Ted Bundy - Serial Killer - 1974-1978

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Kathy Kleiner Rubin knows what it is like to endure trauma. In 1978, she survived serial killer Ted Bundy. He had escaped from a Colorado jail and made his way to Florida State University. On a cold January night, he saw the door to the Chi Omega sorority house had a busted lock. He killed two women while they slept and then attacked Kleiner Rubin and her roommate. They survived because a car headlight flashed in their room and spooked Bundy.


Read on...


Ted Bundy tried to kill her, but she survived. Here's the one thing she's sick of being asked.

1/24/2024
 
48 Hours
Feb 22, 2024 #48hours #crime #news
In July 1979, three survivors — Kathy Kleiner, Karen Chandler and Cheryl Thomas — took the witness stand at Ted Bundy's murder trial. The women, who were attacked in January 1978 on the Florida State University campus, were gravely injured but miraculously survived. We shared their incredible stories of strength and survival in "Surviving Ted Bundy." Here's a look.
 

Ted's cousin, Edna, has written a book with input from other families about their 50 yr journey of having Ted Bundy as a close relative. The book includes some very chilling letters from Ted, as well as those other family members wrote to him. Apparently, he denied to his family members that he was involved in any murders. Ted and his cousin Edna were close, grew up together and were close in age. She was a student at University of Washington when Ted began killing women students there. She had even met his first murder victim, Lynda Ann Healy, several times, knew who she was.

JMO, this book might give us a broader view of how Ted Became what he was. It will also reveal the terrible damage inflicted on families when a member becomes a notorious serial killer. Unlike some serial killers (Rex Heuermann?) Ted became very adept at putting forward a very normal persona to family and the public in general. He knew how to compartmentalize his terrible attacks and his dark obsessions, at least in the beginning.
 
I am reading Ann Rules book, "Stranger Beside Me", it is a Kindle Unlimited book now. The reading is heavy. So, I read a bit, read something else, go back to it. 735 pages.

I read it back when it was first in paperback. One of those books that keeps you awake all night, listening to every sound. Before that, I recall reading news media stories about him. Most coverage was when he escaped jail in Aspen, CO. It was probably one of Ann's best books, she did a good job.
 
I read it back when it was first in paperback. One of those books that keeps you awake all night, listening to every sound. Before that, I recall reading news media stories about him. Most coverage was when he escaped jail in Aspen, CO. It was probably one of Ann's best books, she did a good job.

I think more has been added to the Kindle version. It is fascinating to read her perspective of TB, especially since she knew him, and worked with him. And I agree with her assessment, that "tabloids" media, have created him to be much smarter than he really was.

That being said, it is interesting for me to read about his time in Utah, as I lived there at the same time, and went to the University of Utah.

I think TB was more circumspect with hunting close to home at that time. It would have been easy to pick up hitchhiking girls at the mouth of the canyon, everyone did it, to go skiing.

I wonder if anyone has looked at missing women in Wendover? That is a quick drive from SLC, and easy to find stray women there. Even if not his "favorite" prey.
 
I think more has been added to the Kindle version. It is fascinating to read her perspective of TB, especially since she knew him, and worked with him. And I agree with her assessment, that "tabloids" media, have created him to be much smarter than he really was.

That being said, it is interesting for me to read about his time in Utah, as I lived there at the same time, and went to the University of Utah.

I think TB was more circumspect with hunting close to home at that time. It would have been easy to pick up hitchhiking girls at the mouth of the canyon, everyone did it, to go skiing.

I wonder if anyone has looked at missing women in Wendover? That is a quick drive from SLC, and easy to find stray women there. Even if not his "favorite" prey.

Thanks for that recommendation. I'll check out the newer version. Back at that time, Ann was an astute observer of his behavior and patterns. She had good sources with law enforcement, too. She was really in her prime with that book.

IIRC, Ted was out of his comfort zone in Utah, but he had to leave Washington. It would have been terrifying to be a young college student living in that area when he was preying on local women. LE just wasn't able to keep up with guys like Ted back then. Law enforcement jurisdictions didn't communicate much with each other, especially from one state to another.
 
Thanks for that recommendation. I'll check out the newer version. Back at that time, Ann was an astute observer of his behavior and patterns. She had good sources with law enforcement, too. She was really in her prime with that book.

IIRC, Ted was out of his comfort zone in Utah, but he had to leave Washington. It would have been terrifying to be a young college student living in that area when he was preying on local women. LE just wasn't able to keep up with guys like Ted back then. Law enforcement jurisdictions didn't communicate much with each other, especially from one state to another.

There is also a book by his girlfriend

"The Phantom Prince"
by Elizabeth Kendall

 
There is also a book by his girlfriend

"The Phantom Prince"
by Elizabeth Kendall


I'll add it to my list. (shudder)
I want to read the one written by his cousin first. It will be interesting to hear from people who knew another side of him, before he became a serial killer.
 
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Thanks for that recommendation. I'll check out the newer version. Back at that time, Ann was an astute observer of his behavior and patterns. She had good sources with law enforcement, too. She was really in her prime with that book.

IIRC, Ted was out of his comfort zone in Utah, but he had to leave Washington. It would have been terrifying to be a young college student living in that area when he was preying on local women. LE just wasn't able to keep up with guys like Ted back then. Law enforcement jurisdictions didn't communicate much with each other, especially from one state to another.

I remember this vividly, I worked at Fashion Place mall, at Farrell's Ice Cream.

I don't remember watching this show on Netflix...
 
I believe more content has been added since the print book.
What did police tell young women to do in SLC while the murders were happening? Did you take precautions?

I was a sophomore in college at this time and we had a series of rapes occurring just for campus. The police told us not to go out alone after dark. I was sharing an apartment with my best friend, so we didn’t go out at night unless we had dates or were with guy friends. Also, if you were taking any class in the phys Ed dept, they taught a pretty good session on self defense.

Carol Da Ronch was amazing in how she got away from Ted. She started fighting and escaping right away and didn’t stop.
 
What did police tell young women to do in SLC while the murders were happening? Did you take precautions?

I was a sophomore in college at this time and we had a series of rapes occurring just for campus. The police told us not to go out alone after dark. I was sharing an apartment with my best friend, so we didn’t go out at night unless we had dates or were with guy friends. Also, if you were taking any class in the phys Ed dept, they taught a pretty good session on self defense.

Carol Da Ronch was amazing in how she got away from Ted. She started fighting and escaping right away and didn’t stop.

I am sure that we were told to be careful. I don't really remember, but of course, at that age, we don't think anything bad will happen to us...teens are invincible. Of course. I always parked close to the entrance, under the light. Or sometimes, my parents would drop me off and pick me up.
 
Today, the name Ted Bundy is known nationwide, and mentioned often when defining and discussing serial killers.

But that was not the case in the 1970's. Back then, news was much more locally or regionally focused.

Bundy escaped twice from jail custody in Colorado where he was being held on charges of abduction and murder. He was at large for several days before recapture the first time, and on his second escape went to Chicago, IL, Ann Arbor, MI, and finally io Florida.

In Florida, he attacked several college girls in a Sorority house, killing two and seriously injuring others. Then he abducted and murdered a 12 year old girl.

In 1978, Bundy was pulled over in Pensacola, Florida while driving a stolen VW Beetle erratically. He attacked the policeman and tried to get his revolver, but was subdued and arrested.

The Pensacola Police booked him under an alias, and held him until a fingerprint check told them his name was Ted Bundy. Even then, they still did not know who he was or what his West coast crimes were.

Of course, it wasn't long before the state of Florida connected Bundy to his recent murders, tried, convicted him, and sentenced him to death.
 
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Before he was executed in 1989, Bundy confessed to more than 30 murders and was suspected of many more. A complete DNA profile couldn't be developed for the serial killer until the blood was found. The full profile will be uploaded to the FBI's national database Friday, giving authorities key evidence to possibly link Bundy to long-unsolved crimes.

The vial was discovered after Florida authorities received a call from a detective working a cold case in Tacoma, Wash. The blood had been taken in 1978 when Bundy was arrested in the death of a 12-year-old girl in Columbia County, Fla., The News Tribune in Tacoma reported.

Despite an order to destroy much of the biological evidence in the Florida case, the vial was still on file, said David Coffman, chief of forensic services at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Tallahassee crime lab.

"We were really surprised," he said.
 
Does anyone know a Bundy victim who was from Central IL. Before she married my son, my youngest daughter-in-law said a man knocked on her door one day and asked permission to take some pictures of her house to use in a book he was writing. He claimed that a Bundy victim had grown up there.
 
How about Valerie Percy for a Bundy murder? His style
 

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