Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
Brrrah, brrrah, brrrah! and Hawkins. Can you hear that?
I just said that the Hawkins girl's head was... severed and taken up the road about 25 to 50 yards.
The outside. Did you hear that? Probably who found the damage to the head.
The jaw in particular, probably broken. I'm just gonna start it.
I'm just gonna start recording. Fuck. I know.
It's really hot right now. I'm so fucking hot. and oh i realized oh the creaky ass yeah did you hear it in the last episode I could hear myself creaking in the rocking chair that I'm sitting in a couple of times in the last episode.
That's when you know you're old. Sorry about it.
We were just rocking. I'm in a recliner and you're in a rocking chair.
Did we just put this together? I know. Wow.
Wow. Shit. We need better podcast stuff.
Yeah, literally. Well anyways, we're in a really hot laundry room right now.
Fuck, it's so hot. I'm sweating my ass off.
Legitimately. And I don't really sweat that much in normal life.
How about the story you just told me, though?
I sweat so much during autopsies that...
I like sweat through my scrubs and it looks like I went swimming.
For anyone new who is listening, she doesn't just perform random autopsy.
She is indeed an autopsy technician. I get paid for it.
At a job. Yeah. Like, it's okay. Everything checks out.
Hairdresser, autopsy technician. And I sweat a lot while I perform autopsies.
I don't sweat a lot while I do hair. That'd be so fucking nasty.
Oh, sorry. I got a little sweat on your hair.
I don't know why I only sweat during autopsies and hot yoga.
Well, hot yoga makes sense. It's acceptable, but.
I don't know if it's acceptable during an autopsy, but I do it.
I just don't know about your life. I do it.
So... Do it up, girl. Everyone's got a deal.
But... I did read this thing where this lady...
Of course, I don't have any proper details about this.
Actual info. But it's still crazy. And you can go on the Google machine and go see more about it if you want to.
The Google machine. Get on that Google machine.
This lady killed... her lava lava and then served his remains up to the neighborhood at a barbecue Can you imagine if you were the victim of like accidental cannibalism?
No. Fuck that. Like that's... Okay. whatever you're gonna be a murderer and you're gonna be an awful human being don't make everybody else eat your bullshit like if you're to make a burger out of the guy you eat the burger don't give it to someone else that's sick and twisted in a whole different way yeah and then I'm sitting there and I'm like what if kids ate burgers or something what if kids were at that I mean, like, damn.
I wish I had more information about this because it's really fucked up.
Cannibalism is, like, truly something. Yeah.
When we get to Jeffrey Dahmer, we're going to talk all about that.
Woof. But we're going to do two like pretty big names back to back.
This week and next week. This week and next week.
Well, two weeks from now. But let us tell you why.
I'm going to be on vacation. And she's going on a cruise.
Woo! Nobody cares, I bet. Whatever. Just kidding.
So that's why this week we're doing... Ted Bundy.
Because that's her favorite serial killer.
My boy, Ted Bundy. And there's so much information about Ted Bundy, and he was...
So damn busy that we're gonna split him into two parts.
So enjoy two parts of this Yeah, so you're gonna get two episodes this week to make up for the fact that we are not giving you one next week.
I'm so sweaty. Because we're so awesome.
It's so fucking hot in here. We're painting a really beautiful picture.
Oh my god, it's like a fucking sauna in here.
Just two sweaty assholes sitting on a rocking chair.
In a recording. In a laundry room. Wow.
That sounds elegant. The most glamorous.
So chic. So chic. I've never felt chicer.
I've never felt chicer in my life. But yeah, I guess we should get to it because we got a lot to cover.
That's how Ashley gets things going now.
She sounds like. Because I feel like every rap song now, someone's doing that in the background and then I find myself doing it throughout the day.
Yeah. Yeah. Like I walk into the break room sometimes and I'm like, everybody's like, what the fuck?
I love that that's now you're like, let's get going.
It's like I don't say hello anymore. No, I love it.
I'm glad. I can't keep it in my life. I will.
I'll keep it to a minimum so we don't get sick of it too quick.
Yeah, we don't want to get too sick of it.
But without further ado... Elena's going to take the reins on this one.
So let's just jump into it. Theodore Robert Bundy was born on November 24th, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont.
I think Papa was born in 1946. He was born in 1946.
I like to like... figure out you like to connect heinous monsters back to our family yeah i love that i mean i love that about you thank you never change i won't I haven't.
Now, he wasn't born Theodore Robert Bundy.
He was born Theodore Robert Cowell. Hmm.
And his entrance into the world was not exactly, you know, by the book.
Not easy breezy or beautiful. Not at all.
None of those things. His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, was an unwed teenage mother.
And at the time, that was not okay. Not acceptable.
Nobody was giving you your own MTV show.
Yeah, the late 40s was a time. She was Teen Mom OG. that was my favorite thing you've ever said anybody that knows me knows how much i've fucking love the teen mom franchise and you making that joke just like it is connected solidifies our connection we just bonded oh One more time.
I'm sweaty and I love you. Sweaty and I love you. can we put that on a t-shirt yes I'm sweaty and I love you who wouldn't wear that I would wear that ten times a day.
Who else would wear that? Raise your hand.
Like and subscribe if you would wear that.
Wendy and I love you. So, as a result of this really unfortunate circumstance she found herself in...
Her parents did what any parents would do when their teenage daughter gets pregnant out of wedlock.
They sent her to the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Vermont.
Which I bet you didn't even know that existed.
Yeah, like imagine that being a thing still.
Yeah, it's literally a home for unwed mothers.
Like that's... So bizarre. Do you think that they're dicks there?
You know how like sometimes people are dicks in orphanages?
They probably treat you like shit. Shit.
Oh, for sure. You're probably shamed. I'm sure there's a religious aspect to it that makes you feel like you're going to hell.
Yeah, I'm sure it's awful. Woof. So that whole thing was to avoid the shame that the parents might feel because...
You know what I just thought? I started laughing.
She walked in to there on day one and she was just like, I'm here.
I can't stop thinking about it. And then she popped out a little Bundy.
And then it was real bad from then. That was no good.
That's where he came from, that sound. Birth to Bundy.
Nah. No, that sound is loving. But so this whole thing was so her parents and family could avoid shame.
So she was already coming from like a A super nurturing and supportive gene pool.
Totally. So that was good. We've already started off really good.
On Ted's official birth certificate, Eleanor listed Air Force veteran and salesman Lloyd Marshall as his father.
But then she later claimed that a Navy sailor by the name of Jack Worthington was actually the father.
Now, Lloyd Marshall was like, nah, I'm good.
Like, I'm all set with that. He didn't want anything to do with that.
Jack Worthington doesn't exist as far as anybody can tell.
That's kind of spooky. Yeah, like authorities looked into it.
No one in the Navy at the time was named Jack Worthington or could have been this person.
So neither one of these dudes wanted anything to do with Ted.
So that's a bummer. When Eleanor was allowed to return to her parents' home in Philadelphia after she had her baby, Um, she brought newborn Ted with her and the arrangement was going to be such that Ted was told his grandparents were his parents and,
And Eleanor was actually his older sister.
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So he found that out eventually, yeah. He did.
And the grandparents actually pretended to adopt Ted from an orphanage.
That was the story they told everybody. Oh.
Oh. Yeah. So that's how they kind of explained it.
Well, how else would you explain that? Exactly.
And... Ted did eventually find this out, but you know who else had this exact same situation?
Who? Jack Nicholson. Oh. And he turned out like, okay.
Wow. Like, he has an Oscar, right? Probably.
Maybe two. Yeah, he might have six. Who knows?
He's got something. Yeah. He's done. done some stuff he's been some places he's done some stuff yeah i'm pretty sure he has a star on the walk of fame there's no way he doesn't no he definitely does and that's impressive So, like, you could have gone that way.
Right. Yeah. I mean, like, let's not blame this.
So most researchers of this case and biographers claim that Ted's cousin was the one who outed this information to him.
Oh, that's shitty. That's an older cousin thing to do.
Right? I guess they like relentlessly teased him about being a bastard, which is kind of... Awesome.
And they then showed his birth certificate to him.
How the fuck? I don't know if I believe this.
This is just one story, but... yeah well in either way like this it's an intense thing for a kid to that's so sad understand but like you can get through it also don't murder people so far you know not too crazy So this wouldn't be a super good basis for starting out, but...
There were also very persistent reports and rumors.
They're unsubstantiated completely. But they're still there.
There's still some meat to them. That Samuel Cowell, which was Ted's grandfather, was actually his father.
Oh, shit. Yeah. So that would mean that he would be the product of incestuous rape between Eleanor.
And maybe that's why she kept saying, like, no, this is the dad.
No, this is the dad. My dad's not the dad.
Oh, girl. This obviously would be awful.
Yeah. And again, it's not completely proven or confirmed or anything, but there is like...
A lot of rumors. This has come up a lot.
And his grandfather wasn't exactly like this sweet.
Like, let me give you a caramel candy kind of grandfather.
Right. He was said to be abusive, domineering, bigoted, and just like a bully.
He just wasn't a good guy. Awesome. There are reports by historians who study this case that Samuel once threw Eleanor's sister, who's Ted's aunt, down a flight of stairs for oversleeping one morning.
Papa does get mad when I oversleep, but he's never thrown me down a flight of stairs.
He has always stopped just short of throwing me down a flight of stairs.
Yes, correct. Very correct. But he's also been known to beat and abuse dogs.
Oh, fuck anybody that does that. And he took a neighbor's cat by the tail and swung it around his head and threw it.
I heard that. And... That's not funny, but it's just funny.
The image is kind of funny, but the act is not funny at all.
No, the act is horrible. So, yeah, he's not off.
And he was also said to have a pretty intense taste for pornography.
He had a pretty extensive... And who knows if Ted stumbled upon this.
Imagine if that's how you went down in history.
Like that's what people knew you for. Just that you threw cards. cats, beat dogs, and loved porn.
Wow. I throw dogs, I hate cats, but I love me some porn.
Like, ew. Oh no. That's a good shirt too.
I don't know if I would wear that. It's a good shirt for like a sociopath.
In quotes. bad name no just kidding not a bad name well an interesting thing is about the pornography part of this is that Later, like right before Ted, because spoiler alert, Ted Bundy was executed in case you are really hanging on to a thread here.
If you didn't know that already, you know it now.
Right before he was executed, he started blaming everything on porn.
Because it was just his last ditch effort.
I feel like everyone does that. I mean, I feel like that's just like the Hail Mary throw you do at the end.
It's like, I was abused or porn. Yeah, I was abused or porn or both.
But it's kind of bullshit. Ted also told his former friend... who is the famous crime writer Anne Rule.
We'll talk about her later. He told her once that he looked up to his grandfather as a role model.
So he loved throwing cats and dogs and watching weird porn.
Obviously being married to Samuel Cowell was probably not...
Great or awesome. Great time or super awesome.
Romantic. Like Samuel who throws cats. He was probably not awesome as a husband.
Ted's grandmother actually is reported to have been so depressed...
All the time that she received electric shock treatment.
Wow. To cure her deep depression. Which was...
It was a super controversial, obviously, treatment back in the day, but people did it.
And it's kind of like the last resort. So to review, Ted was lied to about his entire parental situation, his grandfather was an abusive asshole, and his grandmother was losing her mind via shock treatment therapy.
Fuck. So, not the worst. How was his upbringing we've heard so far, but...
Not awesome. His sister mom. I guess his mother's sister was Eleanor.
From what I've heard him talk about it, he said that they did develop a relationship later in life.
Okay. When he found out. But he also said that she was very, like, withholding.
Like, he didn't feel like he could talk to her about, like, deep things like sex and... and, like, all this other stuff.
But she was probably shamed for that, like, when she was a kid.
Yeah. And she didn't have that. Yeah, it was such a weird situation. um now he wasn't really like a particularly evil child he wasn't like a particularly goofy happy one either he was just in the middle yeah he wasn't nothing was really crazy about him but there is one infamous story about him at three years old he collected a ton of kitchen knives together and laid them all around his aunt as she slept in bed.
He was three when that happened? I knew that happened.
I just didn't know he was three. Yeah, three years old.
And when she woke up to see this shit show around her, little Ted was sitting on the end of the bed laughing hysterically.
Wow. Your kids are almost three, and if they did that to me, I would never fucking walk my foot into this house again.
Like, that's a moment. That's a moment you're going to remember.
So, like, not wholesome. Not awesome. Picturing that is wild.
Right? Like, just little Ted Bundy. Ha ha!
Ugh. No, thank you. Like, what do you even do?
What do you even say to that? Like, don't do that.
How do you even have the coordination for that at three years old?
That's impressive. i don't know maniacal but moving forward a bit to 1951 uh ted's mother who's eleanor married a man named John Bundy.
That's where he got his last name, obviously.
Oh, it is. Yeah. Wow. Did you connect those dots?
No, I didn't know that. I kind of spoon fed that to you.
Yes. But good call. Thank you. So with this marriage came four half-siblings. which ted made absolutely no effort to become close to like fuck you fuck you fuck you and you I think it seems like he was the kind of kid who later grew up to be the kind of adult that didn't like to share.
Anything, really. Those adults are the worst.
Yeah, they are. He was not into this new family dynamic.
And he was... so into material things. That was one of the things that everybody said about him when he was little.
That he was very obsessed with how he looked.
He was very obsessed with portraying a certain... way about him and he was kind of he was kind of ashamed that his new stepfather was just like He was either a hospital cook or a military cook.
I found both. Oh, and he wanted him to be something cooler.
But he was like ashamed by it. Oh. Which is like, dude.
Well, your grandpa threw cats. Exactly. And he's your role model.
Cool. So out of that, he did get his famous moniker, Ted Bundy.
So in the early years of school, according to his classmates, Ted was super normal.
He was good looking, popular, social. He did well academically.
When he entered the high school years, things started to become a little less easy for him.
He was still lucky enough that he was good looking.
And when you're good looking, things do come easier to you.
Ashley knows this. It's not even a little bit true.
Elena knows this. But people get drawn to you. to me when you're oh well they do people are drawn to you too i don't know but like when you're it's just you have a way about you Well thanks.
You're welcome. That was so nice. See? I say nice things sometimes.
It's still so fucking hot in here. It is.
It's really hot. But you have a glow about you.
I'm just going to keep complimenting you.
You're really stroking my ego here. I really am.
Annie's literally sleeping on the floor.
She has no idea. We're really entertaining it here now. so uh yeah so when he got into high school his friends from those days said that he wasn't as popular as he was in like junior high and below that but like he was there like he wasn't yeah he wasn't like the bottom of the bottom or the top of the top yeah But he became a little more withdrawn and like a little awkward in social situations.
I think he also had a stutter sometimes, which like kind of made him nervous.
Right. Despite this weird, awkward phase he had, he did enter college at the University of Washington in 1967.
There is when he met and became enamored with a very special lady.
Who you kind of look like. Oh, that's a little, I don't know how to feel about that, but.
You love Ted Bundy. I both love that and I'm frightened by that.
Well, he's dead now. It's true, he is, so that's good. spoiler spoiler spoiler alert he's still dead he's still dead he didn't come back Yeah, he's not coming back.
No way. Her name was Stephanie Brooks. That is not her real name.
Nobody knows her real name. I wouldn't want anyone to know my name.
I kind of understand it because this is one of those things where they kind of blame the woman who rejected him for his thing, which is kind of bullshit.
She was a little older than him, and she came from a super wealthy family, I think like a political family.
She wore her hair dark, straight, and parted down the middle, which is...
Seems like an insignificant detail. It's not.
It remains pretty relevant throughout this whole thing.
He was, and this is important because he's so concerned with material things and wealth and status that she was kind of like the ideal.
The golden ticket. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was wealthy and powerful.
So they dated for a while. But then Stephanie was the one who broke up with Ted when she graduated in 1968.
The reasoning was she thought he was kind of immature and that he lacked direction.
So, you know, you're kind of immature. You lack direction.
I'm good. I'm graduating. I'm going to break up with you.
Which is perfectly acceptable. You can break up with someone.
You can reject someone and it's not your fault if they go murder people.
So don't blame yourself. Exactly. Just go into the witness protection program.
And everybody needs to stop blaming the women in these situations.
God. Like this recent school shooter thing. all the headlines are saying, like, one of the first victims was a girl who rejected the shooter and made him feel bad.
And it's like, So this little boy, this little asshole was taught that he deserves everything he wants.
And if not, he's going to kill everyone.
And if he's not, he's got to go on a murder spree.
Like, Fuck you, man. If this girl doesn't want to date you, move the fuck on.
It's not her fault. Right. God, I hate that narrative.
And how dare you put that on the person?
Yeah. And that's the narrative that gets spun a lot.
Every time. Because even with the Golden State Killer...
Bonnie? Oh, Bonnie. Everybody's like, oh, it must have been Bonnie's fault.
And it's like, no, no. He's just a dick.
It's the asshole's fault. That's who it is.
So we're not upset about that or anything.
I'm going to get off my soapbox real quick.
So Ted was devastated by this breakup. Well, because she was like everything he wanted.
Exactly. And according to him... Like, he was madly in love with her, and she was his first true love, if he could even feel love.
That's a bummer. Yeah. And his own brother, one of his half-brothers there, said that he was noticeably depressed and that he had always been really in control of his emotions and that he was very... Oh, wow.
Clearly out of control afterwards. Yeah, and he even dropped out of college at one point after this.
So this is definitely when things changed, but again, stop spinning the narrative that it was somehow due to...
Stephanie. Unfortunately it does become clear that he chooses his victims based on Stephanie's physical characteristics. uh the long brown hair parted in the middle do you think that was an intentional thing or do you think he was just like a like a rage set off inside him that he couldn't control No.
I mean, he killed more than 30 women and they all looked almost identical.
Oh, I'd say that. So, yeah. If it was like three people that he killed, I'd be like, maybe it's just a coincidence.
But 30 is a pattern. Just making that decision is so wild.
Well, he was just really angry at the rejection, I think.
Yeah. He was just a butthurt little bitch.
Good band name. Butthurt Little Bitch. Jagged Little Bitch.
Butthurt Little Bitch. Evil Onion. So this is also when Ted decided to become the ultimate creep. and start a long con that was directed solely at revenge against Stephanie for literally just breaking up with him.
So talk about the most fragile of egos. And when I say he started a long con, he literally... molded his entire life around getting one moment of revenge.
Wow. Yeah. And we'll see how this goes. So it was around this time that Ted decided to reenter college at the University of Washington, and he majored in psychology.
This should be noted because he didn't just arbitrarily choose that major.
It kind of becomes clear that he chose it as a method to better understand how to like manipulate people.
And to understand the deepest parts of the human psyche and what works to get people to... trust you, all that craziness that he uses to lure his victims, basically.
So he was playing the con and this was a huge part of it.
He ends up doing really well this time. He becomes an honor student.
Because he's got a reason. Yeah, and he does well socially.
He's dedicated. He just kind of really turns it around.
And this is also when he threw himself into politics.
So in case you couldn't already predict this...
He was a very staunch Republican. And in 1968, he worked for Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign. and attended the Republican National Convention in Miami.
That's kind of crazy. After this, he worked for the chairman of the Washington Republican Party. who referred to him as, quote, a believer in the system.
So he was basically a typical Republican who desired being part of the elite. and kind of frowned upon the idea of distribution of wealth.
In a time where a lot of men and women were sporting the long hair and the hippie thing ted was super clean cut and conservative not about he is the typical conservative During this time, he did end up beginning and being involved with a significant relationship with a woman who he didn't end up murdering.
He dated a woman named Liz. Now, I think that her alias that she uses is Liz Kendall.
I do know her real name, but... I don't think she likes it used places.
So I'm not going to say it on here. If you want to find it, you'll find it.
I just don't think it's really cool. So I'm just going to call her Liz.
Liz. Um... She had a three-year-old daughter and they dated for five years.
I didn't know she had a daughter. Yeah. That's crazy.
And apparently he was fine with the daughter.
Well, like he wasn't. killing kids he was he killed 12 year olds oh shit yeah So you'll hear that later.
But so they did it for five years. And later, Liz would recall that there definitely were.
Some warning signs that she kind of brushed off.
Right. Some like really big warning signs.
Yeah. There were some weird things going on.
In 1973, Ted was accepted to the University of Utah Law School, so he was doing really well.
It looked like he was going to become, like, a prominent lawyer or a politician or both.
I mean, if he just went with this and wasn't interested... He would have been something.
Yeah, he probably could have been something... at least successful yeah maybe not great but uh this is when he met back up with stephanie again oh god And he presented the new and improved Ted who had now, you know, changed himself completely, wasn't immature anymore, didn't lack direction.
And she fell for it hook, line and sinker.
He began seeing her again while he was still in a relationship with Liz.
Neither woman knew about the other one. So he was a pig on top of being a serial rapist and murderer.
Great. Once he had Stephanie... He really reeled her in.
They started talking about getting married.
Like they got serious. Shit went down. This is so mean.
I'm pretty sure he ended up proposing to her.
And once she said yes, he cut her off completely.
He basically... He ghosted her! And this whole long con...
Everything he did up to this point for five, six years- Was to fuck her over.
Was just for that moment when he could propose to her.
Get the yes, get the validation that he was worthy, and then go fuck off and just walk away.
I just don't understand. Like, you're so obsessed with her.
You should have just married her and then that's it.
But I don't think he can really feel things.
But he doesn't think like that. But his level of petty...
His level of fucking dedication to this.
That's the one impressive thing about Ted is his level of petty.
Right. His level most aspire to. So in 1974, he was 27 years old, and this is when he committed his first murder.
There is suspicion that he murdered a young neighbor when he was 14 years old, but that's never been confirmed.
That's weird. And it's basically based off of the fact that he lived in the same town as this girl, which is pretty flimsy.
So it wasn't like next door neighbor. He never admitted to it.
He never. And he admitted to everything he did.
Yeah, he admitted to a lot. He didn't really.
He was pretty. He wasn't too forthcoming.
They had to kind of pull a lot out of him.
Because he, in fact, and I'm going to play a couple clips during this.
Yay. There's a few interviews where when he would confess things, he would start whispering.
Oh, yeah. And it's the creepiest thing you will ever hear.
Like, it's going to ruin your life. So I'm sorry.
You're welcome. Um, but it's almost like he like, couldn't say it loudly.
Like he was too ashamed to say it loudly, but he would whisper it.
It was crazy. So that same year, 1974, that's when a lot of young college women started coming up missing in Seattle and the Oregon area.
Mm-hmm. stories started circulating about a lot of them being seen with a handsome man.
Who identified himself as Ted. Yikes. Because this fucker didn't even come up with a fake name.
He would just introduce himself as Ted. Yeah.
So... January 4th, 1974, 18-year-old Karen Sparks was asleep in her basement apartment.
Ugh. She was a college student at the University of Washington and she was awoken in the middle of the night by Bundy literally just viciously beating her in the head and everywhere he could.
How did he, did he like stalk her before?
Well, he must have just seen her. And just followed her.
Yeah. And he was beating her with a metal bar that he'd removed from her bed frame.
What the fuck? She had house like roommates and they found her the next day and said that the metal bar had been savagely jammed inside of her.
Which he does a few more times after this. my insides hurting that seems to be something like and he doesn't do it every time but like he does it enough when he's really pissed off yeah well she survived what yeah did she have like internal bleeding had life-changing injuries She had brain damage and irreparable damage to her internal organs.
Wow. That she lives for with the rest of her life.
Is she, like, mostly functioning, though?
I mean, I don't know a lot about her now, because I'm sure she probably is...
Not too forthcoming with everything, but... Yeah.
Yeah. He basically ruined her fucking life.
To survive that is... Just unimaginable.
The same year, February 1st, 21-year-old Linda Ann Healy ended up being his first... victim that didn't survive.
She was spotted by Ted at a local bar. and she was just hanging out with friends she ended up leaving early because she had a job announcing the ski weather reports on the local radio station so she was gonna have to get up early and do that he was like an avid skier too oh which I don't know if he just knew that she was I don't know if it was connected there But he ended up following her home from the bar.
She was living in an apartment with four other roommates.
And all four of these roommates were home.
He, like, doesn't care about that at all, though.
In many cases. Like, he gives zero fucks.
Zero. She ended up going to sleep around 10 p.m. that night.
There were people sleeping right in the next room, right sharing a wall.
Ted broke into her room and immediately used a crowbar to beat her head in.
Oh. He then, so there was blood all over her, all over her nightgown.
He took her nightgown off and hung it up on a hanger and put it in the closet.
That's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard.
He then redressed her in other clothes. wrapped a sheet around her, wrapped her head in a pillowcase, and then remade the bed before taking her with him out the window.
All this with people in the next room. So when she didn't arrive at work the next morning, that's when her work called the house.
And her roommates answered and were like, I don't know, she's not here, nothing's weird. until they pulled back the blankets and found blood soaked sheets blood soaked everything and then they found the nightgown in the closet They never found her body.
Oh, God. The only piece of her that was ever found was a jawbone.
That's it. And they had to use dental records from that to identify her.
So only her jawbone was ever found. Wow.
And these next four, because he's on a spree, man.
He is pissed. He hits a lot of people. These next four are... sometimes known as like the Taylor Mountain Skeletons.
This is a place where he liked to bring bodies.
It was like his Personal skeleton garden, if you will.
If it already wasn't gruesome enough for you, just so you know, things get a little weird if you don't want to listen to this.
This definitely gets weird. part so we'll talk about the first victim here in these next four is um 19 year old donna gail mason manson It was on March 12th, 1974.
It was in Olympia, Washington. She was super smart, Evergreen State College student.
Uh, she was known to like take off for a few days at a time sometimes.
So she wasn't reported missing for like six days after he got her.
He was the one who claimed responsibility for her murder.
And he claimed that some of those remains that were found in Taylor Mountain were hers, but he wouldn't say how...
He killed her. Oh, so she was found. Remains were found, but we don't belong to her, but he wouldn't say what he did.
The next one is 18-year-old Susan Elaine Rancourt.
This was on April 17th, 1974 in Ellensburg, Washington.
She had to work her ass off to get through school to pay for school.
She was averaging a 4.0. Wow. And that night she had gone to a meeting.
Around 8 p.m. And it was for an opportunity for a job.
Because she's working her ass off to get through school like a boss.
Yeah. That was the last time she was seen alive was at that meeting.
Only her skull was found on Taylor Mountain, which tends to... He decapitates a lot.
Right. Not well, it doesn't seem like he does it while they're alive.
He does it afterwards. Not okay, obviously, but...
Well, and he goes back, right? Yeah, we're gonna get to that.
He revisits, for sure. The next one is 22-year-old Roberta Kathleen Parks.
It was on May 6, 1974. That was in Oregon.
She was an Oregon State University student because he's really into coeds.
She was majoring in world religions. And she had agreed to meet friends for coffee that same evening, but she never arrived.
Oh, no. Her skull was found with the others on Taylor Mountain, and it was over 250 miles from where she was last seen alive.
Wow. So he really traveled. for this like dumping around uh the next one is 22 year old brenda carroll ball and it was on june 1st 1974
Your anniversary. I was just going to say my anniversary, not the year, but the date.
Um, it was, this was in Washington. She was last seen leaving, talking to a man with his arm in a sling in a tavern parking lot.
She was known for being a free spirit and her friends thought nothing unusual of her not contacting them for a little while because I'm a free spirit, free spirit, so and I never answer the group chat don't go with people with slings okay I'm also caring I know.
Uh-oh. You're like an assertive asshole and you're answering things.
You're not necessarily a free spirit, I wouldn't say.
No, I would not call myself a free spirit.
No, you're very type A. In whatever sense.
We are complete opposites. We definitely are.
That's why this works. Yeah, totally. But Brenda's skull was the first found by students working on Taylor Mountain.
Yeah, so these skulls in particular, I mean, most of the bodies that they found He admitted and they found that he would actually visit them quite often.
Ted Bundy was definitely a necrophiliac. a necrophile I think it's also called but he would go back to these bodies he'd redress them He'd change their clothes.
He'd put makeup on them. They were like his dolls.
Yeah, he'd do their hair. And he would have sex with them until they were too putrefied to have sex with.
Ew. So. That's just so bizarre. Just chew on that.
I mean, that's like, they were literally Dead bodies outside in the woods on a mountain in the elements.
And he was coming back many times. I don't know.
I mean, how do you get away with that? I don't think not.
There's not a lot of necrophiles. No. like floating around.
But how do you get away with that? And he also picked this area because it's a very remote area.
Like nobody's just walking through here.
That's... This isn't one of those places where people would walk through.
It's just so crazy to think about. I know.
It's crazy. The next victim... is a freshman at University of Washington student, Georgeann Hawkins.
She was walking behind her sorority house one night and was stopped by Ted when she was just 60 feet from her door.
Ugh. So he had fake crutches or a fake cast.
I think it was fake crutches. I've seen two different reports.
Fake. injury but it seems like he it was crutches more so um so he pretended to drop his things his books And she was a super nice person.
And she was like, let me help you pick these up.
Because that seems to be another running theme.
He preyed on people's good nature. Yeah.
Like he used fake crutches, fake casts. Like, can you help me with this?
And he would ask these women to help him and they would agree to because they were young. college students and they were like i just want to help everybody well and realistically who's gonna say no to that me well yeah i'm never helping anybody i don't help people oh my god like help yourself I don't even know what to say about that.
I'm never helping people. I'm never helping a strange man who asks me no.
If Ted Bundy came over to you, handsome Ted Bundy.
Would I take a minute? Sure. Would I take a beat?
Sure. But once I saw that there was no front seat in his VW Bug, I would be running down the street.
Well, yeah. But we'll get to that, too. So she agreed to help him pick up his books.
And once she had picked up the books, he was like, oh, my car's right there.
My super unassuming beige VW bug. Super cute.
Yeah. So he was like, can you just help me put them in the car?
Because I have crutches and this is hard.
And she was like, totally, that's fine. So she opened the passenger door to place the books down.
And she was like, oh, that's weird. You don't have a passenger side door. seat alarming and before she could even get a second to ponder this he wailed her on the back of the head with a crowbar that he had hidden in the wheel well good so he was totally ready for this he then pushed her into the place where the front seat was supposed to be And he had taken it out.
So he had that ready. They started driving out of town because I'm sure he was going to take her where he took all the other ones.
But she woke up. suddenly badass it was clearly delirious and like messed up because she had beaten in the head with a crowbar and she started babbling about a spanish test Oh, my God.
So the fact that she was suddenly conscious freaked him out and was not part of the plan.
So he stopped the car, he took her out of the car, and beat her with the crowbar.
And we're not positive how he killed her, but her body has never been found.
So... The next victims are bananas. Because... B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Truly B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Because... Because this was in broad daylight in front of 40,000 to 50,000 witnesses.
He abducted them at least. He didn't murder them.
I was like, wait a minute. I was going to say that came out kind of sensational, but like, I don't think that happened.
Either way, he abducted them in front of all these people.
Yeah. So this is going to take place at a place called Lake Sammamish, and it's in Issaquah, Washington. which is eight miles east of Seattle.
It's a huge Seattle. It's miles east of Seattle.
We're doing really well. so it's just so hot guys it's hot i don't know if i mentioned so hot So this is a huge state park.
It's like 512 acres. Is this the beach? Yes, it has lots of water and beach areas.
In the summertime it's packed with people sunbathing, hiking, picnicking, doing water sports, boating, all that shit.
All that shit I love to do. Oh, yeah. You're all about that.
I'm all about that life. No. So this was on July 14th, 1974.
So 1974 was a very busy year for him. Mm-hmm.
It was really crowded this day. And that's because...
There were also a lot of companies doing their like picnic outings that day for some weird reason.
So they estimate that there was between 40,000 and 50,000 people there that day.
Wow. That's like a small city. So it was around noon on this day that a man, a handsome man, approached a 22-year-old woman named Mary Osmer.
Um, she'd been hanging out on like a grassy knoll near a ton of other people that were eating lunch.
She wasn't hidden away from the public. She was in full public.
She was right there. Tons of people. This young guy who was described by a ton of other people there is wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and he had his injured arm in a sling.
He walked up to Mary and he asked her to help him move his sailboat.
What? Now, if a man ever walks up to you and is like, can you just help me move this boat real quick?
I'd be like, well, I'm not a boater. Throw up a red flag real quick.
Yeah. And I'm not blaming victims here. I'm just saying like for future reps.
Yeah, just like take a note down. Take that with you.
Yeah don't do that. Just tell him to fuck off.
Well I would just literally be like I don't know how to do that.
I'd be like why are you asking me to move your boat? it's your boat and what about accountability for your boat i'm a boat mover like what about me says that So, she agreed to help him, which she later does say he was super good looking, so I went with him.
Which, like, girl, okay. Like, fuck. Like, okay.
She did agree to help him. She followed him out of the area to his beige VW Bug.
Dun, dun, dun. And Mary sees no sailboat.
So she's like, yeah, I don't see a boat.
And he's like, oh, yeah. The boat is like a short ride up the road at my parents' house.
So you just have to get in the car with me and we'll go get it.
I'd be like, why don't you know anyone that can help you?
Exactly. So Mary immediately gets weirded out and her instincts are like... like da-ding, da-ding, da-ding.
So they were a little late to the party, but they came.
Her instincts did come. And she says, actually, I'm really sorry.
I can't help you because I thought the boat was here.
And I'm actually already late because I was supposed to meet my parents for lunch like at 1230.
Mm-hmm. So he's actually super nice. He apologizes to her for inconveniencing and for like not having the boat there.
Right. He's not aggressive at all. And he even walks her back to the grassy knoll and is like, thanks for the help.
Imagine your fucking experience with Ted Bundy.
So she lived. If this sounds a little familiar, this whole, like, lore that he's doing...
Maybe you've seen Silence of the Lambs. Hello Clarice.
And it's reminding you of Buffalo Bill. That scene where he abducts the woman after he asks her to help him move.
And he has a cast on. That stresses me out.
That's modeled. Like so much. He modeled after Ted Bundy.
Yeah. They took that from his actual M.O.
And she goes first in the van and then he's like, bye.
That always makes me cringe. I'm like, no, why'd you do that?
And see, it's like she's a nice lady. She was just trying to help someone out.
Doesn't think anything of it. And that's what happens.
But she lives too. So that didn't work for him, obviously.
And it turns out that later we find out that he did this to several women that day.
So he was just looking for someone. Anybody he thought was his type, he was going to go after.
So that same day. he approached another woman, 23-year-old Janice Ott, who was five feet tall, and she actually had long blonde hair, which is the only outlier.
He just needed someone so bad. I think he was just really jonesing.
So she had moved to the area to take a job helping children.
Stop. So again, another just good person. she was alone that day and had ridden her bike to the beach just to sunbathe he introduced himself as ted like didn't make up a name and he's in front of a ton of people Remember, so these people are hearing him.
And she agreed to help him with the whole boat shit because he used the same bullshit line.
Mm-hmm. When they got to the car, she saw that there wasn't a boat.
And before she could say anything, he punched her in the face, pushed her into the car where the front passenger seat was taken out.
In front of so many people. And he strangled her.
And they believe that... He took her to another location, like in the woods.
To kill her. And that he tied her up, like immobilized her. and kept like left her there.
So was she alive? So they think she was alive.
She was killed later. They found her bones scattered in this area later, and she was decapitated at that point.
Oh, shit. But... So once he had left her in this place, a couple of hours later, he came back to Lake Sammamish.
So he left her there and went back to the beach.
He left her there and came back to the beach. and approached another woman, 18-year-old Denise Naslund.
So she was at the park with friends and she just stepped away for a second to go to the bathroom.
He like met her outside the restroom. He used the same bullshit line, same broken arm bullshit.
Oh God. And she was nice and agreed to help.
Her jawbone and femur were the only things that were found months later.
These were the identified victims, and they were also found along with a knife. unidentified skeletons will remain in the same area.
Oh. And they found the crowbar. So... as it turns out he had kept janice somewhere like he had tied her up somewhere well he got denise and then he brought denise back and terrorized them together oh my god and then he ended up killing one one of them saw the other one be killed so they were they had a fucking nightmare i mean yeah i can't even fathom And they don't even know each other.
No. They just went to the lake. Two nice people.
In total public area broad daylight. Right. like I'm at oh I can't yeah it's like where the fuck are you safe if you're not safe on a beach on a beach with 50,000 people around you like damn yeah As it turns out, a group of three women were sitting really close to where Janice was initially approached by Ted, and one of these women Clearly overheard their conversation and heard him introduce himself as Ted.
Oh shit. They also knew what his car was.
These are bad bitches. Yeah. So more people around the area also heard him say his name was Ted.
So this was super ballsy and risky. Yeah.
Especially grabbing two women in one area.
And punching someone in the face in broad daylight.
In the same area. It's like he was really going crazy.
So these people all went to the police with this info because these girls disappeared.
Right. Um... Now, I was, I love, I'm going to shout out a podcast right now, True Crime Garage.
Everybody should go listen to it because they're awesome.
They had a really interesting note that I just wanted to share, and I want to give them credit for it, that Jack the Ripper also committed a double homicide on one night.
Oh. He was another one. And that's really rare.
Yeah. So it's interesting that maybe Ted was inspired by this to like be worse.
Yeah. Like he was trying to like outdo one of the most infamous big bads there is.
This whole thing clearly put the eyes right on him.
And the King County Police took all the info that they got, all the descriptions, and they broadcasted it everywhere.
And they set up a tip line while releasing a composite from the descriptions.
And they were getting like 200 tips a day.
Wow. So the composite sketch is... And it doesn't actually look like Ted.
They did end up producing a revised sketch that looks a little more than... But I feel like no sketch really looks like anybody.
But the initial sketch, I'm going to put it like on our Instagram page because he has like bulging eyes and a huge afro.
I would be so offended. Well, it just doesn't look like him.
No, it's nothing like him. One of the things that's interesting about Ted Bundy is that he... was super handsome, but he was also super generic.
Like it's not like he was... Yeah, like a typical... He was the kind of handsome that you're like, there's just something about him.
Like, no... Like an all-American handsome.
Exactly. He was like apple pie. And so...
That allowed him to change his look very subtly and look like a totally different person.
So if you, that's another thing I'll have to post on our Instagram page because it's really crazy to look at.
If you look at all the pictures that they have of him throughout these.
He does look different. He looks different in a ton of them.
He's like a different person. He would grow a beard.
He would grow, you know, his hair out a little more.
He would have it a little more. more styled he would wear turtlenecks he would wear like it changed his style it was just slightly and it's like so he really could kind of stay ahead of all this He was apple pie gone real bad.
He was. He was rotten apple pie. Great band name.
Rotten Apple Pie. That's a great one. We're really just... I hope some musicians are out there listening to us.
I mean, give us money or something. I don't know. but uh they were calling these murders the ted murders for a while because that's all they knew about him is that it reminds me of ted talks right like just the ted murders So some notable tips that came into this tip line.
One tip came from his psychology professor. oh no way who said i got a weirdo in my class that looks like And his name is Ted Bundy.
So he literally was like. College professors are the funniest.
Yeah. Another tip came from Ann Rule, who you guys should totally read her book, Stranger Beside Me.
It's fucking awesome. Because she worked with him.
It's insane. Yeah, it turned out that Anne Rule volunteered alongside Ted at this crisis suicide hotline.
They were tasked with literally talking people down from suicide.
Which I don't feel like Ted Bundy would be a good fit for that job.
But he was great at it. Right. Like, she said he was amazing at it.
He was compassionate. He was, like, he talked...
She says he saved many lives. Which is so bizarre.
So weird. and she she also said they were like good friends like they went out to lunch they like hung out they kept in touch for like years after this weird she was even like for a while she was like I can't see him doing this like she was shocked she said he was kind gentle good to her She used to walk him out or he used to walk her out to her car when it was like late night.
And he always said, lock your doors because I don't want anything happening to you.
That's weird. And it's like, well, he knew how horrible people can be, so...
But why did he care about her? Well, she... Because I wondered that, too, because I was like, well, she was a woman.
Right. So, but... She didn't fit his description.
No, not at all. His like, you know, type.
And she was a little older at the time still.
Yeah. She was older than he was, like old enough that he was more into college.
The younger college girls. And yeah, I think he just he looked at her as like an actual friend.
Which is kind of crazy. Weird that serial killers can have friends.
Yeah, and I actually have a clip here of Anruil talking about this really quick.
Just the fact that this is a guy, as you mentioned earlier, that treated you very well.
Yes. Liked you. Was protected. I think so.
You know, he had his victims had to be someone he didn't know.
He told Bob Keppel, the detective, once that if he talked to them, a woman for more than 20 minutes, then she was no good as a victim because victims had to just be objects.
He didn't want to have any emotional connection.
So I probably was as safe as in my mother's arms.
Also, he liked slender. Coeds with long, dark hair parted in the middle.
Well, I haven't been slender since I was four.
And I have. red hair, which is slowly turning to silver.
So I think he liked me, but I think he also used me, certainly did later on.
He wanted to use me as a conduit. to the tech task force up here, because he didn't want to talk to them directly, but he wanted to send messages.
So the third tip that came in that's kind of interesting is from Liz.
Yeah. old girlfriend. This is bananas. Just couldn't put any of the coincidences out of her mind. uh the car the description and the name kind of were like match her boyfriend And she claims that he'd been acting strange and that he'd been staying up all night, being secretive about where he's going.
She found something. some weird shit in their house yeah and that he was only interested in sex when he could basically involve bondage in it like tie her up and she wasn't into that so she was like i'm not really into that and he would get angry at her when she was saying that like so that's whatever floats your boat man so that's a lot now So we're going to stop it right here and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger.
Because this is about the time that they're kind of closing in on Ted.
On the Bundy. But... we're gonna let you hang on to that for a while when we come back neck and you know i think when we post this it'll be in a like a couple days from the first one being posted Yeah.
So in a couple days, you're going to hear about the famous Chi Omega murders.
Which he's most famous for. So. That shit's batshit crazy.
Really batshit crazy. And we've only scratched the surface, so.
Oh yeah, we're just getting started. So get ready.
This could even be three parts, but I think we're going to do it in two.
We will do whatever we want. We're going to do whatever we want.
This is our podcast. So, yeah. All right.
Ted Bundy, guys. The beginning. Sleep tight.
Don't let the bunty bugs bite. Don't let the bunty bite.
And weird, he... One of the things that nailed his coffin is a bite mark they found.
Don't let the Bundy bite. Shit. whoa so on that note bye because we're not gonna top that tonight but also subscribe To our podcast.
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