I was happy to answer yes. If the center Pierce envisioned had alerted us at once about the Melissa Smith and Laura Aime homicides in the autumn of 1974, I said, we could have easily consulted our “Ted” Top 100 Suspects file to see which of them had left town for Utah. Bundy’s name would have popped up nearly at once. We would have isolated him that autumn, instead of the succeeding August, and yes, lives would have been saved.
Brooks brought me into his campaign as a consultant, and I attended two organizational meetings in 1983 before it became apparent that the FBI intended to co-opt Pierce’s project. The Bureau has extraordinary resources, and it was in a position to make Pierce’s dream come true. But every police detective knows the FBI also is resented, indeed hated, among many local police agencies that because of past, or perceived, slights will have nothing to do with the Bureau. Since I believed the national center needed the full, enthusiastic cooperation of local law enforcement everywhere in order to succeed, operating it under FBI auspices seemed a poor plan.
The project moved ahead without me and a group of like-minded police detectives. VICAP, located at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, went live in June of 1985. Pierce Brooks, its first program manager, died in 1998.
***
By late 1983, the Green River Killer’s victim list was up to 13, but the suspicion was growing within the sheriff’s office that he was good for perhaps 34 more dead prostitutes. The ill-advisedness of leaving Dave Reichert to manage the murder investigation alone by now was evident to all.
That autumn, the Seattle newspapers reported the growing body count with alarm and demanded in their editorial pages that the investigative effort be intensified. The new sheriff, Vern Thomas, whose administrative competence I admired, did just that at the turn of the year. Vern announced a new Green River Murders Task Force, under the direction of Captain Frank Adamson, with a staff of 50, including 25 detectives, among them Reichert. Dave was grateful the cavalry had ridden to his rescue but disappointed not to be named their leader.
Sheriff Thomas asked me to serve as a full-time consultant to the task force, with the particular responsibility to act as an advisor to Captain Adamson, who had no background in detective work but who had supervised internal investigations in the past. One of my specific assignments from Adamson was to brief the media on the complexities and difficulties of a serial-murder investigation, helping them to appreciate – perhaps – the enormity of this undertaking.
Six bodies were recovered in 1982, seven more in 1983 at wooded dump sites that dotted the region around Sea-Tac, as well as both sides of Pacific Highway South. The killer did not return to his dump site on the river in Kent to deposit any more victims. In fact, he stayed away from any part of the Green River with his dead victims ever since.
Then came a rush of discoveries, mostly bones, in early 1984. From the middle of March to the end of May 10 more dead prostitutes were found in his various dump sites around the area.
The story was now attracting media attention from all over the world, as an international audience apparently wanted to watch us tramping around crime scene after crime scene on their evenings news. It seemed as if everyone had taken an interest in our problem, including a uniquely knowledgeable individual then receiving his mail at Box 747 in Starke, Florida.
Bundy's Florida Prison mug shot, Convicted serial killer Theodore image courtesy of AP Images.
Chapter Seven
‘I am playing no games with you’
“Dear Task Force Members,” Bundy began his first letter. It was a six-pager, dated October 2, 1984. “I have some information which I think could prove useful in apprehending the person or persons responsible for what are referred to as the Green River murders. Before I provide such information, however, I need your assurances that this letter, as well as any subsequent communications we may have, will be held in the strictest of confidence. I do not want anyone outside your Task Force, especially members of the news media, to become aware of my offer to help and the nature of the help, should you accept it.”
There was no one on earth I less expected to hear from than Ted Bundy, nor anyone whose word I trusted less. I laughed as I read, “My offer of assistance is made sincerely and honestly.” He was up to something, but what?
Ted went on to explain in his soon-to-be-familiar looping scrawl that he was now receiving the Tacoma News Tribune by mail and that a recent article in the paper describing the discovery of a young woman’s body in Pierce County “was far more detailed and evocative” than anything he’d read before about the Green River cases. “It was without any conscious effort on my part,” he continued, “that the TNT’s accounts… aroused some vivid impressions about the behavior of the person or persons responsible for this series of murders.…”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the sort of arousal Ted was describing to us.
However, lest we hope — as we immediately did — that this might finally be an opening to discuss Ted’s own murder career in the northwest, Bundy said he was willing to talk face-to-face with an investigator “but only about the Green River matter.” (The underlining was his.) “I am playing no games with you. We will handle this thing in a straightforward manner or we don’t handle it at all.”
Of course he was playing games with us. But I was curious to learn what these games might be. As it turned out, the letter was Ted’s opening gambit in an elaborate scheme to save – or at least prolong – his life, and we, the task force, were to be his pawns.
The letter arrived from Florida’s Death Row via Tom Swayze, a Republican superior court judge in Tacoma whom Ted knew from his campaigning days. A Seattle PD detective, Ed Striedinger, was dispatched to retrieve it from Swayze, which meant that we didn’t see it right away.
Bundy chafed at the delay and scribbled a second note, date October 15. This one he routed through John Henry Browne, a Seattle defense attorney Ted knew from his days as a suspect and defendant. Ted wrote that since he’d so far heard nothing from Judge Swayze or us, he feared his first letter might have gone astray and so would repeat its essential points. “I know your man in a way that facts alone cannot accomplish,” he said, a difficult proposition to deny, but not necessarily one of practical interest to me. “I do not know his face, but I have some pretty good ideas on where you can look to see him for yourselves.”
His tone was urgent; it appeared that in Bundy’s mind much depended on us accepting his offer.
“There are many reasons why I want to see if I can be of some help to you,” he wrote. “I won’t claim some noble, civic-minded motivation. Basically, the case has really begun to intrigue me. But I’m sure it intrigues lots of people. The difference is that I have knowledge and a point of view to add to your case investigation like no one else does.”
Again, we couldn’t quibble with that, but so what?
Captain Adamson doubted that Ted had anything of much value to tell us about the Green River cases, and I didn’t disagree. But he okayed the trip, to be taken in conjunction with a previously scheduled official visit to Atlanta, largely in the hope, which I shared, that despite Bundy’s stern warnings we might finally get to talk about his own string of murders.
It was decided that Dave Reichert, who knew the details of the Green River cases, would accompany me to the prison.
We once again contacted Dr. John Liebert, this time for tactical advice in managing the interview with Bundy. The psychiatrist had a couple of suggestions. To help establish an empathetic connection, Liebert said to repeat some of Ted’s phrases back to him. The repetition of his own words would act almost like a cue to reassure Bundy and keep him on track.
Liebert also shared a technique for “shaping” Ted’s attention. If he started wandering off into topics of no interest, I was to look away and yawn. Bundy would soon pick up that if he wanted my sympathetic attention and interest, he better stay focused on subjects that interested Dave and me.
Maintaining control of eye contact was important
, too, said Liebert. He told me to keep Ted in a steady gaze. If he averted his eyes, I was to continue looking straight at him, a signal that I was in charge and there would be no funny business.
“Dear Ted,” I wrote him on October 16, “This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter…Your request that any communications we may have be kept in ‘strictest of confidence’ is absolutely honored.”
I informed him that a trip to Florida in November was possible and concluded, “I respect your statement of ‘playing no games,’ and, frankly, playing games with you is presumptuous on my part and a waste of my time. I am interested in what is useful in resolving the Green River killings and what your contribution is. We will communicate at your request only about the Green River murders and “nothing else.”
Bundy couldn’t wait to get started. Via the FBI office in Jacksonville, Florida, he asked by letter that we provide a variety of study materials for him, from a detailed list of the known victims to date to a collection of reliable press accounts, a regional map, and photos of the killer’s dump sites.
In a third letter to me, dated October 27, he demonstrated across 22 pages a firm grasp of the investigation’s key challenges. “As I’m sure you know,” he wrote, “the Green River murders are hard to investigate because 1, their disappearances are usually not reported ’til days or weeks after they actually disappeared, 2, their movements are often hard to trace, 3, a comprehensive list of their friends and associates is difficult to complete, and 4, in the beginning at least neither the news media nor the police paid the disappearances much attention. All of these conditions are ideal for the Riverman who probably wants attention as much as he wants to get caught, which is not at all.
“Also working in the Riverman’s favor, and one of the reasons he continues to work in the face of an intense investigation and intense publicity is that his victim class continues to provide him with ample candidates. (How many times have you seen a young girl hitch hiking shortly after the well-publicized discovery of another victim?) His victim class is vulnerable because it seems to be comprised of young women who are, in some respects, bolder, harder to intimidate and control, more mobile than most people, as well as being inclined to adopt the it-can’t-happen-to-me attitude people have about crime.”
He elaborated on the next page. “The Riverman,” Bundy wrote, “could theoretically be using many different ways to approach and abduct his victims, and in fact probably has several he uses. You may very well be surprised by the simplicity of his technique, the kind of thing where you’ll say, ‘Why didn’t we think of that before?’ For example, he could be playing the role of cop.…He could be stalking and physically carrying off his victims. He could be doing lots of things.
“However, my initial sense of what is going on is this: The victims, like the public, are looking for the stereotypical Henry Lucas type, the grizzled, older, drifter type with the sunken eyeballs and the lewd demeanor. These girls took steps to avoid such people and any other males they consider ‘strange.’ And for a matter of weeks or months, they developed a confidence they had been ‘successful’ in coming up with defenses adequate to the threat of the Riverman, until they met the Riverman, who fit none of their preconceptions.”
***
It was not in anyone’s interest that our presence or purpose in rural northern Florida be publicly known. To help ensure our anonymity, we went so far as to register both our rooms under Dave’s name at the sumptuous Starke Econo Lodge.
Yet I hadn’t considered Dave’s devotion to physical fitness. He brought his free weights with him to Florida and a ghetto blaster to play his aerobic workout tape as he exercised. It wasn’t long before Reichert was set up on the motel lawn, putting his well-developed physique through a rigorous routine as the motel’s housekeeping staff and others looked on appreciatively. Dave gave the ladies quite a show.
Such an exhibition, they apparently believed, deserved recognition. That night when we returned to the Econo Lodge after dinner, WELCOME DAVE REICHERT shone down on us from the motel’s outdoor reader board.
The nearby prison on State Road 16 rises behind a double chain-link fence, topped with razor wire, in the middle of a broad plain. When we arrived at about three o’clock on Saturday afternoon, November 17, inmate labor gangs were visible at work in the distance.
Assistant Warden Pete Turner took us to a small interview room furnished with a table and three metal chairs. One wall was fitted with a barred window, so that a guard could keep watch on the doings within. After one look at Bundy, however, it was clear that should Ted get rambunctious, Dave and I wouldn’t require much assistance in subduing him. Standing there in his chains and jumpsuit, bent slightly at the waist, he was a ghost of the charismatic, square-shouldered, and supremely self-confident defendant Americans knew from his televised trials in Florida. Bundy was shrunken — skinny, frail-looking and bad smelling — in a word, pathetic. He was about to turn 38 but could have passed for a man of 50 or more.
“Hello, I’m Ted,” he said, shifting his eyes toward the floor as I looked steadily at him. His handshake was limp and warm and wet. I thought the pose was deliberate, that although prison often has a debilitating effect on convicts, Bundy was playing on our sympathies, trying to disarm us with his apparent physical deterioration, just as he’d used slings and crutches to manipulate his victims. I knew that four months earlier he’d been caught in an escape plot that would have required physical and mental daring. Somewhere beneath that wasted exterior lurked all of Ted’s degenerate cunning and nerve.
We started with the fact of the 10 dead prostitutes found in quick succession the previous spring and then pointed out to Bundy that only one more confirmed victim had been added to our list since. Ted also noted from our victim list that there’d been an earlier lull in body discoveries from October of 1983 until the following March.
“Crime scenes,” he said, “are a favorite topic of mine.” Over the next two days he’d make that personal preference manifestly evident.
“It’s kind of fascinating watching some of this unfold,” he went on. “I mean, obviously they’re closely related. What confounds me, though, is the [rate of body discoveries] falls off like it did. I’m not saying he’s stopped. But he’s gotten a lot smarter somehow. Something has changed around October of ’83.”
“Do you think it’s possible this guy could stop?” Dave asked.
“No,” Bundy replied without hesitation. “Not unless he was born again and got filled with the Holy Spirit in a very real way. He’s either moved or dead or he’s doing something very different.
“My feeling is that if he’s changed his victim class just to deal with runaways and delinquents [and] was more careful in the way that he disposed of their bodies, there’s no question that this will explain the apparent drop-off.”
I wasn’t interested in this speculative flight, so as Dr. Liebert had suggested, I looked away and yawned.
Ted reacted at once. “Forgive me,” he said, “if I’m boring you-”
“You’re not,” I replied with a level gaze. Bundy averted his own once more.
He noticed how the killer was ranging further away from the Kent area to dump his victims. One was found in dense woodland off Interstate 90, far east of Seattle. Three were discovered dumped beyond Enumclaw, the high-country community in eastern King County where I’d scored my great triumph in the Slade case.
“You found three bodies in October of ’83,” Bundy remarked, “and that bothered the hell out of him, I’m sure.” Pointing at the Kent area on the map we’d provided, he said, “I’m sure he was starting to get a little bit edgy about leaving any more bodies around in here. It’s no accident that your next bodies start to turn up near Enumclaw.
“He’s trying something different. He moved up east of Enumclaw and he’s going deeper into the mountains. I’ll bet you find four or five more up there. God forbid someday he finds a secluded well somewhere that no one can stumble across and starts dumping the
m all down the well, or some other effective way, or burying them in the basement like the gentleman Gacy.”
Ted typically referred to other serial killers as gentlemen, as if they all belonged to some exclusive club.
I mentioned the first five victims to be discovered and posed a question. “What would you say,” I asked, “if one of the victims wasn’t in the river? She was actually on the bank?”
“Somebody may have surprised him,” Ted replied.
This was our speculation, too.
“I can’t imagine why he didn’t throw her all the way in, because this guy obviously thought that dumping bodies in the river was a good way of getting rid of bodies.” He went on: “A body on the riverbank can also say he wanted to come back and see that victim again. Bizarre, I know, but it could say that.”
This was Ted’s first hint of necrophilia’s central importance to the serial sex killer. I’d hear a lot more from him on this subject.
Terrible Secrets Page 10