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The Making of Ted Bundy: Secrets, Shame, and Silence · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to ten Minute Murder, Brief and bingeable true Crime.
0:05
Speaker 1: I'm Joe, I'm the host, and there's something about this
0:08
Speaker 1: episode that I need to let you know ahead of time.
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Speaker 1: It's not the normal, everyday ten minute episode. It wasn't
0:15
Speaker 1: even planned to be an episode. Initially. It was a
0:19
Speaker 1: blog post I wrote for ten minute Murder dot com.
0:22
Speaker 1: That was the intended purpose of it, and that was it.
0:26
Speaker 1: But a lot of people read it and I thought, well,
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Speaker 1: maybe it would make a decent episode, not to throw
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Speaker 1: in the mix of the normal Tuesday Thursday cycle, but
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Speaker 1: just throwing there as an extra, because this isn't a
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Speaker 1: timed out situation like my normal ones are. I try
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Speaker 1: to keep those to ten minutes. This one. At this point,
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Speaker 1: I'm just starting the episode. I have no idea how
0:45
Speaker 1: long it's going to be. It's definitely longer than ten minutes,
0:48
Speaker 1: so we'll find out together. And that's about the best
0:50
Speaker 1: I can do with the disclaimer. So let's get into it.
1:25
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy was born on November twenty fourth, nineteen forty six,
1:29
Speaker 1: in Burlington, Vermont. His birth certificate said father unknown, which
1:35
Speaker 1: was true, but everything else about the situation not so much.
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Speaker 1: He came into the world as Theodore Robert Cowell, and
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Speaker 1: from the start his life was a lie, wrapped in
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Speaker 1: a cover up, tied with a neat little bow of
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Speaker 1: nineteen forty's shame. His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, was twenty two,
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Speaker 1: unmarried and Catholic, which in nineteen forty six meant she
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Speaker 1: might as well have been excommunicated by the wallpaper. To
2:03
Speaker 1: avoid all that scandal, she gave birth in the Elizabeth
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Speaker 1: Lund Home for Unwed Mothers, one of those institutions designed
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Speaker 1: to quietly fix problems like Ted, and fix it they did.
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Speaker 1: Eleanor's parents brought her and the baby back to their
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Speaker 1: home in Philadelphia, where Ted was raised to believe his
2:21
Speaker 1: grandparents were his parents and that his mom was actually
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Speaker 1: his sister. Let that settle in for a quick second,
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Speaker 1: the woman changing his diapers, tucking him in, doing all
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Speaker 1: the heavy emotional lifting of parenthood, just his sister, totally normal.
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Speaker 1: Nothing to see here In terms of long term psychological fallout,
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Speaker 1: this kind of foundational identity lie isn't exactly best practice.
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Speaker 1: Some psychologists have pointed out that when you mess with
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Speaker 1: a child's basic understanding of who they are, they risk
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Speaker 1: skewing their sense of reality. Others say Bundy had enough
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Speaker 1: red flags waving around that this one might not have
3:00
Speaker 1: been the deal breaker. But still, this wasn't a great start.
3:04
Speaker 1: Then there's the question of who his father was, a
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Speaker 1: question Eleanor never really answered. She said it was a
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Speaker 1: war veteran, then a sailor, then maybe no one. Bundy himself,
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Speaker 1: later in life suggested something darker, that he might have
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Speaker 1: been the product of incest, possibly fathered by his own grandfather.
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Speaker 1: Now there's no evidence to confirm that, but it is
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Speaker 1: one of those theories that refuses to go away, and
3:30
Speaker 1: when you stack it next to the rest of the chaos,
3:33
Speaker 1: it starts to feel a little too plausible. Either way,
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Speaker 1: Ted Bundy's origin story wasn't built on love or stability.
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Speaker 1: It was built on denial and secrets, and that early
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Speaker 1: split between who he was and who he was told
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Speaker 1: to be that never really went away. When Ted was
3:51
Speaker 1: around four, his air quote's sister finally became his mother officially.
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Speaker 1: Eleanor packed them both up and left Philadelphia behind, landing
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Speaker 1: in Tacoma, Washington, completely new coast, new start, same weird
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Speaker 1: family baggage. A couple of years later, she married Johnny
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Speaker 1: Culpeper Bundy, a quiet, working class guy who adopted Ted
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Speaker 1: and gave him that last name that we all know,
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Speaker 1: but calling him father figure, that's being generous. Ted reportedly
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Speaker 1: never liked him. In fact, he barely tolerated him. According
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Speaker 1: to people who knew the family, Ted looked down on Johnny,
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Speaker 1: saw him as dull, uneducated, and beneath him, which is
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Speaker 1: wild coming from a teenage boy who was at the
4:36
Speaker 1: time shoplifting and failing gym class. Still, Johnny tried. He
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Speaker 1: worked as a cook, supported the family, and eventually had
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Speaker 1: four more kids. By eleanor By all accounts, he did
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Speaker 1: his best to include Ted, taking him on camping trips,
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Speaker 1: tossing a football, you know, doing regular dad stuff. Ted
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Speaker 1: wanted no part of it. He thought the whole thing
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Speaker 1: was beneath him. He didn't want want blue collar weekends
5:01
Speaker 1: or sibling bonding time. He wanted something else, something bigger.
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Speaker 1: At this point, I think it's worth asking what exactly
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Speaker 1: did Ted think he deserved, Because even back then, long
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Speaker 1: before anyone knew his name, he had this intense need
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Speaker 1: to be seen as exceptional, special, destined for more, and
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Speaker 1: if reality didn't agree with him, he just rewrote reality.
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Speaker 1: That would become a running theme here. He told different
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Speaker 1: stories to different people about where he came from. In
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Speaker 1: one version he had a wealthy, important father, and another
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Speaker 1: he was descendant from royalty. At one point, he even
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Speaker 1: claimed his family had a chauffeur. They didn't. It was
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Speaker 1: like he was allergic to his own origin story, or
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Speaker 1: he kept trying to outgrow it by lying his way
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Speaker 1: into a better one. But underneath the lies was a
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Speaker 1: kid who never really attached to anyone, not his stepfather,
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Speaker 1: not his mom, not even his own siblings, who knew
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Speaker 1: him growing up said he always seemed a little off.
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Speaker 1: Polite and quiet, but cold, distant, calculating, like he was
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Speaker 1: watching people instead of connecting with them. So while the
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Speaker 1: Bundies were trying to play house, Ted was already working
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Speaker 1: on becoming someone else entirely. By the time Ted Bundy
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Speaker 1: hit high school, he'd figured something out. He wasn't naturally charismatic,
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Speaker 1: he wasn't popular, he wasn't even particularly likable, but he
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Speaker 1: could fake it, so he did. He studied the people
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Speaker 1: who had what he wanted, confidence, charm, social power, and
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Speaker 1: started mimicking them. Bundy didn't develop a personality so much
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Speaker 1: as a symbol. One think Frankenstein, but with better hair
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Speaker 1: and the copy of How to Win Friends and Influence
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Speaker 1: People tucked under one arm. At school, he was mostly
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Speaker 1: a loner. Teachers said he was intelligent but unmotivated. Other
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Speaker 1: students described him as awkward, socially clueless, emotionally flat, and
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Speaker 1: kind of a tryhard. He didn't date, he didn't make
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Speaker 1: friends easily, but every once in a while he'd turn
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Speaker 1: on the charm and surprise people. That switch he learned
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Speaker 1: to flip later in life. It started right here. Outside
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Speaker 1: of school, things got weirder. Bundy developed a fascination with crime,
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Speaker 1: specifically true crime, but not in the podcast and wine.
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Speaker 1: Since he was obsessed with stories of violence, especially sexual violence,
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Speaker 1: he read detective novels constantly. Some accounts say he'd dug
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Speaker 1: through trash cans to find pictures of naked women. He
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Speaker 1: started peeping into windows. Voyeurism was a pastime, and of course,
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Speaker 1: he lied constantly about everything, even small stuff that didn't
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Speaker 1: even matter. Now, not every kid who's awkward and likes
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Speaker 1: creepy books grows up to be a killer. But with Bundy,
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Speaker 1: there's this thread running through it all. Control He wanted
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Speaker 1: to control how people saw him, control what they knew
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Speaker 1: about him, control how close they could get. And all
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Speaker 1: that control masked something important. He didn't actually feel much.
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Speaker 1: No empathy, no guilt, no shame, just strategy. When people
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Speaker 1: talk about Bundy as two faced, this is where that started.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't a monster with a mask. He was the mask.
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Speaker 1: The persona came first, the rest just followed. In nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty nine, Ted Bundy met a woman who would unknowingly
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Speaker 1: become the dress rehearsal for his entire persona, Elizabeth Klepfer.
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Speaker 1: She was a single mom working as a secretary at
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Speaker 1: the University of Washington. By her own account, she was shy,
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Speaker 1: a little lonely, and maybe looking for something steady. Bundy,
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Speaker 1: clean cut, well dressed, polite, seemed like the kind of
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Speaker 1: guy who had it all together, the kind of guy
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Speaker 1: he would bring home to meet your parents, the kind
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Speaker 1: of guy who helps your kid with their homework and
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Speaker 1: makes breakfast on Sundays. So when he asked her out,
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Speaker 1: she said yes, and for a while things seemed normal.
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Speaker 1: Bundy helped raise her daughter, He made dinner. He studied
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Speaker 1: psychology at UW and talked about going to law school.
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Speaker 1: He even volunteered at a suicide crisis hotline because yes,
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Speaker 1: life is just that ironic. But behind the scenes, Ted
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Speaker 1: was still Ted. He was also dating other women, stealing, lying,
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Speaker 1: and laying the groundwork for a much darker future. Their
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Speaker 1: relationship wasn't about love, It was about rehearsal. Bundy was
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Speaker 1: learning how to be two people at once. He tested
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Speaker 1: how far he could stretch the truth without breaking it.
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Speaker 1: He learned to lie directly to someone's face while still
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Speaker 1: showing up with flowers the next day. He figured out
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Speaker 1: how to seem emotionally available while also feeling nothing inside,
10:00
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth, for a long time, bought it because there
10:03
Speaker 1: was nothing obvious to warn her otherwise, except there kind
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Speaker 1: of was. She'd catch him sneaking around, find things in
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Speaker 1: his apartment that didn't make sense. Once she even found
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Speaker 1: a bowl filled with house keys that didn't belong to
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Speaker 1: either of them, But every time she confronted him, he
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Speaker 1: had an explanation on deck and ready to go. It
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Speaker 1: didn't even need to be good, just confident. Years later,
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Speaker 1: she would turn him in twice, but at this point
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Speaker 1: she was still in it deeply, and Bundy was thriving
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Speaker 1: under the cover of domesticity. From the outside, he looked
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Speaker 1: like a guy getting his life together. On the inside,
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Speaker 1: he was taking notes, because if there's one thing Bundy
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Speaker 1: mastered in his early years, it wasn't violence or manipulation.
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Speaker 1: It was the appearance of normal, and Elizabeth was his
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Speaker 1: first real test subject. One of the most frustrating things
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Speaker 1: about trying to understand and ted Bundy is that he
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Speaker 1: lied constantly, not just to his victims, not just to
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Speaker 1: the cops, but to literally anyone, including himself, especially when
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Speaker 1: it came to his past. As he got older, Bundy
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Speaker 1: started playing fast and loose with his own origin story.
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Speaker 1: In interviews, he'd offer up conflicting versions of his childhood
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Speaker 1: like he was choosing from a menu. Sometimes he said
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Speaker 1: he had a happy, stable home, other times it was abusive.
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Speaker 1: One week he was raised in a strict religious household.
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Speaker 1: The next he claimed to be neglected and unwanted, And
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Speaker 1: every time someone tried to pin him down, he changed
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Speaker 1: the subject or changed the story. It wasn't just deflection,
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Speaker 1: it was his strategy. Bundy knew people were obsessed with motive.
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Speaker 1: They wanted a reason, a backstory, a trauma to hang
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Speaker 1: the horror on, and he used that to manipulate the narrative.
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Speaker 1: If he was talking to a psychiatrist, he leaned into
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Speaker 1: the mental health thingle If it was a journalist, he'd
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Speaker 1: toss a little family drama in the mix. Talking to
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Speaker 1: a religious counselor, suddenly it was pornography that corrupted him.
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Speaker 1: He gave everyone just enough to chase a theory. What's
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Speaker 1: wild is how he weaponized the idea of being misunderstood.
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Speaker 1: He liked the myth, he fed it. He built a
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Speaker 1: whole persona around the idea that he was just some
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Speaker 1: tragic figure, brilliant, sensitive, wronged by the world. The fact
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Speaker 1: that people were still debating his childhood while he was
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Speaker 1: confessing to murder was not a coincidence. It was part
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Speaker 1: of his performance. He even did this with his name.
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Speaker 1: He knew Ted Bundy carried weight. So when he talked
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Speaker 1: about the little boy who was born as Theodore Cowell,
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Speaker 1: the kid raised in a fake family, the one who
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Speaker 1: may or may not have known who his father was,
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Speaker 1: he talked about that kid like he was someone else, entirely,
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Speaker 1: a shadow, a ghost, someone he left behind. But the
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Speaker 1: truth that kid never left. He just got better at
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Speaker 1: hiding by the early nineteen seventies, Ted Bundy had everyone fooled.
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Speaker 1: He was a law student, a boyfriend, a volunteer, the
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Speaker 1: kind of guy who helped you carry your groceries and
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Speaker 1: open doors for strangers. He knew exactly what people expected
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Speaker 1: from a good man, and he gave it to them
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Speaker 1: with a smile. But the cracks were already showing. Friends
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Speaker 1: described him as a little too controlling, a little too
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Speaker 1: interested in how people reacted to fear. He didn't just
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Speaker 1: tell lies, he lived them. He started stealing more, cheating
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Speaker 1: in school, skipping classes. He'd tell Elizabeth he was going
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Speaker 1: to the library, then disappear for hours, sometimes days. He
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Speaker 1: began collecting things that didn't make sense, stolen ideas, women's clothing, handcuffs,
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Speaker 1: a crowbar. He wasn't just preparing for something, He was rehearsing,
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Speaker 1: testing boundaries, seeing what he could get away with Before
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Speaker 1: anyone noticed. Nobody did. And here's the uncomfortable part. People
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Speaker 1: didn't notice because they didn't want to. Bundy didn't look
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Speaker 1: like a threat. He didn't feel dangerous. He was clean,
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Speaker 1: cut and educated. He didn't raise his voice. He wasn't scary.
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Speaker 1: He didn't match the monster people imagined in their heads.
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Speaker 1: Even when Elizabeth went to the police twice with suspicions
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Speaker 1: about his behavior, they brushed it off. He just didn't
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Speaker 1: seem like the type, as if there was a type,
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Speaker 1: and that's what made him so dangerous. Bundy didn't hide
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Speaker 1: in the shadows. He hid in plain sight, and in
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Speaker 1: these early years, long before the crimes that made him infamous,
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Speaker 1: he was already learning how easy it was to disappear
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Speaker 1: into people's expectations. All he had to do was look
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Speaker 1: the part. By the time Ted Bundy entered law school
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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, the mask wasn't just something he wore.
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Speaker 1: It was who he had become. There was no clear
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Speaker 1: line between real and pretend anymore. He had shaped himself
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Speaker 1: into whatever the moment required. Need to impress a professor.
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Speaker 1: He was articulate, curious and respectful. Need to charm a
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Speaker 1: woman at a party. He was attentive and confident, need
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Speaker 1: to manipulate someone into trusting him. He was soft, spoken
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Speaker 1: and helpful, maybe even a little vulnerable, just enough to
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Speaker 1: lower your guard. The truth underneath all that was cold.
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Speaker 1: Bundy wasn't building a future, He was building a trap.
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Speaker 1: His relationships were shallow, His resume was padded, his law
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Speaker 1: school record was already slipping, but he kept up the
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Speaker 1: illusion that he was headed somewhere big. His girlfriend believed
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Speaker 1: in him, his classmates liked him. Even some local political
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Speaker 1: figures thought he had potential. That word came up a
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Speaker 1: lot back then, potential. But behind the scenes, Bundy was restless, bored.
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Speaker 1: The lies weren't enough anymore. The pretending didn't satisfy him
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Speaker 1: like it used to. He had created this perfect mask,
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Speaker 1: and now he needed something to feed it, something that
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Speaker 1: would let him control not just his image, but other
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Speaker 1: people's lives, their fear, their safety, their endings. That's where
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Speaker 1: the early life of Ted Bundy ends. Not in blood,
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Speaker 1: not yet, but in that strange, quiet moment right before
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Speaker 1: the storm, when he was still just a man with
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Speaker 1: no record, no body count, and no one looking twice.
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Speaker 1: What came next wasn't sudden. It was earned carefully, over
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Speaker 1: years of practice, years of pretending, years of learning how
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Speaker 1: to blend in. The monster didn't break out. He walked
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Speaker 1: through the front doors. Thanks for listening to this episode
17:01
Speaker 1: of ten Minutes Murder, Brief and Bingeable True Crime. And again,
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Speaker 1: this isn't a normal episode. If this is your first
17:07
Speaker 1: time listening, don't expect this every single week. This is
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Speaker 1: in addition to the podcast. This in case you missed
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Speaker 1: it at the beginning. This was a blog that I
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Speaker 1: wrote for ten minute Murder dot com and it got
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Speaker 1: a lot of views, so I thought I would turn
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Speaker 1: it into something you can listen to. Because not everyone
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Speaker 1: goes to ten minute murder dot com and reads the
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Speaker 1: stuff I put there, and that's cool. You don't have
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Speaker 1: to do that, but I thought that was getting enough
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Speaker 1: attention the early life of Ted Bundy before the murders.
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Speaker 1: I just wanted to put it here and let the
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Speaker 1: rest of you read it with your ears. So that's
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Speaker 1: what this was. Again, thank you so much for listening
17:47
Speaker 1: to ten Minute Murder. See you next time.