As humans, we like to pin things specific reasons and will look for causation whether it exists or not. We are wired for simplicity and like it when things follow a logical flow of reasoning. For decades, criminal behavior has been studied to better understand what makes people different. Ted Bundy threw everything we thought we knew right out the window.
SUMMARY OF THE OFFENSES
Bundy confessed to the killings of over 30 young women between 1973 and 1978. He was extremely difficult to catch because he paid close attention to detail, covered lots of ground, and worked alone. In the 1970s, the term “serial killer” did not exist, and police lacked the resources, like DNA profiling and shared databases of information, that would have been key in linking his crimes together. When Bundy’s name and face began popping up in newspapers and appearing on TV screens, no one believed that a law student with a handsome, mild-mannered face was capable of committing multiple murders and lying about it.
Bundy craved power and control, but he was also intelligent and knew how to fit in. He, like many serial killers, had an M.O. and always chose to asphyxiate his victims. Additionally, Bundy had a specific target: thin, white women with long, dark hair parted down the middle. His attacks were carefully planned out and almost always involved some level of psychological manipulation. He would first get his victims to sympathize with him, often by carrying an empty gas can or wearing his arm in a sling, then isolate and attack. Bundy escaped from police custody twice and was one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Men in America until he was caught for good in February 1978. It would be over a decade before his death sentence was carried out in 1989.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
There is no one, specific thing in Bundy’s background that can explain his behavior, but there are many factors that may have played a role. First, Bundy’s birth and childhood were extremely confusing and unsettling. Ted’s mother, Eleanor Cowell-Bundy had him when she was just twenty-two years old and was living in a home where her father abused her and her mother was depressed. Initially, Eleanor did not want to keep Ted, but her father insisted. To this day, Ted’s father, largely, remains a mystery. The Cowell family did not take keenly to the idea of having a daughter with a child out of wedlock, and they decided early on to have Ted believe that Eleanor was his sister, and his grandparents were his biological parents. Then, before Ted’s fifth birthday, he and Eleanor left their broken home in Philadelphia to go and live with extended family in Tacoma, Washington. This tumultuous upbringing was further compounded upon when Eleanor fell in love with a man named John Bundy in Tacoma. The two of them got married, adopted Ted, and Ted took the surname “Bundy”.
Around the time he was fourteen, Ted found his birth certificate, revealing his true identity to him for the first time. At this moment, Ted learned that the sister he had grown up with was actually his mother, but also, he did not know his father. This, undoubtedly, would have been a traumatic experience.
At the University of Washington, Bundy met the love of his life, Diane Edwards. In Joe Berlinger’s “Conversations With a Killer,” Bundy described his relationship with her as having “a lasting impact on him” and said that he felt angst and resentment towards her for rejecting him and making him feel inadequate (Berlinger, 2019, E1 @ 25:50). It is well known that Bundy’s victims resembled her. Following their split, Bundy was declined from multiple law schools and, in the following months, he would commit his first provable murder. Bundy’s self-doubt and anxiety fueled his aggression and violence.
Bundy then began dating Elizabeth Kloepfer. Although he did have very strong feelings for her, Bundy continued to write back and forth with Edwards throughout this relationship. Bundy is especially interesting because he committed violent, unimaginable acts but was also described as loving and compassionate. The fact that he cared greatly for Edwards and Kloepfer likely created even more animosity in his mind. Maybe he did not understand himself, and maybe his relationships just added aggravation, remorse, and sadness to his life. Either way, it’s important to discuss Bundy’s relationships because they affected him so greatly.
ANALYSIS
Absolute psycho, Interesting stuff man