Ted Bundy, The Chameleon of A Brilliant Disguise

By Lynn A. Granata

Not very much is known about him.  Until he first got caught in Utah, 1975. There several young female co-eds reported missing were being found dead in nearby surrounding areas.  It is a fact that Bundy killed 30 victims. Let's explore his life story; it has a long history of malfunction.

Ted Bundy in 1979 acting as his own attorney

Theodore Robert Cowell was born in 1946.  His mother, Louise, gave birth to him in a home for unwed mothers. He was born in Burlington, Vermont.  His father's identity was unknown. Though those that were close to his family speculated he was quite possibly illegitimate. Meaning his mother may have had more than 1 partner at the time she got pregnant with him.  Later on it was a rather humiliating experience for him to discover that right on his birth record, it literally stated under father the word "bastard."  Bundy was brought up by his mother's parents.  

You can see the similarities between both his background and that of Aileen Wuornos. And like Wuornos, his grandfather, Samuel Cowell was as mean as Aileen's. He was abusive to the members of the household, and was racist.  Later on when Ted was around 4 years old, his mother remarried a man named Johnny Bundy. He formally adopted Ted as his own son and changed his surname from Cowell to Bundy.  His new family moved to Tacoma WA.  As Ted grew up, he began taking an interest in devious activities. Such as running through trash cans in search of pictures of nude women.  Other times he would go canvassing the neighborhood in search of uncovered windows to look for undressing women and whatever else he could see. His criminal career began at age 18. He was arrested twice on a suspicion of a burglary charge, then on an auto theft charge.

A 1965 high school picture of Ted Bundy

He murdered so many female victims, that their names are too numerous to mention in this article. So I will sum it up with only the most pertinent facts of his life, focusing primarily on what happened after his arrests and prosecution took place.

Most of his victims were young adult females between 18-22.  They were attending college in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.  He was arrested in Utah in 1975, and was driving a 1968 Volks- wagon Beetle at the time of his capture. He was known as one of America's most vicious of serial rapists and killers.

The 1968 Volkswagon that was confiscated at the time of Bundy's arrest.

He committed rape and murder in many states, mostly he would target Florida, California, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.  He was implicated and tried in all of those states as his turn in the courts progressed from 1976-1989. Bundy made many prison escape attempts with tools that he himself crafted.  He particularly had a knife fascination. 

Bundy mugshot (unknown date).

Bundy confessed to most if not all of his brutal crimes while he was incarcerated in different prisons in any one of the states where he had committed a murder. He told prison visitors that he enjoyed the thrill of living on the run, and dressing up like a handicapped person in order to lure women into his car, by pretending to have a broken arm, wearing a cast, so that they would offer to carry his groceries for him. Once he baited them he would hit them over the head, knocking them unconscious then drive off to some deserted area and complete his capture. He also became a jailhouse lawyer while he was in prison, and researched cases voraciously while preparing for trial. He had very clever traits, and it took a long time to solve the crimes of Bundy. He wiped fingerprints and tampered with other evidence. The FBI profiling unit described him as a sociopath.  Bundy himself admitted he was deranged, had multiple personality disorder, and was uncontrollable.

He was sentenced in 1986 to die by electric chair in a Florida state penitentiary. After his appeals were all exhausted, his scheduled execution took place in January 1989.

Reference

Retrieved from:

http://wikipedia.com/tedbundy