True Crime - Ted Bundy

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contains some distressing content

crimes and criminals

Look at the names. Which of these people have you heard of? What do you know about them and their crimes?

• Al Capone

• Bonnie and Clyde

• Jack the Ripper

• Bernie Madoff

• Pablo Escobar

• Ronnie Biggs

• D. B. Cooper

• Frank Abagnale

• Charles Manson

• Elizabeth Holmes

• Ted Kaczynski

• Andrei Chikatilo

• Sergey Mavrodi

Pre-reading

• Do you recognise this man?

• What do you think he was convicted of?

• What impression does he give you in each picture?

Ted Bundy: The man next door

In the early 1970s, Ted Bundy looked like a young man with a bright future. He was a psychology graduate from the University of Washington, he worked on a state political campaign, and he was planning to become a lawyer. He even volunteered at a crisis hotline in Seattle, taking calls from people in distress. Friends described him as handsome, polite and charming.

But between 1974 and 1978, Bundy kidnapped and murdered young women across the United States, in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Florida. Shortly before his death, he confessed to thirty murders in seven states. Investigators believe the real number may be higher.

His methods depended on trust. Bundy often wore his arm in a sling or walked on crutches, and asked women to help him carry books or load something into his car. At other times he pretended to be a police officer. His victims were mostly students and young women who had no reason to be afraid of a polite, well-dressed man.

In August 1975, a police officer in Utah stopped Bundy’s car and found handcuffs, a ski mask and other suspicious items inside. He was later convicted of kidnapping a young woman called Carol DaRonch, who had managed to escape from his car. While he was waiting for a murder trial in Colorado, he escaped from custody twice. The first time, he jumped from a courthouse

window. The second time, he climbed through the ceiling of his cell, and by the time anyone noticed, he was on his way to Florida.

In January 1978, in Tallahassee, Bundy broke into a university sorority house and attacked four students, killing two of them. A few weeks later, he abducted and murdered a twelve-year-old girl, Kimberly Leach. He was finally arrested in February 1978, driving a stolen car.

His trial in Miami in 1979 was one of the first in the United States to be shown on national television. Bundy insisted on acting as part of his own legal team and seemed to enjoy the attention. Some of the most important evidence came from a bite mark that experts matched to his teeth. He was sentenced to death.

For almost ten years, Bundy appealed his sentences and gave interviews, sometimes offering information about victims in exchange for more time. He was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison on 24 January 1989.

Outside the prison, crowds cheered. For the families of his victims, there was little to celebrate. Some of them never found out exactly what had happened to their daughters and sisters.

discuss

Why do you think the Ted Bundy story has received so much attention?

Bundy was caught the first time almost by accident - a traffic stop. Is this a huge failure on the part of the police?

Bundy famously broke out of prison. Would such a thing be impossible nowadays?

What's your reaction to the almost party-like atmosphere after his execution?

Bundy has previously been described as handsome, polite and charming. How did he become a monster?

nature vs nurture

Student A: Born, not made

Student B: Made, not born

Nature – Born, not made

Ted Bundy’s childhood was not perfect. He was born in 1946 to an unmarried mother, he never knew his father, and for his first few years he was told that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister.

Some relatives described his grandfather as a violent man. Later, his mother moved with him to Washington State and married a man who adopted him. But in one of his final interviews, Bundy himself said he had grown up in a good home with two loving, hard-working parents. And millions of children grow up with family secrets, difficult relatives or a missing father, and almost none of them become violent criminals. Bundy’s own younger half-brothers and half-sisters grew up in the same house, and none of them followed the same path.

There are also signs that something was wrong very early. According to the writer Ann Rule, who worked alongside Bundy at the Seattle crisis hotline, one of his aunts woke up one morning when she was fifteen to find kitchen knives arranged around her body. Ted, aged three, was standing next to the bed, smiling.

Bundy showed many of the classic features of psychopathy: superficial charm, a talent for lying, a lack of guilt, and a complete inability to feel what other people were feeling. Twin studies suggest that around half of the differences between people in psychopathic traits are explained by genes. Brain-imaging research has also found that the parts of the brain linked to emotion and self-control often work differently in violent offenders.

From this point of view, Bundy was not shaped by a sad childhood. He was born with a mind that could not feel empathy, and he learned very young how to hide it. His upbringing may have influenced the details of his story, but the darkness was there from the beginning.

Nurture – Made, not born

Ted Bundy was born in 1946 in a home for unmarried mothers in Vermont. At that time, having a child outside marriage brought serious shame on a family, so the truth was hidden. Ted was raised at first by his grandparents in Philadelphia, and he grew up believing that they were his parents and that his real mother, Louise, was his older sister. Who his father was has never been confirmed.

The home itself was far from calm. Relatives later described his grandfather as a violent, frightening man with a terrible temper, who bullied his family and was cruel to animals. When Ted was four, his mother took him across the country to Tacoma, Washington, where she married a cook called Johnny Bundy, who adopted him. Ted later said he never felt close to his stepfather.

As a teenager, he was shy and awkward with other people, and he felt that he never quite fitted in. Accounts differ about when he discovered the truth about his birth, but he eventually confirmed it, and people who knew him believed it hurt him deeply.

At university, his girlfriend – an attractive, confident young woman from a wealthy family – ended their relationship, reportedly because she felt he lacked direction. Some writers have pointed out that many of his victims looked like her. Years later, Bundy won her back, then suddenly ended the relationship himself.

Seen this way, Bundy’s crimes grew out of a childhood built on lies, fear and rejection. Many experts argue that a child who grows up without honesty, security or love can learn to hide his real feelings behind a mask – and Bundy’s mask was one of the most convincing in history.

Now summarise what you've read for your partner / teacher

discuss

• Which side do you find more convincing? Why?

• Bundy blamed different things for his crimes at different times. Why might a criminal’s own explanation be unreliable?

• If psychopathy is partly genetic, should people with these traits be treated differently by the law? Is a person less responsible if they were “born that way”?

• If scientists could identify children with a high risk of becoming violent, should anything be done?

discuss

Why are people so interested in people like Bundy?

Wouldn’t it be better to give him no legacy at all? After all, he was motivated, in part, by a desire for attention.

Some news organisations now refuse to name mass killers, to deny them fame. Is this a good idea?

When a famous, attractive actor plays a killer, is there a danger of making him look glamorous?

Is there something wrong about making money from a criminal’s story?

Can true crime be useful to society, or is it just entertainment?