...Raising Of A Serial Killer the word “serial killer” comes to mind, usually for me the name Ted Bundy is the one that dominates. Before Bundy was executed in 1989, he confessed to killing more that thirty women in almost a dozen states across the U.S. during his four year long string of murders in the 70s. “The thing that set Ted Bundy away from the serial killer’s stereo typical analysis is that he was such a mainstream All-American man that the Washington State Republican Party hired him, so cunning that he escaped from jail, twice, and so dashing that a woman friend used to send marriage proposals to him on death row.” (www.crimemageyine.com) If this man was such a moral citizen, what could have brought him to the torturous murders of those young women? What psychological explanation is given on his behalf? I feel that a child’s upbringing and their exposure to different things can also trigger certain urges. Usually, the profile of a serial killer tends to be white heterosexual males in their twenties or thirties. While it is impossible to predict who will become a serial killer, there are traits that appear to be similar in all killers. These behaviors include cruelty to animals, bedwetting, lying, stealing, cheating, alcohol and drug abuse, and a very high fascination for pornography. A lot of these traits are prominent in Ted Bundy’s character. An obvious one was he was white, he had a history of torturing animals and was often found reading his grandfather’s porn magazines...
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...Ted Bundy is one of Americas most famous serial killers. He preyed on young females, hunting them down and killing them. He is believed to have murdered 36 women, but it is possible that he killed as many as 100 women. Ted would lure his victims by wearing a fake cast and asked girls to help him with things such as loading his boat onto the back of his VW bug or to help him carry his books. Bundy was able to change his appearance almost at will. If you look at pictures of him over his life, you would never know that they were all pictures of the same person. No one would have suspected Bundy to have killed so many people. He was an all-around nice guy. He volunteered for the Republican Party and a suicide hotline. He had a degree in psychology from the University of Washington and he went to law school in Salt Lake City. Ted was well liked by the people with whom he worked. In 1974, he killed his first victim, Linda Healy, a student at the University of Washington. After that, many other women in the surrounding areas started to disappear. When he moved to Salt Lake City to attend law school, he continued killing. Then he went to Colorado and killed at least five more women there. While in Colorado, he attempted to kidnap Carole DeRonch. Ted told her that someone had broken into her car and he needed to take her down to the police station to identify the suspect. When he pulled over to the side of the road and tried to handcuff her, she ran out of the car. Ted sped away...
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...Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. His name has become synonymous with “murder.” For years, he went undetected while he kept his murder spree secret from all that were close to him and loved him. Serial killings are considered one of the most terrifying and violent crimes in the United States. The majority of serial killers commit their murders over a considerable period of time; Ted Bundy’s murder spree lasted for years. Sometimes these crimes are years apart. Serial killers are usually white males of at least average intelligence who target a certain type of victim, and the crimes are committed in similar places each time. In most cases they fall into one of two major classes of serial killers: psychotic and psychopathic. Most serial killers are considered psychopathic, meaning that they are in touch with reality and know the difference between right and wrong. The major difference they have from regular people is that they lack a conscience, or it is too weak to prevent them from doing something wrong, so they kill without feeling guilt or remorse. Some experts believe that a psychopathic killer can be born through genetics, being born with a predisposition to kill. Other experts believe this type of personality develops due to environmental factors, such as some type of abuse during their upbringing. Many experts also believe that this type of killer results from a combination of genetics and environment. Ted Bundy is considered a psychopathic...
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...(Maddux, J., & Winstead, B., 2008). This means that psychopathy has a prevalence rate of less than three times that of Antisocial Personality in both civil and criminal populations (Hare, R., & Neumann, C., 2009). With all of these reasons is why I picked the case of Ted Bundy who I believe fits this subject right to very dot. Ted was born on November 24, 1946 he was convicted of kidnapping, a rapist, necrophilia and being an all-time American serial killer. He assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s and possibly earlier. Bundy was a handsome and charismatic by his young female victims, traits he exploited in winning their trust. He typically approached them in public places, lying about an injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them at more secluded locations. He sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes for hours at a time, grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses. He decapitated at least 12 of his victims, and kept some of the severed heads in his apartment for a period of time as mementos. On a few occasions he simply broke into dwellings at night and bludgeoned his victims as they slept. Bundy was arrested in August 1975, after he failed to pull over for a...
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...Behavior Variable, Signature, & Modus Operandi Ted Bundy was considered to be an unusual serial killer. This is due to the nurturing and supportive home life provided to him growing up by his grandparents. This is conflictive with the social learning theory that links these behaviors to conditioning and behavioral modeling. However there has been speculation that there was potential abuse as a child. This could simply be an attempt to better explain what seems to be irrational and unfounded behavior being demonstrated. Behavior had been demonstrated by Ted Bundy as a teenager that although problematic was not considered to be completely uncommon for a teenage boy. He was a peeping Tom and had been investigated in connection with two burglaries but no charges were ever made. This behavior was demonstrated prior to the revelation that he was raised by his grandparents and abandoned by his mother. This was a revelation that led to him re-inventing himself. It severely affected his self-esteem knowing he was not wanted by his mother. This combined with the loss of his first love Brooks seemed to take Ted Bundy on a more sinister path than previously destined for. This is evident by the similarity of his victims to Brooks. His belief that good sex was derived from an attractive woman who believed that she was going to die fueled his behavior. A behavior that he stated stemmed from an addiction to pornography. He believed that this addiction fueled hatred towards women. His...
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...Psychobiography: Ted Bundy Though it could be argued that Ted Bundy’s characteristics could fall into that of other psychopath classification systems, this well-known serial killer exhibited many of the traits that Robert Hare outlined in his Psychopathy checklist. This paper will provide an overview of Bundy’s characteristics applicable to Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Taking the two factors of the PCL-R interpersonal traits and antisocial behavior respectively this paper will unpack certain events in Ted Bundy’s life that were contributing factors to his career as a sexual serial killer. Prior to his career as a serial killer, a factor 2 trait from the PCL-R, juvenile delinquency was present in Bundy. The young Ted would sneak around at night to pleasure himself while peeping at women. He also became a shoplifter. (Rippo, 2007, p22). One of the two factors of Hare’s PCL-R demonstrates how certain interpersonal traits contribute to the explanation of the behaviour of psychopathic individuals. Two characteristics that fall under Hare’s interpersonal assets are being cunning and lack of empathy. These two traits are evident in his modus operandi, numerous escapes from police custody and trial(s). As an adolescent Bundy initially made good impressions due to of his good looks and superficial charm, however interpersonal relationships made him feel uneasy and he never felt that he fit in. Moreover, Bundy enjoyed being alone. When his stepfather...
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...Ted Bundy was brought into this world on November 24, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont with the name Theodore Robert Cowell. He began his life as a shame and a secret. His mother, Eleanor Cowell, was only twenty-two years old when she became pregnant with Ted. Since Eleanor was unmarried, she feared the reticule she would face from her deeply religious parents. With that in mind, she was able to give birth to her son at a home in Vermont for unwed mothers. She then later decided to bring Ted to her parents, who lived in Philadelphia. Her parents wanted to hide the fact that he was brought into this world out of wedlock and was an illegitimate child; Ted was raised being told that his grandparents were his adopted parents and his mother was only his sister....
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...observes things that are out of the ordinary. The Utah Highway Patrol officer that stopped Bundy took a closer look at Bundy’s tan Volkswagen Beetle after he failed to stop. The officer observed that the front seat was missing from Bundy’s Volkswagen Beetle. When the officer searched the car he found two ski masks, handcuffs, trash bags, rope, an ice pick and items usually thought to be burglary tools. Bundy was eventually released because the detectives could not find any evidence to link him to the crimes. The major break in the case came shortly after Bundy’s release. Close to a month after his release, Bundy sold the tan Volkswagen Beetle. When police found out about this, they quickly impounded the vehicle from its new owner. During the forensic examination of the Beetle, police found evidence from three of the victims. It is highly improbable for evidence from three separate victims to be in one location (Michaud & Aynesworth, 1999)....
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...Theodore Robert Bundy (a.k.a. Ted Bundy) is one of the most intriguing criminals this country has witnessed in the past century. A serial killer, rapist, and necrophile, Bundy had accrued a body count of thirty plus women over seven states before being caught in August of 1975. Bundy was ultimately given three death sentences, and died by the electric chair in Raiford Prison, Florida. Numerous books, films, and articles have been created about him and the horrendous crimes he committed, and his name is infamously known to almost every individual. It is reasonable to believe that Bundy may have possessed quite a few personality disorders, especially based on the crimes he committed and how he was described as an individual. My goal for this...
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...This case study is based on Theodore (Ted) Bundy, who suffered from antisocial personality disorder. Every aspect of Ted Bundy’s life will be on display, from his background to his emotional, biological, cognitive and behavioral factors, to understanding the criteria of antisocial personality disorder and how it played the role in Theodore’s life. Background Theodore (Ted) Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont on November 11, 1946. Ted was labeled as a bastard child due to never knowing whom his biological father was. His grandparent’s raised him, for the longest time he thought they were his biological parents. Ted’s biological mother was believed to be his sister until she took him away from his grandparent’s house and remarried and then the story came to light of who she actually was to him. Bundy resented his mother due to her taking him away from his grandfather whom he adored above all. Ted’s mother married Johnnie Bundy and had three other children by him. Theodore Bundy did not like his new arrangements and resented his mother for having more children and marrying Johnnie. Ted would lash out and react with anger and hatred and jealousy toward the other children, all he knew was that when his mother had a new baby it was because of Johnnie. Ted found solitude in school work and did very well at it, he felt like school was were he could actually go and get away from home life. Bundy’s has a crush on his first grade teacher; he was upset when she went on maternity...
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...Forensic Science and Murder: The Ted Bundy Case Sheila Hawkins Criminalistics Abstract Forensic science is the foundational element of all crime investigation procedures. Recent advances in forensic technologies make possible to resolve even the most challenging crimes. This paper tells a story of Ted Bundy, a serial killer, whose case was solved with the help of forensic science. Implications and possible changes in case investigation are proposed. Keywords: forensic science, Ted Bundy, serial killer, case, solve. The Ted Bundy Case Forensic science is at the heart of all crime investigation procedures. Recent advances in forensic science make possible to solve even the most challenging cases. The contribution of forensic science to crime investigation is difficult to overestimate: according to Ribaux, Walsh and Margot (2006), forensic science facilitates accreditation, standardization, and interpretation of forensic evidence and ensures the scientific efficiency and objectivity of crime data. The case of Ted Bundy, a serial killer, is no exception: it is with the help of forensic science that the crimes committed by Ted Bundy were solved. The story of Ted Bundy is believed to have started between 1973 and 1974, when he committed his first murders. In just two years, Bundy managed to kill almost two dozens of girls (Ramsland, n.d.). Victims’ age ranged from 12 to 20; some of them were reported to be missing, whereas others vanished from their rooms, leaving...
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...Case Study: Theodore Bundy Jeana Avery PSY 410 University of Phoenix Jan 27, 2010 Case Study: Theodore Bundy This paper will look at the case study of the serial killer Ted Bundy, who had antisocial personality disorder. Background of Bundy’s life will be provided, as well as the definition and criteria of antisocial personality disorder. Last, the paper will look at the biological, emotional, and cognitive causes of antisocial personality disorder. Background Theodore Bundy was born November 11, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont. Bundy never knew his biological father, and was raised in his early years by his grandparents, who Bundy believed were his parents. Bundy’s mother, whom he believed to be his sister, eventually took Bundy from his grandparent’s home and remarried. Three children resulted from his mother’s marriage to Johnnie Bundy, and Ted Bundy reacted with anger, resentment, and jealousy. Bundy did well in school, attended Sunday school, and was an avid skier. However, Bundy was haunted by his illegitimacy, and his mother’s resentment towards him. Bundy’s step-father would become violent when provoked, and Bundy felt overlooked, unsupported, and ignored. As a child, Bundy looked at naked pictures of women, obsessed about material possessions, and was humiliated by his family’s economic status. Due to Bundy’s lack of social skills, Bundy was shy, introverted, and felt inferior to others (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009). “I am the most cold-blooded son...
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...Ted Bundy: Unlikely Serial Killer Americans were shocked in the 1970s when authorities began reporting a string of disappearances of young women from Washington, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Florida and Oregon. The man behind these crimes was Theodore (Ted) Bundy. Many people still consider him to be one of the most notorious serial killers of all time and was once one of the FBI’s most wanted. He was officially tied to 36 murders, however he is believed to have committed more than one hundred. The Ted Bundy murders shocked everyone because of his outwardly sociable appearance, politeness, and political aspirations. He was intelligent, good looking, and charismatic. Many of his victims did not fear him or question him because of how charming he was. He was one of those criminals that just “didn’t seem like bad guy”. Ted Bundy was born in 1946 to Elanor Cowell, a twenty-two year old unmarried woman. Since this was a scandal for her extremely religious family, Elanor gave birth at a home for unwed mothers and the baby was raised as the adopted sons of his grandparents. His mother was to be his sister. After a few years, his mother moved with Ted to Tacoma, Washington where she married Johnnie Bundy and had more children. They seemed to have a happy family home in a working class neighborhood. Around the age of three, Ted began to show a fascination for knives, which those around him just attributed to a sense of curiosity. Other than this, there were no other outward signs that Ted...
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...the word “serial killer” comes to mind, usually for me the name Ted Bundy is the one that dominates. Before Bundy was executed in 1989, he confessed to killing more that thirty women in almost a dozen states across the U.S. during his four year long string of murders in the 70s. “The thing that set Ted Bundy away from the serial killer’s stereo typical analysis is that he was such a mainstream All-American man that the Washington State Republican Party hired him, so cunning that he escaped from jail, twice, and so dashing that a woman friend used to send marriage proposals to him on death row.” (www.crimemageyine.com) If this man was such a moral citizen, what could have brought him to the torturous murders of those young women? What psychological explanation is given on his behalf? I feel that a child’s upbringing and their exposure to different things can also trigger certain urges. Usually, the profile of a serial killer tends to be white heterosexual males in their twenties or thirties. While it is impossible to predict who will become a serial killer, there are traits that appear to be similar in all killers. These behaviors include cruelty to animals, bedwetting, lying, stealing, cheating, alcohol and drug abuse, and a very high fascination for pornography. A lot of these traits are prominent in Ted Bundy’s character. An obvious one was he was white, he had a history of torturing animals and was often found reading his grandfather’s porn magazines. The biggest...
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...committed by Theodore Robert Bundy. After numerous murders that spanned across several states, everyone began to learn more about the serial killer, Ted Bundy. For months and years thereafter, he gained a great deal of attention throughout his arrest, trial, guilty conviction and execution. What motivated this intelligent, former Boy Scout to commit such horrendous acts of murder? Why do some people kill and others who come from similar environments do not? Why was Bundy motivated to conduct several interviews while on death row, including the one on the eve of his execution? These questions will be the basis for this reflective review of Ted Bundy’s life and behavior that led to unthinkable tragedy for many families. Ted Bundy granted an interview to Dr. James Dobson the night before his scheduled death. In this interview, he tells Dr. Dobson that he grew up in a Christian home with two parents and was not the subject of any form of abuse. Then, what could have possibly motivated him to abduct and murder the children and young women he so carefully selected? According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, after we satisfy our biological needs we move on up the pyramid to satisfy our personal and social needs. I believe when Bundy reached level 3, satisfying his love and belonging needs, things started to unravel in his life. He was plagued by fears and doubts of himself through grade school, into high school and on into college. I believe Ted Bundy may have killed because of...
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