Ted Bundy: biography of a serial killer

A review of the life and crimes of one of the most violent murderers of the last decades.

A man with a broken arm and in a sling, attractive and with a certain charisma, asks a woman for help to load some books in the car. The woman in question decides to help him load the books, accompanying the young man to the car. A month later her body is found in a nearby lake.

This is not a fictional story, but a real event. It is what happened to more than one of the victims of one of the biggest and best known serial killers of women in the United States, whose life we review in this article. It is about the biography of Ted Bundy..

Biography of Ted Bundy

Theodore Robert Cowell was born in Burlington, an American town located in Vermont, on November 1946.on November 24, 1946. Son of Eleanor Louise Cowell when she was very young and of unknown father, he was raised by his grandparents and was made to believe both to him and to the rest of society that his mother was actually his sister. The latter rejected him in his early years, being a source of embarrassment to the family. According to later statements by the subject, it seems that his grandfather was violent and mistreated his grandmother, and he was raised in an aversive environment.

In 1950 he moved with his mother to Washington, who a year later married John Bundy. Theodore Cowell would be adopted by the latter and would receive his surname, although in spite of the presence of attempts to approach him on the part of his adoptive father, he did not manage to maintain a good emotional bond.

Due, among other things, to the experience of continuous rejection and domestic violence.Ted Bundy began as a child to show a withdrawn and childish personality, with little social contact. He also began to show symptoms of what today would be considered a dissocial disorder, manifesting cruel behavior and even entertained himself by capturing, killing, mutilating and dismembering animals.

Academic background and relationship with Stephanie Brooks

Ted Bundy enrolled at the University of Puget Sound and began studying psychology, an area in which he began studying psychology, an area in which he proved to be a good student.. In 1967 he fell in love and began a relationship with a college classmate, Stephanie Brooks. However, two years later she graduated and ended up leaving the relationship due to her immaturity and lack of clear objectives. Bundy became obsessed with her, sending her frequent letters in an attempt to win her back.

During the same year he dropped out of school, and at this time he began to have different jobs in which he did not last long. In 1969 he began a relationship with Elizabeth Kloepfer that would last five years, although he kept in touch by letter with his previous relationship.

Some time later he would end up graduating, and in 1973 he enrolled at the University of Washington to study law. He also became interested and began to participate in the world of politics for the Republican Party and became involved in various community activities, He became a volunteer in a telephone helpline service for sexually assaulted women and was even and even being decorated for saving a minor from drowning. He would meet Stephanie Brooks again and have a brief relationship with her, which this time he would end after becoming extremely cold.

However, it would be during 1974 when his first confirmed murders would begin to be recorded.

The murders begin

Although he had previously committed various thefts, the first documented murders of this serial killer did not occur until 1974 (although it is suspected that he may have been involved in other earlier cases).

In January of 1974, while still in college, Ted Bundy entered Joni Lenz's room and then beat her with an iron bar and raped her. with an iron bar and rape her. Although she survived, she suffered serious injuries and permanent brain damage. He would carry out the same procedure with Lynda Ann Healy, whom in this case he would kill. He made the corpse disappear, although he did not clean up the blood.

This death would start a chain of murders in which numerous young students disappeared, some of them being Carol Valenzuela, Nancy Wilcox, Susan Rancourt, Donna Mason, Laura Aimee, Brenda Ball, Georgann Hawkins, Melissa Smith or Caryn Campbell among many others.

Modus operandi

Bundy's modus operandi was initially based on following and abducting his victims to their home and strangling them. his victims to their homes to strangle them. However, with time and seeing that he was easy to manipulate due to his charisma and was attractive to many women, he gained confidence and began to look for victims during the day, being usual for him to pretend to have a broken arm to ask for help to carry things to his car.

This killer used to choose young, dark-haired, long-haired women, with features that resembled them.The victims were often raped and raped by his mother and his former girlfriend Stephanie Brooks.

The victims were often raped and dismembered, and he kept body parts such as their heads as trophies of his crimes. It was not uncommon for him to have intercourse with the bodies once the victim was dead, as well as the presence of bites on the bodies by the killer.

First reliable leads and arrest

During the month of November 1974, Bundy pretended to be a police officer in order to approach Carol DaRonch and make her get into his car. The young woman agreed, thinking they were going to the police station, but found that Bundy stopped the car and tried to handcuff her. Fortunately Carol DaRonch managed to free herself before she was restrained and fled, after which she went to the police. This led to the first sketch of the suspect.

The sketch led several witnesses to believe that Bundy was a possible perpetrator, including his then-girlfriend Elizabeth. Despite this, he could not be fully identified and the possibility that he was the killer was eventually dismissed.

Ted Bundy continued to abduct and kill numerous young women, changing his appearance and traveling to other countries.He continued to kidnap and kill numerous young women, changing his appearance and traveling to different states so as not to arouse suspicion.

But in 1975 a police car pulled over Bundy's car and ended up finding indicative elements such as levers, handcuffs and tape with which to immobilize the victims. and tape with which to immobilize the victims. Ted Bundy was arrested. In this case, he would be identified by DaRonch as the author of his kidnapping.

Trials and escapes

In 1976, the first of the trials to which Ted Bundy would be subjected began. In this case he was tried for the kidnapping of DaRonch, resulting in a sentence of fifteen years in prison..

However, the analysis of the car in which he was arrested led to evidence of Bundy's involvement in the disappearance and murder of Melissa Smith and Caryn Campbell (specifically, hair from both women was found). This led to a second trial on murder charges.on murder charges. In this second trial, Bundy decided to represent himself as an attorney and was allowed to visit the library to prepare his defense. However, he took advantage of the situation to escape, although he would be caught by police forces six days later.

He escaped again in 1977, this time managing to flee to Chicago and adopting a different identity. adopting a different identity.. During this escape he killed again, this time attacking three young women at a college fraternity (Chi Omega), one of whom survived, and another young woman later. He also kidnapped and killed Kimberly Leach, a twelve-year-old girl.

He was finally arrested in a Florida hotel, after the license plate of his car was recognized. After being arrested a second time, he would be tried on June 25, 1979 for murder.

He was allowed to exercise his own defense, but the evidence against him - witnesses who saw him leave the fraternity and even survivors of his assaults, along with physical evidence such as a comparison between the bite marks on the bodies and Bundy's teeth - eventually led to his conviction and death by electric chair, eventually led to his conviction and sentencing him to death in the electric chair..

Death row and execution

Despite being sentenced to death, Ted Bundy's execution would take years to arrive. Because Bundy tried to delay as long as possible. Bundy tried to delay the date of his execution as long as possible, confessing to multiple murders (he was sentenced to death).He confessed to multiple murders (some real and others possibly to buy himself more time), offered clues as to the location of the victims, and pretended to collaborate with the police to obtain extensions of his sentence. While thirty-six of the murders are believed to be true, it is suspected that there may have been many more victims. He even went so far as to offer to assist in the arrest of other killers.

Despite his actions, he often received letters from fans who said they loved him.. During this time he would be accused and tried for the death of little Kimberly Leach, which resulted in a second death sentence. During the same trial Ted Bundy would marry Carole Ann Boone, one of the many fans who believed in his innocence and with whom he would end up having a daughter.

During his last years he held interviews with psychiatrists in which he narrated his life and his mental state was analyzed.. The tests used indicate emotional lability, impulsivity, immaturity, self-centeredness, inferiority complex and lack of empathy, among other characteristics.

On the other hand, Ted Bundy confessed to an addiction to ponography with sadistic overtones, as well as that the murders of young, dark-haired, long-haired women corresponded to the anger he felt towards the women by whom he felt abandoned, his mother and his first girlfriend Stephanie Brooks. He was finally executed on January 24, 1989.