Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Life and Crimes of Ted Bundy (Part I)

Theodore Robert Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell)—November 24, 1946-January 24, 1989—was an American serial killer and necrophile who kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and maybe even earlier. After more than a decade of denials, before he was executed in 1989, he confessed to 30 homicides that he committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. The true number of Bundy's victims is possibly even higher.

Ted Bundy

Born: Theodore Robert Cowell—November 24, 1946, Burlington, Vermont, U.S.

Died: January 24, 1989 (aged 42)—Florida State Prison, Bradford County, Florida, U.S.

Cause of Death: Execution by electrocution

Resting Place: Body cremated in Gainesville, Florida, ashes scattered at an undisclosed location at Cascade Range, Washington

Nationality: American

Other names: Christ Hagen; Kenneth MIsner; Officer Roseland; Richard Burton; Rolf Miller

Alma mater: University of Puget Sound; University of Washington; Temple University; University of Utah

Political party: Republican

Spouse(s): Carole Ann Boone (m. 1979-1986)

Children: 1

Parent(s): Unknown (father); Eleanor Louise Cowell (mother)

Conviction(s): Aggravated kidnapping; Attempted murder; Burglary; Murder; Rape

Criminal penalty: Death by electrocution

Escaped: June 7, 1977 – June 13, 1977; December 30, 1977 – February 15, 1978

Details: Victims—30 confessed, total unconfirmed; span of crimes—February 1, 1974 – February 9, 1978; Country—United States; State(s)—California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington; Date apprehended—August 16, 1975

Many of Bundy's young female victims regarded him as handsome and charismatic—traits he used to win their trust. He would typically approach them in public places faking an injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before he overpowered them and assaulted them in secluded locations. He sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes, grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses until putrefaction and destructions by wild animals made any further interactions impossible. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept some of the severed heads as mementos in his apartment. On few occasions, he broke into dwellings at night while his victims slept and bludgeoned them.

In 1975, Bundy was jailed for the first time when he was incarcerated in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He was a suspect in a longer list of unsolved homicides in several states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults, and three murders, before he was recaptured in Florida in 1978. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two separate trials.

Bundy was executed by electric chair at Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989. Biographer Ann Rule described Bundy 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." He once called himself "the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet." Attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, wrote he was "the definition of heartless evil."

Early Life

Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell (1924-2012; known as Louise) at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont. His father's identity was never determined with any degree of certainty. Bundy's birth certificate assigned paternity to a salesman and Air Force veteran named Lloyd Marshall, but Louise later claimed that she was seduced by "a sailor" whose name may have been Jack Worthington. Years later, investigators would find no record of anyone by that name in Navy or Merchant Marine archives. Some family members expressed suspicions that Bundy may have been fathered by Louise's own violent, abusive father, Samuel Cowell, but no material evidence has ever been cited to support or refute this.