Ted Bundy: Life and Victims

Everyone knows who Ted Bundy was; one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He was born on November 24, 1946 and was finally placed in the electric chair on January 24, 1989 after confessing to raping and murdering at least 30 young women from 1974 until 1978. His victims often said he was a charismatic and handsome man who often used an injury to lure women to his Volkswagen beetle before brutally attacking them. In addition to the 30 women he confessed to murdering, he is suspected to up to 100 more, but they have not been confirmed.

Ted had a rough upbringing under his tyrannical grandfather acting as his father when he was conceived out of wedlock during a time when that was not acceptable. He didn't find out the truth until he was an adult when his cousin showed him his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard." When he was three years old, his aunt said she woke up to kitchen knives all around her bed and her nephew smiling at her. He was thought to have been a very disturbed child, but there was really nothing that would have predicted his actions.

The following is a few of his victims and what happened to them.

In January 1974, Ted broke into Karen Sparks' (18) bedroom, took a metal post from her bed and smashed her face in before ramming it into her vagina. She suffered permanent disabilities after spending 10 days in a coma. She was also outside the prison when he was executed.

His second victim was Lynda Ann Healy (21) on January 30, 1974. She was a broadcaster for a local radio station reporting the weather for skiers. When she didn't show up to work and skipped a family meal she had been looking forward to the following day, her parents reported her as missing. It was not like her to go anywhere alone, especially at night; she always asked someone to go with her. The night she was abducted, she had talked to her roommate around 10 PM and was not seen again. Ted broke into her basement bedroom, bludgeoned her, and then abducted her from there. Her body was not found until March of 1975, 14 months after her disappearance, at Taylor Mountain along with five other victims. Those include Roberta Kathleen Parks (20) who disappeared on May 6, 1974, Brenda Caroll Ball (22) who disappeared on June 1, 1974 and Susan Elaine Rancourt (18) who disappeared on April 17, 1974.

Donna Gail Manson (19) was walking to a Jazz concert on March 12, 1974 at Evergreen State College. The discovering of her body is still a mystery, but in 1978, two fishermen came upon a skull in the foothills of Mount Rainier. When police combed the area, they found a shirt similar to the one Donna was wearing the night she went missing, but Bundy told investigators in his last interview, that it was not her skull because he took it back to his girlfriend's house and burned it to ashes in her fireplace. He told them that her body was found in the Cascade mountain range, but never said where. During the search, the police ruled out many of the missing persons, except Donna, but during a routine purge of the evidence room, two unidentified skulls were accidentally sent to a landfill and destroyed. Dental records could not be obtained. It can be concluded that the skull was Donna's, but no one knows for certain.

Janice Ann Ott (23) and Denise Marie Naslund (19) were both abducted and murdered from Lake Sammamish State Park on July 14, 1974 only 4 hours apart. The two girls were at the park for a promotional event held by Rainier Beer. Around noon, witnesses overheard Janice talking to a man named "Ted" who was wearing a cast asking for help loading his sailboat. He returned to the park after her abduction, loitering around the restrooms where he found Denise. A third female recalls being approached by Ted asking for help, went to his Volkswagen, but had a "funny feeling" when she didn't see a sailboat and left. It was a couple hunters that found the remains in September a few miles from town. They were identified as Ott and Naslund, but there was a fifth leg, later identified by Bundy as Gergann Hawkins who disappeared on June 11th from an alley behind her sorority house.

Carol DaRonch (18) was one of the few that escaped from the clutches of Ted Bundy. She was approached by Ted in November 1974, who stated a license plate number asking if it was hers. When she said it was, he told her he was a police officer and that someone was seen trying to break into her car. When she got to her car and saw that nothing was missing, he asked her to come down to the station with him to identify the man. She had a weird feeling, but went with him anyways. It wasn't until he tried to handcuff her that she knew she was going to die. She fought and got away waving down an oncoming vehicle.

In August of 1975, he was finally apprehended when cops tried pulling him over for speeding. They became suspicious of him when he turned his lights off and started speeding through stop signs. When they searched his vehicle, they found incriminating evidence. He was also put on trial for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DeRonch and for murder of Caryn Campbell who went missing from a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado.

In June of 1977, he escaped from a courthouse before his trial, but was captured 10 days later. He escaped again on December 30, 1977 and wasn't recaptured until February 15, 1978 when police stopped him in a stolen Volkswagen.

Before his final capture on February 15th, he attempted to murder five women at or near the Chi Omega sorority at Florida State University. They included Margaret Elizabeth Bowman (21), Lisa Levy (20), Karen Chandler (21), Kathy Kleiner (21), and Cheryl Thomas (21). Margaret and Lisa died from their injuries, but the other three survived.

His last murder was of a 12-year old girl named Kimberly Diane Leach on February 9, 1978. He abducted her from her middle school in Salt Lake City, Florida. Her body was found near Suwannee River State Park.

During his last interview before execution, he was asked about Kimberly and would not talk about it.

In addition to these women, there were many more not included.

Ted Bundy was a sadistic necrophiliac and murderer who terrorized the entire nation of young women from 1974 until 1978. It's hard to imagine how it felt to live in fear during this time. Not only were women going missing at an average of one every month, but the person responsible was still out there and kept escaping.

These women deserve to rest in peace and there are so many that have not been found as of today. It's extremely sickening and hard to imagine what goes through the mind of a murderer like him.