Ted Bundy: Organized Killer, Victimology, and Serial vs. Spree

Introduction

"I'm the most cold-blooded son of a bitch you'll ever meet" (Bundy, quoted in Michaud et al., 2000).

How could a young man who performed well in high school, was liked by his classmates, excelled academically at the University of Puget Sound, and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology end up as one of the most notorious serial killers in the history of the United States? That question lingers over any research on Ted Bundy. The focus of this paper, however, is on three specific aspects of his crimes: (a) was he an organized or disorganized offender; (b) what was the victimology of his victims; and (c) what is the difference between a serial killer and a spree killer?

Bundy as an Organized Offender

In Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, the authors review Bundy's own confessions and descriptions of his crimes at length. Stephen G. Michaud conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with Bundy while the serial killer was safely behind bars awaiting execution. Bundy was intelligent and arrogant, and though he was a "repellent figure," he also displayed "charm," according to Michaud (15). He had an "innate need to manipulate," Michaud continues (15).

It may stretch credulity somewhat to call Bundy organized, but he could not have evaded capture after nearly 30 vicious murders for as long as he did without a meaningful degree of planning and organization. Michaud notes that Bundy would identify potential victims in advance, know where they would be at specific times, and even identify van owners who habitually left their keys in the vehicle. Bundy may have been "degenerate" and a "savage killer," but he was also a "consummate gamesman" (Michaud, 15). Playing the kinds of psychological games he played with interviewers requires a mind capable of organizing events and narratives.

Whether Bundy was discussing his life in school or "detailing the essence of victim 'possession,'" he "never seemed to stop striving for a fuller, more comprehensible explanation for who he was and why he had become a killer" (Michaud, 15). A disorganized person would not go to these lengths to construct a coherent self-narrative for his biographers.

In another book by Michaud and Aynesworth, The Only Living Witness, Bundy explained how he organized his attacks. Speaking in the third person, he described how he began his darkest period by prowling neighborhoods and looking through windows to observe women in states of undress. "He gained, at times, a great amount of gratification from it," Bundy explained, referring to himself as "he" rather than "I" (Michaud et al., 1999). "And [he] became increasingly adept at it," Bundy continued, "as anyone becomes adept at anything they do over and over again" (Michaud et al., 1999).

The answer to whether Bundy was organized is a definitive yes. In the sickest and most violent sense, he was methodical in his madness. His escape from prison in Glenwood Springs is a clear illustration: only a well-organized individual could have obtained a hacksaw while incarcerated, sawed through welds, slipped through a hole in the ceiling into a crawl space, and disappeared into the snowy Colorado night (Clark Prosecutor).

The Victimology of Bundy's Victims

The victimology of Bundy's crimes reveals a consistent pattern. Records from the Clark County Prosecutor's Office detail many of his known victims; all were female, and most were young — ranging from adolescents to college-aged women. He used various ruses to lure victims into his car, after which they were rarely seen alive again.

On November 7, 1974, he abducted Carol DeRonch, 18, from a shopping center in Utah, managing to handcuff her before she escaped. On July 14, 1974, he abducted two young women — Janice Ott and Denise Naslund — in Utah and killed them both. His method was to lure victims to a remote location, where he would rape, and sometimes torture or sodomize them, before strangling or killing them by another means. He also raped and strangled a hitchhiker in Utah in 1974, killed Nancy Wilcox in Utah that same year, and raped, sodomized, and murdered 17-year-old Melissa Smith, also in 1974 (Clark Prosecutor).

Bundy's approaches varied but shared a calculated quality. On one occasion, he faked an injury and used crutches in Colorado, asking a woman named Julie Cunningham to help him carry ski boots to his car. When they reached the vehicle, he struck her with a crowbar, handcuffed her, and later strangled her (Clark Prosecutor). In another case in 1975, he lured 12-year-old Lynette Culver away from her junior high school in Pocatello, Idaho, took her to a Holiday Inn where he had rented a room, raped her, and drowned her (Clark Prosecutor).

When detectives in Granger, Utah, arrested Bundy in 1975, they found handcuffs, rope, a pantyhose mask, and an ice pick in his car. A search of his apartment uncovered a guide to Colorado ski resorts with a checkmark beside the Wildwood Inn, where Caryn Campbell had disappeared, as well as a brochure for a Viewmont High School play at which Debby Kent had been abducted. His methods for selecting victims ranged from spotting a woman in a mall and using a ruse to approach her, to attending school events and watching for a vulnerable target. After two and a half years, his "repressed homicidal violence erupted" when he broke into a sorority house in Tallahassee and killed two college women (Clark Prosecutor).

Conclusion

Clark Prosecutor. "Theodore Robert Bundy: Executed January 24, 1989, by Electric Chair in Florida." Retrieved November 27, 2011, from www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/U.S./bundy106.htm.

Koerner, Brendan. "Is the D.C. Sniper a Serial Killer or a Spree Killer?" Slate.com. Retrieved November 27, 2011, from http://www.slate.com. 2002.

Michaud, Stephen G., and Hugh Aynesworth. Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer. Irving, TX: Authorlink, 2000.

Michaud, Stephen G., and Hugh Aynesworth. The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy. Irving, TX: Authorlink, 1999.