All language subtitles for Ted.Bundy.Dialogue.with.the.Devil.S01E03.HULU.WEB.h264-GRACE.en[cc]

[♪ eerie music playing]

[Bob Keppel] There was no denying
that Ted Bundy had knowledge

and a point of view that no one else did.

[Bob Keppel] Now was the time
to play to his fragile ego

and make him feel respected.

Could the great Ted Bundy
actually have valuable insights

into the Riverman?

[clicking]

[♪ tense music playing]

[reporter] We have
almost two dozen young women dead,

the victims of the Green River Killer.

[William Birnes]
The whole premise was using one killer

to catch another killer.

It had never been done before.

And that became
The Silence of the Lambs.

[♪ tense music playing]

[♪ tense music continues]

Less than six hours from now,

accused mass murderer Ted Bundy
is scheduled to be executed

in a Florida prison.

[♪ intense music playing]

[♪ dark, tense music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Strange as it was,

Ted Bundy and I were hunting
for the Green River Killer

who targeted prostitutes
and earned his nickname

by dumping his first five victims
in the Green River near Seattle.

-[insects chirring]
-[water lapping]

As of November 1984,
42 women had either been found dead

or were missing and presumed dead,

all of them allegedly
Green River Killer victims.

The discovery of each new body
felt like a gut punch.

And the latest victim,
Martina Authorlee,

had been found
only three days earlier.

We finally caught a break when
Melvyn Foster showed up on our radar.

[♪ tense music playing]

[prison door buzzing]

[reporter] For nearly a month now,

undercover officers
have been stationed in this area

keeping a 24-hour watch
on Melvyn Foster

who lives just up the road from here.

[Dave Reichert] We began to work
on the tips that were coming in.

And one day, a call comes in,

and, uh, it was Melvyn Foster.

And Melvyn said that he could help us.

And he said, "Well,
I have some experience in these things."

He says, "Yes, I-- I work as a cab driver.

I know the streets.
I know all the people out there."

[♪ tense, suspenseful music playing]

And then we ask him about
the first victims that were found,

and, uh, he denied knowing any of 'em.

But later, as we start talking,

he knows Marcia Chapman,

he knows Cynthia Hinds,
he knows Opal Mills,

he knows Debra Bonner,
he knows Wendy Coffield.

[Bob Keppel] Foster became a suspect

because he drove his taxi
up and down Pacific Highway South,

which had an active prostitution strip.

He also looked promising

because he had
served time in prison for auto theft.

The media was eager for a suspect
to serve up on the evening news,

and Foster was happy to oblige.

Did you kill all those women or what?

No, but I wish I did.

I wish I did know who did.

[Bob Keppel] Foster failed a polygraph,

and he had no alibi
for any of the murders.

Bundy had thoughts
about Foster, of course.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy had learned a lot
about police procedures.

He suspected we'd search Foster's home
and vehicles for hairs and fibers,

the kind of physical evidence
missing from our Ted investigation.

[reporter] Nearly 60 police officers
launched a massive search

of Melvyn Foster's home.

[camera clicks]

King County police took several pieces
of women's clothing from Foster's house,

items which Foster says
belonged to his deceased mother.

[Bob Keppel] The search didn't turn up
anything conclusive.

It almost seemed like,
with Melvyn Foster,

that he-- he wanted to
make himself a suspect,

that he kind of craved,
uh, the attention, that it was exciting.

[Bob Keppel] I felt the last thing
the Green River Killer would want

was any public attention,

and here was Foster
giving one interview after another.

[Melvyn Foster] They couldn't have
found their butt with both hands.

Instead, they chose to-- to squander

in excess
of a quarter of a million dollars,

looking at the wrong guy

while girls 60 miles away
are being snatched up

and losing their lives.

[♪ dark, tense music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Foster's behavior was odd,

but there was no hard evidence
linking him to the murder,

so we ruled him out.

[Bob Keppel] We were no closer
to finding the Green River Killer.

One of the biggest struggles in this case
was the-- the doubt

that the media actually, uh, created
in the minds of the public

about whether or not we even cared.

[reporter]
The scene has become sickeningly familiar

in the last two years.

The US Prostitutes Collective
as well as other women's organizations

have criticized police,

saying that because most of the victims
were associated with prostitution,

no one has been
taking the deaths seriously.

[Katie Larson] We had a very contentious
relationship with the press.

I understand that
the media has a job to do,

but unfortunately, they got in the way
on more than one occasion.

[Bob Keppel]
Reporters descended on Seattle,

searching for Green River Killer news.

The news stations were so determined
to get the story first,

they blew our cover

on the first and most important
Green River surveillance.

[helicopter whirring]

[Larson] And we're trying to do
a surveillance and the word got out,

and so then we have
the media overhead in a helicopter.

So, we did fight
with information being leaked

and stymieing
what we had wanted to do.

[Birnes] When the news goes public
with something like that,

you're not just telling the public
what's happening.

You know who else you're telling
what's happening?

The serial killer.

[Bob Keppel] I believed
our first Green River surveillance

could've identified the killer,

if not for the media's interference.

We were at a dead end.

I had nothing to lose by asking Bundy
about the Green River murders,

and maybe he'd reveal
something about his own cases.

I asked him how he thought the Riverman
was getting rid of physical evidence.

[Bob Keppel] By now, Ted knew

we were asking questions
about the Riverman's methods of operation

that resembled his own.

[♪ dark, tense music playing]

Bundy was known
for leaving his victims naked.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy was shedding light
onto what he did with his victims,

while also giving us
a lead about the Riverman.

Since Ted was opening up,

it was time to see
if he could really help us.

[Ted chuckles]

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Bundy said
he had some strange ideas

about catching the Green River Killer.

I got my poker face ready
for what Ted Bundy considered strange.

[Bob Keppel] Ted turned to stare at me
with a look in his eyes that said,

"Are you believing this [bleep]?"

[Louis Schlesinger] When you listen to
his explanation of serial sexual murder,

he relies heavily on--
on blaming pornography for it.

He was a victim of pornography.

He was a normal person
until society corrupted him.

None of that is true,

but that's what he--
Bundy wants people to believe.

Keep in mind:
Bundy is a pathological liar.

[♪ dramatic tense music playing]

[Bob Keppel]
Bundy would call his next idea strange.

I considered it
the most preposterous idea I'd ever heard.

[tape recorder whirring]

[♪ ominous music playing]

Serial sexual murder
is a fusion of sex and aggression,

so that the aggressive act itself
is eroticized.

It's looking at a woman
in a subservient position,

tied up, with violence around her,

and that attracts them like a magnet.

[distant siren wailing]

[Ted Bundy speaking]

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Dave was so astonished
by what Ted was proposing,

he accidentally knocked
the tape recorder off the table.

[Ted laughing]

[Bob Keppel] What I didn't tell him
was that his idea was illegal.

If we caught the Riverman this way,

we couldn't show probable cause

based on the killer's attendance
at a slasher film festival.

It was time for a new tactic.

I knew a well-placed yawn
might have him trying harder to please.

Did he have insights as good
as the one about what the Riverman did

with his victim's clothing?

[♪ tense, suspenseful music playing]

[Katherine Ramsland]
They wanted Bundy to think,

" You're not that important to us."

They, "But, you know,
we'll give you some latitude

and see, what-- you know, if you have
something that would be helpful."

[Bob Keppel] All it took was a yawn
and I had Ted back on track.

He was offering a plausible strategy

and getting closer
to details of his own murders.

[Bob Keppel] He was certain
the Green River Killer would return

to his dump sites,

because that's exactly what he had done

over and over again.

[♪ dramatic tense music playing]

[Ramsland] Bundy had placed
several remains in Issaquah, were three,

and then four near Taylor Mountain,

which suggested
these sites meant something to him.

And they were hoping, when he talked
about the Riverman's dump sites,

he would be revealing
why his own dump sites were important.

[Bob Keppel] If we could go back in time,
what would we have seen

if we had staked out
Ted's dump site at Taylor Mountain?

[♪ dark music playing]

[film strip whirring]

[Steven Winn] When the
Taylor Mountain site was discovered,

it was Lynda Healy, Susan Rancourt,

Brenda Ball, and Kathleen Parks.

The fact that they were all there
on the same site

meant that the killer's returning
with remains from different killings

and going back to the same site.

[♪ dark, eerie music playing]

[Roger Dunn] At Taylor Mountain,
they were just skulls.

There was no fatal injury marks
on any of the skulls.

[camera clicks]

We didn't have any long bones
to go along with 'em.

And that was a mystery for quite a while.

[Bob Keppel]
Bundy and the Green River Killer

shared a common fascination

with their victims' corpses.

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Even though Ted
never said it directly,

by suggesting
the crime scene surveillance,

I think he believed
the Riverman was a necrophiliac.

I wanted to see
if he would say the word out loud.

[♪ dark, eerie music playing]

[Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole]
Necrophilia:

you're sexually aroused when you go back
and you have sex with a corpse.

Bundy was talking in the third person,
that was just, uh, obvious to us.

And-- and so, therefore knew that

those things that
he was talking about the Riverman doing,

that he had most likely done himself.

[Bob Keppel]
I knew from post-mortem reports

that Ted was also a necrophiliac.

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

And now he knew we knew that.

[Dr. Peter Salerno]
When it comes to necrophilia,

oftentimes,
it's really more about control,

and power, and humiliation,
and punishment.

They enjoy being able
to engage in those behaviors

without anybody
being able to stop them.

[Birnes]
Bundy killed to get a sex partner.

The killing wasn't the highest point
of his life.

The sexual activity after death
was the highest point of his life.

I knew Bundy was evil,
I just didn't know how evil.

[♪ dark, ominous music continues]

[Bob Keppel] The only thing Ted
felt bad about was getting caught,

but he'd shut down if I challenged him.

I was also sure
that the Riverman felt no remorse

based on how he had
desecrated his victims' bodies.

[camera clicks]

The Green River Killer placed rocks
inside the vaginas of some of his victims,

uh, particularly the early victims
that were found in the Green River.

[water lapping]

[Larson] Many of the victims
seemed to be posed,

legs spread apart,
uh, arms spread out.

[Patty Eakes] His posing
was about getting them into a position

where he could more easily have sex
with their dead bodies.

'Cause you can imagine
the difficulty once somebody has died

and rigor mortis sets in.

[Bob Keppel] Ted continued
his defense of serial killers

with an insight
about the Green River Killer

that eventually proved correct.

[♪ dark, eerie music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Ted considered himself
the world's best serial killer profiler,

so we played into his grandiosity

and asked Ted to build a profile
of the Green River Killer.

[Bob Keppel] Was he talking
about the Green River Killer or himself?

It seemed the answer was both,

when I recalled the interviews we'd had
with Ted's girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer.

[tape recorder whirring]

[Winn] Hundreds of people called in
about somebody they worked with,

their cousin, you know, their boyfriend.

And one of them, of course,
was Liz Kloepfer

who called in about Ted Bundy.

Having seen the composite sketch,

several people said,
"That looks like Ted, doesn't it?"

[Bob Keppel] In 1974,
Ted Bundy's girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer,

had contacted King County detectives
to report her suspicions about Bundy.

We brought Liz in for an interview.

She told us
she and Ted met at a bar in 1969.

She told us a lot of very positive things
about him.

That he was good with her daughter.

He went to school
and studied hard, had ambitions,

but also, he had a dark side.

He could be very strange and withdrawn.

[Bob Keppel] She said
she'd noticed several similarities

between the suspect killer's profile
and Ted.

He too had a tan VW Beetle.

And she remembered that on July 14th,

the day
of the Lake Sammamish disappearances,

he had returned
to her house in an angry mood.

Bundy didn't have a dark entity

that was causing him
to do the things that he did.

He was who he was.
And he was someone who liked to kill.

[Winn] Liz Kloepfer spoke about
the things that she saw in his room.

He had Plaster of Paris.
He had women's clothing.

He had burglary tools, masks,
ropes, handcuffs--

stuff that just made her very suspicious.

[Bob Keppel] Ted's girlfriend, Liz,
gave us three pictures of Ted

to show to the Lake Sammamish witnesses.

But none of them
could pick him out of a photo lineup,

so the investigators put Bundy
back into the pile of "Ted" suspects.

[Winn] But suddenly,
the killings in Seattle stopped.

What we now know, of course,
is that Bundy had moved on to Utah.

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] In 1974,
Ted Bundy had enrolled

at the University of Utah Law School

in Salt Lake City,

where he had an active social life.

[Richard Kraske]
Through his charm and everything else,

he joined the Mormon church.

He was a great cook,
he'd have party--

I mean, he just was a nice guy
to be around. They liked him.

[camera clicks]

[Dr. Salerno] He fits into a community
in that way.

For him, what he really wanted, too,
is to deceive those people.

[chuckles] That's how--
He enjoys deceiving people like that, too.

[Bob Keppel] When the task force found out
Ted Bundy had moved to Salt Lake City,

we gave the sheriff's office there a call

to report his now ex-girlfriend Liz's
suspicions about Ted.

Then we moved on.

[♪ somber music playing]

The last time I spent with him
on a summer vacation was in Utah.

I would've been 15, 14.

He sent me home early,

uh, and I was really upset about that.

And he wouldn't tell me
why he was sending me home early.

He just said,
"Oh, I just got some really--

bunch of important stuff I have to do."

I said, "Ted, what the hell?
What's the deal?"

So I-- I didn't wanna push it, I figured
he's not gonna tell me or whatever.

He's just gonna--
he just wants me to go home.

So, at the airport,
as we're waiting for the plane,

he had this look
like he was gonna throw up.

He was-- He was just looking like

he was looking at something
really ter-- uh, troubling and disgusting.

I think that he felt it coming on.

He wanted to go rape and murder somebody

and he didn't want me there
when he did it.

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

He obviously had
the two sides of a coin kinda thing

where you-- you couldn't see
the other side of the coin.

Some things you just--
just stick in your head forever,

and I'll never forget it.

That was the last time I visited with him.

[film strip whirring]

[Bob Keppel] Nearly a year
after Ted Bundy moved to Utah,

we received some shocking information.

When I got to the office that day,
I felt a change in the air.

The drudgery
of the daily routine was gone.

It had been replaced
with a buzz of excitement.

[Kathleen McChesney] When a detective
called me from Salt Lake City

and said, "We have someone here
that's been arrested

and his name is Ted Bundy,"

it was a moment that I won't forget.

[♪ uneasy music playing]

[reporter] Ted Bundy
was arrested in Salt Lake City,

being charged with possession
of burglary tools and evading an officer.

[Bob Keppel] While we had
leads on some other suspects,

we never had enough to charge anyone.

But now we did,

and his name was Ted Bundy.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Winn]
When he was arrested that night,

he was cruising through a neighborhood
late at night.

[Bob Keppel]
The trooper found a large ice pick,

pieces of rope, a pry bar,

a full-face ski mask,

and a pair of handcuffs.

[Dunn] When we found Bundy was in Utah,

the Utah Sheriff's Office had a--
a fresh case named Carol DaRonch.

[Bob Keppel]
Carol DaRonch had narrowly escaped

from an attempted kidnapping
at a Utah mall.

And for nine months,
police had been hunting for her attacker.

[♪ dark music playing]

[film strip whirring]

[reporter] On the evening
of November the 8th, 1974,

Carol DaRonch parked her car
in this parking lot at the Fashion Mall.

Shortly after, began what she now calls,
her personal nightmare.

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

[Winn] Bundy said, uh,
"Excuse me,

"someone is trying to break into your car
out in the parking lot.

Do you have a such-and-such car?"

She was reluctant at first.
She asked to see a badge.

He flashed something at her,
which was a fake badge, of course.

He gets her into the car
and gets out a crowbar and handcuffs,

and tries to simultaneously hit her--

He gets one hand in one of the handcuffs,
but she fights him off.

She tumbles outta the car,
weeping and crying.

We know all of this
because she lived to tell the tale.

[Bob Keppel] When Carol DaRonch got away,
she set in motion a chain of events

that led to Ted Bundy sitting before me
in Florida State Prison.

[film strip whirring]

He was embarrassed by this failure
and quick to point out

the Green River Killer was making
the same type of mistakes.

[Bob Keppel] Surprisingly, numerous
serial killers have been brought down

by an unlikely source:

a living witness,
the one who got away.

And now, Carol DaRonch
was about to help put Bundy away.

[camera clicks]

[♪ tense music playing]

Utah was able to-- to get together
the case on Bundy,

put him in a lineup.

[camera clicks]

[Bob Keppel] On October 3rd,
after Carol DaRonch identified Bundy,

he was arrested for aggravated kidnapping
and attempted murder.

That's when the story hit the newspapers.

[Rich Bundy] Uh, I remember quite vividly,
my mom's on the phone

talking to the police or him,

and I could tell something was--

something very serious was going on.

She said, "Your brother's been arrested.

He's in jail under suspicion
of kidnapping."

Then I just, I thought, "Oh, shoot,
this is really, really serious."

So, you know, I'm a kid of,

uh, 14 and a half and, uh,

uh, dealing with his hero
being accused of being the total opposite.

[camera clicks]

[♪ tense music playing]

But I still was not fully comprehending

that he was a scumbag,
murdering piece of [bleep].

[Bob Keppel] While Bundy was in jail
awaiting his trial

for the attempted kidnapping
of Carol DaRonch,

investigators in other states
started to connect him

to unsolved murders
of women in their jurisdictions.

The cases against Bundy were stacking up.

Keppel realized, "Good grief!
This is the same victim profile!

"These are the same types of victims!

It's the same killer!"

It was Bundy.

[♪ dark music playing]

[film strip whirring]

[Bob Keppel] As murder cases against Bundy
were building in several different states,

he stood trial for the Carol DaRonch
kidnapping charges in Utah.

[reporter] On March 1st, 1976,

Third District Judge Stewart Hanson Jr.

found Bundy guilty
of second-degree kidnapping.

He was given a one to 15-year sentence
at the Utah State Prison.

[Dave Keppel] I don't think
it turned out the way Dad would've wanted.

He would've wanted
to bring Bundy in himself,

but they didn't have the--
the evidence at the time.

[Bob Keppel] Back in Washington,

we were collecting
mountains of circumstantial evidence.

But we still lacked
hard evidence, like hair and fibers,

needed to actually charge Bundy here.

[McChesney] We knew
we just had to keep searching,

so we could bring it to a jury
in Washington State and--

and get a conviction.

[Birnes]
Knowing you have a suspect is one thing.

Proving that person is guilty is another.

One of the things I packed around
for years

was guilt over not being able
to get him charged in our jurisdiction.

I was just holding inside
self-condemnation and guilt

for not being able
to make Bundy's case here,

uh, because, you know, that was my job,

and I came up short in my job.

My job was to solve cases.

[♪ somber music playing]

I resigned as a homicide detective
because I thought that...

I had failed.

Failed myself
and failed the victims' families

for not being able
to get Bundy charged.

So that was-- that was something
I packed around for a while.

[Bob Keppel] If it can be said

that serial killers
make victims of entire communities,

then, in our own way, Roger and I
became two of Ted Bundy's victims.

And he was far from done with us.

[♪ tense music playing]

[film strip whirring]

Colorado became the first state
to charge Bundy with murder

for a case involving a nurse who vanished
from a ski resort in Aspen.

[reporter] While serving time
in the Utah State Prison,

Bundy was charged with murdering a nurse
near Aspen, Colorado.

[Bob Keppel] After his arrest,

police searched Bundy's VW
and found a hair.

It was from Caryn Campbell's head.

[camera clicks]

That hair was the physical evidence
investigators needed

to charge Bundy with murder in Colorado.

[camera clicks]

[Dunn] Bundy was in custody in Utah
until he was extradited to Colorado.

[reporter] Bundy was brought into court
early this morning.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy relished the spotlight
as he was being extradited to Colorado.

It made my skin crawl
to see the little zit holding court.

I wondered
whether I would ever get the chance

to burst Ted's bubble.

I hoped so,
if all went according to plan.

I don't like being locked up
for something I didn't do,

and I don't like my liberty taken away,

and I don't like
being treated like an animal

and I don't like-- like people
walking around and ogling me

like I'm some sort of weirdo,
because I'm not.

[interviewer]
You think about getting outta here?

Well... [chuckles]
Well, legally, sure.

[chuckles]

[♪ tense music playing]

[film strip whirring]

[Winn] The courthouse in Aspen.

Bundy was supposedly working
on his defense in the law library

to defend himself
in the Caryn Campbell killing.

While he was there, he struck up
a camaraderie with his jailers

and gained the trust of these guys,

who eventually let him
wander farther and farther away.

[reporter]
He had gone to a small law library

in the back of the courtroom,
out of sight of his guard.

It was then that he jumped
out of a second-story window.

[Winn] A woman happened
to be coming into the courthouse

and she asked the clerk at the front,

"Is it normal for someone
to jump out the second-story window

of the courthouse?"

[reporter]
Convicted Utah kidnapper, Theodore Bundy,

has escaped
from an Aspen, Colorado courtroom

and remains, at this hour,
the subject of a manhunt.

[speaker] I remember they were showing
Green River Task Force picking up bones,

not knowing that
that was our sister, Tammie.

[reporter] Bundy's escape
bordered on a Houdini escapade.

[Winn] The fact
that he escaped a second time

remains a criminal moral failing
on the part of the authorities.

He's driving across the whole country
to Florida.

What's in Florida?

Just like University of Washington:
sorority houses.

[survivor]
Ted Bundy never left a victim alive

and I knew he was gonna kill me.

[reporter 1] Accused killer Theodore Bundy
was captured early this morning.

[reporter 2] Theodore Bundy
could be the King County Ted.

At that point,
there were only six days left

before he was gonna die.

[Ted Bundy] You can look at me
as a hypocrite

because I've waited so long,
but the fact is,

better late than never.