A Pragmatic Analysis Of Language Manipulation Strategies And Motives In Ted Bundy’s Statements
APPENDICES
i. Transcript of Ted Bundy’s Statements in 1977
(1) Reporter
: Why did you decide to defend yourself?
(2) Ted Bundy
: I thought I was right. I want to get involved. I want to
become a part of my defense because I am such a part of it. Obviously I’m going to
bare the consequences so why not bare the responsibility?
(3) Reporter
: For somebody who believes you’re so innocent. What was
your emotion?
(4) Ted Bundy
: People say, “Ted Bundy didn’t show any emotion, there must
be something in there.” I showed emotion and you know what people said? “See, he
really can get violent and angry.” There’s no one right way for me to act. Sure, I
show emotion now because inside, I’m mad. But I’ve kept it together because there’s
no point in destroying myself. I have got to keep it together. I’ve got to stay calm.
I’ve got to keep my presence at mind because as long as I do that, I’m gonna beat
these people.
(5) Ted Bundy
: I’ll tell you, as long as they (the officers) attempt to keep
their heads in stand above me, there’s gonna be people turning up in canyons, there’s
gonna be people being shot in this city, because the polices aren’t willing to accept
what I think they know, and they know that I didn’t do these things. And the men
who kidnap children are just gonna continue to be free, and not only her but every
other young woman is going to be threatened by that person or persons. It’s
happening today and it’s gonna happen in the future.
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(6) Ted Bundy
: I swear to God every man in that prison, at one time or
another, thinks about going; wishes he wasn’t there and wishes he could fly over
those fences. I’ve dreamed about flying and climbing over those fences. With every
other man in there, I’ve dreamed about being free.
(7) Reporter
: Are you angry?
(8) Ted Bundy
: Sure, I get very, very angry and indignant. I don’t like being
locked up for something that I didn’t do. I don’t like my liberty taken away. I don’t
like being treated like an animal. I don’t like people walking and ogling at me like
I’m some sort of weirdo, because I am not.
(9) Ted Bundy
: I’ve matured in the past year. Believe me, I’ve grown in the
past year. I’ve learnt a lot of things about myself. My only misgiven is that I might
never be in a position to apply it on the street, where I’d like to apply it.
(10) Reporter : Did you ever physically harm anyone?
(11) Ted Bundy
: Ever physically harmed anyone? No, no. You know, again,
not in the context that you’re speaking of.
(12) Reporter
: Do you think about the possibility of facing the firing squad?
(13) TedBundy
: I think I stand up the chance of dying in front of firing squad
or in a gas chamber as you do being killed on the plane flight home, but let’s hope
you don’t.
(14) Reporter
: So you’re not guilty?
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(15) Ted Bundy
: I am not guilty? Does that include the time when I stole a
comic book when I was 5 years old? I’m not guilty of the charges that have been
filled against me.
(16) Reporter
: And the allegations?
(17) Ted Bundy
: And the allegations.
(18) Reporter
: And the rumors?
(19) Ted Bundy
: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. It’s too broad
and I can’t get into any detail. But I’m satisfied with my blanket statement that I’m
innocent. No man is truly innocent. I mean we’ve all transgressed in some way in our
lives. And as I say, I’ve been impolite, and there are things that I regret having done
in my life, but nothing like the things I think that you’re referring to.
(20) Ted Bundy
: I’ve been told that the parents of these girls are fairly decent
people... I don’t know. I really feel for them because apparently these people suffered
some incredible tragedy in their lives. The loss of a loved one is probably the most
extreme kind of loss one could suffer in this life, and I’d say, I feel as much for them
as anybody can.
(21) Reporter
: Do you think about getting out of here?
(22) Ted Bundy
: Well, literally, sure.
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ii. Transcript of Ted Bundy’s Interview with Dr. James C. Dobson in 1989
(1) Dr. Dobson
: Ted, it is about 2:30 in the afternoon. You are scheduled to
be executed tomorrow morning at 7:00, if you don’t receive another stay. What is
going through your mind? What thoughts have you had in these last few days?
(2) Ted Bundy
: I won’t kid you to say it is somethingthat I feel I’m in control
of or have come to terms with.It’s a moment-by-moment thing. Sometimes I feel
very tranquil and other times I don’t feel tranquil at all.What’s going through my
mind right now is to use the minutes and hours I have left as fruitfully as possible
and see what happens. It helps to live in the moment, in the essence that we use it
productively. So right now I’m feeling calm, in large part because I’m here with you.
(3) Dr. Dobson
: For the record, you are guilty of killing many women and
girls.
(4) Ted Bundy
: Yes. Yes, that’s true.
(5) Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedents
of the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so much pain for
so many people. Where did it start? How did this moment come about?
(6) Ted Bundy
: That’s the question of the hour, and not only people much
more intelligent than I have been working on for years. I, myself, have been working
for years. I’m trying to understand. Is there there enough time to explain it though? I
don’t know. I think I understand what happened to me to the extent that I can see
how certain feelings and ideas developed in me to the point where I began to act out
on them; certain very violent and very destructive deed.
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(7) Dr. Dobson
: Let’s go back then to those roots. First of all, you, as I
understand, were raised in what you considered to have been a healthy home. You
were not physically, sexually or emotionally abused.
(8) Ted Bundy
: No. No way. And that’s part of the tragedy of this whole
situation. It’s because I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving
parents, as one of 5 brothers and sisters.We, as children, were the focus of my
parent’s lives.We regularly attended church. They’re two Christian parents. They did
not drink. They did not smoke. There was no gambling or physical abuse or fighting
in the home.I’m not saying this was “Leave it to Beaver”...
(9) Dr. Dobson
: One perfect home?
(10) Ted Bundy
: No, no. I don’t know if such a home exists. But it was a fine,
solid Christian home. I hope no one will try to take the easy way out and try to blame
or otherwise accuse my family of contributing to this. I know, and I’m trying to tell
you as honestly as I know how, what happened and I think this is the message that I
want to get acrossed. As a young boy of 12 or 13 certainly, I encountered in the local
grocery stores and the local drug stores, just softcore pornography. And you know
the anecdote, young boys do explore the back rows, sideways and byways of
neighborhoods, and oftentimes, people would dump the garbage and whatever
they’re cleaning their houses. From time to time, we would come across
pornographic books of a harder nature, more graphic. This also included detective
magazines. And I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of pornography –
and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – is those that involve violence
and sexual violence. Because the wedding of those two forces – as I know only too
well – brings about behaviour that is just too terrible to describe.
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(11) Dr. Dobson
: Walk me through that. What was going on in your mind at
that time?
(12) Ted Bundy
: Okay. Before we go any further, it is important to me that
people believe what I’m saying. I’m not blaming pornography. I’m not saying it
caused me to go out and do certain things. I take full responsibility for all the things
that I’ve done. That’s not the question here. The issue is how this kind of literature
contributed and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behavior.
(13) Dr. Dobson
: It fueled your fantasies.
(14) Ted Bundy
: In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process. Then,
at a certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into something that is
almost a separate entity inside.
(15) Dr. Dobson
: You had gone about as far as you could go in your own
fantasy life, with printed material, photos, videos, etc., and then there was the urge to
take that step over to a physical event.
(16) Ted Bundy
: Right. It happens in stages, gradually. It doesn’t, necessarily
not to me, happen overnight. My experience with pornography that deals with sexual
violence is that... Once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of
addiction, and like other kinds of addiction, you’d keep looking for more potent,
more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. 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. You
reach that jumping off point where you begin to wonder that maybe actually doing it
will give you that was just beyond reading about it or looking at it.
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(17) Dr. Dobson
: How long did you stay at that point before you actually
assaulted someone?
(18) Ted Bundy
: Well, yeah, you see.. That is a very delicate point, in my own
development. We’re talking about having reached the point or a grey area that of
course, well....
(19) Dr. Dobson
: You don’t remember it?
(20) Ted Bundy
: Well, I would say.. I would say a couple of years. I was
dealing with very strong inhibitions against criminal and violent behaviour that had
been conditioned and bred into me from my neighborhood, environment, church, and
school.I knew it was wrong to think about it, and certainly, to do it was wrong. I was
on the edge, and the last vestiges of restraint were being tested constantly, and
assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was fueled, largely, by pornography.
(21) Dr. Dobson
: Do you remember what pushed you over that edge? Do you
remember the decision to “go for it”? Do you remember where you decided to throw
caution to the wind?
(22) Ted Bundy
: It’s a very difficult thing to describe - the sensation of
reaching that point where I knew I couldn’t control it anymore. The barriers I had
learned as a child were not enough to hold me back from seeking out and harming
somebody.
(23) Dr. Dobson
: Would it be accurate to call that a sexual frenzy?
(24) Ted Bundy
: That’s one way to describe it - a compulsion, a building up of
this destructive energy. Another fact I haven’t mentioned is the use of alcohol. In
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conjunction with my exposure to pornography, alcohol reduced my inhibitions and
pornography eroded them further.
(25) Dr. Dobson
: In the early days, you were nearly always about half drunk
when you did this, am I right? Was that always true?
(26) Ted Bundy
: I would say that that was generally a case.
(27) Dr. Dobson
: If I can understand it now, there is this battle going on within.
There are conventions that you’ve been taught. There’s the right and wrong that you
learned as a child. And then there is this unbridled passion fueled by your plunge into
hardcore and violent pornography. And those things are at war with each other. And
then with the alchohol diminishing the inhibitions, you let go.
(28) Ted Bundy
: Well, yes, you can summarize it that way, and that’s accurate
certainly. It’s just occured to me that some people would say that, “I’ve seen that
stuff and it doesn’t do anything to me!” And I can understand that. Virtually
everyone can be exposed to so-called pornography, and well they’re aroused and
don’t do anything wrong.
(29) Dr. Dobson
: Well, addictions are like that; they affect some people more
than they affect others. But there is a percentage of people affected by hardcore
pornography in a very violent way, and you’re obviously one of them.
(30) Ted Bundy
: That was major component and I don’t know why I was
vulnerable to it. All that I know is that it had an impact on me, that was just so
central in the development of the violent behaviour that I engaged in.
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(31) Dr. Dobson
: After you committed your first murder, what was the
emotional effect on you? What happened in the days after that?
(32) Ted Bundy
: Even all these years later, it is difficult to talk about. Reliving
it through talking about it is difficult to say the least, but I want you to understand
what happened. It was like coming out of some kind of horrible trance or dream. I
can only liken it to, and I don’t want to overdramatize it, but to have been possessed
by something so awful and alien, and then the next morning wake up and remember
what happened and realize that in the eyes of the law, and certainly in the eyes of
God, you’re responsible. To wake up in the morning and realize what I had done
with a clear mind, with all my essential moral and ethical feelings intact, absolutely
horrified that I was capable of doing something like that.
(33) Dr. Dobson
: You hadn’t known you were capable of that before?
(34) Ted Bundy
: There is no way to describe the brutal urge to do that kind of
thing. And then what happens is that once it has been satisfied, or spent, and that
energy level recedes, I became myself again. Basically, I was a normal person.I
wasn’t some guy hanging out in bars, or a bum. I wasn’t a pervert in the sense that
people look at somebody and say, “I know there’s something wrong with him.” I was
essentially a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this
one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close
to myself. And part of the shocken horror for my dear friends and my family years
ago when I was first arrested, was that there was no clue. They looked at me and they
looked at, you know, the all American boy. I mean, I wasn’t perfect. I was okay. The
basic spirit and humanity that God gave me was intact. People need to recognize that
it’s not some kind of... Those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in
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the media, particularly pornographic violence, are not some kind of inherent
monsters. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in regular families.
Pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me
out of my home 20 or 30 years ago. As diligent as my parents were, and they were
diligent in protecting their children, and as good a Christian home as we had, there is
no protection against the kinds of influences that are loose in a society that
tolerates....
(35) Dr. Dobson
: Outside these walls, there are several hundred reporters that
wanted to talk to you, and you asked me to come here from California because you
had something you wanted to say. This hour that we have together is not just an
interview with a man who is scheduled to die tomorrow morning. I am here and
you’re here because of this message that you’re talking about right here. You really
feel that hardcore pornography, and the door to it, softcore pornography, is doing
untold damage to other people and causing other women to be abused and killed the
way you did.
(36) Ted Bundy
: Listen, I’m no social scientist, and I don’t pretend to believe
what John Q. Citizen thinks about this, but I’ve lived in prison for a long time now,
and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence, just like me. And
without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography - deeply
consumed by the addiction to pornography. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial
homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography.
And it’s real. It’s true.
(37) Dr. Dobson
: What would your life have been like without that influence?
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(38) Ted Bundy
: I know it would have been far better, not just for me, but for
a lot of other people - victims and families. There’s no question that it would have
been a better life. I’m absolutely certain it would not have involved this kind of
violence.
(39) Dr. Dobson
: If I were able to ask the kind of questions that are being
asked, one would be, “Are you thinking about all those victims and their families that
are so wounded? Years later, their lives aren’t normal. They will never return to
normal. Is there remorse?”
(40) Ted Bundy
: I know people will accuse me of being self-serving, but
through God’s help, I have been able to come to the point, much too late, where I can
feel the hurt and the pain I am responsible for. Yes. Absolutely! During the past few
days, myself and a number of investigators have been talking about unsolved cases murders I was involved in. It’s hard to talk about all these years later, because it
revives all the terrible feelings and thoughts that I have steadfastly and diligently
dealt with - I think successfully. It has been reopened and I have felt the pain and the
horror of that.I hope that those who I have caused so much grief, even if they don’t
believe my expression of sorrow and remorse, will believe what I’m saying now;
there are those loose in their towns and communities, people like me,whose
dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media in
its various forms - particularly sexualized violence. What scares me is when I see
what’s on cable T.V. Some of the violence in the movies that come into homes today
is stuff they wouldn’t show in X-rated adult theatres 30 years ago.
(41) Dr. Dobson
: The slasher movies?
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(42) Ted Bundy
: That is the most graphic violence on screen, especially when
children are unattended or unaware that they could be a Ted Bundy; that they could
have a predisposition to that kind of behavior.
(43) Dr. Dobson
: Can you help me understand this sense of sensation that took
place. What was going on in your mind?
(44) Ted Bundy
: Each time I harmed someone, each time I killed someone,
there’d be enormous horror, guilt, remorse afterwards. But then, the impulse to do it
again would come back even stronger. Believe me, you need to know how this
worked, that I still felt, in my regular life, the full range of guilt and remorse about
other things. This compartment lied very well focused area. It was like a black hole,
like a crack, and when everything filled in, the crack just disappeared.
(45) Dr. Dobson
: One of the final murders you committed was 12-year-old
Kimberly Leach. I think the public outcry is greater there because an innocent child
was taken from a playground. What did you feel after that? Were they the normal
emotions after that?
(46) Ted Bundy
: I can’t really talk about that right now. I would like to be able
to convey to you what that experience is like, but I won’t be able to talk about that.
(silent moment)
(47) Ted Bundy
: I can’t begin to understand the pain that the parents of these
children and young women that I have harmed feel. And I can’t restore much to
them, if anything. I won’t pretend to, and I don’t even expect them to forgive
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me. I’m not asking for it. That kind of forgiveness is of God. If they have it, they
have it. If they don’t, maybe they’ll find it someday.
(48) Dr. Dobson
: Do you deserve the punishment the state has inflicted upon
you?
(49) Ted Bundy
: That’s a very good question. I don’t want to die. I’m not
gonna kid you. I deserve, certainly, those extreme punishments society has. And I
think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me. That’s for
sure. What I hope will come of our discussion is that I think society deserves to be
protected from itself. As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this
country, especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand, wellmeaning decent people will condemn the behaviour of Ted Bundy while they’re
walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids
down the road to being Ted Bundys. That’s the irony, because I’m talking about
going beyond retribution, which is what people want with me. There is no way in the
world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and
correct and soothe the pain.But there are lots of other kids playing in streets around
the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because
other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the
media today.
(50) Dr. Dobson
: There is tremendous cynicism about you on the outside, I
suppose, for good reason. I’m not sure there’s anything you could say that people
would believe, yet you told me last night, and I have heard this through our mutual
friend, John Tanner that you have accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and are a
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follower and believer in Him. Do you draw strength from that as you approach these
final hours?
(51) Ted Bundy
: I do. I can’t say that being in the Valley of the Shadow of
Death is something I’ve become all that accustomed to,and that I’m strong and
nothing’s bothering me. Listen, it’s no fun.It gets kind of lonely, yet I have to remind
myself that every one of us will go through this someday in one way or another.
(52) Dr. Dobson
: It’s appointed unto man.
(53) Ted Bundy
: Countless millions who have walked this earth before us
have gone through this, so this is just an experience we all share.
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iii. Data of Transcripts Used in the Thesis
Data 1
Reporter
: Did you ever physically harm anyone?
Ted Bundy
: Ever physically harmed anyone? No, no. You know, again, not in the
context that you’re speaking of.
Data 2
Reporter
: Are you angry?
Ted Bundy
: Sure, I get very, very angry and indignant. I don’t like being locked
up for something that I didn’t do. I don’t like my liberty taken away. I
don’t like being treated like an animal. I don’t like people walking and
ogling at me like I’m some sort of weirdo, because I am not.
Data 3
Ted Bundy
: I’m not guilty of the charges that have been filled against me.
Reporter
: And the allegations?
Ted Bundy
: And the allegations.
Data 4
Dr. Dobson
: One of the final murders you committed was 12-year-old Kimberly
Leach. I think the public outcry is greater there because an innocent
child was taken from a playground. What did you feel after that?
Were they normal emotions after that?
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Ted Bundy
: I can’t really talk about that right now. I would like to be able to
convey to you what that experience is like, but I won’t be able to talk
about that.
Data 5
Dr. Dobson
: For the record, you are guilty of killing many women and girls.
Ted Bundy
: Yes. Yes, that’s true.
Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedants of
the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so
much pain for so many people. Where did it start? How did this
moment come about?
Ted Bundy
: As a young boy of 12 or 13 certainly, I encountered in the local
grocery stores and the local drug stores, just softcore pornography.
And you know the anecdote, young boys do explore the back rows,
sideways and byways of neighborhoods, and oftentimes, people
would dump the garbage and whatever they’re cleaning their houses.
From time to time, we would come across pornographic books of a
harder nature, more graphic. This also included detective magazines.
And I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of
pornography – and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience –
is those that involve violence and sexual violence. Because the
wedding of those two forces – as I know only too well – brings about
behaviour that is just too terrible to describe.
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Data 6
Dr. Dobson
Ted Bundy
: It (pornography) fueled your fantasies?
: In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process. Then, at a
certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into
something that is almost a separate entity inside.
Data 7
Dr. Dobson
: How long did you stay at that point (influenced by pornography)
before you actually assaulted someone?
Ted Bundy
: Well, yeah, you see.. That is a very delicate point, in my own
development. We’re talking about having reached the point or a grey
area that of course, well....
Dr. Dobson
: You don’t remember it?
Ted Bundy
: Well, I would say.. I would say a couple of years.
Data 8
Dr. Dobson
: Do you deserve the punishment the state has inflicted upon you?
Ted Bundy
: That’s a very good question. I don’t want to die. I’m not gonna kid
you. I deserve, certainly, those extreme punishments society has.
And I think society deserves to be protected from me and from
others like me. That’s for sure. What I hope will come of our
discussion is that I think society deserves to be protected from itself.
As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this country,
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especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand,
well-meaning decent people will condemn the behaviour of Ted
Bundy while they’re walking past a magazine rack full of the very
kinds of things that send young kids down the road to being Ted
Bundys. That’s the irony, because I’m talking about going beyond
retribution, which is what people want with me.
Data 9
Dr. Dobson
: You, as I understand, were raised in what you considered to have
been a healthy home. You were not physically, sexually, or
emotionally abused?
Ted Bundy
: No. No way. And that’s part of the tragedy of this whole situation.
It is because I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and
loving parents, as one of 5 brothers and sisters. We, as children, were
the focus of my parents’ lives. We regularly attended the church.
They’re two Christian parents. They did not drink. They did not
smoke. There was no gambling or physical abuse or fighting in the
home.
Data 10
Ted Bundy
: I’ll tell you, as long as they (the officers) attempt to keep their
heads in stand above me, there’s gonna be people turning up in
canyons, there’s gonna be people being shot in this city, because the
polices aren’t willing to accept what I think they know, and they
know that I didn’t do these things. And the men who kidnap children
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are just gonna continue to be free, and not only her but every other
young woman is going to be threatened by that person or persons.
It’s happening today and it’s gonna happen in the future.
Data 11
Dr. Dobson
: If I were able to ask the kind of questions that are being asked, one
would be, “Are you thinking about all those victims and their
families that are so wounded? Years later, their lives aren’t normal.
They will never return to normal. Is there remorse?”
Ted Bundy
: I know people will accuse me of being self-serving, but through
God’s help, I have been able to come to the point, much too late,
where I can feel the hurt and the pain I am responsible for.
Data 12
Ted Bundy
: I can’t begin to understand the pain that the parents of these
children and young women that I have harmed feel. And I can’t
restore much to them, if anything. I won’t pretend to, and I don’t
even expect them to forgive me. I’m not asking for it, because that
kind of forgiveness is of God. If they have it, they have it. If they
don’t, maybe they’ll find it someday.
Data 13
Reporter
: So you’re not guilty?
Ted Bundy
: I am not guilty? Does that include the time when I stole a comic
book when I was 5 years old?
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Data 14
Ted Bundy
: People say, “Ted Bundy didn’t show any emotion, there must be
something in there.” I showed emotion and you know what people
said? “See, he really can get violent and angry.” There’s no one right
way for me to act.
Data 15
Dr. Dobson
: You had gone about as far as you could go in your own fantasy life,
with printed material, photos, videos, and then there was the urge to
take that big step over to a physical event.
Ted Bundy
: Right. It happens in stages, gradually. It doesn’t, necessarily not to
me, happen overnight. My experience with pornography that deals
with sexual violence is that... Once you become addicted to it, and I
look at this as a kind of addiction, and like other kinds of addiction,
you’d keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic
kinds of material. 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. You reach that jumping off point where you begin to
wonder that maybe actually doing it will give you that was just
beyond reading about it or looking at it.
Data 16
Ted Bundy
: I was dealing with very strong inhibitions against criminal and
violent behaviour that been conditioned and bred into me from my
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neighborhood, environment, church, and school. I knew it was
wrong to think about it, and certainly, to do it was wrong. I was on
the edge, and the last vestiges of restraint were being tested
constantly, and assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was
fueled, largely, by pornography.
Data 17
Dr. Dobson
: Do you remember what pushed you over that edge? Do you
remember the decision to go for it? Do you remember where you
decided to throw caution to the wind?
Data 18
Dr. Dobson
: After you committed your first murder, what was the emotional
effect on you? What happened in the days after that?
Ted Bundy
: It was like coming out of some kind of horrible trance or dream. I
can only liken it to, and I don’t want to overdramatize it, but to have
been possessed by something so awful and alien, and then the next
morning wake up and remember what happened and realize that in the
eyes of law, and certainly in the eyes of God, you’re responsible. To
wake up in the morning and realize what I had done with a clear mind,
with all my essential moral and ethical feelings intact at that moment,
absolutely horrified that I was capable of doing something like that.
107
Data 19
Ted Bundy
: I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kinds of pornography
– and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – are those
that involve violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two
forces – as I know only too well – brings about behaviour that is just
too terrible to describe.
Data 20
Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedents of
the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so
much pain for so many people. Where did it start? How did this
moment come about?
Ted Bundy
: That’s the question of the hour, and not only people much more
intelligent than I have been working for years. I, myself, have been
working for years. I’m trying to understand. Is there enough time to
explain it though? I don’t know. I think I understand what
happened to me to the extent that I can see how certain feelings and
ideas developed in me to the point where I began to act out on
them; certain very destructive and very violent deed.
Data 21
Ted Bundy
: I’ve been told that the parents of these girls are fairly decent
people... I don’t know. I really feel for them because apparently
these people suffered some incredible tragedy in their lives. The loss
of a loved one is probably the most extreme kind of loss one could
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suffer in this life, and I’d say, I feel as much for them as anybody
can.
Data 22
Ted Bundy
: The issue is how this kind of literature (pornography) contributed
and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behaviour.
Data 23
Dr. Dobson
: Would it be accurate to call that a sexual frenzy?
Ted Bundy
: That’s one way to describe it – a compulsion, a building up of this
destructive energy. Another fact I haven’t mentioned is the use of
alcohol. In junction with my exposure to pornography, alcohol
reduced my inhibitions and pornography eroded them further.
Data 24
Ted Bundy
: No man is truly innocent. I mean we’ve all transgressed in some
way in our lives. And as I say, I’ve been impolite, and there are
things that I regret having done in my life, but nothing like the things
I think that you’re referring to.
Data 25
Ted Bundy
: There is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore
those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the
pain.
109
i. Transcript of Ted Bundy’s Statements in 1977
(1) Reporter
: Why did you decide to defend yourself?
(2) Ted Bundy
: I thought I was right. I want to get involved. I want to
become a part of my defense because I am such a part of it. Obviously I’m going to
bare the consequences so why not bare the responsibility?
(3) Reporter
: For somebody who believes you’re so innocent. What was
your emotion?
(4) Ted Bundy
: People say, “Ted Bundy didn’t show any emotion, there must
be something in there.” I showed emotion and you know what people said? “See, he
really can get violent and angry.” There’s no one right way for me to act. Sure, I
show emotion now because inside, I’m mad. But I’ve kept it together because there’s
no point in destroying myself. I have got to keep it together. I’ve got to stay calm.
I’ve got to keep my presence at mind because as long as I do that, I’m gonna beat
these people.
(5) Ted Bundy
: I’ll tell you, as long as they (the officers) attempt to keep
their heads in stand above me, there’s gonna be people turning up in canyons, there’s
gonna be people being shot in this city, because the polices aren’t willing to accept
what I think they know, and they know that I didn’t do these things. And the men
who kidnap children are just gonna continue to be free, and not only her but every
other young woman is going to be threatened by that person or persons. It’s
happening today and it’s gonna happen in the future.
87
(6) Ted Bundy
: I swear to God every man in that prison, at one time or
another, thinks about going; wishes he wasn’t there and wishes he could fly over
those fences. I’ve dreamed about flying and climbing over those fences. With every
other man in there, I’ve dreamed about being free.
(7) Reporter
: Are you angry?
(8) Ted Bundy
: Sure, I get very, very angry and indignant. I don’t like being
locked up for something that I didn’t do. I don’t like my liberty taken away. I don’t
like being treated like an animal. I don’t like people walking and ogling at me like
I’m some sort of weirdo, because I am not.
(9) Ted Bundy
: I’ve matured in the past year. Believe me, I’ve grown in the
past year. I’ve learnt a lot of things about myself. My only misgiven is that I might
never be in a position to apply it on the street, where I’d like to apply it.
(10) Reporter : Did you ever physically harm anyone?
(11) Ted Bundy
: Ever physically harmed anyone? No, no. You know, again,
not in the context that you’re speaking of.
(12) Reporter
: Do you think about the possibility of facing the firing squad?
(13) TedBundy
: I think I stand up the chance of dying in front of firing squad
or in a gas chamber as you do being killed on the plane flight home, but let’s hope
you don’t.
(14) Reporter
: So you’re not guilty?
88
(15) Ted Bundy
: I am not guilty? Does that include the time when I stole a
comic book when I was 5 years old? I’m not guilty of the charges that have been
filled against me.
(16) Reporter
: And the allegations?
(17) Ted Bundy
: And the allegations.
(18) Reporter
: And the rumors?
(19) Ted Bundy
: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. It’s too broad
and I can’t get into any detail. But I’m satisfied with my blanket statement that I’m
innocent. No man is truly innocent. I mean we’ve all transgressed in some way in our
lives. And as I say, I’ve been impolite, and there are things that I regret having done
in my life, but nothing like the things I think that you’re referring to.
(20) Ted Bundy
: I’ve been told that the parents of these girls are fairly decent
people... I don’t know. I really feel for them because apparently these people suffered
some incredible tragedy in their lives. The loss of a loved one is probably the most
extreme kind of loss one could suffer in this life, and I’d say, I feel as much for them
as anybody can.
(21) Reporter
: Do you think about getting out of here?
(22) Ted Bundy
: Well, literally, sure.
89
ii. Transcript of Ted Bundy’s Interview with Dr. James C. Dobson in 1989
(1) Dr. Dobson
: Ted, it is about 2:30 in the afternoon. You are scheduled to
be executed tomorrow morning at 7:00, if you don’t receive another stay. What is
going through your mind? What thoughts have you had in these last few days?
(2) Ted Bundy
: I won’t kid you to say it is somethingthat I feel I’m in control
of or have come to terms with.It’s a moment-by-moment thing. Sometimes I feel
very tranquil and other times I don’t feel tranquil at all.What’s going through my
mind right now is to use the minutes and hours I have left as fruitfully as possible
and see what happens. It helps to live in the moment, in the essence that we use it
productively. So right now I’m feeling calm, in large part because I’m here with you.
(3) Dr. Dobson
: For the record, you are guilty of killing many women and
girls.
(4) Ted Bundy
: Yes. Yes, that’s true.
(5) Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedents
of the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so much pain for
so many people. Where did it start? How did this moment come about?
(6) Ted Bundy
: That’s the question of the hour, and not only people much
more intelligent than I have been working on for years. I, myself, have been working
for years. I’m trying to understand. Is there there enough time to explain it though? I
don’t know. I think I understand what happened to me to the extent that I can see
how certain feelings and ideas developed in me to the point where I began to act out
on them; certain very violent and very destructive deed.
90
(7) Dr. Dobson
: Let’s go back then to those roots. First of all, you, as I
understand, were raised in what you considered to have been a healthy home. You
were not physically, sexually or emotionally abused.
(8) Ted Bundy
: No. No way. And that’s part of the tragedy of this whole
situation. It’s because I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving
parents, as one of 5 brothers and sisters.We, as children, were the focus of my
parent’s lives.We regularly attended church. They’re two Christian parents. They did
not drink. They did not smoke. There was no gambling or physical abuse or fighting
in the home.I’m not saying this was “Leave it to Beaver”...
(9) Dr. Dobson
: One perfect home?
(10) Ted Bundy
: No, no. I don’t know if such a home exists. But it was a fine,
solid Christian home. I hope no one will try to take the easy way out and try to blame
or otherwise accuse my family of contributing to this. I know, and I’m trying to tell
you as honestly as I know how, what happened and I think this is the message that I
want to get acrossed. As a young boy of 12 or 13 certainly, I encountered in the local
grocery stores and the local drug stores, just softcore pornography. And you know
the anecdote, young boys do explore the back rows, sideways and byways of
neighborhoods, and oftentimes, people would dump the garbage and whatever
they’re cleaning their houses. From time to time, we would come across
pornographic books of a harder nature, more graphic. This also included detective
magazines. And I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of pornography –
and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – is those that involve violence
and sexual violence. Because the wedding of those two forces – as I know only too
well – brings about behaviour that is just too terrible to describe.
91
(11) Dr. Dobson
: Walk me through that. What was going on in your mind at
that time?
(12) Ted Bundy
: Okay. Before we go any further, it is important to me that
people believe what I’m saying. I’m not blaming pornography. I’m not saying it
caused me to go out and do certain things. I take full responsibility for all the things
that I’ve done. That’s not the question here. The issue is how this kind of literature
contributed and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behavior.
(13) Dr. Dobson
: It fueled your fantasies.
(14) Ted Bundy
: In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process. Then,
at a certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into something that is
almost a separate entity inside.
(15) Dr. Dobson
: You had gone about as far as you could go in your own
fantasy life, with printed material, photos, videos, etc., and then there was the urge to
take that step over to a physical event.
(16) Ted Bundy
: Right. It happens in stages, gradually. It doesn’t, necessarily
not to me, happen overnight. My experience with pornography that deals with sexual
violence is that... Once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of
addiction, and like other kinds of addiction, you’d keep looking for more potent,
more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. 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. You
reach that jumping off point where you begin to wonder that maybe actually doing it
will give you that was just beyond reading about it or looking at it.
92
(17) Dr. Dobson
: How long did you stay at that point before you actually
assaulted someone?
(18) Ted Bundy
: Well, yeah, you see.. That is a very delicate point, in my own
development. We’re talking about having reached the point or a grey area that of
course, well....
(19) Dr. Dobson
: You don’t remember it?
(20) Ted Bundy
: Well, I would say.. I would say a couple of years. I was
dealing with very strong inhibitions against criminal and violent behaviour that had
been conditioned and bred into me from my neighborhood, environment, church, and
school.I knew it was wrong to think about it, and certainly, to do it was wrong. I was
on the edge, and the last vestiges of restraint were being tested constantly, and
assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was fueled, largely, by pornography.
(21) Dr. Dobson
: Do you remember what pushed you over that edge? Do you
remember the decision to “go for it”? Do you remember where you decided to throw
caution to the wind?
(22) Ted Bundy
: It’s a very difficult thing to describe - the sensation of
reaching that point where I knew I couldn’t control it anymore. The barriers I had
learned as a child were not enough to hold me back from seeking out and harming
somebody.
(23) Dr. Dobson
: Would it be accurate to call that a sexual frenzy?
(24) Ted Bundy
: That’s one way to describe it - a compulsion, a building up of
this destructive energy. Another fact I haven’t mentioned is the use of alcohol. In
93
conjunction with my exposure to pornography, alcohol reduced my inhibitions and
pornography eroded them further.
(25) Dr. Dobson
: In the early days, you were nearly always about half drunk
when you did this, am I right? Was that always true?
(26) Ted Bundy
: I would say that that was generally a case.
(27) Dr. Dobson
: If I can understand it now, there is this battle going on within.
There are conventions that you’ve been taught. There’s the right and wrong that you
learned as a child. And then there is this unbridled passion fueled by your plunge into
hardcore and violent pornography. And those things are at war with each other. And
then with the alchohol diminishing the inhibitions, you let go.
(28) Ted Bundy
: Well, yes, you can summarize it that way, and that’s accurate
certainly. It’s just occured to me that some people would say that, “I’ve seen that
stuff and it doesn’t do anything to me!” And I can understand that. Virtually
everyone can be exposed to so-called pornography, and well they’re aroused and
don’t do anything wrong.
(29) Dr. Dobson
: Well, addictions are like that; they affect some people more
than they affect others. But there is a percentage of people affected by hardcore
pornography in a very violent way, and you’re obviously one of them.
(30) Ted Bundy
: That was major component and I don’t know why I was
vulnerable to it. All that I know is that it had an impact on me, that was just so
central in the development of the violent behaviour that I engaged in.
94
(31) Dr. Dobson
: After you committed your first murder, what was the
emotional effect on you? What happened in the days after that?
(32) Ted Bundy
: Even all these years later, it is difficult to talk about. Reliving
it through talking about it is difficult to say the least, but I want you to understand
what happened. It was like coming out of some kind of horrible trance or dream. I
can only liken it to, and I don’t want to overdramatize it, but to have been possessed
by something so awful and alien, and then the next morning wake up and remember
what happened and realize that in the eyes of the law, and certainly in the eyes of
God, you’re responsible. To wake up in the morning and realize what I had done
with a clear mind, with all my essential moral and ethical feelings intact, absolutely
horrified that I was capable of doing something like that.
(33) Dr. Dobson
: You hadn’t known you were capable of that before?
(34) Ted Bundy
: There is no way to describe the brutal urge to do that kind of
thing. And then what happens is that once it has been satisfied, or spent, and that
energy level recedes, I became myself again. Basically, I was a normal person.I
wasn’t some guy hanging out in bars, or a bum. I wasn’t a pervert in the sense that
people look at somebody and say, “I know there’s something wrong with him.” I was
essentially a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this
one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close
to myself. And part of the shocken horror for my dear friends and my family years
ago when I was first arrested, was that there was no clue. They looked at me and they
looked at, you know, the all American boy. I mean, I wasn’t perfect. I was okay. The
basic spirit and humanity that God gave me was intact. People need to recognize that
it’s not some kind of... Those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in
95
the media, particularly pornographic violence, are not some kind of inherent
monsters. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in regular families.
Pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me
out of my home 20 or 30 years ago. As diligent as my parents were, and they were
diligent in protecting their children, and as good a Christian home as we had, there is
no protection against the kinds of influences that are loose in a society that
tolerates....
(35) Dr. Dobson
: Outside these walls, there are several hundred reporters that
wanted to talk to you, and you asked me to come here from California because you
had something you wanted to say. This hour that we have together is not just an
interview with a man who is scheduled to die tomorrow morning. I am here and
you’re here because of this message that you’re talking about right here. You really
feel that hardcore pornography, and the door to it, softcore pornography, is doing
untold damage to other people and causing other women to be abused and killed the
way you did.
(36) Ted Bundy
: Listen, I’m no social scientist, and I don’t pretend to believe
what John Q. Citizen thinks about this, but I’ve lived in prison for a long time now,
and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence, just like me. And
without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography - deeply
consumed by the addiction to pornography. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial
homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography.
And it’s real. It’s true.
(37) Dr. Dobson
: What would your life have been like without that influence?
96
(38) Ted Bundy
: I know it would have been far better, not just for me, but for
a lot of other people - victims and families. There’s no question that it would have
been a better life. I’m absolutely certain it would not have involved this kind of
violence.
(39) Dr. Dobson
: If I were able to ask the kind of questions that are being
asked, one would be, “Are you thinking about all those victims and their families that
are so wounded? Years later, their lives aren’t normal. They will never return to
normal. Is there remorse?”
(40) Ted Bundy
: I know people will accuse me of being self-serving, but
through God’s help, I have been able to come to the point, much too late, where I can
feel the hurt and the pain I am responsible for. Yes. Absolutely! During the past few
days, myself and a number of investigators have been talking about unsolved cases murders I was involved in. It’s hard to talk about all these years later, because it
revives all the terrible feelings and thoughts that I have steadfastly and diligently
dealt with - I think successfully. It has been reopened and I have felt the pain and the
horror of that.I hope that those who I have caused so much grief, even if they don’t
believe my expression of sorrow and remorse, will believe what I’m saying now;
there are those loose in their towns and communities, people like me,whose
dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media in
its various forms - particularly sexualized violence. What scares me is when I see
what’s on cable T.V. Some of the violence in the movies that come into homes today
is stuff they wouldn’t show in X-rated adult theatres 30 years ago.
(41) Dr. Dobson
: The slasher movies?
97
(42) Ted Bundy
: That is the most graphic violence on screen, especially when
children are unattended or unaware that they could be a Ted Bundy; that they could
have a predisposition to that kind of behavior.
(43) Dr. Dobson
: Can you help me understand this sense of sensation that took
place. What was going on in your mind?
(44) Ted Bundy
: Each time I harmed someone, each time I killed someone,
there’d be enormous horror, guilt, remorse afterwards. But then, the impulse to do it
again would come back even stronger. Believe me, you need to know how this
worked, that I still felt, in my regular life, the full range of guilt and remorse about
other things. This compartment lied very well focused area. It was like a black hole,
like a crack, and when everything filled in, the crack just disappeared.
(45) Dr. Dobson
: One of the final murders you committed was 12-year-old
Kimberly Leach. I think the public outcry is greater there because an innocent child
was taken from a playground. What did you feel after that? Were they the normal
emotions after that?
(46) Ted Bundy
: I can’t really talk about that right now. I would like to be able
to convey to you what that experience is like, but I won’t be able to talk about that.
(silent moment)
(47) Ted Bundy
: I can’t begin to understand the pain that the parents of these
children and young women that I have harmed feel. And I can’t restore much to
them, if anything. I won’t pretend to, and I don’t even expect them to forgive
98
me. I’m not asking for it. That kind of forgiveness is of God. If they have it, they
have it. If they don’t, maybe they’ll find it someday.
(48) Dr. Dobson
: Do you deserve the punishment the state has inflicted upon
you?
(49) Ted Bundy
: That’s a very good question. I don’t want to die. I’m not
gonna kid you. I deserve, certainly, those extreme punishments society has. And I
think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me. That’s for
sure. What I hope will come of our discussion is that I think society deserves to be
protected from itself. As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this
country, especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand, wellmeaning decent people will condemn the behaviour of Ted Bundy while they’re
walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids
down the road to being Ted Bundys. That’s the irony, because I’m talking about
going beyond retribution, which is what people want with me. There is no way in the
world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and
correct and soothe the pain.But there are lots of other kids playing in streets around
the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because
other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the
media today.
(50) Dr. Dobson
: There is tremendous cynicism about you on the outside, I
suppose, for good reason. I’m not sure there’s anything you could say that people
would believe, yet you told me last night, and I have heard this through our mutual
friend, John Tanner that you have accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and are a
99
follower and believer in Him. Do you draw strength from that as you approach these
final hours?
(51) Ted Bundy
: I do. I can’t say that being in the Valley of the Shadow of
Death is something I’ve become all that accustomed to,and that I’m strong and
nothing’s bothering me. Listen, it’s no fun.It gets kind of lonely, yet I have to remind
myself that every one of us will go through this someday in one way or another.
(52) Dr. Dobson
: It’s appointed unto man.
(53) Ted Bundy
: Countless millions who have walked this earth before us
have gone through this, so this is just an experience we all share.
100
iii. Data of Transcripts Used in the Thesis
Data 1
Reporter
: Did you ever physically harm anyone?
Ted Bundy
: Ever physically harmed anyone? No, no. You know, again, not in the
context that you’re speaking of.
Data 2
Reporter
: Are you angry?
Ted Bundy
: Sure, I get very, very angry and indignant. I don’t like being locked
up for something that I didn’t do. I don’t like my liberty taken away. I
don’t like being treated like an animal. I don’t like people walking and
ogling at me like I’m some sort of weirdo, because I am not.
Data 3
Ted Bundy
: I’m not guilty of the charges that have been filled against me.
Reporter
: And the allegations?
Ted Bundy
: And the allegations.
Data 4
Dr. Dobson
: One of the final murders you committed was 12-year-old Kimberly
Leach. I think the public outcry is greater there because an innocent
child was taken from a playground. What did you feel after that?
Were they normal emotions after that?
101
Ted Bundy
: I can’t really talk about that right now. I would like to be able to
convey to you what that experience is like, but I won’t be able to talk
about that.
Data 5
Dr. Dobson
: For the record, you are guilty of killing many women and girls.
Ted Bundy
: Yes. Yes, that’s true.
Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedants of
the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so
much pain for so many people. Where did it start? How did this
moment come about?
Ted Bundy
: As a young boy of 12 or 13 certainly, I encountered in the local
grocery stores and the local drug stores, just softcore pornography.
And you know the anecdote, young boys do explore the back rows,
sideways and byways of neighborhoods, and oftentimes, people
would dump the garbage and whatever they’re cleaning their houses.
From time to time, we would come across pornographic books of a
harder nature, more graphic. This also included detective magazines.
And I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of
pornography – and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience –
is those that involve violence and sexual violence. Because the
wedding of those two forces – as I know only too well – brings about
behaviour that is just too terrible to describe.
102
Data 6
Dr. Dobson
Ted Bundy
: It (pornography) fueled your fantasies?
: In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process. Then, at a
certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into
something that is almost a separate entity inside.
Data 7
Dr. Dobson
: How long did you stay at that point (influenced by pornography)
before you actually assaulted someone?
Ted Bundy
: Well, yeah, you see.. That is a very delicate point, in my own
development. We’re talking about having reached the point or a grey
area that of course, well....
Dr. Dobson
: You don’t remember it?
Ted Bundy
: Well, I would say.. I would say a couple of years.
Data 8
Dr. Dobson
: Do you deserve the punishment the state has inflicted upon you?
Ted Bundy
: That’s a very good question. I don’t want to die. I’m not gonna kid
you. I deserve, certainly, those extreme punishments society has.
And I think society deserves to be protected from me and from
others like me. That’s for sure. What I hope will come of our
discussion is that I think society deserves to be protected from itself.
As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this country,
103
especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand,
well-meaning decent people will condemn the behaviour of Ted
Bundy while they’re walking past a magazine rack full of the very
kinds of things that send young kids down the road to being Ted
Bundys. That’s the irony, because I’m talking about going beyond
retribution, which is what people want with me.
Data 9
Dr. Dobson
: You, as I understand, were raised in what you considered to have
been a healthy home. You were not physically, sexually, or
emotionally abused?
Ted Bundy
: No. No way. And that’s part of the tragedy of this whole situation.
It is because I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and
loving parents, as one of 5 brothers and sisters. We, as children, were
the focus of my parents’ lives. We regularly attended the church.
They’re two Christian parents. They did not drink. They did not
smoke. There was no gambling or physical abuse or fighting in the
home.
Data 10
Ted Bundy
: I’ll tell you, as long as they (the officers) attempt to keep their
heads in stand above me, there’s gonna be people turning up in
canyons, there’s gonna be people being shot in this city, because the
polices aren’t willing to accept what I think they know, and they
know that I didn’t do these things. And the men who kidnap children
104
are just gonna continue to be free, and not only her but every other
young woman is going to be threatened by that person or persons.
It’s happening today and it’s gonna happen in the future.
Data 11
Dr. Dobson
: If I were able to ask the kind of questions that are being asked, one
would be, “Are you thinking about all those victims and their
families that are so wounded? Years later, their lives aren’t normal.
They will never return to normal. Is there remorse?”
Ted Bundy
: I know people will accuse me of being self-serving, but through
God’s help, I have been able to come to the point, much too late,
where I can feel the hurt and the pain I am responsible for.
Data 12
Ted Bundy
: I can’t begin to understand the pain that the parents of these
children and young women that I have harmed feel. And I can’t
restore much to them, if anything. I won’t pretend to, and I don’t
even expect them to forgive me. I’m not asking for it, because that
kind of forgiveness is of God. If they have it, they have it. If they
don’t, maybe they’ll find it someday.
Data 13
Reporter
: So you’re not guilty?
Ted Bundy
: I am not guilty? Does that include the time when I stole a comic
book when I was 5 years old?
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Data 14
Ted Bundy
: People say, “Ted Bundy didn’t show any emotion, there must be
something in there.” I showed emotion and you know what people
said? “See, he really can get violent and angry.” There’s no one right
way for me to act.
Data 15
Dr. Dobson
: You had gone about as far as you could go in your own fantasy life,
with printed material, photos, videos, and then there was the urge to
take that big step over to a physical event.
Ted Bundy
: Right. It happens in stages, gradually. It doesn’t, necessarily not to
me, happen overnight. My experience with pornography that deals
with sexual violence is that... Once you become addicted to it, and I
look at this as a kind of addiction, and like other kinds of addiction,
you’d keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic
kinds of material. 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. You reach that jumping off point where you begin to
wonder that maybe actually doing it will give you that was just
beyond reading about it or looking at it.
Data 16
Ted Bundy
: I was dealing with very strong inhibitions against criminal and
violent behaviour that been conditioned and bred into me from my
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neighborhood, environment, church, and school. I knew it was
wrong to think about it, and certainly, to do it was wrong. I was on
the edge, and the last vestiges of restraint were being tested
constantly, and assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was
fueled, largely, by pornography.
Data 17
Dr. Dobson
: Do you remember what pushed you over that edge? Do you
remember the decision to go for it? Do you remember where you
decided to throw caution to the wind?
Data 18
Dr. Dobson
: After you committed your first murder, what was the emotional
effect on you? What happened in the days after that?
Ted Bundy
: It was like coming out of some kind of horrible trance or dream. I
can only liken it to, and I don’t want to overdramatize it, but to have
been possessed by something so awful and alien, and then the next
morning wake up and remember what happened and realize that in the
eyes of law, and certainly in the eyes of God, you’re responsible. To
wake up in the morning and realize what I had done with a clear mind,
with all my essential moral and ethical feelings intact at that moment,
absolutely horrified that I was capable of doing something like that.
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Data 19
Ted Bundy
: I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kinds of pornography
– and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience – are those
that involve violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two
forces – as I know only too well – brings about behaviour that is just
too terrible to describe.
Data 20
Dr. Dobson
: How did it happen? Take me back. What are the antecedents of
the behaviour that we’ve seen? So much grief, so much sorrow, so
much pain for so many people. Where did it start? How did this
moment come about?
Ted Bundy
: That’s the question of the hour, and not only people much more
intelligent than I have been working for years. I, myself, have been
working for years. I’m trying to understand. Is there enough time to
explain it though? I don’t know. I think I understand what
happened to me to the extent that I can see how certain feelings and
ideas developed in me to the point where I began to act out on
them; certain very destructive and very violent deed.
Data 21
Ted Bundy
: I’ve been told that the parents of these girls are fairly decent
people... I don’t know. I really feel for them because apparently
these people suffered some incredible tragedy in their lives. The loss
of a loved one is probably the most extreme kind of loss one could
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suffer in this life, and I’d say, I feel as much for them as anybody
can.
Data 22
Ted Bundy
: The issue is how this kind of literature (pornography) contributed
and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behaviour.
Data 23
Dr. Dobson
: Would it be accurate to call that a sexual frenzy?
Ted Bundy
: That’s one way to describe it – a compulsion, a building up of this
destructive energy. Another fact I haven’t mentioned is the use of
alcohol. In junction with my exposure to pornography, alcohol
reduced my inhibitions and pornography eroded them further.
Data 24
Ted Bundy
: No man is truly innocent. I mean we’ve all transgressed in some
way in our lives. And as I say, I’ve been impolite, and there are
things that I regret having done in my life, but nothing like the things
I think that you’re referring to.
Data 25
Ted Bundy
: There is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore
those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the
pain.
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