Ted Bundy The American Serial Killer
Ted Bundy: The American Serial Killer
The Crime and the Criminal
Crime is one of the major issues affecting a majority of developed nations globally. The increase in these crime rates in countries such as the United States is due to the increase in various heinous incidents committed by different individuals. Theodore Robert Bundy, commonly known as Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious criminals who committed some of the most heinous crimes in the United States (Geberth, 1990). Born on the 24th of November 1946 in Burlington, Vermont, United States, Ted Bundy was considered one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, known to have committed the brutal killings of at least30 young girls and women during the period of 1970 to 1978 in the United States.
Born to a single mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, Ted grew up to become an articulate, charming, and intelligent young man, appearances that made it possible and easy for him to win the confidence and trust of the young women and girls who were always his number one targets (Geberth, 1990). He broke into his victim’s dwellings during night hours where he would bludgeon them in their sleep, rape, and strangle them. In public places, Ted approached young girls and women by impersonating authority figures or feigns an injury on his victims before empowering and proceeding to assault them in different secluded locations. As a result, it is such tactics and planning than enabled Ted Bundy to engage in the serial killings of more than 30 women and young girls in a period of approximately 4 years in the United States before his capture in 1978 where he was sentenced to death for the murder of two young college girls (McClellan, 2006). In addition to his crimes, Bundy was again found guilty in the rape and murder of a12 year old, events that led to his execution in Florida state prison in 1989.
Theoretical explanations
Born to a single mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, on the 24th of November 1946 in Burlington, Vermont, Ted Bundy’s life was a secret shame to his mother, since she gave birth to him at an unmarried at a younger age (Geberth, 1990). This illegitimate birth humiliated Ted’s grandparents due to the fact that they were deeply religious. Therefore, for Eleanor to hide the fact that Ted was illegitimate, Bundy had to be adopted and raised by his grandparents, who told him Eleanor was his sister. A few years later, Eleanor took his son and moved to Tacoma, Washington where she got married to Johnnie, Ted’s stepfather. Ted took the name of his stepfather, despite having no respect to him but rather resented him for being uneducated and a workaholic.
At an early age, Bundy started to show unusual interest to macabre. Ted was very fascinated with knives at an early age indicating lack of proper parental care during his development age. He was a very bright but shy child, although he never got along well with his schools peers, making his anti-social (Geberth, 1990). Ted’s shyness, make him to be a frequent target of bullies in schools. When Ted reached the teenage age, his character began to change and a darker side of him was seen to emerge. Ted was caught peeping and many times he thought of stealing from them. Bearing this in mind, it is therefore clear to note that the lack of proper parental care, guidance, and other social factors such as bullying all contributed to the development of Ted’s criminal behavior.
Later as a young man Ted graduated with a psychology degree in 1972 at the University of Washington. While studying, Ted was in love with a very pretty, young and wealthy woman who was from California. Ted had everything he ever wanted in a woman for instance money, influence, and class. However, at a later date, Ted was devastated and heartbroken deeply by their breaking up. This breakup triggered Ted’s dark side to emerge where by later all Ted’s victims could resemble his girlfriend from college. These victims were all women with dark, long hair and attractive too. Bundy brutally murdered at least 30 girls and women during the 1970s. Bearing in mind that Ted viral criminal behavior of killing young women who looked alike to his girlfriend, indicated that his social life was the major trigger of his criminal behavior. The killing of young women resembling his girlfriend was a sign to him of facing the opposition and rejection he faced from the girlfriend (McClellan, 2006). However, nobody could suspect him as an offender since he was a college graduate studying law and therefore did not fit a serial killer description. In addition, Ted had grown up to become an articulate, charming, and intelligent young man, appearances and personalities that made it possible and easy for him to win the confidence and trust of the young women and girls who were always his number one targets (Samuel & Widiger, 2007). Ted’s education helped him in his crimes having studied psychology, and acquiring a degree in this field, he had strategic methods of isolating his victims. He was able to fool his victims and the authorities too with his persona of being a college body. Also, Ted’s study of law helped him in presenting himself in court whereby he avoided convictions for a while before being caught.
Ted was caught in 1974 after he moved to attend his law school in Utah. Here, women and young girls started disappearing as well. The year that followed, Ted was pulled over by police where he got arrested for the possession of tools like crowbar, rope, handcuffs, and facemask which linked Ted to the crimes. In 1975, Ted was found guilty and received a jail time after he Kidnapped Carol DaRonch who was lucky to escape from his clutches (Michaud, & Aynesworth, 1999). In 1977, Ted managed to escape from prison two times. First time escape, was when he had murder charges for the death of a young women from Colorado. Ted decided to be his own lawyer and present himself in court. During the drive to the court house, Ted jumped through the window and escaped. He was later captured after eight day of constant searching. The second time, Ted managed to escape through a hole he had made on the ceiling of his cell room. Ted had managed to drop more than 30 pounds making it possible for him to climb out through the hole he made (Geberth, 1990). The authorities had not notices that Ted was missing from his cell for 15 hours. Ted went to Tallahassee, Florida where he broke into Chi Omega Sorority house and attacked four young women and killed them. A few days later, Ted kidnapped and raped a 12 year old girl leading to his capture by the authorities. Ted’s constant escape to commit murder indicates his obsessive behavior which eventually led to his execution
After his arrest, Ted came to confess to killing more than 30 young women around the states during the 1970. However, experts believed that Ted may have killed a hundred or more women. Ted’s killings usually followed a certain pattern whereby he raped and beat his victims to death. In regard to the killings in Chi Omega Sorority house, Ted was found guilty and convicted of the murders. In addition to the murder of a 12 year old girl, he was given a death penalty. In response to the conviction, Ted tried to appeal and take his case to the United States Supreme Court, but unfortunately for him he was denied the chance. He tried as much as he could to avoid the electric chair by offering information on murders that were not solved (Geberth, 1990). However, Ted could no longer delay justice that awaited him as he faced execution in 1979 in Florida state prison.
Intervention/prevention strategies
Crime prevention is considered an important component in numerous national strategies regarding security and public safety (Shaw, 2010). The concept of intervention and prevention strategy is based on the notion that victimization and crime are driven by various underlying or casual factors that causes individuals such as serial killers to develop their killing behaviors. In regard to this, it is therefore clear that there exists a wide range of factors such as development and social circumstances and factors that influence the behavior and lives of families and individuals as they grow up and as a result facilitating offending and victimization. By discovering and developing these factors various approaches and strategies to preventing these crimes and addressing the criminal behaviors are developed.
Disruptive behavior that occurs in the early life of individuals leads to various frequent serious crime and delinquency during childhood, adolescence, and the adulthood of individuals (Piquero et al., 2009). Due to this cumulative or linkage continuity over the course of life of individuals, it is imperative to note that early prevention and intervention strategies are a significant policy proscription in regard to early childhood problem behaviors. In addition, due to the fact that children experiencing early child hood problems become more resistant to change as life continues, and as a result making it imperative to adopt such early crime intervention strategies associated with such livelihood at an early stage of life, as these strategies may have huge benefits especially when focused on high risk families.
In the case of Ted Bundy, one of America’s notorious serial killer, early parent management and training program is one of the major psychological intervention and prevention strategies that could have been used to address his criminal behavior. Such strategy normally indicate that improving the quality and effectiveness of parent child relationships, which is a key element in early parent management and training program , will assist learning control over oppositional, impulsive, and aggressive behavior, and as a result reducing the disruptive behavior and its associated long term impacts on social integration (Piquero et al., 2009). Early parent management and training program intervention attempts to change the contingencies that occur in the family by providing general education to guardians and parents or advice on how to raise their children. In the case of Ted Bundy, the lack of parent child relationships was a major significant effect that in deed contributed largely to his criminal behavior. Born to a single mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, a 22 year old in 1946, Ted started his life as a his mother’s (Eleanor) secret shame due to the fact that his illegitimate birth deeply humiliated her religious parents. In order to illegitimate nature of birth, Ted was adopted and raised by his grandparents and told that his mother Eleanor was his sister. As a result, the lack of parent child relationships during his early childhood did not provide Ted with the assist in learning control over oppositional, impulsive, and aggressive behavior, especially when his mother moved to Washington with him and married Johnnie, Ted’s stepfather. It is at this stage that Ted became fascinated with handling knives and peering in other people’s windows. Bearing this in mind, Piquero et al. (2009) indicates that it is therefore clear that, early parent management and training program is one of the major psychological intervention and prevention strategies that could have used to address criminal behaviors at an early stage.
Apart from early parent management and training program, Cognitive behavioral or therapeutic intervention is another effective psychological approach or strategy that can be used to address the criminal behavior of individuals such s Ted Bundy. According to Rubin et al. (2006) cognitive behavioral interventions are those approaches and strategies established to address the ways in which individual’s feelings, behaviors, and thoughts are interrelated and which identify dysfunctional behavior an end product internal/personal or external/situational factors. In other words, Cognitive behavioral/therapeutic intervention teaches individuals on ways of examining their own emotions and thoughts and recognize cases when negative emotions and thoughts to commit a crime are intensely escalating, and then used the learned strategies to change their emotions, thinking, and behavior (Rubin et al., 2006). Through the cognitive behavioral intervention, offenders are able to identity and change any though and emotions that lead to maladaptive behavior. It emphases on personal accountability, while helping individuals such as Ted Bundy understand their thoughts, emotions, and choices that led to crimes. In so doing, cognitive behavioral/therapeutic intervention is able to teach individuals to adopt alternative behaviors, thought, and emotion processes. By using cognitive behavioral intervention as a crime prevention approach some of the behaviors such Ted’s constant escape to commit murder indicates his obsessive behavior which eventually led to his execution would have been managed.
References
Geberth, V. J. (1990). The Serial Killer and the Revelations of Ted Bundy. Law and
Order, 38(5), 72-77.
McClellan, J. (2006). Case Study: Ted Bundy, an Offender-Based Comparison of Murder
Typologies. Journal of Security Education, 2(1), 19-37.
Michaud, S. G., & Aynesworth, H. (1999). The only living witness: The true story of serial sex
killer ted bundy. Authorlink.
Piquero, A. R., Farrington, D. P., Welsh, B. C., Tremblay, R., & Jennings, W. G. (2009). Effects
of early family/parent training programs on antisocial behavior and delinquency. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 5(2), 83-120.
Rubin, J., Rabinovich, L., Hallsworth, M., & Nason, E. (2006). Interventions to reduce antisocial
behaviour and crime. RAND Europe for the National Audit Office, London (available in full on the National Audit Office website).
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2007). Describing Ted Bundy’s personality and working
towards DSM-V. Practice, 27, 20-22.
Shaw, M. (2010). Handbook on the crime prevention guidelines: Making them work. United
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