Extraodinary insight into the mind of Ted Bundy

Many books and documentaries talk at length about Ted Bundy's crimes, intelligence and compartmentalized mind, then follow up with a short quote from TB supporting their claims. I'm much more interested in listening to TB himself at length, as opposed to authors summarizing and interpreting him for us. And that's exactly what this book provides.

He's questioned exhaustively about the 'Ted' murders, motivations, methods, and psychology. Only he describes things from a detached 3rd person perspective about an group or individual capable of committing such crimes. He sounds more like a professor of criminology than a serial killer. But his insights are significantly more relevant because he's speaking from experience and not speculating about crimes other's have committed. His statements are carefully controlled but impressively detailed at the same time. I found his detachment and ability to speak so casually about such horrific materials chilling. He doesn't confess to anything, but ends up providing a tremendous amount of insight into the mind of a serial killer. It's clear TB was brilliant and had an incredibly deep well constructed criminal mind.

Although I support the death penalty, and believe TB was the perfect candidate for such a punishment, I can't help wonder if an exception should have been made in his case. In the ongoing effort to understand serial killers minds and motivations... and abnormal psychology in general... I believe TB could have provided the field with a lifetime of relative and insightful information. He knows more about the subject than anyone who simply speculates about it, and is intelligent enough to evaluate all sides of things from psychological and sociological perspective. Of course determining his truthfulness is tricky business. This is something I believe the author overlooked, during the interviews he yells at Ted demanding a confession and accurate body count in order to sell books. Missing the more interesting and deeper understanding of things Ted was providing. It was like Ted was the teacher in the room, and the author was an impatient press reporter.

This is a perfect companion book to Ann Rules Stranger Beside Me.

15 people found this helpful

Fantastic!

A complete and somewhat detailed confession without confessing a thing, legally speaking. Really fascinating to listen to. My only criticism is that it could have been edited a bit more. Bundy repeated himself a lot.
I read this book nearly 30 years ago. It was called “The Only Living Witness” back then. I have a pretty bad memory, but this book really stayed with me all these years, and I have recommended it many times- anytime true crime or serial killers has come up. The idea to ask Ted to talk in the third person was absolutely brilliant! I’m so glad he agreed. I just finished Ann Rule’s book about Ted (The Stranger Beside Me - also excellent) and went looking to see if I could find this one. I was pleased when I figured out this was the same book I had read all those years ago. Both books were very enjoyable to listen to (as much as one can enjoy this sort of thing) and we’re very well narrated. Time for me to go read some nice fiction now.

7 people found this helpful

Great Insight

Great insight into the mind of a killer. Narration was ok, it would definitely be better to actually hear the tapes and hear Bundy himself. Unfortunately we cant but this is great anyways.

4 people found this helpful

A lot of trite philosophizing

These interviews mostly display Bundy avoiding questions about his crimes and engaging in trite philosophizing. The attempts of these journalists to “get” something out of Bundy is rather grotesque as they alternately wheedle, threaten and flatter Bundy who clearly has absolutely no intention of proving any meaningful information.

2 people found this helpful

Not like I thought it would be

This was an extremely frustrating listen. Ted does speak somewhat freely about his early life and activities but gives zero insight into his crimes and motivations. When I heard Ted Bundy confessed in the third person I believed it would sort of be "I know I'm talking about me and you know I'm talking about me but I'm going to make it sound vaguely hypothetical so as to have some plausible deniability." and thereby which we could learn some details about the crimes and insight into his motivations.... this however was not the case.

I do not believe that Ted Bundy made any true statements (or very few at least) regarding his crimes or himself throughout these interviews. I believe he had compartmentalized to the point where he was speaking from the point of view of normal Ted that truly doesn't know anything about the crimes and is just surmising things based on what a person who had only ever read about the crimes would know. There may be some details hidden in there that are true however it's impossible to know what may be true and what's not. Also he says things in such a vague generic way with constant caveats and "maybe this or maybe that" and seems to be very, very careful not to implicate himself by letting details slip that only the killer would know. He probably calculatedly said things that were outright wrong as a way to throw investigators off the scent...as if to say "see, I couldn't have done it, look how wrong I am"

At one point almost didn't want to keep listening because of how the first interviewer was just letting him go on and on in circles and vagaries...saying pretty much absolutely nothing.... I found the second interviewer a little easier to listen to even if I was still frustrated with Ted because at least he was confrontational with him haha.

F Ted Bundy I wish we could give him the chair again.

2 people found this helpful

Great listen

I wasn’t sure of the Ted narrator the first time I heard him speak but he definitely grew on me. He really captured Ted and actually sounded quite a lot like him, and the way he talked.

2 people found this helpful

Ted’s Excellent Adventures

What happens when you mix a cunning psychopath with two clueless reporters trying to outwit him? Spend a credit and find out! Ted reveals much about his thinking, feelings and actions around a few of his kills. His disconnect from empathy is the real story here and it is chilling and fascinating. The guy that narrates Ted’s part is wonderful. He’s playful and flirty and understands that Ted alone can stand center stage. Stephen gets much more interesting information from Ted because he plays along with his sly ways. Stephen’s narrator is excellent, too. When Hugh enters the scene in some misguided good cop/bad cop fantasy Ted has a ball pulling him around by the nose. Poor Hugh keeps trying to get Ted to “confess”, telling Ted that he has let him and, get this, the publisher down, by not giving them what they want. Ted keeps telling Hugh the score, “you don’t touch me. I don’t care what you think”, but poor Hugh keeps pounding away to no avail, never realizing he’s talking to a psychopath. This is some seriously spooky stuff. It shows you why people like Ted get away with murder for so long. The general public (personified by these two reporters) just can’t wrap their collective mind around true psychopathology. Great stuff, but not in the way the two reporters had planned. Great narration all around.

1 person found this helpful

Great narration to a psychopathic

We really should not have killed Ted bundy, we could’ve studied him like a lab rat if need be to prevent future Ted Bundy is being formed. What a waste of our tax dollars that was. And will never know what his true mental illnesses were but they were obvee the perfect storm to create the monster that was Ted Bundy.

1 person found this helpful

awesome book!

good read... an awesome look into the mind of a psychopath... the horror he inflicted on his victims is palpable through out!

1 person found this helpful

Great listen

It’s a good eye opener in a mind of a killer. Gets you thinking in a different way