Ted Bundy Biography

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World of Criminal Justice on Ted Bundy

On November 24, 1946, Theodore Robert Cowell was born to the single twenty-two-year-old Eleanor Louise Cowell. At the age of five, Cowell's young son assumed the surname of his new step-father, Johnnie Culpepper Bundy. While he was academically successful as a child, Ted Bundy grew up to be a serial killer.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bundy successfully studied psychology at the University of Washington, sent out applications to attend various law schools across the country, and became active in politics by doing volunteer work for the Republican Party. Bundy also began to lead a secret life: he assaulted and murdered a reported thirty-six women in as many as four states.

During the spring and summer 1974, at least seven female students disappeared in the states of Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Over time, officers investigating these disappearances discovered that many of the missing women shared similarities in appearance and in the circumstances under which they disappeared. The women were all Caucasian and had thin builds; each victim was reportedly wearing slacks at the time of her disappearance; all victims had long hair that was worn parted in the middle. Furthermore, all of the missing women were last seen at night. As the bodies of these women began to be discovered in various remote locations and as more women went missing under similar circumstances, the authorities in Utah, Oregon, and Washington began to work together to find the single person whom they believed to be responsible for these crimes.

On November 8, 1974, Bundy attempted to take yet another victim, eighteen-year-old Carol Durance. Posing as a police officer, Bundy lured Durance into his car. Once inside, Bundy threatened Durance and attempted to handcuff her. Durance managed to escape and was able to inform police officers about the man who attempted to abduct her. Eventually, almost one year after this attempted abduction, police officers arrested Ted Bundy.

On August 16, 1975, Highway Patrol Sergeant Bob Hayward arrested Bundy after a search of his vehicle led to the discovery of pantyhose, a ski mask, a crowbar, an ice pick, and handcuffs. Police officers believed that they had found the person responsible for the numerous murders. Accordingly, the officials attempted to compile sufficient evidence to charge Bundy with murder. With only circumstantial evidence, however, the prosecutors assigned to Bundy's case decided that their best bet of convicting him was by charging him with the attempted abduction of Durance, who would be able to identify him as the perpetrator at trial. Then a law student at the University of Utah, Bundy decided to act as his own counsel at the kidnapping trial. Bundy lost the case and was sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison.

In December of 1977, Bundy managed to escape from prison. Bundy then traveled by train to Florida, where he crept into the Chi Omega sorority house on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee. There, Bundy bludgeoned four women, killing two of them. He also allegedly attacked another woman later the same night. Weeks later, Bundy kidnapped and killed twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach. The police once again arrested Bundy when they discovered him driving in a stolen car in Florida.

Bundy was brought to separate trials in Florida for the three murders that he committed during his escape from his original kidnapping sentence. Again, Bundy acted as his own counsel at the trials. Upon completion of the three trials, Bundy was sentenced to death for all three murders. After a series of unsuccessful appeals of his convictions and sentences within both the state and federal systems over the course of some eleven years, Bundy was finally executed in Florida's electric chair on January 24, 1989. Just prior to his death, Bundy confessed to murdering at least twenty-eight women.