The Infamous Serial Killer: Ted Bundy - Essay Sample

Introduction

Sociopath, psychotic, and monster are among the frequent phrases used to denote to the infamous Ted Bundy, one of the utmost infamous serial murderers ever. During Ted Bundy's 5-year run, Ted was the most hated individual in America as a result of his gruesome celebrity and serial killer status. Many people believed that Ted lived to kill and is, by many counts, the figure that all other serial killers are compared to (Sastry, 2020. It is believed that Ted murdered over 100 women in total, despite his death row admission that he had killed 36 only.

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Ted Bundy's Criminal Background/Life Story

Born on 24th Nov 1946 in Vermont, Ted's official name was Theodore Robert Cowell. His mom, Eleanor Cowell, spent the majority of her life in Washington, working at the Puget Sound University as a secretary. She had Ted at a center for unwed women in 1946, which made the baby illegitimate (Katherine, 2013). The idea of her son being deemed unlawful affected her, which would later come to affect the child in the future. Since Ted's biological father was never identified and following efforts of unearthing him hitting a dead end, Eleanor and her son started living with Bandy's grandparents. To divert and prevent all the negative reputation that came around with having an unlawful kid. She claimed that Ted's grandparents were his actual mom and dad, and they were only siblings. The big sister lies continued until college when Ted discovered that the woman who claims to be his big sister is his biological mother (Sastry, 2020).

Ted and her mother moved to their relatives in Washington in 1951, where Eleanor fell for John Bundy, a simple man who worked as a military chef. John adopted Ted, although he grew up hating him because of the simple life that he had chosen for them. As a kid, Ted was a quiet and timid kid, and by age 15, he was already an expert peeping Tom and shoplifter (Katherine, 2013). Ted Bundy also had an obsession with Police comic books that depicted women held in bondage and being mistreated, a clear representation of what was to come. During his adolescent years, he refrained from interacting with his female peers.

Ted attended the University of Puget Sound in 1965, before shifting to Washington University. While at Washington studying, Ted encountered Stephanie Brooks, an influential, good-looking, and affluent lady and became intimate. He fell deeply in love with her, but the passion was never reciprocated as Stephanie was not interested (Sastry, 2020). Stephanie went on to insult and look down upon him and later concluded their affiliation.

With a broken heart, Ted went back to Vermont to try to salvage his identity, and it was at this time when everything went wrong. He found the birth records that exposed that her "big sister" was his biological mom. Due to the treachery, Ted changed his personality to a more confident, charismatic, and calm individual who would later charge to the top of college politics. He joined several organizations on campus, and he specifically wanted to seem successful and unique. Bundy started working for a call center meant to prevent suicides after graduating, before enrolling in the University of Utah to study law. In his five-year killing tenure, Ted would first physically assault his victims, then rape them before murdering and dismembering their bodies (Mello, 1990). After killing more than eight women, Ted made a mistake which would later land him in prison, when he tried to abduct a 19-year old student. While being incarcerated, Bundy escaped prison twice, and he resumed his killing after the second escape. In 1979 he was charged with the murder of two victims while being linked to the other 34 cases. He was sentenced to death in 1979 after being found culpable of several crimes and spent ten years on death row. Bundy was eventually executed by the chair on 24th Jan 1989 in Starke, Florida (Mello, 1990).

Explaining Ted Bundy's Behavior

In one of his many interviews, which he agreed to take, Ted explained why he killed so many victims. He stated that he not driven by either violence or lust, but it was about domination and possession. He said that watching the last breath come out of his female victims made him feel like God (Michaud & Aynesworth, 2000). Bundy's ill behavior can be explained through many theories and assumptions. Biological or natural factors may have been the primary determinants of his behavior. They are the things one has no control of and comprises of one's overall thinking and genetic makeup. These traits are inherited from relatives with similar biological characteristics. Bundy's grandmother had suffered clinical depression and often experienced panic attacks on the magnitude of undergoing electroshock therapy.

His grandfather, on the other hand, was violent and used to read porn magazines and abused women around him. He is said to have one day thrown his daughter down the stairs without any specific cause (Sastry, 2020). The most shocking part is that majority of people used to believe that Ted's grandfather was his 'unidentified' biological dad. It is thought that the grandfather impregnated her daughter Eleanor to become Ted's dad and granddad. Studies about sex criminals claim that incest along the family's bloodline raises the likelihood of developing criminal behavior such as psychopathy (Waldman et al., 2018). Ted's behavior can be linked to that of his grandfather, only that he was more consistent and at a more significant level.

Geographical Mobility

The term geographical mobility is used in criminal profiling to define the location in which serial killers commit their crimes in relation to previous murders or offenses. It is classified between stable or restricted and transient or unrestricted (Rossmo & Rombouts, 2018). A serial killer can be termed as geographically stable/restricted if he only preys on individuals close to his area of residence and bodies disposed of nearby. Most serial murderers are geographically stable, but Ted Bundy was rare and unique since he was geographically transient and unrestricted (Rossmo & Rombouts, 2018). He committed his murders in diverse states, which made it very difficult for detectives to capture him.

Bundy's transient geographical nature made it difficult for a detective to connect his offenses, and many believe that he would have gone away unpunished had his victim not overpowered him and later identifying him in a lineup. Ted's first eight victims were placed throughout Colorado, Utah, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon states. After dismembering their bodies, Ted used to bury his victims deep in the woods as well as remote areas (Sastry, 2020). His pattern of killing in different regions very far from each other proved a big job for detectives in linking his murders.

Victimology

Ted Bundy's psychopathic and malicious killing started early in his teenage days. It is believed that his first kill was a girl of about 8years of age when he was only 14 years old. All of Ted's victims were women, and the majority of them were college girls. The events that changed Ted's life to the point of no return were the double betrayals he suffered by the two individuals who meant everything to him (Katherine, 2013). Unsurprisingly, both were women; his mother and Stephanie Brooks, the first woman he ever loved. First, his biological mother lied to him and made him believe that they were just siblings rather than her mother for his entire childhood. After learning that, Ted would go on to hate his mother forever. Stephanie, the woman Ted loved, later broke his heart, but Ted had already convinced his mind that Stephanie is the one he will marry. Instead, his love was never reciprocated, and she only viewed their relationship as just a college fling. She continued to look down upon him while leading him on, and later she ended the relationship, which left Ted completely heartbroken. Everything close to either intimate or family love that he had known had been utterly shattered.

Ted changed from a timid and quiet person to a complete savage filled with violence, aggression, and pure purge. He would wear charm and wittiness to manipulate all of his female victims (Katherine, 2013). All his victims were the helping kind, which allowed him to exploit their vulnerability. It is clear to say that Ted used these past traumatic experiences to undertake lifetime retribution against women. Authorities believed that sometimes he would be on crutches or even sling his hand to manipulate the sympathetic nature of women.

Modus Operandi (M.O) and Signature

To understand how an offender commits their crime, the patterns in which they undertake their sins must be studied (Miller, 2014). Modus Operandi is a dynamic behavior that is learned. Unless a criminal impeccably implements his offense in his first trial, he will continue to change or improve his M.O in the next crime or victim. Modus Operandi can never be used to link cases since it keeps on changing. An offender's signature, on the other hand, can be used as a linking tool between two crimes/cases (Miller, 2014). Unlike M.O, which is used to derail detectives, a signature is like a ritual. It is unnecessary and not mainly done to perpetrate the original crime. Signatures are unique across offenders, and they can be used by authorities to link crimes.

Ted's M.O can be witnessed when he was enticing a target from crowded places or when approaching them alone, hitting them unexpectedly before stabbing them to death. Bundy did not capture females in masses, and he used to sexually assault victims who were still breathing after the first assault, mostly at the back of their heads. Offenders' signature satisfies both the mental and emotional desires of the offender. Ted's killings pleased his emotional desires by letting him show complete control over her since all he ever desired was to feel powerful and vital (McGrath & Torres, 2012). Ted would sometimes visit his dead victims to change their outfits and put on fresh makeup on their corpses. His psychological desires were also fed by his brutal murders. All his victims were women, had elongated hair, small physiques, and good looking, resembling his obsession, and lost love, Stephanie (Smithson, 2013).

Several psychological theories can be used to explain Bundy's apprehension, prosecution as well as his criminal behaviors. It is believed that offensive traits are seen when a kid's development process is disrupted, and an individual can associate pleasure with crime (Zavaliy, 2012). One can conclude that Bundy's natural emotional development was stopped when he endured betrayal and heartbreak. Before he was betrayed, Ted had a massive sense of entitlement, which grew into complete narcissism. It was clear that his childhood was artificial, and he resented every aspect of it. The vulnerability and exposure to do violent crimes ensuing from the setting and the victim's particular individualities at the time of ill-treatment can as well be used to understand Ted Bundy (Turvey, 2020).

Conclusion

Several theories help in understanding Ted Bundy and his crimes. As a young boy, Bundy was fascinated by Police detective comics, especially those that displayed women in bondage being mistreated. He maintained his own company and was very shy, which prevented him from interacting with his peers. Bundy's betrayal by his mother and Stephanie's heartbreak and the desire for vengeance changed him to the psychopath everyone knew.

References

Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., C. V. (2013). The many sides of Ted Bundy. Forensic Examiner, 22(3), 18.https://search.proquest.com/openview/b5d06af44de65706a87be3e8fe05e276/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=25766