Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy
A monochrome photograph of a man with a slight smile
Bundy in 1978
Born
Theodore Robert Cowell

(1946-11-24)November 24, 1946
DiedJanuary 24, 1989(1989-01-24) (aged 42)
Florida State Prison, Raiford, Florida, U.S.
Cause of deathExecution by electrocution[5]
Other names
  • Chris Hagen
  • Kenneth Misner
  • Officer Roseland
  • Richard Burton
  • Rolf Miller[4]
Alma mater
Spouse
Carole Ann Boone
(m. 1980; div. 1986)
Children1
Motive
Conviction(s)
Criminal penalty
Escaped
  • June 7, 1977 – June 13, 1977
  • December 30, 1977 – February 15, 1978
Details
Victims20 confirmed
30 confessed
36+ suspected
Span of crimes
1974 – 1978 (confirmed)
CountryUnited States
State(s)
Date apprehended
August 16, 1975

Theodore Robert Bundy ( Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown.[6]

Bundy often employed charm to disguise his murderous intent when kidnapping victims, and with law enforcement, the media and the criminal justice system to maintain his claims of innocence. His usual technique involved approaching a female in public and luring her to a vehicle parked in a more secluded area, at which point he would beat her unconscious, restrain her with handcuffs and take her elsewhere to be sexually assaulted and killed.

Bundy typically simulated having a physical impairment such as an injury to convince his target that he was in need of assistance, or would dupe her into believing he was an authority figure. He frequently revisited the bodies of those he abducted, grooming and performing sex acts on the corpses until decomposition and destruction by wild animals made further interactions impossible. He decapitated at least 12 of his victims, keeping their severed heads as mementos in his apartment. On a few occasions, he broke into homes at night and bludgeoned, maimed, strangled and/or sexually assaulted his victims in their sleep.

In 1975, Bundy was arrested and jailed in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in several states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, Bundy engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults in Florida, including three murders, before being recaptured in 1978. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two trials, and was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison in Raiford on January 24, 1989.

Biographer Ann Rule characterized him as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death and even after."[7] Bundy once described himself as "the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet",[8][9] a statement with which attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, agreed. "Ted", she wrote, "was the very definition of heartless evil."[10]

  1. ^ Michaud & Aynesworth 1989, p. 41.
  2. ^ Jenkins, John Philip (September 19, 2023). "Ted Bundy – Biography, Crimes, Death, & Facts". Britannica.com.
  3. ^ Ottaug, Tim (August 12, 2021). "Ted Bundy Killings: A Timeline of His Twisted Reign of Terror". Biography.com.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference BundyAppealBrief was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Nelson 1994, pp. 323, 327.
  6. ^ Foreman 1992, p. 43.
  7. ^ Rule 2009, p. xiv.
  8. ^ Michaud & Aynesworth 1999, p. 263.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hare1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Nelson 1994, p. 319.