It's a question often asked and speculated about in various Ted Bundy social media communities: Why did Bundy talk about some victims, but not others? Perhaps it's an observation about Bundy's homicidal revelations more common among inquisitive newcomers to the case; but veteran students have also postulated their own theories on the issue. The query seems to have become more popular in the last couple of years, perhaps developing momentum after the Amazon Prime documentary, Falling for a Killer, aired in January 2020. Appearing in that documentary, the mother of Bundy victim Susan Rancourt made the following statement (in Episode 5): "[Bundy] wouldn't talk about Sue. He would talk about the others. I think at one point there were a couple psychiatrists that asked him about the different girls, and when they came to Sue... he said... 'I don't want to talk about her. I can't talk about her.' So... you know, in my mind, I think she got to him a little bit." (More on that statement momentarily.)
Whether during his third-person speculations with Michaud and Aynesworth, several conversations with his appellate attorneys Polly Nelson and Jim Coleman², during a futile, misleading interview with FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler (about Caryn Campbell), or in the final interviews with investigators and psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Lewis prior to his execution, Bundy gave commentary - to one degree or another - about most all of his victims, including a handful of unidentified survivors. Mrs. Vivian Rancourt-Winters is accurate that Bundy never mentioned her daughter, Susan; but Susan Rancourt was not the only victim Bundy never discussed. Excluding girls approached but not assaulted by Bundy, the others are - and please leave comments if there are any mistakes in this list or succeeding others in the article -
Karen Sparks (survivor)
Melissa Smith
Laura Aime
Carol DaRonch (Survivor. The commission of the crime was never discussed by Bundy; the criminal case was.)
†Kimberly Leach (discounting serial killer Gerard Schaefer's likely fabricated retelling of Bundy's disclosures to him about Leach)
†Criminal case aside, the only (publicized) detail Bundy offered about the commission of the Leach crime was the following hearsay, as quoted from Dr. Robert D. Keppel's book, Terrible Secrets: Ted Bundy on Serial Murder: "Ted also told Hagmaier that Kimberly Leach was a victim of opportunity. He claimed that he'd driven to her middle school that morning in the FSU van looking for a teacher, or maybe one of the kids' mothers, to kidnap and kill. But after circling the school several times in search of likely prey, he settled on what was available, a 12-year-old schoolgirl." ¹
Note: Though Bundy never discussed specifics about any victim within the Chi Omega house, he did, at the end of his life, provide insight into the commission of the crime, collectively, as well as thorough description of his pathology over the nine days leading up to January 15, 1978. Unlike his verbal omission of the individual Chi-O sisters/attacks, Bundy did reveal a few specifics regarding Cheryl Thomas, FSU surviving victim of the same night.
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Often the issue of Bundy's choice to remain mum about certain victims is referenced in community discussions on the topic of unconfirmed victims linked to Bundy; most notably, Ann Marie Burr. In the ongoing debate about the Burr case, an infamous, paraphrased quote by Bundy is usually cited by students who believe Bundy killed the little girl, as well as by those on the fence. The quote referenced is Bundy's alleged statement to Bob Keppel "that there were 'some murders' that he would 'never talk about,' because they were committed 'too close to home,' 'too close to family,' or 'involved victims who were very young'." ³ However, this quote has, in fact, been cobbled together from a passage in Keppel's book, The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer." To enlighten, these statements by Bundy were made to Keppel during their 1988 meeting at Florida State Prison; but they had nothing to do with Bundy's reluctance to talk about his own crimes. Bundy was instructing Keppel on proper techniques for interviewing serial killers, preparing him for the potential capture of the Green River Killer and/or for interviewing Bundy himself when the time came for his confessions. For Keppel's benefit, Bundy illustrated his own success in coaxing information out of his fellow death row inmates about their crimes which they had not divulged to anyone else. Writing in his own words, but using no direct transcript from Bundy, Keppel recalled in this excerpt from his 1995 book:
[. . . .] Ted said frequently that there are some victims that killers just cannot talk about, because the victim might be someone with whom the killer had a kind of relationship, even if it was only in his own mind or if the victim saw something human or intimate in the killer through their association. Maybe it was someone the killer actually thought he liked. Of course, Ted was not known to have killed every woman with whom he had a relationship shorter than 10 minutes' duration, but to hear him talk, it would seem it was almost every woman.
The victim might also be too young; it's not safe to be labeled a confessed child-killer in prison. Not only will the guards hate you, Ted admitted, but other prisoners will too. Finally, the victim might be too close to family or might be one of the killer's own family members. For example, even though Ted knew that he was a prime suspect in the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl who lived near his home in Tacoma when he was 14 years old, he steadfastly did not want to talk about this case [. . .].⁴
Further demonstration the paraphrase was not relevant to Bundy's own crimes is that its inherent logic cannot be applied to examination of his refusal to discuss, say, Susan Rancourt. Bundy abducted Susan 112 miles away from his Seattle home, she was not acquainted with any of the Bundys, and she was 18 years old. These factors don't match the mythical Bundy criteria for silence of "too close to home, too close to family, or very young."
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There were alternative, more legitimate possibilities - as theorized by many students of the case - motivating Bundy's refusal to speak of some victims. The following of Bundy's statements (as reported by Bill Hagmaier to Michaud & Aynesworth's in their 1989 edition of The Only Living Witness: A True Account of Homicidal Insanity) suggest that the murdered girls were so precious to him, he perhaps did not want to share such intimate, divine experiences with anyone else:
Hagmaier: "He said that after a while murder isn't just a crime of lust or violence. 'It becomes possession. They are a part of you. After a while, when you plan these, that person becomes a part of you, and you [two] are forever one.'
"He said that even after twenty or thirty that it's the same thing, because you are the last one there. He said, 'You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body.' And he said, 'You're looking into their eyes' and, basically, 'a person in that situation is God! You then possess them and they shall forever be a part of you. And the grounds where you kill them or leave them become sacred to you, and you will always be drawn back to them.' "
From such perspective, perhaps some of the murders and some of the girls Bundy prized so highly, their secrets required closer guard than others. Abstract theories like this and more aside - and notwithstanding the complex and numerous constructs within Bundy's psychology that reinforced his steadfast denial of guilt, in general, for his crimes - there are more practical answers to the dilemma of Bundy's reserve in addressing certain victims.
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In his interviews with Michaud and Aynesworth, Bundy hypothetically described the murders of, almost exclusively, victims whom he was asked about. They would be: Healy, Parks, Ball, and Ott & Naslund. He volunteered information about Wilcox, without naming her and without Michaud & Aynesworth realizing at the time the identity of the victim being described. Bundy didn't outright refuse to speak about any of the crimes the authors questioned him on, but he offered very little in the way of answers regarding the Chi Omega and Leach murders. Indeed, Bundy remained tight-lipped on both cases throughout his Florida incarcerations, for the primary reason those cases were either being tried or appealed for the entire span of eleven years following the murders. Supportively, here's what Bundy had to say to Keppel (per The Riverman) in 1988, pertaining to interviews of already-convicted killers linked to outstanding, unsolved cases (such as himself):
“Well, in that kind of circumstance, you see, everything is complicated by the demands of the criminal justice system, of the way everyone is more or less required to play the game. And a guy who’s in prison or whether he’s on death row or wherever, he has appeals, and he would simply be foolish to talk to the police about anything as long as his appeals are intact. Because the system, as it stands now, is not really geared to getting at the truth so much as it gets at portions of the truth. It gets at approximations of the truth. Whether it be a trial—and as long as a guy goes to trial, all you’re getting is what the witnesses say, you know. And that’s only part of the story, probably. The same is true on appeal. The guy who’s been convicted is bound to try to maintain his position, and he can’t say anything, is not in a position to say anything."
"I mean, first, on the one hand, he’s got his appeals, and so there are disincentives—clearly disincentives—to talking to you. On the other hand, what motivations would there be for someone in that position to talk to you about anything?"
"I guess that you'd have to be able to give him something."
Bundy was looking for something to be given to him alright, during the next major event in which he revealed information on a grouping of victims, but omitted others: the "Bones For Time" scheme.
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During the last weekend of his life, Bundy supplied first-person accounts of the following victims: Hawkins, Campbell, Cunningham, Wilcox, Kent, Culver, an unidentified Idaho hitchhiker, an unidentified Tumwater, WA hitchhiker, and Manson. The murders to which Bundy admitted guilt were not randomly selected. His scheme was designed to optimize his chances at receiving a stay of execution: in exchange for Bundy's information regarding the location of missing women's remains, investigators - upon finding the remains and proving Ted's credibility - plus families of still-missing girls would intercede on his behalf to Florida's governor, requesting an extension of Bundy's life. Ted would provide additional details of the murders if granted a stay. (Not all of his confessions in the presence of investigators conformed to the "Bones For Time" standard of recoverable remains- and unsolved cases-only: Campbell's body had been located in 1975 and Bundy had been charged with her murder; the final locations of the Tumwater hitchhiker and Manson he was intentionally vague about - he also had not introduced the Donna Manson case, Keppel had.) In Bundy's debriefing with Pacific Northwest and Western investigators, Sparks, Healy, Rancourt, Parks, Ball, Smith, Aime, and DaRonch were not addressed (at least, not significantly); Bundy reported only scant, logistical details about Lake Sammamish when prompted. The reasons for the omission of these cases were that all remains had previously been recovered and identified, Bundy had always been the prime suspect (unlike in any Idaho cases), or the women were still alive (with DaRonch's case having already resulted in Bundy's conviction); these crimes were of no advantage for him to elaborate on.
It's possible Bundy talked with Hagmaier about those victims after his time with investigators had concluded. But any existing conversations between them involving specific women have not been released. Only a brief, hearsay confirmation attributed to Hagmaier about Lake Sammamish and a direct, dubious comment about Hagmaier's knowledge of Chi Omega⁵ have been publicized; additionally, Bundy's account to him of Parks's abduction was depicted in the movie No Man of God. Bundy's remaining disclosures occurred on Monday January 23 with Dr. Lewis, wherein he volunteered unidentified assault victims prior to 1973, and answered questions she prompted him about pertaining to Lake Sammamish, Chi Omega, and Cheryl Thomas (he didn't name Thomas, but he obviously knew her identity) - as noted earlier in this article. He also allegedly introduced a sexual encounter with his younger sister. The final cases Bundy had to offer investigators were tape-recorded descriptions of the murders of Denise Oliverson (at the request of Detective Mike Fisher) and Susan Curtis (voluntarily); this event transpired on the morning of his execution, Tuesday January 24, as he sat alone in a holding cell and, allegedly, as he was escorted to the execution chamber.
There were three factors precluding Bundy's ability or willingness to reveal details of some crimes the last days of his life, other than the "Bones For Time" criteria: a.) time, which was exceptionally short and poorly planned by him; b.) a one-time obstruction by his civil attorney, Diana Weiner, of Keppel's attempt to discuss a case not involving a missing woman (Healy); and c.) Bundy's insistence that he be permitted to present his full story rather than ticking off the facts of his murders, as is evident in Ted's verbal petitions to Keppel in 1989, per The Riverman (the crux of which are familiar to most students, if readers desire to skip ahead) :
1.) "Okay, but this is basically what I want to avoid, putting myself into a position where we more or less run through the standard litany of victims and without the depth of information and the precedent and antecedent stuff, what happened before, during, and after, what was going on in my mind. And that’s why I feel that I’d like to clothe these names in some kind of reality, even though it be a distorted reality. And I’m worried that—I won’t bullshit you—I’m worried that I—that we just run through it like this, and I can understand your curiosity, believe me, but we run through it like this, and we leave ourselves open to the temptation to leave it at that."
2.) “That’s the kind of atmosphere [- one in which we start from the beginning and tell the whole story -] where I would be able to give it to you, at least in a verbal form like it was. Not bits and pieces. What we have been doing is taking stuff out of context. And I know you have narrow focuses. You have a narrow focus given your law enforcement perspective. And that’s important for what you do. It’s important that those questions be answered. But it’s important for me that those questions be answered in context, for any number of reasons, but perhaps the most important reason is for my own family, so that they understand. But if they’re only getting part of the story, they’re only getting the worst stuff. You know what’s going to happen if and when all this stuff goes public, if all we did was just hit the whos and the whens and the body count. It’s going to be bad enough as it is.”
3.) " [. . . .] here’s what it comes down [to] to me. I want the truth, the truth that’s going to be helpful to you, but the broader truth that has a wider application. That’s my bottom line. There’s just no way it can be done in these circumstances with this amount of time, and that’s the way it is. I’m not holding you hostage. If you don’t want to do anything with it, you’re free to walk away. [. . . .] I’m not asking for clemency, I’m not asking to get off. I’m not asking for sympathy, but I … I draw the line. We need a period of time, sixty, ninety days, a few months, systematically going over with everybody, bottom to top, everything I can think of. Get it all down. You can use it as you see fit. But— that’s how it is. [. . . .] all I can tell you is when you go out and talk to those other [visiting investigators], you can tell them this. Yes, I’m only going to give you part of it. I’ll give you something substantial, right now, to show you that my head is in the right place. I will not put myself in a position of giving it all away and not getting the kind of result that I think is best for my people, and I think for society in general. But I don’t want to sound like I’m too altruistic here—that is a consideration—but I am concerned about my own people. Bob, they’re going to get me sooner or later. Ahhh, you don’t need to worry about that, but you’ve been after this for fifteen years. A couple months is not going to make any difference. That’s what I have to say."
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When a parent loses a beloved child, their anguish is so profound, they want their child's death - particularly a tragic one - to have greater meaning. A young person who loses their life is often memorialized in lavish fashion, whether it be through more expensive, ornate interment structures, the establishment of a scholarship in their honor, or even a law passed in the child's name. So it is quite understandable that Mrs. Vivian Rancourt-Winters hopes her daughter - who genuinely sounded like a wonderful girl - somehow adversely effected Ted Bundy to the point he was too traumatized to speak of Susan's murder. (It should be noted that no public sources of Bundy's speculative or confessional interviews include his refusal to discuss Susan.) Mrs. Winters should not be deprived of that belief if it brings her solace. But for researchers of the case, the reality of Bundy's reasons for verbal omission of certain victims must be examined from an unemotional, impersonal perspective. After all, if we're attempting to grasp his psychopathology, isn't that how Bundy viewed the girls himself?
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¹ Credit and thanks to Bundy researcher, Leto MK, for sourcing this quote.
² As reported in Polly Nelson's book, Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer, Bundy mentioned three victims over a three-year span:
a.) "his first murder," of which he briefly described the circumstances but omitted details of the killing
b.) an unidentified, long-haired, blonde woman whom he assaulted in the lobby her apartment building
c.) the unidentified 1974 Idaho hitchhiker (in 1989)
At least a.) & c.) were at the urging of Polly Nelson - Jim Coleman was also involved during occasion a.) - and both times Bundy chose which victim he would divulge, refusing only to elaborate on the Florida murders during occasion c.) because, "I owe that to the people who believe in my innocence."
³ Wikipedia entry on Ted Bundy
⁴ Prior to a discussion about the paraphrase in a Bundy Facebook group that took place around 2019, I, among others, had knowledge of the source of the paraphrase and its original context. However, as I did not participate in the discussion on Facebook, I must give credit to professional Bundy researcher, Tiffany Jean, for seemingly being the first to publicly dispel the paraphrase as an actual Bundy quote and to cite its source for many who were unaware.
⁵ According to Bill Hagmaier during his appearance on the Oxygen Channel special Snapped Notorious: Ted Bundy: "[. . . Bundy] fit into [a] crowd well. My understanding is while emergency personnel were around the Chi Omega house, he was in the crowd drinking a beer."
Copyright © (2022) Cynthia Walker. All Rights Reserved.
