Serial Killer Files

Ted Bundy

Theodore Robert Bundy was born November 24, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont. He was born to a single mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, and his father was unknown.

To avoid the stigma of being born without a father his grandparents, Samuel and Eleanor raised him in Philadelphia to believe initially they were his parents and his mother was his sister. Though he eventually discovered the truth in 1950, his mother moved with Ted to Tacoma, Washington.

In 1951, Ted's mother met and married Johnny Bundy later having four children. Ted was known to have idolized his grandfather a racist man who physically abused his wife and daughters. He resented his mother for having never told him about his biological father. And disliked his stepfather despite his efforts to make Ted feel included.

Ted began showing signs of unsettling behavior at a young age. An incident described by his aunt Juliet as her awakening from a nap to three-year-old Ted standing and smiling by her bedside having placed knives around her as she slept.

As Ted grew into adolescence he took to stealing, breaking, entering and peeping through windows. During high school he was arrested on suspicion of burglary and auto theft but records of this were expunged at age 18. After graduating high school in 1965, Ted enrolled in the University of Puget Sound before transferring to the University of Washington in 1966.

During his time there he began dating a fellow student known as Stephanie Brooks and eventually dropped out. Although his relationship with Stephanie would not last as she ended their involvement that year this was a turning point in Ted's life.

In devastation he traveled to various states and briefly attended Temple University before returning to Washington in 1969. In 1970 he met Elizabeth club a divorced secretary at the University of Washington school of medicine. He began a turbulent relationship with and dated multiple women without her knowledge.

In 1971 he worked at Seattle suicide crisis hotline along side Seattle police officer and future crime writer, Ann Rule, who would become one of his biographers later in life.

After graduation Ted became involved in politics and manage to get accepted by two Law schools. In 1973, Ted separately renewed his relationship with Stephanie Brooks while still in a relationship with Elizabeth.

Life seemed to be working up for Ted. He was talking marriage with Stephanie and even introduced her as his fiancée to his bosses. In January 1974, he broke off his relationship with Stephanie to what is believed to have been an act of revenge.

By April he had dropped out of law school. It was at this point that women begin to disappear.

Ted Bundy's first attempted murder was that of 18-year-old University of Washington student, Joni lens, he broke into her basement apartment around midnight on January 4, 1974 bludgeoning and sexually assaulting her with a metal rod from her own bed. She survived the ordeal but not without permanent injuries.

Multiple women began disappearing within a month of each other. on February 1st, 21-year-old University of Washington student, Linda Annile had disappeared from her home in the early hours of the morning

On March 12, 19-year-old student Donna Gail Manson, a rebellious girl known to take off without notice disappeared on her way to a jazz concert on the Evergreen State College campus.

April 17, 19-year-old Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared from Central Washington State College on your way to view a German film with a friend.