Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer (2020): Season 1, Episode 1 - Boy Meets Girl - full transcript

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: When I look
at those photographs,

I just realize, what felt like
a deep and meaningful

relationship we had,
just having fun;

my daughter's in most
of the pictures;

um, it just...
it felt very inclusive.

And I think that's why I
had such a difficult time

ever letting go
of... of him.

It's so incompatible
with the Ted that I knew.

I just didn't think
he could do these things.



REPORTER: Theodore Robert Bundy,
at age 28,

a University of Utah
law student...

BUNDY: How you doin'?
WOMAN: Good, how are you?

REPORTER: At 30,
a Colorado jail escapee

and one of the FBI's
ten most wanted men.

BARBARA: Ted Bundy knew
how to prey on women.

♪

BARBARA: He knew he was
going to go after women

for their good nature,
their willingness to help out,

their empathy, their belief
that they should be nurturers,

that they should be kind,
and especially be kind to men.

KATHY: My jaw was
broken in three places.

I had lacerations
on my shoulder.

KAREN: I had a broken jaw.



Um, some of my teeth
were knocked out.

REPORTER: 3, 2, 1.

Tonight, Ted Bundy
and cameras in the courtroom...

REPORTER: Ted Bundy...
REPORTER: Ted Bundy...

REPORTER: Ted Bundy...
REPORTER: Ted Bundy...

REPORTER: Ted Bundy...

REPORTER: Theodore
Robert Bundy...

MAN: Smile, Ted.

LAURA: The Ted Bundy story
has been recycled

over and over
and over again.

It makes for great
entertainment.

He's a fascinating,
evil character.

GINGER: It's a discounting
of the stories of the women,

in favour of the central hero

being the most important
character in the narrative.

And that is
the failure to look deeper

and think harder about violence
against women in our culture.

WOMAN: [screams]

PY: At that time,
women were on the cusp

of becoming independent.

You're starting to feel
like you can do anything,

and all of a sudden,
you get walloped.

LAURA: I guess I feel like
speaking about my sister now

because women's lives
are still secondary to men,

and somewhat expendable.

It's the only reason to
really poke at it again,

is to try to learn something,
to rise above it.

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: The story has
been told many times by men.

I want to tell the story
because I think

there are some lessons
to be learned.

Now's the time
to talk about this.

And all of...
all of this.

Not just bits
and pieces of it,

but my story from
beginning to end.

♪

♪ Poses, poses ♪

♪ That's all you are to me ♪

♪ Roses, roses ♪

♪ That's all
you're offering me ♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: I've had
so much to work through

since all of this happened.

There was shame;
there was guilt;

there was all kinds of
things that I...

I didn't feel
really good about.

♪

ELIZABETH: Even after
he was arrested

and he was in prison,

he wrote me
many, many letters

where he talked about
me and my daughter

being the best thing
that ever happened to him,

and that's what he really
missed by not being free.

He missed our life together.

♪

[exhales]

♪

♪

Gosh, it's...

♪

Oh, my gosh.

"I would not change places
with any other man in the world.

"I consider you
a miracle in my life,

"and in spite of the disaster
we have suffered,

"I would not,
for a moment,

"ever wish for another woman.

"You are the most loving and
lovely woman I have ever known.

"You are in my mind constantly.

"No words could
express adequately

"the dimensions of my feelings.

"I shall love you forever
and forever in my dreams.

"I shall love you with every
long-haired beauty I see.

"I shall love you with
every clear blue sky.

"I will love you
until my last breath.

"No goodbyes,
just I love you."

[sighs]
That one...

That one still gets me.

♪

♪

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: We came over I-90,

which is through
the mountains.

It had been raining,
and there was mist in the air

that was hanging
at the tops of the trees.

And then we ended up
on a floating bridge

that went across
Lake Washington.

It was just beautiful.

And it just
knocked my socks off.

I was so happy to be here.

I thought,
"This is it.

"This is the place
I want to be."

So I was a single mom,

and I was moving here from Utah
with my daughter, Molly.

♪

ELIZABETH: I found a place
on Capitol Hill,

which was kind of
run-down at the time.

It was a one-bedroom
apartment,

so my daughter
slept on the couch.

But it was close to
where my friend lived,

so I felt comfortable
about that.

You know, there weren't
a lot of options in the day.

There was like teaching,
nursing, secretarial work.

I thought I would be
really happy

working at the
University of Washington,

and I knew I could be
a good secretary.

[sound of fountains]

ELIZABETH: The first
interview I went out on,

they hired me right away,

and I thought,
"Oh, this is great."

And it just felt like I'm...

gonna have this big adventure.

♪

ELIZABETH: My daughter,
she was just three

when I went to work.

I found a good
daycare for her,

but it was hard for me
to drop her off in the morning,

so they'd let me bring
my daughter to work,

and she enjoyed it as much
as I enjoyed having her there.

♪

ROBERT: When I was
first introduced to Liz,

I just couldn't believe it.

She just looked
so young and...

and so vulnerable.

The look on her face,
it was like,

"Oh my God, I finally
got a job at the U."

She just looked like
she was so wide-eyed

and hadn't been
very many places.

♪

ELIZABETH: Growing up
in Utah,

I was the youngest
out of four kids.

Not that I was ever that good
at going to Mormon church,

but it was the culture in Utah.

All your neighbours
are Mormon.

Everything that
goes on down there

has got influenced
by the LDS church.

The wife is there to support the
husband in his important work,

and so the most important
job for a woman

is to be a good wife
and a good mother.

MORMON WOMAN: In
the Relief Society,

we learn how to become
better wives and mothers,

and receive
religious instruction

in this worldwide organization.

[baby laughs]

MORMON WOMAN: I feel
that Mormon women

have always been liberated.

NEIGHBOUR: Hi, Jeanette.
JEANETTE: Won't you come in?

♪

ELIZABETH: I often looked
at my parents' marriage,

and I thought,
"That's just not for me,"

because my dad was
the one that went out

and made the living
and brought in the money,

and my mom
took care of the home.

And even though I was
really wanting a family,

I didn't see myself as
having to... ask for money.

And so it felt like there
was really not a place for me.

I mean, I just felt like
I stuck out like a sore thumb.

♪

ELIZABETH: Since an early age
I've been shy,

so it's been a
lifetime of struggle.

When I meet new people
or I'm in a situation

that I've not been in before,
I just get so tongue-tied,

and really wishing that I
could just crawl into a hole.

I think it had a lot to do
with self esteem.

I just grew up thinking,

"There's something
wrong with me.

"I don't know what it is."

♪

ELIZABETH: In college,
I went through sorority rush,

and at the end of that,
I... I didn't get a bid,

as they call it,
and I got dropped.

And even though I didn't think
I wanted to be in a sorority,

it was still devastating
because it felt like rejection.

And that's when I realized
that if I drank,

that I was just way more fun.

So I just felt
smarter, prettier,

more charming, funnier.

So drinking was
a big problem,

and it did nothing
to help me become

the person that I
was hoping to become.

♪

ELIZABETH: I did get
married and had a baby

while I was still in college.

My husband was very immature.

He was a year younger than me
and partying a lot.

The marriage just
didn't survive.

♪

ELIZABETH: I really wanted
to get married again

and have more children.

I thought that Seattle
would be the place

where I would
really settle down,

and I was just gonna work there
until I found Mr. Right.

[indistinct voices]

♪

ELIZABETH: When I first
walked onto campus,

I saw that there was
this huge demonstration,

and I saw all these
police cars go by,

and they were full of
police in riot gear.

I had no idea
what was going on.

And all of a sudden
a big cheer went up,

and these people had pushed
a bulldozer into this pit

that had been dug
for a new building.

[people cheering]

ELIZABETH: And there were
cops coming in riot gear

by the carful, and I
just stood on the sidewalk

and watched it all,

because I'd never seen
anything like that in Utah.

[people chanting]

KNUTE: The University of
Washington was a hotbed

of anti-war movement.

There were campus radicals;

there was bombings;
there were riots.

And young women were
showing more independence,

trying new things.

♪

BARBARA: I was
an undergraduate

at the University of Washington.

I was involved
in the anti-war movement.

I was involved in
all sorts of left-wing,

progressive politics,
so for me,

the political life at the
university was just wonderful.

It was a lot of fun.

PROTESTORS: Two, four,
six, eight!

Separate the
church and state!

SPEAKER: Women have
a fundamental right

to control their own bodies
and to control their own lives.

[crowd cheering]

PY: I came here in '69

not knowing what
I was getting into.

We were making connections
that we hadn't made before.

We were working together.

It was a time of discovery.

You know, the world
seemed like a new place.

PROTESTORS: [chanting]

NEWSWOMAN: This is a
search for equality

of opportunity, not the
wish to be just like men.

It is a desire for
more options, for choice,

for a shattering
of stereotypes,

for women to choose more freely
the kinds of lives

that they want to live.

BROWN: Sex and the Single Girl
does state the fact

that single women do have
sex lives occasionally,

and it isn't the end of
the world when they have them.

The girl simply is not
ruined, in my opinion,

if she has had an affair
before she gets married.

ELIZABETH: It was
a liberating time.

It opened all these
choices to us.

And we were in control
of our own fertility,

our own bodies.

It was a revolutionary change.

CHISHOLM: What we need
is to thrust new people

into the limelight and to
show the range and breadth

of talent among women
all over this nation.

[applause]

WOMAN: We are
a delegation!

We are women and we are
allowed in this door.

WOMAN: Yes!

WOMAN: We're trying to point
out what it feels like

to be whistled at,
put down constantly sexually,

every time we walk
down the street.

We'd like people to understand
what it feels like to have

someone go [kissing sound]
all the time.

MAN: Yay!

WOMAN: We're
supposed to dig it

because we're supposed to dig
that we're sexual objects,

and we don't want to be
sexual objects anymore.

WOMAN: I don't want to
be treated that way.

I want to have the rights
to be a human being.

MAN: You ain't got the guts
enough to do it.

PY: Men who were
growing up in the times

when women were subservient,

and came of age when women
were moving past that,

I believe it triggered some
very strong feelings in them,

and in some of them,
it was rage.

♪

ELIZABETH: My friend
and I decided

that we were gonna go out.

It was my first night that
I went out dancing in Seattle.

We found a babysitter
for my daughter,

and we went to a tavern
in the U District

called the Sandpiper.

I noticed just a
really good-looking man.

He was sitting
at the table by himself,

and he said his name:
it was Ted.

♪

ELIZABETH: I was flattered
when he asked me to dance.

I really had my eye on him
all night, basically.

We did dance, and then
that was the end of it,

so I was thinking maybe
he was gonna ask me again,

but he didn't.

And I went over and
started talking to him.

As a single mom, I never wanted
to be bringing men home,

but I was too drunk
to drive, really,

and I said, "So, will you
spend the night here?"

And he said, "Yes."

So I just laid down
on the top of my bed

without changing
my clothes or anything,

but he didn't try to
kiss me or do any of that.

♪

ELIZABETH: When I
got up in the morning,

he had gotten Molly up,

and he was fixing breakfast
for both of us.

So it just was like,
"Oh, my gosh."

It just took my
breath away, basically.

♪

ROBERT: I was kidding her
when she come in;

I said, "What are
you grinning about?

"You look so happy."

She said, "I met
a guy last night,

"and oh, what a handsome
looking dude he was."

[laughs]
I says, "Oh, really?"

And she was telling me all about
the manly jawline he had,

and how well-dressed he was.

And I said, "Well,
what happened?"

She says, "You know,
I went over

"and I danced with him,"

and she said,
"You can't believe the enjoyment

"and the exhilaration of meeting
somebody who reflected to me

"how I was feeling about him."

This is the way
she went on and on.

And I said,
"What is this guy's name?"

And she said,
"Ted Bundy."

♪

ELIZABETH: I have not had
that with anyone else,

where I just right off the bat
felt connected to someone.

It just felt like
two pieces of a puzzle

coming together.
It just fit.

And it was really
quite spectacular.

♪

ELIZABETH: I thought
he was very funny,

and he seemed very mature,
and he seemed polished.

And he told me that
he was a law student,

so I thought,

"As a lawyer, he's certainly
going to make a nice living

"and have these wonderful
things that he wants."

And since I was
new to Seattle,

he could hardly wait to show me
his favourite restaurants.

He had a favourite Asian
rug store that we went to

and looked at
all the Asian rugs.

And just things that I...

I thought were
just endearing.

♪

ELIZABETH: My daughter
had a lot of friends

in our neighbourhood,

and so Ted was
really fun with them;

he'd play with them.

He'd get a hose and they'd
all get their little umbrellas

and they'd be in
their swimming suits,

and he'd make rain
for them on the lawn.

And of course,
the kids loved it.

He taught my daughter
how to ride her bike.

She just really
took to that.

MOLLY: Much like it is
with everybody's dad

teaching them
to ride a bike,

he ran along.

Well, actually,
let me start at this.

He did not like it that I had
training wheels on my bike,

and so he took these
wheels off my bike,

and he would hold
onto the back of it

and run down
the alleyway with me.

And I would try to steer,

and all of a sudden
he said something,

and he was way at the
other end of the alley,

and I realized I'm riding
this bike by myself,

so I crashed into
someone's garage promptly.

♪

MOLLY: I remember
meeting him.

The first night when he
came home with my mom

to our house,

and he read me
my favourite book,

which I had memorized.

It was called, "Teddy Bear
from Bumpkin Hollow."

He would read a line
and he would say, "Freddy Bear,"

and I'd say, "Not Freddy Bear,
Teddy Bear,"

and he would
just make it ridiculous,

and I would laugh.

And I thought
he was delightful.

♪

MOLLY: If you look at
any of these pictures,

he's swinging me in circles,
head first to the ground.

And he was always throwing me,
hanging me upside down.

And I trusted him
a hundred percent.

I mean, he gave you
his entire self.

And, you know, for a kid,
that's everything,

for somebody to pay exquisite
attention to your experiences,

what you're looking for.

And, I mean, I could see
he lit my mom up

like a woman in love,

and that just made sense.

We were like a family.

That's what I remember.

♪

ELIZABETH: Well,
he did seem to just

settle right in
to our family.

It was like everything
that I'd ever wanted,

so I was hooked.

♪

ROBERT: That continuous
happiness just radiated in her.

And it was such a sweet story
to watch love grow

and be so intense
and so complete.

She swore that it was
like going to heaven.

ELIZABETH: I felt good
in the relationship

and I felt loved.

I just didn't
have any doubts.

Ted and my dad had a bond
that was really different

than my relationship
with my dad,

but they'd just talk about
football and politics, and...

just have a good
time together.

And pretty soon
he was asking if he could

bring his little brother
Richard along

on certain outings
that we were going on.

♪

RICHARD: My name
is Rich Bundy,

and I was Ted Bundy's
little brother.

♪

RICHARD: We were more
than just brothers.

You know,
we were close friends.

You know, I really
looked forward

to spending time with him,
which I did a lot of.

I'd spend weekends
with him, and...

summer vacations from school,

I'd go live with him for
most of the summer vacation.

He was living in Seattle
and he'd have me come up there,

spend the weekend,
a couple times a month.

You know, we'd go over
and pick up Liz and Molly

and get the raft out,
and it would just be--

seemed like a really healthy,
"Okay, I got the basket.

"Okay, doodly-doo,"
you know?

"Here we go."

Like...

the Wally and the Beaver,
you know?

That's an analogy some people
won't understand, but...

Uh, we were very close.

INTERVIEWER: You loved him.

RICHARD: I did love him.

♪

ELIZABETH: Ted just
adored Richard.

Always wanted to take him places
and do things with him.

We would frequently go,

me and Ted
and Molly and Richard,

and we'd go and raft
down certain rivers,

and so it was a lot of fun,
and we did a lot of rafting.

I know that Richard
looked up to him,

and kind of held him in awe.

RICHARD: You know,
the kind of thing

a boy of 12 years old
just automatically thinks, like,

"Oh, hey, that person's
really awesome,

"got it together.

"I'm gonna follow
what they say."

It's like he could
do no wrong.

So...

Yeah.

♪

♪

♪

♪

JOEL: I was an instructor
at University of Washington,

teaching undergraduate
abnormal psychology.

A big thing on campus
at the time

was eliminating grades.

And somebody spoke up
and said,

"Well, we ought to
assign our own grades.

"If I think I deserve a B,
I'll work toward a B,

"and that's what I'll get."

And pretty soon,
everybody's going, "Yeah."

It felt like the class was
about to spin out of control

until this voice from about
three quarters of the way back

spoke up and said,
"No.

"Things need to
be done properly.

"There needs to be evaluation
of our accomplishments,

"and there needs to be order."

And so I...
you know,

I looked up,
and here's this fellow

dressed,
tweed sport coat,

button-down dress shirt,
penny loafers,

amid this sea of the
unwashed, unshaven hippies.

That was my introduction
to Ted Bundy.

♪

JOEL: I thought
he was being kind,

I thought he was a person
of some character.

And I felt a sense of relief

because a few moments earlier,

I felt beleaguered.

He seemed like
a very likeable guy.

♪

DONNA: I was working
at a place called

Law and Justice
Planning Office.

And one of the things
we were to do was to improve

crime prevention
in the city of Seattle.

The whole rape issue
was important at that time,

and I was lucky enough
to do a study on rape

based on reported
rapes in Seattle

in the previous
several years.

I received a telephone call
from my mentor

at the University
of Washington,

and she called to say
that she had a student,

and his name was Ted Bundy.

DONNA: He had applied
to law school,

but his grades for his
first two years in college

were very poor.

So his plan was to meet
people in the system

and have recommendations
to take with him

on his next round of
applications for law school.

He was so impressive
that he was hired

for a brand-new project,
this crime prevention project.

♪

DONNA: He was to be working
with some prominent lawyers

and some businessmen
and other people

who were interested
in preventing crime.

The head of the Commission
at that time

was Professor Ezra Stotland
from the university,

and Ezra was
so charmed by him

that he had him to dinner
at his home many times,

and told me that
his 16-year-old daughter

also thought that
Ted was just special.

And Ezra said, "You know,
I secretly hoped

"that my daughter would marry
someone just like him."

JOEL: If I were the father
of a young woman

and this young man
came to the door

to take my daughter
to the prom,

I would think, "I know
she'll be safe with him."

Because he really did come
across as a Prince Charming.

DONNA: And he was so smooth.

He could attract you.

He could pull you
right into his space.

He had a way about him.

He talked very quietly
and very softly.

You had to lean forward
to hear him, and it...

and it closed the space
between the two of you,

and you were in his space,
essentially.

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: He was very
interested in politics.

And he liked hanging out
with people

that were part of
the Republican party.

EVANS: This nation
demands new leadership.

This is the Republican hour.

[applause]

KNUTE: Ted Bundy worked
for the very popular

pro-environment Republican
governor that we had,

Dan Evans.

AD: Who's making sure
California won't get

one drop of
Washington water?

[slurping sound]
Governor Dan Evans.

Who got the state's
freeway construction

back on schedule?

Governor Dan Evans.
[car honks]

♪

ELIZABETH: Dan Evans had
just been elected as governor,

and so we got this invite
to the Governor's Ball.

But I was very insecure.

Didn't feel like I fit the mould
of a politician's girlfriend.

Ted, on the other hand,
he seemed so comfortable

in social settings.

♪

ELIZABETH: No matter
where he went,

he could fit in easily.

He could talk to almost
anybody about anything.

I mean, it was
just astounding.

♪

♪

MOLLY: He had the gift
for dealing with all people.

He was really rather
gifted at seeing

what you might need him to be,
and being that.

Looking back on it,
you know,

I feel like he was
an impressive person.

♪

MOLLY: We felt lucky
he picked us,

and we felt kind of like
the country cousins, you know?

And he was more
sophisticated than we were.

♪

MOLLY: What it looked like

is that he was a step
above ourselves.

We kind of started to see

the kind of...
choices he would want,

like in our
clothes and things.

I remember that.

It was conservative,
upper-crusty things.

He wanted me
to wear a dress.

It was not really so much
about evaluating him.

Clearly he was
magnificent in all ways.

And so we should just,
you know,

aspire to rise
to his level of...

of polish.

♪

STEVEN: He wanted
to dress well.

He wanted to be seen with
the right kind of people.

He saw that as
his way forward.

And how many Republican--
you know, young Republicans,

were there in--
at the University of Washington?

Not so many.

I mean, he was a Republican
at the time that Nixon

was the face of the party.

♪

NIXON: I don't promise
that we can eradicate poverty

and end discrimination,

and eliminate
all danger of war

in the space of four,
or even eight years,

but I do promise action,

a new policy for
peace abroad,

a new policy for
peace and progress

and justice at home.
[applause]

♪

ANCHORMAN: At first it was
called the Watergate Caper.

Five men apparently
caught in the act

of burglarizing and bugging

Democratic headquarters
in Washington.

KNUTE: Watergate was
the big national story.

It gained momentum.

Everybody was following
every development,

every hearing.

REPORTER: Donald Segretti.

Reports in major newspapers
say White House aides

recruited Segretti for
secret intelligence work

and dirty tricks
against the Democrats.

DONNA: There was someone
named Donald Segretti,

who was a dirty trickster
in the Nixon campaign.

These Republican tricksters
were calling prostitutes

and ordering them up

for delegates at
the Democratic Convention.

It made it look like
the Democrats had called up

to get all of these
prostitutes involved.

At the same time,
Ted came to visit me one day.

He'd been working in this
gubernatorial campaign,

and he was standing
in my office,

and I remember him
telling me about this,

that he had been
helping this candidate

in the governor's race,

and that he had been involved
in following around the opponent

and wearing wigs and false
moustache and other things.

BUNDY: It's hard
for me to believe

that what I did
is newsworthy,

and my part in the campaign
was so insignificant,

I'm embarrassed that I should be
getting this publicity from it.

Really embarrassed.
[laughs]

DONNA: And I remember
saying to him,

"Are you getting your lead
from Donald Segretti?"

And I can remember
he laughed.

He was sort of relishing
telling us about that

and about wearing
different wigs

and having to appear
differently

in different contexts,

and that nobody ever
put it together;

nobody ever saw him
as the same person.

♪

DONNA: He was like a chameleon.

In addition to that,
he stole all these things

from the political headquarters
that he was working in.

He stole a typewriter;
he stole a printer;

he stole paper;
he stole--

everything he could
get his hands on, he stole.

I was very put off
by what he was doing,

and... I remember thinking,

"I think I'm done
with this guy."

♪

♪

ELIZABETH: I didn't
really know much about

the political part
of his life,

but as long as I'd known Ted,
he was stealing things.

And he would get all dressed up
in his good clothes, and...

which, he looked
so handsome, you know,

suit and tie, and...

he told me that there's
a tunnel under Northgate,

which is a big mall here.

And that he would
park in the tunnel

under the Bon Marche,
at the time.

And he'd just go get what
he wanted from the store

and take it out to the
loading dock, to the car,

and he was proud of
how brazen he could be

and get away with it.

So I'm running that through
my de-coder to think,

"Oh, this is the way
we live now,

"is we take things
if they're there."

On a campus, everybody's
stealing the textbooks.

I had read a book
by Abbie Hoffman

that was titled,
"Steal This Book."

And so I just thought,

well, I was way behind
the curve as far as being cool.

♪

ELIZABETH: I did confront him
about it eventually,

and I would tell him that I
thought it was just so foolish,

because he wanted to make
his living as an attorney

or as a politician,

and this was not gonna
serve him well if he got caught.

And his idea was that
he'd never get caught.

♪

JANE: By 1973,
the women's movement

was making serious gains.

I mean, we had attained rights
to autonomy over our bodies,

including the autonomy to
be able to have an abortion.

♪

♪

JANE: Women felt free
to date whom they choose,

to found their own women's
liberation clubs on campus.

We started getting
the inception of things

like Women's Studies, even,
on those college campuses.

And that gave us hope

that the world was
really opening up for us.

♪

♪

JOANNE: I was in Arizona,
at the time,

and I was interested
in the northwest,

and I saw a picture of
the Space Needle in a magazine.

My adventurous spirit drove me
to investigate the school,

and I decided to go.

♪

JOANNE: I think part of me was
drawn to the political activism,

the social justice kinds of
causes that I heard about.

I was certainly very
interested in racial equity

and knowing more about that,

and being in a more
diverse environment.

♪

PHYLLIS: I loved the
University of Washington.

I came from a very small town,
and everything was possible.

I mean, by 1973,
that fall,

it wasn't our goal to meet
some man from a fraternity

and get married;
it wasn't like that.

I mean, truly,
everything was possible.

In fact, when we went
through rush, Bobby Riggs,

he had said that women
belonged in the kitchen,

and they belonged
in the bedroom,

and they belonged,
you know, holding babies.

BOBBY: The male is king,
the male is supreme.

Girls play a nice game
of tennis, for girls.

♪

REPORTER: It's sometimes
difficult to remember

that all this is
about a tennis game.

For days, the two stayed
away from each other,

away from confrontation.

But finally, like
boxers at a weigh-in,

they met for the pre-game
eyeball-to-eyeball challenge.

In between tennis hustles,

Riggs hustles pretty blondes.

BOBBY: She says you're gonna
scrape me off the court

at the AstroDome,
and I claim it's gonna be her

they're gonna scrape off.

And it is gonna be
the battle of the sexes.

Don't anybody let you tell you
it's any different.

PHYLLIS: But she's strong,
she's a very good athlete,

and she smoked him.

PHYLLIS: It was
a very big deal.

[crowd cheering]

PHYLLIS: It brought
women together,

and that gets
reflected culturally.

[theme music]

BARBARA: The Mary Tyler Moore
show was a very important show

that resonated with women.

THEME: ♪ How will you
make it on your own? ♪

BARBARA: It handled
an unmarried woman's life

who moved to the big city

to become a successful
career woman.

So it had a great
sense of freedom.

I'm on my own.

I've got a little bit
of responsibility.

THEME: ♪ You might just
make it after all! ♪

GINGER: If you look at
all of those popular

television shows
in the 1970s,

these are all women
who had the ability

to take themselves
somewhere else.

Being mobile was
an important part

of their being
independent women,

and this was a big change
in the culture.

And this, of course, is the time
that the murders begin.

♪

♪

♪

KAREN: My name
is Karen Epley.

On January 4th, 1974,

I was attacked
and left for dead.

INTERVIEWER: This is
the first time

you've ever
spoken about this.

You are, I believe,
Ted Bundy's first victim.

KAREN: I... I
believe so, yes.

And one of the
only that survived.

I was living in
the U District,

studying political science.

He came into my home,

took a bed frame
off of my bed,

and smashed my skull.

Then he used probably
the same bed frame,

smashed it into my vagina,
and into my bladder.

My bladder was totally split,
so... uh...

It was horrible.

♪

♪

♪

INTERVIEWER: And you
stayed that way in bed

without anybody knowing
you'd been attacked,

for hours.

KAREN: Right.
It was...

18 hours, 20 hours.

My roommate Bob thought
I was still sleeping.

Later on he went down
and checked me again,

and there he found the blood,

and it was just horrible
for him to find me that way.

And next thing I remember,
was waking up in the hospital

and I thought, "Uh-oh,
this is really bad.

"This is really bad."

And so I asked my father.

I said, "Dad,
what happened?"

And he said, "Well, you had
a little bump in your head."

♪

♪

KAREN: I was permanently
brain-damaged.

And he'd say, you know,
"That's a desk, or a chair."

"Can you say those words?"

And I just couldn't
get them out of my mouth.

I've lost 50 percent
of my hearing,

40 percent of my vision.

I have a terrible ringing
and roaring in my ears,

just constant.

I had epileptic fits.

Luckily I was able
to overcome those.

INTERVIEWER: Why have you lived
under the radar for so long?

KAREN: Well, I...
I wanted to keep quiet.

I wanted to have
my own life and privacy.

Women like us,

women that have been attacked,

women that have been raped,

women that are... survivors,

they keep their
secrets to themselves.

I don't know why.

We're taught to just
get on with it, so...

♪

♪

♪

REPORTER: Lynda lived here
in this green house

in the university district,

along with five other
university students.

She was last seen here
Thursday evening,

about 12 o'clock.

JOANNE: Lynda was one of
the first people I met.

Certainly the first person
I spent any time with.

And I can't explain
the welcome embrace

that I received from her.

I think we both knew
within a day or two

that we were going to
be very dear friends,

and we were together
all the time

and excited about
the world and life.

We had late-night conversations
all of the time

about what we wanted to be,
what we wanted to do.

She was just vibrant.

Just...

There's not a room she walked
into that didn't light up.

She was beautiful.
She was beautiful.

♪

KAREN: It was Lynda's
week to cook.

And so Friday night,
she planned to have

her parents over for dinner

and we were all
supposed to be there.

JOANNE: That night, she wanted
to do something extra special,

so I told her I would
help her with the meal,

and so we were
planning it together.

I had a bedroom on
the main level by the kitchen,

and she stopped in
so that we could discuss

everything we were going
to do the next evening

for dinner.

And she was very
chipper and cheerful,

and she said, "Okay,
I'm going down to sleep,"

because she had to
get up early.

KAREN: I came home, ran up
the steps into the house,

and somebody was
walking up the street.

I didn't look;
I just sort of went in

and locked the front door.

Our upper two roommates,
Ginger and Monica,

were upstairs asleep.

Joanne had a bedroom off
the kitchen on the main floor.

Lynda and I shared
the basement

and my window faced
the back of the house.

And then her window faced
the other side of the house.

So I came in, and I stayed up
probably about a half hour,

or 20 minutes,

and talked with Joanne
in the kitchen.

And then I went down to bed.

And when I went down to bed,
I locked the side door.

You'd go down four steps.

♪

KAREN: When I got up
in the morning,

the alarm was going
and it wasn't being shut off,

and it went on,
and it went on,

and on and on.

So I went in
and shut it off

and her bed was made perfect.

I mean, like she had
never slept in it.

And then the phone rang as
I was getting ready to leave,

and it was
the radio station.

She did ski reports on the radio
to earn a little money

in the mornings, and they
were asking where Lynda was.

And I said,
"I don't know.

"She doesn't appear
to have slept here."

Her jeans were gone,

her shoes were gone,

but the door was unlocked.

The side door, that I had
locked on my way down.

It didn't make sense.

REPORTER: Lynda read
the ski reports on her job.

According to a roommate,
her alarm went off on time,

Friday morning,
at 5:30.

But her roommate says
Lynda wasn't in her room

and she never
showed up for work.

REPORTER: Is she prone to
leave the house at night?

JOANNE: Uh, no.

She has been known to
take walks now and then,

but only when
someone is with her.

JOANNE: What I remember
is having to be very insistent

that something was wrong.

That the police were,

"Well, maybe she took off
with a boyfriend,"

or "Maybe she's
having an abortion,"

I think they said,

which just absolutely
made me crazy,

because I knew
that was not true.

At some point,
another officer came,

and he wanted to see
where her room was.

So we went down there
and he looked around,

and her room was
completely in order.

And he pulled the bedsheet back
and we saw the blood,

so I said, "Well, maybe
she had a nose bleed."

You just want to go
to a rational place.

But it was too much blood.

So then he looked
in the closet

and he pulled out a nightgown
that had blood on it as well.

Um, so then of course,
it flashes through your mind

that someone must have
dressed her and made the bed,

and was in the room
for a while.

And we just didn't have
any real, deep sense yet

of the horror of it.

♪

♪

♪

LAURA: My sister was
the person who would sort of

walk into a room
and light it up.

She was an entertainer,
a performer.

Beautiful, you know,
young woman.

♪

LAURA: She was
my older sister.

She was a mentor.

She was someone
I looked up to.

We did a lot of
vacations together.

We would go to the ocean.

My parents had a small boat

that the five of us and our dog
would go out on,

and she taught me
to water-ski,

and she would sing
all the time.

Walk around the house singing.

And when she would
sing a song,

it wasn't like she...
she'd just sing it once.

You'd hear it over
and over and over again.

She's in the bathroom
getting ready.

She's walking down the hall.

She's setting the table.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

LAURA: You know, she was...

She was the star.

♪

♪

♪

♪

[geese calling]

ELIZABETH: It was early
in 1974 when Ted started

acting differently towards me,

where we weren't spending
as much time together

as we had been.

And he'd just like
drop out of my life

for three days or whatever,

and God, I'd go back over
our last conversation like,

"What did I say?
What did I do?"

This was a pattern that always
made me feel like I was...

a shrew.

When we'd have a conflict,
I would be really upset

and raising my voice,

and he would just
get calmer and calmer.

And it was just...

It was crazy-making.

MOLLY: He and my mom
were not as close

as they had been.

They didn't spend as much
time as they had spent.

He didn't come over
for a really long time

and I thought he might not
come back at all, and I...

I was concerned that he wasn't
gonna come back at all.

♪

MOLLY: My mom was
worried all the time,

and she was drinking
more at that time.

She felt that maybe
he was seeing someone else,

and I do remember hearing
those conversations.

I didn't understand what
was happening there, at all.

But I knew it wasn't
like it had been.

♪

ELIZABETH: What I knew of

was men that cheat
on their partners,

and so that's what
I thought was going on.

That I'd become boring,
that I was predictable,

and that I needed
to be somebody else.

Then he'd pop back in

and it was like
nothing ever happened.

♪

ELIZABETH: One day
when I came home

and I found him
inside my apartment,

which he didn't have a key,

so he had the landlord
let him in...

He was really upset
when I got home.

He laid down with his head
on my lap and just sobbed.

He told me that he had
to tell me something

that was important

and that I would
probably be shocked about.

But of course,
I had no idea

what he was really fighting
against within himself.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪