Ted Bundy and The Unsolved Murder Epidemic: The Dark Figure of Crime

232 Pages·2023·3.323 MB·English

by  Matt DeLisi

TED BUNDY
MATT DELISI
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Ted Bundy and The Unsolved Murder Epidemic
Matt DeLisi
Ted Bundy and The
Unsolved Murder
Epidemic
The Dark Figure of Crime
Matt DeLisi
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Iowa State University
Ames, IA, USA
ISBN 978-3-031-21417-2 ISBN 978-3-031-21418-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21418-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
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Acknowledgements
I owe a debt of gratitude to many people for this book. I thank
Ann Rule, Elizabeth Kendall, Al Carlisle, Stephen Michaud, Hugh
Aynesworth, Polly Nelson, John Henry Browne, William Birnes,
and Robert Keppel. Without their scholarly, forensic, or literary
work drawn from their personal experiences with Bundy, we
would have had no exposure to his behavioral history, person-
ality functioning, and psychopathology from which to develop
criminological insights. His dark figure of crime would have
remained so.
Several friends and colleagues enhance my understanding of homicide
and other pathological criminal offending. These include Eric Beaure-
gard, Michael Welner, Oliver Chan, Alan Drury, Mike Elbert, Julien
Chopin, Enzo Yaksic, Jon Caudill, Chad Trulson, Park Dietz, Ann
Burgess, Reid Meloy, and Michael Vaughn.
Josie Taylor at Palgrave Macmillan is a wonderful champion of this
project and I appreciate her enthusiasm and support. The entire team at
Palgrave has been great to work with once again.
v
vi Acknowledgements
Of all of my publishing endeavors, this project created the most
buzz among family and friends. Thanks to Melissa, Jamison, Landon,
Finley, Winston, Barkley, Lincoln, Ziggy, and Ferris DeLisi for
your love, support, and encouragement, and a special mention also goes
to Christian Gallt for keeping tabs on the book’s progress. I also thank
my old friends John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Donald
Byrd, Roy Hargrove, Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis for providing
an uplifting counterbalance to the somber content herein.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 The Dark Figure of Crime 13
3 Asymmetry 33
4 Clinical 49
5 The Entity 73
6 Timeline 97
7 The Open Road 123
8 Unsolved 147
9 No Body, No Crime 165
10 What Would Have to Be True? 185
vii
viii Contents
11 Resolution 201
References 215
Index 227
About the Author
Matt DeLisi is Distinguished Professor, College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences Dean’s Professor, Coordinator of Criminal Justice, and Faculty
Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University.
A renowned scholar, Professor DeLisi is one of the most influential and
prolific criminologists in the world with over 470 scholarly publications
including over 30 books on an array of topics in the social, behavioral,
and forensic sciences. He has provided expert services and consulta-
tion on capital murder and homicide cases in multiple federal and state
jurisdictions. In 2013, Professor DeLisi testified to the United States
Senate Judiciary Committee and consulted on criminal justice policy to
a variety of federal stakeholders including the United States Attorney
General, National Institute of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and others. For eight years, Dr. DeLisi served as a research specialist with
United States Probation and Pretrial Services and engaged with scores of
practitioners in the federal judiciary and correctional spheres.
ix
1
Introduction
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.1
Aristotle
Ted Bundy is the most infamous, recognizable, and influential crim-
inal in American history. For those who remember his exploits from the
1970s, Bundy was a source of fear, revulsion, and intellectual fascina-
tion as he perpetrated scores of sexual homicides, kidnappings, property
crimes, and jail escapes spanning the Pacific Northwest to Florida. An
inveterate psychopath, Bundy beguiled law enforcement personnel and
media commentators alike and managed to cultivate public interest in
his crimes and psychopathology until his execution in January 1989, an
event that was itself a public spectacle.
Horrified by the criminal exploits of a seemingly normal person, at
least by his appearance, the American public wanted to understand
Bundy’s motivation and offense history, and the case galvanized the bour-
geoning true crime genre in the United States. More than three decades
later, interest in Bundy has not abated evidenced by the abundance of
films, documentaries, and true crime books about him. Several feature
films on Bundy exist including The Deliberate Stranger, The Stranger
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2023
M. DeLisi, Ted Bundy and The Unsolved Murder Epidemic,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21418-9_1