Three Views On How Bundy Became A Serial Killer

Theodore Bundy was a serial killer from the United States, who beat, raped, and murdered dozens of women across seven states in the 1970s. Everyone who knew Ted Bundy described him as charming, intelligent, charismatic, but all these traits were actually symptoms of his psychological disorders. Because his mental health was never addressed as a child, Ted Bundy went on to brutally rape and murder at least 50 women.

Ted Bundy’s Life

Ted Bundy was born in Vermont in November 1946 to Eleanor Cowell. His mother was only 22 at the time and ultimately made the decision to place Bundy into foster care. Shortly after, his grandparents Samuel and Eleanor Cowell adopted him. His grandparents raised him to believe they were his biological parents and that his mother was his sister. Although Bundy admired his grandfather very much, he was known to be verbally and physically abusive. At a young age, Ted Bundy showed signs of violence. He tortured animals and once surrounded his aunt with knives while she was sleeping (Saltzman 3). It is also thought that he may have murdered a neighborhood child when he was only 14 years old, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him (Pasqualini 1).

In January 1974, Ted beat and raped his first known victim Karen Sparks. Karen Sparks survived but had to live the rest of her life with permanent disabilities. Over the next few months, Bundy committed at least seven murders in Washington and Colorado before moving to Salt Lake City Utah for law school. It wasn’t long before women started disappearing around campus. In November 1974, he attempted to abduct Carol DeRonch outside of a mall in Utah. He posed as a police officer and told her that someone had broken into her car. She agreed to go with him to the police station but quickly realized that things didn’t make sense. She was able to escape Bundy’s car and reported him to police.

In February 1976, Bundy stood trial for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DeRonch. He was found guilty and sentenced to one to fifteen years in prison. While serving time in prison, Bundy was charged with a murder in Colorado and was transferred to Aspen to stand trial. During his sentence in Colorado, Bundy managed to escape jail twice within 6 months. The second time he escaped, Bundy made it all the way to Florida. There, he broke into a sorority house. He murdered and raped two women, and brutally beat and raped two others. Bundy tried to leave Florida before he could be caught but was pulled over for driving in a stolen vehicle.

In June 1979, Bundy stood trial for his murders in Florida. It was the first trial to ever be televised across the United States. He was convicted of two counts of murder, three counts of attempted first-degree murder, and two counts of burglary. For these crimes he was sentenced to death by electrocution. On January 24th, 1989, Ted Bundy died in the electric chair at the age of 42. Prior to his death, Bundy confessed to killing over 50 women (Dar 1).

Three Views on How Bundy Became a Serial Killer

A Christian Psychologist’s View

Dr. Dobson, an Evangelist Christian and psychologist, believed that pornography was the primary factor that influenced Ted Bundy’s murderous crime spree. According to Dr. Dobson, pornography is a threat to our youth. Early exposure to it could create an addiction that is worse that cocaine and heroin (1). “A boy who would normally be stimulated by a ‘cheerleader’ image of the opposite sex can learn through obscenity to find excitement in hurting someone, or in sex with animals, or in homosexual violence, or in having sex with younger children. Many men who have succumbed to these perverse sexual appetites have traced them to the dawn of their adolescence” (Dobson 1). This is what Dobson believes happened to Ted Bundy.

Ted Bundy became addicted to porn in his early teenage years. The night before Ted Bundy’s execution, Dr. James Dobson was granted permission to film an interview with Bundy for his show Focus on The Family. Bundy explained how his sexual fantasies were no longer suppressed by watching and reading porn. He began to crave something harder than he couldn’t find in everyday pornography. Bundy began praying on young women and was only able to climax by doing unspeakable things to them and killing them. Dr. Dobson believed that there is a possibility that if Bundy had never stumbled upon pornography that he wouldn’t have become a serial killer (1).

A Court Room Psychologist’s View

Dr. Dorothy Lewis, a psychologist, was hired to evaluate Ted Bundy during his trial. She believed that Bundy suffered from Bipolar disorder and may have also had a brain tumor that blocked receptors in his brain that affected his ability to feel empathy (Pruitt 1). According to Dr. Lewis, Bundy would often have extreme mood changes. It would almost feel like he was a different person with each change.

Throughout his life Bundy experienced altered states in which he became a different personality. During his trial he would often be seen passing back and forth in his cell and talking to himself. He was often observed going from feeling extremely happy and confident to extremely angry followed by long periods of silence (Gainsburg 1). Dr. Lewis tried to get Bundy a plea deal by saying he was mentally unstable because of his Bipolar disorder but the plea was denied, and Bundy ended up going to the electric chair. After his execution no brain biopsy was done so we will never know if there could’ve been a tumor.

A Forensic Psychologist’s View

Dr. Darrel Turner, a forensic psychologist who specializes in psychopathy, predatory behavior, and violent crime, has been studying and lecturing about the Ted Bundy case for years. Dr. Turner believes Bundy showed signs of conduct disorder as a child (Puder 1). This disorder often arises from a traumatic childhood.

Although Bundy describes his childhood as a happy one in the Dobson interview, many claimed that his grandfather was physically and mentally abusive. Some early signs of conduct disorder that Bundy showed was having uncontrollable anger, hurting and killing animals, and acts of violence against his family members. As he got older Bundy began showing signs of psychopathic antisocial behavior. One major trait of a person with psychopathic antisocial disorder is their ability to manipulate people (Gainsburg 1). Bundy’s ability to be a master manipulator is one of the reasons he was able to fly under the radar for so long. Bundy was able to manipulate several people into gaining his trust and to thinking he was normal. He was even able to manipulate a judge into letting him use the court library which led to his first escape from prison. Dr. Turner does not agree with Dr. Dobson. Turner said, “Ted Bundy blamed his behaviors on pornography. However, pornography is not viewed as a cause of sexual violence. In persons who have preexisting conditions for sexual violence, it is a viewed as a contributing factor” (qtd. in Puder 2).

Why did Ted Bundy become a serial killer?

Ted Bundy became a serial killer because of psychological issues that stemmed from his traumatic childhood which were never addressed by his family while he was growing up. Ted Bundy was a product of his environment. Although Ted Bundy denied being in an abusive household, he was. His parents were constantly lying to him. They even made him believe that his biological mother was his sister which caused him to have abandonment issues. His grandfather was physically abusive and violent, and his grandmother suffered from her own psychological issues such as depression and agoraphobia. These are definitely not signs of a happy healthy home that Ted Bundy tried to make us believe in his Dr. Dobson interview.

It is clear Ted Bundy had a traumatic childhood, and because of the trauma he endured, he ended up with social issues making it hard for him to have friends and live a normal life. Ted Bundy was threatening children, killing animals, and had a terrible temper growing up and because these issues were never addressed by a psychologist when he was a child, they simply got worse. If he had been diagnosed as a child and put on proper medications or seen by a therapist weekly, he would have found a healthy outlet to deal with his issues. Some may argue that during the 1940s and 50s’ there wasn’t a lot of research around to diagnose him at an early age, but this opinion doesn’t ring true. Ted Bundy’s parents neglected to get him help as a child and that is why he turned into one of the most famous serial killers of the 20th century.

I agree with Dr. Darrel Turner who studied the Ted Bundy case for years. As stated before, Dr. Turner believed that Ted Bundy had shown signs of conduct disorder as a child. Since his parents completely ignored all these signs and just chalked it up to Ted Bundy being a kid, it progressed to psychopathic antisocial disorder. According to Dr. Turner, “Ted Bundy is basically the textbook definition of a ‘prototypical’ psychopath” (qtd. in Gainsburg). I agree with Dr. Turner that Ted Bundy had many mental disorders such as psychopathy and psychopathic antisocial disorder. In 2007, 73 psychologists at the University of Kentucky did a study and composed a long list of psychological disorders that they believe Ted Bundy had which included psychopathic antisocial disorder. During the study, “80 percent of the team believed Bundy was a prototype (a perfect example) of the disorder, checking off all of its criteria outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”(Gainsburg 1). Ted Bundy had shown every symptom of psychopathic antisocial disorder such as egocentrism, lacking empathy and remorse, incapacity to maintain mutually intimate relationships, antagonism, compulsiveness, and manipulation just to name a few (Gainsburg 1). But this isn’t all they found. Approximately 95 percent of the psychologists who participated in the study also believed Ted Bundy had Narcissistic Personality Disorder also known as DSM-5 (Gainsburg 1).

I must disagree with Dr. Dobson’s beliefs on why Ted Bundy became a murderer. Dr. Dobson pushes the argument that Ted Bundy had an addiction to pornography and that is why he became a serial rapist and murderer (Dobson 1). The Dr. Dobson and Ted Bundy interview was biased because Dr. Dobson was an avid anti-pornography group supporter. The only reason he wanted to interview Ted Bundy was because he knew that Ted Bundy always told interviewers and writers what that particular person wanted to hear. Ted Bundy had also become somewhat of a celebrity during his trial, so it would make sense that Dr. Dobson would want a man like Ted Bundy to preach what his beliefs were. Dr. Dobson knew having a man who had so many people drawn to him would help his T.V. show ratings and draw in more donations. Part of why Ted Bundy was eager to do this interview was because he was hoping his execution would be pushed off a couple more months just like it was before. There’s no doubt that pornography influenced some of his fantasies, but to say that pornography was the reason he decided to rape and murder a bunch of women and a child is absurd. It is impossible to pinpoint what makes a person a serial killer and rapist who is capable of these violent acts, but a lot of underlying psychological issues are the most common factor among all serial killers.

Conclusion

Ted Bundy became a serial killer because his mental illnesses were never treated. Ted Bundy’s parents could have saved his life and the lives of several young women if they hadn’t been so negligent. Today people all over the country are being raped and murdered. It is important that we bring more light to mental illness and make treatment easier to access so that we can keep bright and intelligent youth from growing up to become serial killers like Theodore Robert Bundy.