The Worst of Washington

According to recorded data, there have been around 75 known serial killers in Washington since 1900. The Evergreen State also has thousands and thousands of unsolved mysteries and true crime incidents. Today, we are going to go over one of Washington's most depraved lunatics ever.

To this day, Theodore Robert Bundy is still considered to be the absolute embodiment of evil. His crimes are still discussed and dissected in 2022- 33 years after his death.

Theodore Robert Cowell came into the world on November 24, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont. His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, gave birth to him at the Elizabeth Lund home for unwed mothers. His biological father has never truly been confirmed. His original birth certificate claims Lloyd Marshall, a U.S. Air Force veteran as his father, but copies list the father simply as "unknown". Another person said to have fathered Ted was a man named Jack Worthington. It's even been said that his own grandfather was his biological father. There is no legitimacy to any of these claims though because DNA testing was not yet available, so it's likely the true identity of Bundys biological father will never be known.

After birthing Ted, his mother left him at Elizabeth Lund and returned home alone. She had no plans of keeping the baby and only went back to get him after her father kept insisting. In the beginning of his life, Ted was raised to believe that his grandfather and grandmother were his biological parents and that his mother was actually his sister. It's also been said that his grandfather had quite a violent streak and was abusive towards him.

Though Ted never spoke anything but kind words about his grandparents, specifically his grandfather, Samuel, other family members would say he was nothing more than a bully who beat his wife and dog. He was a known bigot and racist and was said to even swing neighborhood cats around by their tails.

Later in life, Ted painted a picture perfect story of his upbringing. He claimed his life was nothing less than normal. Raised in a loving home by two Christian parents, he said he spent his time playing football, fishing, and catching frogs with friends. Others who knew him painted a pretty significantly different story. According to childhood acquaintances, he was bullied for a speech impediment and always thought he was more important among others than he really was.

While Ted maintained he had a perfectly normal, even admirable upbringing, other sources close to him would report on his disturbing behavior. His aunt Julia claimed she was once awoken to find him standing over her smiling while encircling her with knives at just the age of three. A neighbor, Saldi Holt, claimed he liked to be in charge of everything. She claimed he enjoyed inflicting pain, suffering, and fear upon others.

Though Ted went through the earliest years of his life being raised as an adopted baby by his grandparents, as a toddler, he was taken by his biological mother- whom he thought was his sister- to live in Tacoma, Washington in 1950. In 1951, she met Johnny Culpepper Bundy and they married a year later. He legally adopted Ted and they had several biological children together. Though the family always included Ted in trips, camping, and all of the other family activities, Ted remained distant. He complained that Johnny wasn't his real father and detested him for being poor and uneducated.

His stories would change a few times on how he discovered the truth about his real parents. One story claims Ted said that his cousin showed him his birth certificate after calling him a bastard. Another said he found it on his own. It's also been said that Ted resented his mother for never disclosing the identity of his real father. Other sources claim he was fine with it. He claimed it was completely insignificant to him who his father was and that his upbringing had absolutely nothing to do with what he would later do.

As much as he tried to talk of his normal upbringing, it was common knowledge that Ted had a strange fascination with knives. He liked to collect them. He also was fascinated by gore and pornography and would often rummage through the neighborhood garbage bins to find pictures of naked women. He began drinking at a young age and even admitted to "canvassing the community" in search of open windows where he might sneak a peek of women undressing. He claimed he didn't have many friends and that he didn't understand why people would want friends anyways. He was also known to steal things he wanted without any kind of remorse.

After he graduated high school, Ted attended the University of Puget Sound for a year before transferring to the University of Washington. He met a woman named Diane Edwards. Ted said he found her attractive because she was everything he could ever want or desire. She was classy, well known, and she had money. All the things Ted wanted for himself. They didn't date for long before she decided to end the relationship, leaving Ted in ruins. She went home to be with her family claiming Ted lacked ambition and that he was immature after he dropped out of college to pursue small jobs. Later in life, it would become disturbingly obvious how many of his victims looked like her.

In 1969, Ted met Elizabeth Kloepfer. They dated for a few years and Ted became a father figure to her daughter, Molly. Elizabeth thought she was so lucky for finding such a great, loving father and boyfriend in Ted. She referred to him as "warm and loving." He was there for her daughter from the age of 3 to the age of 10 when he was finally arrested. Adult Molly would also go on to tell a different story of Ted when she wrote of many instances in which he was sexually abusive towards her. She claimed he would hit her in the face, push her, tried to drown her, expose himself to her, and 'accidentally touch her' in sexual manners disguising it as a mistake or a game.

In mid 1970, Ted was becoming more confident and was being described by many as "charismatic, empathetic, nice, and very handsome". He re-enrolled into college as a psychology major and became an honor student. He graduated in 1972 and joined in the re-election campaign of Governor Daniel J. Evans who described him as "smart, aggressive, and a true believer in the system." The governor won his re-election campaign and wrote a letter on behalf of Ted which resulted in him being accepted into the law programs of two different schools.

In the summer of 1973, Ted took a trip to California on Republican Party business. Now that he was feeling on top of the world, he decided to try and rekindle things with Diane. She was blown away by how much he had improved and was pretty turned on by his legal and political career advances. He went on to date both Elizabeth and Diane for about a year before he suddenly broke off all contact with Diane. She was completely taken aback and didn't know why he did what he did. He would later say he courted her only to prove that he could have married her if he wanted to. Around this time, Ted began to skip classes and women started disappearing.

The one thing Ted was consistent on... was his inconsistency. His stories were always changing. He refused to give specific details about most of his early crimes but had no problem giving many gory details to his later accounts or murder. He confessed to 30 murders. Then 36. Then over 100. The number always changed. Unfortunately, the actual number of victims will also likely never be known. Ted once said he first tried to kidnap a woman in 1969, but did not kill anyone until 1971. He later changed his story, claiming he killed 2 women in 1969 while visiting family in Philadelphia. It's widely believed that Ted actually started killing when he was just a teenager. The first documented homicide was in 1974- shortly after he had dumped Diane.

In the beginning of 1974, female college students were disappearing quickly. Some were never heard from again. Some described seeing a dark-haired man wearing a sling on his arm who called himself Ted and asked for help loading things into his car. Others reported a dark-haired man in an alley on crutches with a leg cast struggling with a brief case. Many described his car as a light brown volkswagon beetle. All of the missing women seemed to have little in common, except for their appearance. Young, white, attractive, long and dark hair parted down the middle.

At around this same time, Elizabeth Kloepfer started to become suspicious of Ted. At Lake Sammamish, several witnesses described a man going by the name of Ted wearing a sling on his arm and asking young women for help unloading his sailboat from his car. Four had refused. One had accompanied him to his car, noticed there was no boat to help with and ran away. Three more witnesses saw him approach what would become one of his victims and another one of his victims said she was using the restroom and never came back.

King county police were finally able to offer a detailed description of the suspect and his car. They put fliers up all around. A sketch was plastered on the front of newspapers and shown on local TV stations. Elizabeth went to the police and told them about her suspicions, but they didn't believe she had any valid proof, so they turned her away. Ted Bundy was a law student with no previous criminal record. there was no way it was him, right?

So, Ted continued on with his life. He was accepted into another law school, and he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Elizabeth and Ted continued a long-distance relationship and he saw dozens of other women as well. Before too long, women begain disappearing again. Elizabeth called the police station again. Ted Bundy was forced to be included in a line up of other suspects but was released when one of the eye witnesses from Lake Sammamish didn't identify him. Elizabeth called again a month later and police added Ted to a list of suspects, but they had no solid evidence against him at the time. Ted took a trip back to Seattle to visit Elizabeth who never mentioned that she had reported him to the police. Then she planned on making a visit to see him in Utah. They were discussing marriage and Elizabeth was unaware that Ted had multiple women visiting him and staying in his apartment in Salt Lake City.

Meanwhile, police in Washington were left confused by the fact that all of the disappearances and murders had suddenly just stopped. they began to compile a list of data and names for suspects. They included things like registered sex offenders, owners of light brown Volkswagen Beetles, and men named Ted. Ted Bundy came up at the top of every list.

On August 16, 1975, Ted was arrested in Utah. He was pulled over and stopped when a police officer caught him cruising through a neighborhood in the dark and then driving away quickly upon noticing the police officer. When they pulled him over, they noted that the front seat had been removed and he had a lot of questionable items including a ski mask, handcuffs, an ice pick, rope, trash bags, a crow bar, and pantyhose. He explained they were all household items and the police decided it wasn't enough evidence to keep him, so they let him go after putting him on a 24-hour watch. They also decided to interview Elizabeth. She told them that she had found objects on multiple ocassions that she couldn't make sense of. She said she had found a bag of womens clothing, a meat cleaver, crutches, and a bag of plaster of Paris. She told them he became very defensive if she ever asked about the items or if she talked of cutting her hair.

A few months later, Ted ended up selling his Volkswagen Beetle to a teenager where it was shortly impounded and dismantled. Several hairs matching victims were found inside. Ted Bundy was added to another lineup where he was quickly identified. There wasn't enough evidence to charge him with murder but he was charged with aggravated assault and kidnapping of a victim who had managed to escape. His parents paid his $15,000 bail and he moved into Elizabeths house.

He stood trial in 1976, waiving his right to a jury and was found guilty. He was sentenced to 1-15 years in the Utah State Prison. He was only in prison for a few months, though, because he escaped. He was found soon hiding in some bushes on the prison grounds and placed in solitary confinement for weeks.

Later in the month, he was charged by Colorado authorities for murder. He was transferred to Aspen for his hearing where he elected to act as his own attorney. He was granted access to the library and was free from wearing shackles in the court room. During the trial, while Ted was supposed to be researching his case, he leapt from a second story window and escaped. He ended up being re-captured 8 days later.

In December, Ted starved himself in prison and lost over 30 pounds. He ended up climbing through a hole he made using a hacksaw he acquired from inmates in the cieling of his cell and escaped again. He was missing for more than 17 hours before anyone even knew he was gone. This gave him a very large head start. He stole a car and fled. By the time they realized he was gone, he had already made it to Chicago. He traveled from Chicago to Florida where he stole another car and ended up in Tallahassee, Florida. His plan was to start a new life. He was going to lay low, find work, and try not to attract any police attention. It didn't work out long though because his job required him to have identification, which he obviously could not produce. Ted began stealing money and credit cards from women in the grocery stores.

During this time of escape, some of his most brutal attacks occurred. On January 15, 1978, Ted broke into a sorority house and brutally attacked four women in under 15 minutes and then he fled. He was spotted by a sorority sister who had come through the back door as he was trying to escape. After leaving, he ran to an apartment where he broke in and attacked another woman. On February 8th, he drove to Jacksonville and approached a 14-year-old girl but fled when her brother approached. The following morning, he attacked and killed a 12-year-old girl.

On February 12th, Ted stole a car and drove to Tallahassee. Three days later, he was stopped by police who ran a check on him and showed the vehicle was stolen. Ted and the officer got into a physical fight before he took off running. Officer Lee fired two warning shots before chasing him and tackling him to the ground. He was finally caught and arrested. Again. He refused to tell the officers who he was until he was able to make a few phone calls first. He used the time the police gave him to call his girlfriend Elizabeth to tell her that he had been arrested in Florida. He’d later call again and confess that he was "controlled by a dark force he couldn’t contain."

Ted stood trial in Miami. This trial was the first to be televised on national TV. He once again defended himself. During his trial, he proposed to his girlfriend, Carol Ann Boone. She accepted in front of the judge, which made the marriage legitimate in Florida. Shortly after, Carol gave birth to a daughter named Rose. Ted was listed as the father on the birth certificate. Carol was convinced that Ted was innocent, that he could never be responsible for the things he was being accused of.

On February 10th, 1980, Ted was sentenced to death by electrocution. He insisted that the jury was wrong. He sat in prison awaiting his death sentence for 9 years. During those 9 years, Ted confessed to two detectives that he had committed several homicides, including ones that the police didn't even know about. He refused to give many details about most of the murders but some of his confessions led to finding a lot of missing body parts. He also spoke mostly in third person to try and avoid incriminating himself. He would go on to speak about how killing was a way of possessing his victims. That by killing them, they became a part of him that no one could take away. He would go on to describe some grisly details about putting makeup on corpses and washing their hair as well as being intimate with them long after they were deceased and were in several different stages of decay.

In July 1984, prison guards removed two hacksaws from Ted's cell. A steel bar had been removed from his cell window and badly stuck back on with soap. They moved him into a different cell to prevent him from escaping again.

As the confessions rolled out, Carol was shocked. She had been his biggest cheerleader and felt completely betrayed that he had lied to her of all people all along. She divorced him three years before his execution and stopped visiting last 2 years of his imprisonment. It's said that she refused his phone call on the day of his execution as well.

After years of trying to file for appeal and being unsuccessful, finally Ted agreed to be open about his crimes. He admitted to 8 of the murders he was a suspect in across Washington and Oregon. He gave detail on 3 unknown victims in Washington and 2 in Oregon. He claimed he left the body of one victim on Taylor Mountain but has incinerated her head in Elizabeths fireplace. It's said he described them almost lovingly, as if killing these women was his greatest masterpiece.

A compiled list of remains found on Taylor Mountain can be found here:

In 2011, Ted's DNA profile was added to the FBI's database for future reference in hopes of solving other unsolved cases. Ted's 1968 Volkswagen beetle is currently on display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Tennessee.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing things about Ted was how everyone trusted him. Comments like, "I couldn't believe he would do something like that. He is too nice. Too handsome." were prevalent among young women who were attending his court hearings when he was finally caught. Another disturbing thing is that Ted actually worked on so many of the cases for crimes that he was committing. He even worked as the assistant director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission writing pamphlets for women on rape prevention. Ironic, considering he often raped the women he killed. Sometimes, he even raped them after they were dead for days. It's been said he would do this until the bodies were so decomposed or eaten up by animals that it was no longer a possibility to have any kind of physical contact with them.

Ted admitted to decapitating several of his victims and keeping their heads as trophies in his apartment for short periods of time. He admitted to finding great pleasure in touching or looking at those heads. He claimed that by doing so, he could relive the crimes over and over again.

Many of Ted's victims' skulls were found on Taylor Mountain. In 2005, the King County Medical Examiner's office discovered a misplaced box of remains that were identified as human leg bones. On March 2nd, 1975 a skull, two mandibles, and one bunch of hair was found. From March 2, 1975 to December 17, 2008, bones continued to be extracted from Taylor Mountain. The skulls in particular were in very bad condition indictating that these were very savage attacks. Many relatives of the victims have asked to not be contacted in regards to the rest of the remains on the mountain. Some have chosen to not claim the remains at all and some have refused to present the required DNA to be able to identify what has been found.

After over 10 years of denying that he ever did anything wrong, Ted Bundy finally confessed to 30 murders that he committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown to this day but is likely significantly higher. He is suspected of over 36 murders. 20 out of 30 of his confessions have been proven.

He was ultimately given two death sentences. One for the murder of two college students and one for the rape and murder of what is thought to be his youngest victim- a 12-year-old girl.

On January 24, 1989 Ted was executed in the electric chair in Florida. Hundreds of people gathered outside of the prison to wait for the news that he had been killed. They sold T-shirts and other souveniers and celebrated with the news of Ted Bundys death.

I really don't want to go into full detail of all the victims and the horrifying ways they were murdered out of respect for the families. For the most part, it seems as if they are all ready to close this chapter of their lives and for good reason. Ted Bundy did some of the most vile things and created the most horrific game out of it until the day he died. He had no intention of telling the truth. He took most his secrets to the grave. His family scattered his remains in the Cascade mountains, not far from the place where he stored his collection of bodies.

To this day, Ted Bundy still remains a suspect in several unsolved murder cases. He said in 1987 that there were some murders he would never talk about because they were committed too close to home, too close to family, or involved victims who were very young.

Throughout it all, there was never a single fingerprint of Ted Bundy's found at any of the crime scenes.