Original subtitles

I hear Ted Bundy in so many different contexts.

I stay me, okay?

I've matured in the past year.

Believe me, I've grown in the past year.

My only misgivings is that I might never be in a position

to apply it,

you know, on the streets where I'd like to apply it.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How it Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

Across the states from January 1974

through February 1978,

young women were disappearing and turning up dead,

their bodies found badly beaten and sexually assaulted.

For years detectives in several states searched for clues,

and despite limited physical evidence,

each clue led them back to one man,

a law student named Ted Bundy.

By the time he was captured in Florida,

Bundy had been suspected in dozens of murders,

including a brutal attack on a sorority house in Florida,

but could investigators prove Bundy was,

in fact, a serial killer?

Here's how it really happened.

♪♪

Man: From Washington State to Oregon to Utah to Colorado

and now most recently to Florida,

police have discovered a pattern of rape/murders

which coincide with Ted Bundy's movements

over the past five years.

Lynda Ann Healy,

Denise Naslund, Janice Ann Ott,

Georgeann Hawkins, x

and 18-year-old Susan Rancourt.

Woman: When somebody is missing, you imagine the worst things,

and it turns out what happened to her

might have been worse than what we imagined.

Man: Some of them were never found.

Others were found -- beaten, raped, strangled, nude.

It seemed probable that all the crimes

have been committed by the same man.

Woman: He was kind of tall, very tanned,

very good looking,

and he came up to me and asked me to help him

put his sailboat onto his car.

This guy identified himself as Ted,

and they knew this person drove a Volkswagen.

Woman: We received literally thousands of tips

and, interestingly, Ted Bundy was among them.

Man: People teased him at the office and said,

"Say, your name's Ted and you've got a Volkswagen."

And, of course, they were teasing and laughing about it

because he seemed like the least likely --

He was the boy next door.

I am not guilty.

I am not guilty of the charges

which have been filed against me.

Bundy was this crafty, cunning, you know,

attractive looking guy.

Woman: I loved talking to Ted

because he's a great, talks about politics,

very well read, very analytical.

He had a lot of influential people that liked him

and believed in him.

He was making a name for himself.

He had said at one point he would like

to have been governor of Washington State.

He had a bachelor's degree in psychology.

He was in law school at the University of Utah.

He even joined the Mormon church.

People were saying, you know, it couldn't be him.

The Ted Bundy we knew was not a violent person.

Man: That was part of the enigma of Ted Bundy,

that he could fool people.

Man: All throughout this, Ted was saying, "I'm innocent,"

but we do have some things coming up that says,

"No, he's not."

Man: They had seized the Volkswagen

and vacuumed the inside for evidence.

Man: FBI tests show the hair found in Bundy's car

matched those of the girl abducted in Murray,

the nurse murdered in Colorado,

and a Midvale girl who had been raped and strangled.

That was the first smoking-gun link

to link him to these other killings.

Man: In a Salt Lake City trial,

Bundy was convicted of trying to kidnap Carol DaRonch.

Bundy was later extradited to Colorado

to stand trial for murder there.

He was looking for avenues of escape.

Man: The defendant was in the courtroom,

and the guy was at the door,

and the last time he looked, the defendant was there

and the next time he looked, he was gone.

Where did he go? Tallahassee.

Man: He was really under the radar

and nobody recognized him in Florida.

Man: During the predawn hours of January 15th,

the killer walked through an unlocked door

at the Chi Omega sorority house

and brutally beat four FSU coeds as they slept.

Woman: When he came into the sorority house,

he came up the stars.

He had picked up a piece of firewood.

Man: The women who were murdered were 21-year-old Margaret Bowman

and 20-year-old Lisa Levy.

One was one raped and bitten by the killer.

The attack was to Margaret first and then Lisa,

and then he came into our room.

Man: Two girls were murdered,

two others were beaten badly.

There was blood everywhere.

And another woman in another location was also beaten.

Woman: Bundy had pushed a chair under my front door

so they had to kick it in to be able to go in

and then that's where they found me in my bedroom.

Man: The chief suspect, Ted Bundy.

Man: He says, "Al, do you think I really killed those girls

that they claim I did?"

And what I said was, "I don't know for sure,

but I think if you did, you'll likely do it again."

♪♪

Woman: Ted Bundy was under arrest,

suspected in both the brutal killings

of the two sorority sisters,

as well as the middle school student Kimberly Leach.

Man: 12-year-old Kimberly Leach

vanished from school in Lake City, Florida,

on February 9th.

I'd never heard the term "serial killer" before.

She was a pretty little 12-year-old girl

who had just been elected to

the Valentine court at her school.

Man: Once his picture appeared in the paper,

some witnesses in Lake City identified him

as being the man who abducted Kimberly Leach.

I mean, two and two added up to four,

and Ted looked like he could be our guy.

But the challenge was that they didn't have

all of the details of Kimberly Leach's disappearance,

and didn't even know where her body was.

Without those details and without her remains,

it was going to be very difficult to build a case.

Man: We had search parties all out in the woods

in Columbia County and Suwannee County

and going west, Madison County towards Tallahassee.

We had to have the body.

Woman: Authorities caught a break

when they discovered a van

near the Florida State University campus.

We had a report from two children in Jacksonville

that a man stopped and asked a young girl,

"Could you help me?"

Her brother was not far behind.

He comes running up and grabs his sister.

And little did Bundy know but their father was

captain of the Duval County homicide detectives.

Man: And they had been trained well, so the young man

took down the tag number, the make and the model.

When we got that information, and we processed it we find out

that was a Florida State University van,

and the van had been stolen.

It was found abandoned in Tallahassee.

They treated it like a crime scene from the very beginning.

♪♪

Man: When they vacuumed out the van,

what they found was pig droppings,

vegetation and dirt.

Forensic botanists analyzed the debris found in the van.

Man: They had been searching for her body with no success,

and so they came to me and said,

"Here's some plant material we found

on the undercarriage of the vehicle.

Can you tell us anything about that

to help us narrow the search area?"

Man: The forensic botanists told them

that the soil samples and the leaves

and so forth come from along the banks of the Suwannee River.

The pig droppings indicated

there was probably some pig pens.

And that narrowed their search area by over half,

and then the body was found fairly soon after that.

Woman: After a widespread search,

Kim's body was found under a hog shed.

She was beaten and sexually molested.

In order to prove Ted Bundy guilty of killing Kim Leach,

we had to put the two of 'em together.

We had to put Bundy in that white van.

We had to put Kim Leach in that white van.

Florida Department of Criminal Law Enforcement

crime lab experts are still busy sifting through

and analyzing evidence.

Man: When the FSU media center van was recovered,

in the ashtray there were cigarettes

that seemed to be crushed out in, kind of, a unique twist,

and in the field where Kim was ultimately found,

somebody had dumped a vehicle ashtray.

Man: The theory was, well, maybe after the body was dumped

that he cleaned out the car and emptied the ashtray,

and the way the cigarette butts were bent in the particular way

that they had been brushed out,

the same person smoked both of those piles of cigarette butts.

Man: The crime lab made the case for us.

There was no doubt about it.

The van had an unusual shag carpet

in the back on the floorboard of the van.

There were these unbelievable cross-transfers from the carpet

to her clothing recovered at the crime scene.

Man: And there was fiber from Bundy's clothing

that was found at the dump site

and found on the carpet in the van.

Man: What are the odds that could happen

just as a matter of coincidence

if he were not, in fact, the perpetrator?

Woman: Kimberly Leach vanished February 9th.

Her body was found on April 7th.

Man: There seemed to be a pretty massive trauma

to her throat area, and bleeding.

Woman: Eyewitness news has learned the prosecution

has evidence linking Bundy with the knife

that could have killed Kimberly Leach.

Two price stickers, one on top of the other,

were found inside the white van.

They were traced to this hunting supply store

on Jacksonville's west side.

Man: The proprietor picked Bundy out as having purchased

that knife the day before that he kidnapped Kim.

There was just one, inescapable conclusion,

and that was that Bundy was responsible for Kim's death

and abduction.

Step out, Mr. Bundy.

Ken read the indictment.

You told them that you were gonna get me --

he said he was gonna get me. Okay, you got the indictment.

It's all you're gonna get.

We are not going to lose

Theodore Robert Bundy,

I can assure you.

Your standard medium-security life in a prison

is a fairly decent existence, relatively speaking.

It's just creating your own environment in here,

and not looking at the ceiling, not looking at the wall,

and not thinking about the outside

and not anguishing over the fact that you've lost your freedom.

Man: We didn't get the murder indictment

until we knew we had good evidence.

The local newspaper sent their attorney to my office

and said they wanted to be present

when he was informed of the charges.

They wanted to see the expression on his face.

Step out, Mr. Bundy.

When he was taken out of his cell, he had no idea why.

He came down, the elevator door opened,

and he saw a camera there, but he had no idea.

Step out, Mr. Bundy.

What do we have here, Ken? Let's see.

Oh, it's an indictment. All right.

Why don't you read it to me.

"Oh, what have you got here, Ken?

Oh, what have you got?"

Let's read it. Let's go.

I wish this arrogant loudmouth would have kept his mouth shut

so Ken could have done his job.

Theodore Robert Bundy you are charged indictment,

two counts burglary, two counts murder in the first degree --

He walked in like a banty rooster

in his blue jail suit

and he strutted around the room

while the sheriff was reading this,

and he's kind of walking a semicircle around the sheriff.

I'll plead not guilty right now.

You're about up for election, aren't you?

Mr. Bundy -- Just about got it, didn't you?

Mr. Bundy -- You told me that --

You told them that you were going to get me.

He said he was going to get me.

Okay, you got the indictment.

That's all you're going to get.

The jaw would set,

the, you know, the vein in the neck would throb,

and you could see the -- the kind of steeliness

underneath him.

I've been kept in isolation for six months,

I've been kept away from the press,

I've been buried by you,

you've been talking for six months,

I think it's my turn now.

I'll be heard.

That's one of the first times I saw

Ted Bundy really mad.

Man: Police charged Bundy

not only with the murder of the two coeds,

but with the killing of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

Both cases were capital cases,

and a conviction could mean the death penalty.

So, before the trials began,

the prosecutors came to Ted Bundy and made him an offer:

if you plead guilty to all the charges,

we will take the death penalty off the table.

Man: Well, the plea bargain came about from a feeling that,

you know, you're probably not going to win both trials.

They understood that their cases were not all that strong.

This is probably a better decision than risking a trial.

He would be sentenced to life in prison

with a minimum-mandatory service of 75 years without parole.

Realize that this was a circumstantial evidence case.

We could lose this case.

What I was mainly concerned about here

was getting Mr. Bundy off the streets forever.

Larry called me and he asked me what I thought.

At that point, I think more than anything you just want them

never to be able to hurt anyone ever again.

A long plea form was developed

with eight or ten signature lines on it,

including Mr. Bundy's,

and after it was signed

it was left with him at the jail.

Prosecution had said, "Now, listen, we want Mr. Bundy

to simply confess to the murders.

If he does anything other than that, the deal is off."

Man: When he came to court the next morning,

he had torn the section of the plea form

with his name on it off.

Man: Mr. Bundy stood up

and started criticizing everybody he could think of.

Man: He attacked his lawyers and said,

"Well, your honor, before I enter this plea,

I want to dismiss my lawyers

because they don't believe in my innocence."

Man: I looked at the prosecutor from Lake City,

and he looked at me, and we stood up and said,

"That's it, it's over."

We're wasting our time to go through the charade

of a plea now.

Woman: With the plea bargain now dead,

both cases would go to trial.

Man: You going to represent yourself,

or you going to get another attorney?

I'm staying with the man I know best right now, and that's me.

I just remember fixating on Bundy

and looking him in the eyes.

I felt, like, sick to my stomach.

I know that there's a lot of police ego on the line.

I think it's a terribly dangerous mentality

to try to pin something on somebody who they might --

They believe there's a possibility

that they couldn't have done it.

And as long as they believe that,

they're not going to find the right man.

Man: Ted, he sent a couple letters to me from prison.

"Why aren't the police looking in this direction for that crime

because anybody can see that that's how it happened."

I think there was still this apprehension of

is he the right person, or could there be more people?

I still wasn't sure it was him.

Let's get all the facts,

because I don't want to go through this again

if it's the wrong person.

Man: Police charged Bundy

not only with the murder of the two coeds,

but with the killing of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach,

who vanished from school in Lake City, Florida,

on February 9th.

Man: The Tallahassee case was deemed to be weaker

from a prosecution standpoint than the Lake City case.

Well, there's always a measure of doubt,

because the evidence was questionable.

Man: Not only did we not have Mr. Bundy's fingerprints

in the crime scenes,

but we had unidentified fingerprints,

even to this day, in those crime scenes.

Man: There were two bite marks which, of course,

was the principal evidence in this case.

But there really wasn't, except for the bite marks,

the kind of definitive physical evidence

that we hoped we had had.

I always felt confident that we had the right person charged.

What I wasn't confident of is what the jury's reaction

to a circumstantial-evidence case like this would be.

Police in both jurisdictions were very busy

gathering the evidence that they needed to build these cases

and also making sure that Ted Bundy,

a two-time prison escapee, remained behind bars.

Man: Once he jumped out of a courthouse window,

the other time he crawled through

a foot-wide light fixture.

The real measure of a man in prison,

as far as escape goes,

is the difference between hitting that fence

and not hitting that fence,

between getting shot at and not getting shot at,

and having the guts to do it

and not having the guts to do it.

Man: Bundy told prison officials here, "Don't take it personally,

but if I can escape from this prison, I will."

Man: The story was, was that he would run in place,

preparing for that moment when somebody slipped

and he could get away.

He takes opportunities wherever they exist to escape,

so you have to eliminate the opportunities.

Man: Will he be in a cell with anyone else here?

No. He'll be by himself in a self-contained cell,

completely surrounded with armored plate.

Man: He wanted me to take him

to the Florida State University law library

so that he could work in the law library.

My answer to that was, "Yeah, right."

Woman: But Bundy was not going down without a fight.

He took the sheriff to court,

claiming that his civil rights were being violated.

Katsaris: He sued me.

There's a lawsuit, Ted Bundy versus sheriff Ken Katsaris.

I had to offer better lighting.

Interestingly enough, I gave him better lighting

and he took me back to court

and said the light was too bright.

He wanted access to outdoor activity.

I was ordered to give him

one hour, three times a week, outside.

I had my tactical unit officer

stationed at the corners of the building.

They had a scoped high-powered rifle and a canine.

We were not going to lose Theodore Robert Bundy,

I can assure you.

Man: It has been nearly a year since law student

and former political campaign worker

Ted Bundy was accused of the brutal slayings

of two Florida State coeds.

Ted Bundy, once again, decided to act in his own defense.

Man: You going to represent yourself,

or you going to get another attorney?

I'm staying with the man I know best right now, and that's me.

Florida is one of seven states in the United States

that allows pretrial depositions,

sworn testimony before the trial starts.

Man: While Mr. Bundy was representing himself,

he wanted to take depositions from the witnesses,

and I had the witnesses come to the jail

and let Mr. Bundy take their depositions.

Woman: It was bizarre.

We went into this classroom,

and I had lawyers on both sides of me

and there's guards, and he comes in and sits down,

and he starts asking me questions.

Woman: Bundy sat on one end and I sat at the other end.

I just remember fixating on Bundy

and looking him in the eyes.

I felt, like, sick to my stomach.

Woman: I'm sure if he had moved a muscle,

they would have been on him like syrup on French toast.

Woman: Some of the questions that he was asking --

he did have a familiarity with the house

that someone else would not have had.

There were no maps of the house,

there were no diagrams that existed anywhere,

and men were not allowed on the second floor,

so, his familiarity, and the way he asked questions,

I was convinced he had been in the house.

I was totally convinced.

I know what's there and I know what isn't there.

I've seen the files, and I've heard the reports,

and, Lord knows, I'm the first and foremost person

that has the personal intimate knowledge

that it couldn't be me, that it's not me,

that I'm innocent.

Let's just wait, and let's just let it come out in court,

and I'll lay my money on me.

Good afternoon, Miss Gibson, my name's Ted Bundy,

and I'm the defendant in the case, and I'm just here

to introduce myself.

Woman: I can remember feeling very angry, sad.

He is the absolute opposite

of what you would picture to be a monster.

In this case, everything is unbelievable.

Welcome back to "How it Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

In the summer of 1979, after being suspected

in multiple murders across the United States,

Ted Bundy stands trial for the brutal attacks

at Florida State University.

The trial was televised and the country was riveted.

Ted Bundy acted as his own attorney,

and no one was prepared for the circus that followed.

Man: Security guards checking for concealed weapons

outside the courtroom tell the story that this is

no ordinary murder trial; the case of Ted Bundy,

a man suspected of murdering two Florida State coeds

and beating three others.

Woman: Complete and utter shock,

we still don't believe it.

It just can't be.

Our son is the best son in the world.

Man: The women who were murdered

were 21-year-old Margaret Bowman

and 20-year-old Lisa Levy.

My family has lived with horror, sorrow and pain.

It's an emotional pain so deep it becomes physical.

Woman: That's Margaret.

That's a beautiful picture.

Yeah, she was a pretty girl.

I think of Lisa and Margaret a lot.

Margaret was, I believe, an art history major,

and she wanted to be a curator at a museum.

Lisa was that girl next door, fun,

always had a smile on her face.

It upset me that he took that away.

♪♪

Hello, and welcome to the State of Florida

versus Theodore Robert Bundy.

Please be seated. Court will come to order.

The 500-mile change of venue from Tallahassee to Miami

did nothing to lesson all of the hoopla

surrounding the trial.

It was going to be televised live,

gavel to gavel, one of the first of its kind.

Man: It was crazy. The TV trucks were all over.

I'd never been in a circus like that in my life.

The Bundy trial has drawn a lot of attention

partly because of who he is,

a mysterious, former law student with a charming air in court --

It was the weird celebrity that he fostered in a way.

He loved it. He was basking in the attention.

I screened the mail at the jail.

There were a lot of love letters and proposals of marriages

to Ted Bundy, which was bizarre.

As strange as it may sound,

there were groupies that followed him

from courthouse to courthouse.

His adoring fans.

He just doesn't look like the type to kill somebody.

I noticed that most of the people

that were in there were women.

Man: What is unusual to see is that many of the onlookers

are women, young women, contemporaries

of the Florida State sorority sisters

who were assaulted in their beds a year and a half ago.

So we started interviewing these young women,

and, you know, you could see by their eyes

they were just fascinated by the lurid details,

the savagery of the crimes.

Woman: Every time he turns around,

I kind of get that feeling,

oh, no, you know, he's going to get me next.

But yet you're fascinated by him?

Very, very.

[ Bundy chuckling ]

Man: There was one woman, and I don't think she missed a day.

She sat right there on the front row,

and she would alternately make moon eyes at Bundy

and stare daggers at Carole Boone.

Carole Boone believes Bundy is completely innocent.

Some have called her his girlfriend.

She prefers to be known as just a close, personal friend.

Let me put it this way, I don't think that Ted belongs in jail.

Man: Carole Boone says she first met Ted Bundy five years ago

when they worked in the same office

in Seattle, Washington.

Since that time she has followed him,

helping him prepare his legal cases from Utah

where he was convicted of kidnapping

a young woman, to Colorado,

where he's suspected of murdering another,

and, finally, now to Florida.

Man: She had an explanation, or an answer,

for every circumstance in every case;

what was wrong about it,

identifications had been coerced or were inaccurate,

the physical evidence didn't hold up.

I don't think they had reason to charge Ted Bundy with murder.

Man: For the first time, jurors in

the Theodore Bundy murder trial

were brought in to hear --

From the two crime scenes

where two Florida State sorority sisters

were strangled to death and three others brutally beaten

with a club the morning of January 15th, 1978.

He had picked up a piece of firewood,

and he attacked Margaret.

He attacked Lisa Levy.

He used pantyhose, strangled her,

bit her, did other things,

and then came into our room.

Man: When police officer Oscar Brannon took the stand,

he described the first victim who was discovered,

Karen Chandler.

Officer Brannon said it was shortly afterwards

that the bodies of the two murdered coeds were found.

One of the young women had a stocking

wrapped tightly around her throat.

Man: He strangled her with a pair of pantyhose

that he had brought with him.

Now, we know that because the brand of pantyhose

was not one either used by Margaret

or any of the young women in the Chi Omega sorority house.

Man: Some of the first witnesses who are expected

to testify this week are Chi Omega coeds

who were there when the killings occurred.

You know, I just prayed mightily ahead of time

that I would be calm and that I'd be -- not react.

Knowing, of course, that he would probably

take some kind of pleasure in scaring people or scaring us.

The only time I was really nervous was walking in.

Man: When the two who survived were brought in to testify,

first Karen Chandler and then Kathy Kleiner,

both said they had no recollection

of what had happened to them.

Woman: At that point, Bundy was his --

serving as his own lawyer,

and then he got up and asked me questions.

"Did you see my face?"

You know, "How did you know it was me?"

Man: Cheryl Ann Thomas told the court,

she only remembers coming home after a night of disco dancing,

going to bed, and then waking up in the hospital.

I had five skull fractures

and multiple contusions in my head,

and I had a broken jaw and my left shoulder

was pulled out of joint.

It was odd because he was right across from me,

and he looked at me as if he didn't know me at all.

It's unbelievable.

Man: Judge Cowart has said he expects the trial

to last from 30 to 45 days.

Man: I don't think I really had made up my mind

until about halfway through the trial

when, during the courtroom recess,

I came face-to-face with Bundy himself,

and that encounter was unbelievable.

His eyes turned like laser beams.

It was sheer hostility --

anger, hostility,

viciousness that I saw in that face.

He took his mask off at that moment,

and I saw something that you never saw in the courtroom.

That told me he was a killer.

Since he was co-counsel,

he could decide what direction the defense would go.

I mean, I could get up here

and examine every single witness for the defense.

No question in my mind that I can do it.

I felt like that was just about the worst thing

that anybody could have ever done.

You can't help but become an advocate

for yourself when you're so involved in the case.

I'm being a good defense attorney,

and I'm not, you know, I'm not pretending I'm an attorney,

but I felt it was right.

I wanted to get involved.

Man: The prosecuting attorneys have told the jurors

that they believe one man,

on the morning of January 15th, 1978,

walked into the Florida State Chi Omega house,

strangled two young coeds, brutally beat two others

and then struck again four blocks away,

nearly killing a fifth young woman.

That man, the prosecutors say, is the defendant,

Theodore Bundy.

Due to the television coverage,

key players in this case were becoming household names.

One of them was Nita Neary, a prosecution witness,

who said that she saw Ted Bundy

leaving that sorority house just minutes after the attacks.

Man: Could you describe the man that you saw at the door?

Had a very prominent nose, a straight bridge.

It almost came to a point.

It was slightly dark complected.

And is that man in the courtroom today?

Yes, he is.

Would you point him out for us, please?

Man: That morning that the murders occurred,

she sat down with an artist

and described the person that she saw,

and this was at a time before anybody in Tallahassee

had ever heard of Mr. Bundy,

so it was not a sketch that had been influenced

in any way by pretrial publicity

or media coverage or anything else like that.

Man: The defense, however, says the eyewitness,

Nita Neary, caught only a fleeting glimpse of the man,

and they argue that her story is unreliable.

She had very little time to see the person,

different than what she described,

because after his arrest, he was on video.

He was on TV.

He was in the newspapers all the time.

He became a very well-known face,

so for her to sit in a trial and say,

"Yeah, that's the guy," not surprising.

Step up in the witness box and raise your right hand.

Woman: The defense would also attack the testimony of

Dr. Richard Souviron, the forensic dentist

who says that the bite marks left on victim Lisa Levy

were definitely matched by Ted Bundy.

Man: I had a board and I pointed out

all the areas of comparison.

His teeth and this and this and this,

and then the jury took the one-to-one photographs

and the models.

Man: We as reporters, you know, were spellbound just sitting

there watching these graphics of flesh

that had been macerated, and Bundy's teeth.

Man: The prosecution asked Souviron

if he could scientifically match up

the teeth marks with Bundy's teeth.

Souviron: There's no question

that the teeth fit the bite mark.

They made the mark.

Man: Prosecuting attorneys claim that Bundy's teeth

perfectly match those bite marks;

the defense told the jurors otherwise.

There's a lot of mouths in the world.

A lot of people have similar type bites.

And there's obviously something wrong with the observations

made by the state's odontologist.

Our contention all along, your honor,

has been that they have taken my teeth

and twisted them every which way but loose to fit.

Woman: Ted Bundy was not shy

about sharing his opinions in court,

especially when he got to play the role

of his own defense attorney.

Man: The defendant Theodore Bundy,

dressed in a tweed coat and a Seattle Mariners t-shirt,

became the attorney today acting directly in his own defense.

Man: Bundy's team probably would have preferred to have him

tried in absentia,

with Bundy not even there,

because Bundy was a headache to them.

Certainly, I could -- I mean, I could get up here

and -- and examine every single witness for the defense.

There's no question in my mind that I can do it.

Since he was co-counsel, he could decide

what direction the defense would go.

We were unable to make decisions independent of him.

He, through the force of his personality,

kind of controlled how things went.

Man: Bundy has said he feels impelled

to take a leading role in his own defense.

It is not known what his own attorneys think of this,

but there is no evidence as yet

they are trying to dissuade him from taking the floor.

Woman: Most of Ted Bundy's time in the courtroom

was spent conferring with his co-counsel,

but he decided to take the lead

when the time came to cross-examine the police officer

about what exactly he saw

when he responded to the Chi Omega murder scene,

and that move may have cost the defense this case.

Man: I called, to the stand, one of the first officers

on the scene of the Chi Omega house that morning.

You know, just kind of a basic overview of what he found

whenever he first got there.

Man: And I was to question that officer.

As I stand up, Ted stands up beside me

and reaches for the file,

but now I'm acting like this is what was planned.

Man: At one point when a university police officer

was on the stand, Bundy himself, not his attorneys,

did the cross-examining.

The first victim you saw --

And he asked a few peremptory questions,

and then he says, "describe in great detail what you saw

when you pulled back the covers."

And I felt like that was just about the worst thing

that anybody could have ever done.

Man: I remember that cross-examination,

and it seemed, sort of, weirdly like time almost stopped

and he was --

It was a way for him to get to relive those crimes.

It was offensive.

Man: You have to understand, at that point,

Mr. Bundy had vehemently denied

any involvement in any of this stuff.

It was very disheartening.

Incredibly disheartening.

Man: It was exactly three hours ago

that Judge Edward Cowart gave the case to the jury.

They are now deliberating behind closed doors.

Bundy has said in court that he expects to win this case.

Last night he told two reporters --

What we see going on here today,

is something that I have no responsibility for.

♪♪

Man: Just 6 1/2 hours after Judge Edward Cowart

handed the case to the jury,

the 12-member panel returned with a verdict.

Man: Are you confident that he will be acquitted here?

I hope he will be acquitted.

I can't say I'm confident,

but I believe he should be on the basis of the nonevidence.

Man: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

have you reached a verdict?

Yes, we have.

The jury was out, I want to say, a little over six hours

before they returned the verdict,

and nobody knew what the answer was going to be.

Either you get a not guilty, or you get a guilty.

There's really nothing in between.

Feel you're going to win this case?

I believe we will, yes.

We were thinking that the appropriate

verdict was not guilty.

Woman: We, the jury, find the defendant,

Theodore Robert Bundy,

guilty as charged,

so say we all.

Woman: Bundy said he was hopeful and optimistic

jurors would see things his way.

They did not.

After years of being suspected in more than a dozen deaths,

Ted Bundy was now a convicted murderer.

Man: And there was a kind of a collective

gasp in the courtroom,

but I think it was one of largely of resolution.

Man: All guilty verdicts on all of the counts,

it was just a huge sigh of relief.

We're very satisfied with what verdict we did get in this case.

We couldn't have expected it to be any better than it was.

The verdict came through and it was like a relief.

Man: What was your first reaction

when you heard that verdict?

Thank God, it's over.

It was kind of a deep sigh

and a terrible feeling for Margaret and Lisa.

It was like, they can't see this,

and they can't go on.

I never had any doubt, almost from the beginning,

that was gut, and, of course, you don't go to court with gut.

That's why we worked so hard on the case.

He was so arrogant.

He thought he was smarter than everybody else

and probably figured that, you know,

we would never be able to convict him.

Woman: It just was a relief to me.

He was off the streets.

He would still be killing people.

Man: Throughout the clerk's reading of the verdict,

Bundy showed little reaction.

Bundy: I didn't show any emotion because, you know,

what am I supposed to do?

Am I going to jump up on the table?

Am I going to scream? That's what I felt like doing.

I heard my mother crying.

Louise: Needless to say, I think the jury is totally wrong.

It's just impossible.

It's wrong. We'll appeal it.

It's just -- what else can I say?

She was so sincere and so strong in her defense of her son.

You know, she said he couldn't have done it,

couldn't have done it.

Bundy: I'm innocent of the charges

of which I've been convicted.

Man: The defendant's mother sat quietly later remarking that

she would have liked to have, "wringed the prosecutor's neck."

One week later, court reconvened for sentencing.

The overwhelming public sentiment is that

everyone wanted Ted Bundy to die.

Man: Give him the same amount of mercy

that he gave Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman --

which was absolutely none.

Man: It required a majority of the jurors

to recommend the death penalty

in order for it to be a death penalty verdict.

This court has hereby imposed the death penalty

upon the defendant, Theodore Robert Bundy.

Man: Today, at age 32, Theodore Robert Bundy

stood in a Florida courtroom and listened to a judge describe

his pending death in the Florida electric chair.

Justice is a funny thing.

What kind of justice do you pay for killing all those women?

I don't think that there's any such thing as justice.

I would say that when he was sentenced to death,

my gut feeling was, he'll never hurt anyone ever again.

♪♪

Woman: Ted Bundy was already looking at the death penalty

when he faced another possible death penalty

for the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

She was the middle school student who was abducted

right outside of her school

just three weeks after the Chi Omega murders.

Man: Ted was completely disinterested

in the Lake City case.

The pressure that he put on us

and the defense in the Tallahassee case was gone.

He was there. He didn't want to do anything.

He just, whatever happens, happens.

From a trial standpoint, that case was much stronger.

Man: When he kidnapped Kim Leach,

there was these unbelievable cross-transfers from the carpet

from the FSU media center van to her clothing

recovered at the crime scene.

We had fibers from the blue blazer that he wore

on Kim's clothing;

fibers from Kim's clothing on the blue blazer.

It was just such a strong, conclusive chain

of circumstances.

Woman: After three weeks of testimony from both eyewitnesses

and experts, the jury came back with a verdict.

Woman: We, the jury, find the defendant,

Theodore Robert Bundy, guilty of murder in the first degree.

Man: He was guilty on all counts and the sentence was death.

It is the sentence of this court that you,

Theodore Robert Bundy, be sentenced to death

for the murder of Kimberly Diane Leach.

When they recommended death and that decision was announced,

Bundy screamed at them in the courtroom.

Man: Ted Bundy sits on Florida's death row.

I think I stand about as much chance of dying

in front of a firing squad or in a gas chamber

as you do being killed in a plane flight home,

because it's not going to happen.

Man: His lawyers claim Bundy is mentally incompetent

and therefore cannot be executed under Florida law.

It's time to end it now. He took their life.

Shouldn't he give his?

I kept thinking of Margaret and Lisa,

how their lives would have been, could have been wonderful,

and it upset me that he took that away.

And he kept getting stays.

Different judges gave him stays for a number of years.

The U.S. appellate court ruling marks the second time

Florida has tried to execute Ted Bundy,

and the second time it's been blocked.

Woman: I was just feeling,

"Well, the judges that give him stays

should have their daughter date him."

Woman: Ted realized that he had information

that law enforcement wanted.

Man: That's when we received the call

that he wanted to talk to us.

Man: Bundy has spent the past few days

confessing to up to 20 murders in several states.

We have enough information to know that it was pure evil.

Man: Now he was bargaining for his life.

But he also threatened to withhold information.

Ted Bundy was now a resident of Florida's death row.

Despite being convicted of three murders

and suspected in dozens more,

he continued to proclaim his innocence.

Then, after nearly ten years of appeals,

Ted Bundy began to talk.

His death row confessions, next time,

oh "How it Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper. Thanks for watching.