Trigger warning- some people may find the content disturbing

Psychopath Ted Bundy’s Crimes Taught Me More About Humans Than I’ve Ever Known

Though cliched, these 8 lessons are very crucial for survival

‘’Ted Bundy was the deep-sea anglerfish who used the light of his charming personality to lure his victims and to hide his true identity. If only the victims knew that this man would do unspeakable things to them.’’

You know how one thing leads to another and that thing leads to some other things. Something similar happened to me.

I was reading a crime story on medium about a 13-year-old boy who killed his four-year-old sister just to get back at his mother. But before killing her, he tortured and sexually assaulted her.

He was of course found guilty and had been awarded 40+ years of imprisonment. But that’s not even the point.

The point is the story I was reading had links. Those links led me to Youtube where I got to watch this boy Paris Bennett’s interview 13 years after the crime.

And then I curiously scrolled down to suggestions by Youtube where I found a video about another criminal. This criminal was America’s most notorious serial rapist and killer, Ted Bundy.

The interview that I saw of Ted Bundy was supposed to be the last interview he gave before his scheduled execution the next morning. I wouldn’t have guessed this was his life’s final interview until the interviewer asked him how he was feeling about the same.

For a person who was going to live only for a few hours, Ted was way too relaxed and his voice way too calm.

That got me more and more curious about this man. The man, who was constantly blaming hardcore pornography for all his evil actions. He was blaming the extremely graphic content that he’d consumed in huge quantities that made him do the things he did.

But what things was he actually talking about?

I knew that he had confessed to having killed around 36 females. The number kept fluctuating as per his mood, but I wanted to know what all things he had done that he’d become so famous across America.

That’s when I read all about him on a Wikipedia page specially dedicated to him.

It took me around two hours to read everything and I have to admit I was pretty shaken by the time I finished reading it.

I learned a lot from this man

As insane as it sounds but I learned so much about human behavior and their thinking patterns that never is possible to learn from normal people like you and me.

Ted Bundy was anything but normal.

It was up for a debate if he was suffering from multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder, or if he was just an overtly charming, well-dressed, well-spoken psychopath who had zero levels of guilt and remorse for his actions.

He, who killed his victims just to have complete possession and control over them. Even when they were alive and long after they had passed away.

Why else would he keep revisiting the corpses weeks later to engage in necrophilia after dressing them and grooming them the way he liked. Especially women who were young, attractive, had long hair with middle partition.

Of course, there were some exceptions where he had targeted 8 year and 12-year-old girls as well. Though there were some shreds of evidence, he could not be linked to the murder of the 8-year old but was found guilty of raping the latter one.

Lessons That Need to be Relearned

1. Looks can be deceiving

I know this is the most clichéd lesson in life but it is often ignored in our lives. We all love being around people who are good-looking and charming.

Those who dress perfectly for the occasion, are soft-spoken, and who make you realize that you’re more important than anything else, and agree to almost everything you say.

I can bet that if you came across his interviews and the level of knowledge he had, you will instantly fall for him. Of course, then he'll make you fall later, but that is a different subject altogether.

2. Learn to say No when you still can

Ted had a fixed modus operandi to catch his victims. He would either pose as a police officer, or appear in crutches, or his hand bound in a sling.

These gave an impression to women that he was a harmless young man who was seeking help from others. He would often select his victims on the basis of how young and beautiful they were.

Once targeted, he would approach that woman to help him with a trivial thing such as carrying the sailboat back to his car.

When there was NO sailboat in the first place.

The females who said no to helping him were saved and those who put their guards down to become a good samaritan lost their lives in the most painful way possible.

3. Bad things can happen to anyone

I mean god forbid that anything bad happens to us, or with us. But hundreds of those victims who fell prey to Ted’s craziness didn’t dream of being victimized either.

I am not trying to tell you that you will, but staying alert at all times is very important. Even though someone seems very trustworthy to you, never put your guards down.

Whether you know the person or you don’t.

4. A stranger is a stranger

Let me tell you that Ted was no ordinary criminal. I found it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I was reading obsessively about a man who had raped, tortured, and killed hundreds of women.

Though he confessed to only 36 of them.

Was charged with aggravated kidnapping and burglary. And was the most heartless son-of-a-b*tch in his own words.

Ted knew his looks, outspokenness, mannerisms, and charming personality will attract young females like a moth to the flame, and that’s exactly what happened.

Just because a stranger is too good-looking, well-mannered, and polite doesn’t give a certificate for his character or intentions.

As typical as it may sound but, Never judge a book by its cover. A stranger is by definition someone whom you have no clue about.

My simple advice, stay away from them. Far, far away.

5. Consuming hardcore pornographic content is suicidal

You may think that the habit is harmless but it is quite addictive in nature if one were to believe Ted’s last words. Ted confessed that he consumed extremely graphic, violent, and disturbing hardcore pornography for more than 2 years.

In the beginning, he felt pathetic and disgusted by the level of bloodshed and violence in the videos but soon became immune to them.

At one point, he started thinking how it would be like to do that painful stuff on women in real. Giving them that amount of unimaginable pain, raping them, killing them, and controlling them the way he wanted.

The most common trait found in psychopaths — narcissism.

Why consume such stuff in the first place for which you have to fight with your soul. If your conscious is disgusted by something or is not approving of any thought or content, then dismiss it then and there.

Don’t play the dare game with it. It is you who will lose the game ultimately, not your soul.

6. People have an eye on you whether you are aware of it or not

Once in a public place, don’t ever think no one’s watching you. Even if the area is completely secluded. Ted set out in the early morning hours i.e. around 2:45 AM to hunt for his victims.

A time when most of the people are sleeping and whoever is on the road returning from work or going for one, are least bothered about their surroundings.

This is when the calamity strikes.

You have to be aware of your surroundings and the people in them at all times. No excuses. Avoid going to secluded places at odd hours. Don’t try to look cool or pretend that you’re invincible.

That’s just preposterous.

Ted believed no one in this world noticed one another and that is why he would be shocked when a female witness testified against him in court saying that she had seen him fleeing the crime scene.

What do you learn from this?

That the world doesn’t work on your whims and fancies. It works on reality. And the reality is that there are a lot of Ted Bundy’s out there.

7. People are master manipulators

Please don’t say that you have never pretended to be someone you are not. I have done that and many times. Because that was the only way out for me, at least I thought so.

I had to do it because I couldn't bear to face the reality or didn’t have the audacity to put someone through a difficult time by being honest to their face.

Ted Bundy manipulated women into thinking that they were safe with him until they got into his car and the last words they heard from him was ‘’You’re not going home ever’’ after which he would knock them unconscious, strangle them, and then rape them.

I am sure the woman not for once thought, that could be her last car ride.

Whatever the reason, but everybody manipulates others for their ulterior motives but you have to be smart enough to recognize whose being genuine and who is well, faking it.

8. God has given you a mind, use it

I went through several interviews featuring Ted and random videos featuring Ted Bundy’s crimes and some tapes where he was playing the attorney for himself in the court. Because he believed, there was no other attorney in the world who could understand him the way he understood himself.

An extreme level of narcissism.

Now imagine the level of intelligence this man possessed to have voluntarily taken up his own case. A case where he had several charges of aggravated kidnapping, attempted murder, burglary, rape, murder, and death.

He was a psychopath who had this urge to go on a hunting spree so he could kill women and fornicate with their bodies. And he was a pretty organized criminal who did a lot of research and planning before he did something.

But what about the women he targeted?

They did the simple mistake of not taking a moment to pause and think. Ted’s MO was simple. He would either pose as an injured person with a sling or on crutches and on the pretext of asking for help from women passing by, he would knock them down and kidnap them for further doings.

But if only those women had thought, that if a man is unable to pick up the box himself due to an injury, isn't it normal for a man to find another man to help him instead of asking a woman to lift heavy objects. I mean we are talking about the 70s America here.

In an era, where women were beautiful and delicate as flowers, and no one expected them to do body-building and weight-lifting stuff. Wasn’t it weird for a man to approach women to do a manly task instead of approaching another man?

Of course, this thought didn’t come to me as well until I went through hundreds of comments posted on his videos. These thoughts are not something you will get on the go. For that, you have to really pause your world and think about the events unfolding around you.

But that’s where the problem happens.

When these young women saw a handsome, charming, young man struggling with the pack of books and sling (fake one) on the other hand, their minds went, oh poor soul, I need to help him.

And all that poor soul thought was, yeah girl, just come close, so I can kill you and ravage you until your body decomposes to such an extent that nothing further is possible. Or if you’re too pretty, I will just decapitate you and keep your head in my apartment as a souvenir.

Some interviews with Ted Bundy that you should watch to understand how deceptive humans can be.

The last interview of Ted a day before his execution was in January 1989.

This was the first time I saw this man talk about just anything. If it were any other person in his place, who knew that he’s soon going to die through electric chair execution, he would not have been able to speak.

But this man is so calm and composed that it gives me chills. To think how much this man has the capacity to suppress his innermost feelings and not let them reach the surface.

Of course, the trained professional Dr. Dobson could see right through him. His underlying nervousness and anxiety but many people from the judiciary system believed this interview to be Ted’s last tactic to try to blame pornography for his unspeakable actions and crimes.

That didn’t work but he tried to be his deceptive best.

This was the second interview I watched of him which was taken in 1977 from Glenwood springs jail.

What haunted me the most about this interview was that just a few days later after giving this enigmatic interview, this man escaped from the highly confined jail, as he called it, and went on a killing massacre.

He stole cars, credit cards, identity cards, cash, and pretty much everything he would need for his survival. He even booked flight tickets and flew to Chicago where he soon was back on his hunting spree, only this time more violent than ever.

Out of the next four victims, only two would survive and the remaining two were rendered deaf and suffered memory loss for life, broken jaws, broken teeth, broken ribs, amongst others.

The ones who died were found mutilated, battered, parts bitten off, torn off, bludgeoned, tortured before being put to rest.

And all of this in just 20 minutes.

In this interview, he talks very calmly about preparing to present his case in the next trial and consulting various attorneys to give their suggestions. But not for once did he let the interviewer feel that the monster in him was as active as he was a decade ago.

Watch the interview and study his facial expressions and body language. You will learn a thing or two as to how a person looks when he’s at his deceptive best.

In Closing

I agree that I have not felt so curious or obsessed about any killer in my life as I felt for Ted. It was quite evident from all the research and interviews and readings I have done in the last few days.

First I thought something was wrong with me being so curious about killers and their mindsets. But after reading hundreds of comments, I came across people who felt the same as I did.

What made Bundy so special was his calm demeanor. No one can ever take him to be the most notorious and violent rapist and murderers. A person as intelligent as him could have made an excellent attorney.

But as a judge in his case who sentenced him to his execution stated, ‘’You went the wrong way buddy.’’

I still have a hard time believing that such people exist in the world who cross all possible boundaries of humanity and don’t feel a pinch of guilt or remorse. Ted was proud to never have felt guilt for anything.

He very proudly said about revisiting his victims weeks after their deaths and painting their nails, and shampooing their hair, and spending the entire night with their bodies.

It gave him the ultimate satisfaction of being in 100% control all the time, even after their death and that’s what made him a pure, disgusting, heartless evil.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

Bhavna Narula, 2021. All rights reserved. Thanks a lot for reading. :)