Article by Dipakshi Goswami, The North-Eastern Chronicle
Visuals by: Aslam Siddique
Ted Bundy, born on November 24, 1946, was one of the most prolific serial killers in the United States of America who kidnapped, raped and murdered many young women and girls in the 1970s and confessed to 30 homicides in seven states, he was considered one of the evilest and notorious criminals of the late 20th century.
Bundy’s Childhood
Bundy had a tough childhood, with a troubled connection with his stepfather along with bullying at school. However, his intelligence and social skills later allowed him to have a successful academic career, and he also developed a string of seemingly “normal” emotional connections with women.
But despite his apparent stability, he sexually abused and killed several young women between 1974 and 1978.
Bundy was considered as an attractive man with charismatic qualities, which he used to gain the trust of victims and society and exploit them later.
He would approach his victims in public places, pretending injury or infirmity, or impersonating an authority figure, before knocking them out and robbing, raping and strangling them in remote locales.
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His legacy of horror included occasionally grooming and performing sexual acts on the victim’s decomposing bodies until they decayed or were destroyed by wild animals.
After several arrests, prison breaks and endless appeals, Bundy was finally executed on January 24th, 1989. In a carnival-like environment outside the prison, Ted Bundy was electrocuted as planned. He was said to have spent the night crying and praying.
Any traces of the charismatic old Bundy had vanished. Before he was executed, Bundy disclosed the details of more than 50 women he had slain, to the Washington State Attorney General’s chief investigator, Dr Bob Keppel. In his final interview, he claimed that his murderous obsessions were fueled by his early exposure to pornography as a child.
While the number of victims who fell into his vicious traps are still not known, many of those directly connected with Bundy believed that he murdered at least 100 women across the states of America.
