101 Facts About Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy typically approached women in public places, either asking for help by feigning a physical impairment such as an injury, or impersonating an authority figure.

In 1975, Bundy was arrested and jailed in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault.

Ted Bundy then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in several states.

Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24,1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont.

Some family members expressed suspicions that Ted Bundy might have been fathered by Louise's own father.

Family, friends, and even young Ted Bundy were told that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister.

Ted Bundy eventually discovered the truth, although his recollections of the circumstances varied; he told a girlfriend that a cousin showed him a copy of his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard," but he told biographers Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth that he had found the certificate himself.

Biographer and true crime writer Ann Rule, who knew Bundy personally, wrote that he did not find out until 1969, when he located his original birth record in Vermont.

Ted Bundy expressed a lifelong resentment toward his mother for never talking to him about his real father, and for leaving him to discover his true parentage for himself.

Louise's younger sister Julia recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen, and three-year-old Ted Bundy standing by the bed, smiling.

Ted Bundy liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear.

Ted Bundy sometimes spoke aloud to unseen presences, and at least once flew into a violent rage when the question of Bundy's paternity was raised.

Ted Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent electroconvulsive therapy for depression and feared to leave their house toward the end of her life.

Johnny and Louise conceived four children together, and though Johnny tried to include his adopted son in camping trips and other family activities, Ted Bundy remained distant from him.

Ted Bundy told journalists Michaud and Aynesworth that he "chose to be alone" as an adolescent because he was unable to understand interpersonal relationships.

Ted Bundy claimed that he had no natural sense of how to develop friendships.

In early 1968, Ted Bundy dropped out of college and worked a series of minimum-wage jobs.

Ted Bundy volunteered at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign and became Arthur Fletcher's driver and bodyguard during Fletcher's campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Washington State.

Ted Bundy was back in Washington by the fall of 1969, when he met Elizabeth Kloepfer, a single mother from Ogden, Utah, who worked as a secretary at the UW School of Medicine.

Ted Bundy became an honor student and was well regarded by his professors.

Ted Bundy marveled at his transformation into a serious and dedicated professional who was seemingly on the cusp of a significant legal and political career.

Ted Bundy continued to date Kloepfer as well; neither woman was aware of the other's existence.

In January 1974, Ted Bundy abruptly broke off all contact with Edwards; her phone calls and letters went unreturned.

Ted Bundy told different stories to different people and refused to divulge the specifics of his earliest crimes, even as he confessed in graphic detail to dozens of later murders in the days preceding his execution.

Ted Bundy told Nelson that he attempted his first kidnapping in 1969 in Ocean City, New Jersey, but did not kill anyone until sometime in 1971 in Seattle.

Ted Bundy told psychologist Art Norman that he killed two women in Atlantic City while visiting family in Philadelphia in 1969.

Shortly after midnight on January 4,1974, Bundy entered the basement apartment of 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a dancer and student at UW.

Ted Bundy remained unconscious in the hospital for ten days and although she survived, she was left with physical disabilities.

Ted Bundy beat her unconscious; dressed her in blue jeans, a white blouse, and boots; and carried her away.

Ted Bundy was last seen in the parking lot, talking to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling.

Ted Bundy later told Keppel that he lured Hawkins to his car and knocked her unconscious with a crowbar.

Ted Bundy later returned to the UW alley the morning after and, in the very midst of a major crime scene investigation, located and gathered Hawkins's earrings and one of her shoes where he had left them in the adjoining parking lot, and departed, unobserved.

Ted Bundy was on crutches with a leg cast and was struggling to carry a briefcase.

Ted Bundy told Stephen Michaud and William Hagmaier that Ott was still alive when he returned with Naslund and that he forced one to watch as he murdered the other, but he later denied it in an interview with Lewis on the eve of his execution.

Six months later, forestry students from Green River Community College discovered the skulls and mandibles of Healy, Rancourt, Parks, and Ball on Taylor Mountain, where Ted Bundy frequently hiked, just east of Issaquah.

Ted Bundy informed investigators that her remains were buried near Capitol Reef National Park, some 200 miles south of Holladay, but they were never found.

Years later, Ted Bundy described his postmortem rituals with the corpses of Smith and Aime, including hair shampooing and application of makeup.

Ted Bundy identified himself as "Officer Roseland" of the Murray Police Department and told DaRonch that someone had attempted to break into her car.

Ted Bundy asked her to accompany him to the station to file a complaint.

Ted Bundy's name was added to their list of suspects, but at that time no credible forensic evidence linked him to the Utah crimes.

In January 1975, Bundy returned to Seattle after his final exams and spent a week with Kloepfer, who did not tell him that she had reported him to police on three occasions.

In 1975, Bundy shifted much of his criminal activity eastward, from his base in Utah to Colorado.

Ted Bundy had been killed by blows to her head from a blunt instrument that left distinctive linear grooved depressions on her skull; her body bore deep cuts from a sharp weapon.

Ted Bundy drowned her in his hotel room, after which he disposed of her body in a river north of Pocatello.

Ted Bundy disclosed neither his ongoing relationship with Boone nor a concurrent romance with a Utah law student known in various accounts as Kim Andrews or Sharon Auer.

Ted Bundy's murder became Bundy's last confession, tape-recorded moments before he entered the execution chamber.

Detectives manually compiled a list of their 100 "best" suspects, and Ted Bundy was on that list as well.

Ted Bundy was "literally at the top of the pile" of suspects when word came from Utah of his arrest.

Hayward observed Ted Bundy cruising a residential area in his Volkswagen Beetle during the pre-dawn hours, and fleeing at high speed after seeing the patrol car.

Ted Bundy noticed that the Volkswagen's front passenger seat had been removed and placed on the rear seats, and searched the car.

Ted Bundy found a ski mask, a second mask fashioned from pantyhose, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, a coil of rope, an ice pick, and other items initially assumed to be burglary tools.

Ted Bundy explained that the ski mask was for skiing, he had found the handcuffs in a dumpster, and the rest were common household items.

Ted Bundy later said that searchers missed a hidden collection of Polaroid photographs of his victims, which he destroyed after he was released.

Ted Bundy told them that in the year prior to Bundy's move to Utah, she had discovered objects that she "couldn't understand" in her house and in Bundy's apartment.

The detectives confirmed that Bundy had not been with Kloepfer on any of the nights during which the Pacific Northwest victims had vanished, nor on the day Ott and Naslund were abducted from Lake Sammamish State Park.

Ted Bundy was freed on $15,000 bail, paid by his parents, and spent most of the time between indictment and trial in Seattle, living in Kloepfer's house.

In February 1976, Ted Bundy stood trial for the DaRonch kidnapping.

On June 7,1977, Bundy was transported 40 miles from the Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs to Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a preliminary hearing.

Ted Bundy had elected to serve as his own attorney, and as such, was excused by the judge from wearing handcuffs or leg shackles.

Cold, sleep-deprived, and in constant pain from his sprained ankle, Ted Bundy drove back into Aspen, where two police officers noticed his car weaving in and out of its lane and pulled him over.

Back in jail in Glenwood Springs, Ted Bundy ignored the advice of friends and legal advisors to stay put.

Ted Bundy acquired a detailed floor plan of the Garfield County jail and a hacksaw blade from other inmates.

Ted Bundy stayed for one night at a hotel before he rented a room under the alias Chris Hagen at a boarding house near the Florida State University campus.

Ted Bundy reverted to his old habits of shoplifting and stealing money and credit cards from women's wallets left in shopping carts at local grocery stores.

Ted Bundy then garroted her with a nylon stocking and ripped her underwear off with such force that friction burns were found on one of her thighs.

Ted Bundy was left with permanent deafness and equilibrium damage that ended her dance career.

For unknown reasons, Ted Bundy pulled his mask off and dropped it on the bed.

When told he was under arrest, Ted Bundy kicked Lee's legs out from under him and took off running.

Incriminating physical evidence included impressions of the bite wounds Bundy had inflicted on Levy's left buttock, which forensic odontologists Richard Souviron and Lowell Levine matched to castings of Bundy's teeth.

Ted Bundy was found guilty , after less than eight hours' deliberation, due principally to the testimony of an eyewitness who saw him leading Leach from the schoolyard to his stolen van.

Important material evidence included clothing fibers with an unusual manufacturing error, found in the van and on Leach's body, which matched fibers from the jacket Bundy was wearing when he was arrested.

Ted Bundy accepted, and Bundy declared to the court that they were legally married.

On February 10,1980, Ted Bundy was sentenced for a third time to death by electrocution.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Leach trial and the beginning of the long appeals process that followed, Bundy initiated a series of interviews with Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.

Ted Bundy confided in Special Agent William Hagmaier of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Hagmaier was struck by the "deep, almost mystical satisfaction" that Ted Bundy took in murder.

Several months later, guards found an unauthorized mirror, and Ted Bundy was moved to a different cell.

In October 1984, Bundy contacted Keppel and offered to share his self-proclaimed expertise in serial killer psychology in the ongoing hunt in Washington for the "Green River Killer", later identified as Gary Ridgway.

Ted Bundy confessed to Keppel that he had committed all eight of the Washington and Oregon homicides for which he was the prime suspect.

Ted Bundy described three additional previously unknown victims in Washington and two in Oregon whom he declined to identify.

Ted Bundy was infatuated with the idea because he spent so much time there.

Ted Bundy is just totally consumed with murder all the time.

When it became clear that no further stays would be forthcoming from the courts, Ted Bundy supporters began lobbying for the only remaining option, executive clemency.

Ted Bundy moved back to Washington with her daughter and refused to accept his phone call on the morning of his execution.

Ted Bundy was cremated in Gainesville, and his ashes scattered at an undisclosed location in the Cascade Range of Washington State, in accordance with his will.

Ted Bundy was an unusually organized and calculating criminal who used his extensive knowledge of law enforcement methodologies to elude identification and capture for years.

Ted Bundy deliberately avoided firearms due to the noise they made and the ballistic evidence they left behind.

Ted Bundy was a "meticulous researcher" who explored his surroundings in minute detail, looking for safe sites to seize and dispose of victims.

Ted Bundy's fingerprints were never found at a crime scene, nor any other incontrovertible evidence of his guilt, a fact he repeated often during the years in which he attempted to maintain his innocence.

Ted Bundy concealed his one distinctive identifying mark, a dark mole on his neck, with turtleneck shirts and sweaters.

Once Ted Bundy had them near or inside his vehicle, he would overpower and bludgeon them, and then restrain them with handcuffs.

At secondary sites Ted Bundy would remove and later burn the victim's clothing, or in at least one case deposit them in a Goodwill Industries collection bin.

Ted Bundy explained that the clothing removal was ritualistic, but a practical matter, as it minimized the chance of leaving trace evidence at the crime scene that could implicate him.

Ted Bundy often revisited his secondary crime scenes to engage in acts of necrophilia, and to groom or dress up the cadavers.

All of Ted Bundy's known victims were white females, most of middle-class backgrounds.

Ted Bundy displayed many personality traits typically found in ASPD patients, such as outward charm and charisma with little true personality or genuine insight beneath the facade; the ability to distinguish right from wrong, but with minimal effect on behavior; and an absence of guilt or remorse.

Ted Bundy used the opportunity to make new claims about violence in the media and the pornographic "roots" of his crimes.

Ted Bundy deflected blame onto a wide variety of scapegoats, including his abusive grandfather, the absence of his biological father, the concealment of his true parentage by his mother, alcohol, the media, the police, society in general, violence on television, and, ultimately, true crime periodicals and pornography.

Ted Bundy blamed television programming, which he watched mostly on sets that he had stolen, for "brainwashing" him into stealing credit cards.

Ted Bundy was always surprised when anyone noticed that one of his victims was missing, because he imagined America to be a place where everyone is invisible except to themselves.

The night before his execution, Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides, but the true total remains unknown.