Ted Bundy
November 24, 1946 - January 24, 1989
Ted Bundy became notorious in the 1970’s as a serial murderer, rapist, and necrophiliac. One biography states that “Ted Bundy admitted to 36 killings of young women across several states in the 1970’s, but experts believe that the final tally may be closer to 100 or more” (“Ted Bundy.” biography.com). Growing up, Bundy was not a social butterfly, he did well in school but his darker fascinations showed at the early age of 3, when he became intrigued by knives and as a teenager he committed crimes without even thinking twice. Authorities say he began his killing streak in 1974. “All of his victims were young women” (Bundy,Ted. “Funk and Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia”), most of whom looked like his University of Washington sweetheart, who devastated him by breaking up with him. Before killing the ladies he kidnapped, he would rape them and then beat them to death. As more and more women began disappearing from states like Seattle and Oregon the story became that victims were last seen with a man matching Bundys description named “Ted”. The girls were lured by Bundy to his car, when he asked for help due to injury. During the time that Ted moved to Utah to attend law school and girls began to go missing there as well. Eventually one day Bundy was pulled over, and that was when he car was searched. Police found crowbars, handcuffs, a mask, and rope which led them to link him to more sinister crimes as well. He was arrested then and again in 1975 but this time with the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch and was convicted to serve a 1 to 15 year prison sentence. After another two years Ted was charged with another death this time linked in Colorado, and when he went to court on those charges he made his first escape of eight days, by jumping out the courthouse window. His second escape came in December 1977, when he managed to climb out of a hole he made in the ceiling of his prison cell. He lost a total of thirty pounds to be able to shimmy through the hole, which made escape easier especially because it went unnoticed by guards for a total of fifteen hours. He was not found until February of 1978, and he continued on his rampage at Florida State University, where “he attacked four of the young female residents, killing two of them” (“Ted Bundy.” biography.com), from the sorority Chi Omega. Finally his last crime committed was the kidnapping and murder of 12 year old Kimberly Leach, until he got pulled over ending his streak that February. Bundy was convicted of the two sorority murders and sentenced to die in the electric chair and then in 1980, he was tried for the murder of the young girl, where he got the insanity plea, but was again convicted and sentenced to death. (Bundy,Ted. “Funk and Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia). Ted was given “two death sentences and three ninety-year sentences. He ended up being executed by electric chair in Florida on February 24, 1989” (James, Jenephyr. “Ted Bundy”).