Ted Bundy is one of America’s most infamous serial killers along with Jeffery Dahmer and the BTK killer. With two original Netflix productions; Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and a movie: The Deliberate Stranger, Bundy’s case still remains a crucial part of the study of psychopaths.
Bundy was born in Vermont on November 24, 1946. His mother had his grandparents raised him, as her religious parents would not condone him. Later, his mother moved to Washington and married Bundy’s stepfather. Bundy grew up in a normal household, but aspects of psychopathy became apparent. When he was 3, he was intrigued by knives and grew interested in macabre. As he grew older he would look into other people’s windows. Surprisingly, Bundy graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology and was accepted into law school. He even got a letter of recommendation from the Republic governor of Washington.
As we learned in class, psychopaths are unable to feel love. Bundy “fell in love” with a wealthy girl from California, but in reality, he fell in love with what she was able to provide him. When they had broken up, Bundy started his killings. He would start a ruse to persuade young women to gain trust and get them inside of his Volkswagen Beetle. He would then knock them out and proceed with raping and murdering his victims.
Bundy was first caught in Utah on August 16, 1975, when he was pulled over by the police for having a crowbar, facemask, rope, and handcuffs in his car. The police used this to link him to other crimes. In 1975, he was arrested for kidnapping Carol DaRonch and convicted for a 1 to 15-year jail sentence. However, Bundy escaped twice and after his second, he went to Tallahassee, Flordia. He broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Flordia State and killed two female residents. His last murder was of a 12-year-old girl before he was pulled by the police.
The most convincing evidence that Bundy had murdered the two girls at FSU were the bite marks on the body, which matched the molds of Bundy’s teeth. His trial was the first to be videotaped and Bundy became almost like a celebrity despite the horrifying acts he committed. He charmed multiple women and ended up proposing to Carole Boone during the penalty phase in his trial.
He was convicted for the two murders in July 1979 and given the death penalty twice. He was also given another death penalty in 1980. He was executed on January 24th, 1989 by the electric chair. From what experts know, Bundy only confessed to killing 36 women but believe that the number could be upwards of 100 or more.
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what I find most bizarre is how often women and men fall in love with notorious serial killers. Ted Bundy, along with other killers like Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono all got married in prison despite their sinister status. There are also multiple female serial-killers who have gotten married in jail. The research behind the psychology of this suggests that it can be attribute to people wanting fame and those that sympathize with the killers and believe that they are redeeming characters. As we have seen with those who are psychopaths, the latter does not always ring true, especially with those biologically incapable of doing so. that does not stop these people from trying to justify the actions of their significant other on other factors. An interesting take on this is that many of those who do have relationships with those locked up indefinitely are those who were abused before. Because they are in a relationship with someone who is restrained, they therefore do not have to fear domestic violence or abuse and instead enjoy the love notes they receive from their lovers who have little to do behind bars.
ReplyDeleteThe former, dealing with those who want media attention, has risen with the use of social media to publicize more killers and their actions. It requires little work; just a note and a response.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/08/entertainment/serial-killer-lovers-the-seventies/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2018/12/22/hes-jailed-life-after-murdering-his-wife-kids-so-why-do-women-send-him-love-letters/
I remember learning about him in Psychology class last year and it was really interesting to me. It's hard to believe that he could get away with killing so many people. He definitely deserved the death penalty because he hurt so many innocent people. Because he was a psychopath, he didn't believe that he was doing anything wrong, which is why he continued to do it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this case would have turned out differently if Bundy had been alive during the 21st century. Much like how we saw in the documentary, the Psychologist was able to prove his client demonstrated the "warrior gene" and had the abusive childhood that would've triggered his actions, allowing him to be considered a psychopath, and therefore removing the death penalty from his indictment. This raised the question to me of, if Bundy had the gene that contributes to psychopathy, would that have been enough to keep him off death row, or would the sheer scale of killings he was responsible for overrule the fact that he was genetically predetermined to act out in these hostile and violent ways?
ReplyDeleteI actually watched one of the movies about Ted Bundy and I was very surprised how many people were portrayed as believing he was innocent, especially Carol Boone. He had her so fooled that she fell in love with him during his trial and decided to marry him. This just goes to show the level at which psychopaths are able to manipulate others and other dangers they can bring to society aside from violence.
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