You may not know who Ted Bundy is, but if you say the movie "The Silence of the Lambs," you'll be sure to lament that it's a famous suspense movie. That's right, the character of the Silent Lambs movie is exactly Ted Bundy.
Movie "The Silence of the Lambs"
As shown in the film, Ted Bundy is ostensibly a handsome, elegant young man who is polite, popular, amiable, and compassionate. Well educated, with a university degree in psychology, competent and personable. He has numerous friends of all ages and has been associated with a number of women.
Ted Bundy in his youth
Female friends all consider him a trustworthy close friend. An older lady called him a "cute mischievous" and another criminal documentary writer who had worked as a police officer met him and called him an "old-school gentleman."
He worked as a suicide counselor on the crisis clinic hotline and was admitted to a law school in Seattle. The state hired him as a crime control consultant, and he even wrote a rape prevention book for female readers.
He was a diligent Republican volunteer who often attended various political dinners and was often invited. In the eyes of some, he is respected and may even run for governor or even president in the future.
Impressions of Ted Bundy in the documentary
Middle-aged Ted Bundy
But in reality, Ted Bundy is a necrophile who kidnapped, murdered, raped, and dismembered 20 20-something girls in their 20s over a period of 6 months. In one last morbid insult to those whom he had killed, he often returned to the place where he had abandoned the corpse and had sex with it.
He also collects some of his victims' hair as morbid booty and sexually treats them with makeup. At one point, he placed the heads of four victims in his apartment and burned one in a girlfriend's fireplace.
Stills from The Silence of the Lambs
In another creepy confession, Bundy even admitted to eating part of the victim's body so he could "possess" them and make them a part of him.
Ted Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont, USA, in 1946 to an unidentified father, and his mother Louise was pregnant unmarried and left after giving birth to him at an unmarried maternity ambulance facility, with no intention of raising him. But his grandfather insisted on raising him, so he adopted Ted as a father, and his mother Louis became Ted's sister.
Ted Bundy in the top right corner
In fact, Ted's childhood was not much unfortunate, and he always insisted that his grandfather was the real father, even after his mother got married.
However, Ted's reclusive personality and theft during adolescence also gave him sufficient resources to maintain an external gentleman and decent dress.
Before starting the killing, Ted Bundy had two relationships. In 1966 in college with his first girlfriend Stephanie, stephanie proposed separation a year later, which caused sensitive Ted to take a blow and take a break from school. However, with his handsome appearance, he met his second girlfriend Elizabeth in 1969, but because of the theft and false claim that his law students were discovered, Elizabeth sponsored him to continue his studies. Until Ted's arrest, the two were still dating.
This is also the only two girlfriends Ted has not killed.
Ted Bundy and his second girlfriend, Elizabeth
One day in 1974, Ted Bundy broke into the basement of an 18-year-old student and sexually assaulted her with a metal rod. It was his first crime, but it did not meet the charge of murder.
Just a month later, he broke into the apartment of another student, Lynda Ann Healy, knocked her unconscious, dressed her, and carried her to the car.
She never appeared again, but some fragments of her skull were found where Bundy had dumped her body.
Ted Bundy's method of committing the crime is simple: he will use the kindness of his victims to ask them to help carry things to the car, then slam them with sticks until they lose consciousness, then rape, kill, and finally throw away bodies.
But long before the arrest, several women had called the police that Ted Bundy had approached them, but the officers did not believe it because Ted's social background seemed very upright.
After being admitted to law school, Ted Bundy moved to Utah, but his crimes didn't stop.
(According to his own account) picked up a hitchhiker, raped her, strangled her, then threw her into the river, returned to her body the next day, took a few photos, and dismembered her. And raped and strangled 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox in Salt Lake City and buried her body.
Bundy seems to see murder as a sport, even admitting that he has an "off-season" where he thinks his intelligence is much better than the police, but he also seems to enjoy going around in circles in front of the police.
Photo of Ted Bundy's arrest
Finally, in late 1975, he was arrested for kidnapping Carol DaRonch, and in 1976, Ted Bundy was convicted of attempted kidnapping in Utah and charged with murder in Colorado.
But in late 1977, after being accused of killing a Colorado woman, he, as his own lawyer, jumped out of the window of the prison library and disappeared.
Ted Bundy defended himself in court
He was arrested eight days later, but in December of the same year, in 1977, Ted Bundy escaped from prison again. He crawled out of a hole in the ceiling of his cell and fled to Florida.
Florida State University Homicide Dormitory
In January 1978, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega Girls' Association at Florida State University and raped and killed four women in 15 minutes.
He beat Margaret Bowman to death with a pile of firewood and strangled her with a stocking.
He then beat and strangled 20-year-old Lisa Levy before sexually assaulting her with a bottle, tearing one of her nipples, leaving deep bite marks on the flesh of her buttocks.
Bite marks on the corpse
He then beat two other students, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner, to death with sticks, who were sleeping in the next bedroom.
Location of several victims
His last murder was 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, who kidnapped her from school, raped, murdered her, and then threw her body under the pig barn.
News reports at the time
A few days later, Bundy was finally arrested, and on February 15, 1978, Ted Bundy was stopped while driving the stolen Beetle in Pensacola, Florida. He did not want to be named and was eventually sent to prison.
Stolen Beetle
Evidence of a police outage
On July 27, 1978, Ted Bundy was charged with murdering Sority members Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy and attempting to murder Cheryl Thomas, Kathy Kleiner, and Karen Chandler.
In 1979, Bundy was on trial in Miami on suspicion of FSU killings and attacks. It was the first nationally broadcast trial in U.S. history. Kathy Kleiner Perkins was one of the survivors of the FSU attack. She testified in court that Ted Bundy helped bring him to justice.
Take a model of the teeth on Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy's model of teeth
Ted Bundy's teeth marks were used in court to prove that they were related to bite mark evidence
Survivor Karen Chandler, Kathy Kleiner's roommate at the Sorority, testified at Ted Bundy's trial.
After confessing to 36 murders, Bundy was jailed and reportedly raped several times by four men while awaiting execution in a death row area.
Some of the characters Ted Bundy killed
He died on January 24, 1989, in an electric chair at a Florida Prison.
Ted Bundy before his death
After Ted Bundy's death, scientists were determined to find out what turned this seemingly upright citizen into a monster.
Bundy's brain was removed and a series of experiments were conducted to determine why he had committed such a horrific crime. Finally the paper identified certain brain injuries.
Ted Bundy doesn't have the obvious characteristics of a serial killer, he's a natural offender.
Addicted to murder, he said: "You can feel their last breath taking away from their bodies." You look them in the eye. The man in that situation is God!"