Theodore (Ted) Robert Bundy (November 24, 1946 - January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer and rapist, possibly the most notorious and barbaric criminal of the late 20th century.

Ted Bundy sexually assaulted, killed, and raped the corpses of several young women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Florida, and Utah between 1974 and 1978. Although he ultimately confessed to 30 murders, his acquaintances claimed that he was probably responsible for hundreds of killings. Bundy was subjected to an electric chair execution in Florida in 1989.

Ted Bundy was born in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24, 1946 to 22-year-old Eleanor Cowell who was unmarried at the time of Bundy’s birth. Her conservative parents, who were deeply humiliated by the illegitimacy of Cowell’s child, decided to raise him as their own son and made him believe that his mother was his sister. Bundy’s grandparents, however, were abusive in nature and constantly assaulted him and his mother, which led Cowell to move with Bundy to Tacoma in Washington. In 1951, she married Johnnie Bundy, from whom Ted Bundy derived his last name.

In 1965, Ted Bundy graduated high school, then enrolled in the nearby University of Puget Sound. He spent just one year there before transferring to the University of Washington. The strange disappearances of young women started in early 1974. Although not a murder, his first-known assault was on 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a student of the University of Washington. He broke into her apartment and knocked her unconscious with a metal rod from her bed frame before sexually assaulting her with it. The brutal assault led her into a 10-day coma and permanent physical disabilities.

A month after the incident, Bundy broke into the apartment of another UW student, Lynda Ann Healy, striked her and made her lose consciousness and carried her to his car. Even though she was never seen again, part of her skull was discovered years later at one of the locations where Bundy dumped the bodies. He then started targeting woman of the area and followed the same pattern of knocking them unconscious, sexually assaulting them, killing them, and then raping their decayed corpses from time to time during his visits to the sites where he dumped the bodies. He would apparently preserve their skulls and sleep beside them, considering them his trophies. “The ultimate possession was, in fact, the taking of the life,” Bundy reportedly said. “And then, the physical possession of the remains. Murder is not just a crime of lust or violence. It becomes possession. They are part of you. The victim becomes a part of you, and you (two) are forever one. And the grounds where you kill them or leave them become sacred to you, and you will always be drawn back to them,” he added.

Even though there was not much evidence initially, detectives from the King County and Seattle police departments were becoming increasingly concerned by the growing number of missing women. The cases had little in common, but all the women were young, attractive, white college students with long hair parted in the middle. As the hunt for the criminal continued, witnesses started producing descriptions that matched Ted Bundy and his car. His first girlfriend from college, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who grew suspicious of Bundy, reported him to the police. At this point, Bundy was the prime suspect based on a data compiled by Washington investigators.

Before being finally caught by the police in August 1975, Bundy committed another series of murders across Colorado. However, he managed to escape from the prison twice, raping and killing several women in the meantime before he was recaptured. Ted Bundy was finally executed by electric chair on January 24, 1989. His death was celebrated by hundreds of people who had gathered outside the courthouse.