The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (40 page)

The Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee, Florida. Although the facade has changed over the years, the layout of the second-floor bedrooms where the murders of Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman occurred, remains the same.

Although this was his first attack of the evening, it was not his first attempt. Indeed, there is reason to believe that his night of hunting had been going sour, and that as the hours passed he was running out of options to fulfill his dark inward craving.

According to a report filed with the Florida State University Police, a student at the campus by the name of Cheryl Rafferty was nearly abducted by a man of Bundy's approximate height and weight after leaving her car for the short walk to her dormitory. This individual was dressed exactly as Nita Neary had described the Chi Omega assailant in her report to the Tallahassee Police. Apparently, Bundy had jumped out from behind a bush (much the same way he had frightened Liz Kendall and others for the sheer enjoyment of it) and began approaching her. Obviously startled by his actions, the sharpeyed Rafferty quickened her pace, as did her stalker. When she saw this, she started running, and made it to the safety of Reynolds Hall. According to an FSU police report, after his arrest, Rafferty was shown a picture of Ted Bundy and stated she believed he was probably the man who chased her that night. This incident was at least five hours earlier than the attack at Chi Omega.

He was also spotted peering (apparently twice by the same witness, thirty-year-old Michael Rush) into the windows of apartments and houses along West Pensacola Avenue. This suspect wore a dark colored jacket (both Rafferty and Rush suggested it may have been a navy pea coat), a dark colored cap, and beige pants. Without doubt, this had to have been Theodore Bundy searching for victims; victims who were, for one reason or another, successfully eluding him. Perhaps these failures reminded him of his fruitless first day in Pocatello, Idaho, where he returned to the Holiday Inn emptyhanded. Not being able to fulfill his diabolical needs that evening in Pocatello had left Bundy feeling cheated and unsatisfied. He was determined not to let that happen again.

As the hours passed with no warm body to violate, he made his way to the still-crowded Sherrod's, the popular disco next to Chi Omega, which housed thirty-nine women. Sometime before midnight, a rather odd-acting Theodore Bundy entered the night club and began hunting available women. But here he had a problem. Being in such a heightened predatory state of mind, Bundy was not able to control his emotions, and the dark energy emanating from him was so strong that anyone would have found him to be odd, weird, or someone to be avoided. Indeed, it was reminiscent of his demeanor at Viewmont High School on the night he abducted Debbie Kent, when others observed him breathing heavily, pacing back and forth, and acting strangely, in front of hundreds of people.

Two young women, Carla Jean Black and Valerie Stone, both of whom were university students, arrived at Sherrod's around 12:30 A.M. In a one hour and forty-two minute interview held at in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Tallahassee Police Department on October 18, 1978, Carla Black described the actions of the individual later identified as Ted Bundy that night.

According to Ms. Black, at about 12:30 A.M. on January 15, 1978, she and a sorority sister of hers, Valerie Stone, went to Sherrod's. They entered into the premises and, eventually, after getting a drink she was standing around the area in the N/E portion of the building, the area that has an exit directly adjacent to the Chi-O House. Ms. Black's attention was drawn to a subject who appeared out of place, that is, he did not fit the typical college crowd. His dress and age along with his appearance, i.e. greasy looking appearance, made him stand out to her. Moreover, this subject kept staring at her and she was afraid he was going to ask her to dance.... Ms. Black states that he kept staring at her, along with many other persons, and that his mannerisms seemed to be more a "rude type of looking" "that he appeared to be smirking" or "that he felt superior" or a "I know something that you don't know attitude.""

At the moment when Nita Neary saw the crouching, club-holding man leaving through the sorority house's large, wooden, double, front doors, she was not yet aware of the terrible slaughter wrought by the man she had just seen exiting. After locking the front doors, Neary climbed the steps and awakened her roommate, Nancy Dowdy, and the two returned downstairs to make sure everything was all right. Going back upstairs, they awakened the house president, Jackie McGill, who hardly had any time to take in what Nita and Nancy were saying, when Karen Chandler came out of room Number 8, staggering and holding her head. Unable to speak beyond a weak plea for help, the bloody and moaning young woman, cradling her head in her hands, was led into a room and gently placed on a bed while the others called for help. As calls were hurriedly being made to the Tallahassee Police Department and Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Kathy Kleiner, Chandler's roommate, was found sitting up in bed moaning and rocking back and forth. She too was covered in blood. With all the commotion downstairs as the authorities arrived, the unharmed women of Chi Omega, one after another, began coming out of their bedrooms and into a world in chaos.

The first officer to respond was Tallahassee patrolman Oscar Brannon, along with members of the Florida State University Police and emergency medical technicians from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. According to Brannon's official report, it was now 3:22 A.M. As Officer Brannon listened to Neary's story about the man she saw leaving only about fifteen minutes earlier, FSU officers and the EMTs followed Dowdy upstairs and began working on Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, both of whom, it was quickly determined, had broken jaws and head lacerations. (Kleiner would leave three teeth on her bed to be photographed and retrieved by the evidence technicians.) Karen Chandler also suffered a "cut on her right hand, and her right index finger was almost severed just below the second digit."" While it is unknown just who was attacked first, the forensic evidence left in Room 8 is mute testimony to the savage beating Chandler and Kleiner were subjected to, and is indicative of the pent-up fury within Theodore Bundy. They very well may have been the first victims of the night. Sgt. Howard Winkler, who was responsible for dusting for fingerprints and photographing each of the rooms where the attacks occurred, described the scene: "This writer pro ceeded to room #8 and observed blood on both beds. Blood was also located on walls around both beds and on the ceiling between the windows and light fixture.""

Based on Nita Neary's description of the attacker, a BOLO (Be On The Lookout) was immediately issued to all local police agencies and every police cruiser on the street. At about this same time, FSU officers discovered the still form of Lisa Levy lying face down in her bed in Room 4. As a quick check revealed no vital signs, several EMTs came running and immediately began CPR. Although a valiant effort was made to save her life both there and on the way to TMH, young Lisa Levy would be declared DOA by the hospital's attending medical team. Although she was beaten severely, her death was due to strangulation. Unlike he had done to any of the other victims, the perpetrator, in a fit of animalistic rage, had bitten the dying Levy in the buttocks and almost completely chewed off one of her nipples.

Perhaps, given his state of mind, the desire to bite her was something which erupted from deep within, and was certainly not planned. But it would prove to be his supreme error of the evening, and one that would come back to haunt him in the future. For the investigators, it was nothing less than a fortuitous event.

At 3:35 A.M. (only about thirteen minutes after the first responders arrived), Officer Henry Newkirk of the Tallahassee Police Department entered the foyer of Chi Omega and walked upstairs, where he found near-pandemonium on the part of the young residents of the sorority. Not only had they been awakened to the knowledge that an assault on two of their friends had just occurred, but the whisking away of an unresponsive Lisa Levy only heightened their fears. Correctly gauging the scene as an evidence-gathering nightmare, he quickly began rounding up the distraught and crying women and leading them into an empty room. His reason for doing so, he explained later, was "to quell some of the extraneous wandering and commotion.""

As soon as Newkirk had them settled into Room 2, he began asking them what, if anything, they had seen. No sooner had he said this, however, than Melanie Nelson interrupted him and asked if he could "look into room #9 to make sure Margaret Bowman was alright since she had not exited her room."" Upon hearing this, Newkirk wheeled about and walked the short distance to the room Margaret Bowman shared with Kim Weeks, who was away for the weekend. "This writer entered room #9," he would later write, "and immediately closed the door behind me once I observed blood on a pillow."'s Detective Newkirk had just discovered the second fatality at Chi Omega. Continuing his report, Newkirk, in the emotionless and analytical detail so common to police department homicide reports, describes the condition of Margaret Bowman:

Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, Bundy's victims at Chi Omega (courtesy Florida State Archives).

Ms. Bowman was lying on the bed in the south-west corner of the room with her with her head and feet pointing in the south-north direction, respectively. The bed spread was covering Ms. Bowman ['s] entire body with the exception of her head-which was tilted to the right lying on her pillow. [Her face was facing the west wall.] This writer pulled back the cover [bedspread] and observed Ms. Bowman had been strangled with a pair of nylon panty hose. Her legs were bent outwardly slightly and spread open. [Ms. Bowman was lying on her stomach.] Her right arm was extended down her side and her left arm was bent with her elbow facing east and her left hand resting on her back. Both palms of the hands were turned upward. This writer turned Ms. Bowman over onto her right side to check for a heartbeat or pulse and discovered neither. This writer looked at Ms. Bowman's head and observed where Ms. Bowman had received a crushing blow to her right forehead coupled with what appeared to be to puncture wounds in the same vicinity. Massive bleeding occurred from both the forehead and the right ear. Additionally Ms. Bowman's neck appeared to be disjointed leading this writer to believe there was a possible neck fracture. Ms. Bowman's body was relatively warm to the touch and her eyes were glassy with pupils dilated."

Officer Brannon, who viewed the body of Margaret Bowman only moments after Newkirk discovered her, noted in his report "Margaret Elizabeth Bowman was found face down on her bed [with] no vital signs present and no hope of gaining any.""

Oddly, both Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy had been at Sherrod's that evening. Whether Bundy actually saw them is unknown, but he was well aware that members of the sorority frequented this club, as well as other nightclubs in the area. It is also of interest that sometime between midnight and when Sherrod's closed on the night of the murders, an "unknown male" called out to a young woman who was passing in front of Sherrod's and said: "Are you a Chi 0?" When she told him no, that she belonged to another sorority, he responded rather cryptically, "You're lucky.""

When Theodore Bundy shut the door of the Chi Omega sorority house behind him, it was about 3:15 in the morning. In his hand he still gripped the log from the woodpile, but now it was bloody, and much of the bark had flown off onto the beds and floors of rooms 4, 8, and 9, and into the wounds of his victims. Instead of casting it away (it was, after all, a major piece of evidence which could easily be linked to the crime scene), he kept it by his side, as it had not completely served its purpose. For whatever satisfaction he had obtained from the attacks, it wasn't enough. Only a portion of his dark craving had been satiated, and he wanted much more before he'd be ready to return home. As he walked away, he headed west, walking along the south side of West Jefferson Street.

At approximately 3:20 A.M. (only two minutes before Oscar Brannon and company arrived), Mr. Yomi Segun was driving west along West Jefferson. He noticed a man moving quickly along the sidewalk who drew his attention. In an interview with Detective D.L. West on August 28, he described what he saw: "Mr. Segun states that he observed a white male about 5'10" and about 160 lbs. wearing light brown pants, a blue coat and a dark colored knit cap walking fast westerly on Jefferson Street.... This subject had brown hair and a pointed nose. He was carrying something in his left hand and holding it close to his left leg."19