The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (12 page)

It was one thing for Theodore Bundy to create an outer life to cover the gross internal inadequacies of which he gradually became aware in his formative years, and quite another to form that outer self during his years as a cold-blooded killer of young women and girls. For as he turned from the troubled (but harmless) youth into the cunning, solitary, adult predator, that "mask of sanity" is what kept the world at bay while he performed his diabolical work. When the world looked at Ted Bundy, he just didn't fit the pattern. Sociopaths rarely do.

Dr. Al Carlisle, the clinical psychologist with whom Bundy was obliged to work in 1976, would later write, "He lived his life in a compulsive manor [sic] that was well ordered and exact. Events and actions as well as conversations were planned and rehearsed many times before they took place. It was very important for him to never be caught off his guard. Life was like a chess game to him. He was always mentally two moves ahead of his opponent, so no matter what move was made he always had several suitable countering actions that could assure him success .1116

Concluding a ten-page psychological evaluation of his patient for the court, Carlisle concluded: "I feel Mr. Bundy has not allowed me to get to know him and I believe there are many significant things about him that remain hidden."" Dr. Carlisle was right on target.

Dr. Van O. Austin, prison psychiatrist, concluded his report on Bundy by saying, "It is my feeling that there is much more to his personality structure than either the psychologist or I have been able to determine. However, as long as he compartmentalizes, rationalizes, and debates every facet of his life, I do not feel that I adequately know him, and until I do, I can not preduct [sic] his future behavior.""

No one could.

Bundy's freshman year at the University of Puget Sound was somewhat lonely. Without the coed he so desired, life seemed drearily to repeat itself on a daily basis. His social life consisted of class attendance and whatever interaction he might have with Warren Dodge, Terry Storwick, or some other male acquaintance. But all of this would change the following year.

Enrolling himself for the fall semester at the University of Washington in Seattle, Bundy set his mind on Asian history and language studies, with a desire one day to work for the State Department "in an academic position, such as in trade on Mainland China." Bundy would later say that he "wanted to gain a position of authority to improve the relationships between the United States and China.""

It would be at the University of Washington that he encountered the coed of his dreams. Her name was Carla Browning (a pseudonym). She was beautiful, polished, and from a well-to-do family in San Francisco, California. She was also a little bit older than Bundy and due to graduate in the spring of 1968. She was, perhaps, everything he ever wanted, or thought he wanted, out of life. But they were from different socio-economic worlds and Bundy knew it, although he tried not to let this trouble him. He was very proud when they became a couple, and as far as his psychopathic tendencies would allow, he may have actually tried to make things work between them so they could some day marry. While he could see there were things she liked about him (they both loved skiing, for example, and it was clear even to others they obviously enjoyed the time they spent together), he felt she wasn't about to share her future with someone she couldn't see as her equal, and any signs of weakness, immaturity, or failure would surely send her packing. Being fully aware of his precarious standing with her placed an extraordinary amount of pressure on him to measure up, but apparently he was willing to try. He was certain the facade the mask offered would help hide his internal battles and bring him through these crises with the opposite sex. Bundy would later say that when the relationship became strained, it was "over petty mat- ters."20 Some of these "petty matters" were no doubt his habit of using her money on occasion (either cash or credit cards) to purchase things he wanted or needed. But for Carla, who eventually began to see him foundering academically and as someone who was a bit unsure of himself, the problems ran much, much deeper.

In the summer of 1967, he attended on a scholarship the Chinese Institute at Stanford University to further his Asian studies, and perhaps be closer to Carla. But he would not do well academically, and he was starting to change his mind about a career in the Far East. He apparently didn't like life at the university, didn't like being away from Washington and everything he called home, and admitted later to feeling "a bit too alien" in his surroundings.' His decision to forego a life which would have taken him to the Orient meant that a certain number of Asian ladies, who most certainly would have died, still had a future.

He also didn't yet realize it, but he was about to lose Carla as well.

Feeling the sting of this setback, he returned that fall to the University of Washington with the intention of majoring in architecture and urban planning. He landed a job parking cars at the Seattle Yacht Club that September. But the stressors of his life were beginning to take their toll, and for the first time he began to flounder academically. It wasn't so much that the mask was failing him now, but rather, he was experiencing a type of internal meltdown. When Carla finally informed him of her intention to end the relationship, it was a knockout blow to an already fractured personality. Mentally, he began to unravel, and he needed to do something to alleviate the pressure. Telling his cousin of his need "to get out of Seattle because there were bad remembrances,"" Bundy informed the university he would not be returning for the winter semester of 1968. Perhaps this was the change he needed. Perhaps now he could "regroup." The best thing, he believed, was to leave Washington State altogether.

Bundy's first stop was San Francisco. He then flew to Denver, where he conquered the slopes at one or more of the resorts. From here, he returned to the place of his first memories, Philadelphia, where he visited with family members, and perhaps reminisced about how things used to be; although it is certain the pain and humiliation of Carla was an ever-present reality. From Philadelphia, he traveled to Arkansas to visit with his Uncle Jack before hopping a flight back to Seattle. Like a homing pigeon, he would return to Washington State and attempt to put the pieces back together again. It wouldn't be easy, and while he would visit with Carla occasionally, he understood that, while they both had a future to look forward to, it wouldn't be a future together. All of that was just a dream now. Yet in his most dejected moment he could never have believed that one day his lost love would see a different Bundy (when the mask was well in place again), and abruptly change her mind, giving him that golden second chance. By then it would no longer matter. He was undergoing internal changes she could never have imagined.

In April of 1968, he found employment at a Safeway store in Seattle. It was, like his job parking cars at the yacht club, menial, not requiring a lot of thought or pressure. He also obtained work that summer with the Olympia Hotel as a busboy but quit after only a month due to allegations that he was stealing. Yet he was never charged with anything and wasn't officially fired. Lowly as these stints were, this is the way he wanted it for the time being, though he understood his only real future rested in completing his education. He couldn't continue stocking shelves or busing dishes forever, but until he could realign himself, it would have to do. Realignment, however, was coming far quicker than he believed.

During a chance meeting with an old friend in July, Bundy was offered the opportunity of working for Art Fletcher, a city councilman seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Seeing his life mired in social quicksand, so to speak, he didn't think twice about it. He was needed, and with some hard work he could be useful to Fletcher in his bid for office. Articulate, polished, and a good dresser, Bundy understood just how well he would fit in. With that gift of gab and that winning smile, this job could do nothing but strengthen the mask, making the outward Bundy more believable to the world. He was also keenly aware it would take him into social circles he would never be allowed to enter otherwise. Quickly waving good-bye to the drudgery of the Safeway, he threw himself into the campaign to elect Art Fletcher the first black lieutenant governor of Washington State.

As a volunteer, Bundy rolled up his sleeves and became a diligent campaigner for his candidate, eventually serving as Fletcher's personal driver that fall. As was always the case when it came to the public Bundy, he was wellliked by the other members of the team. There was not the slightest sign of an emerging fiend. Nothing in his actions thus far seemed out-of-order. The outer Bundy was a smiling, look-you-straight-in-the-eye kind of guy. He had a bright future ahead of him. You could see it from his demeanor and the way he handled himself. He was, one might say, nothing like the inner Bundy.

That November, Art Fletcher lost his bid for lieutenant governor, dashing any hopes Bundy might have had of following him into even the most menial of jobs in his administration. Still, a fire for the political life had been lit in him. By this time in his life, he was an accomplished Peeping Tom with a desire for the most abhorrent type of pornography-the violent domination of a female by a male. The aberration of his public life would make it even harder for those who knew him to accept the Ted Bundy the world would come to know. Bundy the killer and Bundy the Republican campaigner didn't match up at all.

Still unable emotionally to return to school in Washington State, he would enroll at Temple University in Philadelphia in January 1969. His actual arrival to the city occurred a month prior to this, when he secured a room at 4039 South Warner Street, in what is known as Lafayette Hill. Maybe, in his more lucid moments, he was attempting to get away from the inner demons that were circling like dark emissaries in his mind and emotions. Perhaps his nocturnal roaming had already culminated somewhere in the rape and murder of young women. There are retired detectives today who certainly think so. So it is important to note here that in later life, Bundy would admit (albeit in sometimes veiled references) that it was during his time at Temple that his desire to begin "acting out" began.23 Never satisfied with hunting victims in one locale only, Bundy would travel to New York City to see the famous fleshpots for himself, but that would do nothing to fulfill his increasing desire to abduct a woman and abuse her sexually both before and after death. He would purchase a wig and mustache for concealment when he launched these future attacks, yet he had this uncanny (almost diabolical) ability to change his facial appearance even without the use of disguises. Just days before his execution he would tell of his first feeble attempt to capture a woman in Ocean City, New Jersey. He apparently attempted nervously to strike up a conversation, and somehow, in the midst of all this, tried and failed to gain mastery over the woman, and she escaped. This, he would later confess, drew his attention to how unprepared he was for this sort of thing. It wasn't that he lacked aggression (he was bubbling over with it), but he didn't have the expertise in planning and executing. His fantasies had been fueling his desires for some time, and he was reaching the point where action would naturally (if I can use that word here) follow. Any sense of restraint would be merely for self preservation while he honed his skills as an abductor, a very polite, confident, believable, and charming abductor. One who could lead a woman away to be slaughtered with a smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye. That day was coming, but at this point Ted Bundy was still the experimenting amateur, and he knew it. Even so, it cannot be ruled out that he in fact killed while on the East Coast. Some experts, like Dr. Art Norman who interviewed Bundy shortly before he was executed, said Bundy "told me in no uncertain terms" his launch into murder was killing two women while living in Philadelphia. 24 Seven years later, explaining why he left Philadelphia, he said the region was "crowded, dirty, with no forest."25 Bundy would make good use of the vast forests of the Northwest in the coming years. Perhaps dumping bodies anywhere near Philadelphia, Ocean City, or other cities in that "crowded" mass of humanity along the eastern strip of the United States, was just to difficult a task for him.

By spring of 1969, Bundy would return to Washington State, renting a small apartment on 12th Avenue Northeast, in Seattle's University District. His landlords, Ernst and Frieda Rogers, viewed the young man as most others who knew him. He was polite, considerate, friendly, never rowdy, and willing to lend a hand if Ernst or Frieda were in need of a small favor. Indeed, on a day some six years in the future when Seattle detectives would visit the couple seeking information about him, the visit was almost beyond their comprehension. The outer man was nothing like the inner man.

From the time of his return to Seattle there would be, for a time, no set pattern for his outer self. He would, over the next several years, appear to those around him as heading in the right direction in life. As we shall see, he would be politically active, would hold down employment, finish school, enroll in school, again and carry on a normal sexual relationship with a woman he was in love with. At least it was his version of love. A picture of confidence and stability would begin to emerge for Theodore Bundy, leaving those around him convinced of his ultimate success, be it in politics or whatever professional endeavor he might choose for his life's work. But alas, Philadelphia marked a change in him, whether he could freely admit it to himself or not. For that driving force within - that pressure which would rise to the surface and recede after the act was completed - had whet its appetite while he was living in the East. Now the feeding of this "entity" (a sometimes growling entity) directing him and speaking to him about his victims) as he would later call it, became the primary focus of his life. Everything else became secondary. Everything else became the facade.

That summer of 1969, he would spend his days toiling at the Griggs lumber mill. It was by far the most physically taxing job Bundy ever worked, but apparently it paid the bills, and like all his previous jobs, was only temporary. In August, while the country watched the hippies migrating to Woodstock, New York, for their now-famous music fest and learned of the brutal murders of Sharon Tate and the others who were slaughtered by the followers of Charles Manson, Bundy quietly went about life and, once again, decided to delay his return to the University of Washington. He did, however, leave the dust, noise, and back-breaking work of the lumber mill behind, and procured a job with a legal messenger service in early September.