Melaina Harris`

Mrs. Mckenna

Writing 2010

26 February 2019

Ted Bundy

A mass murderer located in the west coast. Ted bundy found his joy in life by killing. It

all started in Washington where Bundy would hunt down coeds at Washington State. Month by

month more girls would go missing and the public would slowly notice. Bundy didn’t change

vehicles or change his appearance very much so was forced to relocate if he didn’t want to get

caught. His next stop was Utah and after that, Colorado, where he was finally caught by a simple

traffic stop. The police didn’t understand how dangerous this man was and his escape was very

easy. He escaped prison twice and after he was caught the second time, they had a lawsuit and

came to conclusion that Ted Bundy deserved the death penalty because of the multiple murders

he was found guilty of. Dying on an electric chair, he’s remembered as an evil genius but he’s

actually not. He’s a person with a mental illness executing murders in a time when there wasn’t a

lot of technology.

Ted Bundy had a personality disorder. In fact, he had multiple types of personality

disorders. Studies show that Ted had antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality

disorder and borderline and schizoid personality disorder (Journal of Personality Disorders).

The side effects of these disorders include; acting impulsively, breaking laws and a sense of

entitlement which matches Ted Bundy perfectly. His mental illness made killing these women a

lot easier to him. He never really believed he was doing anything wrong because it didn’t feel

wrong to him. There was a disconnect that is hard to understand. The multiple people who
interviewed Ted would describe his sense of entitlement and his inability to handle criticism.

They experienced one on one interaction with Ted and would describe him as a charming person

who was very self absorbed. A lot of the reasons why it was so easy for Ted to commit murder

was because of these different things he had going on in his brain. Not to say mental illness is the

cause of a serial killer but it made what he did easy to him because he was lacking the basic

emotion to tell him what he was doing was wrong.

Due to these drastic personalities, Bundy felt like “he was in charge” (The many sides of

Ted Bundy). His standoff personality led him to defending himself in court and rarely taking

advice from the people who were trying to defend him. The court personnel would describe

bundy as someone who “has a basic defect in his reasoning process” (The many sides of Ted

Bundy). He would think irrationally and he showed this behavior in court as he would go on

charming rants of how he’s not guilty. In a sense, he was also unemotional about his pleading. It

was pure pride that ran his show. Ted Bundy was a man who ran a horror show because it was

easy for him to do so. It wasn’t hard to talk about the murders and the deaths, in fact, he loved it.

In court, he had the witness’s go over what they saw of the crime scene multiple times before it

became uncomfortable for everyone in the room. A sort of frenzy would begin in his brain

listening to the details. This is a sick man who is not worthy of the praise our society gives him.

Collectively, we ask, why did he do this? Why did he have these mental illnesses? How

does this happen to a person? What we know from Bundy’s mom, Eleanor Louise Cowell, is he

had a very happy childhood. She describes their family attending church and living a somewhat

normal life. But going to church and living this kind of life doesn’t guarantee not developing a

mental disability or illness. In this situation, the negative parts of Bundy’s life outweighed the

positive. According to Bundy’s relatives, Bundy’s grandfather was abusive towards him, “His
grandfather, Samuel Cowell was, a terribly violent man. He abused and tortured neighborhood

animals, beat his children, and generally acted both vulgar and violently” (Ted Bundy Essay:

Upbringing and Unraveling). Usually mental illness can stem from a traumatic experience from

a young age which Ted Bundy experienced. His Grandfather taught Bundy that violence is

acceptable and normal from a young age so he carried this as he got older. This violence and fear

struck a chord with him and later could’ve caused some of his mental illnesses.

Another reason psychologists point to is his lonely childhood. If Bundy felt any emotion

it was jealousy. Growing up, Bundy felt like he didn’t fit in with his siblings and other children

his age. He felt lonely and was looking for a way to fulfill his loneliness, “If early in life a person

is lonely and doesn’t fit in and is empty, they begin to look for some way to undo that, to satisfy

their loneliness” (What Happened in Ted Bundy's Childhood That May Have Led to Him

Becoming a Serial Killer). Bundy was actively searching for someone to fill this emptiness

inside him that he felt from his childhood. He didn’t know how to get in a healthy way and

reacted in the most terrible way possible, rape and murder. He wanted the power and attention

that he lacked as a child.

Nothing gives excuse to the reason why Bundy did these things but finding some sort of

source helps our questioning minds when the public asks why? And from understanding the start

of his life and what happened to him we can start to understand his brain.

Ted Bundy’s spree of killings took place in the 80’s and the technology during this time

was very minimal. Year by year technology improves and the country learns how useful it can be

for murder cases, but during Bundy’s time there wasn’t much information. In the early 80’s,

using DNA was not part of the investigation process (Crime Laboratory System: Forensic
Science History). Investigations relied on eyewitnesses and a few other pieces of equipment that

weren't very reliable. There was a lot of room for error with the technology so it was hard to trust

and hard to come to clear conclusions. Bundy also had an advantage because he would move

states a lot. The more he moved, the harder it was to track him down because states couldn’t

communicate with the other states as well. Once Bundy left the state and they couldn’t find him

it wasn’t a big priority because there wasn’t much they could do. Also, police weren’t sure

Bundy was the killer for so long because there wasn’t as much evidence due to limited

technology. People tend to mistake Bundy as genius because he was so hard to catch. But in

reality, he was hard to catch because we didn’t have the same technology we do now. He

outsmarted the times but that doesn’t give him the title “genius”. It just means, he outsmarted

limited technology.

In conclusion, Ted Bundy was a sick man who did horrible things to young girls. Mental

illness is a complicated topic and can completely change your brain. He shouldn’t be a man we

call a genius but someone who needed serious help. It was only easy for him to commit those

crimes and get away with them because of limited technology during that time.

Worked Cited

“New York State Police.” Crime Laboratory System: Forensic Science History

Dimitropoulos, Stav. “What Happened in Ted Bundy's Childhood That May Have Led to Him

Becoming a Serial Killer?” A&E, 16 Apr. 2018

Verheul, R. (2005). Clinical utility of dimensional models for personality pathology. Journal of

Personality Disorders. 19, 283-301.

Ramsland, Katherine. "The many sides of Ted Bundy." The Forensic Examiner, Fall 2013, p.

18+. Academic OneFile,

Audience

My target audience with this paper is anyone who is interested phycology, specifically

mental illness. Ted Bundy is the perfect example of mental illness and someone who acts in

unfortunate ways because of their mental illness. Anyone with a slight interest in Serial Killers or

phycology could learn a lot from this paper.

he did the things he did. It also gets into the technology during the 80’s and why having such

limited technology made killing these women a lot easier for Bundy. Readers who are looking

for some questions answered about Ted and the phycology behind him should definitely read

this.