Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy

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7 December 2007

In an era of mass murderers , serial murderers , and torture killings , the case of Ted Bundy stands out as a macabre reminder of the depth of man 's inhumanity . Ted 's early childhood was not abnormal , but he did suffer doubts about his parentage , was moved about , had three different names before his fifth birthday , was pampered by his mother , was teased in school for his slenderness , and developed a rather introverted personality . He was pleasant , well-mannered , and

generally liked by his peers , although he was picked up at least twice by juvenile authorities during his high school years on suspicion of auto theft and burglary . He graduated high school in 1965 , and then attended the University of Puget Sound during 1965-66 . The next year he transferred to the University of Washington where he began an intensive program in Chinese . While there he met Stephanie Brooks , who was to be a central figure in the deadly transformation of Ted Bundy . She was the beautiful and sophisticated daughter of a wealthy California family , and soon Ted was "in love " A year later she was to drop him because of his insecurity and aimlessness in life . Rule believes that this humiliating experience was a crucial turning point for Ted , a man who considered himself a possible descendant of royalty , a pamperedchild who was used to having his way She speculates that Ted 's later spate of killings represented a form of symbolic revenge against Stephanie certainly it was noteworthy that all the victims were young , beautiful , and parted their long hair down the middle just like Stephanie . Yet , even if we grant a correlation here "symbolic revenge " qualifies neither as a necessary nor a sufficient cause of the brutal murders what must be explained are not Bundy 's thoughts , wishes , or even his feelings but his behavior , for many a normal person has committed rape and murder in his own mind

Undoubtedly , Ted Bundy also had the power to charm women . Many of them paid with their lives . His sexualimpulses were so strong that there was no way that he could control them . During his first attacks he later maintained that he had to wrestle with his conscience . But soon he began to desensitize himself . He claimed not to have tortured his victims unnecessarily , but said that he had had to kill them after he had raped them to prevent them recognising him

Bundy had been a compulsive masturbator from an early age and later became obsessed by sadistic pornography . After glimpsing a girl undressed through a window , he also became a compulsive Peeping Tom . His longtime girlfriend Meg Anders described how he would tie her up with stockings before anal sex . This sex game stopped when he almost strangled her . For years they maintained a more or less normal sexual relationship , while Bundy exercised his craving for anonymous victims , whom he often strangled during the sexual act

His attitude to...