At first glance Ted Bundy appeared to be just like any other charming man, his piercing eyes and friendly smile captivating women within moments.
But there was a much darker and sinister personality hiding behind his good looks and it would be years before people learned the true nature of his twisted crimes.
The cruel mastermind eventually confessed to the murders of 28 females, but there are suspicions he could have killed up to 100 women during his murderous rampage throughout the 1970s.
Although he was executed in 1989, his cruel crimes have never been forgotten. And now 30 years since he met his death, Bundy has become a major talking point around the world once again.
On January 24, the trailer for a feature film on the serial killer, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was released, along with a Netflix documentary on Bundy titled Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.
The two films, which were both directed by Joe Berlinger, have received quite a lot of attention over the past week, mainly due to Bundy’s good looks which were widely acknowledged at the time of his crimes.
He used his image and charm to lure in unsuspecting women, praying on them by pretending to be injured and asking for help, before raping them and beating them to death. These victims and many more over the years resembled an uncanny likeness to one of Bundy’s former girlfriends, who had long, dark hair.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is based around another of Bundy’s girlfriends, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about Bundy for years.
She was both captivated by Bundy and scared by a darker side she sensed was hidden underneath his charming smile. In the snippet of the film Kloepfer, played by Lily Collins, confesses how much she loves Bundy, yet how confused she is by the allegations of murder.
The trailer has sparked much attention online with many claiming Bundy has been romanticised in the role played by US actor Zac Efron (your grandkids will remember him from the High School Musical franchise).
However, this hasn’t seemed to bother the majority of the population who argue that Bundy’s appearance was exactly what made him such a talking point in the first place.
Even one of Bundy’s victims, who managed to escape and survive the horror he inflicted on her, agreed the serial killer’s good looks were undeniable and a pivotal part of his crimes.
Speaking to TMZ following the release of the trailer last week, Kathy Kleiner Rubin, who was attacked by Bundy in her Florida State University sorority house in 1978, said he needs to be perceived in that light.
“I think the movie does glorify him more than I think he should be, but I think everyone should see it and understand him as what he was even when he was the perfect son,” she told the news outlet.
Rubin said she hopes the movie cautions women not to be too trusting of strangers, no matter how charming they may seem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2vQjJ51ABQ
“I think hopefully it will make women – mainly that’s my heart, to care for the women – to be more aware of their surroundings and to be cautious,” she added. “He had different tactics that he used to help people, to help people get in cars or do things. In your gut, if you feel that something doesn’t feel right, just say no.”
Others mirrored her comments, taking to social media to share their views on the film and Efron’s portrayal of the cruel killer.
“People are so offended that Zac Efron is playing Ted Bundy and think the movie is romanticizing [sic] him, when really it’s entirely factual that his looks, charm and intelligence were his greatest weapons in murdering 30 women. Think of it more as a… warning?” one person wrote on Twitter.
While another added: “The trailer for the Ted Bundy film isn’t supposed to be sexualising killers, and it isn’t. It’s supposed to make you feel as though you’re being charmed into liking him because that is what he did to his victims. It’s not pleasant, but it’s showing you how he did what he did”.
https://twitter.com/jujulettieri/status/1090284015024783360
The documentary on the other hand is more confronting, featuring never-before-heard audio of the killer discussing his crimes in third person. The four part series has also created a buzz, and mostly as well, because of Bundy’s “hotness”, so much so that Netflix posted a message urging people not to fantasise over the killer’s appearance.
Taking to Twitter only days after the documentary was added to the streaming service Netflix wrote: “I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service – almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers”.
Bundy’s murderous rampage is suspected to have begun in 1974, when a number of women were reported missing in Seattle, Washington, and Oregon, where Bundy had lived throughout the year.
Over the next two years, Bundy killed at least nine women in Washington and Colorado. He was arrested in 1975 and stood trial for kidnapping Carol DaRonch in Murray, Utah. He was found guilty and sentenced to serve from one to 15 years in the Utah State Prison. While he was in jail he was found guilty of the murder of Caryn Campbell (which he committed in Colorado) and was later transferred to a prison in Aspen, Colorado.
It wasn’t long until Bundy was out in the free world again, having twice managed to escape — once from a courthouse and once from jail. In 1976 he snuck out of a court hearing where he was acting as his own attorney. Bundy asked to use the library for research during a recess in the hearing and jumped from a window the two-story building. He managed to make his way past the courthouse roadblocks and stole a car before heading into the woods. He was found by police and apprehended six days later.
His greatest escape came six months later though in December 1977, when he climbed into a hole in the ceiling of his jail cell and changed into civilian clothes. He then made his way through the prison and walked out the front door with no one any the wiser to his actions. It took a day for prison officials to realise he was missing.
After his escape he made his way to Tallahassee, Florida where he killed three females, two of whom were living at a sorority house and one whom was 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. Just weeks later, on February 12, police finally caught up with Bundy and charged him with the three murders. It was Leach’s death that put Bundy in the electric chair.
Adamant he would avoid the death penalty, the murderer used his charm and intelligence to try to persuade the judge to let him off, even attempting to take his case a high as the US Supreme Court.
His efforts failed though and Bundy was eventually put to death on January 24, 1989, by way of electric chair.