Kathy Kleiner Rubin's autobiography is an inspiring story of bravery, resilience, grace - and, ultimately, victory - in the face of adversity. Having experienced more than her fair share of suffering - from childhood lupus, assault trauma, and divorced motherhood to breast cancer and Hurricane Katrina - Kleiner Rubin shares her hard-won pearls of wisdom and imparts loving messages of hope to anyone struggling and, especially, to survivors of, what she terms, "death sentences." Kleiner's perceptible passion for living, as well as her determination to fight for quality living, fostered in her a tremendous vitality that sustained her during the darkest times and now incites readers to crave the same spirit. Kleiner Rubin is not only an impressive heroine, but a good writer. Readers will find themselves caringly participating in her journey as if she were a friend; she was similarly embraced by the true crime community when she began coming forward in the media after decades of private life.
Present, however, is an overarching conflict in the intentions of this book. Kleiner Rubin prefaces her story with the usual rhetoric that Ted Bundy's victims and survivors have been overlooked by history in favor of the sensationalism of a monster. The voices of the women and girls attacked and murdered have been silenced by the misguided public fascination with their killer, yada yada. Kleiner Rubin is determined to give a platform to all the victims not just through her triumphant survival of Bundy and the telling of her story, but by squashing what she perceives as every misconception about the infamous serial killer. Herein, lies the irony. We are told that Bundy shouldn't take center stage in the study of his crimes, but Kleiner Rubin has written her story as it parallels Bundy's own. He is, surprisingly, a central figure in the way Kleiner Rubin has chosen to narrate her memoir. As she chronicles each of her adult life stages, she also documents what was happening in Bundy's case at the time. Never does she delve too far into her own experiences without circling back around to the serial killer and reminding the reader that they are actually reading a Ted Bundy-themed book.
Why has she done this if she firmly believes notorious, malevolent offenders should be deprioritized? Likely because she and her co-author Lucchesi concluded that the Kathy Kleiner Rubin story wouldn't sell as a stand-alone without heavily featuring a historical figure like Ted Bundy. But they're wrong. Kleiner Rubin's narrative would've been a compelling enough read if she'd limited mention of Bundy to merely his impact on her life - i.e., the brutal Chi Omega assault, the trial she stood witness in, the overbearing media coverage of his legal proceedings as she recovered from the trauma - rather than interweaving the entirety of his criminal exploits throughout the book. If, however, Kleiner Rubin's decision to prominently present Bundy in her account was based on an objective to demythologize the serial killer, the authors could've conducted a more thorough study before asserting their deductions.
Repeatedly, Kleiner Rubin attempts to alter public perception of Bundy by citing examples that are contradictory to his image as a handsome, intelligent serial killer who charmed unsuspecting women into his car and to their deaths. She has adopted the approach that two truths cannot exist simultaneously: because Ted Bundy was such a vile human being, he could not have possessed any attributes. And, by extension, he certainly couldn't have leveraged those attributes to fulfill his purposes of harming women because, according to Kleiner Rubin, Bundy mostly attacked women as they slept or jumped them from behind. Not only have the authors included an appendix entitled Setting The Record Straight in which they erroneously categorize the victims by the methods by which they were attacked, they write: "The 1970s idea that naive girls had followed Bundy into his car [remains,] even though there were only a handful of known instances of women agreeing to follow him when he said he needed help." The point of this exercise is, according to Kleiner Rubin's premise, to shift any lingering blame away from the victims' actions which may have contributed to their murders. But when has anyone ever condemned these women and girls for believing the lies of a manipulative con artist like Bundy?
Using the authors' own categorical models in the book's appendix, here are some revisions that represent the victims more accurately (as well as chronologically rather than alphabetically):
Attacked while sleeping in bed or abducted from bedroom:
1. Karen Sparks (survived)
2. Lynda Healy
3. Margaret Bowman
4. Lisa Levy
5. Kathy Kleiner (survived)
6. Karen Chandler (survived)
7. Cheryl Thomas (survived)
. . . . . . [To increase the length of the list, the authors have misleadingly included assaults of suspected, but unproven, Bundy victims with known names - i.e., Bundy accosted at least one other sleeping woman who survived, but her identity is unknown:
8. Ann Marie Burr
9. Lisa Wick (survived)
10. Lonnie Trumbell
11. Shelley Robertson] . . . . . .
Abducted/attacked from behind:
["Attacked from behind" is too broad a description; more appropriate is "jumped," "overpowered," or "blitz-attacked," wherein a ruse was not employed by Bundy.]
1. Nancy Wilcox
2. Melissa Smith
3. Debra Kent
4. Denise Oliverson
. . . . . . [Again, to increase the length of the list, the authors have misleadingly included "attacked from behind" abductions of suspected, but unproven, Bundy victims with known names - i.e., Bundy perpetrated multiple, "inept" - as he called them - assaults of unknown women who were neither abducted nor killed:
5. Joyce LePage
6. Rita Jolly
7. Nancy Baird
plus, a whopping nine more Bundy murder victims, which this blog has placed in more specific categories.] . . . . . .
Unknown [approach]:
1. Laura Aime
2. Lynnette Culver [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
3. Susan Curtis [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
. . . . . . [The authors have included murders of suspected, but unproven, Bundy victims:
4. Elizabeth Perry
5. Susan Davis
6. Vicki Lynn Hollar
7. Sandra Weaver] . . . . . .
Picked up as a hitchhiker:
1. the Tumwater hitchhiker [omitted from any of the authors' categories]
2. the Idaho hitchhiker [identified by the authors as "anonymous hitchhiker, age fifteen"]
. . . . . . [The authors have included hitchhiking murders of suspected, but unproven, Bundy victims:
3. Brenda Joy Baker
4. Carol Platt Valenzuela
5. Melanie Cooley] . . . . . .
Misrepresented himself as a police officer [or first responder]:
1. possibly Kathy Parks [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
2. Carol DaRonch (survived)
3. possibly Kimberly Leach [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
Attacked [initially outside Bundy's car, unless "*"] after agreeing to help him [i.e, Bundy's injury ruse]:
[This revised total adds up to a bit more than the "handful" the authors claim.]
1. likely Donna Manson [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
2. Susan Rancourt [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
3. Georgann Hawkins [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
4. *Janice Ott
5. *Denise Naslund [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
6. Caryn Campbell [placed in the authors' "Abducted/attacked from behind" list]
7. Julie Cunningham
This blog has devised an additional category for further detail; the majority of the victim names have already been included in the various categories above:
Attacked inside Bundy's vehicle (or possibly in his apartment or hotel room, in two cases) after willingly agreeing to ride with him:
1. the Tumwater hitchhiker
2. possibly Donna Manson
3. Kathy Parks
4. Brenda Ball [placed in the authors' "Unknown" list]
5. Janice Ott
6. Denise Naslund
7. the Idaho hitchhiker
8. Carol DaRonch (survived)
9. Lynnette Culver
10. possibly Kimberly Leach [i.e., she may not have been a willing passenger]
Feel free to contact the blog to request additional clarification regarding each victim's categorical placement.
Rather than creating all these categories to preserve the victims' dignity by attempting to corroborate their assertion that Bundy primarily attacked sleeping women or accosted "from behind," perhaps the authors could've accomplished the same goal with a concise statement like, Every single one of Bundy's victims who either accompanied him to or inside of his car only did so because they were deceived. Even the mere two victims who possibly agreed to go with Bundy on an impromptu date - Kathy Parks and Brenda Ball - did so under Bundy's false pretenses, as he always intended to murder them. "Admitting" to these facts in the case still doesn't make any of the victims responsible for their own demise. Kleiner Rubin's endeavor to undermine Bundy's mystique as a sophisticated, discerning killer of classy, educated beauties is a worthwhile one. But it shouldn't be at the dismissal of factors such as Bundy's cunning, personability, charisma, and exceptional social skills, which indisputably contributed to his success in luring approximately fourteen victims through various ruses. As a fellow true crime researcher often notes about Bundy Lake Sammamish victim Janice Ott, a pretty, twenty-three-year-old juvenile probation officer who possessed enough life experience and smarts to not be naive: "Jan wouldn't have agreed to get in someone's car to help launch their sailboat - much less, have requested a ride in the boat - if they looked like Henry Lee Lucas or were as dull as Gary Ridgway."
Kleiner Rubin is so keen on transferring focus away from Bundy and towards remembrance of his victims that she and co-author Lucchesi have also written another appendix in the book, How To Honor The Women And Girls Who Lost Their Lives To Bundy. This section provides fifteen tips on how properly to converse about Bundy, namely to correct anyone who perpetuates the standard myths that Bundy was charming, intelligent, or "lived a double life." (Remember, Bundy was such a morally reprehensible creep - which, he was - he possessed no attributes whatsoever - except, he did.) In fact, the authors maintain, Bundy only accrued a substantial kill count because "he was a White, middle-class male in the 1970s [. . . and] men like him had privilege and they could do what they wanted." Interesting. So, exactly what societal privilege was Black serial killer Wayne Williams exploiting when he killed multiple Black Atlanta children in the late 1970s - early 1980s? Same question regarding America's most prolific serial killer Samuel Little, a Black man whose ninety-three victims must've easily fallen prey to some mystery privilege bestowed on him.
The authors argue that the public embraces the double-life lore that Bundy "was a law student by day, serial killer by night, and he moved seamlessly [between] these two worlds[, because] it allows people to feel safe, as if Bundy was a special monster and now that he's gone, no one can ever be harmed again." In so theorizing, the authors have missed the predominant characteristic of Ted Bundy's legacy, and the incredibly important safety message produced by that legacy which has lasted decades beyond his crimes: Ted Bundy was exceedingly dangerous precisely because he appeared and acted so normal! Bundy shattered the illusion that women can trust their judgment about a seemingly harmless male stranger. I'll never forget what my mother said to me in 1995 at age twenty-three when I casually told her I'd accompanied one of my attractive male patrons in his car to breakfast at the Waffle House after my 2:00 A.M. bartending shift had ended, because I'd deemed him to be "nice" and "cool": "That's exactly what people said about Ted Bundy!" she admonished me.
The authors have issued a call to action to memorialize Ted Bundy's victims by minimizing interest in their killer. Yet, despite the advantageous position Kathy Kleiner Rubin is in to contact fellow victims' families to learn more about their deceased daughters and sisters, she has chosen not to write a book profiling all the victims and survivors in-depth. (A paragraph is devoted to each of Bundy's confirmed and suspected murder victims in the back of the book.) Instead, she and co-author Lucchesi did the very thing they criticize documentaries and movies for doing: they produced content centered around Ted Bundy. They also could've donated proceeds from book sales to victims' advocacy groups or charitable organizations; however, no announcement about such plans has been offered. But guess what? Kathy Kleiner Rubin has the right to pen her autobiography any way she chooses, as well as do with the profits whatever she wishes. Good for her for accomplishing such a feat and for sharing her remarkable story! But, by the same token, we, too, have the right to freely discuss the case however we want and to reject the authors' corny suggestion of diverting dialogue away from Ted Bundy by mentioning that Lynnette Culver "loved swimming at her local pool[, and only] weeks before her death she had been delighted about receiving McDonald's coupons."
Want to know the best way to honor the victims? Study Ted Bundy's crimes. The two dozen women and girls who perished at the hands of a heinous predator didn't die in vain if future generations of females can derive safety lessons from Bundy's modus operandi in each individual attack. Pinpointing which actions the victims could've done differently in no way casts blame on them; it thwarts methods and advances that only pathological minds like Bundy's - not the rest of ours - could think of. My sorority's house mother, who resigned a few months before I pledged in 1990, was adamant the chapter diligently check our house's door locks, particularly the combination lock which tended to stick and leave the back door slightly ajar. Was "Nana" insistent on this practice because she faulted Kathy Kleiner and the other Chi Omegas for lapsing in their security measures? Of course not; she did it because she was a house mother on the Florida State University campus the night Bundy struck January 15, 1978. Naturally, she was traumatized and wanted to protect other young women by taking precautions.
If there had been a Ted Bundy before Ted Bundy, perhaps most of the latter's victims would be alive today. They wouldn't have had our advantage of countless books and documentaries outlining all the ways Bundy attacked, but they would've heard enough news reports to be forewarned about engaging in certain risky activities, like hitchhiking. After all, killers like Bundy and Edmund Kemper effectively rendered that practice obsolete for females after the 1970s. Does that mean that during a less cautious era, the women who got into the car with Bundy were foolish for doing so? No, because without previous examples to learn from, they didn't recognize the inherent danger.
R.I.P., Donna, Georgann, Laura, Caryn, et al. You didn't deserve to die, but, hopefully, your deaths have kept the women of today a little safer.
Copyright © 2024 Cynthia Walker. All Rights Reserved.
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