Notorious Serial Killer Ted

When you think of someone who changed the world you probably think of someone like Albert Einstein or even Charles Darwin, but I think of people like Ted Bundy. Now, most of the time someone who changes the world has a positive effect on it but there are always people who change it negatively. Ted Bundy was a serial killer in the 70s’ who was notorious for being charming, clean-cut, and a well-rounded guy when he actually was a sadistic psychopath.

Ted always had a finger pointed at him but very easily swayed people’s choices and opinions on him. Ted Bundy had changed the world by allowing us to see first hand that someone who is cunning could manipulate the world with looks, lies, and murder. Ted Bundy’s early life has probably the biggest influence on how he turned out. Theodore Robert Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946.

He grew up most of his life believing his mother was his sister after she wanted to give him away but she did not. His father is unknown. He grew up a bit of a peeping tom, he was often caught looking in people's windows and snooping around. If you look at his early life you can tell he had the textbook childhood of a serial killer. “Around the age of 3, he became fascinated by knives”. Bundy then went to college for a short amount of time and got a degree in psychology. He wanted to pursue a law career but did not get accepted into the law school he wanted. It was at college that he met a woman who is said to be the model for the women he killed later in his life. They all resembled her in some sort of way. “Many of Bundy’s later victims resembled his college girlfriend-attractive students with long, dark hair”. After she broke it off is when girls around the northwest started vanishing with alarming consistency.

Another key point is that Bundy was cunning and very manipulative when it came to getting what he wanted. He understood that in order for him to fulfill his desires he had to blend in, he had to become ordinary. During the day Bundy went to college and earned his degree in psychology. He also during this time got engaged to a young woman who he met in a local college bar. Nothing Ted did during the day stood out to anyone as someone who behind closed doors as the most infamous serial killer. Now the ’70s did have the most serial killers at the time and that included Ted. But, Ted changed the way we look at serial killers because he proved that by nature being a psychopath does mean unstable and aggressive while Ted makes us believe it to be cunning, smart, and desirable. “His looks helped, but a psychopath is, by nature, a cunning individual, one who can quickly read another’s weaknesses and capitalize on them, one who acts without the “burden” of remorse, guilt, or the ability (or desire) to empathize with others” (Jitcnotvisut). With Ted blending in came natural, as did escape, not once but twice.

Bundy was so smart that even being in a courthouse and jail full of people he was able to escape. The first time Bundy managed to escape was in Aspen during one of his trials. The officer assigned to Bundy was held up talking to a woman and when Bundy realized the window of the courthouse library to be open he took that time to jump from three stories and run. This escape was kinda just a heat of the moment thing and really made the police look like they could not handle him. People started to worry that Bundy was too dangerous for the police. Shortly after escaping Bundy was put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List. He was then captured eight days later. His second escape was in December of 1977. He had managed to evade prison guards by sliding through a hole in the ceiling. “Authorities did not discover that Bundy was missing for 15 hours, giving the serial killer a big headstart on the police”. Now that people had lost faith in the police keeping Bundy in custody, they had now lost faith in the FBI along with prison being able to hold him. His second escape made everyone lose hope that he would not kill again. This time though Bundy did not escape without killing.

Bundy made his way to Florida after the second escape and could not resist his urges to kill again. On January 14, 1978, after lying low for a while eventually could not take it anymore and struck in the middle of the night at the Chi Omega Sorority House. Little did anyone know this set of murders would be the biggest boost in the investigation of finding him guilty. He not only bludgeoned and raped 4 coeds, killing two of them he also left a bite mark on the buttocks of one Lisa Levy (Lyle). This changed the way many people around the world looked at the littlest piece of evidence. They realized that it made it into something bigger that could end up actually helping solve a case with no evidence presented beforehand. “They found no fingerprints and none of the surviving victims could identify their assailant” (Lyle). Though this bite mark was how they eventually found Bundy guilty, many people still think that if his trial was today he would walk away a free man.

On the other hand, Bundy very may have not even had to have worried about being convicted as bite mark evidence is not as credible as people believe. In the 70’s they had very little technology as compared to what we have today. They could not just have taken DNA from a crime scene and compared it to millions of people, they could only compare what they had to what they had. That is why when the bite mark was left on Lisa Levy the police and FBI finally thought they could prove Bundy was guilty. They took an impression of his teeth and compared it to what they lifted from the buttocks of Levy and it “matched perfectly”. Bite mark evidence is not as credible as matching fingerprints because as you know no two people have the same fingerprints.

It is physically impossible but with teeth, it is very very likely for two different people to just by pure accident have the two same set of teeth. “Based on a comparison of his teeth to the impression, it may be possible to say that ‘you can not exclude’ Bundy as the source of the bite mark but that such a statement is critically different than saying ‘Bundy is the source of the bite mark to the exclusion of all others.’ That is how it appears to have been used in the Ted Bundy case” (Tron). So basically people felt as if Bundy was truly guilty and now that they know bite mark evidence is not credible they are questioning if he was even really guilty even though he admitted to them. We can never truly know if he is responsible we can only hope they were right. It just makes you think that maybe he only confessed to getting more time before being put to death.

Bundy’s confession came after his long time girlfriend visited him on death row. In Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, the main interviewer Stephen Michaud started off trying to get Ted to talk about the murders, but in Ted’s mind, he took this as an opportunity to tell his life story (Ransome). When Michaud finally realized how he could get Ted to talk about the murders he was in awe. He knew exactly what he had to do. He asked Ted to tell him how he would do the crimes. “Tell me what you think happened, what forces created this man? How did he proceed? And how did he see the world? So he went on, and that was the next six months of Bundy telling me how to be a serial killer” (Ransome). This is probably the way Bundy had the most impact on the world is by showing us that by convincing someone that we know they are not guilty and befriending them, they will have trust in you and spill even the darkest of their secrets.

Even though he confessed to over 30 murders, police and experts believe that number to be over 100. When Ted finally did confess he was not given more time he was still put to death. Ted Bundy was put to death in Florida by electrocution. He was on death row for roughly 10 years. “He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder” (Margaritoff). He was survived by his wife, daughter, and countless others close to him. Many people gathered around the prison Bundy was in to catch word of his death. He died on January 24, 1989, at the age of 42.

All in all, Ted Bundy changed the world by showing us that a cunning man could fool the world with devious lies, looks, and straight murder. He made us change how we look at the evidence, how we hold people, and how we look at how to treat people like him. Doctors, politicians, and musicians are just some of the people who change the world. If you look deeper you will find many many people who have changed the world in a not so good way. So think about your life, do you want to change it negatively or positively?

Works Cited

1. Biography.com Editors. “Ted Bundy Biography.” Biography.com, A&E Television Networks, 2 pr. 2014, https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/ted-bundy.
2. Jitcnotvisut, Janaki. “How Ted Bundy got away with so many murders according to forensic Psychologists.” Insider.com, 29 Jan. 2019, https://www.insider.com/ted-bundy -case-explained-forensic-psychologist-2019-1#on-march-1-1976-bundy-was-found -guilty-of-the-kidnapping-of-carol-daronch-7.
3. Lyle, Douglas. “Forensics Case: Ted Bundy’s Bite Marks.” dummies.com, John Wiley & Sons, https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/forensics-case-ted-bundys-bite-m arks/.
4. Margaritoff, Marco. “The Inside Story Of Ted Bundy’s Execution, Last Meal, and Final Words.” Allthatsinteresting.com, 8 May 2019, https://allthatsinteresting.com/ted-bundy-execution.
5. Ransome, Noel. “Meet the Journalist Who Interviewed Ted Bundy for Months.” vice.com, 4 Feb 2019, https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/59x3d3/meet-the-journalist who-interviewed-ted-bundy-for-months.
6. “Ted Bundy- The Trial.” crimandinvestigation.co.uk, AETN UK, 31 July 2017, https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/ted-bundy/trial.
7. “Ted-Bundy Timeline.” crimeandinvestigation.co.uk, AETN UK, 31 July 2017, https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/ted-bundy/timeline.
8. Tron, Gina. “If Ted Bundy’s Trial was Today, He May Have Walked Free Thanks To Bite Mark Evidence.” oxygen.com, 14 Feb 2019, https://www.oxygen.com/blogs/how-ted -bundy-got-convicted-is-bite-mark-evidence-credible. 

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