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. Oh, how can I miss post #1000–I’m up to the disappearance of Debby Kent. Have already added the book to the Ted Bundy Wikipedia page and added a couple of footnotes from the book in the text as well (although of course the number of footnotes I can use Kevin’s book for are limited, as I have already combed through all the other Bundy books in writing the article.)

    I am curious about something. There are pictures of the victims (including the best photo of Brenda Ball I’ve ever seen) attributed to the King County Archives. What is the copyright status of those photos? Public domain? And are they accessible via the Internet?

  2. Post #999–I noticed that Kevin identifies known victim Nancy Wilcox with the story Bundy tells in The Only Living Witness of grabbing a girl with the intention only of raping her and killing her “accidentally”. Is this an educated guess or did Bundy make a more detailed confession of the Wilcox murder to authorities?

  3. Well, I still believe that he simply killed Ott first. The easiest explanation is that he whacked her with the crowbar in the car, took her to the dumpsite and killed her, and then repeated the process. But, as Kevin says, we’ll never know for sure.

  5. Fiz– I’m on facebook now. Come and find me, ’cause I don’t know what I’m doing, LOL!

  6. Hi Courtney–

    Where the Lake Sam women were killed may always be a mystery. Did Bundy use a cabin (probably) or simply tie Ott securely to a tree in a very isolated area and gag her, while he went for Naslund? These are things we can never know for sure. Either way, Bundy took it to the grave with him.

  7. Hi Kevin,

    I’m at like page 120 so far in the book. I think you did a good job at setting the feel in the beginning of the book. You really brought the fear to life again….kind of scary but it happened! No use sugar-coating it.

    I still don’t understand how they couldn’t have found the location of the murders of the two girls at Lake Sammammish? I can’t remember what it was a skull (I think) that they found about 10 miles from where the girls had last been seen….there had to have been a building or something. I know we talked about this a logn time ago on this thread and yes the lake is a huge lake and that’s a lot of territiory to cover but he had to have enough time to transport one and come back and get the other one…apparently they were together *based on his own statements* at their time of death.

    I just don’t get how they couldn’t have found the location for these 2 murders…

  8. Vidor–Don’t feel bad about saying what you believe. Everybody has a right to their opinion.

    Now, while I usually don’t respond to folks “picking” at the language, I’ll comment here, as I feel like I “know” you a bit. Of course, most of what I say here will be obvious to many, but from a writer’s perspective, these things do occasionally need repeating.

    First, When a writer is building interest in the story, (in this case nonfiction) it is best, when introducing the reader to the situation at hand by describing (in this case) the normal activities of the U District, to quickly insert the inevitable reality that is coming, in this case we are speaking of Ms Healy. it is comparing the normal with the exceedingly rare and abnormal.
    In my opinion, it is always a good thing to do, as it sets the stage for the reader.

    Second comment: As a minister, I have been with people who have had horrible things thrust upon them suddenly, and I assure you, in some of these cases, the sense of fear and dread which filled the room had an almost tangible “feel” to it, and I was not the only one who noticed this. With that, I will say no more.

    Thirdly: (and this is an easy one) Speaking of North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, where people could and could not travel in the summer of 1972, allows the reader now (and in 25 or 50 years) to get an understanding of the times in which these things occurred. It is a frame of reference which adds to the story. BTW: I too traveled Europe in the summer of ’72, and toured the Olympic Village only weeks before the terrorist attack brought death and destruction to the games. I am surprised this one bothered you.

  10. “If fear and worry could have been measured as one would measure electric current….”

    Ugh.

    Sorry.

  11. Man, I feel bad criticizing Mr. Sullivan’s book after he has been so generous and polite in this forum with us, but…I am on the first page and already finding writing I don’t like too much. “Lynda Ann Healy had very little future remaining to her.” Ugh. Purple prose recalling some of the worst of Ann Rule.

    On the plus side, the photos are good. I’ll keep reading and post again.

  12. Owe you a comment, Jason.

    “Thank you KYGB for the review. Just out of curiosity, how many pages does the book have? I think Amazon.com has put it down as 267 or something close to that.”

    The copy from McFarlane US has 268, counting the end pages and acknowlegements.

  13. Those news broadcasts are really good. Got a real kick out of my inability to spot Ted in the one we were “debating” about.

    I was in the Florida Keys during Ted’s Miami trial. We called the 6 O’clock news “The Ted Bundy Show”. Footage from the Bundy court room dominated local news. I’d heard that much of it had been lost, so it’s great to see the stuff in the U-Tube footage.

  14. LOL i was thinking ‘Did Ted Bundy steal from a tailor or a suit shop before he was arrested’? It was hard to make out Bundy since he was in the background and shielded from view.

    There has been a number of new videos posted on youtube. One that i have stumbled across is the countdown to his execution. There are a number of interesting interviews with some detectives and also Michaud and Aynesworth during the segment. I think the highlight is the clips of Ted during the Hugh and Aynesworth interview describing one of his murders.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPTX0GMBQDY: Part 1
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJHrcLzttHY: Part 2

    Apparently there will be five parts but the poster has only uploaded three.
    I would just like to state that i dont want to be flooding this site with youtube links so i will leave it there. For anyone who is interested in watching or listening to any material pertaining to Bundy, there is lots of stuff on youtube.

  15. That’s a big LOL on me.

    I was looking at the wrong guy. I didn’t see skinny butt Ted in the back. I thought the lawyer dude was purported to be TBR. I will respectfully withdraw my claim. I thought I had a scoop!

    Yeah, I see the jumper and Ted scrambling up the stairs, etc

    If anything, this exchange is useful as to the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

    With me as the bad example

  16. KYGB –
    We are talking about the same footage but i think you are mistaken on who is Ted Bundy in that shoot. As you can see when they walk up the stairs, the person you are referring to is walking in front on his own which would mean he must be a member of the police. If you look just behind him, you can see a police officer (Norm Chapman or Don Patchen?) wearing a white shirt, grey trousers, dark hair and a mustache with a gun inside its holster on the right of his trousers. He is in fact holding Teds right arm as they walk up the stairs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5nOHG-eoGs&feature=related : – At 1.14, you can see Ted actually wearing the jumper which was placed over his shoulder in the footage in question.

  17. Are we talking about the same footage?

    1:14 from the KOA News Watch 4 open 1978 tape from the URL you name above. The guy’s face is fully visible. He doesn’t have a jumper over his shoulder. He’s got a grey suit, burgundy shirt and light colored tie. The suit appears to be an off the rack, inexpensive, young lawyer suit. He has a belt and brown shoes on. You can see his legs as he goes up the stairs and they are heavy, more heavy than Ted’s runner legs. The guy doesn’t stumble at the top of the stairs.

    He vaguely resembles Ted, but doesn’t have Ted’s striking features. It doesn’t look like Bundy to me, really at all like Bundy.

    Your comments about a jumper make me think you are talking about the Colorado footage where he is wearing his “escape” costume.

    The footage I’m talking about is found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aOAvs6RkU

    The same URL you gave above.

    Check 1:14 in that report.

  18. KYGB –
    After watching that part again, I think it is very unlikely that they had someone pose as Bundy for that shoot at the Pensacola jail. If you look at his arms, they appear to be really thin which is characteristic of Bundy since he didnt have a big build at the time. I couldnt get a clear shot of his legs to see whether he was heavy though. But since his face was shielded from view, like you said, it is impossible to verify. Only Don Patchen and Norm Chapman, amongst other people could verify that.

  19. Jason.

    I well could be wrong, butIi think it’s an attorney that posed as Bundy for that shot.

    Ted has slender legs, etc. That guy is heavy. I don’t know and it is all but impossible to verify, but I think they got somebody to portray Ted for this public shot.

  20. KYGB –
    I believe that is Ted Bundy since there is footage of him wearing that jumper he has over his shoulder. Did you notice how he almost fell over at the top of the stairs? I guess the press were eager for a story since they were already at the police station by the time Ted Bundy had been arrested.

  21. Watch the footage that Jason just posted. At 1:14, they bring out Ted Bundy. That can’t be Ted. They must have used a look-alike for security purposes.

  22. No worries KYGB and Kevin. I was watching a Ted Bundy documentary and on the right hand side was the option to watch this report. There are a number of other different news reports throughout the youtube website.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aOAvs6RkU : – News report on Bundy’s Pensacola arrest. There is some nice footage of the rooming house Bundy lived in and also an interview with the lady Bundy befriended and later went out on a date with.

  23. Nice to see someone took it upon themselves to preserve the KOMO broadcast, as many things like that have a way of disappearing forever. thanks for locating it, Jason!

  24. That was an excellent local news broadcast. Lots of Bundy footage I’ve never seen.

    Is the full interview with him in the blue sports coat available anywhere? Ted might’ve sported that phony accent in that baby.

    THX, Jason.

    Where you find that thing?

    Never seen it on U-Tube

  26. Thanks so much, Claudia! Believe me, I had the reader in mind, not just in the writing of the book, but with the taking of the photographs as well.

    I’m glad you’re happy with it!

    Kevin

  27. I’m 4/5 of the way through, and I can’t put it down, both because it’s great and because if I leave it unattended my mom will pick it up and start reading! Nice work, Kevin. The descriptions of the Idaho hitchhiker, Lynette Culver, and the Wildwood Inn are especially vivid and haunting. I also liked your photos–clearer and larger than the familiar snapshots of the missing women. Therefore, more realistic and poignant–drives home the fact that these were real people, and not just pictures in a newspaper. I also appreciated being able to see the layout of the Fashion Place Mall and Viewmont High.

  28. Jason, are you the Jason who used to run the UK crime website? If you are, I’d love an invitation because I really miss it!
    NB. – We’ve already changed once and it wasn’t for the better!

  29. Thank you KYGB for the review. Just out of curiosity, how many pages does the book have? I think Amazon.com has put it down as 267 or something close to that.
    For the UK posters, if there are are not any problems with shipping etc, we should be able to purchase the book by next week as WHsmith.co.uk have the book on their website. I am considering cancelling my amazon.co.uk order and purchasing it from a WHsmith store directly. Otherwise the book will ship next week and arrive towards the end of the month which is quite long.
    I am looking forward to reading the reviews of the remaining posters!
    Jason

  30. Vidor–

    Did you order directly through McFarland? If so, they can let you know when it shipped.

  32. Thanks for the nice words, Courtney! I knew you’d like it! Let me know what you think after you finish it, will you? See ya,

    Kevin

  33. All I can say is that I’m only on page 61 and I can tell everyone it’s already worth the money. Lol it’s hard to put it down Kevin but I have to for college! Darn you, lol

    Can’t wait to finish it and thank you so much.

  35. Well, finished the 1st read this morning and I am very impressed.

    TBM has great detail on the last movements of the victims. The work does not have the usual 8 or 9 picture gallery “photos of the victims”. Sullivan’s focus is on the murdered girls as people and has lots of detail on them, their movements and the location in which the crime occurred.
    TBM has great new information on potential victims that escaped with their lives. The book gives much more insight on Ted’s trolling methods and the ruses he used to ensnare victims. There are many references to witnesses not mentioned in other accounts.

    Ted had scrapes with law enforcement and other people who were very suspicious of Ted and his sneaky and wily ways. Sullivan captures these in his text. The image of Ted the “super-sneak” is slightly tarnished as the author shows that people did have their suspicions about the mighty Bundy before his eventual capture.

    The numbers tell the horrible story. For four years, Ted Bundy, the all-American boy, slaughtered our daughters. 36 women. A person every 45 days on average, fell to the warped psyche of the most horrific killer in American history. TBM does a first rate job of putting all the evidence and facts on view for everyone to see. Bundy killed 36 or so women and greatly impacted a few thousand more. All these people suffered to satisfy the twisted sexual and psychological needs of a warped human being.

    It’s a job done well & I’d like to thank Kevin Sullivan for putting in the work and capturing all the details of this awful saga of Ted the killer and his sick journey.

  36. Pingback: ExecutedToday.com » 1984: Ernest Dobbert, child abuser

  38. I stumbled across the Corin Nemec film, “Bundy: An American Icon” in the local Blockbuster. Worth a rental, or cheap piece of crap?

  39. Vidor–

    Once you discover all the new information contained in the book, I’m sure you’ll feel the purchase was worth every penny of it. That’s how I feel when I purchase such a book from an academic press. It’s the value of the information that makes it unique, and, as I’ve said before, when I decide to write something, I’m never going to do a rush job on my subject, neither am I going to ride on “the backs” of others and their previous works for the majority of my information. If I can’t add substantially to what is “out there” then I’m not going to write the book in the first place. Of course, I thank (and am indebted to) all previous sources, and I have great respect for their work. But, as a writer, if I can’t produce something rather unique, that is well=written, and well-documented, with a tremendous amount of new information scattered literally throughout the book, as well as including vital new and unpublished information on (as is the case with the Bundy book) 4 of the murders, then I have no business writing it. I need to go do something else with my time.

    And of course, this is why I was able to sell the book so exceedingly quickly.

    And thanks, Vidor, for adding my book to the Wikipedia page after your finished reading it. Every little bit helps!

    Kevin

  40. I’ll be adding Mr. Sullivan’s book to the Ted Bundy wikipedia page, BTW, after I read it. That should help his sales a little.

  41. Well, I caved and forked over $45 to McFarland. Guess it should be arriving soon.

    I wonder why we never hear more from the people who sensed that something was wrong with Ted even before he became a murder suspect. Like the professor who sent a tip in to the police. Wasn’t he suspected by some of his clinic coworkers of making harassing phone calls?

  42. For my UK friends: I spoke to the publisher about their “operations” in the UK. Well, they have a distributor in England, but the books are printed in Jefferson, North Carolina, and then shipped over. So this is the reason for the later release date across the pond.

  44. Hey, I believe you, I just wanted to hear it. Not that he can do much that is funny, but I’d like to hear him in action with a contrived continental inflection.

    I don’t imagine the phony accent would be a lot of use in the can. He’s never use it in court so I imagine it’s now long gone.

  45. Hi Gray–

    First, thanks for the kind words about the book. When I discovered during my research that there was indeed new ground to cover, I went about the work of uncovering it both day and night, LOL!

    Liz Kendall: Yes, well, I have always felt a special sadness when it came to her. That is, without doubt, she is one of Ted’s “living” victim’s. It is clear that she loved him deeply, believed he would make a fine husband and father for Tina, etc. That it took her a long time to finally separate herself from Bundy, and wholeheartedly believe that he was in fact the diabolical killer of the Northwest and beyond, is very understandable to me. She knew the outer Ted very well, but had no inkling of the inner Ted being different from what she was used to seeing on a daily basis. I hope she has recovered over the years, but I’m sure a part of her will always suffer to some degree.

    Of course, Liz wasn’t the only person to “finally” believe that Ted was the killer; many who knew him had doubts for a long time, and this is understandable as well. Ann Rule speaks in her book about this, and it only makes sense. Who would want to automatically cast someone away just because accusations were being made, an arrest had been made, and trial was about to take place. One the one hand, you want to believe in what you have cone to know about a person, and on the other hand, you weigh the evidence against your friend, etc. And of course, I quote Ross Davis in the book as coming to the knowledge of Bundy’s guilt over time, etc. Anyway, I’ve said all this to make it clear to those who sometimes feel Liz should have come to the truth sooner rather than later, that until you walk in someone’s shoes, don’t be too quick to judge them (I’m thinking here of what one individual said to me about her during an interview. And no, I can’t speak of it publicly.)

    Bill Hagmaier: Bill told me that if he does write a book (I believe more than one publisher has contacted him) it would be concerning the time he spent with Ted during the last several years before his execution. This only makes sense, as this is where he has direct knowledge of the story, and that’s where he’d want to keep it. Personally, I hope Bill writes it, and I told him so. But so far, it’s on the proverbial back-burner!

    Take care,

    Kevin

  46. Hi KYGB–

    I don’t have the book in front of me at the moment, but if you’ll check the index for “oddities of speech” you’ll see I quote at least 4 people concerning this oddity of Bundy’s. I didn’t quote everybody, mind you, but I use about a page detailing this strange habit of his, which, I believe, had nothing to do with his MO of capturing women. It was just a bizarre aspect of who he was mentally. But you’re right, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him speak this way in an interview. But this “look” into his personality is a fact nevertheless.

    See ya

  47. Kevin: This is my 2nd entry the 1st being about #667, when I mentioned I was at Lake Sammammish that day, among other things. Congratulations; the book was of the “can’t put it down” variety. Especially the part about Liz, who must have gone through an inconceivable ordeal as her ability to use denial as a defense was gradually eroded, both as regards the facts and her intuitions.
    Although I thought there might be more verbatim quotes from the detectives e.g. Thompson and Fisher, e.g.their notes and recollections of encounters with Theodore, there was plenty of new information. I read that Hagmaier probably got the most detailed accounts of the murders of anyone who interviewed Bundy. Maybe he’s working on his own book, and maybe yours actually doesn’t leave room for another. It was as you said comprehensive, and included a lot of new revelations about individual cases which should meet most expectations..

  48. I know where you are all hiding.

    you’ve got your heads down and are ready that page-turner, The Bundy Murders.

    I have a lot questions, but I’ll save most of ’em until I have finished the book.

    Here’s one I thought of yesterday. There is lot of talk of Ted and the affected “British sounding” accent he adopted. Is there any record of him speaking in that manner On all his tapes, his voice is in a nuetral, sort of business accent. Did he ever leave any record of the “Ronald Coleman” accent?

  50. Well, the eagle has landed in Northern Kentucky. My barking hounds scared the UPS guy, but I was able to retrieve my copy of TBM this afternoon.

    Good job Kevin, it looks great from my quick after-dinner scan of the work.

    Now steel yourself for some scathing criticsm when I git ‘er read!

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