Ted Bundy Quotes

Jim [Coleman, his defense attorney] and Fred [Lawrence, his minister], I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends.

That's why it's so much easier for me to try to locate the bodies than it is to talk about the actual thing. It's so much more positive such as it could be.

I don't think anybody doubts whether I've done some bad things. The question is: what, of course, and how and, maybe even most importantly, why?

I'm not looking for anything. I understand now a lot of stuff about myself that I didn't understand then. It makes me realize what was going on. The senselessness of it appalls me although I'm sure not so much as those who were so close to it.

One of the things that makes it a little bit difficult is that at this point she was quite lucid, talking about things. It’s not funny, but it’s odd the kinds of things people will say under those circumstances. And she said that she had a Spanish test the next day, and she thought that I had taken her to help tutor her for her Spanish test. It’s kind of an odd thing to say. Anyway.

I just said that the Hawkins girl's head was severed and taken up the road about twenty-five to fifty yards and buried in a location about ten yards west of the road, on a rocky hillside. Did you hear that?

When you feel the last bit of breath leaving their body, you're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!

.....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.

You're like a fisherman who fishes for years and catches a small fish. Sometimes a medium fish. [You] get lucky and get a big fish. But you know that there's a real big fish under there that always gets away. You and your group are going to get a lot of serial killers and they're going to help you. But with the real good ones, the only way you're going to know what goes on under the water is to go under the water. The fisherman drowns going underwater. But I can take you there without drowning. If I trust you. And if I decide.

But he found himself with this girl who was struggling and screaming. Uh, not screaming, but let’s say just basically arguing with him. There were houses in the vicinity and he was concerned that somebody might hear. And so, in an attempt to stop her from talking or arguing, he placed his hand over her mouth. She stopped and he attempted to remove her clothes and she began to object again. At this point, he was in a state of not just agitation, but something on the order of panic. He was fearing that she would arouse somebody in the vicinity. So, not thinking clearly but still intending not to harm her, let’s say, he placed his hands around her throat… Just to throttle her into unconsciousness so that she wouldn’t scream anymore. She stopped struggling, and it appeared that she was unconscious. But not, in his opinion, to a point where he had killed her... Then let’s say he removed her clothes and raped her and put his own clothes back on. At about that point, he began to notice that the girl wasn’t moving. It appeared, although he wasn’t certain, that he’d done what he had promised himself he wouldn’t do. And he had done it, really, almost inadvertently. Uh, so he took the girl by one of her arms and pulled her to a darkened corner of this little orchard and then, in a fit of panic, fled the scene. He got back in his car and drove back to his house, still not knowing if the girl was alive or dead. But once he returned to the house, upon reflection he began to wonder. He didn’t know if he’d left anything at the crime scene. He hadn’t thought about publicity and physical evidence. So he decided to return to the scene and if the body was there to recover it and take it somewhere else where it wouldn’t be found.

Which one do they pick? Do they pick the law student with no criminal background, who was probably even known by some of the prosecutors working the case? Or are they going to go after the types, you know, the guys in the files... the real weirdos?

Well, had he been cautious, he would’ve probably killed the first individual before leaving to get the second girl, but in this instance since we’ve agreed he wasn’t acting cautiously, he hadn’t killed the first girl when he abducted the second.

The ultimate possession was, in fact, the taking of the life. And then … the physical possession of the remains.

A factor that is almost indispensable to this kind of behavior [serial killing] is the mobility of contemporary American life. Living in large centers of population, and living with lots of people, you can get used to dealing with strangers. It's the anonymity factor, and it has a twofold effect. First of all if you're among strangers you're less likely to remember them, or care what they're doing or what they should, or should not, be doing. If they should or shouldn't be there. Secondly, you're conditioned almost not to be afraid of strangers. Mobility is very important here. As we've seen...the individual's [himself in third person] modus operandi was moving large distances in an attempt to camouflage what he was doing. Moving these distances, he was able to take advantage of the anonymity factor.

Guilt. It's this mechanism we use to control people. It's an illusion. It's a kind of social control mechanism and it's very unhealthy. It does terrible things to our body.