The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (43 page)

On that same evening, Tallahassee Officer Roy Dickey was sitting in his unmarked car on the south side of West St. Augustine Street, where it meets Dunwoody Street to, as he would later write, "observe any late night-early morning activity which might yield information relating to the Chi-omega murder 1-15-78."" St. Augustine is a one-way street heading east, which meant Officer Dickey was facing east with his back toward Stadium Drive. At approximately 10:45 P.M., Bundy was walking north on Stadium Drive, and just as he rounded the corner onto West St. Augustine, Roy Dickey noticed him. Bundy spotted the officer right away too, as noted in Dickey's report, which says the individual took evasive action by quickly walking between two houses in an attempt to get to Pensacola Avenue, one block north. As soon as Dickey saw what Bundy was doing, he radioed Officer Donald Porter, who was stationed in his vehicle at Pensacola and Woodward, just a short distance east of where Bundy should have come out, but didn't. Despite the efforts of both officers, Bundy was not seen again; but later, Officer Dickey would positively identify him as the man he saw disappear between the two houses that night.

When Bundy returned to his apartment he started loading his stolen car with all of his stolen items. He had parked it a block from the rooming house. Around 1:00 A.M., Deputy Keith Dawes rolled up to the lone individual standing by a row of cars, either "locking or unlocking a car door" of one of them.' It wasn't any one thing Bundy had done that attracted his attention, but cops understand that the night brings out many strange characters, and it was only natural for Dawes to wonder what this person was doing. A quick look and he would be on his way if everything looked normal.

Apparently, Bundy was able to maintain his composure as the deputy popped open the door and got out of his cruiser. When Dawes asked him for identification, Bundy said he didn't have anything on him and then mentioned he'd come to his car to get something out of it. "Where do you live?" the deputy asked, and Bundy blurted out, "College Avenue" without thinking about it.13 Bundy must have felt a sense of deja vu as his mind raced back to his August 16, 1975 arrest, and he could see a repeat disaster in the making.

With flashlight in hand, Dawes peered inside and spotted a license plate. Bundy handed it to him, telling the officer that he'd found it and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. As Bundy stood there, Dawes retraced his steps to his vehicle, intending to call in the Toyota's plate and the one that read 13D-11330, the plate that was affixed to the white van when Danny Parmenter hastily wrote the number down as Bundy sped away. But as Dawes was reaching for his radio, the athletic killer sprinted down an alleyway and was gone before the deputy could respond. Pursuit, the officer rightly believed, would be useless. The stolen car and items were immediately impounded.

Why Bundy didn't get rid of the license plate on the van during the failed attempt with the Parmenter girl and possibly during the abducting and killing the Leach girl is anyone's guess. It was just another mistake in a long line of mistakes that would highlight Bundy's mental decline.

Bundy would spend the remainder of the night sitting in his room with the light off and staring out the window for a problem that didn't arrive. Once again, he'd slipped through the hands of the authorities. He resolved to get out of Tallahassee the next day, but the next day would present problems of its own.

Bundy awoke the morning of February 12 knowing he had much to do, especially finding transportation out of the city. At about 11:00 A.M. Bundy peered inside a 1972 Mazda parked in the Mormon Church parking lot at 312 Stadium Drive and spotted the keys dangling from the ignition. Smiling, Bundy climbed inside and cranked the key to the right until the engine fired up and began to hum. Turning his head revealed no one was coming, and with a quick shift into first gear, Ted Bundy was on his way; or at least he thought so. Having gone only a few feet, Bundy noticed a shimmy in the front end. The car was in terrible shape, and after driving it only a short distance, he pulled into the Monterey Apartments parking lot at the intersection of Old Bainbridge Road and High Road and decided to dump it for something better.

As luck would have it, sitting directly across from him was his favorite ride, a Volkswagen Beetle just waiting to be stolen. As luck would have it, the keys were waiting for him.

As soon as he started it up and pulled away, Bundy noticed the owner had souped up the engine a bit. He also noted it was a '68 VW like the one he used to own. Then he began to notice the personal touches connected with the car and began feeling just a little bit guilty for having taken it. Describing the situation later to detectives, despite the stammering and halting manner of his speech, Ted Bundy is probably telling the truth:

I looked at it and it was obvious, some, somebody's little pride and joy had souped it up and I know I wasn't looking I didn't want to take anybody's car like you know I felt that couldn't afford you know I don't know to say these things but it kind of sounds odd maybe to you but here, this was ob[viously], this was a girls car first of all because it has these little trinkets hanging down and the books and things, kinds of things in a car that a girl would have in the car, and I said, Jesus, man, don't take her car you know, I felt you know I didn't want to take it, believe it or not, I mean I'm telling you straight, I -I -I -just said, what are [we] going to do, I had the damn thing and I said why don't we use it to look for another car so I just, I used it to look for another car.""

Just as Bundy had unknowingly committed his last murder with the Leach girl, his last car theft would come later that evening when he stole a 1972 orange VW belonging to Ricky Garzaniti. When Bundy approached the car, sitting across from 515 E. Georgia Street, it was approximately 11:00 P.M. Unknown to Bundy, the Garzanitis had just stopped there thirty minutes earlier and gone into the house to pick up their child, but had stayed to talk awhile. Only a short time earlier, Rick Garzaniti had shut his car door and intentionally left his keys swinging in the ignition, knowing they'd be there only a minute or so. In light of what was about to happen, it's ironic that on the rear window of Mr. Garzaniti's VW, a sticker bore the following enticement: "Take a ride inside." When the Garzanitis returned with child in tow at 11:15, the family car was nowhere to be found, and Theodore Bundy was cruising through the streets of Tallahassee heading for the nearest entrance ramp to the interstate heading west, towards Pensacola and the Alabama state line. Having dawdled over the last several days (and he wasn't through dawdling yet), he was finally intending to leave Tallahassee and all of Florida behind. Had he been thinking in a clearer manner, he would have gotten out of the state long before, but he was comfortable with his surroundings and was finding it difficult to leave, at least on a subconscious level. For women everywhere, this was a very good thing, for his career as a killer of women was about to come to a screeching halt.

13

"GOING WEST AT SOMEONE ELSE'S EXPENSE))*

Bundy's odyssey from Tallahassee to the Alabama state line was Murphy's Law in action. It was as if all things, both animate and inanimate, were throwing up obstacles to keep the madman from leaving the state. First the rear wheel of the VW developed a problem which made driving tenuous, especially when slower-than-normal driving could alert the police. He paid for a meal with a card that was rejected for being stolen and he had to flee with a waitress and gun-toting manager in hot pursuit. While hiding out later that day, he got the VW stuck in a restricted area of Eglin Air Force Base, where he'd throw out many of the personal items he carried (as well as the vehicle's rear seat). He had to be pushed out with the help of a service station attendant. It appeared that everything Theodore Bundy did as he traveled west was fraught with danger. And then there was Pensacola.

Bundy's arrival in Pensacola was the beginning of the end for this most ruthless of killers. He did not know it at the time, nor would his arrogance have acknowledged it even if he did have inkling of what was in store for him, but this is where his life would come to an abrupt halt. Everything beyond Pensacola was a cage and exposure while the wheels of justice moved ever so slowly to deprive him of what he had deprived so many others of. But he knew none of that as he entered the city late Monday night and attempted to rent a room with a stolen credit card. As at the restaurant early that morning, he was forced to flee and spend the night sleeping in the car.

Bundy spent Tuesday, February 14 finding a place to shower (the airport) and a good meal. He also discovered that same anonymity-which for Bundy translated into safety-here in Pensacola that he had in Tallahassee, without the heated and intense homicide investigation that was causing him to avoid police officers like Roy Dickey and Don Porter, and their surveil lance cars. The only real danger, as Bundy saw it, was getting caught with the stolen car. He would wait until nightfall to make his break for the Alabama state line. Fate, however, had other plans, and would be aided once again by Bundy's indecisiveness.

By 1:30 in the morning of Wednesday, February 15, Ted Bundy should have been long gone from the state of Florida. But instead, he had a run-in like his middle-of-the-night fiasco with Officer Hayward in Granger, Utah, in August of '75, and his encounter with Patrolman Dawes at the stolen car in Tallahassee. Theodore Bundy, who loved the night, was spotted by Pensacola patrolman David Lee, who found him driving with his headlights turned off in Brownsville, a suburb of Pensacola. Naturally, the first thing Lee did was call in the plate number and he quickly learned the car was stolen. Seeing the flashing lights behind him and driving an all but crippled VW, Bundy's only choice was to pull quietly to the side of the road.

Officer Lee drew his revolver as he exited his car and ordered the driver to lie face down on the pavement. Bundy complied. With his nose almost touching the road, he heard the officer shout out, asking him if there was anyone else in the car, but he refused to answer. In an instant, Bundy felt a strange hand grabbing his left hand and the cold steel of a handcuff clicking tightly around his wrist. Bundy knew if he didn't get away now there would be no getting away.

Having gotten one cuff on his suspect, David Lee, still holding his revolver in his right hand, quickly moved to place Bundy's right hand in the restraint, but as he did so, his prisoner rolled over and struck him in the face. With the deputy already off balance, Bundy kicked his feet out from under him. As Lee tried to steady himself, he saw his prisoner lunge at him and Lee fired one round at Bundy, but missed. Bundy pivoted and ran away with Lee right behind him.

As the two men ran through the deserted streets of Pensacola, Bundy actually took the time to turn around several times to see if the persistent cop was closing in, his arms flailing and Lee screaming at him to halt. Chances are, had Lee not seen that flicker coming from Bundy as he turned to look at the officer, Bundy might have gotten away. But Lee considered the possibility that his fleeing suspect might have a gun (he had forgotten about the handcuffs), and wanting to go home after his shift ended, he aimed his revolver as carefully as he could while running and fired for the second time. This time, however, Officer Lee believed he'd hit Bundy, who immediately fell to the ground.

Expecting to find a dead or wounded man lying incapacitated on the ground, Lee wasted no time bending down to see where his bullet had landed. Once again, he was in harm's way, as the supposed victim came to life and kicked Lee's feet out from under him for the second time. Instead of running away, Bundy attempted to disarm him and that was something Lee was not going to allow. (At one point, having heard Bundy's calls for help, a neighbor initially attempted to intervene, but seeing the scuffle involved a police officer, quickly retreated back into his home.) Instead of firing again, Lee hit his adversary in the face three times very quickly with the barrel of his heavy pistol. Bundy, now bleeding and injured, fell backward and surrendered just as other units of the Pensacola Police Department arrived. Lee finished locking the cuffs on Bundy's wrists and led him to his car.

On the drive to the station, Bundy, sitting in the back seat with his hands cuffed behind him, must have gauged (quite correctly) how bleak a future awaited him. He was silent, as was Lee. Periodically the officer would glance in his rear view mirror and catch a glimpse of his subdued prisoner when a passing street lamp bathed the car with light. Overwhelmed with exhaustion by the pace of the last several days, and despondent by what lay ahead, the former law student and rising star on the Washington State political scene blurted out: "I wish you had just killed me back there."' Officer Lee, taken aback by such a confession, said that killing him was not something he wanted to do. Bundy responded by asking his captor, "If I run at the jail, will you shoot me then?"' Bundy then became silent as Lee continued on to the station.