The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History (45 page)

A particular and interesting exchange concerning Chi Omega occurs between Chapman and Bundy, and begins with Chapman telling Bundy about his two young daughters and how much they mean to him. It was an attempt to soften him up before zeroing in with the question as to his involvement in the murders at the sorority house:

CHAPMAN: So I want to help all the little girls in the world. And I want you, I want you to tell me right now, I want you to start, start with Chi Omega. Tell me how it felt when you walked in there. When you knew you were going to kill. Come on Ted open up. Talk. You talked to us before, tell me how it felt when you went in there. Tell me what, what it was that caused you to go in there.

BUNDY: [indiscernible] I can't, I can't talk about it.

CHAPMAN: You'd be a fool, yeah, you'd be a fool.

BUNDY: I can't talk about it.

CHAPMAN: You'd be a fool that was helping more people than he could ever imagine. So tell me about it.

BUNDY: I can't talk about this situation [indiscernible].

Something else Bundy didn't want to talk about was the killing of 12year-old Kimberly Leach. In one session the investigator had with his prisoner, Bundy came as close as he ever would to admitting to the murder. Pressing for an answer concerning the missing Kimberly Leach, Chapman believes he caught Bundy in a particularly remorseful mood. Even for Tedthe-sociopath, it is entirely possible. In a bizarre twist, Bundy, acting as his own attorney in the months leading up to the trial, was allowed to take the depositions of numerous individuals, including the living victims and eyewitnesses from Chi Omega, and the police officers. During the questioning between Bundy and Detective Norman Chapman, the following exchange occurred:

Q: To the best of your recollection, Officer Chapman, what was it you recall Theodore Bundy saying about the Kimberly Leach case that I referred to earlier? You recall the exact words? You recall your question? Let's go back and see if I understand what you said. You were questioning Mr. Bundy about the location of Kimberly Leach.

A: I asked Mr. Bundy, we were talking about certain things, and I asked Mr. Bundy, I told him and I said, "Ted, I will go," to the best of my knowledge, "and locate the girl, find the body and let her parents know where she's at"; and Mr. Bundy replied that "I cannot do that to you because the site is too horrible to look at."'

The State of Florida, however, wanted very much to talk about it.

Bundy's statement to Liz about the events at Lake Sammamish as being "over," told her nothing as to his real meaning. A far more honest declaration would come later and would clearly show the world how nothing he ever did created even the slightest bit of guilt or remorse within him. Indeed, he would justify this type of thinking in his mind (a mind which constantly compartmentalized everything he did) by always referring to his acts of murder as past events, events that, when he spoke about them in the third person, could even bring about laughter. With the mentality of a sociopath, he had no reason to feel guilty about that which was over and done with. As far as Bundy was concerned, as soon as he walked away from a body, it was finished with, over, and should be considered as far removed from the present as something alive years or even decades ago. But the deaths of these women changed the lives of their families forever, and so were, for these unfortunate souls, only the beginning. But that was of no concern to Theodore Bundy, as he was far beyond it.

For Ted Bundy to reveal this information to Liz, even if the confession was veiled in Bundy's classic ploy of innuendo, was striking. He was covering new ground here, and it does speak of his deterioration, for he was all but acknowledging that he was the brutal Northwest killer everyone was looking for.

When Bundy told detectives of his conversation with Liz Kendall, they began to approach him from an angle they believed he could identify with:

CHAPMAN: Ted I think that you have talked to Liz the way you're talking to us now, I think Liz probably told you or you have agreed, or reached an agreement that you need to get it all cleared up. [indiscernible]

BUNDY: That's correct.

CHAPMAN: She understands and the fact that she realizes the magnitude of what we're talking about. And she realizes, maybe not all of it, but she realizes that you're involved in it.

BUNDY: And she knows no details [indiscernible].

CHAPMAN: So she's not gonna be hurt anymore.

BUNDY: [indiscernible]

CHAPMAN: Certainly she is. I'm sure you believe that she knows.

BUNDY: Right.

After a couple more exchanges, Bundy hints of his grand plan to come.

BUNDY: She knows. [indiscernible] call tonight involves some things uh [indiscernible], discussion of the situation and uh [indiscernible], no possibility, now, but, I've got a lot of friends that stick with me through thick and thin and they seemed almost immune [indiscernible] as being [indiscernible]. I've got a, I've got a plan [mumble].

When the Florida detectives discovered both who and what they were dealing with, it became their supreme objective to cajole Bundy, in what ever manner, to admit to being the murderer they believed him to be. From Bundy's perspective, he knew they had him now, and if, for the foreseeable future, he was to be housed in a prison to await any fate society might deliver to him, he'd rather do it in Washington State, so he could be closer to his family. He was entering a bargaining phase with his captors. He thought he merely had to give an indication that he was going to admit everything in a grand tell-all session to keep them going. But it is clear from the transcripts of the approximately forty hours of interviews conducted first in Pensacola and then soon after his transfer to Tallahassee, that he actually believed he had a chance of getting out of Florida. But that would take full disclosure on his part of what he had done, and to whom, and Bundy knew this. Even so, Florida had no intention of letting this killer go, and investigators Chapman, Patchen and Bodiford made it clear that any such deal was unlikely. Still, it is intriguing to see how Ted Bundy audaciously tried to manipulate the authorities at every turn.

What follows are portions of Bundy's recorded statements, where he attempts to find an offer to tell the detectives what they wanted to hear in exchange for safe passage back to his home state. At times, Bundy appears to be almost incoherent in his attempt to explain himself (an occurrence not all that unusual when he was confronted by authority), and delivers his teasing utterances with a nervous stutter. Throughout these sessions, the grizzled investigators were forced to listen to and to placate someone they now understood was a vicious killer, while they kept a sharp eye out for just the right opening to suggest something to Bundy which might cause him to tell all. Instead of offering him more coffee and asking him if he felt all right, they would probably have preferred to pull out their service weapons and unload them into their guest. But they were professionals, and whatever retribution Bundy had coming to him would be decided through the judicial process.

BUNDY: I know what you want but I'm interested in the whole thing. I'm interested in everything, and it's the whole, it's the whole ball of wax and it's, it's got to be dealt with.

CHAPMAN: In other words, you're interested in everything [indiscernible] the way down to Florida and...

BUNDY: Well, I'm interested in clearing up everything and...

CHAPMAN: Everything...

BUNDY: And talking about whatever, in - in, giving the answers to questions ah, that wo-would be helpful [indiscernible]

BUNDY: It requires talking to, starting with somebody in Seattle, and to make some inquiries, and it requires talking to somebody in Utah, to make some inquiries.

BUNDY: I'm not, I can't force anything but I [indiscernible] set back and think about how I'd like [indiscernible] resolve itself, everybody being satisfied to the degree [indiscernible] satisfied to get all the answers they want to all the questions they want to ask, then after that was all over, I would like to go back to Washington State [pause], that's where my mother is, that's where my family is, and that's where I'm from. Now, I, I, I, I, imagine that's a lot involved [indiscernible] to say the very least. That's where I started out thinking bout ah, how should I go about [indiscernible] answering all these questions.

BUNDY: Washington has a lot of questions to ask me...

CHAPMAN: Right.

BUNDY: [indiscernible] ... a lot of answers too.

CHAPMAN: Okay, what I'm saying, if we could work something out to where we would extradite you back to Washington and have you stand trial for those charges and then come from there back to here...

BUNDY: I'm not, you know, I'm not talking about trials, I'm talking [indiscernible] ... there would be no need for trials.

BUNDY: Ted Bundy wants something out of this and maybe that's not right and maybe he doesn't deserve it and, and that, and in a way that's true, but still, I mean it's, I've got to take care of, of ... [indiscernible] ... survival ... [indiscernible] ... Ted Bundy wants to survive, too ... [indiscernible] ... here arrested ... [indiscernible] ... my responsibilities, and as I've told you before, I have many...

CHAPMAN: Right.

BUNDY: I have responsibilities to my parents.... Okay [indiscernible] ... that's that's part of it, and, and, and, the second part is getting out of the limelight as quickly as possible, without all these horrendous trials.

CHAPMAN: Right.

BUNDY: Getting close, back close to my parents ... [indiscernible] ... giving the knowledge and peace of mind that can be returned to people who don't know what happened...

CHAPMAN: To their loved ones ... [indiscernible]

BUNDY: Who don't know what's happened...

For the next twenty or thirty minutes, Norman Chapman, Don Patchen and Steve Bodiford continue to listen to Bundy's offer of admissions to murder, with a price, of course, and they are forthright and unanimous in telling Bundy that what he's asking for just isn't going to happen. Even so, the sociopath is not content hearing the word "no" and changes his tactics a bit by letting them know, in mildly threatening tones, just who among them has the answers so many people are searching for.

PATCHEN: You, you perceive the goal, and you just have to pick the route to get to that goal, is that more or less...

BUNDY: Exactly, now, I'm trying to avoid in - infuriating you ah believe me, I don't, I mean, I - I don't like ... [indiscernible] ... see this is the way it's going to be because I can't do that and I, ah I th - there's only one thing I know for sure, that I've got the answers here and they're mine and, and they're for me to give and I ... [indiscernible] ... survival, you know, you get to the point where ... [indiscernible] ... be the best all around ... [indiscernible] not, and not excluding me ... [indiscernible] ... I still place a value on myself.

CHAPMAN: Right.

BUNDY: I still place a value on myself ... [indiscernible] ... um...

PATCHEN: Let me ask you this, if you can answer of course, you know, ... [indiscernible] ... several states, can you answer how many states we're going, you know, to be concerned with so we know how wide of a range we are looking at to get things in ah perspective, 'cause we don't know.

BUNDY: Well ... [pause] ... well, I think you'd be talking about investigations, six states.

PATCHEN: That's six states?

BUNDY: I'm not sure about that, alright, I'm going to have somebody...

PATCHEN: Ah, it'd be around that number more or less, huh? Whew! Six [sigh]...

BUNDY: Some of them don't even know they're involved so I suppose...

Although Ted Bundy was now admitting more to law enforcement officials than he ever had in any previous dealings with the authorities, it would do him absolutely no good. Chapman, Patchen and Bodiford were in complete agreement as they stared at, and listened to, Theodore Bundy, that he was in fact the killer of the Chi Omega girls, and was responsible for the disappearance and murder of Kimberly Diane Leach. Florida had no intention of letting him go. Not to Colorado, where they had allowed him to escape twice, and to his safe little prison cell in Utah either. Washington State, where Bundy's murderous spree began and where he terrorized the population for months, would have to be content with whatever action Florida took. The people of Washington would not be disappointed.

The badly decomposed body of young Kimberly Leach was found on April 7. No one was surprised at the outcome; investigators knew Bundy had killed her, but now that her remains had been found some thirty miles west of Lake City in the Suwanee River State Park, it would be easier to convict him of her murder. For the Leaches, the nightmare which began the afternoon they learned their daughter was missing did not end the day her body was discovered, although perhaps the discovery did provide a partial sense of closure. Like all of the living victims of Bundy's homicidal rage, they would never be the same again.

14

A VERY PUBLIC END

Ted Bundy loved the limelight. He took great pleasure in center stage, even if center stage meant letting the entire world watch as you maneuvered to stay off death row. Or even that moment when they strap you into the electric chair and signal for the executioner to pull the switch. Execution was the unthinkable to Ted Bundy, and until the very end, he never really came to grips with it. His path to that day would be long and winding, with many an appellate bump in the road, but while the wheels of justice were turning slowly, they invariably turned in one direction only. Bundy's decision to venture to Florida would be a fatal one, not just for his victims, but for himself as well.