My friend Sally was on her front porch in Seattle, waiting for a friend in the mid-1970s.
Ted Bundy arrived and parked his VW bug in the driveway. He was meeting a young lady who lived in the house with Sally. He straightened up and gazed at Sally.
"He looked right through me," Sally said, demonstrating a deeply intense, piercing and simultaneously detached look that shocked me. "It chilled me to the bone. I was so scared, I ran into the house and waited in my apartment. I called my friend and told him what happened."
Sally fit the profile of Ted Bundy's victims: a pretty, petite young woman in her 20s with long, brown hair. Thankfully, Sally moved away shortly afterward.
Two new movies about Ted Bundy glorify his handsomeness and charisma that he used to manipulate women.
Bundy was a monster: he murdered, raped and dismembered over 30 women.
Ted Bundy murdered a high school classmate of mine. It was a terrifying time for those of us who matched the description of his victims.
He apparently made my classmate watch as he killed the victim he had kidnapped 4 hours earlier. Years later, upon his execution, it seems the scene of those crimes is where he requested his ashes be spread, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Sick.
Kinda gotta wonder what role religion played for some of these serial killers. The Green River Killer south of Seattle, years later, obviously had a hangup between his religious upbringing and the prostitutes he was attracted to.
I don't know much about Bundy's motivation. I remember reading something about his grandfather's porn stash, being raised by that sadistic/abusive grandfather, who might even have been his father by way of incest, and was told his mother was his sister. Not sure how much religion and shame may have played a part, but seems he found out that his "sister" was his mother only a few years before the murders began. Definitely a fascinating story, if true, and we may never know the whole of it.
Not sure I ever want to see any movie about him. Curious what caused him to be the way he was, but don't care to see it portrayed.
This is exactly why we need to study these monsters. To find out what precluded the atrocities. If we put them to death, then we have lost all of this potential research data.
@Countrywoman For crying out loud Bundy was alive forever enough time to study him.
I wish more attention was paid to the victims of these monsters instead of giving these freaks their 15+ minutes.
Ted Bundy didn't have "straight good looks" IMO. There are no shortage of photos where he looks like a straight up weasel, but one doesn't necessarily have to be attractive to possess charisma.
In prison, Ted Bundy received many love letter from women. I don't understand it.
@LiterateHiker There's a whole psychology to that. I don't understand it either. Really depressing.
Lot of interesting comments here about "looking into the eyes of" & the way the person in question looked "through" the writer.
Would this type of being be what some religions and some philosophies define as "pure evil"?
Why is it that only humans can be psychopaths? There's no such thing as psycopathy in dogs, or horses, or ringtailed lemurs, or any other species. Only humans can achieve that level of sick and twisted behavior.
All part of god's perfect plan, I guess.
There are dogs and horses that are "wired" wrong, animals that require special circumstances and aren't "easy keepers" at best, but unless one spends a lot of time in "that world" amongst them not as obvious.
There are dolphins that kill for sport. We're just more aware of psychopathy in people because it's natural to pay more attention to our own.
@Qualia Some animals may exhibit aberrant behavior sometimes but I'm not familiar with any examples of violent psychopathy in animals comparable to what humans exhibit. There's no animal equivalent to Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper, or Anatoly Onoprienko; pure insane criminally violent evil. I believe that's exclusive to humans.
I could be wrong but I'm not aware of such a thing.
@Sgt_Spanky What I'm saying is vicious behavior isn't exclusive to humans. There are animals that kill for sport, they just aren't labeled "psychotic".
But it's neither here nor there to me.
@Qualia Agreed.
There are some sick ass people out there and I have met some in mental wards that are one small step from being in that world (or they are and I never knew). I remember one sexual predator who would back off any time I said, and politely, to do so, yet he terrified the women and always pushed the bubble with them, so to speak.
Mr Beowulf, I have to remind you at this point that people experiencing mental ill health (1:4 of us globally) are more likely to be victim s than perpetrators of violent crime.
@Amisja I do know that. My personal history has had me on both sides of a hospital mental ward. I've encountered many people, good people, who have been damaged by others more than their choices in life or even their genetics.
I met Ian Brady once (He was in a maximum security mental health hospital). I cannot explain the sensation of looking into someone's eyes who had literally no humanity. All I can equate it to is seeing computer animated avatar. Every thing looks like a human but isn't.
I know that look...it is empty and dark...what a fortunate friend...but such a piercing memory...
Exactly that.