All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S03E04_English

♪♪

I'm satisfied with my blanket
statement that I'm innocent.

No man is truly innocent.

I mean, we all have transgressed
in some way in our lives, and as

I say, I've been impolite and
there are things I

regret having done in my life,

but nothing like the things I
think the jury are referring to.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

In 1980, the name Ted Bundy was
one of the most recognized

in America, but for all the
wrong reasons.

The charismatic former law
student was facing

the electric chair for the
brutal murders

of two sorority sisters and a
12-year-old girl in Florida.

Bundy was also suspected in
dozens of additional murders

across the country, but always
maintained his innocence.

Now in a fight to save his own
life,

Bundy launched a series of
appeals from death row.

Would it work?

Here's how it really happened.

♪♪

WOMAN: A wave of fear swept all
across the state of Washington

from January to July of 1974

when someone was abducting young
women.

Witnesses told of a
smooth-talking, good-looking

young man named Ted, who'd been
seen talking with them.

Police released a composite
drawing and description of Ted.

The newspaper put the composite
out and my friend threw

the picture on the table, the
composite, and she said

to me,
"Who do you think that is?"

I said, "Well, it's Ted.
Why?"

And then she burst into tears

because that looked a lot like
her boyfriend, Ted Bundy.

A lot like him.

There was nothing that would
lead me to think

that he was a violent man.

Ted was born in a home for unwed
mothers in Vermont in 1946.

Bundy's mother, she was a single
mother.

Ted, being the oldest and you
might say my pride and joy,

our relationship was always very
special.

A very normal active boy.

He did all the things that most
boys like to do.

MAN: Theodore Robert Bundy
at age 25,

a Republican campaign worker in
Seattle;

at 28, a University of Utah
law student.

SULLIVAN: Bundy was someone who
was surging ahead in life,

seemed to have a lot going for
him.

His friends would even say,

"Now, there's somebody that's
going to make a mark in life."

They were right about that,

but not in the way that they
thought.

MAN:
Theodore Bundy was convicted of
murder in the 1978 killings

of two sorority sisters and a
12-year-old girl.

The FBI says he is a suspect in
the sex-related murders

or disappearance of more than 30
other women in four states

between 1974 and 1978.

People have said he was evil.

I think he was just a savage,
feral, wild monster

that that was loose on
humankind.

MAN: Lynda Ann Healy,
19-year-old Donna Manson,

Kathy Parks,
22-year-old Brenda Ball,

18-year-old Georgann Hawkins,
Janice Ott,

18-year-old Denise Naslund,
Susan Rancourt.

She had gone cross campus to a
meeting,

and she never came back.

SULLIVAN:
He was very big on using the
ruse of a helpless person

and Bundy depended on good, kind
women

with good hearts helping him.

This guy came up and asked me to
help him

put his sailboat onto his car.

PACKER: He looks clean cut.

You're only going to help for
two or three minutes and then,

bam, you're in the car, and a
couple hours later, you're dead.

♪♪

It really hit me like a ton of
bricks because I knew

if I had made that wrong
decision, it could have been me.

MAN: Young ladies began to
disappear in Utah.

More disappearances, this time
in Colorado.

SULLIVAN: He was smart.

He really was, and he did
everything he could

to gain advantage over people
and situations.

MAN: Prosecutors convicted Bundy
not of murder,

but of attempted kidnapping and
sent him to prison.

He managed to escape from jail
twice.

MAN:
Bundy, who had been awaiting
trial for the January 12, 1975,

murder of a Michigan nurse near
Aspen, Colorado, escaped

from a Colorado jail
on December 31, 1977.

He's got $700 with him, that's a
lot of money back then,

caught a flight to Chicago.

From Chicago, he took a train to
Ann Arbor,

went through Nashville, went
down to Atlanta,

took a Trailways bus to
Tallahassee,

and the circus began in Florida.

MAN: Two Florida state sorority
sisters were strangled to death

and three others brutally beaten
with a club

the morning of January 15, 1978.

Bundy had entered through an
unlocked door on the first floor

of the Chi Omega sorority house,
had gone up the back stairs.

I woke up to being attacked.

There was blood everywhere.

The next thing I remember, I was
in the hospital.

We were just so overwhelmed with
grief.

Complete and utter shock, we --
we still don't believe it.

It just can't be.

MAN: This is no ordinary murder
trial.

The case of Ted Bundy, a man
suspected of murdering

two Florida state coeds and
beating three others

a year and half ago, has caught
the attention

of the national press.

During a court recess the
defendant, Theodore Bundy,

who was partially acting as his
own attorney,

examined some of the evidence.

Now he got to be his own lawyer
in the most celebrated

and widely watched trial in
Florida history.

He strutted and preened

and he loved to cross-examine
witnesses.

BUNDY: Before I forget to ask
the $64,000 question,

"Did you have a search warrant
to search my car?"

No, sir.

Putting yourself in position of
being your own counsel,

you're going to do it because
the person you're representing

is innocent.

WOMAN:
Bundy said he was hopeful and
optimistic jurors

would see things his way.

They did not.

This court is hereby imposing
the death penalty

upon the defendant,
Theodore Robert Bundy.

BUNDY: I don't even like to
think of that day.

I heard my mother crying.

It's just impossible.
It's wrong.

When we was sentenced to death,
my gut feeling was

he'll never hurt anyone ever
again.

I don't think it will be over
really for any of us

until they finally execute him.

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: Ted Bundy sits on Florida's
death row convicted

of the brutal murders

of two Florida State University
sorority sisters

and a 12-year-old
Lake City girl.

JORDAN:
After being given the death
penalty twice, Ted Bundy became

a resident of death row, and
then, of course,

he started his appeals process.

When the death warrant, the
first one, was signed

for Ted Bundy, he had a petition
pending

in the Supreme Court, but the
Supreme Court doesn't like

to deal with clients who
represent themselves,

so I agreed to do it.

Mr. Bundy was denied a fair
trial.

JORDAN: He argued that he had
been denied his right

to a fair trial because of, all
things, ineffective counsel.

The irony of that, of course, is
that Ted Bundy acted

as his own counsel.

I mean, there must have been a
kind of theatrical thrill

for him getting to play lawyer
after washing out

as a law student.

He was playing lawyer, and he
wasn't aware

of what the consequences were
going to be.

Just let go of me.

Mr. Bundy spent a good deal of
his time

essentially intoxicated.

MAN: The alcohol was found in
the cans of V8 juice.

What?

CHINO: Ted was a handsome guy.

I kind of found it interesting
to watch him litigate.

It was Ted, typical Ted.

The -- his movements, the way he
looked.

He always would look, sort of,

like this when he was in the
thing.

It was Ted, you know.

The Ted I knew, anyway.

I just think that he was
egotistical

and didn't want to be wrong
about anything.

BAILIFF: Please be seated.
Court will come to order.

He just felt like no attorney
was as good as he was.

MAN: Bundy employed as many as
14 defense attorneys,

and even represented himself at
times.

His attorneys now say that
representation was ineffective

and are asking for a new trial.

The ineffective counsel claim
was rejected

by the higher courts, so Ted's
lawyers brought a claim

of mental incompetence.

I'm not going through this, and
you knew that, Your Honor.

JUDGE: Sit down.

You know how far you could push
me.

MAN: His lawyers claim Bundy is
mentally incompetent

and therefore, cannot be
executed under Florida law.

And this was something that Ted
Bundy had absolutely fought

against and rejected in his
first two trials.

Because Bundy had an ego and had
had some legal training,

he would not allow his defense
attorneys to do that.

But now that his life was on the
line,

he was willing to offer it.

COLEMAN:
In fact, he didn't object, he
didn't argue against it

because I think at that point,
he realized that, you know,

now you can actually get
executed, so, you know,

you got to decide, do you want
to live

or do you want to be the star of
your reality program.

Ted Bundy's behavior had become
increasingly bizarre

in the Kimberly Leach trial.

Mr. Bundy spent a good deal of
his time,

essentially intoxicated.

The alcohol was found in the
cans of V8 juice,

resealable 16-ounce cans
of V8 juice.

There were several, small
containers we found out later

were mixed with vodka.

I'll be darned.
I didn't know that.

During the death penalty phase
of our trial,

Bundy actually did closing
argument with the jury.

Ted decided to take the lead
role in trying

to convince the jury to spare
his life.

And so there's this great
photograph,

and I have a copy of the paper
from the Orlando Sentinel

with Bundy talking to the jury.

DEKLE: As he stood there
with his bowtie

and he spread
his arms out like this,

and he compared himself
to Jesus Christ.

JORDAN:
The most baffling moment was
when Ted questioned

Carole Boone, and he called her
as a character witness.

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

when they worked in the same
office in Seattle, Washington.

Some have called her his
girlfriend.

Let me put it this way.

I don't think that Ted belongs
in jail.

THOMPSON:
She was in contact with Ted
daily.

He would give her instructions
for the defense team

and we were to carry out his
instructions.

She was quite forceful in making
us do these things

that Ted wanted done.

She cooked up an idea that he
would call her as a witness

in the penalty phase of the
trial.

He used the penalty phase of the
trial, when the jury is

considering whether he should be
sentenced to death,

to get married.

Very well thought-out plan.

They had the blood test.
They had the marriage license.

Somewhere, they recruited a
notary public to come sit

in the audience and wait for
Bundy

to pronounce him and
Carole Boone man and wife.

I think it was pragmatic.

They needed to have a court
proceeding and so this was going

to be a legally binding
marriage, and the only way they

could do it was in the
courtroom.

MAN: And he asked her, you know,
"Do you love me?"

And she said, "Oh, yes.
I do."

And he said, "I love you."

And we just, you know, were
hanging on each question.

MAN:
He said, "Will you marry me?"

And she said, "Yes, I will."

I hereby marry you, and we're
going, "What?"

And he said, "I now pronounce us
man and wife,"

and the notary public signed the
marriage license, and by golly,

they were married right there in
the middle of the penalty phase.

MAN:
Bundy's attorneys claim that in
itself should have raised

a red flag about his mental
condition.

They agreed with us that there
was sufficient evidence

of Bundy's incompetence that we
were entitled to a hearing.

MAN:
The three-judge panel issued the
stay of execution

without comment.

JORDAN: For three years Ted
Bundy's attorney, James Coleman,

argued his case all the way from
the state appellate court to the

Supreme Court, and he succeeded
in winning

three stays of execution.

But in January of 1989,

the clock ran down on the fourth
death warrant.

He wanted to live.

I'm at the Florida state prison,
going to interview Ted Bundy.

Ted realized that he had
information

that law enforcement wanted.

That's when we received the call
that he wanted to talk to us.

WOMAN:
Ted Bundy, a onetime law student

who became one of the FBI's
ten most wanted,

stands convicted of three
murders and is still suspected

in more than 30 others.

Nearly nine years ago, Bundy
made tape recordings

in his Florida jail cell for two
authors who chronicled

his criminal career.

Bundy was emotional about
hearing reports of his case.

MAN: Bundy has been in Florida's
state prison

on death row
for nearly 10 years.

He has been sentenced to death
four times in old sparky,

the state's electric chair.

It was very disappointing to me
that this guy had, you know,

not received a fair trial.

What's ahead for convicted
murderer Theodore Bundy now

is a long appeals process.

COLEMAN: What we have to do is
to prepare to litigate

in three or four courts at the
same time.

I called it litigation at the
speed of light.

That's what it felt like.

This is the second death warrant
the governor has signed

for Ted Bundy.

We would file in the circuit
court --

He's entitled to a new sentence.

-- in the Florida
Supreme Court --

Ted should be dead.

I think he's been on death row a
little bit too long.

-- Federal District Court.

WOMAN: A state prison van took
convicted killer Ted Bundy

back to death row.

We went large and appealed in
the 11th Circuit.

And then we went large and
application

for a stay in the Supreme Court.

He appeared to be rational and
he made arguments, but much

of what he did even at the
hearing undermined his defense.

MAN: Although Bundy managed to
avoid one of Governor Graham's

death warrants, another is
imminent.

RUBIN:
And he kept getting stays.

Different judges gave him stays
for a number of years.

MAN: 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.

He represents what's worst about
the system

and why you have capital
punishment,

to get rid of those who engage
in heinous crimes

that takes somebody else's life.

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.

It's time to end it now.

He took their life, shouldn't he
give his?

I was just feeling, well -- the
judges, they give him stays,

should have their daughter date
him.

MAN: The life or death of
convicted murderer Ted Bundy

is now in the hands of the
Florida Supreme Court.

From the start of 1989, Ted
Bundy and his lawyers had been

successful in three stays of
execution, but the fourth death

warrant scheduled for Tuesday,
January 24, 1989, was looming.

♪♪

COLEMAN:
When we got the last warrant, I
think that there was an enormous

pressure on the judges,
especially, to not allow

this person to get out of a
conviction.

MAN: Are you tired this is going
on for so long?

Absolutely.

I don't think the public being
fed up has anything to do

with whether we ought to pursue
Constitutional claims.

That's the way the system works.

I think the end is drawing very
near,

and the final chapter on Ted
Bundy is about to be written.

I went up and talked to his
mother a couple times.

I felt very sorry for her.

We gave him a good upbringing,
and something has happened

to him sometime since he left
this house that has

triggered some terrible madness
inside of him.

She just simply could not even
comprehend it, and was,

for a better word, she was a
basket case.

I guess it's been going on for
so long that we have,

little by little, been realizing
that this was going to happen,

eventually, and I won't say I
really accept it,

but I know it's going to happen,
and we've just have

to learn to live with it.

Every mom wants their child to
be a success.

Every mom, and to see this
happen was,

I'm sure, it's what killed her
as time went by.

THOMAS: It was very sad for me
to know that he had a mother

that loved him so much, and he
seemed like

such a handsome man and with
such a future and it's shocking.

It's a shocking story.

MAN: Bundy was described by
prison officials as becoming

increasingly nervous as his
execution approached.

He was quiet most of the time.

He seemed a little depressed at
times.

It appeared to me that he
realizes

that there's only a few hours
left.

With the clock ticking, James
Coleman continued pleading

the case in court, but what he
didn't know was at the exact

same time, Ted Bundy was
pleading his case

from death row.

COLEMAN: We were still trying to
get the execution stopped.

I went to Tallahassee to argue
in the Supreme Court,

and when I got off the plane,
the headlines were

that Ted Bundy had confessed to
12 murders, and I knew

at that point that, you know, we
don't have a chance.

MAN:
Bundy has confessed to murders
in Western states in the past

few days in interviews with law
enforcement officials.

I'm sure his whole strategy was
just to give us a little

to nibble on, and that in hopes
we'd try and get a stay for him.

I've been told that, you know,

the parents of these girls are
fairly decent people.

I don't know, and I really feel
for them because apparently

they suffered some --

an incredible tragedy
in their lives.

The loss of a loved one is
probably the most extreme kind

of loss you can suffer in this
life, and I say I feel as much

for them as anybody can.

Welcome back to
"How it Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

By 1989, Ted Bundy had been on
Florida death row for 10 years

proclaiming his innocence while
his attorneys fought to overturn

his murder convictions.

His legal team had won three
stays of execution,

but now Bundy's luck was running
out.

As his date with the electric
chair approached, Bundy called

investigators from across the
country offering to confess to

some unsolved cases and finally
tell them how he really did it.

♪♪

He started to meet with the
police,

and he was doing it in secret.

My view was, if he wanted to
disclose where bodies

were buried, then he should do
that and not place

any conditions on it.

I think that he saw a way to
possibly try to save his life.

MAN: Bob Keppel worked at
getting a confession

from Ted Bundy for years.

I went down to Florida to
interview him

on three separate occasions, and
we used the interviews

in 1984 as a way for
him to talk about

what he would do if he were the
killer.

And then in '88, it was more
like getting him ready

to talk to us again.

MAN: When Keppel went to Florida
nearly one year ago,

he was still playing Bundy's
game trying to get

any information on
the Washington murders.

KEPPEL: We'd already come to the
conclusion a long time ago

that he was the one that did
them.

The last interview with him was
the most telling.

He was supposed to have had some
spiritual change.

I'm very skeptical of that.

I don't buy that at all, but to
all the investigators,

he did give it up.

KEPPEL: That was the first time,
that I know of,

that he's admitted any murders
to anyone,

and after hearing some of the
details of what he's done,

I can understand why it's
difficult

because they're not particularly
pleasant.

MAN: Bundy, delivering details
about the murder

of Georgann Hawkins --

MAN: The night of June 10th,
18-year-old Georgann Hawkins

left a fraternity to make this
walk just 90 feet

down a well-lit alley back to
her sorority

at the University of Washington.

MAN: Bundy told Keppel he found
Hawkins walking

in a U-district alley about
midnight.

I asked him if he killed the two
girls

at Lake Sammamish State Park,
and he said, "Yes."

I asked him if he killed
Brenda Ball.

He said, "Yes."

WINTERS: And he said with Sue
that he rendered her unconscious

and took her to an orchard.

We know that much, but that's --

we don't need to know what he
did.

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

WOMAN: Ted Bundy was infamous as
an intelligent

and handsome charmer, a highly
likable boy next door.

KENDALL:
When I would think about our
day-to-day relationship,

there was nothing there that
would lead me to think

that he was capable of doing
something like that,

and that's the split that I
think had everybody baffled.

He confessed to my friend and
told her all the stuff outright.

And then a day later, he calls
her back and said,

"What you think you heard, you
didn't hear right."

LLOYD: This man felt nothing.

With all the people he'd done
in, with all the harm he'd done,

he still felt nothing, so there
was nothing to say sorry for

because he didn't feel sorry.

MAN: Bundy lived in Washington
until late 1974

building a promising career in
politics.

At the same time he came to law
school in Salt Lake City,

young ladies began to disappear
in Utah.

I dealt with him a little bit
back in 1975

when we had him on some charges
up in Salt Lake.

I really will be surprised if he
does talk to us,

but I am here just in the chance
that he might.

Bundy admitted to the homicide
and kidnapping

of the Kent girl from up in
Bountiful.

MAN: Debbie was attending a play
with her family

at Viewmont High School on the
night of November 8, 1974.

She left the play early to pick
up her brother at an ice rink.

SULLIVAN:
He said he dumped Debbie Kent's
body off at, I think,

it's Fairview, Utah, and they
did find a patella, a portion,

I guess, of the kneecap.

They turned it over
to the Kent family.

You know, as a mother, I don't
think until you lose a child

you ever know the pain and the
hurt that it is.

SULLIVAN:
He murdered these women.

Sometimes he would rape them
before, but a lot of times

he would like to have sex with
them after they were dead.

So he was -- he was a
necrophile,

but he never liked talking about
that.

JORDAN: Ted Bundy not only
offered information on where

investigators might find the
victims' remains, but he also

offered clues as to why they had
trouble with certain kinds

of evidence, such as the murder
weapons.

Ted didn't leave much of a trail
behind.

McCHESNEY:
In the end, it frustrated and
irritated and probably even

angered many of the law
enforcement officials.

At one point, it was,
"You're done."

♪♪

We started to prepare him for
the execution.

REGISTER: He was, I think, quite
terrified when he came in.

He was puckered.

MAN: Ted Bundy may finally die
Tuesday morning

after over 10 years
on death row.

Ted Bundy reached out to
investigators in Colorado, Utah,

and Washington State, offering
them information on those open,

unsolved cases as a bargaining
chip trying

to save his own life.

Bundy confessed
to around 20 murders.

He was linked to dozens more.

He confessed to killing people
they didn't even know were dead.

He confessed to killing some
hitchhiker out West and told

them where the body was buried,
and they called local law

enforcement, and lo and behold,
there was a body there.

He was coming clean, and he was
also very tired.

Ted was not the bold, defiant
individual

that we have observed on TV.

He was a defeated person.

Approximately an hour into the
interview,

he began to break down and cry,
and stated that he was sorry.

But he also threatened to
withhold information.

Bundy's attorneys were notifying
the parents

that if we could write a letter
to the governor and ask,

like, for a stay, you know, of
execution,

he would tell everything,
and I remember thinking,

"If I do write to the governor,

Bundy might lie
about everything."

For him to be negotiating for
his life

over the bodies of victims is
despicable.

McCHESNEY:
The risk of that sort of a
bargain with the devil,

if you will, is that they're
going

to give you false information.

They're going to send you on
tangents.

They're going to just mislead
you in 100 ways,

only so that they can benefit by
postponing the inevitable,

in his case,
which was execution.

SULLIVAN: He was hoping that it
would create more time,

in Bundy's mind, three months,
six months.

He just wanted to hold on to his
life.

KATSARIS: That's all he had left
was to bargain.

He tried to blame it on
pornography, for example.

MAN: California religious
broadcaster and psychologist

Dr. James Dobson interviewed
Bundy Monday afternoon.

You were with Ted Bundy before
he was electrocuted

by the state of Florida, were
you not?

I was.

He wanted me to get -- have the
last interview --

KING: What was that like?

-- and he wanted to confess and
explain why he felt he got

into trouble, and he wanted to
talk about pornography, and what

it had done in his life.

BUNDY: Like an addiction, you
keep craving something,

which is harder, harder,
something which gives you

a greater sense of
excitement,

until you reach the point where
the pornography

only goes so far.

SULLIVAN: Pornography does a lot
of negative things, especially

to relationships and marriages,
but one thing it doesn't do;

it does not cause people to
slaughter women

and cut off their heads.

Bundy is just trying to pass the
blame on why he's the way he is.

THOMPSON: It was not going to
make a bit of difference.

Once you do confess to all those
things, then it's hard to say,

you know,
"Florida, don't do this."

On January 24, at 7:00 A.M., the
death warrant will be in effect.

You don't negotiate with a
murderer.

♪♪

Attorney General called and
said,

"It's going to happen this
time."

Execution is, you know, going to
happen.

MAN:
Ted Bundy sits in this wing of
the Florida state prison 30 feet

from the electric chair where
he's scheduled to die.

I had worked a long, hard time
seeing to it

that he got executed and seeing
it through to the end was

attending his execution.

MAN: Mike Vasilinda --

We were supposed to be at the
prison at 4:00 or 4:30.

The van picked us up.
They took us over.

We were taken to the execution
chamber.

REGISTER: But for a glass wall,
we could have reached out

and touched him on the knee.

He was that close, and, you
know, he was,

I think, quite terrified when he
came in.

He was puckered.

COLEMAN: They sat him down in
the chair, and they started

to prepare him for the
execution.

He looked more disoriented than
defiant.

He asked me and the minister to
tell his family

that he loved them.

MAN: The beginning of the end
for Ted Bundy came

when the prison's generator was
started

to power the electric chair's
2,000 volts.

Lights outside death row
flickered,

and Bundy's life winked out.

Tell you what I heard said when
the execution was accomplished,

"That was too easy.

They ought to bring him back and
do it again 30 more times.

That was too easy for what he
had done."

We got a call saying that, you
know, it was over,

that he had been electrocuted,

and we knew before everyone on
television.

At 7:16 this morning, the doctor
at Florida state prison

pronounced Theodore Bundy dead.

I cried, just wailed, and I
think it was

for Lisa and Margaret more than
for me.

McCAIN: You never, you know, get
over that pain.

You never get -- healing is a
huge process, and a part

of your heart is always broken,
but yes,

I think there was a sense that,
you know, justice had been done.

Ted has gotten just exactly what
he deserved.

If anybody ever fit the death
penalty as such, Ted Bundy did.

MAN: Then a hearse carrying a
metal pauper's coffin

with Bundy's body inside left
the prison.

I was awake until they drove him
out.

I just -- I started to cry and
my nose,

it was just like my -- I was
relieved in such a sense

that I could relax now after all
these years.

And on the -- across the street
from the prison

on the right, cheers went up and
people were celebrating.

♪ Hey, hey, hey, good-bye ♪
Yeah!

COLEMAN: People were cheering
for the execution of a person

who had been denied the rights
that our system guarantees,

and nobody cared.

WINTERS: That was such a hard
thing for us.

So hard for us to say, you know,
"You need to die,"

but he had to be stopped.
We knew that.

I think if he wouldn't have been
stopped, he'd have kept killing.

The morning after the execution,
a Seattle television station

came and we did the interview,
and towards

the end, she said, "I have
Mrs. Bundy listening to you.

Is there anything you want to
say to her?"

WOMAN: In a quiet corner
of the Lake City cemetery

lies a shy, sweet,
12-year-old girl.

Kim Leach was abducted from her
school here almost 11 years ago.

After Ted Bundy there was a
realization that no matter where

you live or who you are, you
know, you can be a victim.

MAN: Bundy had beaten the
electric chair for 10 years

on death row until Tuesday.

Theodore Bundy was executed at
7:16 this morning

in the electric chair at Florida
state prison.

When Ted Bundy got executed, I,
as well as many others,

thought, "Hooray."

He got what he deserved.

The fact that he could kill
these innocent young women

just sees so far beyond even
one's imagination.

GOOD: I think he got the justice
that he deserved.

Not that I'm advocating for the
death penalty, but there didn't

seem to be any alternative for
someone who had done such

horrific things to so many
people

and especially to my friend.

A federal judge called Bundy the
most competent serial killer

in the country; a diabolical
genius, a life of brutality,

murder and deceit, a life that
ended this morning

as an unsolved mystery.

The morning after the execution,
a Seattle television station

came and we did the interview,
and towards the end,

she said, "I have Mrs. Bundy
listening to you.

Is there anything you want to
say to her?"

And I told her that we were so
sorry that this had to happen,

and she talked back to me that I
never wanted this to be true.

I just never thought it would be
true.

He was our much-beloved son, and
we can't --

we didn't raise him to be this
kind of person.

She was hurting.
Oh, my goodness.

I had a daughter like Sue, and I
have all those golden memories,

and what did she have?

What did she take to her grave?

Shame and disappointment, guilt,
heartache.

MAN: We all share in the shame
of Ted Bundy -- Tacoma,

the University district, the
east side of Lake Sammamish

where he conducted a couple of
the murders,

Olympia, Ellensburg, Utah,
Colorado, Florida.

I think there was a
determination

to not be a victim, to not let
an individual try to strip you

of that kind of future.

I try not to ever let it define
me, but it's still a part of me.

There was nothing that he did

that was going to stop any part
of my life.

I had too much to go for, too
many things I wanted to do.

I didn't want to be held back.

You just got to keep going
because there's going

to be another hurdle in front of
you and you can't let

any one of them keep you down.

Your best revenge is a life well
lived, so go for it.

Be your best self and make your
life wonderful.

I just want to be sure the women
are not forgotten that did die.

It's sad that they never had the
opportunity to live their lives.

My sister Sue, people knew her

when she was alive and pretty
and healthy,

and that's what I want her to be
remembered as.

You don't ever put those you
love out of your heart

and your mind.

They're there.

I don't believe in the word
"closure" for victims' families.

There isn't any closure.

It's an open wound that scars
over, but it's there,

and she'll always be in our
life.

Bundy took one final mystery to
the grave with him;

why he became one of history's
worst mass killers.

What shocked Tallahassee, what
shocked Florida,

what shocked the nation, was the
boy next door was a monster,

and nobody knew it.

He told me that he was sick,
that there was a force

within him that he tried to
fight and tried to contain,

but that it just kept building
and building,

and it made him do the things
that he did.

I'm not sure exactly how many he
actually confessed to.

The FBI has figured around 35.

There is some hint that there
might have been a lot more.

To him, it's a big
hunt-and-chase game,

and the fear and the terror is
overwhelmingly exciting.

THOMPSON: I guess it's a Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;

that notion has been around for
a long time.

You have a person who on one
moment appears to be

an affable, decent, intelligent
fellow that you like

to spend time with, and the next
moment, he's, you know,

severing some woman's head
and visiting her dead body.

And how do you put those things
together?

BUNDY: I hear Ted Bundy in so
many different contexts.

You did create
a media image of me

that's far beyond the reality of
me.

I'm not going to try to please
people or impress people,

because, quite frankly, the
amount of bias and prejudice

that surrounds me as a media
image,

I can't begin to tear down.

♪♪

After admitting to 36 murders,
Ted Bundy's reign of terror

ended with his execution was on
January 24, 1989.

His heartbroken mother, Louise,
lived for another 22 years.

She passed away in 2012.

The identity of Ted's biological
father has never been revealed.

The Chi Omega sorority has
created a scholarship fund

in the name of fallen sisters,
Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy.

Susan Rancourt's mother, Vivian
said her daughter

was always smiling and kind to
everyone.

Susan's family has dedicated a
memorial garden in her name

at Central Washington
University.

I'm Hill Harper.

Thanks for watching.