Ted Bundy

Biography and Escalation:

Theodore Robert Cowell, commonly known as Ted Bundy, was born on November 24, 1946, to Louise Cowell, at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers. When Louise returned home with newborn Teddy, she was forced to act as his sister, and her parents, Sam and Eleanor Dowell were his parents. It wasn't until Bundy was 23 that he found out the true nature of his family.

Bundy's disturbing tendencies manifested themselves at very young age, with one of the most notable accounts of him being only three when he slipped some butcher knives under the bedclothes of his sleeping aunt.

Intelligent, charming, and cunning, Bundy was one of the most dangerous serial killers in the 1970's.

By high school, he had become a chronic Peeping Tim and petty thief. By that point, even Bundy was becoming aware that he lacked certain basic human qualities: a conscience, a capacity to see people as anything more than objects to be manipulated for his own gratification, By studying others however, he learned to mimic normal behavior so skillfully that, for the rest of his life, even those closest to him failed to perceive his monstrous nature.

Whilst at the University of Washington, Bundy became involved with a woman named Stephanie Brooks who (in the best of his ability of the emotion) became the love of his life. Because of a difficult breakup between the two, many of Bundy's victim's bore a vague resemblance to Brooks.

Known victims:

His first attack occurred in January 1974, when he broke into the basement bedroom of an eighteen-year old coed, bludgeoned her skull with a metal rod yanked from her bedframe, and then rammed it into her vagina. Luckily, (if that's the word) she survived unlike so many others.  Her name was Karen Sparks, and she remained unconscious for ten days after the attack, and suffered permanent brain damage.

Less than a month later in February, Bundy broke in to the basement room of Lynda Ann Healy, beat her unconscious and carried her away.

On March 12, Donna Gale Manson, 19, left for a jazz concert and never returned.  On April 17, Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared while on her way to a movie after an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, 110 miles southeast of Seattle. Her body was never found.

 

 Two female Central Washington students later came forward to report encounters—one on the night of Rancourt's disappearance, the other three nights earlier—with a man wearing an arm sling, asking for help carrying a load of books to his brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle. On May 6 Roberta Kathleen Parks left her dormitory at Oregon State University  in Corvallis, 260 miles (420 km) south of Seattle, to have coffee with friends at the Student Union Building. She never arrived

 On June 1, Brenda Carol Ball, 22, disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien, Washington near Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. She was last seen talking in the parking lot to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling. 

In the early hours of June 11, UW student Georgann Hawkins vanished while walking down the brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dormitory residence and her sorority house. The next morning three Seattle homicide detectives and a criminalist combed the entire alleyway on their hands and knees, finding nothing.  After Hawkins's disappearance was publicized, witnesses came forward to report seeing a man that night in the alley behind a nearby dormitory, on crutches with a leg cast, struggling to carry a briefcase.  One woman recalled that the man asked her to help him carry the case to his car, a light-brown Volkswagen Beetle.

In August of 1974, Bundy moved hunting grounds to that of Salt Lake City. A new string of homicides began the following month with two that went undiscovered until Bundy confessed to them shortly before his execution.

On September 2 he raped and strangled a still-unidentified hitchhiker in Idaho, then either disposed of the corpse immediately in a nearby river or returned the next day to photograph and dismember the victim.

 On October 2 he seized 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox in Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City, and dragged her into a wooded area, intending to "de-escalate" his pathological urges, he said, by raping and releasing her. However, he strangled her—by accident, he claimed—in the process of trying to silence her. Wilcox was buried, he said, near Capitol Reef National Park, some 200 miles (320 km) south of Holladay, but her remains were never found.

  

On October 18 Melissa Smith, the 17-year-old daughter of the police chief of Midvale, another Salt Lake City suburb, disappeared after leaving a pizza parlor. Her nude body was found in a nearby mountainous area nine days later. Postmortem examination indicated that she may have remained alive for up to seven days following her disappearance.

 On October 31, 25 miles (40 km) south in Lehi, Laura Ann Aime, also 17, disappeared after leaving a café just after midnight.Her naked body was found by hikers 9 miles (14 km) to the northeast in American Fork Canyon on Thanksgiving Day. Both women had been beaten, raped, sodomized, and strangled with nylon stockings. Years later Bundy described his postmortem rituals with Smith's and Aime's remains, including hair shampooing and application of makeup.

On the evening of November 8 in Murray, Utah, Bundy approached 18-year-old telephone operator Carol DaRonch at a mall less than a mile from the Midvale restaurant where Melissa Smith was last seen. He identified himself as "Officer Roseland" of the Murray Police Department, told DaRonch that someone had attempted to break into her car, and asked her to accompany him to the station to file a complaint. When DaRonch pointed out that Bundy was driving on a road that did not lead to the police station, he immediately pulled to the shoulder and attempted to handcuff her. During their struggle he inadvertently fastened both handcuffs to the same wrist, and DaRonch was able to open the car door and escape.

 Later that evening Debra Kent, a 17-year-old student at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, 19 miles (31 km) north of Murray, disappeared after leaving a theater production at the school to pick up her brother. The school's drama teacher and a student told police that "a stranger" had asked each of them to come out to the parking lot to identify a car. Another student later saw the same man pacing in the rear of the auditorium, and the drama teacher spotted him again shortly before the end of the play. Outside the auditorium, investigators found a key that unlocked the handcuffs removed from Carol DaRonch's wrist.

In November Elizabeth Kloepfer, having read that young women were disappearing in towns surrounding Salt Lake City, called King County police a second time. Detective Randy Hergesheimer of the Major Crimes division interviewed her in detail. By then, Bundy had risen considerably on the King County hierarchy of suspicion, but the Lake Sammamish witness considered most reliable by detectives failed to pick him from a photo lineup. In December, Kloepfer called the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and repeated her suspicions. Bundy's name was added to their list of suspects, but at that time no credible evidence linked him to the Utah crimes.

 In January 1975 Bundy returned to Seattle after his final exams and spent a week with Kloepfer, who did not tell him that she had reported him three separate times to police. She made plans to visit him in Salt Lake City in August.

 In 1975 Bundy shifted much of his criminal activity eastward to Colorado from his base in Utah. On January 12, a 23-year-old registered nurse named Caryn Campbell disappeared while walking down a well-lit hallway between the elevator and her room at the Wildwood Inn (now the Wildwood Lodge) in Snowmass Village, 400 miles (640 km) southeast of Salt Lake City. Her nude body was found a month later next to a dirt road just outside the resort. She had been killed by blows to her head from a blunt instrument that left distinctive linear grooved depressions on her skull; her body also had deep cuts from a sharp weapon.

 A hundred miles (160 km) northeast of Snowmass on March 15, Vail ski instructor Julie Cunningham, 26, disappeared while walking from her apartment to a dinner date with a friend. Bundy later told Colorado investigators that he approached her on crutches and asked that she help carry his ski boots to his car, where he clubbed and handcuffed her, then assaulted and strangled her at a remote secondary site near Rifle, Colorado, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail. Weeks later he made the six-hour drive from Salt Lake City to revisit her remains.

 Denise Oliverson, 25, disappeared near the Utah-Colorado border in Grand Junction on April 6 while riding her bicycle to her parents' house; her bike and sandals were found under a viaduct near a railroad bridge.

 On May 6 Bundy lured 12-year-old Lynette Culver from Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho, 160 miles (260 km) north of Salt Lake City. He drowned and then sexually assaulted her in his hotel room, then disposed of her body in a river north of Pocatello (possibly the Snake).

On June 28 Susan Curtis vanished from the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, 45 miles (72 km) south of Salt Lake City. Curtis's murder became Bundy's last confession, tape-recorded moments before he entered the execution chamber. The bodies of Wilcox, Kent, Cunningham, Culver, Curtis, and Oliverson were never recovered.

Complete list of victims and ways of death: 

1974

Washington, Oregon

• January 4: Karen Sparks (often identified as Joni Lenz in Bundy literature) (age 18): Bludgeoned and sexually assaulted in her bed as she slept; survived
• February 1: Lynda Ann Healy (21): Bludgeoned while asleep and abducted; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site
• March 12: Donna Gail Manson (19): Abducted while walking to a concert at The Evergreen State College; body left (according to Bundy) at Taylor Mountain site, but never found
• April 17: Susan Elaine Rancourt (18): Disappeared after attending an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site
• May 6: Roberta Kathleen Parks (22): Vanished from Oregon State University in Corvallis; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site
• June 1: Brenda Carol Ball (22): Disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien; skull and mandible recovered at Taylor Mountain site
• June 11: Georgann (often misspelled "Georgeann") Hawkins (18): Abducted from an alley behind her sorority house, UW; skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site
• July 14: Janice Ann Ott (23): Abducted from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight; skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site
• July 14: Denise Marie Naslund (19): Abducted four hours after Ott from the same park;skeletal remains recovered at Issaquah site

Utah, Colorado, Idaho

• October 2: Nancy Wilcox (16): Ambushed, assaulted, and strangled in Holladay, Utah; body buried (according to Bundy) near Capitol Reef National Park, 200 miles (320 km) south of Salt Lake City, but never found
• October 18: Melissa Anne Smith (17): Vanished from Midvale, Utah; body found in nearby mountainous area
• October 31: Laura Ann Aime (17): Disappeared from Lehi, Utah; body discovered by hikers in American Fork Canyon
• November 8: Carol DaRonch (18): Attempted abduction in Murray, Utah; escaped from Bundy's car and survived
• November 8: Debra Kent (17): Vanished after leaving a school play in Bountiful, Utah; body left (according to Bundy) near Fairview, Utah, 100 miles (160 km) south of Bountiful; minimal skeletal remains (one patella) found, but never positively identified as Kent's

1975

• January 12: Caryn Campbell (23): Disappeared from hotel hallway in Snowmass, Colorado; body discovered on a dirt road near the hotel
• March 15: Julie Cunningham (26): Disappeared on the way to a tavern in Vail, Colorado; body buried (according to Bundy) near Rifle, 90 miles (140 km) west of Vail, but never found
• April 6: Denise Oliverson (25): Abducted while bicycling to her parents' house in Grand Junction, Colorado; body thrown (according to Bundy) into the Colorado River 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Grand Junction,but never found
• May 6: Lynette Culver (12): Abducted from Alameda Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho; body thrown (according to Bundy) into what authorities believe to be the Snake River, but never found
• June 28: Susan Curtis (15): Disappeared during a youth conference at Brigham Young University; body buried (according to Bundy) near Price, Utah, 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Provo, but never found

1978

Florida

• January 15: Margaret Bowman (21): Bludgeoned and then strangled as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU (no secondary crime scene)
• January 15: Lisa Levy (20): Bludgeoned, strangled and sexually assaulted as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU (no secondary crime scene)
• January 15: Karen Chandler (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU; survived
• January 15: Kathy Kleiner (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, Chi Omega sorority, FSU; survived
• January 15: Cheryl Thomas (21): Bludgeoned as she slept, eight blocks from Chi Omega; survived
• February 9: Kimberly Diane Leach (12): Abducted from her junior high school in Lake City, Florida; skeletal remains found near Suw

 

Bundy confessed to 30 homicides, but investigators believe that Bundy is responsible for over a 100 homicides. 

Crimes scene photos: 

    

   

       

   

Bundy was arrested on February 12th 1978 in Florida after stealing a car and trying to flea when evidence against him was proving his guilt over the Chi Omega murders. Shortly after the conclusion of the Leach trial in 1982, Bundy confided in Special Agent William Hagmaier of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Hagmaier was struck by the "deep, almost mystical fascination" that Bundy took in his murders. 

"He said that after a while, murder is not just a crime of lust or violence," Hagmaier related. "It becomes possession. They are part of you ... [the victim] becomes a part of you, and you [two] are forever one ... and the grounds where you kill them or leave them become sacred to you, and you will always be drawn back to them." Bundy told Hagmaier he considered himself an "amateur", an "impulsive" killer in his early years, before moving into what he called his "prime" or "predator" phase at about the time of Lynda Healy's murder in 1974. This implied that he began killing well before 1974—though he never explicitly admitted doing so.

In early 1986 an execution date (March 4) was set on the Chi Omega convictions; the Supreme Court issued a brief stay, but the execution was quickly rescheduled. In April, shortly after the new date (July 2) was announced, Bundy confessed to Hagmaier and Nelson what they believed was the full range of his depredations, including details of what he did to some victims after their deaths. He told them that he revisited Taylor Mountain, Issaquah, and other secondary crime scenes, often several times, to lie with his victims and perform sexual acts with their decomposing bodies until putrefaction forced him to stop. In some cases he drove several hours each way and remained the entire night.

In Utah he applied makeup to Melissa Smith's lifeless face, and he repeatedly washed Laura Aime's hair. "If you've got time," he told Hagmaier, "they can be anything you want them to be." He decapitated approximately twelve of his victims with a hacksaw, and kept at least one group of severed heads—probably the four later found on Taylor Mountain (Rancourt, Parks, Ball, and Healy)—in his apartment for a period of time before disposing of them.

Modus Operandi  

Bundy's preferred method of killing were blunt trauma and strangulation, two methods that were silent and could be accomplished by common household items. Bundy said he avoided firearms because of the noise they made and the ballistic evidence they left behind. In order to avoid capture, Bundy carefully researched when and where he could seize and dispose of his victims. He never left any fingerprints at the crime scenes, a fact that he used many times to try and retain his innocence. Bundy also had very generic features, which made him very difficult to identify. This, paired with his ability to change his appearance at will is what allowed him to continue his reign of terror for so long. 

Bundy's modus operandi evolved in organization and sophistication over time, as is typical of serial murderers, according to FBI experts. Early on it consisted of forcible late-night entry followed by a violent attack with a blunt weapon on a sleeping victim. Some victims were sexually assaulted with inert objects; all were left as they lay, unconscious or dead.As his methodology evolved Bundy became progressively more organized in his choice of victims and crime scenes. He would employ various ruses designed to lure his victim to the vicinity of his vehicle where he had pre-positioned a weapon, usually a crowbar. In many cases he wore a plaster cast on one leg or a sling on one arm, and sometimes hobbled on crutches, then requested assistance in carrying something to his vehicle. At other times he identified himself as a police officer or firefighter. Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic by his victims, traits he exploited to win their confidence."Ted lured females," Michaud wrote, "the way a lifeless silk flower can dupe a honey bee."Once near or inside his vehicle the victim would be overpowered, bludgeoned, and restrained with handcuffs. Most were sexually assaulted and strangled, either at the primary crime scene or (more commonly) after transport to a pre-selected secondary site, often a considerable distance away. Toward the end of his spree, in Florida, perhaps under the stress of being a fugitive, he regressed to indiscriminate attacks on sleeping victims.



At secondary sites he would remove and later burn the victim's clothing, or in at least one case (Julie Cunningham's) deposit them in a Goodwill collection bin. Bundy explained that the clothing removal was ritualistic, but also a practical matter, as it minimized the chance of leaving trace evidence at the crime scene that could implicate him.(A manufacturing error in fibers from his own clothing, ironically, provided a crucial incriminating link to Kimberly Leach.) He often revisited his secondary crime scenes to engage in acts of necrophilia, and to groom or dress up the cadavers. Some victims were found wearing articles of clothing they had never worn, or nail polish that family members had never seen. He took Polaroid photos of many of his victims. "When you work hard to do something right," he told Hagmaier, "you don't want to forget it."Consumption of large quantities of alcohol was an "essential component", he told Keppel, and later Michaud; he needed to be "extremely drunk" while on the prowl in order to "significantly diminish" his inhibitions and to "sedate" the "dominant personality" that he feared might prevent his inner "entity" from acting on his impulses.

Victim Profile: 

All of Bundy's known victims were white females, most of middle-class backgrounds. Almost all were between the ages of 15 and 25 and most were college students. He apparently never approached anyone he might have met before. (In their last conversation before his execution, Bundy told Kloepfer he had purposely stayed away from her "when he felt the power of his sickness building in him.") Rule noted that most of the identified victims had long straight hair, parted in the middle—like Stephanie Brooks, the woman who rejected him, and to whom he later became engaged and then rejected in return. Rule speculated that Bundy's animosity toward his first girlfriend triggered his protracted rampage and caused him to target victims who resembled her. Bundy dismissed this hypothesis: "[T]hey ... just fit the general criteria of being young and attractive," he told Hugh Aynesworth. "Too many people have bought this crap that all the girls were similar ... [but] almost everything was dissimilar ... physically, they were almost all different." He did concede that youth and beauty were "absolutely indispensable criteria" in his choice of victims.

^Execution: 

^{Ted Bundy was executed at 7:16 am Flordia time on January 24th,1989 by method of electrocution by electric chair.}