What went wrong with Ted Bundy?

But Jack Nicholson didn't murder anyone.

You think someone becomes a serial killer because they didn't know who their real father was?

Okaaaaay.

R1, I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule.

R2, Ted thought he knew, because he was told his grandfather was his father.

It's one thing to not know your father and another to think you know, and then to find out that that person who you thought was your dad isn't.

Ted's the exception, not the rule., R3.

Everything about Ted Bundy went to plan.

Exactly, R5.

It was just a bad hair day, I'm sure.

His hatred of women stemmed from his hatred of his mother.

R1 or Khloe Kardashian.

I thought Ted's brain showed abnormality in the autopsy.

Anglican leader says DNA tests have revealed his real father

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said a DNA test result revealing the identity of his biological father has come as a "complete surprise".

The Most Reverend Justin Welby, 60, has discovered he is the son of Sir Winston Churchill's last private secretary, the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne.

He had believed his father was whisky salesman Gavin Welby, who died in 1977.

His mother, Lady Williams of Elvel, has confirmed she had a "liaison" with Sir Anthony just before she wed in 1955.

She said the news had come as an "almost unbelievable shock", and although her memory of the time was patchy, she recalled sleeping with former colleague Sir Anthony after "a large amount of alcohol on both sides".

Oh Ted Bundy Troll, how we have missed you.

R1 nor Eric Clapton or Bobby Darin.

He was hot though.

R13 = Mr. Magoo.

Ted's real father was never identified. His grandfather was an abusive asshole and it's been speculated that Ted was a product of incest.

Really interesting point, OP. The point you brought up about Bundy is strikingly similar to one of Canada's most notorious serial killers , he wasn't told the truth about his parentage and only found out later in life - Paul Bernardo (he along with his former wife Karla were known as the Barbie and Ken of serial killers).

Yes, let's blame the female rather than take responsibility for our own behavior.

Clearly, Ted's mother was a Chico's-wearing Suburban Frau who drove him in an SUV to dinner at Olive Garden! The horror! The horror!

Op you are assuming that all people are born sane and good. This is incorrect. Some people are born very damaged. Ted was one of them most likely.

[quote]Op you are assuming that all people are born sane and good. This is incorrect. Some people are born very damaged. Ted was one of them most likely.

Absolutely. He was born a serial killing, necrophile. Just like Dahmer was born a serial killing, cannibal.

I hate that people automatically have come to blame Bernardo's mother when wasn't Bernardo senior a known creep? I recall at the time he had some charges against him for sexual interference with girls. It was also said that he was an abusive control freak who humiliated the mother in front of the kids. But what people remember is his mother's infidelity to the man.

Too bad this wasn't introduced into evidence at his trial. I'm sure the jury would have judged him not guilty on the grounds of family of origin issues and the victims' families would have been relieved that the women he killed had died in order to help him cope with the legacy of his mother's terrible lies.

Ted said it was all the porn.

R7 it was a bottle of CLARIOL not VO5 that Ted Bundy jammed inside of Lisa Levy at the chi omega house.

[quote]Ted said it was all the porn.

Yeah, the fact that Ted was conscious of this works against that theory.

Psychopathy isn't necessarily caused by environmental factors. Plenty of people have much worse to deal with in their early childhood and come out caring and decent. Bundy likely was born with brain abnormality which left him neurologically incapable of empathy and easily bored, yet of sufficient intelligence to plan mindless acts of extreme violence for a cheap thrill.

Most psychopaths had domineering mother + absentee father background. If you know anyone of this stripe, get away.

R16, please expound about Bernardo. That really isn't his last name? He always did look WASPish and the last name never fit.

R12, Darin took the news really hard. It all but killed him. He looks disturbed in the eyes here.

Let's talk about what's really important. Ted had BDF, right?

[quote]It's one thing to not know your father and another to think you know, and then to find out that that person who you thought was your dad isn't.

Yeah, that explains why all those kids who don't find out they're adopted until later on in life become serial killers.

Shame from being an "illegitimate" child, or whatever the conditions of his birth. Shame at not being rich enough to socialize at higher level. Self-hatred, then turned into hatred of women.

Both Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson have been shown to be abusive towards women. Not saying thy are like Ted Bundy, of course, but they are both misogynists.

R31, that can fuck with an adopted person if they find out when older. How old was Jeffrey and Berkowitz when they learned they were adopted? They usually had present fathers, though. It's the ones with the absentee dads you have to worry about.

Exactly, R34 that's why so many of them become serial killers as do people who had absentee fathers.

Oh, nevermind. I just realized that this is a thread by someone who is only mad that Ted isn't in his Major. No wonder you've got the whole father worship, mother blame going on in this thread.

R33, the main factor is the domineering mother.

But how many serial killers were adopted? Not many. It seems the domineering mother with absentee father with shitty stepfathers that run into problems. Then you have to factor in genetics.

I think it's really down to genetics. Most adopted people hit the jackpot. Not all, I realize. I'd think those kids without father figures that weren't adopted are the resentful ones.

Seems pretty obvious that Book Troll is going to use the whole "absentee father and domineering mother argument," to guilt his father into staying. Book Troll, trust me, when you start offing patients it's not going to be because your dad finally took off.

R40, no idea. You've mistaken me for a troll.

R40, my parents are long dead.

No, R41, you are not OP.

Program, you are autistic. You may struggle with empathy but you are not a psychopath. For one thing, psychopaths do not find other psychopaths endlessly fascinating. The reason someone is a psychopath is not because they have a domineering mother. Someone with a domineering single mother could end up having issues with women, especially if they romanticize the absentee father. Do you believe a psychopath would have empathy if they had a domineering father instead?

Psychopathy is likely based around an interaction between genetics and environment, which includes the family, community and culture one grows up in. There are many types of terrible childhoods that are outside the framework you've come up with. I'm sure some psychopaths have psychopathic relatives, however these relatives will seem normal and probably even likable as that is the nature of psychopathy. Are you going to honestly trust the psychopath's assessment of their own childhood anyway?

Also, I said once a long time ago that you were the I Could've Saved Ted Bundy Troll. Whether or not you're John/PMBT, you're definitely that guy, and you clearly have not researched psychopathy. Why do that instead of formulating your own theories?

A few years ago, the Bundy Troll posted the same argument that OP offers now, that Bundy not being told about his real father was the cause of his rage at women. Much of the Bundy Troll's work is in the archives; perhaps it will all be revived and re-posted. Fun!

r44 I'm not the OP or any other troll, but some psychopaths are very honest about their childhoods. Ed Kemper was, and IIRC the majority of his claims were later verified.

R46 more often than not a psychopath claiming to have had a bad childhood is making things up or heavily embellishing for sympathy. Obviously some psychopaths have had bad childhoods. A psychopath will use anything to win someone over, even the truth if it is useful enough. My point is they are generally not trustworthy and they generally have normal childhoods. Psychopaths like to mess with a person's empathy. Not only is it entertaining to them to see you feeling bad for their made up situation, you then become easier to take advantage of.

A psychopath can't feel any empathy now, so why assume they ever had a normal amount of empathy? A lack of empathy, but not necessarily psychopathy, can cause someone who had a bad childhood to explicitly shift the blame onto people who remind them of caregivers, but they won't enjoy causing someone pain or seek out situations where they can do that. The more empathy you have the more you actively avoid hurting others, and when it comes to a bad childhood you probably end up shifting a lot of the blame onto yourself.

Ted Bundy was illegitimate. When very young, he thought his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister. Who his father really was has never been determined. His mother was supposedly swept off her stupid feet by a smooth con artist who fed her a lot of lied and then disappeared when she told him she was pregnant. His grandfather, who he idolized, was a very disturbed man with a violent temper. His mother later married an average, ordinary man who gave Ted his last name: Bundy. He was no go-getter and Ted lived a lower middle class existence, which made him angry and ashamed. He became a thief, stealing the things his family couldn't provide him with, like expensive ski equipment. In college, he dated a sophisticated, well off young woman. She eventually found him to be immature and not a good prospect for a comfortable life, so she broke it off. Crushed, he set about fashioning himself (at least on a surface level) into the kind of man she wanted. Later, seeing what she thought was a new, improved Ted, she started dating him again. Then he dumped HER. He wanted revenge, and he got it. The young woman in question had long dark hair, parted in the middle. Some people found it significant that many of Ted's victims seemed to have a particular physical trait in common: long darkor blonde hair parted in the middle.

All of this has been mentioned in books about Ted Bundy. It could be all of these things contributed to his pathology. Or it could be that he was born that way. I wonder if any tests were done on his brain after his execution? It might have explained a lot.

R12, no, but they all treated the women in their lives like dirt

....

He is one of the hottest men ever. Don't care if he is a serial killer, he is everything I want a man to be. Will eat his shit if the need be. I am that big a fan

R51 do you think Bundy pooped or farted for that matter?

R34 Dahmer wasn't adopted. By all accounts, he was doted as a child by both parents.

[quote]In college, he dated a sophisticated, well off young woman. She eventually found him to be immature and not a good prospect for a comfortable life, so she broke it off. Crushed, he set about fashioning himself (at least on a surface level) into the kind of man she wanted.

That's pretty much the premise of THE GREAT GATSBY.

Shame Is at the Root of Narcissistic, Borderline Disorder

I've read about Ted since the '70's and he was never called "The angel of decay". I get what it's referring to but he wasn't called that during his active years.

Eric Clapton pushed his son out of a window.

Randall Woodfield is the hottest serial killer. He's the shirtless one.

Shaken Serial Killer Syndrome

A diet rich in high fructose corn syrup CEREALs, particularly Fruit Loops.

Richards Crafts a.k.a. the Woodchipper Killer, was know to have a hearty appetite for Shredded Wheat.

Wheaties has been linked to mental illness

Hannibal Lecter was was affectionately known as "Captain Crunch"

Twinkies

R27 - nice point. In that case, I'm suspect - smothering mother, cold, distant father.

John Wayne Gacy started every morning with Kaboom Klown cereal by General Mills!

Ted Bundy lived only a few blocks away from Ann Marie. No one suspected the 14 year-old boy then. Although it's never been proven, this may have started very early with him and could show a brain cell off a notch or two. I think I read somewhere he did own up to this.

R51 = Charlie Manson

Read a lot of true crime ..... am reading a new Bundy one now.

Apparently he was disturbed from a young age (based on at least the one story of an aunt waking up to find him standing next to her bed as a five year old or so and a bunch of kitchen knives on the bed pointing at her)

Also he is suspected in the death of an 8 year old girl who lived within two miles of his home. He was 14 at the time. He alluded to his culpability but never outright confessed.

I don't know how his mother looked, but I did thing it was kind of odd about the girl who dumped him looking like all of his victims. Did SHE look like his mother ?

Apparently besides 'the porn made me do it' , he also told authorities to check for killers at theaters showing slasher movies. Such bullshit.

Gluten.

LSD.....Wheeee!

R70 Fuckin Gluten- getcha every time. It makes want to kill my ex's and chop off his "Oh wait". that's my lactose intolerance...never mind.

Poor, R51, is a hybristophiliac:

[quote]Hybristophilia is a paraphilia in which sexual arousal, facilitation, and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed an outrage, cheating, lying, known infidelities or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery.

Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.

Psychopaths/sociopaths tend to have an unstable sense of identity, so abandonment or finding out that the person you thought was your father isn't actually your father and the person you thought was your mother isn't your mother can be more traumatic for psychopaths than for non-psychopaths and can destroy any sense of identity they had and send them down a fucked up path.

It's generally reckoned that a predisposition to psychopathy coupled with child abuse is what makes serial killers.

R75

Such yahoo BS I am the damn Paterfamilias! Your'e the one thats not bona fide.

Ted was left in an orphanage for the first 3 months, that lack of bonding and maternal rejection, plus when mom took him out to live with her parents, his grandfather was a SADIST . tORTURED animals in front of Ted etc. His mom lied to him about being his sister instead of his mom. I believe (as do many shrinks ) that Ted was a product of incest

R78—femme les who loves true crime

More like FRAU love for teddy dearest..

If the grandfather was a SADIST, why are so many people looking for a way to blame his mother? Why do psychologists (armchair and pro) always look at the mother first, if there's an abusive male around?

Because could a sadistic male role model might have something to do with a young man becoming a psychopath who enjoys killing and torturing? Ya think?

R80 Under attachment theory, abuse by the primary caregiver (usually the mother) has greater consequencs on the child's development than abuse by anyone else.

James Franco would actually make a convincing dead-ringer for him in a movie.

He claimed Pornography was the start of it.. So explain how lack of daddy love made him chop, drop, slice and dice like a hell's kitchen chef on vags lips by looking at dirty pictures Dr. freud ,hummm?? Do tell..

R82

That's because he's practically a Bundy perv already..

I wonder if tiny meat added to his anger. You gotta give the dude credit. The fake arm cast and lost puppy were rather clever.

Did he have cock issues? Interesting . HOW deliciously predictable.

"Dahmer wasn't adopted. By all accounts, he was doted as a child by both parents."

By all accounts, his parents hated each other's guts and were constantly "at each other's throats" during Dahmer's childhood. That would warp anybody.

His father was so clueless about his son it was laughable. When asked if Jeffrey exhibited any odd behavior as a child, his father said no, not really, except he liked to scrape the meat off of dead animals (!).

I've read interviews with Dahmer's parents. The things that came out of their mouth right after saying "no he was a normal boy....." Not to excuse him for anything but man that kid was fucked up. Fucked up because of his seemingly borderline retarded/psychopathic parents.

Is Ryan Seacrest looking for a dramatic role when Idol is over?

r79, are you kidding? I loathed that evil, diabolical KILLER who had sex withy his victims corpses . I celebrated his execution .. Don;t be a stupid queen now

Psychopaths connection w/ frontal lobe damage?

I believe some people are born evil and some lose their humanity over a very abusive childhood

OP is a serial killer in training.

He was a crazy-assed creepazoid, that's what went wrong.

My family lied to me about my biological mother being dead, not realizing that I was old enough when she abandoned me to vaguely remember her saying she it was my fault that she didn't want me. She was physically and emotionally abusive to me for my infancy and toddlerhood. My stepmother was more of the same, and my father wasn't so great, either. However, guess what I didn't grow up and do?

It takes more than just terrible experiences to make a killer. However, because we never know what other factors are at play, nobody can say for sure that terrible experiences don't cause someone who is already struggling with other issues to finally snap. Some people subconsciously blame themselves and implode when their deck stacks too high against them, but others will look for someone else to take it out on.

r95, so sorry about your childhood!!! and you are right, evil is a choice

Thank you, r96, but I am not saying that evil is always a choice. I'm saying that any combination of factors can influence a person to either destroy themselves or others. I do think that some people are born with frontal lobe issues, and that is one of the issues that will influence one person to choose differently from another. Nobody chooses to have a malfunctioning frontal lobe, so did that person genuinely choose to be evil? Each killer has a different set of motivations and biological factors influencing them, so we can't say that everyone who's abused will become an abuser, nor that every loved child will turn out o be an upstanding citizen.

People who do sadistic things to human beings generally start out practicing on animals.

spiritual warfare

r69, would it kill you to name the book?

Bet I could spell better!

And write, too!

It could be any number of Bundy tomes, but sounds like The Stranger Beside Me by Anne Rule. She worked with Ted and he continued to contact her after he was arrested, and also while he was on trial.

I Just Wanna Be Your Teddy 🐻 Bear !

Christ, Mr. Cranky ..... stepped away from the computer for a few hours ..... TRY IT !

The Trail of Ted Bundy: Digging Up The Untold Stories

It's an e-book on Amazon. Not sure if it's available hardcover or paperback.

Just started it yesterday. Alright so far.

...

To the the idiot going after Dahmer's parents, they obviously didn't know what he was doing to animals.

Rule thought Ted was handsome and charming, a perfect gentleman, and thought he would be perfect for her daughter. She also kiddingly said that if he were twenty years younger she'd go after him herself. That was before she knew. . . . .

Rule was a former police officer, and when information came out about the killer,, including the VW he drove, Rule became suspicious of Bundy and contacted the Police department. Turns out her gut instincts were right. The rest is history.

^^^^sorry, is SHE were twenty years younger !

Dahmer came from a family who were heavy into religion.

Uh oh...

R107, did Rule actually have a role in getting arrested?

If so, I see the next season of "American Crime Story" right there! Starring Sarah Paulson and Cheyenne Jackson as Rule and Bundy, of course.

The information Rule provided the Police was instrumental in his capture. Up until that time , they didn't have a lot of information. She was able to provide them with a name and photo, which turned out to be a gold mine.

Rule previously worked for the Seattle PD.

Bundy was a law student when Rule knew him. Believe it or not, Bundy also had a serious girlfriend at the time.

For a serial killer, Ted Bundy WAS hot. Most serial killers are very ugly, slimy looking guys.,

R113 ............. as a random guy walking down the street, I guess so .....

But the corpse fucking and using decapitated heads for oral sex .............. bit of a boner killer, no ???

R92 in spite of everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

R111 and Bundy represented himself at his own trial, which really impressed the judge, who stated that Bundy could've had a promising career in law if he'd taken a different direction. Anyway, that alone would make for great TV.

Honestly, R116, I think I'll whip up an outline and pay some low-level agent to submit it to Ryan Murphy. The story of Rule and Bundy is so tailor-made for the "American Crime Story" franchise that when it's made, I want to at least be able to sue them for copyright infringement!

Dahmer and Son of Sam Berkowitz were both army medics, who both served at the same German base.

[R28] It is last name, his new last name or alias is Teal, I believe? As [R21] mentioned Bernardo was conceived during an affair his mother had - his mother's parentage is also a bit of a mystery as I recall she was adopted (by a wealthy WASP family). [R21] Fully agree with you, Bernardo's father was a piece of shit.

I don't really see why he was considered very good-looking. He looks like George W. in some pics.

I never realized how much Bundy looked like an ex-boyfriend. I'm a sucker for Black Irish looks.

My ex was a bit messed up, we started screwing around when he was my teacher. He was raised Mormon, too.

R121 why did you break up?

I don't think the judge was "impressed" with Bundy's performance in court. He behaved like an idiot in court; obviously enjoying the attention he put on quite a show. But the judge did tell him at his sentencing that he was an intelligent young man and he would have liked to have seen him as a lawyer in his courtroom. "But you went the wrong way, partner", the judge laconically said.

r75, if a conscience doesn't form by ages 3 or 4, then there is no going back and ficing it later. Ted didn't find out he was lied to about his parents until much later.

I think psychpathy is a result of DNA, and serial killers have the genetic predisposition plus an abusive and neglected childhood.

r124, Ted was also separated from his mother for first 3 months of life, in an orphanage . His grandfather, that he considered his father for first 5 yrs was very violent and scary!!

R124, I have heard that ted arranged knives around his mother,or is it his aunt, when he was just a wee thing. That is very uncharacteristic of children.

R126 how do you mean 'arranged knives' please?

He took the kitchen knives and then arranged them near or around his mother with the sharp end pointing at her when he was very little like 3 or 4 if memory serves.

He did this when his mother was sleeping. His mother woke up to see the knives and Ted smiling.

r129 is right. this has been heavily documented

But why would he do that at 3-4 years old?

Because he was crazy, dear.

[quote][R121] why did you break up?

Because he was too old for me and kinda weird (but cute).

Ted Bundy's daughter turns 34 this year. She could have children of her own.

His bloodline lives on. Think about that.

I just finished re-reading "The Stranger Beside Me" - what a well-written, chilling book.

In North America, serial killers now thankfully seem like a relic of a past era, mid 60's to early 90's was the bad period. With DNA evidence, cops catch killers quicker, everyone carries a phone, no one hitch-hikes...I also wonder if potential Bundy types find their grotesque urges slaked by having round the clock porn available to them online?

I don't see any attractiveness in any of Bundy's photos. Now, the actors who've played him, different story. Has anyone seen the tv movie with Billy Campbell as Bundy and Barbara Hershey as Ann Rule? The trailer looks good.

Paging the Ted Bundy troll....there is a new book out for you!

There's no answer. We've studied probed and dissected the human being using modern science for 200+ years now and we still don't understand human behavior all that much better than when Plato offered his thoughts. Psychology is a decidedly soft science.

I have a sibling who is a psychopath. It's hard to know anyone is going to turn out that way. Or what factors will lead to psychopathy. Looking back one can always see how it all must have happened. But not going into it.

There's another recent book about him, 'The Trail of Ted Bundy', by Kevin M Sullivan, who sounds just far too obsessed with every aspect of Ted's life. He thinks that Bundy was a necrophile, and everything was about the sex with dead or dying women.

[quote]I have a sibling who is a psychopath. It's hard to know anyone is going to turn out that way. Or what factors will lead to psychopathy. Looking back one can always see how it all must have happened. But not going into it.

I had one, too. My mother claimed that my sister had fallen backwards in a chair as a child and "cracked her head," but nobody else in the family recalls that having happened.

I like how kids can tell. Before we're conditioned to give everyone a chance bullshit. Almost always these nut cases will say the other kids always ignored them when they were little. I also had a sibling that's nuts. Everyone who really knows her will tell you that she has multiple personalities. Everyone will agree there's three. You can even tell which one is out by the way she walks.

Asperger's syndrome

R138/R140 how were your siblings psychopaths?

Dreamy...

Ted Bundy is one of those murderers who makes me believe that some people are just born evil. He didn’t really have that bad a childhood. Yes, he was illegitimate, but his mother married a pretty decent guy by all accounts who adopted Bundy and tried to treat him like his own child.

Apparently the rumours that his grandfather was his biological father and that he was a product of incest are also false. His mother got seduced and pregnant when doing such a thing was a huge social stigma. However, he wasn’t the only one who had to go through something like that back then.

According to people who knew him back in high school he wasn’t the outcast he made himself out to be either. He was a quiet kid who was regarded as a good student and fairly popular. He was just evil and strange from a very young age, and resented his stepfather and the fact his family lived a lower middle class lifestyle.

[quote]nor Eric Clapton or Bobby Darin.

Nor Eddie Vedder.

Ewww at him. I can’t believe people Found him attractive he looked like an inbred Windsor.

"What went wrong with Ted Bundy?"

Well, the necrophilia wasn't a good sign.

"I think it mostly had to do with his mother lying to him about his real father."

Yeah, it's always the woman's fault for some reason. Men have a cushy gig, don't they?

R143, let's hope she had her tubes tied before that happened. People who have diagnosed mental illness to that extent in their genetics shouldn't procreate.

What became of the daughter that he allegedly had with Carole Ann Boone? Was she really his biological daughter?

There doesn’t have to be a reason other than biology. Humans are *nothing* in the murderous rampage chain. Meerkats, yes - fluffy adorable meerkats have murder rate up to 20%. That’s other meerkats going on a rampage and killing each other. They’re the most murderous species we know so far.

Other species, at a lower rate, have murderers and mass murderers. Everyone knows arachnids are murderers with some species that mate and kill and some that devour their mates. This isn’t unusual. Humans are one of the less murderous species on earth. Deer, wolves, chinchillas, zebra all outrank humans.

These murderers? They don’t need to be understood. Just removed.

"There doesn’t have to be a reason other than biology."

Well, since 99.9% of people aren't serial killers, I'm pretty sure you need a better explanation than "biology"