Ted Bundy: Wolf Among the Sheep

Last night I finished watching Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, a 4-part series, created and directed by Joe Berlinger. Most writers who’ve ever written a police procedural know this story well, but the series is both enlightening and disturbing due to the extensive amount of archival footage and interviews with surviving victims, friends, and family members.

The Bundy case chronicles a period in time before modern technology changed law enforcement. The psychopath’s horrific rampage took place across several states and the series documents the pressures brought to bear on police departments ill-equipped to fight such a ruthless killer.

The FBI eventually responded to Bundy and his kind, by creating a system of psychological profiling and coining the term serial killer. Thomas Harris, who wrote The Silence of the Lambs, drew many elements in his story from the catalog of shocking behavior and feral cunning that characterized Ted Bundy’s modus operandi.

Bundy is not an easy topic. He represents the darkest, most repulsive aspect of humanity. He was a murderer, kidnapper, rapist, burglar, necrophile, sadist, and narcissistic psychopath. Despite the horrific nature of his crimes, the series does not dwell on the violence, but approaches the topic from a police POV, juxtaposing various investigations across a number of states with Bundy’s jailhouse interviews. The documentary is derived from the book Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, written by two investigative reporters, Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. Once Bundy was finally captured (after two previous prison breaks), the pair taped a series of revealing interviews. At first, the killer strategically avoided discussing his crimes or motivations. But after months of frustration, the journalists eventually had a breakthrough by suggesting Bundy speak in the third person. Freed from any legal repercussions, he started to talk. What follows is a trip down the rabbit hole with a psyche so warped it feels almost inhuman. The pointlessness of Bundy’s actions, the sucking black hole of his bizarre desires, and the existential angst created by his very existence leave the observer feeling desecrated. And though the series cannot answer the enigma Bundy represents, it does mark a coming of age for law enforcement; the beginning of a new awareness.

The series acts as a time machine to the ’70s; an era before the term “serial killer” was invented, DNA evidence was collected, the Internet existed, a central FBI database had been created, or the existence of 24-hour news became ubiquitous in our lives. In the ’70s, police business was conducted by telephone or mail, so Bundy was shielded by the infrastructure of the United States. Every time he crossed a Stateline, he was able to continue his pattern afresh with law enforcement scrambling for answers. The frustrating inability of the police to stop Bundy, even when they had witnesses, the model and make of his car, his first name, a police sketch, and his live-in girlfriend’s suspicions, is absolutely maddening. And though Bundy is often portrayed as a criminal mastermind, the innocence of the era makes him appear more like a wolf running loose among sheep. Bundy was a force of nature, a rage-filled killing machine hunting as he moved from state to state, shielded by his attractive appearance and gift of the gab. His interactions with police and judicial officials border on the horrifying. Bundy was actually captured twice and escaped from prison on both occasions to continue his rampage. The authorities were out of their depth and unequipped mentally to stop him.

Bundy’s female victims have an accusatory power. The woman’s movement was coming of age. These women were happy and free, going to college and enjoying life. But as the culture experienced an awakening, there was a dark undertow of sexual objectification running through the society that Bundy exploited as he targeted his prey. Interviews with survivors such as Carol DaRonch are riveting and reveal the techniques Bundy used to lure his victims. In Carol DaRonch’s case, he used a fake police badge to masquerade as an undercover cop. With other victims, he wore his arm in a sling or put his leg in a fake cast in order to feign weakness. In the series, Bundy’s narcissistic traits are on full display. He freely expresses his rage at Carol DaRonch, the woman he attempted to murder, as she bravely dares to testify against him.

There are moments where the sexism of the era is astonishing. Edward Cowart, the judge who eventually sentences the killer to execution and who famously called him, “extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile,” later grows apologetic. “You’re a bright young man. You’d have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. I don’t feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that.” The strange, benign affinity Cowart shares with the monster as he sentences him to death, is one of the most repulsive moments in this documentary.

As a study in psychology, Bundy is jolting. His narcissistic psychopathology was concealed perfectly by arrogance, wit, charm, and humor. He was a predator disguised as something entirely different. In that sense, this series is an education. We often think of serial killers as aberrations, but their behavior is not new. These wolves have been hunting among the sheep from the dawn of human history. If anything in society needs to be dissected and understood, it is these monstrosities.

As a study in criminal pathology, the documentary shows glimpses of the birth pangs of the criminal profiling division of the FBI. Pioneers like John Douglas, Robert K. Ressler, and Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess who wrote the seminal work Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives were forced to learn from monsters like Bundy. (The Netflix series Mindhunter is based on their paradigm-shifting work.)

Bundy’s endless capacity to lie eventually comes to an end when FBI agent Bill Hagmaier hears his true confession. About to be executed and willing to do anything to save himself, Bundy does the unthinkable, he tells the truth.