The Ghost Of Ted Bundy

If the recent acquittal of Casey Anthony for the murder of her daughter caused outrage in Florida and across the United States, 22 years earlier the execution of Ted Bundy in the same state caused jubiliation; people literally partied outside the prison in the countdown to his electrocution. Bundy was convicted of killing two young women (the Chi Omega Sorority House Murders) and a twelve year old girl in 1978. A decade on death row did nothing to lessen the venom directed towards him.

Although he was convicted only of three murders, Bundy is known to have committed many more; he tried to no avail to delay his execution by a series of confessions. As well as being a serial killer, Bundy was a pathological liar, so it remains to be seen if anything he said can be believed without strong corroboration. That may now be about to happen, because a phial of Bundy’s blood has recently been recovered from an evidence bank, and with modern developments in forensic science it may link him to the murder of an eight year old girl as long ago as 1961, which would make her Bundy’s youngest confirmed victim, and his earliest, as he was only fourteen years old at the time.

Like that other infamous serial killer John Gacy, Bundy was active in politics; Gacy was a Democrat who was once photographed with the First Lady; Bundy was a Republican; he also worked for a crisis center, manning of all things a suicide hotline. It was here that he met his future biographer Ann Rule, who like almost everyone else was taken in by the personable, intelligent, handsome sociopath who led FBI agent Robert Ressler to coin the phrase serial killer. Before Bundy, such random slayings were known as stranger murders.

It remains to be seen if a teenage Bundy murdered eight year old Ann Marie Burr, but if she is the first potential new victim to be confirmed, she will almost certainly not be the last.

Bundy has been the subject of numerous articles and TV programmes; several fine documentaries about both the man and his crimes can be found on YouTube, documentaries that are more chilling than any of the slasher movies Hollywood has produced since he was expunged from this Earth.

[The above article was first published August 5, 2011 (London time), not August 4 as indicated here. The body of Ann Marie Burr was never found. The involvement of Ted Bundy remains an open question at this time (2024).]

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