Ted and Ann: The Mystery of A Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy PDF
Preview Ted and Ann: The Mystery of A Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy
Ted and Ann The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy Rebecca Morris Copyright 2013 True Books/Rebecca True Morris Excerpts of Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth used with permission of the authors. (Authorlink Press, 2000). Photograph of Louise Bundy by Russ Carmack used with permission of The News Tribune. Photograph of Beverly Burr by Ellen Banner used with permission of The Seattle Times. Burr family photos, letters, and poems used with permission of Beverly Burr. Holt family photos used with permission of Sandi Holt. Cover design by Claudia Olsen and BEAUTeBOOK. True Books logo by Mikel Northcraft. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author. Published by True Books Seattle, Washington ISBN: 978-1484925-089 Printed in the United States of America Praise for Ted and Ann “This is the ONLY book to read to learn the full story of the disappearance of Ann Marie Burr in August 1961. Fascinating!” —Ann Rule New York Times Bestselling Author “While Ted Bundy might be the greatest evil enigma ever, author Rebecca Morris strips away the layers of the greatest mystery of his life—what was his connection to the disappearance of Ann Marie Burr? This is an astonishing achievement, the missing piece that readers of crime have long sought. Bravo for Morris!” —Gregg Olsen New York Times Bestselling Author “As a journalist, I covered Ted Bundy's murder trial in 1980. Thirty years later, Rebecca Morris brings to vivid life that particular trial and the whole Bundy mystique— when a young, intelligent, charming personality hid one of the vilest hearts that ever beat. This is a chapter in American criminal history that deserves Morris’ confident reporting and writing.” —Neil Chethik Author of Father Loss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms with the Deaths of Their Dads “Few criminals have loomed as large in the national psyche as Ted Bundy, the ‘Cary Grant of serial killers,’ whose string of brutal murders manages to fascinate and repulse us still. Now, in a book as chilling as it is compelling and impossible to put down, journalist Rebecca Morris presents yet another possible Bundy victim—an innocent, eight-year-old girl who disappeared from her hometown of Tacoma, Washington, in 1961, and was never found. In telling the story of Ann Marie Burr, who went missing on a steamy August day, Morris also reveals startling, never-been-told details about Bundy's childhood, including fresh information about his illegitimacy and brief abandonment by his mother. Morris’ deft writing and detailed research into Bundy's actions that summer, when he was a gangly 14-year-old roaming the Burr's neighborhood on his bike, will have you reading Ted and Ann well into the night.” —Ginger Adams Otis Investigative Journalist Table of Contents Foreword Prologue 1 Teddy 2 Thursday, August 31 3 Evening, August 31 4 Ted Photogragphs and Illustrations I 5 The Weekend 6 145 Days 7 The Birth of the Hunchback 8 One Year Later 9 The Cary Grant of Serial Killers 10 Life Without Ann Photographs and Illustrations II Poems by Bev Burr 11 Life On Death Row 12 Bev and Don and Louise and Johnnie 13 The Blue House 14 Explaining Ted 15 What Happened to Ann Marie Burr? Ted Bundy's Victims Notes on Sources Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Susan Powell - BONUS CHAPTER About the Author Also by the Author FOR Beverly Ann Leach Burr January 4, 1928—September 13, 2008 “Night comes and with it the fear, the listening, the horror again and again. Only prayer can lessen the pain as we whisper, ‘Dear God be with Ann. Please help us and other parents like us to be strong.’ ” Foreword IT HAS BEEN 50 YEARS SINCE MY BROTHER AND I were startled awake by men shining flashlights on us. It was late August, 1961, a few days before the start of school, and we were sleeping in our fort in the basement one last time. The men were police, and the scene of my parents panic and hysteria that morning is still vivid and haunting. The tragedy described in Rebecca Morris’ book, Ted and Ann, deeply wounded and altered my life and that of my family and others close to us. As a parent, I cannot fathom having my child taken from my home in the night. The cruelest aspect of this heinous crime is that there have been no answers. Over the years there has been a somewhat regular eruption of rumors, theories, and “confessions.” None led to an answer, and all kept open a wound that never healed. My parents’ imagination must have run wild with nightmarish visions of what had or was happening to their daughter, and our family struggled to hang on to normalcy. Morris has devoted years to uncovering the details of Ann's disappearance, and the possible link to a well-known psychopath, Ted Bundy. I have learned a great deal about the time period, the facts surrounding the case, and about Ted Bundy and the other suspects in my sister's disappearance from Morris’ thorough research and this book. Our parents, trying to protect us and provide a happy childhood, shielded us from much of this even through our adult lives. Morris spent countless hours talking with my mother, who has now passed on, as has my father. In their memory, I applaud Rebecca Morris’ diligent work and skill in telling our story and the story of Ted Bundy, and I hope that it leads to answers so that even now there can be some closure. My parents, Beverly and Donald Burr, showed tremendous strength and courage in carrying on after the abduction of their oldest child. They did it for their other children. They not only managed to hold our family together, but also to nurture friendships, create beauty in their gardens, travel the world, and provide compassion and support to others who were struggling. I was robbed of my sister, my playmate, and best friend. Some may wonder what good could come from this book if it doesn’t result in answers. My hope is that it shows a family can survive an unthinkable tragedy, by finding good and beauty in life, and that the good outweighs the evil. —Julie Burr August, 2011 Prologue The Day Before SUMMER ENDED SUDDENLY ON AUGUST 30, 1961. It was the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend, and the unusually warm weather turned muggy and the sky threatened to storm. That night, rain drenched Tacoma, Washington. Not the polite, incessant drizzle that those who live in the Pacific Northwest learn to tolerate (or they leave, and many do), but a hard rain accompanied by high winds. Trees blew down, lights went out, and neighborhoods were plunged into blackness. The wind masked any sounds that might be heard inside a house. But in the afternoon, before the rain, it was just plain hot. Beverly Burr's steam iron made the day seem even hotter as she worked out the creases in her daughter Ann's new dress. Bev usually made her children's clothes and was so thrifty that the family teased her about it. But Ann was starting third grade, so Bev had splurged and bought the maroon-plaid jumper and butterscotch-colored blouse. Five-year-old Greg had begged for a Superman cape, so she was sewing one, although she was embarrassed for him. He’d find out the hard way on the first day of kindergarten, when none of the other children wore costumes to school. She hadn’t told her husband that she had bought Ann new school clothes, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice. Bev did a lot of things she didn’t tell Don. At eight-and-a-half, Ann was the eldest of four children. Mother and daughter were a lot alike: smart, independent, and stubborn, with the talent and drive to achieve something creative and remarkable in their lives. Both would be robbed of that opportunity. During the summer of 1961, Ann often wore a paper lei she had won at the state fair (or it might have been at a function at St. Patrick's, their neighborhood parish). She liked to get up early in the morning and practice the piano. Ann hated to be called Annie, so people quickly learned not to call her that. And she wasn’t known as Ann Marie, which is how the missing poster sent around the world referred to her. Just Ann. All the children in the immediate neighborhood congregated at the Burrs’. Bev, 33 years old and the mother of four children under the age of eight, didn’t
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