serial killer's case NEED PLAGERISM REPORT
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Serial Killer’s Case
Serial Killer’s Case: Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy was a scandalous serial killer of the late 20th century. He confessed to killing almost 30 people, but he’s suspected of more brutal crimes. In the 1970s, Ted mercilessly kidnapped and killed innocent women across the United States. He targeted women in communities from Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Florida, and Utah from 1974 to 1978. He confessed to killing 30 people but it is believed that carried out several other murders. Bundy’s first case occurred in 1974 and involved Karen Sparks, 18-year student at the University of Washington. Bundy sexually assaulted the victim after breaking into her house while she sleeping. The victim survived but entered into a coma for ten years and has since suffered mental disabilities. In the same year, Ted also seduced 18-year-old woman, Carol Daronch, at Utah Shopping Mall, acting to be a police officer. He lured Dabronch to accompany him into his car and later forcibly handcuffed her on his wrist, but the girl eventually got away. In 1978, in another incident, Bundy attacked five university students at Chi Omega Sorority house, Florida State University, by bludgeoning them repeatedly with a blunt weapon. After a series of murder cases, Bundy was first arrested in 1975 in Salt Lake City after police officers found handcuffs, crowbar, masks, and gloves on his car. These items' discovery prompted a search for Bundy’s apartment and led detectives to establish a connection with Bundy to Daronch's kidnapping and other missing girls. He was brought for the lineup before Daronch and other witnesses, where he was identified as Officer Roseland. Following a trial, Bundy was convicted for 15 years in 1976 in Utah State Prison for kidnapping Dabroch. In 1977, Bundy escaped during court recess but was later taken back to custody. Bundy was sentenced to death and eventually executed by electrocution in 1989 in Florida.
Ted Bundy, also known as Theodore Robert Bundy, was serial killer who killed, kidnapped and raped young girls and women. He was born on 1946, in Burlington, Vermont. The mother of the killer was called Eleanor Louise Cowell, and his biological father was not identified. According to Reinhardt (2019), Bundy has had traumatizing childhood experiences, having been raised by his grandparents with his mother posing as his sister. Business Insider interview with law enforcement consultants revealed that Bundy engaged in criminal activities at a young age and is believed to have killed a young girl from the neighborhood when he was still a teenager. Mainly, he exhibited signs of conduct behavior as a child. In 1950, Bundy met his new father, Johnny Bundy, after which he adopted his name, Bundy changing his name to Ted Bundy. Although his first confirmed murder happened in 1974 when he was 28, he allegedly engaged in murder when he was 14. In 1965, he joined the University of Puget Sound but later moved to the University of Washington in 1966 before dropping out of college in 1968. During his college years, he started a romantic relationship with a classmate, Elizabeth Kloepfer. The two occasionally broke up and moving back together. Bundy also attended Temple University for one semester before dropping out and moving back to Washington in 1969. Bundy eventually returned to the University of Washington and graduated in 1972, and after that went to pursue law at the University of Puget (Canning, 2019). Bundy’s method of murder was strangulation and beating with metal bars. He typically bludgeoned victims with a blunt weapon or strangled and even mutilate them after them. Bundy is known to have preserved a space on the floor of his car for victims as he drove them away. He frequently operated in Washington, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Florida, Idaho, and Vermont.
Psychodynamic Theory relates to Ted Bundy. The decay of Bundy’s personality began in his infancy when he was just 14. The psychodynamic theory posits that human behavior can be explained based on childhood experiences that significantly influence adult lives. Psychodynamic theorists believe that events such as fears and wishes, all of which we are not fully aware of, can remain unconscious but cause problems in adulthood (Bornstein, 2021). Bundy encountered malfunctions such as the thought that his grandparents were his parents, his mother as his sister, and a strained relationship with his stepdad in his childhood development. Bundy is reported to have had physical and psychological abuses from his grandfather, Samuel Cowell (Murderpedia). He later becomes more upset with his stepfather, who had an antagonistic relationship despite adopting his name. These disturbing experiences led Bundy to become the most infamous serial killer in the U.S. More specifically, Bundy developed mistrust towards his caregivers, starting from his grandparents, mother to the stepfather, causing him never to trust anyone in his life. Therefore, Bundy’s environment played a significant role in his developing conduct and antisocial behavior.
Bundy used charm and appeal to victims’ vulnerability instincts to lure them into private locations where they can exercise control. Significantly, they target people who are vulnerable and easy to convince and manipulate. Bundy’s unique combination of good looks, social skills, keen intellectuals, and charm made him a master manipulator. He would sometimes give special items such as jewelry, newspaper, or lock of hair women to manipulate them into his secret fantasies. Jitchotvisut (2019) suggests that Bundy successfully blended in and earned victims' trust by appearing ordinary. To some extent, victims are to be blamed for their deaths because how the victims looked, what they wore and what they were doing provoked Bundy to attack them. This is true because Bundy’s kidnapping pattern shows that he targeted college-aged women who seemed desperate for help and easy to manipulate.
The primary motivation for Bundy’s killing was the need for power and control over others. He was a power/control serial killer. Bundy obtained pleasure in torturing and strangling women to death. He often impersonates authority figures, mainly posing as a police officer, and seduces people in public places before assaulting them in secluded areas. Bundy usually found killing his victims slowly as empowering, and he used this tactic to prolong his sadistic pleasure. His second motive was lust to fulfill sexual fantasies. Bundy was interested solely in young women whom he raped after beating them. Rape also serves as another means of controlling and dominating his victims. This is evident because Bundy never lost interest in his victims after death and would return to violate them whenever he pleases. Brandy was also obsessed with homicidal fantasies as he would repeatedly kill to satisfy this terrifying desire. However, his repeated murder did not wholly satisfy his fantasy. The aftermath could lead to Bundy's emotional letdown because this fantasy was deeply ingrained in his mind following his childhood failures. When a power/control serial killer like Bundy experiences a failure to meet the ultimate fantasy in real life as envisioned in their mind, they will be compelled to continue killing to fulfill ideal fantasy. Serial killers are therefore characterized by obsessive, cyclical, and compulsive killing.
References
Bornstein, R. (2021). The psychodynamic perspective. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/zdemy2cv
Canning, K. (2019). Here’s A Complete Timeline Of All The Crimes Ted Bundy Committed. Women’s Health. https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a27435103/ted-bundy-crimes-timeline/
Jitchotvisut, J. (2019). How Ted Bundy got away with so many murders, according to a forensic psychologist. Business Insider. https://www.insider.com/ted-bundy-case-explained-forensic-psychologist-2019-1
Murderpedia. (n.d). State v. Bundy, 589 P.2d 760 (Utah, 1978) (Aggravated Kidnapping). https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b1/bundy-ted-citations.htm
Reinhardt, M. (2019). From troubled childhood to electric chair: The full timeline of Ted Bundy's life and murder spree. Business Insider. https://www.insider.com/the-full-timeline-of-ted-bundys-murders-2019-2