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I Just Liked It The Twisted Psychology of Ted Bundy Born to Kill 4K · Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained

0:03
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy would savagely snuff out the lives of America's
0:07
Speaker 1: brightest and most beautiful.
0:09
Speaker 2: It was almost as if he was on a mission.
0:11
Speaker 3: The dispatcher said, Sarge, we've got two dead and two dying.
0:15
Speaker 1: A charismatic killer who fooled even his closest friends.
0:20
Speaker 4: Well, I'd just been with the most dangerous man in
0:23
Speaker 4: the Western states. Never had a clue.
0:27
Speaker 1: And ran rings around law enforcement.
0:30
Speaker 5: He was a master predator. It was as well planned
0:33
Speaker 5: as military action.
0:36
Speaker 1: He's become the most infamous serial killer in American history.
0:40
Speaker 1: But was Ted Bundy born to kill? Ted Bundy was
0:54
Speaker 1: born Theodore Robert Cowell in 1946. at the Elizabeth Lund
0:58
Speaker 1: Home for Unwed Mothers in Vermont. 22 years old at
1:05
Speaker 1: the time, his mother Louise faced the social stigma of
1:09
Speaker 1: having a child out of wedlock to a mysterious absent father.
1:16
Speaker 6: In order to protect his mother, her parents felt that
1:20
Speaker 6: they could not acknowledge the three months that she had
1:22
Speaker 6: spent in the Home for Unwed Mothers in Vermont. So
1:26
Speaker 6: he was raised believing that his grandparents were his parents,
1:29
Speaker 6: his mother was his older sister, and in his life
1:34
Speaker 6: that had to have been very confusing to him. He
1:37
Speaker 6: didn't know who he was.
1:41
Speaker 1: When Ted was four, the mother he thought of as
1:44
Speaker 1: his sister took him to Tacoma, Washington, to start a
1:47
Speaker 1: new life. There she married a military cook, Johnny Bundy,
1:53
Speaker 1: who adopted Ted as his own. It was in this
1:59
Speaker 1: environment of half-truths and uncertainty that Ted Bundy grew up.
2:09
Speaker 4: His high school days, he was in a crowd where
2:13
Speaker 4: everybody else was a big wheel, but he never was.
2:19
Speaker 6: We do know that he was terribly teased. He was
2:23
Speaker 6: considered not a nerd, although he was a somewhat handsome
2:26
Speaker 6: young child. but he didn't fit.
2:31
Speaker 4: His basic personality, if it was such a thing, is shy,
2:38
Speaker 4: afraid to take chances, probably afraid to give away his
2:43
Speaker 4: inner thoughts.
2:48
Speaker 1: In adolescence, Bundy finally discovered for himself the truth about
2:53
Speaker 1: his parentage.
2:55
Speaker 2: Everything he'd previously known being told to believe, was in
2:59
Speaker 2: fact a lie. In those circumstances, it would be natural
3:04
Speaker 2: to distrust, it would be natural to find it very
3:08
Speaker 2: difficult to form lasting attachments to those people who had
3:13
Speaker 2: lied to him.
3:15
Speaker 1: The young Bundy began to get in trouble with the law,
3:19
Speaker 1: committing a number of petty crimes and struggling to hold
3:22
Speaker 1: down a job. But in 1966, he enrolled at the
3:29
Speaker 1: University of Washington in Seattle and suddenly appeared to blossom.
3:38
Speaker 6: He was considered charming. He was considered well-dressed. He was
3:42
Speaker 6: considered educated. And at that time, that was the only
3:46
Speaker 6: thing that people really paid much attention to.
3:51
Speaker 4: Ted was popular at the University of Washington. His professors
3:56
Speaker 4: thought he was great, that he was brilliant.
4:00
Speaker 6: Research has shown that the prettier people get the better
4:04
Speaker 6: grades and better placements, and the not-so-pretty people don't do
4:08
Speaker 6: quite so well. And that, I think, came to the
4:11
Speaker 6: point where people, because he was such a handsome young man,
4:16
Speaker 6: basically overlooked any type of emptiness that was the core
4:20
Speaker 6: of him.
4:23
Speaker 1: Anne Rule, now a best-selling author, was a volunteer at
4:26
Speaker 1: the crisis clinic, a suicide helpline, when she met the attractive,
4:31
Speaker 1: charismatic young Bundy.
4:33
Speaker 4: Ted and I would work as a team. Ted was
4:36
Speaker 4: wonderful on the phone. He sounded caring. He was interested
4:41
Speaker 4: in people. I can still picture him hunched over the
4:45
Speaker 4: desk with a phone to his head. And many times
4:50
Speaker 4: we saved lives. which seems very ironic to me now.
4:57
Speaker 4: But I got the sweet Ted, and who would walk
5:00
Speaker 4: me out to my car at two in the morning
5:03
Speaker 4: when my shift was over, and he'd say, Ann, please
5:06
Speaker 4: lock the doors. I don't want anything bad to happen
5:08
Speaker 4: to you on the way home. Well, I'd just been
5:11
Speaker 4: locked up with probably the most dangerous man in the
5:16
Speaker 4: western states. Never had a clue.
5:22
Speaker 1: Dan Lazaris, a young law student, shared the same boarding
5:26
Speaker 1: house as the seemingly bright and gifted Bundy.
5:30
Speaker 7: The Ted Bundy that I knew, there were things about
5:33
Speaker 7: him that were special, I would want to say.
5:36
Speaker 5: Charisma.
5:38
Speaker 7: I remember thinking what a handsome man he was, and
5:41
Speaker 7: probably wistfully myself, wishing that I were so. I remember
5:45
Speaker 7: him being well-spoken, intellectual, kind. unassuming, arrogant but unassuming, in
5:52
Speaker 7: the sense of, I would say, disarming.
5:55
Speaker 4: While Ted was at the university, he met the woman
6:00
Speaker 4: of his dreams, and he told me, she's everything I want.
6:06
Speaker 4: She was beautiful, she was rich, she was popular, and
6:12
Speaker 4: he was really in love with her.
6:17
Speaker 1: But after more than a year's romance... Bundy's dream girl
6:20
Speaker 1: began having second thoughts.
6:24
Speaker 4: She realized that Ted wasn't going anyplace. He didn't have
6:28
Speaker 4: any real... He'd talk about politics and he'd talk about
6:31
Speaker 4: being a lawyer, but he really wasn't going anyplace. He
6:34
Speaker 4: wasn't carrying out things. And she broke off with him.
6:46
Speaker 8: And.
6:48
Speaker 4: That just devastated him. That was the catalyst, I always thought.
6:54
Speaker 2: Bundy took that rejection very badly and then went out
6:58
Speaker 2: of his way to find a way of wooing her back.
7:04
Speaker 1: Bundy threw himself into the dynamic world of law and politics,
7:08
Speaker 1: gaining a reputation as a rising star of the Republican Party.
7:15
Speaker 1: All the while, he refused to give up on his
7:17
Speaker 1: dream girl By early 1974, the now seemingly high-achieving Bundy
7:25
Speaker 1: had won her back so completely, they began talking of marriage. Then,
7:31
Speaker 1: abruptly and unexpectedly, he broke off all contact. On the
7:41
Speaker 1: 1st of February 1974, beautiful and musically gifted 21-year-old student
7:47
Speaker 1: Linda Ann Healy had been due to record her daily
7:50
Speaker 1: ski report for the local radio station. She never arrived,
7:57
Speaker 1: nor did she turn up for classes that day. When
8:01
Speaker 1: she finally failed to show for a family meal, her
8:04
Speaker 1: housemates began to worry. The police were called, and what
8:09
Speaker 1: they discovered was puzzling.
8:12
Speaker 4: She disappeared. Her bed was made, but when they pulled
8:16
Speaker 4: her bed back, There was enough blood staining the mattress
8:20
Speaker 4: and the bedding that someone had to either be dead
8:25
Speaker 4: or seriously injured. She had been in her nightgown because
8:29
Speaker 4: there was blood around the back of her nightgown. He'd
8:34
Speaker 4: taken that off and dressed her. She was just gone.
8:40
Speaker 1: Over the next six months, the Seattle police wrestled with
8:43
Speaker 1: the mystifying disappearance of the 21-year-old. Then one after the other,
8:50
Speaker 1: more young female college students began vanishing. 19-year-old Donna Mason
8:58
Speaker 1: was last seen heading to a concert. She never got there.
9:04
Speaker 1: 18-year-old Susan Rancourt disappeared as she walked across Ellensburg Washington
9:09
Speaker 1: State College campus at night. 22-year-old Roberta Parks vanished from
9:18
Speaker 1: Oregon State University. 22-year-old Brenda Ball disappeared as she left
9:25
Speaker 1: the Flame Tavern in a district of Seattle. And 18-year-old
9:38
Speaker 1: Georgianne Hawkins, who was only days away from completing her
9:41
Speaker 1: first year of studies, mysteriously vanished as she walked between
9:45
Speaker 1: sorority houses after visiting fellow students.
9:51
Speaker 4: All she had to do was come down four houses
9:54
Speaker 4: between that and her house. She never got down.
10:03
Speaker 1: Each victim had center-parted, long, dark hair. Each was slim, attractive,
10:09
Speaker 1: and bright. Each resembled Bundy's dream girl.
10:16
Speaker 6: Generally, there is a lot of similarity among victims of
10:20
Speaker 6: serial killers. Serial killers in general have a type.
10:25
Speaker 2: It was almost as if Bundy was trying to gain
10:27
Speaker 2: revenge over this particular woman, a particular class, a particular
10:33
Speaker 2: type of woman. It was almost as if he was
10:36
Speaker 2: on a mission.
10:39
Speaker 1: Six young women had simply disappeared, leaving behind only a question.
10:45
Speaker 1: How had they been abducted with seemingly no struggle, no clues,
10:51
Speaker 1: and no witnesses. As Bundy's reign of terror continued, the
10:57
Speaker 1: chilling answer would be revealed.
10:59
Speaker 3: 1974.
11:05
Speaker 1: In and around Washington State, six bright, attractive young women
11:13
Speaker 1: had been abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy. The girls
11:18
Speaker 1: had simply disappeared, leaving law enforcement confused and without a
11:23
Speaker 1: clear suspect. How was Bundy kidnapping his victims unnoticed and
11:28
Speaker 1: without a struggle?
11:32
Speaker 2: He knew he had to create access to a suitable victim,
11:37
Speaker 2: but how would he go about being able to convince
11:40
Speaker 2: this woman to come with him in the car, to
11:42
Speaker 2: walk with him some way away from where she might
11:46
Speaker 2: be socialising with her friends?
11:51
Speaker 1: The mystery was about to be revealed. Lake Sammamish State
11:58
Speaker 1: Park was a popular hangout for Seattle's young men and women.
12:07
Speaker 1: On July the 14th, 1974, teenager Dawn Sanders was one
12:12
Speaker 1: of many young girls heading to the lake.
12:16
Speaker 9: Well, it was a nice, sunny, warm Sunday afternoon. We
12:20
Speaker 9: always like to go down to the park as much
12:22
Speaker 9: as possible, and my girlfriend and I, typical, you know,
12:26
Speaker 9: we were 14, 15 years old, headed down to the
12:28
Speaker 9: park to see who was there and what kind of
12:31
Speaker 9: trouble we could get into, basically.
12:34
Speaker 10: That Sunday in July, it was really hot, and the
12:38
Speaker 10: state park was always crowded on hot weekends. They would
12:43
Speaker 10: line up in their cars trying to get one of
12:45
Speaker 10: the few parking spots at the state park, and it's
12:47
Speaker 10: a very large park. It's one of the busiest in
12:49
Speaker 10: the state A friend of.
12:51
Speaker 9: Ours was approached by a young man in a cast.
12:56
Speaker 10: He asked her to help him get something off the
12:58
Speaker 10: roof of his car.
13:00
Speaker 1: The girl was one of several to be approached by
13:02
Speaker 1: a man with what looked like a broken arm.
13:06
Speaker 9: She was 17, beautiful, shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes. She
13:12
Speaker 9: didn't go with him anywhere, didn't go any further than that.
13:19
Speaker 1: It's likely the man was Bundy. wearing a fake plaster cast.
13:25
Speaker 1: Witnesses saw the same approach made to an attractive lone 23-year-old.
13:33
Speaker 4: Janice was sitting on a towel by herself and a
13:36
Speaker 4: good-looking man came up to her and asked her if
13:40
Speaker 4: she would help get his canoe off his car. And
13:47
Speaker 4: he said, it's just up in the parking lot. She said, OK,
13:51
Speaker 4: and she went with him. That's the last time she
14:00
Speaker 4: was seen.
14:03
Speaker 1: The nature of Janice Ott's disappearance would provide an insight
14:07
Speaker 1: into how Bundy had abducted at least seven young women
14:11
Speaker 1: without so far drawing attention to himself.
14:15
Speaker 2: What Bundy did seemed to me to be incredibly clever.
14:18
Speaker 2: He would wear casts on his arms he'd pretend to
14:21
Speaker 2: be injured in some way and ask for help. Now,
14:25
Speaker 2: of course, what this is doing is simply creating access.
14:30
Speaker 2: Once he has that access, he uses the opportunity that
14:35
Speaker 2: that access gives him to facilitate the kill.
14:39
Speaker 1: But the extraordinary events of the hot July day would
14:43
Speaker 1: not end with the disappearance of Janis Ott. Only hours later...
14:48
Speaker 1: As 40,000 people reveled in the sunshine, Bundy was back
14:53
Speaker 1: and roaming freely amongst them.
14:57
Speaker 4: A little later in the afternoon, Denise Naslund was there
15:00
Speaker 4: with her boyfriend and another couple, and she had to
15:04
Speaker 4: go to the restroom, and it's kind of a concrete
15:07
Speaker 4: little box sitting off by itself.
15:16
Speaker 1: She went.
15:18
Speaker 4: Never came back.
15:22
Speaker 1: Bundy had abducted two young women from the same busy
15:25
Speaker 1: location on the same day in broad daylight.
15:32
Speaker 2: The psychological gain that he got from the first murder
15:36
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to sustain him.
15:38
Speaker 3: He needed more.
15:41
Speaker 2: Serial killing starts as a consequence of a fantasy. The
15:45
Speaker 2: fantasy becomes refined over time. So one ultimately wasn't enough.
15:51
Speaker 2: The fantasy demanded that two were necessary.
16:00
Speaker 1: Using helicopters and dogs, the police began a massive search
16:04
Speaker 1: of some 400 acres around Lake Sammamish Park. Not a
16:12
Speaker 1: trace was found. The girls had simply disappeared.
16:20
Speaker 10: I recall her boyfriend who'd been at the park with
16:23
Speaker 10: her that day. I remember him being there while during
16:26
Speaker 10: the search and leaning on his car and just crying,
16:29
Speaker 10: just sobbing that it was, you know, fearing the worst.
16:36
Speaker 1: But Bundy's audacity had betrayed him.
16:41
Speaker 10: The park was so busy that day that it was
16:44
Speaker 10: easy for them to put together some profiles that quickly
16:49
Speaker 10: identified this person that they identified as Ted.
16:54
Speaker 4: People at the park heard him introduce himself to Janis
16:58
Speaker 4: Ott and saw her leave with him.
17:03
Speaker 10: Within that week, they had a composite sketch of the
17:08
Speaker 10: man that they believed who turned out to be Ted Bundy.
17:20
Speaker 9: When I look back on that day now, I don't
17:22
Speaker 9: remember it as innocent.
17:27
Speaker 5: As it was.
17:32
Speaker 1: Despite having a name and description for the suspect, no
17:35
Speaker 1: one who knew him would connect the charismatic young Ted
17:38
Speaker 1: Bundy with the man who'd now abducted at least eight women.
17:45
Speaker 7: My friend and myself commented when it came up that
17:48
Speaker 7: summer that there was a clue of somebody by the
17:51
Speaker 7: name of Ted that had a Volkswagen. And we commented
17:54
Speaker 7: and joked that, you know, maybe it's Ted because he's
17:56
Speaker 7: never here, but of course that was really something we
18:00
Speaker 7: didn't consider because of his characteristics. You would never imagine
18:05
Speaker 7: that he would be involved in something like that.
18:07
Speaker 2: If serial killers came with horns on their heads, we
18:11
Speaker 2: could avoid them. Unfortunately, serial killers are often very charming,
18:17
Speaker 2: very seducing. So we shouldn't imagine somehow serial killers are
18:23
Speaker 2: Hollywood devils, because actually it's the banality of evil that
18:27
Speaker 2: we're dealing with in serial killers.
18:34
Speaker 1: By mid-September 1974, Bundy was on the move. He headed
18:39
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City, where he'd enrolled at the University
18:42
Speaker 1: of Utah to study law.
18:45
Speaker 4: He went to Utah and girls started disappearing in Salt
18:50
Speaker 4: Lake City suburbs around there, much in the same way
18:55
Speaker 4: that girls had been disappearing in Washington State.
19:03
Speaker 1: Over the next three months, Four young girls were discovered
19:07
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and murdered. Bundy was seemingly unstoppable.
19:15
Speaker 5: It was as well planned as a military action. Every
19:20
Speaker 5: time he selected a murder to do, he had procedures
19:24
Speaker 5: that he followed. He had certain tools that he brought
19:27
Speaker 5: with him. He had everything laid out completely, and he
19:30
Speaker 5: thought through all this stuff. He did very well at
19:33
Speaker 5: getting away and avoiding being arrested and avoiding law enforcement.
19:39
Speaker 5: He was a master predator.
19:41
Speaker 2: But in November 1974, Bundy made his first major mistake.
19:50
Speaker 3: He attempted to kidnap a young woman named Carol Duranch
19:53
Speaker 3: in Salt Lake City. Alleged to her that he was
19:57
Speaker 3: a police officer, that there had been an attempt to
19:59
Speaker 3: steal her car. And when they couldn't get into a
20:03
Speaker 3: back door of the mall where he said was the
20:05
Speaker 3: police substation, He took her over to his Volkswagen and
20:09
Speaker 3: attempted to drive away with her. She figured something was
20:12
Speaker 3: happening when he tried to handcuff her, jumped out of
20:15
Speaker 3: the moving vehicle and was able to escape.
20:19
Speaker 1: Carol DeRonch had escaped, but her attacker was still on
20:22
Speaker 1: the loose. Over the next seven months, six more young
20:28
Speaker 1: women were abducted in Utah and neighboring Colorado. But on
20:33
Speaker 1: August the 16th, Bundy's luck finally ran out.
20:38
Speaker 3: An off-duty Utah State police officer saw him prowling around
20:42
Speaker 3: a neighborhood, and the Volkswagen stopped him. They charged him
20:45
Speaker 3: with possession of burglary tools. We're able to use this
20:49
Speaker 3: photograph in a photographic lineup, and Carol Durant was able
20:52
Speaker 3: to pick him out.
20:53
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy had been caught. He was charged and convicted
20:58
Speaker 1: of the kidnapping of Carol Durant and sentenced to between
21:01
Speaker 1: one and 15 years. But Ted Bundy was about to
21:06
Speaker 1: pull off an extraordinary feat that would see him free
21:10
Speaker 1: again to kill at will. In 1977, Ted Bundy had
21:19
Speaker 1: been convicted for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DeRonch in Utah.
21:24
Speaker 1: Police were now convinced Bundy was a serial killer and
21:28
Speaker 1: moved him to Colorado to face charges for the abduction
21:32
Speaker 1: and murder of 24-year-old Karen Campbell. in Snowmass. Bundy was
21:40
Speaker 1: to be tried in Aspen. If convicted, he would face
21:44
Speaker 1: the rest of his life behind bars. But Ted Bundy
21:49
Speaker 1: had other plans.
21:54
Speaker 5: He petitioned the courts to allow him to defend himself,
21:58
Speaker 5: and by doing so, required that they would take him
22:02
Speaker 5: out of the setting as a normal inmate and put
22:05
Speaker 5: him into, say, the law library or places that weren't
22:09
Speaker 5: as secure as what his cell might be.
22:14
Speaker 1: On June the 7th, 1977, during a recess in the case,
22:19
Speaker 1: Bundy asked to be allowed access to legal research material.
22:27
Speaker 3: He was acting as a counsel. He was working in
22:29
Speaker 3: the law library in the courthouse. He jumped out the
22:34
Speaker 3: window and fled.
22:37
Speaker 1: Bundy had outwitted his captors and was free. He blended
22:42
Speaker 1: into the crowds on the busy Aspen streets and headed
22:46
Speaker 1: for the surrounding mountains.
22:52
Speaker 2: Bundy would interpret that as his ability to overcome... the
22:56
Speaker 2: criminal justice system. He would see himself as cleverer than
23:01
Speaker 2: all those police officers, all those detectives who allowed him
23:05
Speaker 2: access to the library so that he could do research
23:08
Speaker 2: for his upcoming court case.
23:12
Speaker 1: For the next eight days, Bundy hid in the wilderness,
23:16
Speaker 1: sheltering in disused cabins and stealing food from campers, while
23:21
Speaker 1: embarrassed law enforcement frantically searched for him.
23:26
Speaker 6: There is a self-centeredness about serial killers where they see
23:30
Speaker 6: themselves as the most clever, as the most talented, the
23:35
Speaker 6: most intelligent, because the whole world revolves around them.
23:42
Speaker 1: After days in the wild, Bundy audaciously walked back into
23:46
Speaker 1: Aspen and stole a car. But his luck was about
23:50
Speaker 1: to run out.
23:52
Speaker 3: He had approached a police roadblock. and was observed. They
23:56
Speaker 3: went back when he U-turned, went back and chased him down,
23:59
Speaker 3: placed him under arrest.
24:02
Speaker 1: Bundy was returned to Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
24:07
Speaker 1: Security was raised, and authorities were confident they had the
24:11
Speaker 1: prisoner safely interred. Again, Bundy had other ideas.
24:19
Speaker 5: He was always thinking. You had to keep that in
24:22
Speaker 5: mind when you dealt with him.
24:27
Speaker 1: On December the 30th, 1977, Ted Bundy made his move.
24:34
Speaker 3: He lost weight. He was able to move aside a
24:37
Speaker 3: neon light fixture, slid up through the ceiling, went over
24:42
Speaker 3: to the ceiling of a closet into the jailer's home
24:47
Speaker 3: and dropped it there.
24:51
Speaker 1: By the time his jailers discovered he was gone, Bundy
24:54
Speaker 1: was already a thousand miles away in Chicago. After spending
25:01
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve in a bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
25:05
Speaker 1: Bundy took a bus to Tallahassee in Florida. With a
25:10
Speaker 1: new identity, he rented a room in the Oaks Lodging
25:13
Speaker 1: House in the heart of the Florida State University student area.
25:22
Speaker 1: After 18 months of imprisonment, Bundy's scheming had paid off.
25:27
Speaker 1: He'd made fools of the law and was finally free.
25:32
Speaker 1: But for Ted Bundy, it wasn't enough.
25:35
Speaker 2: Serial killers love being at the heart of the drama
25:39
Speaker 2: that's unfolding around them. When Bundy moved to Florida, he
25:43
Speaker 2: no longer had the status that he was able to
25:47
Speaker 2: follow vicariously in the print or broadcast media as he
25:52
Speaker 2: would have been able to do in Utah and Colorado
25:54
Speaker 2: or Washington. He was a nobody again rather than a somebody,
25:59
Speaker 2: and that's what Bundy ultimately wanted to be. So he
26:03
Speaker 2: has to do something again to gain the attention that
26:07
Speaker 2: he craves so he can demonstrate his gross form of
26:11
Speaker 2: power over the culture that he abhors.
26:17
Speaker 1: In the early hours of January 14th, 1978, just one
26:21
Speaker 1: week after arriving in Tallahassee, Ted Bundy struck again.
26:29
Speaker 3: About 3 o'clock in the morning, a young woman named
26:32
Speaker 3: Nita Neary was returning to her sorority house. She entered
26:37
Speaker 3: the downstairs. She saw a man run out of the
26:40
Speaker 3: house carrying what appeared to be a stick in his hand.
26:48
Speaker 3: She went upstairs and awoke the sorority president when Karen
26:53
Speaker 3: Chandler walked out of her room. They turned to Karen
26:56
Speaker 3: and said, did you see and realize that the Karen
26:59
Speaker 3: was bleeding?
27:03
Speaker 1: Jim Sewell was a sergeant and assistant to the chief
27:06
Speaker 1: of police when his phone rang that night.
27:09
Speaker 3: The dispatcher called and said, Sarge, we've got two dead
27:13
Speaker 3: and two dying.
27:18
Speaker 1: Sewell was the first plainclothed officer on the scene.
27:22
Speaker 3: When I got to the house, upstairs, I went into
27:24
Speaker 3: Bowman's room, Margaret Bowman had been strangled and was dead
27:30
Speaker 3: upon review by our officers.
27:33
Speaker 1: A nylon stocking was tied tightly around Margaret Bowman's neck.
27:38
Speaker 1: She'd been clubbed with a branch so hard that her
27:41
Speaker 1: skull had been shattered.
27:44
Speaker 3: It was everything you'd think about a beating victim, what
27:47
Speaker 3: she would say.
27:50
Speaker 1: Across the hall, another victim was discovered.
27:54
Speaker 3: Lisa Levy had She had also been beaten and appeared
27:57
Speaker 3: to be strangled.
28:00
Speaker 1: 20-year-old Lisa Levy was in bed, dead, lying on her side,
28:04
Speaker 1: the covers pulled up over her shoulders. She'd been sexually
28:08
Speaker 1: assaulted with an object. The attack had been savage.
28:15
Speaker 3: Lisa had also been bitten on the breast and on
28:19
Speaker 3: the buttocks.
28:21
Speaker 1: Two more girls, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, had also
28:25
Speaker 1: been bludgeoned. They only just survived the brutal attack.
28:30
Speaker 3: All that built-up feelings burst out in a shark frenzy
28:36
Speaker 3: in that sorority house. There was a shark frenzy.
28:41
Speaker 6: The serial murderer doesn't have boundaries, so it's as if
28:44
Speaker 6: a trigger is set off, and they become not angry,
28:49
Speaker 6: they become rageful. to the point that when you see
28:53
Speaker 6: the viciousness of the killings that they commit, you're taken aback.
28:58
Speaker 6: You think, well, how could this mild-mannered person do such
29:02
Speaker 6: horrendous things to another person, a human being?
29:05
Speaker 1: It had been just two weeks since Bundy had escaped
29:10
Speaker 1: from Colorado. Almost three weeks after the Chi Omega attacks,
29:23
Speaker 1: a white Dodge van was reported stolen from the media
29:26
Speaker 1: department of the Florida State University. Four days later, it
29:33
Speaker 1: would resurface. 100 miles away in Lakeland. City. 12-year-old Kimberly
29:44
Speaker 1: Leach was attending junior high school. About to start a
29:48
Speaker 1: PE lesson, she realised she'd left her bag in her
29:51
Speaker 1: home room. She was given permission to return to the
29:54
Speaker 1: other building to get it. She did not return. That morning,
30:03
Speaker 1: a witness saw a young girl, close to tears, being
30:07
Speaker 1: pushed into the passenger seat of a white van by
30:10
Speaker 1: a scowling man. He assumed him to be an angry parent.
30:17
Speaker 1: That same morning, another witness saw a white van swerving,
30:22
Speaker 1: almost out of control, on the highway. The angry driver
30:26
Speaker 1: shouting towards the passenger seat. Just days later, the white
30:34
Speaker 1: van that had been stolen from the university in Tallahassee
30:38
Speaker 1: was recovered.
30:39
Speaker 3: We were very driven. It had driven some 500 or
30:43
Speaker 3: so miles. And we found signs of trauma in there.
30:48
Speaker 3: There were branches and leaves and hair and fiber evidence.
30:54
Speaker 3: A price tag with a $ 26 figure on it. We
30:59
Speaker 3: think that he went by Greenacre's sporting goods store and
31:02
Speaker 3: bought a very large knife, which was a hunting knife,
31:07
Speaker 3: and we believe that he used that when he killed Kimberly.
31:14
Speaker 1: It would be two months before police officers discovered Kimberly's
31:17
Speaker 1: 12-year-old body dumped in an unused pig pen in woods
31:22
Speaker 1: 25 miles from her home. At 1.30 a.m. on the
31:34
Speaker 1: 15th of February in Pensacola, Florida, a man was spotted
31:38
Speaker 1: in his VW Bug acting suspiciously.
31:43
Speaker 3: An individual driving a Volkswagen was kind of lawyering behind
31:48
Speaker 3: some stores over in Pensacola, was observed by a police
31:51
Speaker 3: officer in Pensacola, tried to stop him. The guy ran
31:54
Speaker 3: first in the car and then fled the vehicle and
31:56
Speaker 3: the officer chased him down. There was an altercation. A
32:00
Speaker 3: shot was fired, missed the person. but he was taken
32:03
Speaker 3: in custody. Initially, he told us that his name was
32:08
Speaker 3: Ken Meisner. Then later on, he told us his name
32:12
Speaker 3: was Theodore Robert Bundy.
32:16
Speaker 1: Those that had known the charismatic young Ted were dumbstruck.
32:20
Speaker 7: When Ted Bundy was arrested, I was absolutely flabbergasted. Just
32:25
Speaker 7: I remember my stomach dropping out.
32:29
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy was in custody again, but his capture would
32:32
Speaker 1: spell just the beginning of an extraordinary 11-year circus. 1979, Florida.
32:45
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy had abducted and murdered dozens of young women
32:48
Speaker 1: across five different states and escaped from capture twice. Now
32:55
Speaker 1: he would stand trial. Bundy would be tried twice. First
33:06
Speaker 1: for the brutal attacks on the students in the Chi
33:08
Speaker 1: Omega sorority house in Tallahassee. Then for the kidnap and
33:14
Speaker 1: murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach in Lake City. On the
33:25
Speaker 1: 25th of June, Ted Bundy took the stand. The former
33:36
Speaker 1: law student, against the advice of his counsel, had decided
33:40
Speaker 1: to defend himself.
33:45
Speaker 2: Serial killers are desperate to be at the heart of
33:48
Speaker 2: the story. Defending yourself clearly is going to allow you
33:56
Speaker 2: to draw attention a great deal of attention to yourself.
34:01
Speaker 2: And Bundy, of course, had this fantasy that he was
34:04
Speaker 2: a very good law student and could have been a
34:06
Speaker 2: good lawyer. This is all part of the fact that
34:09
Speaker 2: serial killers often operate on a surface level. They don't
34:13
Speaker 2: have the depth to commit to a period of studying
34:17
Speaker 2: for a law degree.
34:18
Speaker 5: So it's all surface. It's all froth.
34:21
Speaker 2: It's all fantasy. But by engaging in that fantasy by
34:25
Speaker 2: defending himself, He's at the heart of things.
34:28
Speaker 1: You say you knew Theodore Robert Bundy on August 16, 1975?
34:36
Speaker 3: What we have to prove in a criminal case in
34:38
Speaker 3: the United States is, in essence, guilt beyond and to
34:41
Speaker 3: the exclusion of reasonable doubt. He thought he could create
34:45
Speaker 3: this serious doubt and that he would be found not guilty.
34:49
Speaker 3: He was very sure of himself. He asked very good questions.
34:54
Speaker 3: But he didn't learn the first lesson in law school
34:57
Speaker 3: The first lesson you learn in law school is never
34:59
Speaker 3: represent yourself.
35:04
Speaker 1: Defending himself, Bundy chose to cross-examine vulnerable witnesses and victims,
35:10
Speaker 1: a tactic that forever damaged his image in the eyes
35:12
Speaker 1: of the jury.
35:16
Speaker 2: In the adversarial world of the courtroom, his lack of knowledge,
35:21
Speaker 2: his inability to defend himself because he's guilty, is going
35:25
Speaker 2: to be laid bare So this is really one of
35:28
Speaker 2: the miscalculations, it seems to me, that Bundy makes.
35:32
Speaker 11: Don't shake your finger at me, young man.
35:41
Speaker 1: During the trial, two events would seal his fate. Carol
35:46
Speaker 1: de Ronch positively identified Bundy as the man who tried
35:50
Speaker 1: to kidnap her from the shopping mall in Utah. Most
35:53
Speaker 1: damning of all would be the bite marks recovered from
35:56
Speaker 1: the body of Lisa Levy. Anne Rule attended the trial.
36:03
Speaker 1: She still found it hard to believe the friend she'd
36:05
Speaker 1: once worked side by side with on a suicide helpline
36:09
Speaker 1: could possibly be a savage serial killer.
36:12
Speaker 4: The afternoon testimony came from Dr. Richard Suveron, who is
36:17
Speaker 4: a forensic dentist. He testified that Ted had bitten two
36:23
Speaker 4: of the Chi Omegas and left teeth marks in the
36:26
Speaker 4: breasts and buttocks of one of the dead girls. Our
36:30
Speaker 4: teeth are almost as good at identifying us as our fingerprints.
36:35
Speaker 4: And Dr. Suveron was explaining where all these marks and
36:39
Speaker 4: how they matched exactly with Ted's. He had very unusual teeth.
36:44
Speaker 4: And he said, there's no question that Ted Bundy bit
36:48
Speaker 4: this girl either before or after he killed him. Court
36:52
Speaker 4: was over and Ted was walking out of the room
36:53
Speaker 4: and he was always handcuffed and manacled. And he was
36:57
Speaker 4: carrying his files, as he usually did. And he looked
37:00
Speaker 4: at me and he went, like, I didn't do it.
37:04
Speaker 4: I have no part of this, but I knew he
37:08
Speaker 4: did do it. I went down the hall and threw
37:12
Speaker 4: up because I had to accept it at that point.
37:18
Speaker 1: Theodore Robert Bundy. was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
37:22
Speaker 8: Ted Bundy's fate is now in the hands of Judge
37:25
Speaker 8: Edward Cowart. The judge will announce this afternoon whether he
37:28
Speaker 8: will send the former law student to the electric chair. Yesterday,
37:32
Speaker 8: the jury heard Bundy's mother ask that her son be spared,
37:35
Speaker 8: but the state reminded the jury of the victims.
37:39
Speaker 11: How nice it would have been if Lisa Levy and
37:42
Speaker 11: Margaret Bowman's mother could have been there on the morning
37:45
Speaker 11: of January 15th of 1978 and asked for mercy for them.
37:52
Speaker 1: Bundy was sentenced to death by electrocution. But the conviction
37:57
Speaker 1: would be just the beginning of years of schemes and
38:00
Speaker 1: appeals as Bundy's celebrity grew on death row.
38:06
Speaker 5: When he would talk to you, you'd have one face
38:10
Speaker 5: that would be looking at you, but you always felt
38:13
Speaker 5: like there was a game going on.
38:17
Speaker 1: Law enforcement had lists of missing girls that they and
38:20
Speaker 1: their families wanted information on, But all the while, Bundy
38:23
Speaker 1: continued to plead his innocence.
38:28
Speaker 6: The serial murderer doesn't necessarily want anything more than to
38:32
Speaker 6: demonstrate that he is the most valuable individual at that
38:38
Speaker 6: point in time. Getting them all wound up, getting them
38:42
Speaker 6: to the point where they're frenetic about getting him to
38:45
Speaker 6: confess to his crimes. But all the time, he is
38:50
Speaker 6: in total control of his world. And that's basically what
38:54
Speaker 6: it is, total control of the world.
38:57
Speaker 1: Only when facing almost certain execution, after 11 years on
39:02
Speaker 1: death row, did Bundy finally start to confess.
39:06
Speaker 5: He lied to his family about it. His mother and
39:09
Speaker 5: his wife at that time completely thought he was innocent.
39:12
Speaker 5: And in the last, really in the last couple of days,
39:16
Speaker 5: he told them the truth that he had committed these murders.
39:22
Speaker 5: It wasn't a big humanitarian effort on his part. He
39:25
Speaker 5: wanted something out of it, and I'm sure it was probably,
39:28
Speaker 5: if it only took to prolong his life for another
39:31
Speaker 5: few weeks or whatever it was, that he was able
39:33
Speaker 5: to manage.
39:46
Speaker 1: Just days before he was to be executed, Ted Bundy
39:50
Speaker 1: began admitting the hideous murders of at least 36 young
39:54
Speaker 1: girls across America. He had dumped many of the bodies
40:04
Speaker 1: in the mountains or in woods, and he had often
40:07
Speaker 1: returned to them to commit necrophilia. He had sometimes brought
40:14
Speaker 1: the heads home. Ted Bundy was executed by electrocution on
40:26
Speaker 1: 24 January 1989. But was this killer of innocent young
40:30
Speaker 1: women created by nature or nurture? Was he damaged as
40:35
Speaker 1: a child by the lie that his mother was his sister?
40:39
Speaker 1: Was his latter rejection by his dream girl the catalyst
40:43
Speaker 1: for his crimes? Or was Ted Bundy simply born to kill?
40:50
Speaker 4: I've never wanted to believe in the bad seed that
40:52
Speaker 4: a child is doomed from the beginning. But if a
40:56
Speaker 4: child with the tendency to violence is born into an
41:01
Speaker 4: abusive household, then you have the perfect soil to grow
41:07
Speaker 4: a sadistic sociopath. He wasn't crazy. He was not crazy.
41:12
Speaker 4: He knew what he was doing. He covered his tracks.
41:16
Speaker 4: But he was addicted.
41:18
Speaker 6: There seems to be some indication that even when he
41:23
Speaker 6: was a child, he had no real close emotional attachment
41:28
Speaker 6: to anyone. The basic personality is there when the child
41:32
Speaker 6: is born. It's acted upon by the environment. So was
41:39
Speaker 6: he born to kill? There had to be something in
41:42
Speaker 6: this child's genetic makeup.
41:45
Speaker 2: That said, all.
41:46
Speaker 6: You need is this certain environmental trigger, and then you'll
41:50
Speaker 6: be able to start your fate.
41:56
Speaker 2: I've absolutely no doubt that Ted Bundy had a set
42:00
Speaker 2: of circumstances in his childhood which were very unusual and
42:05
Speaker 2: potentially incredibly damaging. Ted Bundy was not born to be
42:11
Speaker 2: a serial killer. It was a choice that he made
42:13
Speaker 2: as he grew up. and felt that there was no
42:16
Speaker 2: other way of resolving some of his underlying psychological problems.
42:23
Speaker 1: Bundy himself gave corrections officer Paul Decker a chilling insight
42:28
Speaker 1: into the motives for his crimes.
42:31
Speaker 5: He was resting and kind of relaxed at that point,
42:35
Speaker 5: and I said something to him about, Ted, why did you,
42:39
Speaker 5: you know, what did you do all this for? He says,
42:43
Speaker 5: I liked it. There was no discussion about, oh, it
42:49
Speaker 5: was a mental problem that drove me to it or
42:51
Speaker 5: any kind of a thing like that. He just enjoyed it.
42:56
Speaker 5: It's a terrifying thought.