REPORTER: Well, they're still looking for murder suspect
Theodore Bundy, who celebrated New Year's Eve
by escaping from a Colorado jail.
REPORTER: Bundy's escape bordered on a Houdini escapade.
The 5'11", 145-pound former law student
ripped out a light fixture and steel grating in the ceiling
and then manoeuvred himself up through
a 12-inch by 12-inch hole in the ceiling.
REPORTER 2: Ground units, helicopters, and dogs
have been searching for Bundy.
Roadblocks have been set up
around the town of Glenwood Springs,
and an all-points bulletin has been issued.
REPORTER 3: If Bundy is ever recaptured,
the Colorado prosecution will continue
and he could be prosecuted for one of the Utah murders
before this thing is all over with.
But for the moment,
Theodore Bundy is merely an escaped convicted kidnapper
and now one of the FBI's most wanted men.
ELIZABETH: My dreams at this time were extremely vivid.
♪
ELIZABETH: A lot of times they centred around my daughter.
Things like she was either really injured
or she was really sick and I needed help,
and the police told me that they wouldn't help me
because I wouldn't help them before,
and I was like, "But here's my...
"My little girl needs help," and they said, "Sorry."
And it was just... it was just awful.
I'd have to like lay in bed and think,
"Did this happen, or was this a dream?"
Like, I dreamt one night that I had helped Ted
bury the first victim,
and I said that if he promised to never do it again,
I would forgive him.
It's just like I woke up thinking,
"My god, what's my subconscious doing?"
♪
♪ Poses, poses ♪
♪ That's all you are to me ♪
♪ Roses, roses ♪
♪ That's all you're offering me ♪
♪
[indistinct chatter]
REPORTER: Here in Houston, 35 new astronauts
have now officially joined the space program.
Ahead for some of America's first six women in space
will be diverse missions, such as... [inaudible]
REPORTER: Is there any particular experiment
in the program designed to take advantage
of the fact that you are a woman?
JUDITH: I don't really know exactly what experiments
are planned for any of the shuttle missions,
but as far as the accommodations and the training,
we're all astronauts,
and we're not distinguished whether we're male or female.
REPORTER: Astronaut Resnik got here early,
and is flown back seat of the T-38 jet trainer.
So almost 20 years after the first astronauts
were chosen, NASA finally has women and black astronauts.
There'll be flying aboard the space shuttle
in two years.
This is Jules Bergman, ABC News...
REPORTER: ...the rather amazing story of Mr. Bundy.
But law enforcement officials here were confident
that Bundy would be found again sooner or later.
This is Sandy Gilmour, Newswatch 2,
in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
STEVE: He rambled around a little bit.
He went to Chicago and then he went to Michigan.
STEVE: He watched the Rose Bowl game in a bar in Ann Arbor,
when he cheered for UW and got roaring drunk, he said.
RICHARD: You know, I was a teenager
when he was arrested,
and I didn't really see the escaping as him
being full-on guilty, 'cause, you know,
I mean, I was a kid; I was just being stupid
and naive, you know, I was thinking...
like the, uh... the Fugitive story.
Richard Kimball ran away to find the real killer,
you know, probably what I was thinking.
And at the same time, I was...
A part of me was blocking it out going,
"Dude, whatever it is, pssht...
"You can't do nothing about it.
"Don't let it ruin your life."
You know, it was part of me trying to protect myself
from all the pain, but I just said,
"Man, just go outside and ride your skateboard."
"Fuck him," you know?
"If he's guilty, then... scumbag gets what he gets."
You know?
♪
DIANE: I knew a few of the girls beforehand.
Um, I didn't know all of them, of course,
and I knew girls at other houses as well,
but there was just something that drew me to Chi Omega.
In sororities, you tend to become a family.
You form a sisterhood
and you become friends with these girls.
I think more so than other sororities,
we were a little bit different.
The girls had their own desires and wishes,
and they weren't all the same.
So we were definitely not a cookie-cutter
kind of organization.
Lisa was so honoured to be a student
at Florida State University, and just so happy to be there.
[fiddle music]
DIANE: She taught me how to do a line dance.
[laughs] She had the hardest time
teaching me how to do this line dance.
Now, I had had years of ballroom dance training.
I had, at that point, I think 18 years of ballet training,
but I could not get this line dance down,
and she was so patient with me.
But through the course of her teaching and instructing me,
we would just crack up laughing.
♪
DIANE: We had gone to bed.
I don't recall what it was that stirred me.
I just, uh, for whatever reason,
went immediately to Lisa's room and opened the door and went in.
There she was.
You know, she was covered in blood.
She was absolutely covered in blood.
And she was moaning.
Uh, and I, you know, reached out to her,
and she was touching her mouth,
and to this day, I, you know,
I have that memory of her.
♪
REPORTER: Four young women were beaten with a club
and two of them were strangled to death last night
by a man who found his victims
sleeping in this sorority house on the Tallahassee Campus
of Florida State University.
A man was seen leaving the house with a club,
and another co-ed was beaten...
DIANE: Um, I still have the image in my mind,
and I still, you know, care for her deeply,
and I just wish I could've done something.
REPORTER: The killer came in from the night
and then returned to it
with an ease that has so far baffled police
and left most co-eds here terrified.
He clubbed and then strangled to death
20-year-old Lisa Levy and 21-year-old Margaret Bowman.
At least one of them was raped.
Then he brutally beat three more sleeping co-eds,
Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner.
Cheryl Anne Thomas was severely beaten
in her apartment six blocks away.
DIANE: I think there was this thought
that as long as you didn't do harm to another
or put yourself in a bad situation
that you could not be harmed.
♪
DIANE: And in fact, these were totally innocent women
that were, you know, unjustly attacked,
and two lives were taken.
♪
ELIZABETH: I always took my newspaper
on my morning break,
and when I was reading the paper,
I saw this photograph of a young woman
peering out from behind a curtain
at the Chi Omega Sorority House in Florida,
and I had this really bad feeling
that it might be the work of Ted.
REPORTER: The front door of the Chi Omega House
was not only locked today,
a policeman stood guard on the other side.
KEN: We knew we had somebody who was in a rage,
somebody who wanted to murder,
somebody who was capable of brutality
like I had never seen before, and I had seen a lot.
REPORTER: Blood-stained bedsheets
and numerous bags of other evidence were prepared...
KEN: As I was leaving the Chi Omega House after daybreak,
I got a phone call,
and it was investigators from out west
telling me that, you know,
had you thought about the possibility it was Ted Bundy?
I said, "Well, you know, this isn't his kind of crime."
This was a mass murder all in one location in a house,
and there is nothing in Ted Bundy's history
to indicate that he would operate in that manner.
So I wrote his name down because they gave it to me,
but I did not and could not fathom
that he made his way to Tallahassee
and then changed his M.O. completely
and did something like this.
♪
STEVEN: He was looking for a college campus.
That's where he felt comfortable.
That's where he wanted to operate.
It's a migratory store,
almost like an animal migrating somewhere
in search of a place to settle,
in search of a place to-- in search of prey.
I mean, it's very... it's very primal.
♪
STEVEN: And then he stole a Florida State University van,
changed plates on it, again trying to cover his tracks,
and trolled over a hundred miles over to Lake City,
this small little town.
♪
BARBARA: That little 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.
I mean...
this girl in middle school walking along,
and he takes her, and...
found her in a hog shed or whatever that was.
STEVEN: 12 years old.
A child.
♪
STEVEN: She looked like a 12-year-old.
She didn't look-- you know, she wasn't--
she didn't look older than her years.
She was a child.
She was taken in front of her own school.
♪
ELIZABETH: As a mother, you're trying
to give your daughters the best life ever.
But, you know,
what I really brought into her life was...
rapes and murders and lies and craziness.
♪
MOLLY: It took me a long time to take it in,
what that means to me.
I mean, it was...
[sighs] It was hurtful
in the same that every single murder that he committed,
every attack that he carried out,
was hurtful to me.
♪
MOLLY: [sighs]
This girl could be my twin, you know?
We were the same.
And I really grappled with,
"Does this have anything to do with me?"
And...
♪
That's devastating.
♪
STEVEN: The recklessness of it seems to suggest
that he was careening towards an end of some kind.
♪
DAVID: February 15th, 1978,
somewhere around 1:30 am in the morning,
while on patrol with the Pensacola Police Department,
I noticed a Volkswagen Bug coming out of the alleyway
behind Oscar Woerner's restaurant.
No headlights.
I came up behind him and activate my blue lights
same time I'm running the tag,
and the tag come back as a stolen vehicle.
I didn't have a backup anywhere close by.
There was only three of us working the entire city
of Pensacola that night.
I got him out of the car and had him laying on the pavement.
He kept saying, "Officer, what's wrong?
"Officer, what's wrong?"
DAVID [ARCHIVE]: Uh, well, initially when I was putting--
placing the handcuffs on him,
he kicked my feet out from under me
and struck me with a handcuff
that had been placed on one wrist,
and of course knocked me off my feet,
and that's when it started.
DAVID: I was chasing him,
hollering "Halt," and so forth.
Well, he turned, and all I seen was a nickel,
and thought it was a gun,
so I levelled down and fired.
So I said, "Oh my god, I've killed him."
DAVID [ARCHIVE]: And when I went to see if he was shot,
I bend down, he grabbed my wrist,
and we had a struggle for control of my revolver.
DAVID: And it's a heavy pistol,
and when I broke it away,
it swung and slapped him on the cheek.
And if you see pictures right after the suspect was arrested,
there's a big bruise on the side of his cheek,
and that was from my pistol barrel.
There's no doubt in my mind that he'd have killed me
if he had taken my gun away from me.
He didn't give us much information initially.
The driver's licence that he had
was in the name of Kenneth Misner.
Norman Chapman was the detective on call,
and me and Norman started interview him.
NORMAN: I kept keying on his eyes.
His eyes were alarming to me.
They were deep, steel-blue eyes,
and at first I couldn't figure out what it was
I was keying on,
but it was his eyes.
And it was also the feeling.
Once I got around him, I had this feeling
I'd never felt before.
It was a feeling of, um...
I guess the best way to describe it
was a frustration and doom.
And from then on, when I got this feeling,
I knew I'd been around somebody who'd murdered somebody,
not somebody who killed somebody in self-defence,
somebody who had murdered somebody.
By this time, everybody in the investigation is saying,
"Chapman, who do you have?"
And I said, "Well, I don't know."
"Well, how come you don't know?"
Well, see, we didn't have computers or anything
back in the 70s.
We had to take him to the first appearance for the judge.
BUNDY: No, sir.
NORMAN: I thought, sure, him going before the judge
it did tell who he was.
He said, I ain't tell you.
So the judge refused to set a bond on him
because he didn't know who he was.
So I bring him back to the police station.
His attorneys went in, talked a few minutes,
and then when they called me in,
they said he wants to wait until he contacts some people
before he releases his identification.
There's some people he wants to let them know he's in custody.
I says, "Okay."
I says, "I will give him two hours to call anybody
"he wants to before I put him back in his cell."
I said, "He gotta call collect,
"because Pensacola Police Department
"pays for no more phone calls."
[inaudible conversation]
ROBERT: Are you aware that this interview is being taped?
ELIZABETH [ARCHIVE]: Yes.
ROBERT: Is it taped with your approval?
ELIZABETH: Yes.
ROBERT: Okay.
Would you describe the telephone call
that you received from Ted Bundy?
ELIZABETH: He called collect.
My daughter accepted the charges.
I told him that he shouldn't be calling me,
that my phone had a trap on it,
and he said that he was in custody,
and I asked him where and he said Florida.
He said-- he repeated over and over again
that this was really gonna be bad when it broke,
that it was not gonna break until tomorrow morning.
It'd be in the press, but it was gonna be really ugly.
ELIZABETH: And I said,
"I was really afraid that you might be in that area
"and that you might have done it."
And he said,
"You know, I can't really talk to you about things."
He said, "I wish I could sit down and tell you things
"without anybody listening."
And I said, "Are you trying to tell me that you're sick?"
And he said, "Back off."
He got really angry. He said, "Back off."
He says, "That's not it at all."
And I wasn't-- I was really confused.
Took me a long time to, like, calm down after that.
REPORTER: Theodore Bundy came back to Tallahassee
early Sunday morning in a Pensacola police cruiser
escorted by Leon County sheriff's deputies.
It was in Tallahassee that Bundy allegedly stole
21 credit cards, three sets of identification,
and a Volkswagen.
Authorities also say they can...
ELIZABETH: Saturday morning at 2 he called again, collect,
and he said that he wanted to talk about
what we'd been talking about on the first phone call.
And I said, "You mean about being sick?"
And he said, "Yes."
REPORTER: Sherriff Ken Katsaris said investigators
will continue pursuing all leads in the Chi Omega murders
despite having Bundy as a prime suspect.
ELIZABETH: He told me that he...
he knew now there was something that he couldn't be around.
And when I asked him what, he said, "Don't make me say it."
So I knew that he was meaning young, beautiful women.
He just was addicted to killing.
♪
ELIZABETH: And he started to tell me about this force,
is what he called it,
and he said it would just start building within him,
and he would...
It would take him, you know, days
before he really acted out.
But once he acted out,
it was just over.
And he mentioned the day
that the two women were abducted from Lake Sammamish.
[police radio chatter]
ELIZABETH: And he said, "I remembered when you and I
"went to eat hamburgers after that, and ice cream."
And he said, "I remembered what had happened."
He said, "It wasn't like I'd had a blackout."
And he said, "But it was just like it was over."
And I was just shocked,
because I thought if he did do these things
that he had to have two personalities
or something like that,
but he was telling me that this is just him.
♪
INTERVIEWER: Why do you think he did that?
ELIZABETH: I think he was... beat.
I think he... he knew that he...
he couldn't live in freedom anymore
because he was too murderous.
He said to me, "Didn't you always know?"
And it's just like...
"Well, yes and no."
And it's like... [chuckles ruefully]
I dunno. It's very...
It's a very confusing emotional conversation.
Um...
ELIZABETH [ARCHIVE]: I asked him
if I somehow played a part in what had happened,
and he said no,
that for years before he even met me,
he'd been fighting the same sickness,
and that when it broke, we just happened to be together.
Uh...
ELIZABETH: I feel like for so long...
this mental confusion that I had about,
is he guilty, is he capable,
is he really a nice, wonderful guy
that I should love, or...?
And that mental confusion
I think was all just part of me not being able
to face the facts.
And once I got off the phone,
I just felt like...
I was glad to know the truth,
but I also felt like the truth was just so ugly
that I just felt like...
[exhales] I felt really upset,
and very desolate that this was true,
that this man I knew did these things.
Not only did I know him, I loved him.
So it was very difficult.
[indistinct voices]
REPORTER: Wanted for questioning
in at least 36 cases of rape, murders, and missing women
in several western states since 1973.
The FBI said Bundy escaped from a jail near Aspen, Colorado
last December.
He was awaiting trial there on a sex slaying charge.
In January, according to Florida police,
Bundy was living in Tallahassee
at the time when five Florida State University co-eds
were attacked on or near the campus.
Two of the young women died as a result of the attack...
ELIZABETH [ARCHIVE]: He alluded to Tallahassee.
I asked him specifically about the Florida murders,
and he told me that he didn't want to talk about them.
But then in the same conversation he said
that he felt like he had a disease like alcoholism,
like the alcoholic that couldn't take another drink.
♪
ELIZABETH: I really thought he was gonna confess.
That's what he was talking about.
So I was really disappointed in the following days
when he didn't.
When he called me in my office
after a few weeks of not confessing,
I could have easily fallen into a chatty conversation with him
because that was our pattern,
but I... I already knew
that I was coming out from under the spell,
but at that point the spell was broken,
and I just hung up on him.
MARK: I was in the early stages of my journalism career,
and I met an attorney
who was at that point representing Ted Bundy.
He called me and asked if I would be interested
in covering the Ted Bundy case,
and in particular be interested in speaking with Bundy
face-to-face.
So I said, "Okay."
♪
MARK: I walked in with this attorney,
and he was sitting with a stack of papers,
and he was writing,
and the first thing I noticed was that there was
classical music playing on the radio,
and I asked him about that.
And he said, "Oh yeah, that's the local college
"public radio station."
♪
MARK: He was very soft-spoken,
very charming,
made direct eye contact the whole time.
I began to ask him about different parts of his life,
his childhood.
I was probing the same things that people would probe
for years thereafter.
What kind of a childhood did he have?
What was the relationship with his mother?
And the more we talked,
the more normal he seemed to be.
♪
MARK: On my way out, I was really shaken.
Here was somebody who I knew in my heart
had killed many women, I just knew it.
And yet I felt that the person I was speaking with
in that jail cell was not the person
who did all these horrible things.
The fact that someone
whose background was so similar to mine
could host a being
capable of doing those horrible things,
I just couldn't separate myself from him.
♪
MARK: If he was capable of it,
then I had to confront the notion that maybe
I could have been capable of something like that.
♪
REPORTER: A man who was a suspect in several cases
of murder in four states
has been formally charged in Florida with three.
KEN [ARCHIVE]: Okay...
Ladies and gentlemen of the press,
I'm meeting with you tonight
to inform you that Theodore Robert Bundy
has been indicted by the Grand Jury of Leon County
this afternoon and...
KEN: I was the director of the investigation
that involved Ted Bundy.
I had the authority to take over,
and to discharge my duties by directing, and I did.
I did not want to lose total control over him.
Every time he did anything,
it was approved by me.
So, one person took, and I admit it,
absolute control.
KEN [ARCHIVE]: ...back here.
I don't want any motioning to me.
KEN: I went to Judge Cowart and to Harry Morrison,
who was the state attorney,
and said, "Here's my dilemma.
"We have the indictment.
"I want to get it out of the way,
"but the media wants to be there."
Judge Cowart said,
"Sheriff, read that indictment tonight."
KEN [ARCHIVE]: I have copies for you.
MAN: Oh, you do.
KEN: I have copies of the indictment
to give each of you, so you're not...
KEN: Harry Morrison, the state attorney said,
"I agree. It's your jail;
"it's your inmate. Handle it."
I said, "Okay."
I had no idea how he was going to react.
BUNDY: Gentlemen, I'm not to be paraded [inaudible].
KEN: Step out, Mr. Bundy.
BUNDY: What do we have here, Ken?
Let's see.
Oh, it's an indictment. All right.
Why don't you read it to me?
You're up for election aren't you?
KEN: Mr. Bundy...
BUNDY: You got it, didn't you?
KEN: Mr. Bundy...
BUNDY: You told them that you were gonna get me.
He said he was gonna get me, okay?
You've got the indictment. It's all you're gonna get.
Let's read it. Let's go.
KEN: Theodore Robert Bundy, you are charged...
MARK: Ken Katsaris realized what a bounty he had,
and I just thought he was, you know, a guy on the way up,
a showman,
and I think he saw this as an opportunity
to get local state but also national media
by putting someone on display in his care,
which was not ethical at all.
He was willing to risk a show
to sort of trot him out.
Unprecedented, no legal reason for the show
other than just seeking publicity for himself,
as Katsaris.
Now, in Bundy he had a willing victim.
I mean, Bundy realized the media could help him,
because it had in the past,
to humanize him.
And so any opportunity he got to use the press,
he would use.
KEN: ...the death of said Lisa Levy.
BUNDY: My chance to talk to the press.
KEN: Contrary to section 78204 Florida Statute.
BUNDY: I'll plead not guilty right now.
KEN: And your grand jurors being present...
KEN: Obviously I got a lot of criticism
because the media got to see the indictment reading.
But they got a chance to see Ted Bundy
with those eyes piercing, and him saying,
"I am gonna plead not guilty right now."
BUNDY: I've been kept in isolation for six months.
I've been kept away from the press.
I've been buried by you.
You've been talking for six months.
I think it's my turn now. All right?
KEN: We got a court order that you--
there wont be any press interviews.
BUNDY: Sure there won't be any press interviews.
You've given them out. I'm gagged, you're not.
KEN: Okay.
[inaudible] will read you your rights.
BUNDY: I'll be heard.
MARK: He was a guy powerless at this point,
in a jumpsuit, being subjected to a show
by someone who had complete control over his life.
It changed the balance, because before that,
the feelings against Ted were running very high.
I mean, the feelings in Tallahassee
were very, very raw in these killings
and the injuring of these women,
and it may have slowed down the sort of community-wide anger
and fear that had been generated by Ted.
INTERVIEWER: I have to say that when I look at that tape,
it really looks like a media event.
KEN: See what I'm saying?
That's why I never responded.
Everybody has their own opinion.
INTERVIEWER: But what's your response to that?
What do you say to that?
KEN: I don't care what you think.
REPORTER: While the trial was getting underway
here at the courthouse,
the 8th floor of the bank building next door
was buzzing with activity.
Theodore Robert Bundy is national news.
MARK: The Bundy trial, in effect,
was the OJ trial of 1979.
REPORTER: Three key things happened in court today
as the murder trial of Ted Bundy continues
in these three days of free trial hearings.
The major surprise came late in the afternoon
when Bundy, wearing a Seattle Mariners T-shirt,
took the stand...
MARK: We knew we had a big story.
We knew that it was a first
in terms of a big, national, international trial
on television.
REPORTER: Tonight, Ted Bundy and cameras in the courtroom.
REPORTER 2: We're in the newsroom on the ninth floor
of the Metro Justice building, five floors above the courtroom.
WOMAN: Keep your pieces short
so that we can all get on the air.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Smile, Ted.
MARK: I mean, the networks were there.
We had a feed room.
We built a newsroom in a courthouse.
REPORTER: If the verdict is guilty of murder
in the first degree,
Bundy could be sentenced to die.
MARK: You had young women who had been brutally murdered
by a really good-looking guy that didn't fit the pattern.
I mean, it had all the elements.
It was made for TV, and TV was there.
REPORTER: Three, two, one.
MAN: Here he comes.
WOMAN: Is anybody using a walkie-talkie on this floor?
You're breaking up the feed!
MAN: Get ready, Larry, it's coming up.
♪
MARK: Murder trials are drama more than anything else.
They're ritualized dramas:
a beginning, a middle, and an end.
There's usually a resolution, unlike many things in life.
I prefer to be in the courtroom every day
because that's just the way I do what I do.
Sometimes you just feel something in the courtroom,
a look on somebody's face, you know,
an intake of breath in the jury box.
REPORTER: During what might be the most
brutally descriptive day of testimony,
Ted Bundy looked more like a defence attorney
than a defendant on trial for his life.
MARK: When Ted insisted on defending himself,
he wanted to show that he was a competent lawyer
in the making.
But then I think the limelight infected him in some way,
and I think he was really then playing to this
much larger audience than that 12 people
in the jury box.
JUDGE: You gonna talk to me, or are you gonna talk to them?
BUNDY: I'm gonna show this to Mr. Miller.
JAMES: He was focused on managing his image,
but when he stood up to question a witness,
it wasn't because there was a point to it,
it was he was standing up to question a witness,
and they caught that on camera.
BUNDY: Do you recall her telling you that she...
she remembers the assailant being young?
ATTORNEY: Objection.
JAMES: And he looked like a lawyer and he asked questions,
his mouth moved, and so, you know,
therefore the public would say,
"Wow, that's amazing. This guy's like a lawyer."
And the fact that the press, you know, responded to him
just encouraged him.
ELIZABETH: I thought he enjoyed it too much.
I would see him on TV carrying boxes of legal documents,
and playing the role of attorney
like this is his big chance to act like an attorney.
It was just bizarre.
ATTORNEY: Nita, do you see the man that you saw
at the door of the Chi Omega house on January 15, 1978,
[inaudible]?
NITA: Yes, I believe I do.
MOLLY: I was at my grandparents' house in the summer,
and it was my habit to watch TV in the mornings
down there, and...
NITA: This is the first time that I've seen him in life.
MOLLY: I would sit and watch this every day,
and nobody really understood what I was watching.
NITA: ...and I think I recognize it now better
than I ever have before.
MOLLY: That was the moment for me
where I just... my whole world shifted
and I saw him as something entirely different.
It's one thing to know that someone's probably guilty,
but it's another thing to really understand
guilty of what.
KATHY: My jaw was broken in three places.
I had lacerations on my shoulder
and like whiplash on my neck.
KAREN: And I had cuts on my head.
I had a broken jaw.
Some of my teeth were knocked out.
MOLLY: It was...
really, uh...
so shattering to see
these murdered women,
to see the evidence that depicted their smashed heads,
and...
hear about the physical things
that were inflicted upon them,
and see the evidence of such.
It was horrendous.
And I knew.
♪
MOLLY: It's just like, where do you get disbelief
at that point?
I couldn't find it, and I loved him very much.
♪
INTERVIEWER: Still?
MOLLY: At that time, yes, I loved him very much.
[overlapping conversation in newsroom]
MARK: There were some journalists who felt
that Bundy was innocent,
that he couldn't have done this.
♪
REPORTER: He was relaxed and confident in court,
and took the time to chat a few minutes with me
about Seattle, about his family,
and to welcome me to Miami,
smiling when the guard very obviously wanted
our conversation to end.
GINGER: He got coverage that fell for his act.
That was a failure on the part of the press,
a failure to look deeper and think harder
about what it was they were dealing with.
♪
REPORTER: Theodore Robert Bundy at age 25,
a Republican campaign worker in Seattle.
At 28, a University of Utah law student.
At 30, a Colorado jail escapee
and one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted men.
That must've been a terrifying moment
for this young man who has maintained his innocence
in every crime he has been accused of.
GINGER: It's a discounting of the stories of the women
in favour of the central hero,
for lack of a better word,
being the most important character in the narrative.
REPORTER: Each day the courtroom is filled with spectators
drawn by a fascination with Theodore Bundy himself,
or by the gruesome details of the crimes.
WOMAN: You try to imagine yourself in his place
and to see how he's feeling,
looking at the pillows with bloodstains and everything,
if he really did it or not.
WOMAN: It scares me be in the same room with him,
but I know there's other people in there, so...
REPORTER: Why do you do it?
WOMAN: I don't know. [laughs]
REPORTER: But one woman who has been at the trial
for the past four days,
and who frequently confers with Bundy,
has another impression entirely.
Carole Boone believes Bundy is completely innocent.
Some have called her his girlfriend.
She prefers to be known as just a close personal friend.
MARK: In the beginning people were saying,
"Have you heard about this woman, Carole Boone?"
She was in the courtroom I think pretty much every day.
She was not expressive,
except for this weird smile she had
when she would talk about stuff.
She was just a little strange,
and no matter what happened,
no matter what the day's testimony was,
she would have an explanation for why it was wrong
or not incriminating.
REPORTER: Carole Boone says she first met Ted Bundy
five years ago when they worked in the same office
in Seattle, Washington.
Since that time, she has followed him,
helping him prepare his legal cases, from Utah,
where he was convicted of kidnapping a young woman,
to Colorado, where he is suspected of murdering another,
and finally now to Florida.
CAROLE: Let me put it this way. I... I don't think that...
that Ted belongs in jail.
The things in Florida don't concern me.
MARK: Carole would come up and just talk to
individual reporters, and my memory is
that she would be spinning for Ted.
She was definitely talking on his behalf,
and she seemed absolutely sincere.
REPORTER: Boone says she has twice been allowed
to visit Bundy in jail
since he was brought to Miami six days ago.
She describes him as nervous but cautiously hopeful.
INTERVIEWER: Well, what did you make of him
taking up with Carole Boone?
ELIZABETH: I'm just glad it wasn't me.
BUNDY: I'll call Carole Boone.
ELIZABETH: I just felt like she's gonna be
just as roped in as I was,
she's gonna be used just like I was.
This isn't gonna end well for her.
BUNDY: And are you familiar with the defendant, myself?
CAROLE: Yes.
BUNDY: And how long have you known me?
CAROLE: Uh, since May of 1974.
ELIZABETH: He had spent a lifetime observing women
and deciding which was going to become a victim,
and I think he could tell
when women had the codependence issue
where they wanted to help him in any way they could.
CAROLE: I don't think they had reason to charge Ted Bundy
with... with murder in either Leon County or...
or Columbia County.
MOLLY: You know, all the facts of the case,
I don't understand how she made it through all of that
and still believed in him.
BUNDY: What is that picture of?
CAROLE: That's a photograph of you,
taken several years ago, before you were in custody.
MOLLY: But I do believe she believed in him.
I mean, I can't judge her.
I can't judge any single person, you know, in this story.
I mean, we all just did the best we could.
But I don't-- I'm not sure why her story went like that.
ATTORNEY: ... that these two right here,
which are State's exhibits number six and seven...
MARK: On one of the days that they presented
the autopsy photographs,
what I was seeing was the graphic evidence
of the damage he did to these women.
You know, they're horrific pictures, horrible stuff.
As I looked at these women,
these women looked like women who I knew.
I was the same age as Bundy.
I was still on the fringes of a college campus,
and these were faces of people
that I could see on my own campus
in my own college town.
On that day, I left the trial coverage
and was having dinner with another journalist
and I just in the middle of dinner,
I just started to weep because it was so horrific.
How could you maintain that intensity
of hatred for women
and be able to do this time after time after time?
♪
REPORTER: The verdict is in.
Guilty on seven counts,
including assault and burglary,
attempted murder, and murder.
At this point, the judge has recessed the jury
until Saturday morning.
At that time, the 12 members will decide
whether to recommend the death penalty.
JUDGE: This court, independent of,
but in agreement with, the advisor's sentence
rendered by the jury
does hereby impose the death penalty
upon the defendant, Theodore Robert Bundy.
MARK: All of us who covered that trial can remember
categorically what he said to Bundy
when he-- after he sentenced him to die.
JUDGE: Take care of yourself, young man.
BUNDY: Thank you.
JUDGE: I say that to you sincerely.
Take care of yourself.
It's a tragedy for this court to see
such a total waste, I think, of humanity
that I have experienced in this court.
You're a bright young man.
You'd have made a good lawyer.
I'd have loved to have you practice in front of me,
but you went another way, partner.
Take care of yourself.
I don't have any animosity to you.
I want you to know it. Take care of yourself.
BUNDY: Thank you. JUDGE: Court will be in recess.
JANE: That he would say that to him with no concern
really for what these women actually experienced...
It's almost paying homage to him,
and that is a scary, scary thing.
REPORTER: Following this court case,
he will stand trial in Lake City, Florida
for another death,
that of 12-year-old Kimberly Anne Leach.
♪
REPORTER: Wearing a blue bowtie and a big grin,
Theodore Bundy faced the jury for the last time.
They reconvened to hear testimony from both sides
before deciding whether to recommend life in prison
or the death penalty.
The defence called only one witness, Carole Boone.
Acting as his own lawyer,
Bundy questioned her about his character.
She said he's a kind, warm, patient man,
a very positive part of her life.
Then the convicted man popped the question.
BUNDY: Will you marry me? CAROLE: Yes, I will.
BUNDY: Then I do hereby marry you, okay.
ELIZABETH: When they got married, I just thought...
I felt slightly disgusted
just because it was such a Ted...
showboating type thing to do.
MOLLY: He married her on the stand,
at the trial of this girl
who he...
raped and mutilated and murdered,
and...
every year that I have gained since then,
I think about her and the years that she did not gain.
♪
REPORTER: The prosecution called the marriage proposal
a charade, and asked the jury to consider
the timing of the announcement.
The jury deliberated about 45 minutes.
They came back with a decision of death.
JUROR: A majority of the jury advise and recommend
to the court that it impose the death penalty
upon the defendant, Theodore Robert Bundy,
dated this 9th day of February, 1980,
in Orlando, Orange County, Florida.
JUDGE: It is further ordered that you, Theodore Robert Bundy,
be taken by the proper authority
to the Florida State Prison, and there be kept
and closely confined till the date of your execution is set.
[inaudible voices]
♪
ELIZABETH: I mean, so many women died,
and I just felt like, "Why am I still alive?"
And I was miserable.
I think about the fear that they must've felt
once this charming man turned into the monster
that he was.
I just felt decimated.
That I was a complete failure as a human being
and as a mother,
and...
that I really didn't deserve
to be alive.
♪
And I should be dead too.
♪