January 24, 1989 notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was executed via electric chair after being convicted of over 30 murder he committed in hope to satisfy his sexual needs and wants. Bundy went on a killing spree for over 4 years getting away with brutally murdering and mutilating over 30 woman and keeping parts of some as a souvenirs during his rain of terror and told to be the devil in human form. A man that had no remorse for the crimes he committed and even killed 12 year old Kimberly Leach, an innocent girl taken away from a play ground and never seen again. A man that had a fatal addiction to violent pornography and turned his darkest fantasy into reality. Just before Bundy’s execution, he agreed to only be interviewed by Dr. James Dobson …show more content…
and explain why he did the cruel crimes he did. Both the rational choice and social conflict theory are two theories that explain why Ted Bundy committed all of his horrific crimes. Rational choice theory is a sociological theory as well as the social conflict theory. Social conflict theory emerged from Karl Marx in 1848 depicting how criminal activity relates to one social status and that crime is rooted in social conditions that empower the wealthy compared to those lower in class. Marx viewed society as an arena that held inequality that later on generated social conflict. Frank Schmalleger Ph.D. and professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke explains that, “In 1905, Dutch sociologist Willem Bonger echoed Marx, describing the ongoing struggle between the haves and the have-not as a natural consequence of capitalist society” (131). The social conflict theory applies to Ted Bundy’s case as well because while growing up his family was low on money and Bundy became acutely conscious of the lack of money.
Due to his family having financial problems, growing up Bundy was jealous and resentful of the kids he went to school with because they had the nicer things in life that he couldn’t. Karl Marx theory explains this why Bundy committed crime because his family was never able to move up in society and stuck to live while being low on money. Due to the family having low money, Bundy found himself outside looking through neighbors trash to find any sort of entertainment that he couldn’t afford to buy. By doing so he found the True Detective magazine that portrayed violence by having bondage as the theme and having the beautiful female character tied up against their will having a deadly weapon in front of them as they had tears and fear written on their face. It is because of these magazines that served as the fuel for Ted Bundy’s sex crimes. It wasn’t the real pornography that motived him, put the fact that he was able to be dominate. Although Bundy lived with a family that didn’t abuse his either way and was stable, they weren’t able to move up far in society and that led Bundy to discover new things because back in the 50’s, America was just being introduced to pornography. Bundy was also jealousy of those that had power and money that he didn’t have. It is because of his childhood that Bundy went on to law school yet never finished and
left. Rational choice theory was developed by Italian criminologist Cesare Beccaria during the 18th century. The theory states that a person makes their decision believing that their choice have more benefits that outweigh the cost depending on the goals they have. Schmalleger explains that, “rational choice theory holds that criminals make a conscious, rational and at least partially informed choice to commit crime” (27). Before committing crime, offenders think about how the benefits outweigh the costs of them getting caught and thrown in jail. Their actions have more benefit depending on the goals they have in mind. George B. Vold Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, states that, “ In general, motivated offenders consider the ease of access to the target, the likelihood of being observed or caught, and the expected rewards” (25). Criminals before committing think of the things that might happen to them before they do something, yet they believed that their reason is valid enough for them to commit a wrongful doing. The rational choice theory applies to Ted Bundy due to the fact that Bundy made the rational choice of reading violent pornography he found outside of home and decided to make them come true in reality. The benefit of reading and creating the deadly scenes was that Bundy could feel satisfaction of bringing the detective magazines covers to life. At first Bundy would turn to stalking and peeping while masturbating outside the women houses yet, to him that wasn’t anywhere near enough to what he wanted. He wanted those women to feel pain and suffer so he went and made the choice to start breaking into houses as he did to 18 year-old Joni Lenz, who was raped and found with a metal rod jammed inside her vagina. Bundy however was still not satisfied enough and continued to rape and murder women. His benefit of having satisfaction outweigh his cost of being caught and facing the consequences. Instead of him stopping with the True Detective magazines, he continued making his own decisions to the type of things he wanted to read. He was a changed man that didn’t have any sort of remorse to the violent acts he was committing and blaming them all on the violent pornography that he read. In conclusion, Ted Bundy paid for all the lives he took all in a game of his sick and twisted pleasure of violence. In return he suffered the death penalty of the electric chair while crowds of people celebrating known that a monster was going to be killed under the law. The people got the revenge they been waiting for 10 years.
Why would someone be so embarrassed of their son that they have to disown them, maybe because he was born out of wedlock, to Eleanor Cowell, though she attempted to give him a good life by giving him to her parents? Also, with the theory of the X or Y model you could say that Bundy could have had an extra X chromosome since he was a person who lived a life of crime and had an uncontrollable urge to keep killing, but you can’t exactly confirm that the theory is right since it’s never been proven to be 100% true, hence the term to why its called a theory. Ted Bundy was a a distributed man who had such a promising future and could have had it all, but something messed this man up so badly that he had to go on a rampage of killings and find joy in it. A man who thought he was going to get away with it all got what he deserved.
Throughout history, America has been the home of serial killers, with more than 2,000 throughout history. In this country, America has encountered many different kinds of these sick people. One of the most infamous serial killers throughout American History was Theodore Robert Bundy, also known as Ted Bundy. On November 24, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont, Theodore Robert Bundy was born. When people think of serial killers, they usually see a dirty, insane looking person that would stand out from the average person. In Bundy’s case it was very different. Ted was a very smart individual who had attended 5 different colleges throughout the United States, studying law and eventually getting his degree in psychology at the University of Washington. Bundy was a very handsome and charming man, unlike most other serial killers. Looking helpless and using his good looks, Bundy was able to lure his victims and would knock them unconscious with an object such as a crowbar or a pipe, then would handcuff them inside his car. Once the victims were under his control he would then proceed in kidnapping, raping, sodomizing, and eventually killing them in very harsh ways. Throughout the 70’s, he raped and murdered young women all across the country. Bundy was said to be connected to at least 36 murders, and suspected to have committed one hundred or more.
Some authorities knew about and others they had no idea that had happened. Holmes (1998, pg. 10) states “When Don Patehen, supervisor of the Homicide and Assault Unit of the Tallahassee Police Department, interviewed Bundy regarding the 36 cases of unsolved murder victims, Ted calmly told the veteran police officer that he could add one digit to the number.” He also explained where he hid most bodies and would sometimes come back to he dead decomposing bodies and perform sexual fantasies to the dead bodies. Authorities tried to find some of the bodies where Bundy explained they were buried, but nothing ever came up. On January 24, 1989 Ted Bundy died from the electric chair, he was
Ted Bundy was a brutal serial killer. He was also very charming and handsome to
He was intelligent, articulate and handsome. During a gruesome killing spree, Ted Bundy slaughtered more than thirty five women within the span of five years, becoming one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. He grew up believing that his grandparents were his parents and his unwed mother to be his older sister. He was not very good at building relationships and had a lot of conflict with his stepfather and enjoyed the terms of violence and sex as a child. Ted shoplifted during his teenage years and enjoyed being above the law. He was generally very shy and gained a lot of popularity and self esteem in high school because of his good looks. It was there that he met his high school girlfriend Stephanie Brooks with whom he become obsessed, but the relationship did not last very long as she did not feel the same way for him so she broke up with him. Depressed by the break up, Ted dropped out of college and returned home with his family where he found out the truth about his biological mother. This left Ted in a state of confusion about his identity and he felt betrayed by the women in his life. He went back to high school where he and Stephanie got back together but right after she agreed to marry him, he broke up with her to seek revenge. After this charade his killing spree began, luring young women with lies, abducting, raping, physically abusing and killing them.
Marshall, Sarah “The Earthly Remains: Revisiting Ted Bundy." The Order of the Good Death. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Ted Bundy, was a brilliant man and a master of manipulation. Ted Bundy was the ultimate criminal master mind, but he was extremely egotistic, and he let it get the best of him in the end. Bundy was born november 24th, 1946 in Vermont to his unwed mother Eleanor Louise Cowell, and was raised to believe his grandparents,Samuel and Eleanor Cowell, were his parents. Bundy blamed not his life at home for his killings, for he deemed his life at home to be “normal”, and instead blamed pornography to be the root of his killings (forerunner.com).
Psychologists have tried to understand the mind of criminals for as long as time. The mind of a criminal is a very difficult thing to comprehend because each criminal is different. Their minds think in different ways, they have different motives and they all have different backgrounds. No two cases are the same. Often times psychologist also have a challenging time figuring out why a person committed a crime, such as murder, is because the criminal will not be able to help them comprehend why they did the things they did. In the wrongdoers mind it seems completely rational but to a sane person it does not. One serial killer that many psychologists have found fascinating, is Theodore Bundy. Psychologist have studied the motives
Introduction: On the spectrum of criminal activity, serial killers are rather rare. Rarer still is a serial killer like Ted Bundy. Bundy confessed to killing 28 women in the 1970s in ghastly fashion and some believe he may have killed far more. It is hard to imagine what could cause any person to cross the mental boundary into such macabre behavior as Bundy perpetrated. Nevertheless, it is important to try to understand that behavior because only though such an understanding would society be able to identify and deter mass murderers in order to save lives.
Bundy spent years trying to fight for his life, spending the last couple of years in his life appealing his death sentence. He also tried to keep his case alive by trying to take his case to a high as the U.S. Supreme Court but his case was turned down. He even tried to give more information on case that where unsolved so he could avoid the Florida's electric chair. By now things for him to solve and come clean was too late. Ted had to face the time for the brutal things he did to those young beautiful women even if it kill him.
He was an extrovert and that was why he needed to kill and rape multiple women not just one. He says it was not his family’s fault he was like this and that is true but somewhere in his DNA caused him to do these crazy things. He also had some type of stress that made him snap and never go back to the way he was. I wonder if Ted Bundy would have been different if he put himself in a different environment. Bundy blamed the environment is what caused him to make these crimes but I don’t think so plenty of men watch porn and do not go around killing
On a chilly afternoon in late 1977, a young, newly-wed woman of 26 was dropped off at her Volkswagen Beetle by her sister-in-law. Her name was Gini McNair. She waved goodbye to her companion, unlocked the driver's door, and stepped into her vehicle. Sitting at the wheel, with the key in the ignition, she glanced around the deserted Boulder Canyon Road located outside of Boulder, Colorado. While waiting for her dusty red Volkswagen to warm up, she saw another one, light blue, heading down Sugarloaf Road towards her. When she glanced at the driver as he went past, he took the opportunity to look her over as well. With piercing eyes, Ted Bundy quickly examined Gini as he drove by her. When his eye caught hers, Gini immediately felt like she had just been delivered a swift punch in the stomach. He turned around at the bottom of Sugarloaf Road and drove over to where she was parked. As he walked over to her window, she rolled it down. He leaned in close and asked, "Are you having car trouble?"
Ted Bundy was an American born rapist, a necrophile; a serial killer and a kidnapper who assaulted and murdered several young women during the 1970’s. The criminal kept on denying the charges for more than ten years and later confessed of having committed the thirty homicide crimes in seven different states before his execution (Rule, 2009). Bundy’s handsome and charismatic appearance made it possible for him to easily win the confidence of young women who were always his targets. He broke into the dwellings of his victims at night and bludgeoned them as they slept. He also approached young women in public places where he impersonated as an authority figure or feigned injury on his victim before empowering and assaulting at a more secluded area where he left them dead (Rule, 2009).
His work was not the only place where Ted was considered unreliable. When Theodore transferred from University of Tacoma to the University of Washington he met and fell in love with Stephanie Brooks. At first in this relationship all was well, “But Stephanie was pragmatic. It was wonderful to be in love, to have a college romance, to stroll through the wooded paths of the campus hand-in-hand…but she sensed that Ted was floundering, that he had no real plans, no real prospects for the future” (Rule, 2000). Much to Ted’s dismay, Stephanie soon broke this relationship off. Some claim that this is one of the many things that helped ease Theodore Bundy over the edge into homicidal rage, and most cite a similar description of Stephanie Brooks to the majority of his later victims.
Ted Bundy was convicted for two of the more than thirty murders he committed. He was sentenced to death by electrocution. Bundy feared death and spent his whole nine years on death row trying to find a way out of it. He tried everything from insanity to blaming pornography. What Bundy dedicated his life doing to other he feared the most himself. He wanted life without parole. If we had no death penalty he would have nothing to fear. Crime should fit the punishment and what Bundy did; there should be no other punishment other than death. Not everyone who murders should be put to death. There are justified killings, but there should be a better definition for who should die. “Mass murderers, terrorists, sadistic serial killers, contract killers or other paid assassins deserve to die” (Blecker). Rape and molestation are heinous crimes, but they should result in life without parole. Fellow inmates will decided their fate from there. Crime should fit the punishment, and if they murder in a brutal way then they should be put to