guard, so to speak, as I began uncovering just what had happened to this very nice kid.

Watch for Kevin M. Sullivan’s forthcoming The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History from McFarland in summer or fall of 2009.

* In fact, the term “serial killer” was coined in the 1970’s by FBI profiler Robert Ressler, as an improvement on the sometimes inaccurate category of “stranger killer”.

Additional Bundy resources from the enormous comment thread:

On this day..

Possibly related executions:

8,544 thoughts on “1989: Ted Bundy, psycho killer”

  1. Well Kevin, let’s put it this way…if an author wants to sell something and a prospective buyer has a question they want answered before making the purchase…then yes, I think the buyer is entitled to get that answer, otherwise they won’t buy the product. It’s bad business for the seller not to be communicative. That’s simple business.
    Anyway…

  2. Yes, email her again. She may yet answer you. But don’t say you’re “entitled” to an answer, as you might not get it! LOL!

    Good luck! 🙂

  3. Well, if i have a questions for someone and they dont answer… I dont give up! 🙂 I mean, if it’s something I’d like to know for factual certainty, I am entitled to an answer as far as I’m concerned. So I suppose I can email her about it again sometime. 🙂

  4. I believe she gives the source in her book, and really, it was valid for her to add it and leave the reader to decide for themselves.

    To be honest, I wouldn’t be comfortable asking her these questions. I’ve never been one to carry the messages of others, as it were. If I have a question for someone and they won’t answer, I let it go. Sorry.

  5. I emailed Rebecca about those claims a while back, but she never replied. I tried again a month or so later…still no reply. I find it funny that she’s so hesitant to answer. I’ve chatted with Rule, Michaud, Richard, and You Kevin. You all have been helpful and responsive like a good author should be. Nut sure why Rebecca doesnt want to answer about those claims…but if she was willing to write about them in her book, she should be willing to discuss them when people ask. Anyway, I was wondering, next time you happen to chat with her, would you mind asking her about those “claims” in her book and if she truly believes them and why.
    Thanks! 🙂

  7. I can’t remember who said this, but it’s in the book.

    Well, reported is a funny word. No one is required to report anything short of murder. There are so many folks who knew Bundy, and I’m sure they all have interesting little stories.

    It may well be that this person had never before been interviewed by anyone seeking info on Ted. The investigators certainly didn’t need to know this, as it wouldn’t have mattered per his prosecuted.

    I even have an interesting little story I just left out of the book. It’s not that I meant to, I just failed to include it.

  8. Kevin, who reported those details to Rebecca? And why wern’t they reported until just recently?

  9. “Nout that and I don’t”

    How about: “Not only that, but I don’t”

    I was on my IPhone and in a hurry, LOL!

  10. Hi Diana,

    Yes, I remember our conversation about that. No, I didn’t get any confirmation Nout that and I don’t expect to either. Rebecca reported that as it was told to her, as she should. But those two things are the only two things that I suspect might not be true. That’s not Rebecca’s fault

  11. Richard,

    I have your book and yes it does address some of Bundy’s prison life, which I think is certainly something most Bundyphiles would find worthy to learn about. That was a great statement you gave about it being a time when Bundy sought to understand himself and prepare for death. Can you give a few bulletpoints of some of the “wealth of untapped knowledge” that you learned from the Bundy/Lewis friendship. I think it would help readers get a better picture of what you are trying to say.

    Kevin, Did you actually find confirmation in some of Rebecca Morris’s revealations about Bundy being an animal killer and urinating on girls…all that stuff?? I remember there was a time when you said that all that stuff was unverified and you had no idea where she could have gotten such info. What’s the scoop with that?

  12. Richard, it is an in-depth bio of Bundy’s life and not just of the murders. Outside of Bundy’s dealings with folks like Bob Keppel, Michaud & Aynesworth, or Ron Holmes, I’m not interested in Ted’s jail house friendships.

    As to trial and appeals, that can become rather mundane with folks quickly. My bio of the man covers two areas: an in-depth look at the murders, the victims, and the investigators, and secondly, the very strange and diabolical nature of Ted Bundy.

  13. Kevin, as indicated by the title of your book, you wrote a chronicle of the Bundy murders. You did that well. But as a biography, much less an in-depth one, it falls well short of the mark. Coverage of his trials, appeals, and incarceration is lacking.

    As for there being nothing left to write about, Bundy spent nearly a quarter of his life in custody. It is a well-established fact that he had a close friendship with Bobby Lewis for nearly a decade. Lewis held a wealth of untapped knowledge about Bundy. It was a time when Bundy sought to understand himself and come to terms with God as he prepared for his death. That’s not something that can just be ignored as people seem to want to do.

    Lexi, if you are interested in Bundy’s time in prison, my book covers that.

  14. Hi Lexi,

    No. Writing a biography of Bundy gave me all the Bundy I want in my life, LOL! Now, I do enjoy talking about the creation of the book, and I like talking about the case, as I know Bundy, the victims, and the case very well. That’s just the way it is when you write a biography; you learn all there is to know, as it were. So I like talking about the case. But no, I never want to write about him again.

    I’m friends with Rebecca Morris, the author of TED AND ANN, and she asked me if I was interested in writing anything else about Bundy, adding that we could co-author it together. I told her no, that between her book and mine there’s nothing left to write about, LOL!

    BTW: Here’s a link to my most recent interview covering the Bundy case:

    http://raasnio.com/GenerationWhyPodcast/ted-bundy/

  15. Hi Kevin,

    Would you ever consider doing a book covering the prison years much like you did for the murders?

    Thank you.

  17. Actually, the Oso mudslide is much farther north of and much more rural than Issaquah/Sammamish State Park. There aren’t any victims north of King County attributed to him.

    His “home town” of Tacoma is somewhat midway between Olympia and Seattle.

    I agree with Ted, Peter, and Jane. The “killing the beautiful rich girlfriend” is overrated, while killing the despised mother is underrated. Louise and the victims — not just little Ann Marie — had many similarities (young, “virginal, dark hair, full of promise, naïve). The long hair split in the middle was pretty much the only hairstyle in this area for young women.

  18. The only hair connection that’s ever struck me was side-by-side photos of Ann Marie Burr and Bundy’s mother. In addition to similar cuts, they had the exact same BANGS. No longer than an inch and curled under, Reminds me of a little girl’s hairstyle more than one a grown, older woman would prefer and look attractive in. It’s not just the bangs: it’s the very short length of the bangs..

    I am NOT picking on Louise Bundy’s hair. I just found it striking that if Burr was the first victim, she had an uncannily similar hairstyle to that of his mother.

  19. As I read about and see the photos of the terrible mudslides in Snohomish County, Washington, I can’t help but think that up in the same region there are skulls of Bundy’s victims, discovered and undiscovered. He was really fond of this area.

  20. Peter,

    You’re right. He wasn’t killing his former girlfriend over and over again. In fact, I believe he was well down the path of serial murder even before he met his girlfriend. Also, I commented on the “long brown hair parted in the middle” fallacy way upthread. I said in that post that I have three older sisters who were all either in middle or high school during the 1970s, and they all had long brown hair parted in the middle. That was just the style then. Look at any high school yearbook from that period and you’ll see that 90 percent of the girls wore their hair that way.
    Besides, a few of Bundy’s victims had short hair and were blonde. Too many people bought into this theory, but I think it’s totally wrong.
    Bundy’s criteria was much simpler: Young, attractive and vulnerable.

  21. Hi Diana,

    A in-depth review of the Long Island killer would be a fascinating topic but would take us far away from the subject matter under discussion – America‘s best known serial killer Ted Bundy.

    In that regard I have a question. How many believe that Ted killed women with long straight hair because he was killing a former girlfriend over and over again?

    I don’t subscribe to that theory in its entirety. Being rejected but a college girlfriend may have been a stressor but I think he killed because he could, and found he liked it.

    As Far as the similarity in hair styles goes it was just a matter of the times he killed in.

    Yesterday I was looking up Georgeann Hawkins and found a high school cheerleading team photo of her. Of the eight girls pictured six have long straight hair parted in the middle. That’s not really surprising as it was by far the most popular way for women to style their hair in the early to mid seventies. Farrah Fawcett on the show Charlie’s Angels, coupled the disco era would change that but by then Ted was behind bars for good.

    I suspect if Ted had been killing in the early to mid sixties the women he killed would be frequently seen with shoulder length hair with a outward flip; styled using large rollers or as some of my old classmates did, using their dad’s empty beer cans.

    BTW if you are asking the question why didn’t Ted kill any young, good looking Seattle working girls like Ridgway did a decade later? The simple answer is they were not there in the early 70’s.

    Ironically a “reform” in Washington law, which gave juveniles most of the rights associated with being adults, helped produced a target rich environment for Ridgway.

    In 1977 the Washington state Legislature had decriminalized the act of running away. By the early ’80’s thousands of underage runaway teens were wandering the streets of Seattle and police were doing nothing to stop them.

    One report states that in any given year, between 500 and 600 teenage girls were being turned out by area pimps. This report says that while the girls thought of themselves as being street wise, they were in fact, “naive little girls,” easily tricked but violent predators.

    According to a award winning series in the Seattle Times, at the time the Green River Killer was most active, missing adult female cases were routinely sent to the Green River Task Force for follow-up. Runaway juvenile reports were also filed, but little work was done on them.

    Police now acknowledge that had they paid more attention to reports of runaway teens, the findings would have prompted them to increase manpower in the Green River serial murder investigation sooner.

  24. Peter, The Long Island serial killer is definitely the most interesting “ongoing known case” out there right now. It’s interesting to wonder how it’s going to play out. Are we going to find out who he is? Will he evade detection for years like the Green River Killer? Will he eventually spiral too far down mentally and get caught like Ted did? I hope we get some news soon that he has been caught… but he’s proven to have some smarts so far. Do they have any good suspects?

    I was just on Long Island a few weeks ago for some business and I couldn’t help but to think about the case while I was there.

    What is known about the victims, other than the fact that they were mostly call girls? How were the bodies molested sexually? Did he mutilate any of the victims? What do we know so far?

  25. I think the Long Island serial killer could turn out to be a lot like Ted, if Ted had been born around 1975/1980.

    As far as tossing the cell-phones goes, he offered three women extra money to leave there’s at home. In the case of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, he used the fact her phone did not have GPS to his twisted advantage.

    Using it in Times Square and the Madison Square Garden area to taunt her little sister, knowing police could only use the signal to triangulate the area and if spotted on surveillance camera’s he would only be one of thousands using a cell-phone at the moment. I feel sure he knew that area and knew there were no close up camera’s in the vicinity he made the calls from

    As far as Ted’s seeming need for the pretty girl next door look goes, you can see from these modern pictures that the Long Island serial killer victims fit that needed criteria. They may have been working girls but if you take the time to learn about them, you will find they were much more then just that.

    In keeping with today’s 24 hour cable news instant analysis, there has been speculation that victim’s found in Atlantic City, New Jersey and as far away as Florida and Louisiana could be connected.

    If interested; known victims photo’s, news stories, and forensic drawings of still unidentified victims.
    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1840770538317.108960.1212153052&type=1&l=b9d037bf56

  26. Thanks Jane for all the comments you made! I’m glad that you see it from my perspective as well. In terms of his psychopathy and what a killer like him would have done leaves no doubt in my mind he would have experimenting with victims and dabbled in torture. He bit victims for sure. He rammed rods into private areas for sure. He was a necrophile for sure. This was a man that needed to continue having sex with the rotting bodies of his victims (and in some cases just their body parts) to continue getting what he wanted/craved/desired/needed. That’s about as far as one can go.

    As for a TED TODAY. I think this is a very interesting topic. I’d like to chime in on this as well. I think that Ted would certainly have adapted to the technogoly of today. He would immediately discard any cell phones that were on victims. He would have struck victims in more rural environments. I think the Ted of todays operation in a college environment would be extremely limited. Sure, he might use it to stalk and follow potential victims unnoticeably… but I’m thinking his main use of the college environment would probably have been him hanging out around football fields during games… he would have followed victims from these games. I doubt there are any cameras on the bleechers. Ted would have found the places to operate without being noticed in today’s world. Malls would be much too risky. He would still probably lurk around at the bar scene. He would have used some of the same ruses and some new ones I’m sure. But most importantly, he needed to get those middle-class type high school or college girls. They were his ideal victim type. He wanted to abduct them, get them out into a remote area, play with them, kill them, and get to their corpses! That’s Ted Bundy 2014.

  27. I don’t think we can assume that if Ted had been born in let’s say in 1975 to 1980 his “style” would have been anything like it was.

    Ted was smart and a loner. Early, late ’80’s computer games would have been his style. It’s far more likely he would have been trolled mid/late 90’s chat room’s looking for victims, then collage campus’s.

    Ted would have kept ahead of the curve. As LE developed internet online surveillance he would have been the first to realize victim’s can be found and contacted on interactive games like X-box.

    If not caught it’s likely he would have changed the nature of his target’s over time. Much like the as yet unknown Long Island serial killer he would find the girl next door look, was now on Backpage advertising the “Girlfriend Experience”

    It would not surprise me at all if Ted would have used modern technology, such as a victims cell-phone, to terrorize her younger sister, just like this modern serial killer has done. And do it in such a way it would only confuse and frustrate LE.

  28. Current technology and forensics would crimp Ted’s style. It would also eliminate one target rich environment, the college campus. There’d be cameras in some of those alleys and libraries in current settings.

    That boy was so driven that he’d still mange to do some damage, unfortunately.

  30. Don’t know about that… Bundy was like a bacteria that could change and adapt to any new environment.

    True, technology has changed dramatically but Bundy would have operated with the up-dated information.

    Besides, we have active (and successful) serial killers on the loose right now! And Bundy would be one of them had he born in 1984. High tech helps but there are other variables too.

    Topelius

  31. So true, Ted.

    But I think Bundy would have tried to adapt to these technological changes. He probably would have gone for the isolated cases, perhaps in more rural areas. And in all cases he would have to be covering all aspects of the situation around him. So many cameras and so many eyes, LOL!

  32. I wonder how different Bundy’s killing career would have been in today’s world. I think his “career” would have been much shorter, for sure. Technology would have seen to that.
    All of those eyewitnesses at Lake Sammamish would have taken photos of him with their smart phones, and perhaps the drama teacher at Debbie Kent’s high school would have, too. Victims would have had cellphones and could have called for help once they knew they were in trouble (911 technology can trace the origin of a call, even on a cell). The omnipresent security cameras would have stopped him from shoplifting (or at least he would have been caught and perhaps convicted).
    And of course, today’s computerized tracking systems would have identified him long before he could have moved cross-country. The relatively unsophisticated technology in the 1970s obviously allowed Bundy to get away with his crimes a lot longer than would today.

  33. Hi Jane,

    He did not have a knife in his kit. He did puncture at least one victim, but they don’t know why.

    Some women were located with flesh on them; Caryn Campbell and Laura Aime, for example.

    About Lynette Culver: Precisely! We have evidence of that murder being different from his usual MO because of Bundy’s confession.

    Folks can believe what they want about Bundy physically torturing his victims, but we have no evidence for it.

    Plenty of evidence of psychological torture, however.

    Remember: As a biographer of Ted Bundy I stayed with the known evidence. That’s the only way to write a nonfiction book.

  35. I’m thinking a lot like Diana in that (1) I think the necrophilia was at the heart of his obsessive killing, and (2) I believe he did physically torture the victims.

    What is torture? There is known physical evidence that he bit living women (Lisa Levy was either alive or near death), shoved instruments in their private areas (Joni Lenz/Sparks survived), had an icepack and knife in his murder kit. Now what was the vicious-looking icepack for – think he never gave someone a few pokes for kicks?

    As Diana points outs, very little but bones was found, not flesh – why would anyone believe that he was “humane” in the victims’ deaths? No evidence you say? I’d say there’s no evidence he had a decent bone in his body. I choose to believe the worst about him because there is no proof to the contrary. By the way, hitting someone in the skull over and over while it fractures is plenty TORTURE my book.

    Had he not admitted to the Culver case, people would say that wasn’t him. He never killed in a hotel room, that’s wild speculation, etc. Yet we know he did. There’s very little we could put past Bundy.and, like Diana, I believe he experimented just based on his flagrantly sick mind.

    And that’s my two cents!

  36. You’re so right, Peter. And thank God Bundy came clean on Culver’s murder, so the family could have at least a bit of closure. As heart breaking as it is, they all want to learn what happened to them; and usually, they do not want the info in explicit detail concerning the actual murder. The general facts often suffice,

  37. Hi Kevin,

    Actually have followed a number of missing person cases for the last ten years it does not surprise me at all. Well meaning but false reports probably outnumber useful ones fifty to one. Although that does not keep people from fixating on them

    If a published news article says one thing it becomes established fact.

    I took this from a respected missing person website today:

    “Lynette Culver left Alameda Junior High School on her lunch break, and was last seen boarding a bus at Hawthorne Junior High School.

    She was seen boarding the bus by the bus driver and several of her friends on the afternoon of May 6, 1975. (Obviously this is a false sighting)

    She was never seen again.”

    Somewhat incongruously it then says, “Lynette Culver is a confirmed victim of serial killer Ted Bundy. He admitted to her homicide right before he was executed in 1989”

    But what If Ted simply took what he knew to the grave? My guess, fingers would still be being pointed at the Fort Hall Reservation and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to this day. In the age of social networks it would not surprise me if speculation that she was buried under a Casino that was subsequent erected on the reservation – were rampant.

    Which makes you wonder if Ted had said nothing or only confessed to the Florida crimes he was convicted of – how many off the wall theories would be present today?

    In a age where posters can hide behind a silly nick, how many innocent people would sill be suspects today. How many would be identified and named as such in social media?

  40. Hi Peter,

    I know about the bus theory, but Ted was very specific as to where he picked her up. You would be amazed at the number of people who swore to authorities that they’d seen various women (who were then just missing) that Bundy had already killed. From Susan Rancourt to Kathy Parks, the list is endless. And so the one who told the authorities that they saw her “walking down West Eldridge Road in Pocatello” did not see Lynette Culver at all.

    As I have said before, on the day that Bundy gave his confession to Russ Reneau and Randy Everitt he was very forthright and very helpful. At the end of the session Bundy even offered to meet them again if they need more info.

    Now, when you read the transcript of this interview it puts to rest the absurd bus theory and her being off the school grounds some two blocks away. None of that happened. Bundy picked her up at Alameda Junior High just as she was coming out of the school. He retraced his steps back to the Holiday Inn and the rest is history.

    You know, when you’re writing an in-depth biography that you know is going to be published in book form and will be around for only God knows how long (unlike a newspaper that can run a story with bad info and it lives for one day only and then it’s off to the archives), it pays to be good at what you do and separate the unimportant stuff from the real and valid info – the true richness of the case – so you can have a factual story.

    I’ve said all that to say that there are folks out there who absolutely run with these theories and they are all over the place. Of course, until the confession of Bundy as to what really happened, you can’t blame Pocatello authorities for considering these things for that was all they had to go on.

  41. Hi Kevin, a some what off topic update on Lynette Culver, who was mentioned a page ago, and a personal opinion. It sounds like prejudice and tunnel vision played a large part in the search for Lynette Culver.

    Lynette in many missing person reports is said to be last seen getting on a school bus at Hawthorne Middle School (some call it Hawthorne Junior High ) heading to the Fort Hall Native American Reservation area. In my opinion I don’t think she ever made it to Hawthorne and vanished shortly after leaving Alameda Junior High School.

    On the Idaho Missing Persons Clearing House it says she was last spotted walking down West Eldridge Road in Pocatello, the street Hawthorne Middle School is located on

    She left school at lunchtime (something she was allowed to do) probably to talk with friends at Hawthorne. The two schools are only a few blocks apart. In a effort to get there quickly (possibly wanting to avoid more truancy problems) she excepted a ride from a man. Tragically, that handsome man turned out to be Ted Bundy.

    This quote from a 1977 Idaho State Journal news article exemplifies that apparent problem

    Detective Al Kuta: “People are going to resent it, but as an aftermath, you know it was 15 years ago that Vickie Jo Quinn was killed on the reservation.“ .

    At the time Detective Kuta said that there was a high probability that Lynette had come to harm at the reservation but that some people were not telling everything they knew.

    “We got numerous tips that she was in the Fort Hall area,” Kuta said.

    Vickie Jo Quinn was a 16-year-old Pocatello teen who disappeared after a car ride to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in 1962. Her body was found buried on the reservation after an intensive search. She has been stabbed 25 times. John Larson was convicted of her murder in 1964 and given a life sentence.

    However the Idaho Pardon and Parole Board later commuted that sentence and I think Detective Kuta, who seemed to dislike and mistrust native American’s from the start, was angered by that commutation and developed tunnel vision after that early unconfirmed sighting of Lynette which placed her getting on a school bus headed to the Indian Reservation later that afternoon.

    For him the only reliable tips became the tips he wanted to hear and people that did not tell him what he wanted to believe, were lying to him.

    As a former neighbor and long time friend of Lynette ‘s dad he should not have been on the Culver case, but only a year or so away form retirement he was most likely the senior detective in the Pocatello Police Department. Which also means he got his start in the early ‘50’s. I suspect that long held prejudice towards native American’s played a large part in derailing the investigation from the start.

    There is some indication that Idaho became interested in Bundy in the ‘80’s but according to then Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones, Bundy had not been a suspect in Lynette’s disappearance before the confession, but he knew several things he could only have learned by talking to Lynette herself.

  42. I do know that some serial killers who murder for gain also have a sexual/sadistic component to their crimes. Amelia Dyer, a “baby farmer” I wrote about here on Executed Today, admitted she really enjoyed watching her victims strangle. Jane Toppan, a serial poisoner, liked to crawl into bed with her victims and cuddle them in their dying moments; she admitted it gave her a sexual thrill. Harry Powers, a little-known serial murderer I may write about for this blog someday, said watching his victims die “beat any cathouse I was ever in.”

  43. In one paragraph in the blurb, he says he traveled to Raiford, FL and interviewed Ted Bundy.

    In the next paragraph, he admits he fabricated the FL interviews.

    You can read a great deal of the book by using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature.

    When I first saw the Amazon listing, there were several scathing reviews. Those negative reviews have since disappeared. This is the worst sort of book of the lowest order.

  45. My two cents

    People who are multiple murders come in many forms?

    People who kill strictly for profit. Mob hit men and drug dealers who want to eliminate the compaction are two examples.

    Black widow/widowers. People who kill several husbands/wives out of anger, revenge or for profit.

    Angels of mercy. Nurses and doctors who kill patients under their care.

    Mass murders. People who kill multiple people in one setting. Charles Whitman, the University of Texas Tower sniper who killed 16 people in 1966 is a example. Richard Speck also falls into this category, although sex was his primary motive

    Killers who think they have a cause. Usually, but not exclusively, these result in a single incident of multiple murder. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh falls into this category. Ted” Kaczynski also known as the “Unabomber, is a example of one who killed over time

    Spree killers. Those who kill multiple people over a period of time but without the cooling off period normally associated with serial killers. In my opinion Charles Starkweather and the Beltway Snipers are examples of spree killers.

    Your typical serial killer. Someone who kills three or more people with a cooling off period in between.

    Meaghan I am sure there are several exceptions, but 70% of the victims of typical serial killers are people who live high risk life styles. Not all, but most, (both men and women) are killed to achieve some type of sexual gratification.

  46. That Dawson book has two kinds of interviews in it:

    1) Those he took from other books and materials; and

    2) Things he totally fabricated.

    It says so on the jacket blurb on the back of the book. Bundy never said those things too Dawson…he made them up.

  48. Hi Meaghan,

    Yes, a few but not many. Most have sex interwoven into the crime.

    Folks can commit serial murder for a variety of reasons. For example, the acquisition of money and or property from those they kill, as in the case of a lady (her name escapes me) who murdered those she rented rooms to. Or back in the day when cadavers were needed by fledgling doctors in the making, who needed them to practice upon. Well, the ones needing to come up with the bodies to see to the medical schools soon found it easier to turn living folks into dead bodies than digging them up.

    Just an example or two, LOL!

  49. Yes…there is a difference in serial murder and serial sexual murder.

    Taken from the FBI: “All serial murders are not sexually-based. There are many other motivations for serial murders including anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking.”

    Examples: Muhammad and Malvo in the DC Sniper case, Michael Swango, Paul Reid

    Interesting reading: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder

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