Original subtitles

The jury deliberated about 45 minutes.

They came back with a decision of death.

A majority of the jury advise

and recommend to the court

that it impose the death penalty upon the defendant,

Theodore Robert Bundy.

The court is adjourned.

You tell the jury that they were wrong.

So many women died, and I just felt like,

"Why am I still alive?

"I should be dead too."

I can't imagine anybody doing what I did.

Having this relationship with somebody who's become so iconic

for being the most horrific person in the world.

I didn't really start rebuilding my life

until he told me the truth from Florida

when he called me in the middle of the night.

Yeah, I asked him specifically about

the Florida murders.

He said he felt like he had a disease like alcoholism,

like the alcoholic that couldn't take another drink.

He told me there was just something he couldn't be around,

and he knew it now.

Well, I finally knew the truth.

Yes, he did those things.

I didn't feel like I was really free to move forward until then.

I just had to hear it from him.

But to know that he was out killing people...

when we were still in a relationship is just...

it's just really a...

a hard idea to incorporate,

to integrate into my life.

That fact invalidates what we had.

It seems like nothing was real between Ted and I

and my daughter.

I don't give a fuck whether he loved us or not.

It makes no difference.

Do you think it matters to your mom?

Probably.

Ted Bundy is not just another death row inmate.

Convicted of three murders in Florida,

suspected of a great many more in Washington State,

Oregon, Utah, and Colorado.

Ted Bundy became infamous...

I'd just moved to the University of Florida,

and one of my professors was very active

in Gainesville Citizens Against The Death Penalty.

And he would invite people over to his house,

people involved in different cases,

and there was Carole.

And we became good friends.

She talked about the circus that was the trial,

and Ted's side of it,

and how she could believe that he could be innocent.

She married him at the sentencing part of a trial.

- Will you marry me? - Yes, I will.

And I do hereby marry you.

She was very much protected

and surrounded by people who did not question

whether he was innocent or guilty because they were

attached to the death penalty project.

Carole Boone was the woman that had approached

my editor and offered me the meeting.

I went, we went out to lunch, and Carole explained

her relationship to Bundy, that she was kind of

working on his behalf and advocating for him,

and wondered if I'd like to be in correspondence with him.

I thought she was very smart.

I was very impressed with her. I was of course skeptical,

but she was all in.

She had...

You know, she committed her life to this in ways that

were difficult to witness.

They were going to build this life together,

where she would get him off death row

and they would have a family.

She was going to save him,

and that goes back to her history

of her 15-year-old brother drowned

in a neighbour's pool.

She definitely felt responsible and very guilty

about Frank's drowning

while she was supposed to be watching him.

And so that was one piece of...

"I need to save, I need to redeem,

"and I'll save this man."

You know, there were Christmas cards that went out to people.

You know, Ted, Carole, Rosa,

and even the dog print of Carole's dog.

And they were trying to be normal.

They had not had normal lives.

"Normal" was a big word.

I feel like me and my daughter

were about the realest things that he ever had in his life,

that we represented something that he really wanted,

and that he tried to maintain.

It was so easy for me to revert back into...

um...

thinking of the first years we were together, and...

You know, I've wondered, was that just all a big act?

And that's part of the reason I kept that scrapbook

full of snapshots, was like...

you know, it shows what we were--

what we had together in the beginning.

Ad if they weren't real, then it just makes me feel like this...

I'm as crazy as Ted was.

I had to go from the place of love

and tenderness to the place of how...

how does this person

enjoy to tear women apart

with his bare hands?

Why would anybody...

do such a thing?

It's hard for me to look on those pictures and see him

treating me so tenderly,

and to really believe in that any longer.

Do you remember that camping trip

with your brother?

Well, there were several camping trips like that.

I could be about nine or ten.

Maybe eight, right?

On one hand, I'm curious about where it is, and...

you know, I must admit that right now I'm thinking about it,

seeing this, and on the other hand,

I couldn't care less.

It kind of sucks to have to say it,

but I wouldn't-- I really wouldn't want this picture.

There's no joy in it.

Absolutely none.

There was then, but not now.

He could do a million of these,

but it doesn't outweigh one...

just one of the victims, you know?

One of those people.

It only takes one person that he killed,

it makes it all just go to shit, you know?

Ten years ago tomorrow,

The Supreme Court of the United States

reinstated the death penalty,

and tomorrow a man named Ted Bundy

was going to die in Florida's electric chair.

He's been granted a last-minute stay of execution

pending an appeal based on legal technicalities.

The call came to a young associate, and he said,

you know, "There's a warrant, and we need somebody to file

"an application for a stay of execution in the Supreme Court."

And he asked me,

and asked another young associate,

Polly Nelson, if we would take on the case.

Associate walked in my room and asked,

"Do you want a little pro-bono project?"

And I thought, "My god, that's exactly

"why I became a lawyer."

I mean, that's a lawyer's dream,

is to represent somebody on death row

against being executed by the state.

I was a brand-new lawyer,

and this was my very first legal case.

I could picture him alone in his cell waiting to be executed.

You know, this is extremely personal for me

to identify that threatened soul.

When I was 10 or 11,

I just remember after a rain,

worms had ended up on the sidewalk,

and the water had receded and they were struggling.

And I felt so sorry for them

that then I made a mud bath for them,

and I put them in the mud bath,

because they seemed so despicable,

and that that was the reason I needed to help them,

because nobody else was going to help them.

I went to the prison for the first time to meet him,

and they put us in the lunchroom,

basically where the families met,

and I was shocked.

It was not what I was expecting from a maximum-security prison.

He showed me pictures of his daughter

and his wife.

Polaroids that the guards would take for a fee

on family day.

So I looked at him and I thought, "Okay, now,

"what can I see in this man that would alert me?"

But I saw nothing. There was-- there was nothing.

No sense of guilt.

He was humble and quiet, and...

and I couldn't recognize danger.

No sense of it whatsoever.

I think he wanted to impress us

that he was a good guy.

He wanted us to respect him,

I think, as a... you know, as a person.

To not be recoiled by him. To... you know,

to sit in a room and have a conversation with him,

and not, you know, hold our nose.

I felt I held his life in my hands,

like a worm or a kitten.

And when you have someone's life in your hand,

you don't make a lot of judgements about...

the bigger picture.

It becomes...

non-negotiable.

This person is going to die if I drop him.

He was exhausting.

Obsessive, demanding, moody.

Always needing.

As if she didn't have enough to do.

Come on, Carole, tell us how he feels.

Shut up.

What'd Mr. Bundy have to say today?

You shut up, too.

- What did Mr. Bundy-- - Shut up!

She was just tired of him.

The letters became more and more infrequent.

And the stay of executions were starting

to become less and less probable.

After he was convicted in Utah,

that was in...

that was March 1st of '76.

I was completely devastated,

because I just couldn't get a grip.

I knew I had to put my life back together.

I started seeing a counsellor, and he told me

that if I continued to drink he wouldn't see me.

He said, "You've got to quit drinking

"if you're gonna get well."

I finally got sober in a recovery program,

which was pivotal.

And just working, working, working,

to like rebuild my life.

Until then, I was not a very good mom to Molly, for sure.

She's a really strong, wonderful,

smart young woman, and she does quite well.

But there's not any way

to give her back her childhood.

You know, nobody sets out to drag their child

through this, and it has to be a terrible feeling

that this all went so wrong.

And I know that she did the very best that she could.

And I don't have any feelings of...

...blame or anything like that about it.

It wasn't her fault.

But it was a really challenging time for me.

I did things that were so reckless, because I didn't care.

I tried to drink myself to death, I believe.

I felt like a rabbit in its hole waiting to die

during parts of my drinking.

I just drank till I would fall asleep,

because I wanted my life to be past now so it could be done.

A federal judge today refused to put off

the execution, and unless the US Supreme Court orders a stay,

Bundy will die.

Ted had never admitted to Carole anything

but that he was innocent.

But just before it looked like

there were no more stay of executions,

he had run it out,

he called her and asked

if he should...

tell them where the bodies are buried.

They call it bones for time.

And that was his way of telling her

that there were bodies that he knew about,

and that he had actually killed all those people.

That call was just...

devastating for her.

She was really angry.

I'm surprised she talked to him at all.

And he wanted to talk to Rosa, and she said no.

So there was no goodbye for Rosa.

So, he wanted to confess to law enforcement,

thinking that that would ingratiate him to

the governor for... in cooperating.

And so I said, "Okay, well, you'll have to

"describe one to me first,

"so I can see what that sounds like,

"and what is it that you're going to say."

So... he's very reluctant to start,

and we're sitting in this small, this time,

room in the Warden's office, just on a small table,

and he's got his hands on the-- on the table,

and his whole persona,

his whole physical being, is darkening.

His arms are getting dark, his face is getting dark

and he...

goes to a different place. He was in a different place.

And for the first time, I felt afraid of him.

What I remember about him describing

that attack...

he was kind of driving around maybe thinking about it,

he saw a hitchhiker,

he decided to take the opportunity.

It wasn't quite as deliberate as some of the other ones.

And it was very important to him that he knock her out,

because he didn't want her to talk

because it ruined the sensation.

If they started to talk,

he would lose his resolve,

and he wanted to remain resolute.

He described taking her into the woods.

He described...

assuring her that he was going to let her go,

and he described saying that he wasn't going to

be able to let her go, to himself,

because he would be caught.

And he would look at me while he was describing it

to kind of see how I was taking it,

to see if he dared go on further without...

me being unable to continue to represent him, really,

is what he was concerned about.

And I...

wanted to show him I could take it,

and so I didn't show my revulsion.

I didn't show my sympathy for the victim

as he told that story.

I had joined forces with...

um...

...a guilty and remorseless killer.

In an effort to win a stay of execution,

Bundy has begun confessing to many murders

he had previously denied committing.

Bundy confessed to all eight Seattle killings

and 15 more in Oregon, Utah, and Colorado.

He gave police information on dozens of other unsolved cases.

Bundy associates have contacted the governor's office

seeking to delay the execution by three years or more

so that he can tell his story to western police

and solve what may be dozens of murders.

The governor is saying no.

He never confessed to Susan, did he?

He wouldn't talk about Sue.

He would talk about the others.

I think at one point there were a couple psychiatrists

that asked him about the different girls,

and when they came to Sue...

he said...

"I don't want to talk about her.

"I can't talk about her."

So...

you know, in my mind, I think she got to him

a little bit.

I'd always thought it was very odd

that he didn't reach out to me before he was executed.

I just had a feeling he would,

but he didn't.

My mom had been going through a time

of spiritual development where she...

took classes and prayed and meditated,

and I was going to community college.

I had moved back home with my mom,

and I was doing rather well for the first time

since this all transpired,

and I came home from school one day

and there was a letter from the jail,

and it wasn't addressed to me, but I opened it anyways.

My mom wasn't at home.

And it said,

"I have found God.

"I've been working on my spirituality."

It was like this person over thousands of miles

had been able to intuit

what she would've wanted to hear.

And there was no way I was gonna let him

have that hook into her again.

There was no way.

So I put it in the fireplace and I set it on fire,

and I never mentioned that it arrived.

She's got a piece of her that responds to him,

and I didn't want to see that piece be exploited again.

I watched that throughout this entire journey.

Florida state officials say Bundy's

last minute appeals are simply acts of desperation.

They call Bundy a master manipulator,

and they vow that despite all his talking,

the state will strike no deal to delay Bundy's execution.

You don't think he'll be executed on Tuesday?

Not if we get a stay.

I've never been a believer in the death penalty.

So it was like I never wanted him to be executed, but...

...not because of who he was,

but just because I don't believe in the death penalty.

I guess I went numb.

I just couldn't really think about it.

My daughter and I spent the day together.

We went to visit a friend up in La Conner,

and we just tried not to...

to tune in to what was going on.

I found the crowds outside the prison, I mean,

it just was really bizarre to me

that they'd be out there cheering.

The execution was scheduled for 7 am,

but we had to be at the prison at 5 am.

And then there's sort of a whole ritual that happens, you know?

There's a... they have a, you know,

a buffet breakfast for the witnesses.

You know, some of the detectives

and, you know, lawyers were there.

You know, it was like a big celebration for them.

You know, they were-- they were finally winning.

At 7 o'clock this morning,

guards led Bundy to the death chamber.

At first, he seemed startled.

He looked taken aback

by the electric chair when he entered the room,

but he immediately regained his composure.

He sat down and started looking around the room,

making eye contact with people.

He acknowledged me, and I acknowledged him,

and I think that settled him down a little bit

when he saw me.

And then, you know, he made his final words,

and they pulled the veil down,

and I looked away.

I mean, I didn't look to see--

I mean, you could hear what was going on.

You could hear the, you know, the...

the electricity, the jolts.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't think it was a good day for

American justice, even though people in Florida thought

that, you know, "This is sort of the pinnacle."

They had, you know, taken out the guy

who they most wanted to execute.

I thought they did it in a way that diminished all of them

and me and everybody else who participated in it.

The signal has now come shortly after 7 o'clock

this morning, Eastern time.

The signal came from the witness window at the facility there

that Ted Bundy had died in the electric chair.

When asked for any final words,

Bundy made only a brief statement.

His last words was just,

"Give my love to my family and to my friends."

One of his attorneys called us

after he'd been executed and said

that Ted had asked her to call us and make sure

that we knew that he loved us,

and she also said he wondered why

I never responded to his last letter.

And, I...

I mean, I didn't know what last letter she was talking about.

So that's when Molly told me there had been a letter

that had come.

You were protecting her, weren't you?

I guess I could've lied and said it was lost in the mail,

but I didn't. I told her I burned it.

And she accepted it very quietly,

but I could tell it hurt her heart that I had...

robbed her of this closure,

this last interaction.

But I wasn't sorry.

I'm not sorry at all.

And I'm especially not sorry that he went to his death

wondering why she never wrote back.

Good.

Maybe she's done with you, you know?

Maybe she's got no interest.

And I'm not sorry for him to...

believe such things at the time of his death.

What were you worried that might have happened

if she'd read the letter?

That she would be distraught,

that she would be connected to him,

that they would then correspond.

That she would grieve his passing

in a very active way.

That he would somehow get his hooks into her.

Yeah, she'd seen that many times before, so...

it wasn't a stretch of her imagination.

When I heard the news that his execution

had gone through...

it was a big let-down.

I didn't feel celebratory.

I didn't feel happy.

I didn't feel sad.

I felt compassion for all of the victims and their families.

He was a thief.

We got him. It's over.

I mean, it's great.

We heard it on the news;

we heard everything about it, and I remember saying to my dad,

"It's gonna be a good night tonight."

I did, I felt that.

I said a great prayer to Georg, "It's over, baby."

You bet.

It was a good night.

I felt real good about it.

Yeah.

He had to be stopped, and that was the only way.

But it was hard for us.

Yeah, there's always a flip side, isn't there?

There's another mother, another family,

and...

the death penalty is controversial...

in our hearts.

It's not as clear-cut as people think,

and when you saw the circus outside the courthouse,

that wasn't us.

We never... That's nothing to celebrate.

No.

This is another loss of life.

Another mother losing a child,

another family with a tragedy.

Another family trying to reckon with a horrific event.

Vivian Rancourt joined the program.

Her daughter, Susan, was killed by Bundy

back in 1974,

and Mrs. Rancourt was asked if she had any words

for Mrs. Bundy.

First of all...

We send hugs to her too.

I talked to her on the phone

the day after the execution.

Well, I've said it before,

and I'm glad to be able to say it directly to one of the moms:

we don't know why this happened,

and we feel so desperately sorry for you.

We didn't want our son to do these things.

We have two beautiful daughters of our own,

and we know how we would feel.

I am sorry.

I know you are.

And we don't hold any resentment

or hatred towards you or your family.

It was just...

two mothers...

that had lost a child,

but she didn't have to apologize.

She didn't do this.

Her son was sick.

You should know that the men in our family

did not feel like we did.

I want to be honest about that.

My Dad, he wanted to slash his balls off.

I mean, my dad was very clear about what he would do

to Ted Bundy if he was left alone with him for a moment.

My husband too, would have just kicked him from here

to hell and back.

No, the men didn't exactly feel the way we did.

I wrote a letter to Vivian Winter and said

how I agonized over her daughter's death

and all these deaths for my whole life,

and how sorry I was that this had happened.

And she wrote me this beautiful letter,

and she said that she felt...

that yes, it was an experience

that's hard to describe how devastating

it actually is to have your child murdered,

but at the same time as the years passed,

she did not want him to take her whole life

away from her...

by allowing her to remain in sadness.

She wanted to go forward and be happy,

and she was feeling happiness,

and she was making a life for herself

that was not controlled by Ted Bundy.

And I so much admired and respected that,

and I took it on.

This is what I want.

We're not going to...

let him...

continue to perpetuate misery.

We're gonna live our lives.

Come on into my abode, my home.

Some things make me really depressed,

in a...

almost debilitating way, where I...

I will sit in this chair for days.

I'll sometimes stay in this camper for two,

three days at a time.

I don't know.

I'm not really afraid of not having a normal life.

I've gotten used to life being kind of a bit of a...

you have to kind of jimmy rig your way through life sometimes.

I don't recommend it to everyone

to live your life precariously,

but if I know I have enough to keep shelter and food

for my cat and I,

that's the most important thing.

When Ted was executed,

I had been sober for years.

It was probably the thing that saved my life.

I also started hiking a lot,

spent a lot of time out in the woods.

I had a really nice group of sober friends,

so I was putting my life back together.

My daughter and I both have talked about this--

the fact that we lived is a huge...

I mean, so many people didn't live,

and so when we're struggling to

get our life back on track, it's kind of hard to like say,

"I've got these problems with life,"

when we're alive, you know?

It feels like we should be able to--

that that should be enough, that he did not kill us.

I have watched the parents of women talk about their loss,

and it just breaks my heart.

Because I'm mother of a daughter,

I can understand what a big loss that is.

I mean, as much as I can,

I've forgiven myself...

and for me, I'm hoping that this is the end of...

my participation in anything related to Ted.

Recently I had lunch with my niece

who's 12, and she had just, um...

come to understand that I had represented Ted Bundy,

and she came to know him somehow,

and so she was asking me questions about him,

and I was starting my usual talk about,

"Well, the law requires this and that," and...

I really couldn't go on with it,

because all I thought about was as a young 12-year-old girl,

she shouldn't have to think that there is some balancing

between someone who would prey upon her

and something else,

that that was something that I would have balanced for her,

on her behalf.

There were times when the rules and regulations

of an organization seemed to preclude

my taking that opportunity,

but I didn't let any of that stand in my way.

I just felt that you just go forward,

see what happens.

One of the things that troubles victims a lot

is the question of, "Why me?"

Why me?

And because of all my experience,

I knew there isn't an answer to that question.

You move on, but it all is still

part of the big weaving of your life.

It becomes part of the fabric, the tapestry of your life,

and it's-- so it's never gone.

You learn how to put it

into some kind of manageable perspective.

Even though I was victimized,

I wasn't a victim, and I mean, my husband knows,

but I've never directly talked to

my own children about it,

because, you know, I'm Mom, so I just don't want to be...

You know, we want to be Mom and Dad.

I mean, I just wanted to do normal things,

be a normal person.

I didn't want to be marked as a victim.

Ever.