Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

by Peter Vronsky

  Once in San Francisco, Bundy fell apart. It is hard to determine what happened first: his failure at Stanford or his outright rejection at the hands of Stephanie. He stopped showing up to lectures and doing his class work at Stanford, and he failed his courses. Stephanie, in the meantime, had begun working in a brokerage house in San Francisco. One day as she emerged from her building for lunch, there was the familiar tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, Bundy was hiding behind a corner like a little boy. Stephanie told him she did not want to see him anymore.

  Bundy was devastated on his return to Tacoma. His brother recalls that before the breakup with Stephanie, Ted was always in charge of his emotions. He had never seen his brother so upset and moody.

  Somewhere in this period, Bundy confessed that he began to attempt to disable women’s cars by deflating the tires or stealing the distributor cap. It never worked, he remembers, because around the college there were plenty of men who would quickly help a woman with car troubles. He said, however, that he did not have any idea what he would have done if he had actually succeeded in trapping a woman by this method. Bundy said he was toying with danger, just exploring how far things could go.

  Bundy was now actively taking his fantasies out on “test runs”—a phase that incipient serial killers go through prior to committing their first murder. His voyeuristic activities, meanwhile, put him into an activity in which 71 percent of the FBI’s surveyed killers engage in before they committed their first murder.

  In the autumn of 1967, Bundy returned for his third year of university. He abandoned Chinese language studies and began studying urban planning. He could not concentrate on studies and by December he had quit school. He spent the winter traveling around the country. Later, investigators would trace his travels, but found no evidence that Bundy committed any homicides during this period. In the spring of 1968, Bundy returned to Seattle, rented a small apartment, and took a job as a night stocker in a supermarket.

  During this period, Bundy became a practiced thief. Most of his clothes, furniture, appliances, stereo, TV, and even a huge plant were stolen. Bundy did not steal as a professional thief to later sell the items he took—he kept and used everything he stole, and stole only items of the highest quality. Sometimes he stole from stores; at other times he burgled summer houses along the beach near Seattle. Bundy also recalled that alcohol became an important tool in his thievery, as it lowered his inhibitions and made him appear less nervous than he really was.

  Bundy said that he also became an avid consumer of violent pornography. Bundy talked about his taste for porn developing over a period beginning from his juvenile high school years. He said that he began with an attraction to normal sexual imagery found in magazines like Playboy, but slowly his taste began to mutate toward imagery of a more violent nature.

  Bundy also confessed to being an avid reader of pulp detective magazines, of the type that Ed Gein, John Joubert, and Harvey Glatman were reading. Bundy says he was excited by the stories and images of abused females and was also getting an education in police procedures and crime techniques—what worked and what did not. (See Chapter 6 for more about the suspected role of detective magazines in serial killing.)

  It is very likely that Bundy was nearing the point of committing a homicide linked to his fantasies. He was already experiencing numerous stressors: His girlfriend had rejected him, he had failed the previous year at college and had to drop out, he was employed at a dead-end job. The only thing needed was the final trigger—one more rejection, an accidental confrontation with somebody during a burglary, anything could have set him off on his murderous career that spring of 1968. Instead, Bundy put the pieces of his life together and started anew.

  What makes the case of Bundy so fascinating, again, is how typical his experiences, desires, and goals were of many young, ambitious, urban men and women—he truly could be any one of us. Among my generation of males, few were not familiar with the cheery, wholesome “girl next door” nudes published in Playboy that Bundy refers to. Most of us eventually turned to dating the real girl next door. And so did Bundy at first.

  Later in early adulthood, many of us had an unhappy romance, a bad year in college, or some other major disappointment. And so did Bundy. And perhaps at those bitter moments, some of us fantasized about doing something dramatic, something unacceptable, perhaps even violent. Bundy started to toy with his fantasies—peeking into windows, disabling women’s cars, exploring how far things could go. This is what begins to distinguish him from the rest of us, even before he began to kill: his willingness to tinker his desires into reality, to start exploring that dark fantasy road to see where it leads.

  Yet Bundy did not go down that road easily. Like the rest of us, Bundy attempted to deal with his disappointment, heal from his hurt, and go on with his life, doing the best he could in “chasing the dream.” What makes Bundy so fascinating is his resilience and drive, so lacking in most other serial killers. Bundy attempted to do what is expected of us—get back up on his feet and keep moving.

  One morning in the spring of 1968 Bundy was on his way to break into some beach houses. On a street corner near one of the houses, Bundy ran into an acquaintance from high school and they struck up a conversation. He told Bundy that he was working for Art Fletcher, a local Republican politician making a bid for the office of lieutenant governor of Washington State. Several of Bundy’s other acquaintances were already working for Fletcher, and he was invited to come by. His friend remembered that in high school Bundy had had an active interest in election politics. Shortly afterward, Bundy was offered a job on Fletcher’s election staff.

  Bundy recalled that he found politics a way to be instantly a part of something. There was a social life that came with it. He said he did not have the money for a tennis club membership, but politics gave him access to influential levels of society.

  In 1968, Art Fletcher was running in the same series of elections that Robert Kennedy was in before he was assassinated. Fletcher was so impressed by Bundy that he selected him as his personal driver and bodyguard. Bundy was remembered as an able, intelligent worker, whose appearance was always meticulous but studiously casual. Nobody knew that Bundy was shoplifting the fine clothes he wore. Unfortunately, in November Fletcher came in second, and within days after the election, Bundy no longer had employment.

  Bundy quickly secured a job as a salesperson in the same Seattle department store from which he used to shoplift. There he quickly gained a reputation as an excellent salesman, especially adept with female customers. Apparently he could sell them anything.

  In the meantime, Bundy remained in touch with his lost love, Stephanie, in San Francisco. He occasionally wrote or phoned her, and apparently when Stephanie passed through Seattle to visit relatives in Vancouver, British Columbia, she called Bundy to say hello. There seemed to be no sense of desperation or drama in Bundy’s letters or calls to her.

  After saving some money, Bundy quit his job at the department store and in the winter of 1969 he traveled to Philadelphia, where he had spent his first four years. There he enrolled in Temple University, taking theatrical arts classes. He got good grades in acting and stage makeup, skills that he would put to use in the near future. Nothing else is known about his winter there.

  In the summer of 1969 Bundy returned to Seattle and took an apartment in a University District rooming house run by a couple. They took an instant liking to Bundy and remember him as a quiet and helpful tenant. He kept his room neat and tidy and helped out with small chores around the house. He was often invited down to their kitchen for lunch or coffee. He took various temporary jobs, one of which was as a messenger for a legal firm.

  In September, Bundy walked into a college tavern around the corner from where he lived and spotted a pretty girl with several of her friends. Her name was Liz Kendall; she was a twenty-four-year-old divorcée with a three-year-old daughter, and she worked as a medical secretary. She had long, dark hair and came from a wealthy fami
ly in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ted told her he was a law student and was writing a book about Vietnam. Liz bitterly recalls that Bundy was so charming and handsome that by the end of the evening, “I was already planning the wedding and naming the kids.”

  They became a steady couple and Liz and her daughter would go on many trips and outings with Bundy. Liz was a very insecure and jealous woman. Her recent divorce had made her even more insecure, and as such she was perfect for Ted. Within three months they were engaged to be married and took out a marriage license. But as things began to get serious, Bundy dramatically tore up the license and confessed to Liz that he in fact was a failed student and was not writing a book. Liz forgave him for his lies, and offered to finance his return to the university.

  In the summer of 1970 Ted Bundy began to work as a delivery truck driver for a small medical equipment company. At the same time, he enrolled in the department of psychology at the University of Washington. That summer Bundy was hailed as a hero when he rescued a three-and-half-year-old girl who fell into a lake. His psychology professors had nothing but praise for Bundy. In a letter of recommendation, one of them wrote:

  Mr. Bundy is undoubtedly one of the top undergraduate students in our department. Indeed, I would place him in the top 1% of undergraduate students with whom I have interacted both here at the University of Washington and at Purdue University. He is exceedingly bright, personable, highly motivated, and conscientious. He conducts himself more like a young professional than like a student. He has the capacity for hard work and because of his intellectual curiosity is a pleasure to interact with . . . As a result of his undergraduate psychology major, Mr. Bundy has become intensely interested in studying psychological variables which influence jury decisions. He and I are currently engaged in a research project in which we are attempting to study experimentally some of the variables which influence jury decisions.

  Another professor of psychology gushed:

  It is clear that other students use him as a standard to emulate . . . His personal characteristics are all of the highest standards. Ted is a mature young man who is very responsible and emotionally stable (but not emotionally flat as many students appear—he does get excited or upset appropriately in various situations) . . . I am at a loss to delineate any real weakness he has.

  In the meantime, Liz Kendall continued seeing Bundy, later stating that he was a considerate, romantic, and gentle lover during this period. She was welcomed in the Bundy household and often she and Ted went to the family’s A-frame cabin in the mountains. Everyone assumed that it was just a matter of time before she and Ted were married.

  In September 1971, Bundy began his last year of psychology training. He left the medical equipment delivery job and was employed as a counselor at the Seattle Crisis Clinic. This was a twenty-four-hour facility that people who felt suicidal or were in some kind of crisis could telephone and get counseling and advice. It was mostly staffed by volunteers and supervised by paid psychology students like Bundy.

  At about the same time, Ann Rule began working at the clinic as a volunteer on Tuesday nights and was paired with Bundy. Rule was in her forties, with four children and in the middle of a divorce. She was a former Seattle police officer who had quit the force and began attending college to study creative writing. She became a prolific writer of true-crime articles for pulp detective magazines such as True Detective, the very same ones that Bundy was so avidly consuming. When she met Bundy she had already published some eight hundred articles. She was also a commissioned deputy sheriff in several counties of Washington State, where she was hired to write crime synopses for various investigations in progress. In her best-selling book about her friendship with Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, she wrote, “I liked him immediately. It would have been hard not to.”

  Rule wrote honestly about her early impressions of Bundy:

  If, as many people believe today, Ted Bundy took lives, he also saved lives. I know he did, because I was there when he did it.

  I can picture him today as clearly as if it were only yesterday, see him hunched over the phone, talking steadily, reassuringly . . . he was never brusque, never hurried . . . He was one of those rare people who listen with full attention, who evince a genuine caring by their very stance. You could tell things to Ted that you might never tell anyone else.90

  Whereas some people stated that they saw Bundy occasionally flare up in anger, Rule says she never saw that in him:

  I never saw that anger. I never saw any anger at all. I cannot remember everything that Ted and I talked about, try as I might, but I do know we never argued. Ted’s treatment of me was the kind of old-world gallantry that he invariably showed toward any woman I ever saw him with, and I found it appealing. He always insisted on seeing me safely to my car when my shift at the Crisis Clinic was over in the wee hours of the morning. He stood by until I was safely inside my car, doors locked and engine started, waving to me as I headed for home twenty miles away. He often told me, “Be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”91

  Tiny, subtle, almost imperceptible cracks began to manifest themselves in Bundy’s personality. What is terrifying is that these cracks took on meaning only once Bundy’s crimes were revealed. Ann Rule recalls that at Bundy’s request, she brought him copies of articles she wrote for True Detective.At one point, Bundy specifically asked her for articles on rape because he needed the information for a psychology “research project.” His girlfriend, Liz, recalls one night pulling a pair of rubber surgical gloves from the pocket of his jacket. A friend remembered glimpsing a pair of handcuffs in Bundy’s car trunk and when asking him what they were for, Bundy gave some vague story about finding them in the garbage.

  In the spring of 1972, Bundy graduated with a degree in psychology and applied to law school. Although his marks were good, Bundy fared poorly on the Law School Aptitude Test (LSAT) and, as a result, was turned down by every law school he applied to. Bundy went to work as a counselor in the psychiatric outpatient unit of Seattle’s Harbourview Hospital. He did not last there very long. It was reported that he was cold and nearly abusive with his patients and tended to lecture them rather than offer counsel. Moreover, some of the staff actually began to suspect that Bundy was phoning the patients at home during the night and making anonymous threats.

  Despite Bundy’s professed attachment to Liz, he was having an affair with another counselor at the hospital. She told police, years later, that when she was making love with Bundy one day, he shoved his forearm under her chin and began to choke her.

  Perhaps sensing an oncoming crash like the one that occurred after his disastrous romance with Stephanie, Bundy turned to politics once more for refuge. It was an election year in 1972 and Bundy went to work for the incumbent governor, Dan Evans. Sometimes he was sent out to reconnoiter the opposition’s rallies. Bundy wore disguises such as wigs and false mustaches on these jobs. He began to display a remarkable chameleon-like ability to radically change his features by getting a haircut, growing a beard, or even parting his hair differently. Several people commented that Bundy was a true changeling.

  Once again, Bundy seemed to have regained equilibrium despite his failure at his first job after graduation and rejection from law school. After the election was over, he was rewarded for his good work on the governor’s campaign. Bundy’s curriculum vitae for 1972–1973 reads as follows:

  Crime Commission Assistant Director: October 1972 to January 1973. As assistant to the director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Commission, suggested and did the preliminary investigation for the Commission’s investigation into assaults against women, and “white collar” (economic) crime. Wrote press releases, speeches, and newspaper articles for the Commission. Participated extensively in the planning of the Commission’s activities for 1973.

  Criminal Corrections Consultant: January 1973. Currently retained by the King County Office of Law and Justice Planning to identify recidivism rates for offenders who have been found guilty of misdeme
anors and gross misdemeanors in the twelve county District Courts. The purpose of the study is to determine the nature and number of offenses committed subsequent to a conviction in District Court.

  In May 1973 Bundy was hired as a consultant by the state Republican Party central committee to analyze cost overruns in government spending. He worked for the committee chairman, Ross Davis, and was often a guest at his home. Davis remembers Bundy as “smart, aggressive, exceptionally so, and a believer in the system.” His wife Lisa recalls, “He didn’t talk much about himself, but I didn’t feel he was trying to hide anything. He spoke of his mother and family in loving terms.” Occasionally Ted Bundy babysat the couple’s children, and he ate dinner at their house at least once a week.

  Bundy also reapplied to law school and with some aggressive lobbying he was accepted at the Utah College of Law in Salt Lake City—he was scheduled to begin classes there in September. Somewhere in this period, Ted Bundy also bought a car—a bronze-colored Volkswagen Beetle. It was the second time he had bought that model. Bundy apparently liked the auto for its classless status; it was an inexpensive vehicle, but sometimes preferred by the wealthy as a stylish second car for errands in the city.

  That summer, Bundy was sent to California for a Republican Party conference, and while there he decided to look up his lost love, Stephanie. Bundy was no longer a “loser.” He projected now the aura of a “take charge” man: a college graduate with political ambitions, outspoken, confident, and about to enter law school. Stephanie liked what she saw and they rekindled their romance.