Ted Bundy - An American Psycho and Famous Serial Killer

He was born in November of 1946 as Theodore Robert Cowell and during his life he used several aliases. Some knew him as Chris Hagen or Richard Burton or even Ken Misner.

When he died in the electric chair in January of 1989, America knew him as Ted Bundy and he was the one of the most famous serial killers of the twentieth century.

Authorities believe his killing spree lasted roughly four year from 1974 to 1978, although Bundy himself said that his first was in 1972. They believe he killed anywhere between 30 and 100 people. He confessed to 30 murders while on death row.

Ted Bundy was born and raised by a single mother, Louise, and the identity of his father is pure speculation. Ted and his mother lived with her parents in Philadelphia for the first four years of his life. Bundy grew up thinking his mother was his sister and his grandparents were his parents. At the age of four Ted and Louise moved to Tacoma Washington and Louise soon married Johnnie Culpepper Bundy.

Bundy was a very good student and active as a youth in the First Methodist Church of Tacoma, Washington. However, he was shy and and not very sociable with others. He received a scholarship out of high school and graduated from the University of Washington.

While in captivity, Bundy told authorities that there was an entity within him that has always been fascinated with sex and violence. All of his victims were white female, middle class. All were bludgeoned and then strangled. Once he got started in Washington state he was killing at a rate of about one per month.

The first known victim was Joni Lenz in January, 1974. She survived the ordeal but brain damage prevented her from being any help in capturing Bundy. In February, Lynda Ann Healy was killed by Bundy. On March 12, 1974, in Olympia, Bundy kidnapped and murdered Donna Gail Manson. A month later, Susan Rancourt disappeared and her disappearance has been attributed to Bundy. In May it was Brenda Ball and in June, Georgeann Hawkins. Finally, Bundy's Washington killing spree concluded on July 14, 1974, with the abduction of both Janice Ott and Denise Naslund.

And then the Washington killings stopped!

Bundy moved to Utah to attend the University of Utah law school and picked up the pace of his murders killing three Salt Lake City women in October of 1974.

In 1975 Bundy killed a few women in and around the ski resort areas of Colorado. He was arrested for suspected burglary and subsequently escaped. Whether he killed during the next two years is not really known but in January and February of 1978 he killed three women in Florida using the same modus operandi and was finally captured for good.

Theodore Robert (Cowell) Bundy was put to death by electric chair at the maximum-security prison near the remote Town of Raiford, Florida on January 24, 1989 and will go down in history as nothing but a famous serial killer.

The Birth of The American Detective Story

It has been said that the American detective story began sometime in the later nineteenth century. Many critics give credit to an author named Anna Katherine Green for starting this American version of what was already an interest in Europe. Shortly after the budding of what we call the beginning of American detective stories, the realization was that even the first American detective story was influenced in some way by Europe. Whether it was influenced by one of the earlier novels such as Collins, or even by one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, it is uncertain, but it was almost surely derived from Europe. The plots and themes all point to the European influence and rules.

It was later largely realized that the most significant difference between the American version and the English version is the language. The American crime story is much more harsh and blunt. The language that an American crime story entails is various and is much like the blend in our current society whereas the language in a classic English derived crime story is more upper class English and not as corrupt with obscenities or just plain old regular American dialogue. American crime stories blend perfectly the everyday speech that is commonly heard in this vast melting pot of different cultures and heritages

These pulp fiction stories were truly the first real stories that can be called American in almost every sense. The corruption of the social life in America and the prohibition that was ongoing in larger cities spurred a sort of revolution. This disgruntlement had to show its face somewhere and pulp fiction stories became the method of choice for many writers. The Black Mask was one such pulp magazine publication that actually lasted for quite some time before finally being killed off sometime in the nineteen fifties.

Pulp magazine stories gave way to the hard - boiled detective stories around the nineteen twenties. This type of story focused on the tough guy detective. They were stories of gangsters and the like. They were definitely no comparison to Sherlock Holmes, who despite his cleverness, was not perceived as being much of a tough guy.

Book publications of American detective fiction appeared in the late twenties and the early thirties made this action more popular among writers and publishers alike. Even though these stories that were made into books had most likely already appeared in pulp magazine publications somewhere along the line, the writer had to be one of the best available. It was not common to allow someone who was not one of the best in the field to be published, therefore, only the top pulp writers were offered such a special achievement. Others were simply not good enough, by publishing quality standards, to spend the time and money on.

Books opened the door to television and the detective program was born. This type of show offered a short story that was acted out on live television. Most of these were badly acted and had poor characters but they were able to evolve over the years into something much more desirable to watch. With some of the current crop being actually quite good.

Chris Haycock is an information publisher, and a real fanatic about early detective fiction. Having amassed a large collection of early detective/mystery novels. A particular favourite is Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For more information, and details of an offer not to be missed why not go now to http://www.sherlockandwatson.com