Hello!
Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer.
I'm Kenna. I'm Koelle.
And this is a freaking Newsy!
I keep forgetting my face is painted too.
I know. It looks so cute though.
I got my face painted at work today along with some of the kiddos.
Mine was very minuscule compared to what they all got.
They got like tigers and butterflies and all this really cool stuff.
The admin at work is really good at drawing.
I thought you got a face tattoo when you came home.
I was like, whoa!
He was painting on me. He's like, I'm gonna give you the mic.
Now, Keith.
I love that meme.
Well, welcome back everybody.
It's good to see you guys again.
Or I guess good for you guys to hear us talking again.
Yeah, it's good for you guys.
I know you love yourselves.
Bask in the glory.
But this week you did get a case two days after a mental breakdown.
So that's pretty cool.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, cause it was a little bit of a well, Juneteenth happened.
And then an observation of that.
We didn't have our episodes come out until Tuesday.
So, yeah.
Two days.
Speaking of episodes coming out and where you can listen to us and all that jazz.
If this is your first time listening, we do have a bunch of different platforms on social media at DiagnosingAKiller.
You can shoot us an email at DiagnosingAKiller at gmail.com.
Twitter is at Killer Diagnosis.
And if you feel so inclined, you can donate to the Patreon at patreon.com slash DiagnosingAKiller.
At the Patreon levels, you will get in levels two and three, you will get an additional bonus episode on the 29th of every month,
which is next Thursday or a week from the time that this is going to be released.
And we are actually going to tell you guys who we're doing for that at the end of this episode.
Yeah, you're gonna have to wait.
You're gonna have to wait.
You gotta sit on it.
Did you see Hillary's response to the Instagram post?
Yes.
Oh, it's hilarious.
Amazing.
You're like dead.
I was dead.
I would be dead.
Oh no.
Hinting.
Okay, tell us what you got.
So, we did get an email from a loyal listener.
This is John.
John had listened to the latest episode of the podcast and he had some things to say about screen printing.
Okay.
Specifically when it comes to like hour merch, because I have been guilty of using the word sublimination.
Okay.
John says, on the last episode, talking about the shirt feeling and that it was sublimination,
it may not be.
It depends on where you get it.
If you have a print on demand, it is most likely DTG, which is direct to garment.
Sublimination is similar, but application is different.
So, DTG or direct to garment prints as it says, the printer prints right on the shirt.
Sublimination, however, prints to paper and then is applied via heat to a shirt.
I don't know if that's necessarily a vinyl.
I didn't ask.
I should have.
Sorry, John.
Well iron on.
Yeah, there's a couple of ways.
Like an iron on.
So, yeah, the one that you're feeling is likely screen printing, since the initial costs of
the screen print are high, they don't use that for print on demand, but yeah, he says
he knows way too much about it.
But thank you, John, for educating us on that because I really feel like that's important
so that you guys know the quality of the merch you're getting.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thanks John.
And thanks for listening.
I didn't know John was an active listener.
Yeah.
I wish John.
Okay, we need to get right the fuck into this because it is a fucking day.
Yeah, and I got plans.
I'm kidding.
Where do you gotta be besides listening to my friend here?
I'm so excited.
Okay, so I said that this is gonna be a two pot, huh?
Yes.
I also said that my case this week and again rolling into next week with the two parts
may correlate a little bit with your case or Patreon.
So I'm not gonna give it away here doing the Patreon, but I will say that for my two-parter,
I finally fucking did it.
Kemper?
Bundy.
Bundy?
Bundy.
Oh my lord.
Well, well, well.
I finally fucking did it.
No wonder it's so much research.
I just sat the fuck down and wrote.
I was like, here we go.
Here we fucking go.
He's one of those people where you literally can't overthink his MO or his whole life because
you're like, it's just way too much.
Yeah.
Like you would like, hurt yourself while.
Daddy Teddy.
Daddy Teddy, man.
Ted from the West.
For Ted of the West.
Ted of the West.
So yes, we are going to be talking about Theodore Robert Bundy, aka Ted Bundy, aka a lot of
different nicknames that he has.
Theodore Robert Bundlin.
Bundlin.
The third.
So yes, that is gonna be this episode and then of course part two will be coming out
next week, but let's get this going because it's a lot.
Okay.
So this is a content warning.
This episode contains depictions of child abuse, brutal sexual assault.
If any of these topics make you uncomfortable, this might not be the episode for you.
We encourage you to go listen to another one of our episodes.
Remember your mental health is very important and we love you.
We love you.
Bye.
Wow.
You could have just said everything under the sun.
Yeah.
It's a lot of a content warning and I actually left out some things because there's more,
but it's not gonna come out till part two.
I see.
So I'm not gonna say it in this episode.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
I think so.
Yeah.
Okay.
Are you ready to get into this?
Yes.
Let's fucking do it.
Theodore Ted Robert Cowell was born on November 24th, 1946 to 22-year-old Eleanor Louise Cowell
at the Elizabeth Lund home for unwed mothers in Burlington, Vermont.
Interesting.
Okay.
Already interesting.
It's a lot.
Per sentence.
His biological father's identity has never been confirmed, although his original birth
certificate apparently states that a United States Air Force veteran, Lloyd Marshall,
is the father.
Okay.
So is he what?
Cow- Cowley- Crowley- Cowell.
Cowell is his- Is he Bundy?
Is he- He's Cowell right now.
Okay.
But then the other guy's name was Tom- Marshall?
Marshall?
Yeah.
I almost- Tom Marshall.
I also want to make it clear.
I said Air Force base really like enunciated that time.
Just so that- No, I'm not in front of me.
It's not Air Force base.
So on his birth certificate apparently it claims that this Lloyd Marshall Air Force veteran
is his father.
Okay.
Even with this apparent birth certificate copy, another one exists stating that the
father is unknown.
So there's like two in circulation apparently.
She just said that guy's a stand up dude.
Put him on the birth certificate.
I think so, yeah.
Louise would later claim that she met a war veteran by the name of Jack Worthington who
abandoned her soon after she became pregnant.
So Worthington, Marshall, unknown.
Unknown.
Okay.
So there's a lot of different stories going on.
Yeah.
And she's clearly never been married because that's her maiden name is-
Yeah.
So she had the baby in an Unwed Mother's home as well.
So none of these allegations were ever confirmed and a census was actually done way later on
to see if these men even existed at all.
Ooh.
There were found to be several men by the names of John Worthington and Lloyd Marshall
living near Louise around the time that Ted would have been conceived.
So it was not able to be narrowed down because there's a lot of them.
There's gonna be any of them, yeah.
Some family members even speculated that Louise's own dad may have been the true biological father
of Ted and this is the most widely believed rumor.
However, it was debunked in 2020 when psychiatrist Dorothy Onlowe Lewis, I'm sorry, Otno Lewis
claimed that she received a blood sample of Bundy's and tested it against DNA to determine
that his birth was not the product of incest.
Okay.
But it seems like a lot of people think that and including Ted.
Yeah.
He might have thought that as well.
Because it would have been from the same family line.
Otherwise, yeah, you would see that but I guess she saw that there was another unknown
DNA.
Yeah, absolutely.
And she, I mean, as the mother, God forbid, if that did happen, I mean, I don't think
she would put that on the birth certificate, especially in the 40s.
I mean, a time.
It's not good.
And he's like, let alone the 1940s.
So Ted and his mother would remain in the home for the first two months of his life.
I guess they provided assistance.
So I just want to correct myself really quick.
I've been saying Louise as the name of his mom.
That's her middle name.
Her name's Eleanor.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
So they're both her name, but I've been calling her Louise, but her name's Eleanor.
It's Eleanor.
Correct myself.
Marcus.
So Eleanor thought about putting Ted up for adoption for a while after he was born, but
her father refused to let that happen.
And for the first three years of Ted's life, his maternal grandparents, Samuel Nect Cowell
and Eleanor Miriam Cowell, would raise him in Roxborough, Philadelphia.
Okay.
It's like a lot along huge words.
Right.
The grandparents took over the role as Ted's parents in order to avoid negative stigma
surrounding a baby being born out of wedlock.
They had said that they had adopted him.
Family, friends, and Ted alike were told that his grandparents were his biological parents
and his mother was his older sister.
I get like how people try to protect these kids, but at the same time, like you're only
giving them a fucking complex.
That's the same thing with Berkowitz.
Those were his adoptive parents.
Didn't know that his adoptive mother was sick with terminal fucking cancer.
And then they were like, oh, by the way, your mother's dying of cancer.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
She's been sick for like years.
We just didn't tell you or like six since she was six since he was a little kid.
And then not only that, oh, by the way, she's your adoptive mother.
You don't get that information until she's dead.
No, seriously.
And it's like, you're not protecting them.
You're protecting yourself from having to explain something like that.
Right.
Having to deal with the emotional consequences of that.
Like that's not fucking fair.
Yeah.
I mean, I can't speak.
I don't know that situation.
I don't know anybody that's been in that situation.
I just feel I've had acquaintances that have gone through situations like that and they
feel robbed.
And it's just, it's really sad.
Absolutely.
So it wouldn't be until much later that Ted would find out the truth about his mother.
Some sources state that Ted had told a girlfriend of his that one of his cousins showed him
his birth certificate when he was younger and called him a bastard, which is fucked up.
While other sources stated that Ted told biographers Steven Michael, sorry, Steven Macauld and Hugh
Ainsworth that he had found the birth certificate himself.
Either way, he found out later on as an adult.
Ann Rule, a biographer and true crime writer who had become very close with Ted in his
adult years.
She actually was an old co-worker of his as well.
And we'll get into that.
She stated that he did not find out the truth until 1969 when he found his original birth
certificate in Vermont.
So again, kind of like, and we'll see that a lot like throughout this story.
There's a lot of mixed reviews because Ted was one of those people that like really like
to like get in your head and like make you be like, what?
Like the doopers, like huge doopers.
There's literally no way to tell like what's fact from what's him just making something
up.
Yeah.
Everything that I'm going to write and talk about is like the most widely believed things.
I see.
But it's really no way to tell and we can't ask him.
He loved to just confuse people with information and you know, or try to find like a manipulation
or a bonding with a specific person through, oh, you were growing Vermont, so did I.
Yeah.
And even if we could ask him, who knows if you'd be telling the truth or not.
Right.
So Ted allegedly stated once in an interview about his birth certificate or his birth story,
quote, maybe I just figured out that there couldn't be 20 years difference in age between
a brother and a sister.
And Louise always took care of me.
I just grew up knowing that I just grew up knowing that she really was my mother.
So he called her Louise as well.
Yeah.
That's why it was confusing in the beginning because I think she went by Louise.
So interesting though.
But balls on the people that do stuff like that.
And I'm not in a negative way.
I'm just saying like in order to, because what you're doing is what you're doing is
what you think is best.
Yes.
So to go your entire life having this child call you like your sister and that's your
bio kids.
He calls her just by her first name.
Yeah.
And she was there like that whole time.
That was, that would have been his mother figure, you know.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
So anyway, growing up Ted was raised to believe that his grandparents again were his bio parents
and his mother was his sister.
On the outside, the family seemed super normal and put together, but on the inside, it was
a much different story.
Hmm.
Taylor's all this time.
We always hear this.
Ted's grandmother actually suffered from really bad depression and agoraphobia.
Oh no.
For those that do not know, agoraphobia is the extreme or irrational fear of entering
open or crowded places, of leaving one's home, or of being in places in which escape is
difficult, which is an airplane.
So essentially she was a homebody.
She stayed home all the time.
On top of his grandmother's mental illness, his grandfather had been described as having
a raging temper.
This is just so great.
Starting out really, really solid for Ted here.
According to Dorothy Lewis, again professional psychiatrist, Samuel was a quote, extremely
violent and frightening individual who kicked dogs, swung cats by their tails, and beat
people frequently.
With the cats?
Yeah.
You beat them with the cats?
No.
Gosh, that's awful.
Sorry, just a little bit of comic relief.
It's awful though.
It's one of those things where you're so uncomfortable.
It's really uncomfortable.
Who?
I just can't.
Anybody who treats animals like that, just a piece of shit.
Absolutely.
So this, along with a plethora of other things Ted was exposed to in the household, led him
to begin showing signs of a disturbance at a very early age, at just three years old.
So at the age of three, Ted was reported to have taken all the knives from the kitchen
and placed them all around his Aunt Julia while she was taking a nap.
Oh my God.
That's like even.
I don't like to fuck you.
I don't know.
That's what I was thinking, like a crime scene.
Like a crime scene.
Fuck.
Yes.
At three?
At three.
That's, I mean, that's not typical behavior.
Absolutely not.
So it's not even misconstrued.
That could not even be misconstrued.
There's no way.
You're like, this is what it is.
It's like so much fun.
It's like tinker toys.
So this Aunt Julia reportedly woke up from her nap and took notice of the blades surrounding
her.
Like she was in a fucking freak show.
Right?
Circus.
And of course she also took notice of a young Ted standing very close by pointing at her
and smiling.
Ew.
At three.
I don't know.
There's something about creepy children that like scare me more than creepy adults.
Like if you ever watch like a horror movie like The Child, the creepy one, like it freaks
me out even more.
You just stay there pointing like, ha ha.
Like, what is it?
Nelson.
Oh yeah, Nelson.
Yeah, then his mom's like, was there a raspy as voice like, ha ha.
Creepy.
No, that's awful though.
So according to Julia, this actually happened a few times and she would later state about
this quote, again, the knives, quote, I remember thinking at the time that I was the only one
who thought it was strange.
Nobody did anything.
Ew.
Like, you're three year olds fucking terrorizing me multiple times with knives and they're
like, hey something weird happened over here.
This guy's starting to be with knives.
He's three.
Kids will be kids.
In the same article as this quote, Dr. Lewis was known as saying, quote, only in very seriously
traumatized children who have either themselves been the victims of extraordinary abuse or
have witnessed extreme violence among family members would engage in actions like that.
Yeah.
It's that.
At three.
That's so fucking sad though.
It's taught.
You don't just fucking think of that as a three year old.
Yeah.
Like, three year olds eat like, rollie-pollies.
For real.
Along with the violent outbursts and animal abuse from his grandfather, he was also not
shy about keeping graphic pornography about the home.
Here are we fucking going again.
In the middle of the house.
And then you're going to blame porn for him being a murderer.
That's not what I can have on the back of my toilet tank.
Seriously.
So Ted was noted as having access to these magazines in such at like a very young age
and like all throughout his childhood.
Like it got to the point where like once he was old enough, he would like seek them out
because he wanted to see it again.
Ted would later speak very warmly about his grandparents and he would say that he quote
identified with, respected and clung to his grandfather.
It was respected.
No, that was, that's something.
That's a trauma bond.
Yeah.
Fucking trauma bond.
Yeah.
It's, it's, I need to be accepted by somebody and you seem like you know what you're doing.
Because you're the authoritarian here.
So I'm going to latch on to you because you're my only frame of reference here and I have
no other option but to like whip up in a shape.
He's the only man.
Yeah.
The only man.
And here's the another example of Bundy always kind of counteracting what he says because
he would also tell attorneys later that Samuel, his grandfather was a tyrannical bully
who beat his wife and dog was extremely racist and violent to people and animals.
But I respected him.
Like I respect the fuck out of him.
Yeah.
So I don't know if he was saying like he's all of these things and I respect him.
Yeah.
Or he's all of these things but I respect him.
Or it's just dependent on his mood.
Probably.
I mean, yeah, when it benefits him.
Yes.
Ted had also stated that one time he remembered Samuel throwing Julia down a flight of stairs
for oversleeping.
For sleeping?
Yes.
But then like, I don't want to say it makes sense but I can see in Ted's mind like he
sees his dad treating his aunt this way and then he goes and does the knife thing.
Right.
Like she's clearly the target here.
Yeah.
So she's the one.
She's the one that we're all targeting here.
Yeah.
And that's so awful.
So still talking about the grandfather, Ted would say that Samuel was known for speaking
out loud and to seemingly nobody.
Okay.
Like on occasion.
So perhaps mental illness, perhaps just like rage.
Yeah.
Just kind of like yelling in the air.
Like, this is Ted's account.
Yes.
And he maybe he's just like pissed and he's under his breath and maybe maybe.
And he also said that Samuel was once questioned about the paternity of Ted and he flew into
a rage according to Ted.
So someone asked like, who is that boy's father and the grandfather like freaked out?
Yeah.
But okay.
So two things.
So do you think that Ted said that about his grandfather?
So it looked like that there was a family history of mental illness?
A.
And B, do you think that the question about Ted's father, do you think that he was really
saying maybe he didn't want the identity of his mother to be revealed and that's why he
was upset?
I don't know.
So I don't think that he made up anything mental illness wise about his grandparents
because I think that I was, I obviously didn't put that in here, but there was like other
accounts like from neighbors and stuff that like recognize Samuel's anger or rage at least.
Okay.
So you know what the story was behind his dad or his grandpa getting upset when asked
about the paternity of Ted?
Because that's all it said.
Like it didn't say like why he got upset or if he said anything, it just said that he
flew into a rage.
And again, this is all Ted just like mumbo jumbo just speaking.
He could not have, that could have never happened and we don't know.
Yeah.
Elliot Roger and the Starbucks Cubs.
Exactly.
That sounds like a book title.
The Elliot Roger and the Starbucks Cubs.
So Ted would also later describe his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who underwent
electroconvulsive therapy for depression and feared to leave the home towards the end of
her life.
I need electro therapy after fucking hearing that.
That's ridiculous.
We're barely in.
That's ridiculous.
This is just, he's three.
He's three.
Like this is, I told you.
My third birthday.
Seriously.
Shit.
Electroshock therapy for depression.
Depression.
Okay.
So Ted, towards the end of her life, he said to her agoraphobia got like really bad.
I'm sure.
So around the age of three, again, in 1950, Louise had grown tired of her parents' treatment
of Ted, especially her father, and she decided that her and Ted would both leave the home
together.
Just to be clear, I keep switching between Eleanor and Louise.
She went by Louise, so I'm probably going to refer to her as that.
Okay.
From now on.
But I don't know.
You know, I'm like really particular about like the first real name.
Right.
Ted.
I'm going to call him Ted the whole time.
I'm going to be Teddie.
He's actually Bundy.
Yeah.
So Louise and Ted alike would go by the surname Nelson in order to avoid questions, and the
two would move to Tacoma, Washington and stay with her cousins, Alan and Jane Scott.
Okay.
Ted was noted as being very upset by the move and did not care for their new home or lifestyle.
I mean, he's three.
Why would you want to move away?
Yeah.
If you're three, you don't understand what that means.
In 1951, so a year later, Louise met a hospital cook by the name of Johnny Cole Pepper Bundy
at an adult singles night at Tacoma's first Methodist Church.
Cole Pepper.
Love that.
Ready for the next line?
No.
The two would move away.
They'd get very ill.
The following year, and they would formally adopt Ted, changing his last name to Bundy
permanently.
Okay.
It was known that Ted was very upset and jealous of this relationship, and he actually once
threw a public tantrum in a seers, wetting his pants as part of the production.
Again, he's fucking three.
Whoooa!
Yeah.
Whatever, yeah, whatever will come out to shed himself.
Despite this outburst, Johnny and Louise would go on to have four more children together,
and as much as Johnny tried to include Ted in their activities, Ted and him just did
not have a good relationship.
He just spited him.
He's like, I don't...
Despised him is what I meant to say.
He just didn't care.
Yeah.
Ted, not the dad.
Not the dad.
Whoa.
Ted, not the dad.
That happens to me a lot at the end of the day.
Ted was known as always wanting expensive designer clothing that Johnny simply could
not afford, and Ted despised him for not being able to give him anything and everything he
wanted.
And he's what?
He's like...
Five?
And this is like growing up.
Oh, just growing up.
I see, okay.
Ted would frequently fantasize about being adopted by Western stars, Roy Rogers and Dale
Evans, because they would be able to give him the things that he wanted.
This is Elliot Roger, that's so weird.
Elliot Roger was very much like, oh, my dad chose this modest life over when dude was
like art director for the fucking Hunger Games.
Yeah.
Like, what?
That's a modest...
How much more rich do you want him to be?
He wanted to be really rich.
For real.
As Ted tells it, his childhood was, quote, a mix of football practice, fishing off the
pier with his friends, and sharing countless adventures with his closest pals.
It was the summer of 69.
That's what I have in my head.
It wasn't yet, but it just sounds so classic American, you know?
So one of his childhood neighbors growing up, her name is Sandy Holt, she would describe
Ted much differently, stating, quote, he liked to terrify people.
He liked to be in charge.
He liked to inflict pain and suffering and fear.
So he's like, I was just going down to the soda fountain with my buddies and we were
just skipping rocks in the pond.
And he's like, no, you were torturing people.
I saw you swing that cat by its tail.
Yes.
She would continue on during an interview, quote, it was not a happy childhood for Ted.
He wasn't one of the guys.
He was skinny and very girly looking, and he only accentuated it by wearing really short
shorts and boys didn't wear short shorts, girls did.
What year was this?
I think this is like in the fifth, like maybe like late fifties.
Okay.
So I guess it wasn't that common for men to be wearing short shorts.
Maybe he thought he was European.
Maybe he was going for the European look.
Maybe so.
I think it was fashionable.
It was at, I don't know.
I don't know.
It was in Milan.
He was just trying to be cool.
Yeah.
So Sandy would continue to live close to Ted until the age of 15.
And she would also state, quote, for a long time he had a horrible speech impediment and
some words he just plain couldn't pronounce.
So it was very hard to understand him.
Oh, I know it sucks, dude.
It's like breaking my heart.
This guy's got zero chance of survival here.
She would also recall one of Ted's particularly violent acts as a child.
Like the nimes weren't enough.
I'm sorry.
This is worse.
Okay.
Quote, he hung one of the stray cats in the neighborhood from one of the clotheslines in
the backyard, doused it in lighter fluid and set it on fire.
And I heard that cat squealing.
And by the time somebody got out there with a hose, the cat was gone.
That was just too much shock for the poor thing.
Yeah.
And quote.
Yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't an idea.
It was just me.
It was horrible.
Like when you said that he hung a cat up on a wire, I thought you meant he like the cat
was dead.
Yeah.
No, it was alive.
He like hung it by like its legs or something.
I think.
Horrid.
Yeah.
That is fucking appalling.
Yeah.
It outside in like the front yard, like just in the neighborhood, like no one fucking is
around.
Let me guess.
No one did anything.
Oh, fucking no.
Of course not.
Mandy would go on to comment on Ted's bullying of young kids in the neighborhood woods stating
quote, he'd take them out there and strip them down, take their clothes.
You'd hear them screaming for blocks.
I mean, no matter where we were here, we could hear them screaming.
What?
And nothing was done again.
So he would take.
Boys will be boys.
Yeah.
He would like take younger boys into the woods, strip them naked and then run away with their
clothes and then they would be naked having like get home.
I mean, we used to kind of do that when people would skinny dip.
But in the middle of the night and you're all skinny, you're all the same age and it's
funny to throw somebody's clothes like a parent trap moment.
Yeah.
Where they have to run all the way up, you know, towards the cars to get there.
That's different though.
That's not like hazing.
That's not children.
Oh, God, that's awful.
Yeah, it's terrible.
The refusal to make nice with his new family and friends called Ted caused Ted to experience
more severe mental health issues around this time as well.
So I'm sure you've heard me say Dr. Lewis a bunch of times, she's going to keep coming
up.
So just remember that's the psychiatrist in the beginning.
So it was around this time that Dr. Lewis hypothesized that Ted's childhood in Tacoma
was riddled by a bipolar mood disorder causing random and sometimes violent mood swings.
So very young mental illness, hypothesization by, uh, hypothesization, however you say that
word, by a doctor.
Hypothesis.
I don't know.
But the psychiatrist would later agree that Ted suffered from a mood disorder, something
that they would bring to trial way later on.
Okay.
Ted's social life was also lacking in school and according to some peers, he was teased
a lot for his speech impediment and the fact that he could not keep up with his fellow
male classmates.
Ted would ultimately hear the rumors that were being talked about him later in life
and comment, quote, I hear this, that I used to jump out from behind bushes and scare my
friends and I mean, come on, give me a break.
Jumping out from behind bushes was never my thing.
People, I know, quote, people won't want to feel like they've been fooled, like they
know someone and yet they didn't know them.
People are fishing around.
They want a hook.
They want a smoking gun.
They want cause and effect and it's not going to be there.
End quote.
So he thinks that because somebody testified that he would jump out and scare people when
he was buying a bush meant that they were saying like falsehoods about him and this is, this
is not, come on, I would never do that.
It's one of those things where he's like, yeah, I strangled all those people, but I
would never fucking hide behind a bush.
That's so dumb.
I'm like a live cat on a fucking clothes hanger.
Yeah, I did that.
A clothesline.
I did that, but I jumping out of bushes, not my style.
Like, why are you worried about that?
He's like bragging.
Exactly.
Which is gross.
He's like, that's like petty.
Like that's like not cool enough.
It's beneath me.
Although Ted was described as shy and introverted, he was also described as narcissistic and
egotistical, which is not really things that you see paired a lot.
He considered himself above the law when he reached his teen years, like they usually
do.
Well, he had never, nothing had ever happened.
That's true.
Nothing had ever come to fruition.
He's been terrorizing people for fucking years, killing cats and all kinds of neighborhood
animals and torturing the kids and no trouble.
Of course he grew up that way.
And at the age of 15, he would have been involved, excuse me, in criminal experiences
while stealing an array of items.
So he stated around this time that he would roam around his neighborhood and pick through
trash barrels looking for any photos of naked women that he could find.
Like yeah, you're going to find that in every person's trash.
I'm going to be, yeah.
I'm going through trash barrels to look for porn.
And if they're decent photos, why would they be in the trash?
Yeah, exactly.
No one's throwing that shit out.
They end up porn establishments back there.
That's where you go look for the trash.
Yeah, right.
I don't know.
He would also admit to biographers, again, Steven and Hugh from earlier, that he would peruse
any detective magazines, crime novels, and true crime documentaries he could get his
hands on, and especially lean towards ones that depicted sexual violence and deceased
women.
Okay.
So he would like research true crime.
Like we're doing right now.
Yeah.
I don't know.
However, in a differing story, he would later tell biographer and true crime writer Ann
Ruhl, remember his old co-worker, these three sets of people are going to keep coming up.
So yeah, I'm just going to keep reminding you.
Which is great.
I like the way that you've structured it honestly.
Yeah.
It's definitely, we're getting all of the detail for that period of his life.
We don't find this out later.
You know?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So he would tell Ann Ruhl again in a differing story that he quote, never ever read fact
detective magazines and shuddered at the thought that anyone would.
So you're telling these biographers that you did that and now you're telling Ann that you
didn't and that's beneath him.
That's beneath me.
Again, completely differing.
I have my own brain.
I don't need to look at that shit.
Right?
In the same interview with Stephen and Hugh, he would admit that he consumed large quantities
of alcohol and would quote, canvass the community late at night in search of undraped windows
where he could observe women undressing or quote, whatever else could be seen.
Like chicks clipping their toenails?
Yeah.
Like what are you looking for specifically?
It was around this time that some experts say Ted began to escalate his criminal activity
due to changes in his mind.
Psychologist Al Carlisle stated about these acts quote, he started fantasizing about women
he saw while window peeping or elsewhere and mimicking the accents of some politicians
he listened to on the radio.
In essence, he was fantasizing about being someone else, someone important.
And quote.
Okay.
And if anybody listening knows about Ted Bundy, you know that he's super into politics later
in his life.
It's just interesting that he comments it on that at a young age.
I don't, I'm sure you're going to touch on that at some point, but didn't he want to
be a lawyer?
Yeah, he went to law school.
Oh, he did?
Yeah.
Well, he didn't finish law school.
Spoilers.
The criminologist and doctor Scott Bond would recognize that this time of early stalking
correlated with other serial murderers such as Dennis Rader or BTK and Joseph DiAngelo
or the Golden State Killer.
Panty Rader.
Because they both did these things as well.
Dennis Panty Rader.
I'll never forget it.
He would state about this quote, it's a violation of privacy and it does lend itself to power
and control.
Bundy and BTK were all about power and domination and control.
End quote.
How to get that out.
In some interviews, Ted would describe himself as a purposeful loner as an adolescent, stating
that he quote, chose to be alone, end quote, because he was unable to understand interpersonal
relationships.
I guess, and that makes sense because as we'll find out in part two, but all kind of pepper
in here now is that a lot of people have diagnosed him as a psychopath, which is like not really,
it's kind of like a redundant statement.
But that, the fact that he can say like, I don't understand interpersonal relationships
and just know that to be true, but also like admit it, like that's honestly like a sign
of being like an empathy-less person.
Well, that's interesting that he says that because he tries to emulate it.
Yes, you know what I mean?
Yes, like he knows he's not capable of doing it, but he emulates it really well.
Well, and that's one of the scary things about him is that he can fake it.
And like a lot of those emotions are really hard to fake, but not for him.
He would claim that he had no real idea of how to obtain a real friendship with peers,
stating quote, I didn't know what made people want to be friends.
I didn't know what underlay social interactions, end quote.
Despite these claims, classmates of Ted's at Woodrow Wilson High School would state that
Ted was quote, well-known and well-liked, calling him a quote, medium-sized fish and
a large pond.
Interesting, right?
Like he's like a twerp, but they were like, yeah, he just seemed like an average person.
Yeah, he's pretty making his way downtown, walking fast, faces fast.
He's like, I can't make any friends.
Sandy, childhood friend, or childhood neighbor, would recall about this time quote, he tried
to fool you and lie to you.
He wasn't athletic.
He wanted to be the number one in the class, but he wasn't, end quote.
So again, deceitful.
He's like, they're making up lies about me.
Ted would later state as well, there's a lot of quotes, so quote, some people perceive
me as being shy and introverted.
I didn't go to dances.
I didn't go on the beer drinking outings.
I was a pretty, you might call me straight, but not a social outcast in any way.
Like he's saying he's like straight edge.
Yeah, yeah, end quote.
Well, that wasn't it.
You didn't say like he's saying you straight out.
It's just a mainstream term.
We're not really anymore.
As far as girls around this time goes, Ted would later state quote, it wasn't that I
disliked women or were afraid of them.
It was just that I didn't seem to have an inkling as to what to do about them, end quote.
God, it's so Elliot Roger.
I'm so sorry.
Like I hate comparing the two so much, but it sounds I was thinking that too when I was
researching this.
I feel that way about Elliot Roger that I don't think that it was that he had an
actual attraction to women.
I think that it was the idea behind it, like what made sense societally and then for him
not to, to he built it up in his head that he was being rejected.
You know, and then, but Timothy Mve was also that way too, remember where he's like, no,
this is a decision I'm making and do with people not being attracted to me.
So although Ted didn't play any significant sports after not making the school basketball
or baseball teams, he was known as being very good at downhill skiing, something he would
pursue seriously while using stolen equipment and forged lift tickets.
Okay.
So he's got a hobby.
While he was in high school, Ted was arrested twice on suspicion of burglary and motor vehicle
theft.
These charges would later be expunged when Ted turned 18 due to current laws at the time.
So he had lots of hobbies, not just skiing.
Yeah, exactly.
He's breaking burglary.
Burglaring, turd burglaring.
Yeah, Ted burglaring.
Ted burglaring.
After graduating high school in 1965, Ted went on to attend the University of Puget Sound
for one year before transferring to the University of Washington to study Chinese.
Interesting.
So you really into just Chinese culture?
I guess.
I'm not sure.
I didn't really elaborate.
That was like something he was really interested in, at least studying the language.
In 1967, he would become romantically involved with fellow classmate, Diane Edwards, who
was referred to commonly in his documentaries as Stephanie Brooks.
Okay.
Why?
An alias, kind of like a pseudonym, I guess, just to...
But now that it's public record, I felt like it was appropriate for you to use her real
name.
But I will be referring to her as Stephanie because it's the most common name that she's
known by.
Okay.
So anybody that's listening that's like, Diane, that doesn't make sense.
It's not the person.
It's Stephanie.
Okay.
So when he was described as a beautiful young girl with long dark hair that she wore in
a middle part, we all know that's like the classic Ted Bundy thing.
Is it?
He loves that.
Oh yeah.
I didn't know that.
He was all about the long dark hair with the middle part.
And I'll just go ahead and say this.
At his execution plot twist, there was women outside that purposely did their hair like
that.
Died it.
They wanted to look like his victims.
It was really gross.
Oh, like a fan club?
Yes.
Ew.
I thought they meant like haunting him.
You know?
Oh, gross.
Yeah.
They like loved him.
Ew.
I'll talk about that in part two.
Okay.
I don't like that.
I know.
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While Ted fell very hard and fast for Stephanie, she seemed to view the relationship as more
of like a casual affair.
Still dating Stephanie but not believing he was in the right spot, Ted would shortly
drop out of college and return back to the East Coast in 1968.
He would work a series of minimum wage jobs but quickly found himself very interested
in politics and would volunteer at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential
campaign.
He would also become Arthur Fletcher's driver and bodyguard during his campaign for lieutenant
governor of Washington state.
It's a bodyguard.
Just thinking about his campaign and be like, don't get caught dead, not voting for Ted.
Seriously.
It's like if you don't vote for me, you're gonna be sorry.
The same year, Ted would receive a scholarship to study Chinese at Stanford University that
summer.
Beginning in August, Ted would attend the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami
as a Rockefeller delegate.
Don't be a cunt, vote for Bundy.
A cuntie.
Shortly after this, Stephanie would ultimately break up with Ted just a year into their relationship,
describing his immaturity and lack of ambition as the main reasons.
Dr. Lewis would later hypothesize that this may have been quote, the pivotal time in his
development.
End quote.
Again, the breakup.
Ted was absolutely devastated by this breakup and he decided to move to Colorado at first
and then further east, first to Arkansas to visit relatives and then to Philadelphia
where he enrolled in Temple University to study law.
So very clearly trying to find a place that he feels like he belongs.
This is around the time that it's thought that Ted found out the true nature of his
conception or at least that his quote sister was actually his mother.
So again, when he moved back, he was kind of like with relatives and find the birth certificate.
That story is kind of, you know, iffy.
Yet another failed attempt at a degree would leave Ted traveling back to Washington by
the fall of 1969.
After returning, he would meet a woman by the name of Elizabeth Klopfer.
She was commonly referred to by multiple names in his various documentaries, similarly to
Stephanie, including Meg Anders, Beth Archer, and Liz Kendall.
So he just gives them aliases?
I don't think so.
I think it was like originally to protect their identities, but now that it's public
record so many years later, then we know their real names.
Or who knows, it could have very well been Bundy using different names for these women
because he didn't want people to know his true story.
Exactly.
I don't know exactly why, but I just know I want to give all the information I can.
But I'm going to refer to her as Liz.
So Liz was a single mother from Ogden, Utah, who was working as a secretary at the UW School
of Medicine.
She was raising a three-year-old daughter named Molly when she met Ted, and he would
quickly become a father figure to the young girl.
Unfortunately, the cycle of abuse did not end with Ted, and he would be accused years
later by Molly of sexually and physically assaulting her from a young age.
She would also state that Ted hit her in the face, knocking her down, put her at risk of
drowning, involved her in indecent exposure, and would commonly disguise sexual assault
as accidents or games.
What?
Which is fucked up.
Jesus.
I'm sorry.
I had to react one more time.
In mid-1970, Ted would re-enroll in the University of Washington, seemingly changing his tune
to goal-oriented and focused.
This time he would be pursuing a psychology degree.
He would be able to turn his college career around and ended up becoming a highly regarded
honors student among the professors.
In 1971, he would begin a new job at Seattle's Suicide Hotline Crisis Center, and while working
there, he would meet fellow co-worker Ann Rule.
It all comes from a circle.
It all comes from a together.
The arts are all through from a little bit.
Obviously, this name sounds familiar.
As we know, Ann was an old co-worker of Bundy's.
She was a former police officer at the time as well, but was an aspiring true crime writer
who would later become very well known for her biography of Ted entitled The Stranger
Beside Me.
Hmm.
It's actually really good.
Didn't they make a movie on that too?
I think so, yeah.
This would not become apparent to Ann until much later, however, and she admitted to not
seeing anything disturbing about Ted's personality at first, and in fact, referred to him as,
quote, kind, solicitous, and empathetic.
Okay.
After graduating with his psychology degree in 1972, Ted immediately joined Governor
Daniel J. Evans' reelection campaign.
Oh, hard, that's a hard sentence.
It's a lot.
Part of his job included posing as a college student and shadowing Evans' opponent, former
Governor Albert Rosalini.
He would record his speeches and return them to Evans' campaign for analysis, which is
like, that's like, what's it like, sly, like, you know, like, due to his, yeah, sneaky, due
to his great helpfulness, Ted was appointed to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee
by Evans himself.
Crime Prevention Committee.
Who else was like that?
Somebody else was like that.
BTK.
BTK, yeah, he was part of Neighborhood Watch, right?
Remember he like arrested like Paula Deen's dog, not Paula Deen, what's her name?
Dog?
Barbara Walters.
Remember he like gave her a ticket because her dog was like, oh, I was just joking.
I said, arrested.
Yeah, blah, blah.
I don't want Paula Deen.
What the fuck?
Paula Deen.
Is that the barefoot contestant?
I have no idea.
Okay.
After Evans was reelected, he would hire Ted as an assistant to Ross Davis, chairman of
the Washington State Republican Party.
Davis recalled thinking very highly of Ted and described him as, quote, smart, aggressive,
and a believer in the system.
Yeah, you just want a fucking follower.
Yeah.
That's all you want.
Yeah.
Someone that's not going to question you.
In early 1973, despite average LSAT scores, Ted was accepted into the law schools of UPS
and the University of Utah.
I don't know, UPS had a law school.
I'm kidding.
It's Seattle University School of Law.
Okay.
So they didn't have to wear brown shorts.
Yeah.
I thought that too.
I was like, what the hell?
What the hell is that?
So again, he had average LSAT scores, but he was able to get into two of these schools,
mostly due to highly strong recommendation letters from both Evans and Davis and several
professors from the University of Washington.
In the summer of 1973, Ted went on a business trip to California with the Republican Party.
And who would he run into but his old girlfriend, Stephanie?
Stephanie was so surprised when she reconnected with the man in front of her.
Gone was this lack of motivation and this was a whole new look for Ted.
Stephanie jumped at the opportunity to rekindle their relationship and Ted had no reservations
about it himself.
Yeah.
He didn't want to break up in the first place.
Ted would begin to see Stephanie again, all the while maintaining his relationship with
Liz and her child.
Okay.
It was like, what was his name?
Fernando.
Raymond Fernandez?
Raymond Fernandez.
Yes.
Fernando.
We're gonna just break down to Lady Gaga.
That's Alejandro.
Oh, okay.
My bad.
Fernando Alejandro.
Yeah.
Sounds similar.
Yeah.
While he was attending school, Ted would frequently see Stephanie and she would even come visit
him numerous times in Seattle and stay with him.
The two would even discuss getting married and at one point, he even introduced Stephanie
to Ross Davis as his fiance.
All the while dating Liz.
All the way, yeah.
Yeah.
In January of 1974, Ted abruptly cut off all contact with Stephanie.
Her phone calls and letters were left unanswered.
Oh, I'd be pissed.
I'd be fucking pissed.
She would continue to try and contact him for nearly a month until she finally got through.
Once he answered, Stephanie demanded to know why he had cut contact off with her so suddenly
and without explanation.
I figured it would be the girlfriend that would answer the phone.
Classic.
Ted was noted as responding in a flat, calm voice.
Quote.
Man, I have no idea what you mean.
I have no idea.
And just hung up the phone.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Yes.
Ah.
Ah, I'd be so fucking pissed.
She would never hear from Ted again after this.
I would shit in a paper bag and light it on fire on his phone.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I'm surprised she didn't try to go to his house.
Yeah.
Like she had stayed with him so many times, you know?
It's true.
When questioned years later about this, Ted's response was, quote, I just wanted to prove
to myself that I could have married her.
Oh my God.
That's so fucked up.
It's so manipulative.
It's so fucked up.
I hate that.
I hate that so much.
Oh my God.
My whole body is like, it's so tense right now.
That's disgusting, right?
Just to prove that I could.
Fuck.
Just to see if I could.
Stephanie would disagree, stating that she believed that Ted had deliberately planned
the entirety of rekindling, the relationship, and breaking up with her in order to get back
at her for leaving him years prior.
I don't doubt it.
I don't doubt it at all.
I don't either.
Around this same time, Ted had begun skipping classes at law school, and by April, he had
stopped attending entirely.
This is so strange to me because it's like he was doing so well with the politics and
then all, it's like a fucking switch flipped.
And all of a sudden he's like trying to get back at his girlfriend or whatever and then
dropping out of school again.
It's very interesting that you say that because even when he went into school, it was very
like, I'm going to be a politician.
I'm going to be a lawyer.
And it's just, it's interesting.
And it's kind of happened before where we've seen this where as soon as someone moves,
they start a brand new life, new career, everything.
And he's done it at least twice now.
Yes.
But he hasn't moved this time.
He hasn't moved, but he's moved like relationships.
That's true.
And he's moved colleges.
You know what I mean?
That's true.
Yeah.
Around this time as well, young women began to disappear all along the Pacific Northwest.
So we're going to talk about Ted's victims.
There is a lot that goes into his life at the time.
If it's anything like for the sake of brevity, I'm not going to put every single fucking
detail because this is a long case.
But if there's anything that we need to know, it'll probably be in part two because right
now like for the end of this episode, we're just going to talk about victims.
So just get ready to buckle in.
Ted Bundy's first known and confirmed victim was killed in 1974, but he was actually suspected
of earlier killings.
In the middle of the night on August 31st, 1961, eight year old Ann Marie Burr disappeared
from her Tacoma home.
1961.
At the time, a 14 year old Ted Bundy lived a few miles away.
It is suspected that he had been spying on people's homes that night and saw an opportunity
in the form of this girl that he could not resist due to his violent tendencies escalating.
At the Burr home, an unlocked front door, an open window, and a footprint were among
the few clues left, and Ann's parents and sister were also in the home when she vanished.
Ann's mother would comment that she felt like it was very likely that her daughter
had known her abductor and it is thought that Ted may have met Ann while on his newspaper
route or even visiting an uncle who lived in her neighborhood.
So I mean, it had a shoe print.
How big was this shoe?
Well, yeah, it was a 14, 14 year old size shoe.
Yeah, I don't know what 14 year olds wear, my bad.
The fact that there were other people in the home correlates to some of Ted's later victims,
crime scenes, but this is, again, circumstantial.
I didn't say it earlier, but it's circumstantial.
I think I had a size 9 or 10 when I was 14.
I take back what I said.
The same shoe size that I have now.
Ted would ultimately deny responsibility for Ann's disappearance while taking accountability
for others, even when Ann's mother wrote him a letter asking for closure before his
execution.
So it is unclear if he really didn't have anything to do with it or if he was lying.
So experts think that if he was responsible for this crime, he may not have been willing
to admit that he was because the crime took place while he was still living at home.
So there's one thing they're like, because we know he has a weird respect for his grandparents,
regardless of what they put him through.
Well, and he's already like, well, I would never hide in that bush, but maybe it wasn't
his best job, quote unquote.
So he was like, oh, I'm not even going to take credit for that because it's sloppy or
something.
Yeah, but it's just very interesting to me because he was all about taking credit for
a lot of other shit.
Or he keeps that one very personal because it's his first.
Exactly.
Nonetheless, existing evidence did not contain enough comparable DNA to be a match to Ted.
It is also noted that he told different stories to each and every person he spoke with about
his early crimes.
So unfortunately, there's really no way to know what's true and what's false.
He told attorney and author Paulie 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.
He told psychologist Art Norman that he killed two women in Atlantic City while visiting
family in Philly in 1969.
He hinted to homicide detective Robert Keppel that he committed a murder in Seattle in 1972
and another murder in 1973 that involved a hitchhiker near Tombwater, but he refused
to elaborate.
What we know for sure is that Ted Bundy's earliest documented homicides were committed
in 1974 when he was just 27 years old.
And by his own admission, he had mastered the necessary skills to leave minimal and
incriminating evidence even before DNA profiling.
What's the point of...
Okay, so he's not going to admit to killing the little girl, right?
The six-year-old.
Eight.
Eight-year-old.
I thought he said she was six.
Eight.
She scrolled up like slightly silently.
Okay, so the eight-year-old, right?
He didn't admit to that, but why would he hint that he committed all these other crimes?
Like, it's just so...
He's just a fucker.
Yeah, and I keep asking questions like we know the answers, but only he does.
Well, and that's the thing, like, he was in custody for a while before he got executed,
so he had all this time to just fucking make shit up, you know what I mean?
Like, he just likes to fuck with people.
Like, he likes to toy people's minds.
Only after midnight on January 4th, 1974, around the time that Ted had broken up with
Stephanie, he would enter the basement apartment of 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a dancer and
student at the University of Washington.
In the documentaries, this woman is often referred to as Joni Lenz, Mary Adams, and
Terry Caldwell.
Ted would begin his assault on Karen by bludgeoning her with a metal rod from her bed frame before
sexually assaulting her with what experts believe to have either been the same rod or
a metal speculum.
This would cause extensive internal damage.
Obviously.
Ted would leave the home shortly after this, resulting in Karen being badly injured but
alive.
Oh my god.
She would be rushed to the hospital where she would spend 10 days unconscious, and although
she would survive her attack, it would leave her with severe physical disabilities.
Oh my god, that's awful.
46 years later, I just got full body heaps.
In January of 2020, Karen Sparks spoke out about her attack.
She recalled that night, quote, he came into my home, took a frame off of my bed and smashed
my skull, and he probably used the same bed frame and smashed it into my vagina and into
my bladder.
My bladder was totally split, end quote.
Like being able to say that in an interview 46 years later, so powerful.
She then stated that it took nearly 20 hours before her roommate discovered her, stating,
quote, Bob thought I was still sleeping.
It was horrible for him to find me that way.
Could you imagine that?
I can't even imagine that.
I cannot even imagine that.
And especially if you just thought your roommate was sleeping.
Yes.
You know, and just, I don't know, just having that gut instinct like something was wrong
or something, and then checking on that person.
Well, imagine, thankfully, obviously she's alive, but imagine if she was passed on and
then that guilt that he would have felt if he had known she was there for 20 hours before
he, yeah, awful.
Well, I mean, just even then it's kind of just interesting that she would even have
a roommate, you know, or something.
I mean, just that's just, yeah.
The extent of her injuries resulted in permanent brain damage with significant loss to her
vision and hearing.
She stated, quote, I have a horrible ringing and roaring in my ears, just constant, end
quote.
Oh, I know.
I have that image of him yelling.
I know.
I've never heard like that rage that she must have seen on his face.
Seriously.
It's, oh, it's haunting.
She also stated that she frequently has epileptic fits following her attack, but she was able
to overcome them.
Following her attack, Karen stated that she, quote, wanted to keep quiet.
I wanted to have my own life in privacy.
Women like us, women that have been attacked, women that have been raped, when they are
survivors, they keep their secrets to themselves.
I don't know why we're taught to get on with it.
End quote.
I know.
I almost heard her crying.
I know.
I literally have to hold my breath.
Karen waited nearly 50 years to tell her story, a story that her own immediate family
did not know until she spoke out.
They didn't even know that she had been attacked by Ted Bundy.
I think that her like, maybe her parents and stuff, but her, she has children and her children
did not know anything about this until 2020.
It makes sense as to why there was other aliases besides just ones that he would use.
But she testified against him in court?
No.
She didn't speak out about it until 2020.
I didn't realize the truth.
I thought you said like, she went through the court proceedings, but she had never spoke
out about it.
I might be mistaken.
I haven't gotten into the research.
Oh, I see.
Honestly, I'd be mistaken.
Don't quote me on that, but I will make sure to clarify in part two.
Just then a month later, in the early morning hours of February 1st, 1974, Ted broke into
the basement room of Linda Ann Healy, a senior at the University of Washington.
Linda spent her extracurricular activities broadcasting the morning radio, Weather Sports
for Skiers.
It's widely believed that Ted first spotted Linda and some friends at a nearby bar named
Dante's Tavern and likely followed them back to their home.
He would then wait until all of the women were asleep and would break into the home.
Linda was hit over the head in order to subdue her, and Ted carried her unconscious body
to his vehicle shortly after.
Around 5am the next morning, one of Linda's roommates woke up to the sound of Linda's
alarm clock going off.
This was not unusual as Linda was commonly getting up very early to get to her job.
The roommate noticed that this was particularly unusual, however, as Linda never slept through
her alarm.
The roommate checked Linda's room, but she was nowhere to be found.
She was concerned, however, she just brushed it off, thinking that maybe somehow Linda
just forgot to turn the alarm off.
As the day went on, Linda's roommates and now family members were growing in their concerns.
The roommates had since investigated the home and noticed that the back door was unlocked
and that there was blood on Linda's bed.
They would phone police in the evening on February 1st, but unfortunately it would not be of
any help.
The details of what happened after Ted abducted Linda are not known, however, what we do know
is that Linda was beaten so badly that it caused her death.
Ted would then dress the woman's body in blue jeans, a white blouse, and boots, and
leave her remains on Taylor Mountain.
He dressed her.
He changed her clothes.
This would become one of many areas that Ted Bundy would leave his victims' bodies on
Taylor Mountain.
During the first six months of 1974, female college students were disappearing at a rate
of about one per month.
Could you imagine living in that fucking time?
I know I've said that a billion times in this episode.
Could you imagine?
But I mean, it's just, I can't even begin to comprehend what that must feel like, having
that anxiety on a daily basis.
On March 12th, 1974, this is all going to be 1974, 19-year-old Evergreen State College
student Donna Gale Manson vanished.
She was last seen leaving her dorm at the college in Olympia, 60 miles southwest of
Seattle, heading to attend a jazz concert on campus, but she would never arrive.
So this is 60 miles southeast, or southwest, excuse me, of Seattle, like he traveled.
Before she left for the night, her roommates noticed that Donna seemed very focused on
her appearance, even going as far as to change outfits several times.
This led the roommates to think that perhaps she was meeting a guy while she was out, but
this was not confirmed by Donna.
Unfortunately, this gave way for her disappearance to go unnoticed for a short period of time,
because they thought she might have spent the night at this man's house or something.
It seems as though Donna was abducted by Ted while on the way to campus to attend this
event, and it is believed that he was somehow able to coax her into his vehicle, something
that would also become a frequent part of his MO.
Donna's route from her dorm to the campus has since been mapped out, and it suggests
that she took a route, I said route and then route, route that would have taken no longer
than two minutes to walk.
What?
So between her dorm and campus, two minutes she was abducted.
Wow.
This led investigators to believe that Ted absolutely knew that he wanted to abduct
her and knew her schedule.
Or because she was getting dressed up or whatever, like I'm going to pick you up for a date.
Let me pick you up for a date.
Meet me right here.
Ted would frequently park his yellow Volkswagen Beetle in quiet areas away from any potential
witnesses.
And since Donna's walk was through kind of like a wooded or like kind of vegetated area,
this was his plan.
Do you think that he went to go like attack her in the woods?
Sorry, I keep interrupting.
No, I don't actually know.
Not in the woods, kind of a wooded area, but like he parked away and then knew she was
going to be trying to meet him or find him.
I don't think she knew him or maybe, you know, I don't know because he had so many different
MO's like he would pretend like he was injured and he needed help or he would befriend someone
and ask them on a date or he would just abduct someone that he knew her routine because he
had been stalking her.
It's just there's so many different options that it could have been.
And let's be honest, like it's the 70s, people are not very afraid of hitchhiking or getting
cars with strangers.
That's not really a concern at this point.
Especially in, well, this is Seattle area.
Yeah, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, California was the thing about that.
California, especially, yeah.
When Donna failed to return to her dorm that night, her roommates did not believe anything
was amiss.
Donna was a free spirit who would often hitchhike and was very independent, so it did not strike
her roommates as odd when she didn't immediately return.
However, six days later, they figured that she should have been home at some point and
they began to worry.
The roommates would report her missing on March 18th, but news of her disappearance did
not hit the media until March 22nd.
Okay, four days later.
The newspaper article reads, quote, Olympia, foul play is suspected of the disappearance
of a co-ed from the Evergreen State College, according to the Thurston County Sheriff's
Department.
Inspector Charles Grafe said Friday that Donna G. Manson, 19 of Auburn, has been missing
from a dorm at the college for 10 days.
Miss Manson told roommates that she was going to attend a jazz concert March 12th at the
college.
She failed to appear at the concert and has not been heard from since.
The missing girl is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lyle E. Manson of Auburn.
End of quote.
I just think it's interesting to have like the news article lined out.
Following Donna's disappearance, search teams combed the 990-acre campus on four separate
occasions each time with up to 200 people assisting.
Unfortunately, no remains or evidence were ever located.
No evidence either.
I was expecting at least like a shoe or a bracelet or something.
Nothing.
He's wicked smart.
Wicked smart.
Like he really is.
Because Donna had an interest in, quote, unusual subjects such as alchemy and death, police
actually initially believed that her disappearance was really a suicide.
What?
Yeah.
But they didn't have any reference point.
They were like, well, she was into like really weird stuff.
So like she probably committed suicide.
I'm serious.
That's also very classic 70s.
Oh yeah.
Like everything's Satanism.
Yeah.
However, this was quickly ruled out and she would later be confirmed as the third victim
of Ted Bundy.
On April 17th, Suzanne Elaine Rancourt was on her way to her dorm after an evening advisors
meeting at Central Washington State College in Ellensburg, 100 miles southeast of Seattle.
So farther.
Susan had put in a load of laundry before leaving for the meeting and when she did not
return to retrieve her items, it became clear that something was amiss.
According to investigators, the most possible scenario is that Ted spotted Susan while she
was leaving the meeting at around 10 PM.
Two female students would later come forward and report encounters having to do with the
case, one on the night of Susan's disappearance and another from three nights prior.
They both stated that a man wearing a sling was walking around and asked them for help
carrying a load of books to his brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.
A sling like his arm was like an a sling.
Yeah, like his elbow was broken or something.
But he, that yeah.
Okay.
A man in a sling decided to go ahead and just carry some bulky ass items.
Yes.
It's just funny.
They thought that he was attempting to abduct one or both of those girls and they declined
his advance.
They were like, oh no, sorry, whatever.
And they kind of got away.
Investigators believe that he did the same act with Susan, whom he dropped his books
in front of.
And when this happened, Susan offered to assist him.
She was a nice girl.
Jesus.
This guy.
I know.
As Susan was leaning into the car trying to put the books in for him, Ted hit her over
the head with a crowbar, knocking her unconscious.
He then placed her body in the car and drove away.
Shortly after she was reported missing, an ad for any information on Susan hit the paper.
Quote, 18 years old, white, female, American, height, five feet, two inches, weight, 118
pounds, blue eyes, blonde shoulder length hair.
Susan was last seen in Ellensburg Wednesday, April 17th at 10 p.m.
She has not called home, her residence hall at Central Washington State College, any of
her known friends, or has been seen with anyone since Wednesday.
She was last seen wearing a bright yellow fingertip length ski jacket, no hood, yellow
short sleeve sweater, gray corduroy pants, brown hush puppy type shoes.
If you have last seen Susan or anyone resembling her, please call.
End quote.
Which like, that sounds like a dope ass outfit, honestly.
Yeah, it's not really cute.
But she's blonde and she has blue eyes, which is very different than his typical vehicle.
Yeah, has been different so far.
So no wonder like his MO is like all over the radar.
Yes, exactly.
They would also offer a $1,000 reward for any information.
Unfortunately, this information would not come for many years later in the form of a
contestion from one Ted Bundy.
Oh, so they never even found her?
They did, but they found her remains.
But it was only because he had said?
I don't know.
A lot of his victims kind of were found together.
Some of them he confessed.
I think it was after maybe remains were found he confessed.
Again, part two.
Okay, sorry.
Sorry.
It's okay.
I'm getting ahead.
Although the police were quick to retrace Susan's steps, interview people and contact
witnesses, there was no trace of the girl.
The same week she went missing, Susan's parents, Dale and Vivian Rancourt flew in from Anchorage
to assist in the search.
They made a public statement.
Quote.
We believe Susan was abducted because she was always a very logical and predictable
person.
Very predictable.
If it was one of my other children, I'd just say, I'd say just stand by.
They'll be back in two or three days, but not Susan.
She was always very careful.
And quote.
That's so sad.
On May 3rd, police had exhausted all efforts to locate Susan, and they were noticing an
eerie trend.
In the span of three months, three women had gone missing.
All in the Pacific Northwest area, all in their late teens to early 20s, and all from
college campuses.
On May 6th, 20-year-old Roberta Kathleen Parks left her dorm at Oregon State University in
Corvallis, 260 miles south of Seattle.
So he's like all over the place.
He's traveling.
She was leaving to have coffee with friends at the Memorial Union, but she would never
arrive.
According to friends and family, Roberta was notably unhappy at the time of her disappearance,
as she had been openly fighting with her parents and her boyfriend and was worrying about her
future career.
That's sad.
I know.
According to her friends, Roberta's boyfriend, Christie, was pushing for marriage, and she
was not nearly as ready as he was.
She had even expressed breaking up with him due to the fact that the two wanted different
things.
The day of her attack, Roberta had received news from her sister that her father had
had a heart attack, leaving her with an immense feeling of guilt when she remembered that
her and her father had had a big argument two days prior.
Later that day, she would receive a second phone call from her sister, this time with
good news.
Her father was likely to survive.
It is thought that due to the emotional distress Roberta was experiencing at the time of her
abduction, she may have been distracted or off kilter.
She probably just fucking makes her brain foggy.
There's a lot going on in her life.
While Roberta was on her way to the Memorial Union building, she ran into a friend of hers
by the name of Lorraine.
Lorraine shared with Roberta that she was on her way to get a hot fudge sundae, and this
would be the last time that Roberta was seen alive.
Later that night, Lorraine noticed that Roberta had not yet returned to her dorm, and she
thought this was odd due to Roberta's punctual nature.
On top of this, their dorm had a 2am curfew, and this was well past the time.
The following morning, her roommates began to worry when Roberta was still not back.
They were hesitant to report her absence to the faculty, however, as they thought she
may have just went to blow off some steam, and they didn't want to get her in trouble.
Their roommates would ultimately decide to report Roberta's absence to the resident
advisor when they recalled that, even though they were 250 miles away, young women had
been going missing from college campuses.
There's differing stories about what happened when Ted met Roberta, but as we know, she
would unfortunately not survive this attack.
Unfortunately, due to Roberta being abducted so far away from the other women, she would
frequently be left out of news outlets when the media would discuss the string of disappearances,
and they would not connect her to these crimes for a while.
On June 1st, 22-year-old Brenda Carol Ball was leaving the flame tavern in Breorin near
the SeaTac Airport when she was last seen talking to a brown-haired man in the parking
lot with his arm and a sling.
Brenda was irregular at this bar, giving way for her to know many of the employees and
patrons.
According to witnesses, she was there until closing time around 2am, and at that time
she had asked a band member that she knew if he could give her a ride home.
He declined due to the fact that he was driving the opposite way to get to his home.
This gave way for Brenda to either ask someone else for a ride or be offered by someone,
leaving her unfortunately in the groups of Ted.
When Brenda failed to return to her apartment, her roommates were not immediately concerned.
Brenda had been going out more frequently as her classes had just ended, and her roommates
believed that she was just taking advantage of the summer.
I feel bad for all these roommates, because they just seem like nice people.
Seriously?
Gosh.
You know, and they're just giving their friend a minute for the doubt or covering for their
friend or, you know, thinking that somebody's sleeping in late or...
As the days turned into weeks, her roommates began to worry.
The reason it took them so long for them to realize something may be up was that Brenda
was known to go on last minute trips, and it was not unusual for her to be gone for
multiple days at a time.
The roommates began to think the worst when they realized that Brenda didn't pack a bag
or really take anything she would need for a vacation.
They decided to contact her bank and ask if she had been withdrawing any money, to which
they were told that she was not.
On June 17th, Brenda's mom filed a report with the police, a missing persons report.
Police did not connect Brenda with the other missing women due to her lifestyle and simply
thought she was just out partying.
Boo!
Seriously.
Oh gosh.
Or...
Due to this assumption, her case did not become public until August 7th, when the newspaper
released an ad.
Quote, King County police have disclosed that a 7th young woman, 22-year-old Brenda
Carrell Ball, has been reported missing.
Lieutenant Richard Crace said the Beeren's woman was last seen June 1st.
Miss Ball's mother, Miss Roseberry Knord of Kent, filed a missing person report June
17th.
Crass said that the case had not been made public because Miss Ball, quote, was known
to be gone from home for a few days at a time, and there seemed to be no link with 6 other
women who have disappeared in the Northwest since January 31st.
The only possible connection is that Brenda's physical description was similar to that of
two women who disappeared.
End quote.
There's a lot more, but it pretty much goes on to say like, yeah we didn't connect it
at first, we're like making a giant excuse for why we're just not telling you about this.
Yeah, yeah, guaranteed.
Unfortunately, Brenda would become the 6th murder victim of Ted Bundy.
The ad, I'm sure as you heard, said 7th, but he is, she is his 6th victim.
Okay.
Well, yeah, and said 7th suspected, right?
So there might be one that didn't.
Yeah, that's true.
I found it interesting that they were trying to say, oh so and so, Miss Ball is known to
not to go off for a few days, but this is like the 17th.
Yeah.
18th.
So it's like, what is a few days then?
Seriously.
Sir.
Seriously.
That's very presumptuous of me, but I'm gonna go ahead and say sir.
On June 11th, 1974, University of Washington student, Georgianne Hawkins vanished while
she was walking down a brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dorm and her sorority
house.
Oh my gosh, that has to be so close.
She had gone to a sorority party on campus the night prior, but did not intend on staying
long due to her upcoming final she needed to study for.
Before leaving the party, she had told her friend she was going to stop by her boyfriend's
dorm and pick up some notes from him.
Georgianne was noted as being at her boyfriend's dorm for about an hour and taking off around
1.30 a.m. to head home.
One of her boyfriend's fraternity brothers heard the back door shut and he reached his
head out the window, recognizing Georgianne.
He shouted, quote, hey, George, what's happening?
The two conversed for about two minutes and then she continued to walk toward her house,
shouting, quote, audios, jokingly.
Ted would later admit to police that he lured Georgianne to his car and knocked her unconscious
with a crowbar.
After handcuffing her, he drove her to Isquatch where he drove her there where he unfortunately
would strangle her and he spent the entire night with her body, he admitted, which is
escalation.
Yeah, because he hasn't done that yet.
He actually returned to the crime scene the following morning during an active crime
scene investigation and was able to swipe her earrings and one of her shoes from where
he abducted her without being seen.
How?
Homicide detective Robert Keppel stated about this maneuver, quote, it was a feat so brazen
that it astonishes police even today.
He had to have been wearing something similar to like a like a UC outfit, not an undercover,
but like a detective, you know, like slacks with a polo or something, you know.
Oh, that's insane.
That's some dexter shit.
That's, wow.
That's where we're stopping.
That's where we're stopping?
You were like going on and on.
I was like, oh my goodness.
Stun to my notes.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, recap, because that was a long episode.
D has now committed seven murders that we know of and he's going to continue.
He's going to continue on.
When we come back for part two, we will finish off explaining his crimes in detail.
We will talk about, of course, his capture, his trial, his very serious mental health
issues and ultimately his execution.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's really, really intense.
I can't even believe that.
Like I said, that's some fucking dexter shit.
That's some fucking dexter shit.
The homicide detective was like, I have no fucking clue how he did that.
How did no one see his ass?
So it's an active crime scene and they knew that the earrings were there and they went
back and they were like, what the fuck are they doing?
I don't think they knew the earrings were there.
I think what had happened was, this is my opinion, they were canvassing the area and
he got there first and kind of ran through where he knew she was abducted and grabbed
it and then ran away.
That's some dexter nuts.
Yeah, it's totally dexter.
Right?
Wow.
What a fucking ballsy bitch.
So not that he's cooler than anything.
No, yeah.
I'm just saying.
It's wild.
Like Jesus.
It's a wild story and we're just fucking getting started.
Part two is gonna be like super intense.
So excited.
As if this one wasn't fucking intense.
It's gonna be super intense.
It's gonna probably be a little bit longer than this episode.
But we're gonna get it all out there because I am not about a part three.
So we're gonna get it all out there and you are gonna be getting part two of this episode.
The same day as our Patreon bonus episode, are you ready to tell the people who we're
doing?
I got some rotten meat in my freezer.
I knew we were gonna do that.
Just want to take some pictures.
Relax.
The fuck is that smell?
Seriously.
So we will be doing Dommer.
Oh.
I know.
If the Instagram post today didn't give it away.
Yeah, for sure.
We have been wanting to tell you.
I cannot tell you how many people have requested Dommer.
That's two.
If you're gonna go into the nitty gritty details, which I know you were, I wouldn't
want to do it for a regular case.
I think it's too graphic.
Yeah.
It's bad.
Yeah.
It's bad.
Even the word like putrefied.
It's coming to mind.
No, we are gonna, Koala is gonna be doing Dommer and of course, as you people know, as y'all
know with our Patreon bonus episodes, we both know who the other person is doing so that
we can give it our all as far as explanations.
I'm not gonna do any external research, but I know the case of Bundy.
Yeah.
So I'm not Bundy of Dommer.
I will be contributing as well with my comments.
So excited.
So that will be coming out on the 29th as well as this episode, part two will be coming
out on the 29th as well.
So you're gonna get double the action.
Double the action to very, very famous cases.
Yes.
And you guys have one week to get that tier two, tier three Patreon membership so that
you guys have access to that Dommer case.
Yes.
As well as our previous cases that have come out on the 29th.
Absolutely.
And then every case that we do as well, Patreon members do get access to AdFree.
So there's completely AdFree.
No content warning.
No content warning on the bonus episodes.
Right.
But on Dommer, the bonus episodes, what do you mean?
Because I was saying on every episode they get on the Patreon, no ads.
Oh, yeah.
But there's content warnings on those.
There's just no ads.
Right, correct.
But the tier two and the tier three that get that exclusive bonus episode, that Dommer
episode will have no content warning, no ads.
We are just going straight into it.
No editing.
So you guys know what you're signing up for.
Yeah, exactly.
Because I'm not gonna do a content warning on fucking Dommer.
It's just gonna be gross.
Yeah.
So you do it.
Well, I think you kind of did the same thing with Toybox and Albert Fish.
Albert Fish.
Yeah.
Those are the other two we've done so far with the Patreon bonus episode.
This will be our third installment of that.
So go ahead and get enrolled into the Patreon for tier two and three if you want access
to that bonus episode.
The tier one Patreon, you can also access every episode ad free.
The bonus episode is gonna be just for tier two and tier three.
And also get your tickets to the True Crime Paranormal Podcast Festival.
That's happening sooner than we think.
All right.
Well, I guess we should be looking forward to part two.
I know.
I need a shower after that.
Okay, well, we will see you guys next time.
Thanks for listening.
Love you.
Bye.
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