Interview with Ted Bundy
Ted Banti This interview was taken from serial killer Ted Bundy. In conclusion, he recognized his own guilt, insisting on the death penalty and talking about how pornography made him. This man became the prototype of the hero of Hannibal Lecter from the movie "Silence of the Lambs."
ATTENTION!!! This material contains details of brutal sexual abuse and is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. Also, if you have problems with violence and sex, you should not read it.
James C. Dobson (DKD) interviewed Ted Bundy about 20 hours before his execution.
DCD: You are guilty of the murder of many women and girls.
Ted: Yes, it is.
DCD: How did this happen? Let's go back in time. What were the prerequisites for your behavior? The family in which you grew up can be considered normal. Nobody abused you psychologically or physically or sexually.
Ted: Nope. And this is part of the tragedy of this situation. I grew up in a great family. I had loving and attentive parents and 4 more brothers and sisters. We children were the center of our parents' lives. We went to church regularly. My parents did not drink, smoke or gamble. In the family, nobody beat me or scoffed at anyone. I do not say that everything was perfect, but I grew up in a strong Christian family. I hope that no one will try to simply blame my family for becoming so - that would be a simple explanation. But I know what really happened, and I try to talk about it honestly.
I was 12 or 13 years old when I began to encounter “easy” pornography in shops and pharmacies. Boys usually prowl around every nook and cranny for porn videos that people throw away. From time to time we came across harder magazines - more outspoken and cruel. Detective magazines also came across. I want to emphasize this because the most destructive kind of pornography - I speak from my own bitter experience - is one that includes violence and sexual violence. The combination of these two - I know this, believe me - leads to behavior that is terrible to describe.
DCD: Tell us more. What was going on in your mind at that moment?
Ted: Before moving on, I want to make sure that people believe in my words. I do not blame pornography. I'm not saying that pornography made me do all this. I fully take responsibility for everything I have done. That is not the question. The question is how this kind of literature contributed to the formation of such behavior.
DKD: She incited your fantasies.
Ted: In the beginning, she fed my thoughts. Then, at a certain point, she helped them pour into a certain form, so that they practically became a separate reality within me.
DKD: In your fantasies with printed materials, photographs and videos, you have exhausted the possibilities of pornography, and then you have a desire to move on to physical activities.
Ted: As soon as you are addicted, and I look at pornography as an addiction, then constantly look for more frank, more exciting materials. As in any addiction, you want something stronger that would give you more satisfaction. But the moment will come when you run out of pornography. Then you begin to think that by doing this, you will get a lot more sensations than when reading or viewing.
DKD: How long have you stood at this trait before you really started raping?
Ted: A couple of years. I could not overcome the strong internal prohibition of criminal behavior that was laid down in my family, in the church and at school.
I knew it was wrong to even think about it, not to mention how to do it. I stood on the edge and the last strings holding me back were constantly pulled under the pressure of my fantasies, constantly fueled by pornography.
DKD: Do you remember what pushed you to action? Do you remember your decision to go and do it? Do you remember how you decided to forget about caution?
Ted: It's very hard to describe. It felt like I had reached the limit and could no longer control my desires. The boundaries that I was taught in childhood were not enough to deter me from violence.
DCD: Would it be right to call this state sexual frenzy?
Ted: You could call it compulsion, the accumulation of destructive energy. I also did not mention the role of alcohol. In combination with the addiction to pornography, alcohol lifted my inner prohibitions in me, and pornography destroyed them further, like erosion.
DKD: After the first murder, what was your emotional state? What happened in the following days?
Ted: Many years have passed, but it's still hard for me to talk about it. To say that it’s hard for me to remember is to say nothing, but I want you to understand what was happening. I seemed to get out of some terrible trance or dream. This can only be compared with an obsession with something terrible, when, waking up the next morning and remembering what happened, you understand that in the eyes of the law and especially in the eyes of God, you are guilty. I woke up and was terrified of what I had done in my right mind with all my moral principles and ethical principles.
DKD: So you didn’t know before that you were capable of this?
Ted: It is impossible to describe the wild urge to do this, but when it was satisfied and the energy spilled out, I became myself again. I, in principle, was a normal person.
I was not one of those who staggers around the bars, or a bum. I was not a pervert in the sense that it was enough for people to look at me and say: "I know that something is wrong with him." I was a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, with the exception of one small, but very powerful and destructive moment, which I kept deeply secret. People who have been so heavily influenced by the violence on television, especially the pornographic violence, were not really monsters from birth. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in ordinary families. Today, pornography can infiltrate any home and abduct any child. Twenty or thirty years ago, she stole from me and my house. I had caring parents, and they took care to protect their children, but no matter how good the Christian family is, there is no protection from the influence that society suffers ...
DKD: There are several hundred reporters behind the walls of the prison who would like to speak with you, but you asked me to come in because you wanted to say something. Do you think that heavy pornography and light pornography, which is a stepping stone to it, do indescribable evil to people and cause rape and murder of women.
Ted: I am not a sociologist and do not support the opinion of John Citizen, but I spent a long time in prison and met many men here who tend to commit violence, like me. And all of them, without exception, were deeply involved in pornography. FBI investigations into serial killer cases show that the vast majority of them are porn addicts. It's true.
DKD: How would your life be without this influence?
Ted: I know for sure that she would be much better and not only for me, but also for other people - my victims and their families. There is no doubt that life would be better. I know for sure that such violence would not have happened.
DKD: If I could ask the usual questions in this situation, I would like to know if you think about your victims and their families that you have caused so much pain? Many years passed, but their lives never returned to normal. Are you tormented by remorse?
Ted: I know people will think that I only think about myself, but with God's help I learned, though too late, to feel the pain that I caused others. Yes. This is true! In recent days, investigators have been talking to me about unsolved crimes - murders committed by me. It’s hard for me to talk about this after so many years, because I am once again experiencing all the terrible feelings and thoughts that I have successfully managed for a long time. Now everything is opened anew, and again I feel the pain and horror of what happened.
I hope that those to whom I brought grief, even if they do not believe my repentance, will believe in what I will say now. In their cities and villages, people like me live free, whose dangerous impulses are kindled daily by the scenes of violence shown on cable television, especially sexual violence. Violence in films that are now available for home viewing 30 years ago would not have been shown even in adult movie theaters.
DKD: The so-called bloody films
Ted: This is the most terrible violence on the screen, especially if the children in the house are left unattended and are unaware that they, too, may turn out to be Ted Bundy, that is, have a predisposition to such behavior.
DKD: One of the last murders you committed was the murder of twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach. I think that public outrage is especially strong in this case, because the child was abducted directly from the playground. How did you feel about this? Were your emotions normal?
Ted: I can't talk about it. It hurts too much. I would like to tell you what this feeling looks like, but I can’t talk about it. I cannot understand the pain that the parents of these children and young women feel. And I can’t fix anything here. I do not expect them to forgive me. I do not ask for this. Such forgiveness comes only from God. If they have it, that is, but if not, then perhaps someday they will find it.
DCD: Do you deserve the punishment the court sentenced you to?
Ted: This is a very good question. I do not want to die, I will not dissemble. Naturally, I deserve the most severe punishment in society. I think that society needs to be protected from me and others like me. This is true. However, I hope that from our conversation it will be clear that society needs to be protected from itself. As we have already said, pornography and violence are freely promoted in this country, and people, on the one hand, condemn the actions of Ted Bundy, but at the same time pass by the magazine stall, because of which their children become like Ted Bundy. This is the irony.
I say that people should not just punish me. My execution will not return the parents of their children and relieve their pain. But today many other children are playing in the streets who will be dead tomorrow or the day after tomorrow because other young people today read and watch on TV
DKD: You are very cynical today, and I think you deserve it. I’m not sure that people will believe you no matter what you say, but you told me (and I heard from our mutual friend John Tanner) that you accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and became His follower. Do you draw strength from this in your last hours?
Ted: Sure. I can’t say that I’m used to being in the valley of the shadow of death, that I am strong and that nothing bothers me. It's very hard. I am lonely, but I remind myself that someday it will be for each of us.
DCD: This is the fate of all people.
Ted: Countless people who have lived on earth before us have gone through this, so death is something common to all of us.
Ted Bundy was executed at 7:15 in the morning the day after this interview.
Ted Bundy is telling the truth. Pornography really kills. Do not think that you can control it, or that you can defeat your addiction on your own with the power of your will. Only God can help with this. And He can forgive ANY sin!
I understand this killer very well. I myself have not gone so far from him. I thank God that He did not allow my fantasies to be realized in life. But I was still involved in such matters, about which it was impossible to speak not only in the Christian environment, even in the world. And I, like Bundy, was a "normal" guy. My wife said about me: "A kind and unspoiled world man." I was such a person. Except for one small but terrible moment - in my thoughts I was a sadist. I’m even afraid to think that it would be with me if I did not know God, did not read the Bible, did not go to church. If even with all this I was enslaved to sin, what would happen to me if I were not a believer at all? I would be a killer like Bundy. But full dedication to God, sincere repentance saves from this misfortune!
If you experience similar problems, if you cannot get rid of pornography, masturbation, and ANY form of sexual perversion - do not despair! The on-line course "The Purity of Purity" course has been created especially for you! I myself went through it, and from an obsessed with sex, violence and all kinds of perversions of the sinner turned into a person enjoying life.