Disturbing Facts About Serial Killer Ted Bundy

May 2024 ยท 1 minute read

Before his long-delayed trip to the electric chair, Ted Bundy insisted his depravity had nothing to do with how he was raised. Per the Los Angeles Times, he claimed he was brought up in "a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving parents" and painted a portrait of familial bliss devoid of the slightest vice. His relatives, however, told a drastically different story.

In this alternate picture, Bundy's upbringing was filled with deception, chaos, and cruelty. For years he was told his mother was his sister and that his grandparents were his parents, per ThoughtCo, to conceal that he was born out of wedlock. The man he called "Dad" was vicious and unstable. As psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis described, Bundy's grandfather, Samuel Cowell, "would kick dogs, swing cats by their tails, [and] beat people who angered him." He also argued with hallucinations.

At age 3, Bundy would lay butcher knives beside his sleeping aunt. In the 2019 Netflix special "Conversations with A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" (via USA Today), a childhood friend recalled that Bundy set "tiger traps," which were "[pits] with pointed stakes, disguised with vegetation." Bundy's psychiatrist posited that he was mentally ill (possibly bipolar) since infancy, which along with his horrific home life might help explain how he turned out.

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