Ted bundys biography

As body counts rose and witness descriptions spread, several people contacted authorities to report Bundy as a potentially matching suspect. However, police consistently ruled him out based on his seemingly upstanding character and clean-cut appearance. He was able to avoid detection even longer by learning how to leave virtually no evidence that could be traced by the still rudimentary forensics techniques of the s.

Bundy was finally arrested for the first time on August 16, , in Utah after fleeing from a patrol car. A search of the vehicle yielded masks, handcuffs, rope, and other nefarious items, but nothing definitively linking him to the crimes. He was released but remained under constant surveillance, until he was arrested again for the kidnapping and assault of one of his victims several months later.

Bundy escaped custody a year later after being transferred from Utah to Colorado for another trial but was recaptured within a week. Family, friends and even young Ted were told that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. Bundy eventually discovered the truth about his family, although his recollections of the circumstances varied; he told a girlfriend that a cousin showed him a copy of his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard," [ 17 ] but he told biographers Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth that he had found the certificate himself.

Bundy occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior at an early age. Louise's younger sister, Julia Cowell, recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen, and her three-year-old nephew standing by the bed, smiling. In , however, he and other family members told attorneys that Samuel was a tyrannical bully who beat his wife and dog, swung neighborhood cats by their tails and expressed racist and xenophobic attitudes.

In one instance, Samuel reportedly threw Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping. These descriptions of Bundy's grandparents have been questioned in more recent investigations. Some locals in Roxborough remembered Samuel as a "fine man" and expressed bewilderment at the reports of him being violent. His daughters loved him dearly and had nothing but fond memories of him.

In , Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson [ 27 ] and, at the urging of multiple family members, left Philadelphia with Ted to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in Tacoma , Washington. Bundy would later complain to a girlfriend that Johnny "was not his real father, "wasn't very bright" and "didn't make much money. Bundy varied his recollections of Tacoma in later years.

To Michaud and Aynesworth, he described roaming his neighborhood, picking through trash barrels in search of pictures of naked women. In essence, he was fantasizing about being someone else, someone important. Bundy's childhood Tacoma neighbor, Sandi Holt, described him as a bully and a "mean-spirited kid". He liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear.

Accounts of Bundy's social life also varied. He told journalists Michaud and Aynesworth that he "chose to be alone" as an adolescent because he was unable to understand interpersonal relationships; [ 37 ] he also claimed to have no natural sense of how to develop friendships. I didn't go on the beer drinking outings. I was a pretty, you might call me straight, but not a social outcast in any way.

At age 18 the details of the incidents were expunged from his record, as is customary in Washington and many other states. In early , Bundy dropped out of college and worked a series of minimum-wage jobs. He also volunteered at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller 's presidential campaign [ 44 ] and became Arthur Fletcher 's driver and bodyguard during Fletcher's campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Washington State.

Bundy visited her later that year after he earned a scholarship to study Chinese at Stanford University that summer. Lewis would later pinpoint this crisis as "probably the pivotal time in his development. He immersed himself in violent pornographic literature while nursing his wounds from the breakup. As an adult, Molly wrote of incidents beginning at age 7 in which Bundy was abusive or sexually inappropriate with her.

Her accounts include Bundy hitting her in the face, knocking her down, putting her at risk of drowning, indecent exposure and sexual touching disguised as accidents or "games". In mid, Bundy, now focused and goal-oriented, re-enrolled at UW, this time as a psychology major. He became an honor student and was well regarded by his professors.

There, he met and worked alongside Ann Rule, a former Seattle police officer and aspiring crime writer who would later write one of the definitive Bundy biographies, The Stranger Beside Me. Rule saw nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality at the time; she described him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic. Evans 's re-election campaign. Davis thought well of Bundy and described him as "smart, aggressive During a trip to California on Republican Party business in the summer of , Bundy rekindled his relationship with Edwards.

She marveled at his transformation into a serious and dedicated professional, seemingly on the cusp of a significant legal and political career. Bundy continued to date Kloepfer as well; neither woman was aware of the other's existence. In January , Bundy abruptly broke off all contact with Edwards; her phone calls and letters went unreturned. When she finally reached him by phone a month later, she demanded to know why he had unilaterally ended their relationship without explanation.

In a flat, calm voice, he replied, "Diane, I have no idea what you mean," and hung up. She never heard from him again. By April, he had stopped attending entirely, [ 68 ] as young women began to disappear in the Pacific Northwest. There is no consensus as to when or where Bundy began killing women. He told different stories to different people and refused to divulge the specifics of his earliest crimes, even as he confessed in graphic detail to dozens of later murders in the days preceding his execution.

By his own admission, he had by then mastered the necessary skills — in the era before DNA profiling — to leave minimal incriminating forensic evidence at crime scenes. Shortly after midnight on January 4, , around the time that he terminated his relationship with Edwards, Bundy entered the basement apartment of year-old Karen Sparks [ 79 ] often identified as Joni Lenz, [ 80 ] [ 81 ] Mary Adams [ 82 ] and Terri Caldwell [ 83 ] in Bundy literature , a dancer and student at UW in Seattle's University District.

After bludgeoning Sparks with a metal rod from her bed frame, he sexually assaulted her with the same rod [ 67 ] [ 84 ] [ 81 ] causing extensive internal injuries and rupturing her bladder.

Ted bundys biography

Sparks remained unconscious in the hospital for ten days [ 83 ] and although she survived, she was left with permanent brain damage with significant loss to her vision and hearing. In the early morning hours of February 1, Bundy broke into the basement room of year-old Lynda Ann Healy, a UW undergraduate who broadcast morning radio weather reports for skiers.

He beat her unconscious, dressed her in blue jeans, a white blouse and boots, and carried her away. During the first half of , female college students disappeared at the rate of about one per month. On March 12, Donna Gail Manson, a year-old student at Evergreen State College in Olympia , 60 miles 95 km southwest of Seattle, left her dormitory to attend a jazz concert on campus but never arrived.

On May 6, Roberta Kathleen Parks, aged 22, left her dormitory at Oregon State University in Corvallis , [ 92 ] miles km south of Seattle, to have coffee with friends at the Memorial Union , but never arrived. After they got into his car, he tied and gagged Parks and drove her back to Washington to be killed, raping her twice on the way. She was last seen in the parking lot, talking to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling.

There was no significant physical evidence, and the missing women had little in common apart from similar appearance: young, attractive, white college students with long hair parted in the middle. In the early hours of June 11, year-old UW student Georgann Hawkins vanished while walking down a brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dormitory residence and her sorority house.

After handcuffing her, he drove her to Issaquah , a suburb 20 miles 30 km east of Seattle, where he strangled her and spent the entire night with her body. After Hawkins' disappearance was publicized, witnesses came forward to report seeing a man on crutches, with a leg cast and carrying a briefcase, in an alley behind a nearby dormitory on the night of her disappearance.

At the DES he met and began dating Carole Ann Boone — , a twice-divorced mother of two who would play an important role in the final phase of his life six years later. Reports of the brutal attack on Sparks and the six missing women appeared prominently in newspapers and on television throughout Washington and Oregon. Police would not provide reporters with the little information that was available for fear of compromising the investigation.

All of the victims were wearing slacks or blue jeans when they disappeared, and at many crime scenes there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle. The Washington and Oregon murders culminated on July 14 with the abductions in broad daylight of two women from a crowded beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah.

Introducing himself as "Ted," he asked their help in unloading a sailboat from his tan or bronze-colored Volkswagen Beetle. Three refused; one accompanied him as far as his car, saw that there was no sailboat and fled. Three additional witnesses saw "Ted" approach Janice Ann Ott, 23, a probation caseworker at the King County Juvenile Court, with the sailboat story and watched her leave the beach in his company.

King County police, finally armed with a detailed description of their suspect and his car, posted fliers throughout the Seattle area. A composite sketch was printed in regional newspapers and broadcast on local television stations. Kloepfer, Rule, a DES employee and a UW psychology professor all recognized the profile, the sketch and the car, and reported Bundy as a possible suspect; [ ] but detectives—who were receiving up to tips per day [ ] —thought it unlikely that a clean-cut law student with no adult criminal record could be the perpetrator.

Manson's remains were never recovered. While he called Kloepfer often, he dated "at least a dozen" other women. He found the classes completely incomprehensible. On September 2, Bundy raped and strangled a still-unidentified hitchhiker in Idaho , then returned the next day to photograph and dismember the corpse before disposing of the remains in a nearby river.

He then restrained her, put her into his vehicle and drove back to his apartment, where he allegedly kept her for 24 hours. On October 18, Melissa Anne Smith—the year-old daughter of the police chief of Midvale , another Salt Lake City suburb—disappeared after leaving a pizza parlor at around p. Her nude body was found in a nearby mountainous area nine days later; post-mortem examination indicated that she may have remained alive for up to seven days following her disappearance.

Both Smith and Aime had been beaten, raped, sodomized and strangled with nylon stockings. In the late afternoon of November 8, Bundy approached year-old telephone operator Carol DaRonch at Fashion Place Mall in Murray , [ ] less than a mile from the Midvale restaurant where Smith was last seen. He identified himself as "Officer Roseland" of the Murray Police Department and told DaRonch that someone had attempted to break into her car.

He asked her to accompany him to the station to file a complaint. When DaRonch pointed out to Bundy that he was driving on a road that did not lead to the police station, he immediately pulled onto 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 Jean Kent, a year-old student at Viewmont High School in Bountiful , 20 miles 30 km north of Murray, disappeared after leaving a theater production at the school to pick up her brother. 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.

In November, Kloepfer called King County police a second time after reading that young women were disappearing in towns surrounding Salt Lake City. 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 identify him from a photo lineup.

Bundy's name was added to their list of suspects, but at that time no credible forensic evidence linked him to the Utah murders. She made plans to visit him in Salt Lake City in August. In , Bundy shifted much of his criminal activity eastward, from his base in Utah to Colorado. On January 12, a year-old registered nurse named Caryn Eileen 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 , miles km southeast of Salt Lake City.

According to the coroner's report, she had been killed by blows to her head from a blunt instrument that left distinctive linear grooved depressions on her skull; her assailant had slit her left earlobe and her body also bore deep cuts from a sharp weapon. On March 15, miles km northeast of Snowmass Village, Vail ski instructor Julie Lyle Cunningham, aged 26, disappeared while walking from her apartment to a dinner date with a friend.

Bundy later told Colorado investigators that he approached Cunningham on crutches and asked her to help carry his ski boots to his car, where he clubbed and handcuffed her before sexually assaulting her at a secondary site near Rifle , 90 miles km west of Vail. Denise Lynn Oliverson, aged 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.

This admission was supported by gas receipts, which showed that he was in the city on the same day that Oliverson went missing. He disposed of her body in the Snake River north of Pocatello. Bundy reportedly provided intimate details about Lynette's personal life in his confession. He subsequently spent a week in Seattle with Kloepfer in early-June and they discussed getting married the following Christmas.

Bundy disclosed neither his ongoing relationship with Boone nor a concurrent romance with a Utah law student known in various accounts as either Kim Andrews [ ] or Sharon Auer [ ]. Her murder became Bundy's last confession, tape-recorded moments before he entered the execution chamber. In Washington State, investigators were still struggling to analyze the Pacific Northwest murder spree that had ended as abruptly as it had begun.

In an effort to make sense of an overwhelming mass of data, they resorted to the then-innovative strategy of compiling a database. They used the King County payroll computer, a "huge, primitive machine" by contemporary standards, but the only one available for their use. After inputting the many lists they had compiled—classmates and acquaintances of each victim, Volkswagen owners named "Ted," known sex offenders and so on—they queried the computer for coincidences.

Out of thousands of names, 26 turned up on four lists; one was Bundy. Detectives also manually compiled a list of their "best" suspects, and Bundy was on that list as well. He was "literally at the top of the pile" of suspects when word came from Utah of his arrest. He found a ski mask, a second mask fashioned from pantyhose, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, a coil of rope, an ice pick and other items initially assumed to be burglary tools.

Bundy explained that the ski mask was for skiing, he had found the handcuffs in a dumpster and the rest were common household items. In a search of Bundy's apartment, police found a guide to Colorado ski resorts with a checkmark by the Wildwood Inn, [ ] and a brochure that advertised the Viewmont High School play in Bountiful, where Kent had disappeared.

He later said that searchers missed a hidden collection of Polaroid photographs of his victims, which he destroyed after he was released. Salt Lake City police placed Bundy on hour surveillance, and Thompson flew to Seattle with two other detectives to interview Kloepfer. She told them that in the year prior to Bundy's move to Utah, she had discovered objects that she "couldn't understand" in her house and in Bundy's apartment.

These items included crutches, a bag of plaster of Paris that he admitted stealing from a medical supply house and a meat cleaver that was never used for cooking. Additional objects included surgical gloves, an Oriental knife in a wooden case that he kept in his glove compartment and a sack full of women's clothing. When she confronted him over a new TV and stereo, he warned her, "If you tell anyone, I'll break your fucking neck.

She would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night to find him under the bed covers with a flashlight, examining her body. He kept a lug wrench , taped halfway up the handle, in the trunk of her car—another Volkswagen Beetle, which he often borrowed—"for protection". The detectives confirmed that Bundy had not been with Kloepfer on any of the nights during which the Pacific Northwest victims had vanished, nor on the day Ott and Naslund were abducted from Lake Sammamish State Park.

They found hairs matching samples obtained from Campbell's body. On October 2, detectives put Bundy into a lineup. DaRonch immediately identified him as "Officer Roseland," and witnesses from Bountiful recognized him as the stranger at the Viewmont High School auditorium. Seattle police had insufficient evidence to charge him in the Pacific Northwest murders, but kept him under close surveillance.

In November, the three principal Bundy investigators—Jerry Thompson from Utah, Robert Keppel from Washington and Michael Fisher from Colorado—met in Aspen, Colorado , and exchanged information with thirty detectives and prosecutors from five states. In February , Bundy stood trial for the DaRonch kidnapping. On the advice of his attorney, John O'Connell, he waived his right to a jury due to the negative publicity surrounding the case.

After a four-day bench trial and a weekend of deliberation, Judge Stewart Hanson Jr. After a period of resistance, he waived extradition proceedings and was transferred to Aspen in January He had elected to serve as his own attorney , and as such was excused by the judge from wearing handcuffs or leg shackles. While shielded from his guards' view behind a bookcase, he opened a window and jumped to the ground from the second story, injuring his right ankle as he landed.

After shedding an outer layer of clothing, Bundy limped through Aspen as roadblocks were being set up on its outskirts, then hiked south onto Aspen Mountain. Near its summit he broke into a hunting cabin and stole food, clothing and a rifle. For two days he wandered aimlessly on the mountain, missing two trails that led downward to his intended destination.

On June 10, Bundy broke into a camping trailer on Maroon Lake, 10 miles 16 km south of Aspen, taking food and a ski parka; however, instead of continuing southward, he walked back north toward Aspen, eluding roadblocks and search parties along the way. Cold, sleep-deprived and in constant pain from his sprained ankle, Bundy drove back into Aspen, where two police officers noticed his car weaving in and out of its lane and pulled him over.

He had been a fugitive for six days. Back in jail in Glenwood Springs, Bundy ignored the advice of friends and legal advisors to stay put. The case against him, already weak at best, was deteriorating steadily as pretrial motions consistently resolved in his favor and significant bits of evidence were ruled inadmissible. He acquired a detailed floor plan of the Garfield County jail and a hacksaw blade from other inmates.

Having lost 35 pounds 16 kg , he was able to wriggle through and explore the crawl space above [ ] in the weeks that followed. Multiple reports from an informant of movement within the ceiling during the night were not investigated. He broke through the ceiling into the apartment of the chief jailer — who was out for the evening with his wife [ ] — changed into street clothes from the jailer's closet and walked out the front door to freedom.

After stealing a car, Bundy drove eastward out of Glenwood Springs, but the car soon broke down in the mountains on Interstate A passing motorist gave him a ride into Vail, 60 miles 97 km to the east. From there he caught a bus to Denver, where he boarded a morning flight to Chicago. Back in Glenwood Springs, the jail's skeleton crew did not discover the escape until noon on December 31, more than seventeen hours later.

By then, Bundy was already in Chicago. In the early hours of January 15, —one week after his arrival in Tallahassee—Bundy entered FSU's Chi Omega sorority house through a rear door with a faulty locking mechanism. Tallahassee detectives determined that the four attacks took place in a total of less than 15 minutes, within earshot of more than 30 witnesses who heard nothing.

She was left with permanent deafness in her left ear and equilibrium damage that ended her dance career. In a parking lot he approached year-old Leslie Parmenter, the daughter of the Jacksonville Police Department's chief of detectives, identifying himself as "Richard Burton, Fire Department," but retreated when Parmenter's older brother arrived and confronted him.

At Lake City Junior High School the following morning, year-old Kimberly Dianne Leach was summoned to her homeroom by a teacher to retrieve a forgotten purse; she never returned to class. Seven weeks later, after an intensive search, her partially mummified remains were found in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park , 35 miles 56 km northwest of Lake City.

On February 12, with insufficient cash to pay his overdue rent and a growing suspicion that police were closing in on him, [ ] Bundy stole a car and fled Tallahassee, driving westward across the Florida Panhandle. Three days later, at around a. Sometimes yoga. I usually take a nap around noon. I sleep well. Ted Bundy was a serial killer , rapist, and necrophiliac who admitted to killing 30 women in the s, though some experts believe his actual victim count might be over He was arrested for good in February and received three separate death sentences for the murders of two Chi Omega sorority members at Florida State University and a year-old girl.

He was executed in January at age Eleanor Louise Cowell, who went by Louise, was 22 years old when she delivered Ted at a home for unwed mothers. Later, Cowell brought her son to her parents in Philadelphia. However, there are some theories about who he might be. To hide the fact he was an illegitimate child, Bundy was raised as the adopted son of his grandparents and was told that his mother was his sister.

Cowell moved with her young son to Tacoma, Washington, and in , she married Johnnie Bundy. Johnnie and Louise had several children together. From all appearances, Bundy grew up in a content, working-class family. He showed an unusual interest in the macabre at an early age. Around the age of 3, he became fascinated by knives. A shy but bright child, Bundy did well in school but not with his peers.

According to Matt DeLisi, an Iowa State University criminologist who authored the book Ted Bundy and the Unsolved Murder Epidemic , Bundy also was known to pick apart mice in the woods and try to drown people while swimming or boating. As a teenager, a darker side of his character started to emerge. Bundy graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology in He was accepted to and attended law school in Utah, though he never earned his degree.

While a student at the University of Washington, Bundy fell in love with a wealthy, pretty young woman from California named Diane Edwards. She had everything that he wanted: money, class, and influence. He was devastated by their breakup. By the mids, Bundy had transformed himself, becoming more outwardly confident and active in social and political matters.

Bundy went on to kill seventeen-year-old Debbie Kent that same night. Caught in August , he was identified by DaRonch in a police lineup, convicted of her kidnapping, and sentenced to fifteen years. In April Colorado indicted him for the January murder of twenty-three-year-old Caryn Campbell and transferred him to Garfield County jail to await trial.

Because he acted as his own attorney, Bundy was allowed to use the courthouse library to prepare his defense. He jumped from a window in June during one such visit, an escape that is the subject of the police memo below. Bundy was recaptured eight days later. Bundy escaped again in December by cutting a hole in the ceiling of his cell with a hacksaw blade.

He remained at large much longer this time, adopting a false name and living by theft. On January 15, , he broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University, where he attacked four students. Lisa Levy was raped and beaten to death; Margaret Brown was strangled. The other two were beaten with a wooden club but survived. A month later, Bundy sexually assaulted and strangled twelve-year-old Kim Leach, who was to be his final victim.

By the time he was caught, driving a stolen car, he was wanted for murder in several states. In June he went on trial for the Chi Omega murders and again insisted on conducting his own defense. No fingerprint evidence was found at the scene. But the case was significant from a forensic point of view: Lisa Levy had bite marks on her breast and her buttock—a common finding in violent rape.

He was forced to give a dental impression, which matched the marks—major evidence for the prosecution. Bundy was found guilty of the two Chi Omega murders and sentenced to death. After ten years on death row, he finally admitted to the murders of thirty women; some believe he may have killed as many