Katie Ring (4:11)
She saw Ted with a huge smile on his face and then realized she was surrounded by butcher knives. Of course, I'm not a psychologist, but this is not something that a three year old generally thinks to do on their own. They learn by copying behaviors they've seen. So to me, this would indicate that something very wrong was going on in that house. Luckily, Ted didn't try and hurt Julia that night. But even with these signs that something was clearly wrong, his family didn't get him any help. In fact, things only got less stable for him over time. In 1951, when Ted was just 4, he and Louise, who's still pretending to be his sister, left Philadelphia and moved to Washington State. It was supposed to be a fresh start, but it was a confusing adjustment for Ted. Remember, he still thought his grandparents were his biological parents. To him, it seemed like his older sister was separating him from his mom and dad. This was just another moment of perceived betrayal that he'd remember for the rest of his life. And things only got more confusing from there. Shortly after moving, Louise met a guy named Johnny Bundy at church. But it wasn't long before things got serious. They got married after just a few months of dating, and Johnny even adopted Ted. But Ted never really accepted Johnny as his father. He thought he was unintelligent and resented him for not being able to provide him with the expense of expensive clothes and items that he wanted. Friends even recall Ted provoking Johnny. And Johnny sometimes responding with violence. They looked like a happy family on the outside. But Ted was just as miserable as he'd been in Philly. And things only got worse when Ted found his birth certificate one day. That's when he learned the truth. That his birth father had abandoned him and his older sister was actually his mom. As you'd expect, it turned his world upside down. Ted became consumed by his bitterness. He felt rejected and insecure. And as a teenager, he developed a reputation for being kind of a loner. His attitude was strange to his classmates because on the surface, Ted seemed to have it all. He was smart, good looking, and well spoken. A lot of the girls at his high school wondered why he'd never went on dates. That's the thing about insecurity, though, it isn't always rational. Despite everything he had going for him, he, Ted, never felt like he fit in, Especially around young women. He was interested in girls, but Ted wasn't able to express those desires in a healthy way. He was more comfortable being on the outside, looking in somewhere. He was in control. So instead of letting himself be vulnerable, he started sneaking out at night to take walks around his neighborhood, Stalking women and peeping on them as they got dressed. He'd fantasize about dominating these women and controlling them. He graduated high school in 1965 when he was 18 with average grades and moved on to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. A lot of young people treat college as a fresh start, A way to reinvent themselves, but not Ted. He felt lonely and aimless. He couldn't decide on a major and had trouble making friends. Ted thought that getting a girlfriend would solve a lot of issues, Both in terms of his identity crisis and his urge to peep on women. He decided that if he was going to really make a major change in his life, he had to push himself further out of his comfort zone. So in 1966, when Ted was 20, he transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle. But instead of fixing his problems, it only made them worse. After Ted Bundy transferred to the University of Washington, it seemed like the move to Seattle was a fresh start. He decided to study Chinese, thinking he could work in the State department someday as a liaison to East Asia. It might seem like kind of a random choice, but with Ted, everything was calculated in his mind. Working for the government was the kind of position that would give him the authority and control he wanted so badly. The change of scenery also helped Ted get something else. He wanted a girlfriend. It wasn't long before he hit it off with a classmate Named Diane Edwards, A beautiful, driven young woman from a wealthy California family. When they started dating, it seemed like Ted finally found everything he wanted. But the problem was, he didn't feel like he was good enough for Diane. She expected a lot from a boyfriend, and he tried to live up to those expectations by dressing better and improving his conversational skills. But he couldn't handle the pressure. Sometime in 1967, when Ted was 20 or 21, he was starting to question everything, including his career goals. His grades took a nosedive, and he was still overcome with unhealthy sexual desires. Ted thought that having a loving girlfriend would stop him from fantasizing about violence. But now he was afraid that those thoughts would never truly go away. Things only got worse when Diane dumped Ted after about a year of dating. The breakup confirmed his worst insecurities, and instead of proving them wrong, he gave in to them. The next year, in 1968, Ted dropped out of college. He spent the next few months traveling aimlessly around the country, not doing much of anything. But Ted hadn't completely given up on making something of himself. So when an old friend suggested getting involved in politics, he gave it a chance. Just like his dream of working for the state department, being in politics would give Ted some of the authority and control he was so desperate for by giving him something to be in charge of. He started out by volunteering for Arthur Fletcher's campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Washington. Fletcher didn't win, but Ted loved the experience anyways. It gave him the sense of purpose he'd been missing ever since his breakup with Diane. So he decided to give a career in politics a real shot. In 1969, when Ted was 22, he enrolled at Temple University in Philadelphia to pursue a degree in urban planning. But even with his renewed sense of purpose, he still struggled with the darkness inside of him. He went back to his old habit of peeping, wearing a fake mustache and a wig while he stalked the campus at night. By this point, his sexual fantasies had become even more disturbing. Now he wasn't just thinking about abducting the women he stalked. He wanted to sexually abuse them and kill them, too. And at some point during his first semester in Philadelphia, Ted decided to give in to those desires. One night in 1969, the 23 year old drove to Ocean City, New Jersey, and tried to approach a young woman outside of a bar. His plan was to kidnap her once her guard was down. But apparently, the conversation didn't go the way he planned. Eventually, Ted tried to grab the woman, but she was thankfully able to escape. Meanwhile, Ted rushed back home and managed not to get caught. Tragically, the experience only made him more determined to try again. After only a couple months at Temple University, Ted moved back to Washington with a new scheme. By day, he would work hard to appear as normal as possible, to seem like he was above suspicion. Once that image was in place, he could unleash his dark side at night. A Persona he called the entity that was the real Ted Bundy. The the one he'd been struggling to contain all his life. And now he was ready to embrace it. The first step of Ted's plan was to find another steady girlfriend. In September of 1969, he met a divorced single mother named Elizabeth Kloepfer at a bar. 24 year old Elizabeth was smart and mature. She had to be to take care of her three year old daughter all on her own. From the moment they started dating, Elizabeth was clear she was looking for something serious. So if Ted expected to stay with her, he would need to get his act together. That played right into Ted's hands. He told Elizabeth he was planning to go back to college, then law school after he graduated. And Elizabeth took him at his word. She had so much faith in him, she even paid his tuition. When he went back to the University of Washington in 1970, Ted's twisted plan had finally given him the motivation he needed to succeed. He became an honor student, got involved in local politics and was seen as a rising star in the community. Which was exactly what Ted wanted people to think. Nobody suspected that this clean cut, respectable young man was going out at night, watching young women in bars and following them home. Sometimes he went up to his targets while they were still at the bar and took them out on dates if they were interested. He cheated on Elizabeth constantly with multiple one night stands. On top of that, he loved to steal from people just for the thrill of it. He robbed homes and shoplifted from businesses, Taking things like clothes, stereos and even an eight foot tree from a local nursery. Elizabeth never knew about the cheating, although she did pick up on the rampant theft. It bothered her, but she mostly dismissed it as a small flaw in her otherwise perfect boyfriend. It actually distracted her from prying into what he got up to at night. They didn't live together, but whenever she noticed he was out late, she assumed he was going around stealing rather than doing something much worse. So for the next few years, Ted kept living his double life. In 1972, he graduated from the University of Washington and was accepted to a couple of law schools. At 26 years old, he finally felt like he was making something of himself. But it still wasn't enough. Ted's impulses were getting even darker, and it wouldn't be long before he unleashed them. He'd later describe the dark feeling inside of him as an intense pressure in his gut, like a tension that kept winding tighter and tighter. He was consumed with rage, and no amount of peeping, stealing or fantasizing could make it go away. Ted wanted to up the ante even more, but he learned from his first attempt to kidnap a woman that thinks things might not go the way he planned. Ted was a planner, and as always, he wanted to be prepared for every possibility. To make sure he didn't get caught, he decided to learn everything he could about how the police operated. So Ted deferred his law school admission and used his political connections to get a job with the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission. Working there gave Ted access to all kinds of data on violent crime. He learned about the investigative techniques detectives commonly used and that communication between different jurisdictions was limited. After About a year, 26 year old Ted felt like he'd learned what he needed. He left the crime commission and enrolled at a local law school in the fall of 1973. But his concentration was starting to waver. His desire to dominate and destroy was overwhelming him. And in early 1974, Ted took it to another level. On the night of January 4, 1974, Ted drove to the University district in Seattle, a neighborhood that was popular with students. Ted liked to peep on young women there. And that night he decided to prey on 18 year old Karen Sparks, a freshman political science major who lived in the basement of a house she shared with some friends. Karen was pretty brunette and had her hair parted down the middle. From far away, she looked a lot like Ted's ex girlfriend, Diane Edwards. Whether that was Ted's reason for choosing Karen, he was dangerously fixated on her. He followed Karen home, blending in with all of the other students who were out that night. He hung back as Karen went inside and got ready for bed, then watched her sleep through a small window. It wasn't long before he was overwhelmed by rage and desire. He slipped through an unlocked door on the opposite side of the house, then made his way to Karen's room. It would have only taken one creaky floorboard or someone heading to the kitchen for a late night snack to stop him. But the place was quiet as Ted crept down to the basement completely undetected. For a moment, Ted just watched Karen sleep. He'd pushed his obsession with Peeping to its limit. But it wasn't enough for him. All of the sudden, he ripped off a piece of her bed frame and swung it into Karen's skull. Before she could even take a look at her attacker, Karen went limp, blood seeping into her mattress. Ted sexually assaulted her, beat her even more, then left her for dead. Once he finished, he sneaked back out as quietly as he'd entered. For hours, none of Karen's housemates realized something was wrong. It wasn't until 2:30 the following afternoon that someone noticed that she hadn't come out of her room. One of the young men who lived with her peeked inside and saw Karen bundled up in bed, covered by a pile of blankets. He figured she was sleeping and left her alone. But five hours later, so this would be around 7:30pm she was still there. At that point, someone went back in to check on Karen. When she didn't answer, they pulled pulled back her blankets and realized what had happened to her. Miraculously, Karen was still alive. Although she'd fallen into a coma. She was rushed to the hospital as news spread around campus that a young woman had been attacked. The police launched an investigation, but there wasn't much to go on. Ted hadn't left anything behind at the scene. And these were the days before DNA profiling. Although Ted certainly hadn't planned for Karen to survive the attack, his horrific plan had otherwise gone just as he'd wanted. Even after Karen woke up from her coma 10 days later, she wasn't able to identify him. So after less than a month, he decided it was time to strike again. After midnight on February 1, 1974, Ted went back to the same neighborhood where he'd nearly killed Karen Sparks. He ended up only a couple minutes away from her house, outside another basement apartment. This one belonged to 21 year old Linda Ann Healy, a senior at Washington University. Linda had gone out with some friends to a popular college bar called Dante's. After some drinks and dancing, she called it an early night. She watched TV with her roommate, then chatted with her boyfriend on the phone for about an hour before falling asleep. Linda had no idea that the whole time Ted Bundy had been stalking her and he was desperate for another victim. That night, Linda and her housemates had left their front door unlocked and Ted was able to enter without anybody noticing. He made his way to Linda's room and beat her until she was unconscious. But he'd learned from his experience with Karen Sparks. Instead of continuing his assault in Linda's room, he dressed her in a blouse and jeans and Cleaned up the evidence as best he could, including making her bed. Then he dragged her out into the night. Ted managed to get Linda in his car and drove to a secluded spot where he knew nobody would find them. There, he sexually assaulted and murdered her. Afterwards, he dismembered her body, scattering the remains off to the side of the road on Taylor Mountain, about 18 miles from Seattle. He raced back home to his girlfriend, Elizabeth, and climbed into bed like nothing was wrong. Linda Ann Healy was officially Ted Bundy's first confirmed murder victim, but she wouldn't be his last. For this show, we're going to be doing a Q and A at the end of each episode, so if you have any questions or comments, make sure to let us know on social so we can talk about them at the end.
