Essay Example on the Notorious Serial Killer - Ted Bundy

Introduction

Over the years, especially in the past three decades, Theodore Robert Bundy, also commonly known as Ted Bundy, has remained a household name. Ted Bundy was a renowned serial killer and one of the most notorious of his time. Theodore was born on the 24th of November 1946 in Burlington, U.S, to Eleanor Louise Cowell, and was brought up in a dysfunctional family (Bell 2). Until he was 23 years, Theodore believed that his grandparents were his parents, and his mother was his sister. He never got to know his birth father throughout his entire life. At the age of four, Ted and his mother moved to Washington, which left him distraught by leaving his grandfather, whom he thought was his father. It is believed that he never recovered from this traumatic experience (Bell 2). In Washington, his mother married Johnnie Culpepper Bundy, whose last name Ted would assume and later became synonymous with murder (Bell 2). He grew up a very shy child and was consistently bullied and teased. However, he managed to maintain a high-grade average from high school through college.

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At the age of 20, Ted developed a preoccupation with sex and violence, which later resulted in seeking pornographic materials that centered on the use, abuse, and possession of women as objects (Bell 6). It is during this time that he had his first sexual experience with Stephanie Brooks, who had been his colleague in the university. She was the first woman Ted fell deeply in love with though the feelings were not mutual. Following her graduation, Stephanie ended their relationship, which left Ted deeply heartbroken. Ted vowed to change his life to win back Stephanie by being a new man with morals and goals. He became more focused and overcame his shyness and eventually won Brooks back (Bell 3).

Ted learned his true identity at 23, which gave him a new drive that compelled him to enroll at the university to study psychology (Bell 3). Although he had not gotten over Stephanie Brooks, His next serious relationship with Meg Anders lasted five years. Unlike Anders who loved Ted deeply, he did not have strong feelings for her. As Ted was embarking on character shaping and changing, he, on several occasions, was commended by the police for good things that he did for the society. In one instance, he was praised for helping a lady who was being mugged in the street. In another, he saved a toddler who was drowning in the Green Lake. Ted also became a counsellor at a crisis clinic, where rape was his specialization. After getting back with Stephanie, his behavior became disturbing, and he had to end the relationship. He became increasingly disinterested in her and would often get hostile. This left Stephanie heartbroken and shocked as it seemed as if it was revenge from what had happened before.

It was also around this time that Ted finally edged his way out as a killer. One evening, he saw a woman undressing through her room's window, and restlessly began wandering the street like a voyeur. Having been a 'spectator' for a while, Ted became bored and decided to escalate his actions to personal interactions then physical touch. His first victim for sexual assault was in a club, and he admitted that he never felt remorse for any of his victims. Rather, his only fear was being seen, discovered, or caught. To avoid this, he panicked and ran. This practice would also bore him, and he would escalate his actions to luring women and beating them (Bell 10).

Killer Classification of Theodore Robert Bundy and Modus Operandi

As intimated earlier, Ted was a serial killer and a rapist. He traveled throughout the United States in search of women to control, and hence he can be classified as a power/control serial killer (Marono et al. 10). The primary motivation for such a killer is to dominate his victims. Bundy enjoyed torturing his prey and found it sexually arousing. However, it has been recorded that "... it was the act of murder that was his most satisfying and final expression of power and control over his victims (Peck and Dolch 255).

The main objective of this type of serial killer is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers are sometimes abused as children, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy as adults (Marono et al. 5). According to experts, most control- or power- motivated serial killers abuse their victims sexually but are different from hedonistic killers in that lust is not the main motivation for the action. Instead, they rape their victims to dominate and exert their power and control over them (Peck and Dolch 255).

Theodore is known to have been a handsome and charming man, thus being sly would not be a difficult task for him. He used several different methods to lure his victims. Ted would typically approach his victims in public places, feigning injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before knocking them unconscious and taking them to secluded locations to rape and strangle them. Unfortunately, many victims could not ignore his looks or act. He used this trait to his advantage. To show how easily he attracted his victims, Michaund and Aynesworth (140) write, "Ted lured females, the way a lifeless silk flower can dupe a honey bee." Once he lured them to his vehicle, he would overpower them and take them to another site, where he strangled and raped them. At these secondary sites, the authors state that "he would remove and burn the victim's clothes which he considered a ritual and also was a way of getting rid of evidence that would implicate him (Michaund and Aynesworth 196). Ted also confessed to being necrophilic. Once in a while, he would visit the secondary sites to groom and dress cadavers and engage in acts of necrophilia (Michaund and Aynesworth 334). Some of the victims' bodies were found in clothes that their family and friends had not seen before.

Theodore Robert Bundy's Victims

All of Ted's victims bore striking similarities. They were all white, thin, single, and wore slacks at the time of disappearance. They also had long hair, usually parted in the middle, and would disappear in the evening. An analysis of these similarities can directly link his victims to Stephanie Brooks, his first love. Just like them, Stephanie was white, thin, beautiful, and usually parted her long hair in the middle. Stephanie hurt him deeply, and this event contributed to the path that Ted would later take. It is possible that his motive was to target attractive women, with long hair parted in the middle, just like Stephanie's.

Most of his victims were young Caucasian females, most between the ages of seventeen and nineteen. They all had above average intelligence and were single. Moreover, they were shy, a trait that Ted exploited. They were mostly attacked at night and he did not bury most of his victims. A majority of the victims were hit on the head with a blunt object and then abused physically and sexually. He used different objects to sexually abuse them, and only a few were raped. Many of the victims were college students, although none knew Bundy personally.

Ted was suspected of having killed 36 women, yet he was only convicted for three murders, which was enough to sentence him to death. The sentence, however, did not equal justice to the families of the other 33 victims. Thus he would delay his death by appealing court decisions and in his last effort confessing the murders in lieu delaying his death by intriguing the investigators which failed and he was executed. He confessed to 30 homicides before his execution, but the true figure remains unknown. It could have been less or more. "His earliest documented homicides were committed in 1974 when he was 27 years old. By then, by his own admission, he had mastered the necessary skills in the era before DNA profiling to leave minimal incriminating forensic evidence at crime scenes (Michaund and Aynesworth 87). In light of this argument, therefore, it can be assumed that his victims were many more than the officially recorded figures.

Karen Sparks

This killing happened on January 4th, 1974, around the time he terminated his relationship with Brooks (Michaund and Aynesworth 99). This event further strengthens the claim that his nasty break-up with Stephanie Brooks might have contributed to his transformation. Karen Sparks was a 18-year-old dancer and student at the University of Washington. Bundy gained entry Sparks' basement apartment and bludgeoned her with a metal rod as she slept. He used the same rod to sexually abuse her leading to severe internal injuries. She survived the ordeal but suffered permanent mental and physical disabilities (Michaund and Aynesworth 99)February 1974: Lynda Ann Healey

Bundy would then kill Ann Healey, who was aged 21. The event happened in February of 1974. Healey was a popular student at the University of Washington and gave weather and ski reports at a local radio station. Owing to her work, therefore, her colleagues found her disappearance quite suspicious. Police would later find blood on Healey's bed sheets and pillow, but this evidence was not enough to indicate that she had bled to death. Moreover, there was no indication of her destination or her body. Her nightgown had dried blood and some of her items including backpack and clothes were missing.

At this point in the investigation, it looked as if her attacker who had bludgeoned her had crept into her room, which was also in the basement. It was also thought that the attacker used the extra key that she and her roommates kept in their mailbox. Once in the room, the attacker was believed to have knocked her unconscious, removed her pajamas, and dressed her in fresh clothes. Healey's disappearance was the first indication for police that something sinister was happening in the neighborhood. However, it took a long time for the authorities to suspect, arrest, and charge Bundy. Healey's remains were found 14 months after her disappearance. Her jawbones and skull were found at Taylor Mountain, which is "Fourteen months after her disappearance, her skull and jawbones were found on Taylor Mountain, which is almost an hour's five from her apartment (Kendall 25).

Victims at Washington Oregon

Donna Gail Manson

Donna Gail Manson was another of Ted's victims. She was killed in March of 1974 (Keppel 34). She was a 19-year-old student at Evergreen State College, south of Seattle. She disappeared on her way to a campus concert. Just like all the other victims, she was attractive and had long brown hair. Unlike Hailey, who was quite famous, Donna was not as popular at the campus, and her disappearance did not raise any suspicions at first (Keppel 34). Ted would later claim to have buried her at Taylor Mountain though her remains were never found.

Susan Elaine Ran court

Susan was an 18-year-old who disappeared in college at Central Washington State College, east of Seattle. She was a biology major with a 4.0 GPA. Unlike many of Ted's victims, Susan was blonde and blue-eyed. Most of the other victims were brunettes. She disappeared on the 17th of April 1974. On that fateful evening, she was headed to her regular dorm advisor's meeting. She had also planned to watch a German film with a friend afterward, but no one saw her after the meeting. Her disappearance prompted a massive search, but it did not yield any results.

However, evidence would later mount that Ran Court was one of Ted Bundy's victims. Details of unusual events that had happened on that evening also arose. Some students reported that they had been approached...