Copyright © 2020 Elizabeth Kendall
Molly’s Story copyright © 2020 Molly Kendall
Cover © 2020 Abrams
All photographs courtesy of Elizabeth Kendall
Published in 2020 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951722
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4485-3
eISBN: 978-1-68335-952-4
The material contained in this book is presented only for informational and artistic purposes. In the interest of maintaining the privacy of the individuals whose stories are discussed herein, many names, places, and other identifying characteristics have been changed.
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Molly and I know that we are incredibly fortunate to have each other. As we set about to tell our stories, we begin at a place of remembrance of those who were killed and compassion for the survivors, and for the families of all of Ted’s victims. —EK
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION TO THE UPDATED EDITION
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION
THE PHANTOM PRINCE
AFTERWORD
MOLLY’S STORY
INTRODUCTION TO THE UPDATED EDITION
In May 2017, I learned via the Internet that a new Ted Bundy movie was being made, and the story was going to be told from the perspective of Bundy’s longtime girlfriend. I did a quick Internet search and got twenty-one thousand hits—all announcing the news about “my story” being told in a new Ted Bundy movie. I was stunned. How could they tell my story without ever speaking with me?
It had been a long time since Ted Bundy’s terrible crimes had saturated the media. I had hoped it would stay that way. Sure, his name had become shorthand in popular culture for a person who looks normal but is in fact dangerous. However, aside from the past’s occasional intrusion into the present, I had mostly been able to go about my life without Ted Bundy interfering with my happiness. Now that was all about to change.
Most books and movies had used either a made-up name for me or the pseudonym I used for my book, but a press release for the movie had used my real name. At least what my name had been. I haven’t gone by my old married name of Kloepfer for years, not since Molly was a child. Unfortunately, some still link the name to Ted Bundy.
I began getting inquiries from documentary filmmakers and media outlets, which I referred to my attorney. They assumed that since I had optioned my book to the movie studio, I would be willing to speak with them now. Of course, there had been no book option. Molly and I turned all this over to the attorneys to sort out.
In the meantime, we had many conversations about how to deal with the renewed interest in this part of our lives. On the one hand, we would have been happy if interest in Ted Bundy and his sickness faded away into the nothingness that it deserved. On the other hand, if the story was going to be told again, the only way we could influence the outcome was to work with the film and documentary makers. We decided this was the most empowering way to proceed.
After getting off on the wrong foot initially, the collaboration we had with the film was a good one. We were happy to find that director Joe Berlinger respected and acted upon our input. Everyone associated with the production was kind and treated us well.
We were able to face our fears and watch the finished film. It was well-directed and well-acted. We were left with the feeling that Zac Efron and Lily Collins got it right.
Even so, during the filmmaking process, we realized that with the dramatization of a true story, things must be omitted, condensed, or combined to help the story fit within time constraints. Molly and I decided that it was essential that we tell our story in our own words as we experienced it, which was why we decided to issue this second edition of The Phantom Prince.
This is also what motivated me, after so many years of silence, to participate in the Amazon Original documentary series Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer from director Trish Wood. I was interested in this project because of its emphasis on the viewpoints of many of the women involved in this tragic story. Trish and her crew from Saloon Media in Ontario, Canada, made the trek to Seattle several times with all their gear—cameras, sound equipment, lights, etc.—for interviews. They provided a calm and safe environment to talk about a difficult subject. For these projects, I have used my original pseudonym, Elizabeth Kendall, to spare Molly’s father’s family name further association with Ted’s crimes.
In addition to the original text, you will find many photos of Ted and us from the years of my relationship with him, before the cloud of suspicion appeared on the horizon, as well as photos taken after the point when we now know Ted was abducting and killing young women.
I have written an afterword that follows the original text. I still cared deeply for Ted when I wrote the original book. It took years of work for me to accept who he was and what he had done. I still felt lingering shame that I had loved Ted Bundy. It was healing for me when women started telling their stories of sexual violence and assault as part of the Me Too movement. I could relate to keeping experiences secret for fear of being judged. I could see these women were taking back their power by saying, “This is what happened. It is what it is.” This is true, too, of my past with Ted Bundy.
To close the book, Molly has written an account of her experiences with Ted. This is the first time she has told her story publicly.
Healing and rebuilding our lives after the trauma of knowing how evil and immoral Ted Bundy was has been anything but linear. Often it felt like two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes Molly and I were in sync with our thoughts and feelings about the past, and sometimes we were not. Even so, we knew our love for each other would help us heal, move forward, and never give up.
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION
In writing this book, I have gone through a wide range of feelings towards Ted. At times, the intensity of my love for him scared me. When I thought of some of the happy times we shared, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that he should not be in jail. But by the time I finished my writing, those feelings had turned to outrage that he had coldly, capriciously murdered all those women. It has been seven years since that first cloud of worry passed through my mind and it has been three years since I have known that my fears were true, yet some days it hits me as if for the first time.
In 1974, when the victims were disappearing, I identified with them even though I was older than they were, and I feared for my own safety. Seven years later as I wrote my story, I identified them with my daughter and could imagine the pain Ted Bundy caused their parents and the terrible void left by their deaths.
In spite of all the destruction he has caused around him, I still care what happens to Ted. I have come to accept that a part of me will always love a part of him. He is no longer a part of my day to day life, though. Writing this book has been like having a tumor removed from my brain.
Naively, I thought I would carry the secret of my involvement in Ted’s arrest to the grave, but it wasn’t long after his conviction that reporters, writers, and private investigators began showing up at my office and home, all wit
h their own reason why I should tell them what really happened. I declined. I knew my decisions and motivations would never be understandable unless I told my own story from beginning to end. I thank Dan Levant for giving me that opportunity. I would also like to thank Ann Adams and my attorney, Glenna Hall, for their help. A special thanks to my boss for the moral support he gave me throughout those hard years and for his continued support while I was writing this book.
One of the people who read the book in manuscript said something that disturbed me: “You’re asking people to feel sorry for you. My God, people died! You’re one of the lucky ones—you lived!” I want to answer that. Never did I forget that real women had been murdered for no other reason than they were attractive and friendly. The hideous reality of their deaths became my reality, too. Their tragedy was my trauma. For a long time, I lived with the guilt of wondering if Ted saw me in these women, if killing them was a sick, compulsive effort to kill something he hated in me. I am thankful to have survived, thankful for the chance to work my problems through, thankful for the resiliency God gives humans.
I am also thankful for my parents and my family who love me no matter what, for my eighty-four-year-old aunt who teaches me how to live and love by her example, for my friends who are always there when I need them (and I need them lots), for Hank who helped me break away from a destructive relationship, for Angie who helps me grow spiritually, for my recovery sponsor who made me learn about myself, but most of all for my daughter, who is a very, very special young woman.
CHAPTER ONE
Monday, March 1, 1976. I sat in a cold courtroom in Salt Lake City next to Ted Bundy’s parents. It was snowing outside. Ted sat at the defense table with his attorneys, waiting for the judge to return with the verdict. I stared at the back of Ted’s head, my mind filled with memories of things we had gone through together for the past six years.
Ted Bundy was on trial for the attempted kidnapping of a young woman, Carol DaRonch, from a suburban shopping mall near Salt Lake City. She identified Ted as the man who, posing as a police officer, had lured her into his Volkswagen, handcuffed her, and tried to crush her head with a crowbar. Her attempted abduction had been linked to the disappearances and murders of several young women in the Salt Lake City area. And the Salt Lake murders were linked to eight murders of young women in the Seattle area during the first seven months of 1974.
Ted and I met in Seattle in October 1969, became lovers, and continued an intense relationship until September 1974, when he moved to Salt Lake City. Even now, a year and a half later, we were far from finished with each other. Since the summer of 1974, I had been tormented by fears that Ted was involved in the murders in the Seattle area. Finally, I had gone to the King County Police with my suspicions. They told me they had checked Ted out and eliminated him as a suspect. But I continued to worry, and in January 1975, I talked to the police in Salt Lake City. They also told me he was clear. Now I knew that I had been terribly mistaken, that my Ted could not be guilty of these horrible crimes, but that I had set in motion machinery of the law that could crush out his life.
Judge Stewart Hanson entered, and we all stood. There seemed to be no air in the room.
“I find the defendant, Theodore Robert Bundy, guilty of aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony.”
Ted’s attorney asked that Ted be allowed some time with his family. We entered the judge’s chamber where Ted was frisked and his hands cuffed behind his back. I put my arms around him and told him I was sorry. He was drenched with sweat and stiff with tension. I kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “I love you.” I hated myself for what I had done to him.
In July 1979, I watched Ted again as another verdict was read. This time the trial was in Florida and I was seeing it on TV. This time I was sure that Ted was guilty as charged: guilty of raping and beating to death two young women as they slept in their Florida State University sorority house and of severely beating three others. I knew he was guilty because of what he had told me in a 2:00 A.M. telephone call in February just after he was captured in Florida.
The Florida prosecutors had visited me in Seattle and asked me to testify against Ted. I had at first agreed, but the more I thought about it the more reluctant I became. I still cared about him very much, and I had worked very hard at putting my life back together. I was sure the defense could make mincemeat of my testimony and of me. I had never been named in the press, and I valued my anonymity. My sex life with Ted would be a subject of great interest, as it had been to all the investigating police officers. I was a recovering alcoholic—had not had a drink in three years—but people would only hear the word alcoholic.
The prosecutors had told me my testimony was vital and that they would protect me from attacks by Ted’s lawyers, but I reminded them that in our 2:00 A.M. phone conversation, Ted had specifically refused to talk to me about the crimes in Florida. He was trying to arrange things so that he could be returned to a prison in Washington State and be near his family and friends. I asked the prosecutors why they didn’t bargain with Ted, offer him this in exchange for answers to questions about the murders of young women in Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado.
In a heavy southern drawl, one of them told me, “Mister Bundy is bargainin’ for his life. We’re bargainin’ for his death.”
I couldn’t be a part of it. They saw Ted Bundy as a murderer. I knew him as a lover and a friend. I was threatened with extradition if I wouldn’t cooperate, but finally the matter was dropped and I never heard from the Florida prosecutors again. It took the jury only six hours to come in with a verdict of guilty.
I can count on two fingers the times Ted threatened me or was the least bit violent towards me. Yet I feel that I have lived through a violent time. I have spent too much of the last six years thinking about beatings, strangulations, rapes, the outrage of the brutal deaths of innocent people, and my own guilt. The untrue things that have been written about me and my relationship with Ted are a different kind of outrage. This book is an attempt to rid myself of both nightmares by facing them down.
I left Utah in 1969, twenty-four years old and not pleased with the way my life was turning out. On the surface I was doing all right. I was in my last year of college at Utah State, getting grades good enough to make the dean’s list. Not bad, considering that I’d been suspended for disciplinary reasons a few years earlier. My two-year-old daughter Molly was a great joy to me, and since she was the first grandchild on both sides of her family, I had help and support from all the grandparents.
On the other hand, my brief marriage to Molly’s father had been a disaster. While I was relieved when our divorce was final, I was now acutely embarrassed about being a divorcee. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with me that I couldn’t make my marriage work. I’d been given all the tools anyone needed to lead a successful life, but somehow, I had managed to screw up.
My dad was a respected doctor in Ogden, thirty miles north of Salt Lake City. My mom had been a nurse until my oldest brother was born, and then she became a dedicated stay-at-home mother. Our family wasn’t active in the Church—we were considered “jack Mormons,” people who were Mormons in name but didn’t follow all the Church’s rules. But I still knew that our ancestors had walked across America so that we could be Mormons. Mom and I prayed together when I was little, and I grew up knowing the power of prayer. I also knew that if you forgot to be grateful, God would get you.
By the time I got to high school all I wanted to do was spend time with my boyfriend, Ben. He had a black MGA sports car, and when we weren’t out riding around in it, we were washing it, waxing it, and cleaning the wire wheels. We went skiing every chance we got, the ultimate in teenage chic as we tooled down the road in the shiny black MGA with the skis on the back.
Ben and I went steady all through high school. We were going to get married as soon as we graduated and have a baby and name him Stein after Stein Eriksen, a popular ski racer at the time. My parents had
other ideas. They told me I needed a college education. I told them they would be wasting their money, because all I wanted out of life was to marry Ben and start having babies.
They won and I went off to college. I went through sorority rush and was dropped at the end of rush week. I hadn’t really wanted to be a sorority girl, but I was surprised at how much it hurt. I figured it was my shyness that had done me in. When I was with my friends or with Ben, I talked constantly. I loved to laugh and make Ben and my friends laugh, but when I got around strangers, I could never think of anything to say, or I would say something really stupid and relive it for months. I turned red when I was spoken to, and the more I fought it, the redder I would get.
I began to party a lot, my grades crashed, and at the end of my freshman year, I was suspended. I also broke up with Ben, without being able to tell him why. Ben and I were strongly attracted to each other physically, but we had decided early in our relationship that we were not going to “go all the way” until we got married. In the spring of my freshman year I went to bed with a man for the first time—not Ben but Jim, the man I eventually married. When the marriage ended, I was on my own.
I had always been half of a couple—first Ben, then Jim. Now I was alone with a young daughter and a need to start over. Utah didn’t seem like any place for a single parent, so I started thinking about moving. Angie, my friend since junior high school, had just had a bad experience as a VISTA volunteer, and she was looking for a fresh start, too. We considered San Francisco, where my sister lived, but decided it would be too sophisticated for us. At quarter break we went skiing at Sun Valley, met some guys there who were learning to set up a ski patrol for a new resort near Seattle, and were easily persuaded that Seattle might be the place. I even had a cousin living there, and I figured that having some family nearby would soften the lump-in-my-throat feeling I was having about leaving my family and familiar territory.
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