Ted Bundy

by Stephen G. Michaud

  HA: Okay now, there are certain things. . . we’ve spent so much time going into your background, your politics, your college days, growing up, and everything of that sort. It’s time – really past time, to get to the nut-cutting here.

  Incidentally, I talked to Liz. She wouldn’t see me personally but talked to me on the phone. I sent her the tape you made for her.

  Her daughter’s fourteen now and she said she’s doing fine, with “all the problems all fourteen year olds have.” She’s still married. We chatted a little bit but not a great deal.

  She asked me, very frankly, “Does Ted want to live?” and I said, “Hell yes, he wants to live. You bet he wants to live. Why shouldn’t he?” I don’t know why she asked the question. She did say something that was interesting, though. She said that when you told her about being illegitimate, you cried. Do you recall that situation?

  TB: I don’t recall it. I could have been emotional about it. I can’t say for sure. I wouldn’t say. . . I wouldn’t. . .

  HA: She said she thought it really bothered you, more than, you know. . . Naturally you’re going to say it doesn’t bother you, but she claimed it bothered you – and deeply.

  TB: Well (long pause), that’s just her. . . that’s just her opinion. I just, uh, I can imagine it being something that, uh, you know, was and is of a certain amount of concern to me – although not as much now as it was ten years ago even.

  HA: She told me, also, that you had mentioned that you’d been disciplined. . . or that you were, as a small child, disciplined rather harshly. Do you recall that?

  TB: I wasn’t disciplined harshly as a child. I can’t imagine that I told her that!

  HA: You’ve never had any harsh discipline?

  TB: Oh, I mean spanking, or like that. But that’s, I didn’t consider. . . I would not now, and did not then, consider it to be extreme.

  HA: Maybe she’s reading too much into a lot of things.

  TB: She’s probably looking for some way of saying, “Well, why?” you know. And who knows?

  HA: Okay now. When people read this book, they’re going to want certain questions answered. They’re going to say, “Why in hell did Aynesworth go to prison and talk to him all those hours? And why didn’t he ask Bundy the tough questions?” So I’m going to ask you some tough damn questions.

  TB: Sure.

  HA: I’ve got to have some kind of response. To this point, some of our conversations have been ridiculous in that you have weaseled out of everything. I don’t know what all you’re good for, but we both know – and get that shocked look off your face; it doesn’t go well with this mood of sincerity you muster up – you’ve been around the horn and back again.

  I’ve asked you to be as honest with us as you said you would be when this project began. It has become quite apparent you can not, or will not. You claim innocence in every case you’ve been charged with. You say you’re innocent of all the murders. Yet, from my investigation and from Stephen’s interviews and mine, we know damn well it’s just a matter of how many.

  So can you give me an explanation, in your own words? Whatever you want to say about it. I’m not trying to put words into your mouth, but. . .

  You claim you didn’t do any of the murders you’ve been charged with. What about all the ones you’ve been suspected of back in the west?

  TB: Well, I mean. . . I suppose there are things I’m guilty of that I haven’t been charged with, uh. . . We’re talking about serious crimes.

  HA: Right.

  TB: You know. . . and I say, whether or not I’ve been charged, I mean, I can’t be innocent of something I haven’t been charged with. The thing. . . I’m just saying that, uh. . . to be broader in that statement, that I’m not guilty or innocent of those cases – both (those) that I’ve been charged with and those I’ve allegedly been suspected of being involved in. Obviously I’m not innocent of everything!

  HA: Okay now. . . if, in fact, you had nothing to do with any of the murders, how do you explain (that) you were in the vicinity of several of them? Picked out of a lineup by several witnesses. Identified by photos by others. Generally fit the description of the alleged murderer in others. Drove a Volkswagen which was described by some.

  If you’re not involved in any of this, why are you in here? Why are you convicted of three murders and suspected of others? You must be the unluckiest person in the world. Why? Why you?

  TB: Well, I think you have to look at it as a, uh, the, the whole, uh, situation as a, uh, uh, continuum. . . that is, to go back to Utah and work forward to understand the kind of momentum that built up behind the investigation. I mean, well initially the interest was generated, and I think, the calling my stock and trade, or whatever it was. . . in Utah back in August of ‘75. . . that the initial investigation was sparked because of a somewhat similarity between some of my things found in my car and, and, uh, the DaRonch kidnapping. And, and that was the beginning.

  And initially the police weren’t even interested and they showed a lack of – not in, a lack of, not a lack of interest, but a lack of conviction that they had a hot suspect, and, uh, once the police. . .

  The police were skeptical from the beginning in Salt Lake City and I think it was the, uh, credit card matches from Colorado that convinced them that they had to, uh, get some case at any cost. And at one point, I think they made a commitment to creating, or taking an extremely vague and undec. . . indecisive witness in Carol DaRonch and making her feel that I was the person she should identify. And once that whole ball got rolling and the suspicions and innuendoes about my involvement in a variety of cases, uh, from Washington to Utah and Colorado. . .

  It was so sensational at that point that eyewitness identifications were fairly routine.

  Uh, to give you an idea – I mean, eyewitness identification of Theodore Bundy. When I escaped in Aspen, the first time. . . and stayed within five miles of the city of Aspen the entire time I was gone – they had people who called in and identified or reported seeing me in Seattle and Wyoming, California and all over the country. So eyewitness identification for a highly publicized defendant is not an unusual thing.

  And especially in my cases where, without exception, all the alleged eyewitnesses came forward. . . how do I say it? Including Carol DaRonch – all had exposure to me and my face at one point or another on numerous occasions before they made eyewitness identification. They were aware of the publicity surrounding me – and that’s from Carol DaRonch all the way down the line. You know, with the inclusion in the last case of Andy Anderson.

  All of them were publicity-inspired identifications, with the possible exception of DaRonch and uh, and uh, the other one – Nita Neary (a Chi Omega sister who identified Ted), who, while she saw a number of pictures of me in the paper, I think something else happened there, too.

  HA: What do you think happened there?

  TB: Well, you just have to – you just have to look at it. We had a case of. . . in the Chi Omega case. . . where they had one eyewitness who witnessed everything. We know that she had a, a limited opportunity to observe and a limited amount of. . . of person to see because (of) the way the individual was dressed. She saw him for a flash as he was going out the door. And she was the only witness they had. And shortly after my arrest on February 15, I became the key suspect in the Chi Omega case.

  Within three days after my arrest, several people in the Tallahassee and Jacksonville areas were shown a Polaroid photograph that had been taken of me in Pensacola and flown by special plane to Tallahassee. So they were taking extra pains to have my picture shown to anybody who might remotely place me in the vicinity of Chi Omega. However, they neglected. . . if you want to believe this, to say anything to Nita Neary, the key witness.

  HA: What do you mean, “neglected” to say anything?

  TB: They neglected to show her my photograph until, uh. . . almost two months later. In the interim, of course, Nita Neary knows I’ve been arrested. She admits to seeing a number of photographs of me
and I simply have a situation here where – given the vagueness of her description of the individual and the limited time of opportunity to observe – that she went from being a vague witness, based on what she’d heard and what she’d seen, to being a positive witness.

  I mean, when she identified me in a courtroom, they kept saying, well. . . Her testimony was she saw a flash of him from the side. She saw his profile. She saw his nose, essentially. And she couldn’t remember eyebrows or eyes or anything else. However, in the courtroom – to show you how ludicrous this little game was – they had her from forty feet away, uh. . . with looking at me full face, point the finger, and say, “That’s the man I saw!”

  Well, if we believe her, she couldn’t have made that kind of identification. She didn’t ask for a profile. She looked right at me and said, “That’s the man!” She knew who she was looking for – based on photographs in the papers and on TV.

  HA: You’re claiming that because the momentum built up, eyewitnesses came forth under pressure to testify a certain way. But remember now, there is hair evidence and there’s some fiber evidence in some of these cases.

  TB: Yeah. Well, it’s just that fiber and hair evidence is, uh, uh, again such a. . .

  The conclusions you can form based on those kinds of examinations are so general and so vague that we don’t know what the probability is. The police don’t know what the probability is of finding any given fiber or set of fibers or any hair or given set of hairs if they’re in a location where there is a lot of opportunity for hairs to be dropped and left there for an indefinite length of time.

  Hair blows. Fibers blow, and they’re tracked in on shoes – and on clothing. So you just can’t say with any certainty how, I mean, how long a fiber has been in a given location. And the same goes for hair.

  And it’s unlike blood, I suppose, or fingerprints. Supposedly, the only way a fingerprint can get on a surface is if the person with that print puts it there. A fingerprint doesn’t blow around. It doesn’t last for an indefinite length of time, like a hair will, and it can’t be tracked in on someone’s shoes. So it’s better evidence in that respect – and more individualistic, more characteristic of a given individual. Whereas you can’t say with a questioned piece of hair and a known hair – just how many people have, other people, besides the known individual – have that kind of hair.

  HA: You can only exclude a certain part.

  TB: The best thing you can do is exclude.

  HA: What would you say if I told you that the fiber situation was even stronger than the testimony indicated – that certain jerseys were made from faulty fiber, and it had thirty-one threads or strands instead of the usual thirty-three. . . and that the manufacturers said that that could only happen in two or three different jerseys made from that one spool. And that it matched exactly the fiber with thirty-one strands found in the (Leach case) van. Now, that would seem to make it a bit stronger, wouldn’t it now?

  TB: Uh, it’s all hypothetical. . . and I don’t, uh, uh, uh. . . I don’t think the state of the science of fiber identification is such that, uh, uh. . . they can say with any certainty.

  HA: I could have written that response. I knew you’d say that. Let’s move on for a while. You’ve said you’re innocent of all this – and you explained how you got caught up in it. The biggest problem you’ve had all the way is that you claim to have absolutely no memory of where you were.

  Where were you when the Lake Sammamish girls were killed? When Healy was killed? Parks? Rancourt? Any of these people? Can you give me just one alibi – just one damn date that you know where you were?

  TB: Oh, I know where I was. That’s not to say I don’t. . . I mean, I. . . at some times, in some instances, of course, I don’t remember where I was because it’s been so long ago. I can’t say on that. I have no recollection. If you would ask me any date back then, whether it was a date on which a murder occurred or a disappearance occurred or if. . .

  HA: Well, you remember Lake Sammamish. You remember that at six p.m. or so, you were over having hamburgers with Liz. Where were you earlier in the day?

  TB: I remember I went over to Liz’s house in the morning, uh (long pause). . . I don’t know what time it was. It was before she went to church. It was eight or nine o’clock in the morning. She was going to go to church. We’d been having, you know, an argument here and there. I just. . . I had been sick. I’d been home from work for a couple days that week. I, uh, I was just going to spend the day piddling around the room I had on the other side of the university.

  HA: Freda Rogers’s?

  TB: Yeah. . . and the best I can recall, I stayed home most of that day. And later on in the day, (I) went over and picked up Liz and went for a hamburger.

  HA: Where in that house did you live? Where was your room? If there were people there all day, would they have seen you come and go?

  TB: It would be the southwest corner. Second floor, southwest corner.

  HA: The back? Left? Is there a back way in and out of there?

  TB: No.

  HA: Just the front door?

  TB: Right. Well, I can’t, uh, I can’t provide any documentary evidence to say that I. . .

  HA: Do you think I really expected any? Okay, let’s try another way. . . What about Chi Omega? Where were you when Chi Omega happened?

  TB: You mean. . . you’re talking about the evening, Saturday evening, Sunday morning?

  HA: Yeah. . . say midnight on.

  TB: Well, those, uh. . . I tried piecing that day together and I remember the Super Bowl. . . and going back from that point I can only say that the, the, uh, the best I can recall is that, uh (long pause), my usual routine at that time was to go out. I went out and got a couple quarts of beer and came back and watched TV in my room at night because I wasn’t spending much time on the streets at that time.

  I tried to stay on. . . I tried to stay off the streets as much as I could, and, uh, the first time I heard about the Chi Omega case was the next morning when I heard some people in the hallway talking about it. And that Sunday I watched the Super Bowl. I mean, I’m just not in a position, you see, uh, how many people have an alibi, uh, for Sunday morning, February. . . oh, January. . . whatever it was? At two in the morning?

  HA: Well, maybe you don’t have for one specific date – but you don’t have for any date, and damn it, that’s – isn’t that a bit unusual?

  TB (agitated): Well, let’s try and pick any day. I don’t care. Pick any day.

  HA: How about last night? I’ll give you a chance.

  TB: Yeah. . . I mean, it’s a pretty, we’ve fairly dwelled on this, but, uh, pick any day or two several years ago and say, “Can you prove what you were doing on that day?”

  HA: Well, you remember when you stayed at the Holiday Inn in Lake City? What’d you do that night? You visited with someone at the bar for a while.

  TB: Oh, yeah, I, I, I, uh, had a few drinks at the bar and I went back to the, uh, my room – and slept in my room.

  HA: What happened the next morning?

  TB: I got up the next morning. I was going to have breakfast, and I – before I left – I saw a state patrol, a couple state patrol cars, parked in front of this. . . in front of this main entrance, and I decided to keep on goin’.

  HA: West?

  TB: Goin’ back to Tallahassee.

  HA: Did you go out 90 or did you take 10?

  TB: Well, I don’t know that. . . I don’t know that. . . that I-75 goes on out. You get on the ramp there and you go north and there’s a cloverleaf and you get on the freeway going west.

  HA: Yeah, I-75 is right next to the hotel there. Okay, let me ask you: We talked about this in June and we didn’t get much out of it. But I wonder. if indeed you’re innocent of all these murders and kidnappings, why in hell are we doing this book about you? We’ve spent weeks and months tracing your early life, your school, your personal and political life – your dreams and frustrations. The last time I asked you about this, you know, you sa
id, “Yeah, it is sort of unusual. We need some kind of a bridge.” Have you thought what kind of a bridge? Have we got a bridge?

  TB: Well, let’s see. I don’t know if I’m really keeping up with you, Hugh, on that. Uh, uh, a bridge for what? For what?

  HA: Why are we doing this book? If you’re innocent, why are we interested in the fact you failed Chinese, that you broke up with Marjorie and why?

  TB: Because she. . . I’ve, I’ve. . . I can’t explain it, I’m not. . .

  HA: I know guys who’ve stolen more cars than you have. I’m tired of that kind of crap. Why can’t you start telling me what we both know you’ve got rolling around in that head?

  TB: I’m not the one who’s saying I’m newsworthy! Why is the news media so interested in me? I guess because I’m an enigma and they’re assuming contradictions. . . because there are so many unresolved questions. Uh, uh, I’m not saying people should be interested in what I did as a young man. . . that I took Chinese or who I slept with or who I didn’t. I don’t, quite frankly, I wish nobody had ever heard of Ted Bundy. And, uh, uh, but, uh, we’re doing this book because (pause). . . we’re doing this book. That’s about it.

  HA: You said one time, “I don’t think I’m unique, but maybe I am.”

  TB: Well, I, uh, I’m unique and I’m not unique. I mean, you’re unique. Each of us is as unique as a snowflake might be. But that’s not to say that I’m so special that no one can understand me or that nobody has the capacity to understand me. I mean, I’m an existentialist to the degree that I don’t believe anybody can know fully what another person feels and why another person does something – because we act as such a complexity of things. Uh, but I’m not. . . I’m not unique – although obviously special.