Original subtitles

[♪ dark music playing]

[♪ eerie music playing]

[Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole] As a profiler and as an investigator,

when talking with Gary Ridgway, I certainly identify with the difficulty

of Keppel trying to get specifics out of Ted.

Which is better for you?

Which is more arousing to you, more stimulating, more exciting?

[Gary Ridgway] I couldn't-- I couldn't, uh...

[victim screaming]

...l-look at her face or anything like that.

-When-- -Why?

-When I was killing her, I just-- -Why?

[♪ dark music playing]

I didn't wanna know who I was killing.

And... I never wanted to see what they looked like.

[clicking]

[♪ tense music playing]

We have almost two dozen young women dead, the victims of the Green River Killer.

[William Birnes] The whole premise was using one killer

to catch another killer.

It had never been done before.

And that became The Silence of the Lambs.

[♪ tense music playing]

[♪ tense music continues]

Less than six hours from now,

accused mass murderer Ted Bundy is scheduled to be executed

in a Florida prison.

[♪ intense music playing]

[♪ dark music playing]

[♪ tense music playing]

[reporter] Time is running out for Ted Bundy.

He is scheduled to die in Florida's electric chair.

And now, he must hope for a last-minute reprieve.

[Bob Keppel] I had seen Ted Bundy manipulate his way

out of the electric chair for 10 years,

but now his fate seemed sealed.

Only Florida's governor could save Ted's life,

and that didn't seem likely.

We are moving with anticipation of what might occur.

[clock ticking]

[Bob Dekle] I was exhilarated that day.

Ted Bundy needed killing.

[reporter] Ted Bundy, suspected in at least 36 murders

and mutilations of young women,

may finally be executed.

Just about everybody who was a witness to the execution

was somebody who worked on the case.

[Bill Hagmaier] It was a full house.

And outside, there were maybe a thousand people out there

screaming and yelling.

[crowd yelling indistinctly]

It-- It's crazy.

And you see Old Sparky sitting there in the middle of the room.

Off to the right, is a phone hanging on the wall.

And the door opens and in comes Bundy,

and he is just white as a sheet.

[♪ tense music playing]

And they sit him down, and they strap him in the chair.

[ticking]

There's a guy standing over here, and he's on the phone with the governor.

[♪ tense music continues]

Our goal is to carry out the warrant as signed.

It's still set for seven o'clock.

[Bob Keppel] Florida's governor fulfilled Ted Bundy's greatest fear:

that he would die in prison.

[♪ tense, ominous music playing]

[Dekle] They dropped the hood.

Now Bundy, he had a, uh, habit of making fists like this

with his thumb between his fingers,

and a thought ran through my head at that point,

"I wonder how many necks those hands have tightened around?"

[♪ tense, ominous music continues]

The superintendent gives a high sign to the executioner,

and they, uh, throw the switch.

[electricity buzzing]

You could see the body tense.

You could see the hand tightening,

tighter and tighter.

[reporter] Two thousand volts of electricity raced through his body.

The power surge caused

lights outside the execution chamber to flicker.

It was the sign to the outside world that Bundy was dead.

[crowd cheering]

Yahoo!

About damn time!

[cheering continues]

I got the phone call, and said it was over, he was dead.

And I started to cry.

And I cried. And I wailed.

And all my husband could do was hold me.

[♪ somber music playing]

I wasn't crying for me.

[camera clicks]

I was crying for Margaret, and for Lisa...

[camera clicks]

...and all his victims,

and all their families,

and all the things that they wanted to do.

[camera clicks]

[Eleanor Rose] I waited for that day a long time,

and it came.

And then, the way I feel is today is today...

and I still don't have Denise.

[♪ somber music continues]

[camera clicks]

[Vivian Winters] We were so upset.

You know, it was very emotional for us.

One of the magazines rang our doorbell

and my husband went to answer.

And flash bulbs are flashing.

And he said, "How do you feel about the execution?"

Dale just slammed the door on him.

Let's not make a circus out of this, people's tragedies.

[Karen Sparks Epley] I don't believe in executions.

But in that case, I was happy that he...

was, um, executed,

because he was just a total monster.

I was bawling my eyes out.

Although, I knew that, you know, this person needed to go.

I wasn't just crying for my brother or for myself.

It was because of the situation.

You know, "Thanks a lot. You know, you ruined so many lives.

"And you're making me upset right now

and 'cause there's nothing I can do about it."

[crowd cheering]

[Roger Dunn] I've had mixed emotions about the death penalty.

For Bundy, I'm glad they executed him.

-[camera clicks] -Now, with his death,

and his confession on Bob's tapes,

I think the victims' families have some solace at this point.

[Bob Keppel] The last words I had said to Bundy were,

"You've just killed yourself."

I thought of those words as I flew home to Seattle.

[♪ dark music playing]

[Dave Keppel] It was the morning.

I was surprised to see dad already home.

I said, "Did you stay for execution?"

And he said, "No."

But then he kind of smiled and looked down,

and he was frying bacon.

[laughing]

In the kitchen.

[bacon sizzling]

So, we had a good laugh.

I had thought that he had wanted to see the execution,

but he said he didn't want to.

He was done with Bundy at that point.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy was dead.

The Green River Killer wasn't.

[reporter] Today, police identified the skeletal remains

found in a ravine over the weekend

as those of Cindy Anne Smith.

Today's announcement brings the number of known victims to 37.

[Bob Keppel] By now, it was the longest unsolved serial murder case

in American history.

Bundy had put himself into the Riverman's mind.

Could he still help us from beyond the grave?

[camera clicks]

[Bob Keppel] Bundy was brought down by a witness in Utah.

Could a witness also bring the Green River Killer to justice?

[detective] Is that the man that assaulted you in 1982?

[Rebecca Garde] That is the man.

[detective] There's no doubt in your mind about that?

[Garde] No doubt.

He was right in my face when he was attacking me.

There is no way I would not be able to remember that.

[♪ intense music playing]

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Bundy had told me

that the Green River Killer was likely questioned by the police.

Maybe even arrested.

[Bob Keppel] Back in 1984,

the task force had been sifting through 77,000 suspects,

and that's when investigators heard an alarming story.

The police had questioned a man about an attack on Rebecca Garde.

[Garde] They actually showed me a bunch of photos,

and I... had picked out his photo.

[Bob Keppel] During the interview, the suspect admitted choking Garde

because, he claimed, she'd bit him.

[Katie Larson] He admitted to it.

He said, "Oh, yeah, I strangled her,

or tried to because she bit me and assaulted me."

And was very forthcoming and candid about it,

which, I think, you would naturally assume that would not be the case

if he was trying to hide something.

[Bob Keppel] Investigators track the man to his home.

His name? Gary Ridgway.

[camera clicks]

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

Detectives took a hard look at Ridgway,

and they realized

that the Green River Task Force had already investigated him.

Gary Ridgway first came to the attention of the task force

when Marie Malvar disappeared on April 30, 1983.

Marie Malvar disappeared off the strip.

She had a pimp, a boyfriend, who saw her get into a truck.

[♪ tense music playing]

[Richard Kraske] When she didn't return home,

they went out looking for the truck in the neighborhood.

They found it in Ridgway's driveway.

So they called the police.

[Patty Eakes] The police went out to Ridgway's house.

You know, he admitted that he had sex with her,

but then said that he had dropped her off.

And again, she was just another missing person,

so there was not a whole lot they could do about it.

[Bob Keppel] On May 7, 1984, Ridgway took a polygraph,

administered by the King County Sheriff's Office,

and passed.

My client has passed a polygraph examination

regarding whether or not he is the Green River Killer.

He passed it, that means he was telling the truth when he said he was not.

[Dekle] The polygraph operator that passed Ridgway--

even if this person is the best expert in the world,

always get a second opinion.

Because, later on, it's gonna come back to bite you.

[Bob Keppel] Ridgway was cleared at the time,

but then, another tip came in.

The boyfriend of one of the prostitutes who was abducted,

that boyfriend gave them a description of the person driving the pickup truck

who was driving the victim away.

[Bob Keppel] Police showed Kimi-Kai Pitsor's boyfriend

a six-person photo lineup,

and he made a tentative identification.

[Birnes] They identified Gary Ridgway, again.

King County investigator just released a list of reasons

for last week's probe at a King County home.

[Dave Reichert] We searched his house. We searched his vehicles.

There was nothing there during the 1987 search

that would cause us to make an arrest.

[Bob Keppel] When the task force questioned Ridgway in 1987,

they also took a saliva sample from him.

[Larson] We asked him to chew on a piece of gauze.

That was for blood typing.

Little did we know that that specific piece of gauze

would be the key to this case 20 years later.

[♪ dark music playing]

[film strip whirring]

[birds chirping]

[Bob Keppel] The Green River case spanned decades,

remaining constant even as the players in it moved on.

[camera clicks]

Dave Reichert rose through the ranks

and won election as King County Sheriff in 1997.

I began teaching the next generation of investigators

at the University of Washington.

When asked, I still gave advice to my former colleagues,

especially about serial murder investigations.

[Reichert] When I became sheriff,

we focused on any evidence that could have any DNA possibilities.

We had bodily fluids that we had taken from victims who were, uh, intact.

[Eakes] So, one of the unique things that the Green River Killer did

is that he placed rocks inside the vaginas of some of his early victims.

The fact that he had put a rock inside one of the victims

actually ended up being kind of his undoing,

because that rock had prevented his sperm from being washed away.

And that's how they were able to get a DNA hit.

[♪ dark music playing]

[reporter] Police arrested Ridgway this afternoon

and say DNA evidence links him to four of the 49 murders of the Green River case.

[Bob Keppel] Technology had finally caught up with Gary Ridgway.

Using advances in DNA typing,

investigators matched the DNA left in victims

to Ridgway's DNA

taken in 1987.

I couldn't resist. I went out to the, uh, holding room,

and as Ridgway came out, I looked at him and I said,

"Gotcha."

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Gary Ridgway was a Navy veteran

who worked as a truck painter at Kenworth Trucking.

The paint he used would tie him to the other victims.

[Eakes] We managed to identify three additional victims

from the paint spheres

that we were able to locate on several items of evidence.

[♪ dramatic music continues]

We've got seven cases.

We could clearly convict him of these seven charges,

and we could seek the death penalty on him.

If Gary Ridgway doesn't deserve death then who does?

[Bob Keppel] But that wasn't enough.

What about the 41 other victims we didn't have evidence for

and didn't know where their remains were?

We would agree to trade the death penalty

in return for getting information from him,

and to try to find some of the women who were still missing.

[Bob Keppel] After five years of interviews,

Bundy finally confessed to the eight Washington State murders.

Would the Green River Task Force be able to get confessions from Ridgway?

[♪ sinister music plays]

[♪ dark music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Norm Maleng] Today, I'm announcing the filing

of four counts of aggravated first-degree murder charges

against Gary Ridgway.

[reporter] Ridgway, a 54-year-old truck painter

and seemingly ordinary family man,

is the notorious Green River Killer,

responsible for a string of murders which terrorized Seattle in the 1980s.

[neighbor 1] Well, a next-door neighbor. He lives right behind me.

The whole thing is just a shock to me. I-- I never expected it.

He don't deserve to live at all.

[crying]

Killing my niece!

I'm pleased that they got him.

It's a little spooky that he's living right here in my neighborhood, though.

[♪ dark music playing]

[reporter] Ridgway was arrested in 2001.

Two years later,

he is expected to avoid the death penalty as part of a plea agreement.

Ridgway has been cooperating,

but is he telling them everything or just enough to make a deal?

[Bob Keppel] Now that Ridgway was behind bars,

investigators could focus on his confessions.

[investigator] We're, uh, back on tape again,

and the time now is 11:30 in the morning.

[Bob Keppel] But as I learned from my year sitting across a table from Bundy,

prying confessions out of a pathological liar and killer

isn't easy.

[Bob Keppel] Ridgway started confessing when he was caught

not after a death sentence.

He played the card that Bundy should've played from the beginning.

It is only because of that death penalty

being in place at the time

that Ridgway had any incentive at all to cooperate with the police.

We're gonna move on to number seven.

We spent about six months interviewing him,

essentially seven days a week,

videotaping the interviews,

and bringing in a number of different people

to try to solve those cases.

-[Dr. O'Toole] Good morning. -Hi.

I worked in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

I worked primarily serial sexual murder cases.

How have you been?

-Good. -Good.

I got a call from the prosecutor.

He felt I could be helpful if I would come in,

and I would talk to Gary about his early developmental years.

And I said, "Yes, of course, I will.

The opportunity to talk to Gary Ridgway? Yes."

Let me ask you this, um...

[Birnes] After those reports of Bundy helping Keppel,

those reports went to the FBI, of course, the Behavioral Science Unit.

Bob Keppel began the process

of teaching other police agencies

and the FBI about serial killers.

[Dr. O'Toole] In the '70s, people didn't share information.

If the serial killer were to hit in one town,

and then the adjacent town,

there was no guarantee that those agencies would talk to one another.

Keppel set us on the road to developing ViCAP,

which is the Violent Crime Apprehension Program that the FBI runs

to share information about cases, both solved and unsolved,

so that agencies will talk to one another.

[♪ dark, ominous music playing]

We know that there are answers that you would have kept

because of the secret side of you that you had to protect for many years.

It would be very difficult to be able to share what you did.

As a profiler and as an investigator,

I studied the interviews with Ted Bundy about the Green River Killer.

There was some accuracy about Gary in those interviews.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy believed the Riverman had a stable job

with a regular, normal work schedule.

And he was right.

[Martha Sidock] I worked in the paint department along with him.

He took his job very seriously.

He was a good employee.

[camera clicks]

He's married. He's got kids.

You know, on the outside, it looks normal.

[Dr. O'Toole] If he walked in here right now,

there's nothing about him that would make you think,

"This is one scary, dangerous-looking guy

that's capable of doing these kinds of things."

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Bundy was right about the Green River Killer's targets, too.

[Ted Bundy speaking]

Every day, his route to and from work was up and down Pacific Highway South.

So, going to and from work,

he's always looking for prey.

The victims, according to him, were almost ubiquitous.

He wasn't often able to say what race they were,

how they were dressed, where he picked 'em up.

But what he could remember were these areas.

And they were like his special areas.

It's almost as if Ridgway kept their bodies as trophies.

[Bob Keppel] Bundy was right about the Riverman's dedication

to his dump sites.

And worse, he was right about why Ridgway returned to them again and again.

They were my-- my possessions.

[detective] And they're still your possessions

-aren't they? -Yes.

[♪ sinister music plays]

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Bundy imagined the killer returning to his dump sites

for private moments with his victims.

And he was right.

Ridgway admitted to his depravity.

Walk me through the post-defense behavior with a victim

that generates so much anger or strong feelings in you.

Um... sure.

This, uh-- One of the first ones... [sniffles]

...I had control over her, so I...

had, uh, had sex with her afterwards.

Okay.

My style is to use the one trait

that I think is probably the most important trait for a profiler,

and that is to listen.

Okay.

I sat very close to him.

I wanted to make sure that he knew that I was there,

and that I was watching him.

So, you'd wanna continue to have sex with them after they were dead,

because you worked so hard at getting them dead?

-Mm-hmm. -Does that make sense to you?

-This one, yeah. -Okay.

[♪ sinister music playing]

[Eakes] His posing was about getting them into a position

where he could more easily have sex with their dead bodies,

'cause you can imagine the difficulty once somebody has died

and rigor mortis sets in.

[Dr. O'Toole] Do you remember ever coming back?

Would you have uncovered her, you know, the brush and stuff off of her,

and try to have sex with her again?

[Ridgway] I might've come back.

I might screw 'em for two, three days.

[♪ sinister music continues]

[Bob Keppel] For a serial killer,

his dump sites are living places that occupy his memory.

This is where his possessions are.

He owns these locations

just as he owns the victims.

Ridgway made this very clear to his interviewers,

just as Bundy made it very clear to me.

He told us about one particular instance where he had killed one of his victims,

but he didn't wanna be late to work,

so he just had her in the back of the pickup truck

and drove to work.

[Sidock] Going to and from work, I walked by that truck,

and to know that

there, more than likely, was somebody's daughter or mother

laying in the back...

It's unimaginable to think of murdering somebody

let alone... repeatedly having sex with the dead bodies.

Ted Bundy was more accurate in profiling the serial killer

than the police were.

He was right all along the line.

[Bob Keppel] One thing Bundy didn't know was where Ridgway's bodies were buried.

King County needed Ridgway to confess to 48 murders

and to tell them where he'd buried his victims.

As Bundy told me back in '88,

to get a killer to talk, the investigator needs two things:

time... [chuckles]

...and patience.

[detective 1] Ted Bundy could recite for you everything that he did.

-[detective 2] Down to the last detail. -Mm-hmm. That's--

[detective 1] And it bothers me that you can't.

It's because I've been covering up

and covering-- covering up for so-- so long and...

[detective 1] You think Ted Bundy didn't cover things up for a long time?

I don't even try to think about it. I just-- Mm-- just...

[detective 2] You gotta think about it. You had 20 years to think about it.

Mm-hmm. I had 20 years to forget about it, too.

Every day was certainly not successful.

It was very, very frustrating to have ongoing conversation.

It wasn't like once you opened him up, floodgates.

It wasn't that at all.

Every day with Gary was a challenge.

Mr. Ridgway, still trying to get a sense from you

of just how effective

-a serial killer that you were... -Mm-hmm.

...and how much insight that you have into your behavior.

When you're talking to these people,

you will never break down their psychopathy.

That will never happen.

You will never break it down. You will never make it go away.

And some of them want to take this to their grave.

[detective] We get paid to try to find out

-what the truth is. -Mm-hmm.

[detective] And it has been difficult here this week with you.

There have been times when you have not been honest with us.

The last couple of days, I've been trying to tell you everything I knew.

And you get frustrated and I get frustrated fighting about what I did...

The investigative team could not be satisfied

with just having Gary relay to them about, "I killed this person and put her there.

I killed this person and put her there."

They had to verify that what he was saying to them was true.

[Ridgway] I know where the women are.

I can, you know, show you where they're at.

[detective] Where's the first location?

The first location is down that road down there to the left

on the east side of those bushes.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Bob Keppel] In Ridgway's twisted mind, the dump sites were his private territory.

Would he spill his secrets

and lead investigators to those long-buried bodies?

[♪ dark music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Gary Ridgway and the prosecutors agreed

that in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table,

Ridgway would tell the truth about his crimes

and lead investigators to his victims' remains.

He would also plead guilty to aggravated murder in the first degree

for the 41 other murders.

Him agreeing to a plea deal, personally, I don't agree with it.

He still holds the cards.

Because he could sit there and tell these guys,

"Hey, I think I remember so and so now. Let me take you over here."

[Eakes] We weren't gonna just take his word for what he said happened.

We actually needed to find some corroborating evidence

before we would charge him with a murder or allow him to plead guilty to it.

[Larson] Show us where you killed her.

Based upon information that he would give us,

we would set up a field trip.

We would leave in the hours of darkness,

so that nobody would see us leaving the office,

put a baseball cap on him and then go out.

[♪ suspenseful music playing]

So, did you drive up here?

I drove up here, yeah.

You put her right next to the road?

Right next-- on the road, right underneath the garbage as a marker.

[Eakes] I don't think any of us appreciated

just how difficult it would be to find remains after 20 years.

And he was really difficult to talk to.

It was very frustrating.

[Ridgway] I just put her right in here. There's something right there.

What is it? There-- There it is. Isn't that a teeth?

-[detective] Uh-uh. -Is that te-- Oh, I'm sorry.

It looked like teeth.

[Bob Keppel] The plea agreement was going nowhere.

And it was frustrating to see Ridgway enjoy his field trips

and relive his murders.

After months of feeling jerked around,

investigators reminded Ridgway what was at stake.

If we discover evidence linking you to a homicide...

that you've denied or haven't mentioned to us,

there'll be big pressure on the prosecutor

to seek the death penalty...

-Yes. -...for aggravated murder.

You understand that?

-[Ridgway] I know that. -Okay.

I'm gonna try and give you as much credibility as I can.

When you go out to that site, you are gonna find a body.

[♪ dark music playing]

[reporter] Yesterday, detectives dug up at least a dozen human bones.

First thing this morning, they found some more remains.

[Larson] These bones are women.

Somebody's daughter. They're somebody's sister.

And for us, our primary motivation

was to return them to their families as we could.

[camera clicks]

[Velma Harris] I hope he continues to cooperate,

and the other families can come to closure with theirs.

I really do hope so.

[♪ dark music playing]

[distant sirens wailing]

[reporter] By the time Gary Ridgway leaves court later this morning,

he's expected to plead guilty to the murders of nearly 50 women.

[Eakes] He only pled to 48,

because those were the 48 we could tie him to.

[film strip whirring]

[Bob Keppel] Ridgway was spared the death penalty,

and the community was spared the anguish of a trial.

On the day of sentencing,

the victims' family members were finally able to speak their minds.

We are here today for the sentencing of Gary Leon Ridgway.

Representatives of the victim families will address the court.

[Kathy Mills] Gary Leon Ridgway, I forgive you.

You can't hold me anymore.

My life now is lived to one day be with Little Opal,

because I have that hope of seeing her again.

The victim families that wanted to speak

talked about their pain and their loss.

Debra Estes was my daughter.

She was just an immature teenager trying to find her way in life

before it was snuffed out by Gary Ridgway.

I won't ever forgive him for that.

He's gonna go to Hell,

and that's where he belongs.

May God have mercy on your pathetic soul

because the rest of us who know the truth about you won't.

I was only five when my mother died. I found out on Mother's Day.

[sniffling]

[breathing shakily]

There's nothing that anybody can say or ever do for me

that will bring my mother back.

The one thing that I want you, Gary Ridgway, to know,

I was that daughter at home... [crying] waiting for my mom to come home.

I still get emotional when I think about it.

[sniffles]

Hearing these people who felt like

their daughters had not been acknowledged as people.

After today, I will not give this parasite a thought.

To my fellow families, from here on, we will embrace our daughters,

our sisters, our mothers, our wives in our hearts,

where we will honor them by living.

[sighs] Well, I've been waiting for this day to come, Gary Loser Ridgway.

You are a loser. You're a coward.

You are nobody. You're an animal!

If I have a chance right now to do what I wanna do to you,

I want you to feel what you did to these victims,

but I can't.

I hope you rot in Hell! Son of a [bleep].

-[people applauding] -[Judge Richard A. Jones] Please--

Please refrain from applauding.

-It's inappropriate in a court proceeding. -I'm sorry.

[Judge Jones] There's no reason to apologize, sir.

[♪ solemn music playing]

[voice breaking] My sister Tammie has been missed for 41 years,

and we've had to live with her loss.

I've had plenty of time to reflect

on my feelings towards Gary Ridgway and what he did.

I have had to learn to forgive him, but I will never forget.

Forgiveness doesn't set Gary free of his wrongs,

but it sets me free from an internal prison of hatred in my heart.

[voice breaking] I will always be grateful to the King County Sheriff's Office

and, of course, of other law enforcement agencies

who, over the years, helped to bring...

closure to so many families.

I ask you to remember those 48 young women

as people who had unexplored dreams, hopes, aspirations,

and families that loved them deeply.

Please know the women you killed were not throwaways

or pieces of candy in a dish placed upon this planet

for the sole purpose of satisfying your murderous desires.

[Bob Keppel] The women Ridgway and Bundy murdered are not forgotten,

but they are gone now from this Earth.

Their families, friends,

and the investigators who tracked them down are forever damaged

by these two unspeakable monsters.

People always tell me, "Oh, he was so smart.

Ted was so smart and good looking."

No, he was stupid and ugly.

Because if you do stuff like that,

you are the ugliest piece of [bleep] that anyone could ever have to look at.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Bob Keppel] Only an investigator who has hunted for a serial killer

like Ted Bundy or Gary Ridgway knows

how a case consumes their every waking moment

at the expense of their personal lives.

After I left the Attorney General's Office,

I devoted my career to helping investigators

keep these killers off the streets.

Ted Bundy helped me write the book on interviewing serial killers.

He gave me a look inside the mind of one.

[Bob Keppel] The world made so much of Bundy,

but in the end, he was nothing.

There's really much less to him than meets the eye,

but he's been elevated to this genius status in the media.

He's been given too much credit for too long.

And I think it would honor the victims if he received a demotion in that regard.

[Dunn] What's gotten lost is the side of the victims,

and the victims' families

'cause they're the ones that suffer.

[camera clicks]

[Winters] We talk about her all the time.

Granddaughters and great-granddaughters carry her name.

She'll always be a member of our family.

It's a part of our history that we can't deny,

and we don't want to.

[Jenny Graham] This is something that is a life sentence.

It lives with you forever.

I hate, with a passion, the word "closure."

Closure is for everybody else that doesn't have nightmares,

depression, or anxiety,

or, you know, just the things that crime victims often go through.

[camera clicks]

In the end, I am now forever with PTSD.

I have anxiety, panic attacks,

and I'm extremely afraid of the woods.

Things that were fun before are not fun anymore.

[Bob Keppel] Even now, after all the time that has passed since Bundy's execution,

I find myself struggling as I think of the Bundy case,

and I feel, once more, that grief and stress

that overwhelmed me during this investigation.

[Dave Keppel] It did take a little toll on him,

on his health, stress-wise.

He had a heart attack pretty young and, uh, heart problems.

He eventually had a stroke.

[camera clicks]

[♪ solemn music playing]

[water lapping]

[camera clicks]

[Kathleen McChesney] Bob was the kind of person

that if he was going to do something,

he was gonna do it to the best of his ability.

And that's what he did for his whole life.

[Katherine Ramsland] I've often thought Keppel has not gotten his due

in terms of the kind of work he put into this case

and what he drew out of the Bundy case

to improve investigations for future investigators.

"How can I help law enforcement do better?"

That was his driving force.

[Dave Keppel] Dad's legacy is that he really changed the way

that serial murderers are investigated.

[camera clicks]

I think he's definitely seen as a hero in the field.

I've had a lot of people tell me that.

[camera clicks]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Birnes] The Keppel-Bundy conversations were kind of like a chess match.

They both had their agendas.

And since Bundy was ultimately executed, he lost.

But Keppel, because he solved all these cases, won.

In the world of criminology,

the Ted Bundy case was the first, most complete explanation

of how a serial killer evolves.

But not just that,

how to use police forces, local, state, federal

to track down and catch a serial killer.

Bob Keppel invented the process,

and that is why the FBI now knows how to catch a serial killer.

♪♪