Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019): Season 1, Episode 1 - Handsome Devil - full transcript

[birds chirping]

[man] I had no idea what I was doing.

And I had no idea who I was dealing with.

But I knew it was a hell of a story.

So I went into the prison
with my tape recorder.

And I asked him, "What sort of person
could have done these things?"

[male reporter] Police say he was armed
with a heavy oak log.

He clubbed and then strangled to death
20-Year-old Lisa Levy

and 21-year-old Margaret Bowman.
At least one of them was raped.

He insisted that he was innocent.

I wanted him to tell me, who was he...



[male reporter] Diabolical genius,
deceptive, manipulative.

[female reporter]
He's also a former social worker

and a political campaign activist.

[man] I consider him a friend,
he was a very nice person.

[woman] I felt a connection with him.
A feeling of wanting to be loved.

[man] I wanted to know what went through
his mind, what led up to it.

[woman] Our son
is the best son in the world.

He was a very normal, active boy.

[woman #2] His mom and dad
took him to church every Sunday.

[man] He wanted to be successful...

as an attorney or as a politician.

[man #2] What are
the elements of the crimes?

Why the victims?

[man] This man
on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list



has been captured in Florida.

[man #2]
Suspected of dozens of sex killings

in Washington State, Idaho,
Utah, and Colorado.

[man #3] The discovery
of the skeletal remains of six women.

[woman] More than 20 young women
in five states...

-[man #4] Beaten and strangled.
-[woman #2] Abduction, nude body.

-[man #5] We found parts of four skulls...
-[man #6] Sexually molested.

-[man #7] Bludgeoned, raped.
-[man #8] These 36 sex killings...

[man] Mutilation, necrophilia.

[man #2] Sexually mutilated
by mouth, by teeth.

[woman] Bite marks.

[man #3] He had sex with them
after they were dead.

[man #4] Why did he do it?

[woman] It's quite a mystery.

[man] So he looked at me
and grabbed my tape recorder.

Then he twisted in his chair
and was cradling it like this.

And off he went.

[man] It is a little after nine o'clock
in the evening.

My name is Ted Bundy.

I've never spoken to anybody about this.

But I am looking for an opportunity
to tell the story as best I can.

I mean, I'm not an animal
and I'm not crazy.

I don't have a split personality.

I mean, I'm just a normal individual.

[theme song playing]

[Jimmy Carter]
I wanna talk to you, right now,

about a fundamental threat
to American democracy.

It is a crisis of confidence.

[male reporter] The '70s, an angry era.

Inflation, Vietnam, Watergate, Iran,

demonstrations and riots, the rip-off,
the scam, the hustle, the cheat.

[male reporter #2] In the '70s,

there is fear:
fear of crime in the streets.

Violent crimes were up 130%
in the last 10 years.

Murder, up 62%, rape 116%.

[man] In the 1970s,
the phenomenon of serial murder

was brand new and absolutely frightening.

[male reporter]
Motiveless, random killings

sometimes thousands of miles apart.

But at the time,
the term "serial killer" didn't exist.

[male reporter]
Charles Manson and three girl members

of his so-called family

were found guilty of murder
in the first degree.

[male reporter #2] ...for the murders
of actress Sharon Tate and eight others.

The fact, that somebody could murder,
murder and murder...

[male reporter] In New York,
the search continues for the "Son of Sam".

The past year, the killer has killed
five people and wounded four.

...and could get away with it
for a long time and be undetected.

[female reporter] 13 young women were
murdered over a period of six months.

Their bodies dumped in hilly areas
of Los Angeles.

...in the so-called
"Hillside Strangler Murders".

It really unnerved people.

[male reporter]
Police today found six more bodies

under the John Gacy house.

[female reporter] Gacy admitted killing
the young men after having sex with them.

You see bodies in your sleep,

you see him in your sleep,
it's just too much.

But nobody unnerved them more than Ted.

[indistinct chatter]

[man] The mysterious former law student
with a charming air in court,

Bundy is on the FBI's top 10
most-wanted list.

Being sought for questioning
in 36 slayings.

[Michaud] Ted stands out
because he was quite an enigma.

Clean-cut, good looking, articulate,

very intelligent,

just a handsome, young,
mild-mannered law student.

Yes, I intend to complete my legal
education to become a lawyer,

and be a damn good lawyer.

Then I have a great model over here,
so I think things are gonna work out.

That's about all I can say.

[Michaud] He didn't look
like anybody's notion of somebody

who would tear apart young girls.

[Michaud] Ted and I
first met face-to-face on death row

in 1980.

My agent had come to me

saying that Ted Bundy,
famous serial killer,

had sent a message out
that he was willing to speak

exclusively with a journalist

in exchange for a reexamination
of all the cases against him,

which, he said, would prove
that he was innocent.

I thought,
that if Ted was telling the truth,

that he has been set up,

that it was a hell of a story.

If it wasn't the truth,
then it was also a hell of a story.

At the time,
I was still a reasonably young reporter

and I'd certainly never had
that big a story in my lap.

I think Ted regarded me as somebody
to be manipulated or used in his cause.

So I called my old mentor, Hugh Aynesworth
for whom I had worked at Newsweek.

[Aynesworth] Stephen called me
asking would I help him,

would I work with him? I said, "Sure."

It just seemed like a good story,
either way it went.

And I knew that nobody else to that point
had any access to him.

People were trying all over the world
to get with Bundy.

[Michaud] We reached an agreement
to cooperate with Ted on a book.

So, Hugh took off for the West Coast
to re-investigate the cases.

And I went to Florida
with my tape recorder.

I can't tell you how nervous I was
walking to the prison the first time.

Death row's not any fun.

The guard took me down this long corridor.

And then around to the left
into this room.

Then Ted was brought in.

I'd known Ted from newspaper articles,
a lot of television.

The mystery, the aura
of the most infamous accused

mass killer in the country.

Now, we were face-to-face,
the two of us, in the same room.

And there was nothing besides
his belly chain and his death row clothes

to tell you that Ted was anything other
than just a regular guy in his early 30s,

who was there talking over
a business deal.

And over the next six months,
we'd recorded between 75 and 80 tapes,

roughly a hundred hours
of recorded conversation.

[Bundy]
Testing one, two, three, four, five.

[beep]

[Michaud] That going okay?

[Bundy] I'm getting a red light.
Blink, blink, blink. Record.

-[Michaud] That means it's recording.
-Oh.

It's blinking. It's not on permanently.

[Michaud] Yeah, well...
It should blink in response to the voice.

[Bundy] Blink-blink. Oh, I see.

[Michaud] When we first sat down together,
we had a little bit of small talk.

[young Michaud]
May I have a cigarette, please?

-[Bundy] Oh, sure, go right ahead.
-Thank you.

-[Bundy] They're good for you.
-They are?

-[Bundy] Only cause mild forms of cancer.
-Right.

It turned out that we had a lot
superficially in common,

that we were both born in,
in Burlington, Vermont,

and had moved with our mothers
to Tacoma, Washington,

a working class suburb of Seattle.

We were quite young.

[Bundy] Our house was on Sheridan street,
in Tacoma.

Second house from the corner

on the west side of the street.

Moved there, I would guess, about 1951.

[Michaud] We were not friends,

but we actually
knew some people in common.

[Bundy] Yeah, I remember Warren Dodge

one of my childhood buddies.

We both went to football practice
in the play field across from the tavern

and then we fished at the pier just across
the railroad tracks from the tavern.

He was very cautious with me,
businesslike.

[Bundy] I'm particularly fond of

looking at things in a chronological way.

Times, dates, places.

I understood from that meeting,
that I was there to take down Ted's story.

The story that he wanted to tell.

[Bundy] People perceive me differently
from how I perceive myself.

And I need to give others a chance to know

what was really going on,
what it was really like for me.

[click]

[helicopter thrumming]

[police radio chatter]

[male reporter] In and around Seattle,
police began investigating

a young woman who disappeared.

Lynda Ann Healy, a 21-year-old,
University of Washington student,

disappeared from her Seattle apartment.

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.

[woman] I was a detective
with King County police

in Seattle, Washington,

and I recall when she had gone missing

because Lynda was the...

weather person and the ski report person
for a local radio station,

a very popular station
that I happened to listen to everyday

to see if I wanted to go skiing that day.

According to her 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.

[McChesney] Lynda didn't come to work
on a particular day,

and some of the other people
in the radio station

commented over the air

that Lynda must be sick,
Lynda didn't show up.

That was very unusual because she was

a person that you relied on
five days a week

to tell you
what was going on in the mountains.

[girl] I was in my room studying late,
probably till about almost 2:00,

and she came in at about 11:30
into my room and spoke with me then.

And she seemed
in a really pretty happy mood.

And then she said she was going to bed
and that was about 12:00.

[McChesney]
When Lynda didn't show up the next day,

the newspapers then proceeded
to tell the public

that Linda was gone.

and it was quite a mystery,

because she was
a very responsible young woman.

There was a crime scene search
at that point.

The room was very neat.

There was no signs of foul play
in the room,

except some blood on the pillow

and head area
on the sheets of Lynda's bed.

The only curious thing there
is Lynda's bed was made up neatly.

[man] At that time, the disappearance
of Lynda Healy was certainly unique

for the Seattle area.

Back when I first started
as a patrol officer

with the King County Sheriff's Office,

I'd never seen a crime committed before.

And that's where I got my start.

We did not know anything
about where she went,

nor had anyone else had any knowledge
about where she went.

We have very few leads
on the disappearance of Lynda Healy.

Although since the last time
that we made a press release on this,

we have interviewed 65 people.

We couldn't do anything
but sit and man a telephone.

It was pretty bad.

[click]

[Michaud] Ted's first victim was supposed
by most people to be Lynda Ann Healy.

And my conversations with Ted
began fairly innocently.

I wanted to talk about the murders.

So I asked him about the murder
of Lynda Ann Healy.

[Michaud] We know that Healy
went to bed and was never seen again...

I think we've got to try to think
in a more narrative kind of way,

about the crimes,
with which you have been connected.

-[Bundy] I don't-- I don't know. I'm...
-[Michaud chuckles]

[Bundy] My initial reaction is
that I don't think that I can.

It seemed to me that when he said
that he was going to cooperate with us

and tell us important things

that would help prove
that he was innocent,

what he really had in mind
was a celebrity bio.

[Bundy] Boyhood on Sheridan Street
was not an unpleasant one.

I remember those days,

of roaming and-- with my friends,
the adventure, the explorations.

Those were the days of frog hunting
and marble playing.

[Michaud] Ted had
an idealized version of his boyhood.

[Bundy] First grade I was somewhat
of a champion frog catcher.

I mean, I was a frog man.

Prided myself on my ability

to spot that pair of bulging eyes...

which would bob
just above the surface of a murky pond,

[woman] Growing up in Tacoma,
we had a lot of fun.

My brother was two years older
and he and Ted were the same age.

We had about a four-block area
of kids that played together.

And we had
that whole wooded area to play in.

[Bundy]
I never lacked playmates in those days.

There were always more than enough kids
around to do something with.

They seemed to be everywhere.

There was a distinct difference
between the haves and have-nots

in the neighborhood,

and Ted's family
were in the have-not group.

But they could have not been
more Beaver Cleaver if they tried.

His mom worked as a secretary.

Mr. Bundy was a really good dad.

His mom and dad took him
to church every Sunday.

They were involved
in Cub Scouts and Brownies

and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and...

sent the kids to church camps.

They were very, very involved parents.

But he was just different.

He had a big problem for a long time.
He had a horrible speech impediment.

So he was teased a lot.

He just didn't fit in.

Even up at Boy Scout camp,

he just couldn't
quite get the hang of doing

the things the other kids were doing.

Couldn't tie the knots right.

Couldn't shoot the gun right.

Couldn't win the races.

And he had a temper.

He liked to scare people.

He liked building tiger traps
out in the woods.

They built a bit pit in the ground

and put sharpened sticks down in it,

then covered the top of it up
with vegetation.

And one little girl

went over the top
of one of Ted's tiger traps

and got the whole side of her leg...

slit open with the sharpened point
of the stick that she landed on.

In high school,

he wanted to be something he wasn't.

He was going to be president.

He was going to show the world that...

Ted was the one to be dealt with,

and it was a lot of blowhard talk.

[Bundy] I did well in academics,
I ran for high school office.

Most of my close friends,
we would play football

I went out for the track team,
went skiing every weekend.

I was one of the boys.

[Holt] He tried to fool you
and lie to you.

He wasn't athletic.

He wanted to be the number one in class,
but he wasn't.

He started being more alone.

[Bundy] Some people perceived me
as being shy and introverted.

I didn't go to dances,
I didn't go on the beer drinking outings.

I was a pretty--
You might call me straight,

-but not a social outcast in any way.
-[Michaud] Mm-hmm.

[Holt] Nobody really got
to be close to Ted.

I don't remember him dating anybody,

and at the time
I thought it was really terrible,

'cause he was a good-looking guy.

[Bundy] It wasn't that I disliked women
or were afraid of them.

It was just that I didn't seem to...

have an inkling as to
what to do about them.

[calmly] I honestly can't say why.

He just didn't seem to be all there,
all present...

in some way. There was just a gap in him.

[Bundy] Everybody's fascinated

with the notion
that there is cause and effect.

That we can put our finger on it and say,

"Yes, his father beat him
when he was a boy.

We could see it when he was a kid."

That's bullshit.

There's nothing in my background

which would lead one to believe
that I was capable

of committing murder.

-[Michaud] Absolutely nothing?
-[Bundy] Absolutely nothing.

[McChesney] In June of 1974,

another young woman went missing
in Seattle.

And she had lived
in the University of Washington area,

very close to where Lynda Ann Healy
had been abducted.

[female report] Georgann Hawkins
was last seen Monday evening

shortly after midnight.

She had been visiting at the Beta House
and was returning to her house

just a half block away down this alley.

Police believe she went along this route

and then, somewhere, she disappeared.

Did you ever know her
as the type of person that would take off

at any time on her own
and not tell anyone?

No, I didn't, she wasn't like that at all.

She always...
She was really close to all of us,

and anything she was gonna do,
she always told us.

Because she lived in the University
of Washington area,

where you have lots and lots
of young people,

and lots of lots of young women,

the community began to grow uneasy
about what was going on.

It's unreal and it's a nightmare.

And nothing in anybody's manual would...
[chuckles]

it-- would prepare you
for something like this.

Mostly they're-- they're frightened,
and I-I sense a good deal of anger.

-[reporter] Against who?
-Against anyone who would feel

they had the right to walk
into the middle of a young lady's life

and-- and disrupt it in this way.

[McChesney] It was very obvious to me

that there was something really horrible,
really wrong going on.

There's no physical evidence,
except that the two girls

were very similar type girls.
They're very dependable.

They told people where they were going
and when they were coming back,

and that, uh, they just didn't do things
of this nature.

And they're within two blocks
of each other.

Police say they will return
to this alley at night

to determine the lighting of the area.

Meanwhile, they're asking the girls
to stay out of the alleys

and travel in groups of twos or threes

and use only the front doors.

[Michaud]
The disappearance of Georgann Hawkins

is an interesting case.

for the fact there's no evidence, at all.

She might be an interesting one
to discuss, what do you think?

Well, I don't know about, uh...

the Hawkins case,

from what I know about it, it is unusual.

because she was in a neighborhood

where she would have
a lot of acquaintances

but I don't know.

[Michaud]
Guiding the conversations with Ted

was a challenge.

I started trying to push him
into more substantive areas and...

he just kept bobbing and weaving.

He wanted to talk about everything
but the cases against him.

He told me that when he graduated
from high school,

he went to the University of Washington.

[Bundy] At the University of Washington,
I was a nice, presentable,

affable young person.

I compensated a lot for what I consider
to be my most vulnerable aspect,

my introversion,

by being seemingly aloof
and arrogant and intellectual

but nice and tolerant
and that kind of stuff.

I had to sit down one night and say,
"This is what I want to be."

[Michaud] At the university,

he got an undergraduate degree
in psychology

and also met this tall, attractive,

wealthy young woman from California...

and for a while caught her attention.

[Bundy] The relationship I had with Diane

had a lasting impact on me.

She's a beautiful dresser, beautiful girl.
Very personable. Nice car, great parents.

So, you know,

for the first-time girlfriend,
really that was not too bad.

We spent a lot of time driving around
in her car.

You know, making out in the car.

Mumbled sweet nothings
into each other's ears

and told each other how much we loved
each other.

And she inspired me to look at myself
and become something more.

[Michaud] He decided that he wanted
to go into politics

and he was a straightforward,
clean-cut, foursquare

Richard-Nixon Republican.

[crowd cheering]

[Nixon] Four years ago,
crime was rising all over America.

I pledge to stop the rise in crime.

[Bundy]
I've always been anti-union, anti-boycott.

I guess that kind of labels me
as somewhat of a conservative.

[Michaud] The anti-war movement
and the liberal agenda offended him.

[Bundy]
I just wasn't too fond of criminal conduct

and using anti-war movements
as a haven for...

for delinquents who liked to feel
that they were immune from the law.

I did speak out
against these radical socialist types

who were just all
for trashing the buildings,

and destroying the university.

[man] When I first met Ted,

he was doing work for the state
Republican Party at that time

in Seattle.

I got a job working
for Republican governor

Dan Evans' campaign for reelection.

And Ted volunteered
to come on and work with us.

Our friendship grew from there.

He was a very nice person.

He was the kind of guy
you'd want your sister to marry.

[Michaud] One of the things
Ted liked about politics

is that politicians are all about image.

They're about selling something
to do the public.

That's perfect for him,
'cause he doesn't have to be real.

[Bundy] The reason I love politics

and was just drawn to it
from the very beginning

was because here was something
which allowed me

to utilize my natural talent in politics

and also my assertiveness.

[Vortman]
Ted always fit in, wherever he was at.

We would go to functions

where there'd be
some very influential people there.

And, uh,
Ted could always strike up a dialogue.

These people accepted him.

[Bundy] And a social life.
I mean, the social life came with it.

You were set, you know,
you went out to dinner with people

and they invited you to dinner,
this is where they were,

they took you to drinks, and they...

And there I was,
a life that had been missing for me.

During that campaign
I got laid for the first time.

I got laid in Walla Walla.

[Vortman]
Ted's job with the governor's campaign

was to attend all of the events
that Rosellini had--

the other side, a democrat
running against Governor Evans--

and write down what Rosellini said
to use it against him.

[Michaud] Ted saw himself
as something more

than just another guy
who was just working on the campaign.

[newsman] An official for the Republican
gubernatorial candidate

was accused of political spying.

It's hard for me to believe
that what I did is newsworthy.

My part in the campaign
was so insignificant,

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

Really embarrassed.

[laughs]

[Michaud] He affected humility at it,
that he was just another little cog.

But he, in fact, loved to be
in the center of attention.

[Vortman]
Ted had aspirations to be affluent

and recognized and looked up to.

I did meet his girlfriend from California.

She was a very classy person.

And Ted wanted to be in the upper class.

I think he looked up to me.

I was like the big brother,
the older brother.

And we have the same interests.

He enjoyed cooking and eating.

I like to cook. That's sort of my hobby.

[Bundy] When I met Marlin,

I was attracted to him because his wife
could cook good sushi.

And, uh, they were very nice people.

[Vortman] Ted liked my Volkswagen.

He wanted a Volkswagen just like mine.

And I remember he liked
that it had a grab bar up here.

He seemed intrigued by that.

And then he got one just like mine,

I guess, same color and everything.

And I was going to law school

and Ted decided he was gonna go out
to law school too.

[Michaud] After he graduated
from the University of Washington,

Ted applied to a number of law schools,

but he was devastated
when his LSATs came back

and he was mediocre.
They weren't very good at all.

So, he was not going to get
into a great law school.

And he goes to the University
of Puget Sound Law School, night school.

[Bundy] I felt like I'd failed,

not only myself but even my teachers
and instructors at the university.

[Michaud] And he's bitterly disappointed,

because it lacks any kind of mahogany
and tweed that he had in mind.

And it was a miserable year for him.

[Bundy] I was just absolutely
out of control of my life.

I didn't know what I was going to do,
didn't even know where I was gonna live.

Didn't even know
how I was gonna support myself.

[Michaud] And his relationship
with Diane falls apart.

She was frankly more woman
than he could handle.

He didn't have any money,
and that kind of opened up

a lot of the old self-doubt.

[Bundy] I experienced
any number of insecurities with Diane.

There were occasions when I felt
that she expected a great deal more

from me
than I was really capable of giving.

I was not in any position to take her out
and squire her around, uh...

in the manner in which we was accustomed.

But-- Or buy her clothing or, you know...

I think I was coming apart at the seams.

Maybe she saw it
and maybe didn't understand, you know,

what I was going through.

Throughout the summer,
Diane and I corresponded less and less.

And then Diane stopped writing, and...

and I started to get fearful
about what she was up to.

I had
this overwhelming feeling of rejection

that stemmed not just her, but...

everything.

The tail end of that summer
is really a blank,

I mean, it was a nightmare for me.

In there somewhere was a desire to...

have some sort of revenge on Diane.

But toward the end of the summer,
I'm serious, I just-- It's blank.

I don't know what the hell I did.

[male reporter]
From January to June of this year,

The King County area
was engulfed in a wave of fear

as young women vanished
with alarming regularity.

21-year-old Lynda Ann Healy
was the first to disappear.

Georgann Hawkins also disappeared
from the University of Washington campus.

[Michaud] When Lynda Healy
and Georgann Hawkins disappeared

within the city of Seattle,

they were missing persons cases,
they were not murders.

They just have gone.
There was no region-wide panic...

until word spread that four other women

had also disappeared
from other jurisdictions,

all around Western Washington
and into Northern Oregon.

[male reporter] Nearly every month,
in and around Seattle,

a young woman disappeared.

[male reporter #2] Gail Manson disappeared

from The Evergreen State College campus
near Olympia.

Susan Rancourt disappeared
from the campus

of central Washington State College
in Ellensburg.

Roberta Kathleen Parks disappeared

from the Oregon State University campus
at Corvallis.

22-year-old Brenda Ball of Seattle
was last seen at a tavern in Burien.

There were six
unsolved disappearances here

in less than six months.

[man] When the series of girls
were reported missing,

terror gripped Seattle.

I was a reporter for KJR Radio

and the desperation in Seattle was crazy.

The people were frightened to death.

We had started, at KJR,
numbering the women.

"Number 3, number 4,
number 5 has disappeared."

"Number 6..."

Women were disappearing,
and my brother had sent me

the clippings from the paper.

It just made me sick.

[Vortman] It was on the news.

There were a bunch of young women
missing in the Seattle area.

I was shocked. I couldn't believe it.

They just vanish for no apparent reason.

We are pretty sure
that there is probably foul play

some way or another.

And we feel that we haven't come
to the end of our line here,

that there's a good possibility
that this could happen again.

[Lucas] It was an emotional time.

Behavior was changed.
A lot of behavior changed.

There had been young men, young women
hitchhiking on every street corner.

And the hitchhiking stopped.

Just like that.

We just want to caution
the young women of our community

to be overly cautious at this time.

[McChesney] As a woman, and a detective,

it was not lost on me
that the victim pool was....

kind of like me...

in the sense of age, college-educated.

And for most of the women that I knew,
they were very careful about...

meeting strangers and dating
and who they were dating and so forth.

And I knew from my friends
that there was apprehension and fear

about what was going on,
because we did not have a suspect.

All the material that was coming out
of the Seattle Police Department was:

"We don't know what's going on.
We don't know...

where these girls are disappearing to.
We have no suspect."

[man] Information is coming in, but...

it isn't anything
that we can really go on right now.

[dogs barking]

[Keppel] Brenda Ball
was my missing person case.

I worked very hard
at trying to locate her.

Didn't find out any information
from anybody that knew anything.

We were viewing the type of case it was

as a killer or maybe a couple of killers.

The term "serial killer"

was not anywhere on anybody's register
in 1970s.

As far as I was concerned,
it was new territory.

We didn't know what was going on at all.

[Bundy] The record-keeping operation

of the King County police agencies
in general was just horrendous.

I had this connection
with law enforcement there.

I worked for the Seattle Crime Commission.

I did some work
on this crimes against women...

uh, issue, particularly rape...

to study this and make some suggestions

to the Seattle police
on how they can prevent rape.

[Michaud] A year or so
before the women started disappearing,

Ted had a brief job
working for the Seattle Crime Commission.

It gave him access
to a lot of crime statistics,

and he saw what the police did
and what the police did not do.

And he saw all sorts of places
where somebody who was smart enough

could take advantage of the chaos
and the lack of consistency

from one jurisdiction to another.

[Bundy] What I discovered,
the discovery I made

was that they had well-intentioned people,

but they didn't know what they should do.

[Lucas] Various police departments
weren't sharing information

across jurisdictional lines.

This became blatantly obvious
fairly early on in the series of murders.

I'd call the police department and say,
"How many girls are you missing?"

"We have one missing here."
And I said, "How many in Seattle?"

"I don't know."

There were wild investigative leads
that went all over the place.

The Captain of Homicide in Seattle,
Herbs Swinley,

would call me into his office sometimes
to brainstorm.

One day, I walked into his office
and up on the chalkboard,

he had the names of...

[exhales]

eight or ten young women.

And I said, "What's that list?"

And he said,
"I was gonna ask you to look at it."

And in between each of the names,
he had the numbers 23, 23,

36, 36, 23,

23, 36, 36.

I said, "I don't know,
what's that all about?"

And he said, "That's the number of days
between the disappearances."

He said: "You see a pattern?"

He was researching
various religious cults

to try to attach it to various kinds
of occult calendars, and...

witchcraft, Satanism, human sacrifices.

They had no hard evidence.

No descriptions of potential suspects.

They were desperate.

[Aynesworth] While Stephen
was meeting with Ted in prison,

I was out in the Northwest

reinvestigating all the murders
that he was suspected of.

Six years after these murders,

there really wasn't
any real strong evidence

in any of the cases.

I met with the local police,
what witnesses there were of the crimes,

their families

Well, we received a phone call
from the university

that my daughter was missing.
That she hadn't come home.

She was a straight-A student,
the type of child who just...

wouldn't normally do
those kinds of things.

Those things don't happen to you.

They happen to everybody else.

You read about in the paper.
They happen in New York City.

They don't happen
in Ellensburg, Washington.

It was just a hard, tiresome job

for many weeks
and it was very-- very hurtful too,

because some of these families

never found their daughters.

I had two teenage daughters at the time.

And I just envisioned...

what had happened to some of these girls.
It was horrible.

[Bundy] Why and how an individual
would select women as victims

of a brutal crime
is not entirely clear to me.

I've always preferred women to men.

Um, I probably have

60% women friends,

close to 40% men friends.
It's always been divided that way.

I enjoy women.

[Michaud]
Ted presented himself as just a Boy Scout.

Boyishly handsome, smooth-talking,

and people really fell for him.

He met a woman named Liz at a bar
and she fell madly in love with him.

Liz became his main squeeze,
and they almost got married.

[Bundy] I loved her so much it.
It was destabilizing.

She was from a Mormon family.
She was from a wealthy background.

She was somewhat meek.

Liz had a child
that she had to raise alone for a time.

[Michaud] She had a daughter,

and they formed
this kind of little family for a while.

[Bundy] She was new,
and this was a whole new...

[clears throat]

...dimension to living
that I had never seen before.

[Michaud] But they had issues.

[Bundy] I felt such a strong love for her.

But we didn't have a lot
of interests in common--

Like, politics was something
I don't think we had in common.

She liked to read a lot,
I wasn't into reading.

I wasted a lot of time.

And the other problems
that I would experience, like...

not being able to make
my genuine feelings for her come out,

whether it's fixing a special dinner
or going out

or bringing flowers
or taking out the garbage,

changing the sheets, or doing the laundry.

On occasion I would experience
this fit of, you know...

guilt as it were, and I would vacuum,
and I would straighten up

and wash dishes or fix dinner
or do something.

The area where I really failed would be

not opening up my whole life to her.

Don't know what I was hiding.

Maybe I was just trying
to preserve the, uh,

Ted Bundy devil-may-care
attractive bachelor image.

[gunshot]

I was terribly jealous of her.

I used to agonize about losing her.

I used to just torture myself.

And I did a lot of dumb things.

[indistinct chatter]

[band playing upbeat song]

[McChesney]
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

There were thousands of people
at the park.

There were all kinds of events going on.

Lots and lots of young people.

Lots and lots of young women...

in a place where they feel safe.

And then...

at some point that day

two women, Denise Naslund and Janice Ott,

disappeared from Lake Sammamish Park.

[siren wailing]

[Lucas]
I was still at the radio station in 1974

when Janice Ott and Denise Naslund

were abducted
from Lake Sammamish State Park.

[inhales deeply]

[sighs] I, in fact, lived in a house
just a couple miles down the road.

So when the boss called and said,
"Get over-- Get over to Lake Sammamish,"

I went over and began
interviewing people from there.

It was the first time
that some really clear details came out.

So far we've gotten a few good leads,
particularly on Janice Ott,

the missing girl from Issaquah.

As far as Denise Naslund,

we're still a little bit shaky
on that yet.

[Keppel] When the girls went missing
from Lake Sammamish State Park,

our homicide sergeant assigned

my partner and myself to the two cases.

At that time,

there were eight women
who went missing in and around Seattle.

People were pretty frightened about it.

So we set up a task force.

Kathy McChesney was selected to come in

because we needed
a female detective to interview females.

[McChesney]
What came out of a call for information

was the fact
that some of the witnesses at the park

had seen a suspect approach
both of the women who went missing.

With the disappearance of the Ott
and the Naslund girls

on the same day, from the same state park,

came the first indications
that a male subject was involved.

There were 40,000 people
out here on that day

and some of them had been asked
by a good-looking young man

wearing an arm cast
to help load his sailboat on the car

in the parking lot beyond.

These same witnesses
provided information for a police sketch

and recall the man with a cast
had asked several young ladies

for help that day.

[Keppel] We found out that Denise Naslund

was laying on the beach
with three of her friends,

and went back to the restroom,
which was about 60 feet.

[McChesney]
And that's when this same suspect

with his arm in a sling

approached Denise Naslund,
standing there by the restroom,

with a similar story,
and she went with him,

we believe, willingly, to go help him.

And then she was never seen again.

[Keppel] Later on,
Denise Naslund's mother called in.

And I remember interviewing the mother.

[woman] About nine o'clock that night,

I saw that her boyfriend came up
pulling in her car,

and I knew right then
there was something wrong.

And he said, "I can't find Denise."

All I can think about is...

what were her thoughts?

How long did she suffer?

And those thoughts
are with me all the time.

[Keppel]
The same day Denise Naslund disappeared,

a couple of women had observed
Janice Ott being approached,

while she was on the beach,
by the suspect.

Witnesses told us that the suspect
was seen to be driving

a light brown or a tan Volkswagen bug.

[Keppel] When Janice got up
from the beach

to go to the car with him,

she was wheeling along
her ten-speed yello Tiger bike,

and then those girls overheard them
introduce each other.

She said, "Hi, I'm Jan."

And he said, "Hi, I'm Ted."

And she was never seen again.

[Michaud] After several weeks,

I was not getting anywhere with Ted.

I was getting frustrated.

He didn't want to talk about the murders.

We had made a deal with our publisher

based on our reassurances
that we were going to get

the real story from Ted Bundy.

[young Michaud] I need to be reassured

that you and I are going ahead
in good faith, I guess.

Which is, you know--
Under the terms that we agreed,

that were what is known
about the incidents themselves.

Can you do that?

[Bundy] I don't-- I don't want
to talk about that right now.

-This is the defect of history.
-[Michaud] Yes.

That historians have to deal with.
I guess we're all historians.

I mean, talk about fiction.

-That's what history is.
-[Michaud] Uh-uh.

[Bundy] You never know whether historians,

for one reason or another,
well-intentioned or not,

are creating things
that they wish had happened

or thought happened
or would like to have happened.

Uh, because it satisfies
their own preconception

of what they think the history
should have been.

[Michaud] We were running out of time.

And then I had this epiphany one night

while I was drinking Scotch
and eating cheeseburgers

at the Holiday Inn bar,

that there may be
a different way to do this.

I couldn't talk to Ted person to person.

I had to give him some kind of the veil.

I had to get him to talk about himself...

in the third person.

So I contacted Hugh, who was out West.

[Aylesworth]
When Stephen came up with the idea

to get him talking in the third person,
he called me.

I was staying in a fleabag motel.

And I remember that night it was snowing.
It was cold as-- as all get out.

The motel did not have a phone
in the room.

And I'm out there on a payphone
outside the motel,

talking to Stephen, and I was freezing.

I kept trying to get off the phone,
and he was excited

and he kept saying, "We're oughta do it,"
and I thought it was a great idea.

We didn't know whether it would work.

[Michaud]
Hugh and I have our conversation.

And I go back to the prison the next day

and I say, "Ted, now,
we're not getting anywhere,

but I have an idea.

You know, Ted,
you got a degree in psychology,

so you're trained in psychology.

You're familiar with the details
of the cases.

You certainly know what's been
in the newspapers.

You're intelligent and you're articulate.

I think one way to get at this,

is to turn you into an expert witness.

Why don't you tell me
what you think happened?

Tell me what kind of person
would have done this."

[Bundy] Well, it's not an easy question,
but... [clears throat] I think we can...

speculate.

[Michaud] He looked at me.

There was a brief pause.

But then he grabbed my tape recorder...

and he pulled it to himself
and kind of cradled it

and started talking into it
as if I wasn't even in the room.

[Bundy] We can generally describe
manifestations of this condition

of this person's being skewed
toward matters of a sexual nature

-that involve violence.
-Mm-hmm.

[Michaud] And he starts talking
about how do you describe

what's in a river, as it flows to the sea.

[Bundy]
You go to the mouth of any great river

and pull out a handful of water
that's flowing from it and say,

-"Where did it come from?"
-[Michaud] Mm-hmm.

[Bundy] To trace it back, okay?
And this is what we're dealing with here--

We're talking about

microscopic events as it were,

and undistinguishable,
undetectable events.

The melting of a single snowflake
as it were, okay?

The advent of Spring and the combination
of other forces perhaps

and the ultimate result that we appreciate

-which is the river itself.
-Mm-hmm.

We're now talking
about the development of...

like, well, behavior,

murder.

Okay, well, what...

caused what kinds of mental functions,

aberrations lay at the base of it
and how did they--

Where were they given birth?

Where did they result?
What were they the result of?

And it's difficult...

to trace it back and say,
"This is what happened."

[Michaud] It was like I had unlocked
and avenue for him

to finally tell this story

without saying anything
that could ever be taken to court.

And off he went.

[Bundy] Perhaps this person hoped
that through violence,

-through this violent series of acts--
-Mm-hmm.

With-- With every murder
leaving a person of this type hungry.

-[Michaud] Mm-hmm.
-[Bundy] Unfulfilled.

But also leave him
with the obviously irrational belief

that he-- the next time he did it
he would be fulfilled.

And the next time he did it
he would be fulfilled.

Or the next time he did it
he would be fulfilled.