Ted Bundy Research Paper

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Who is Ted Bundy? Living in Washington, this is not a question you hear often, many people know about Ted Bundy and his horrific and hateful crimes. These crimes left researchers wondering, could these have been sociopathic behaviors or psychopathic ones? To answer this question, we need to know the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. Understanding the distinction between a sociopath and a psychopath is a crucial step in dissecting the behaviors of a person such as Ted Bundy. The personality and behavioral differences between a psychopath and a sociopath might be slight, but they are evident, psychopaths are born the way they are, with that mental disorder, whereas sociopaths develop it over time (usually through their childhood). …show more content…

Tyler Piccotti shows this by describing how these comments may have affected Ted long-term. “In another account, shared by Bundy’s girlfriend Elizabeth in the book Phantom Prince, a preteen Bundy was teased by a cousin about being illegitimate. When Bundy objected, the cousin used his birth certificate to prove the truth. Bundy’s girlfriend shared that Bundy subsequently resented Louise because he felt he’d been humiliated,” Piccotti said. Tyler has shown that Ted Bundy was teased about his illegitimacy, making him hate his mother for having him out of wedlock. Bundys’ soft spot was his illegitimacy, often teased for this, leaving him feeling embarrassed and resentful of his mother, lasting far into his adulthood. Although looking into his experiences transitioning from childhood into adulthood might be important, it is also important to look at his family’s experiences with his behaviors as a child. Most of his family believed that Ted was a perfect child, but one family member saw this (Biographics). Ted was caught by his aunt placing knives on her while she was sleeping, this raised alarm for the aunt …show more content…

He stared at her in the lunchroom, fantasizing from afar” (Biographics). When Ted Bundy and his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Brooks were together, Ted was extremely insecure, but being with Stephanie helped him with these insecurities. Eventually, Stephanie moved away, breaking up with him. This affected Bundy deeply (Biographics), “To say that Ted took the rejection from Stephanie badly could well be the ultimate understatement. He was absolutely devastated by it. Crime author Anne Rule, who worked with Ted on a Seattle Crisis hotline, believes that the breakup of his relationship with Stephanie was the catalyst for everything that followed in Ted’s life,” (Biographics). This raises many red flags in this study. Ted Bundy was already showing these obsessive behaviors long before he started murdering women. Behaviors like this, especially in a person like Ted Bundy, are important to pay attention to. To no surprise, his first relationship changed Ted Bundy's behavior toward his girlfriends after the fact. As mentioned above, Ted Bundy was severely depressed by the rejection of his ex-girlfriend, but that leaves the question of, how did this affect his future

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