The Stranger Beside Me By Ann Rule

The Stranger Beside Me is a true crime book by Ann Rule. It takes an engrossing twist on the classic biographical true crime story in that Rule actually knew Ted Bundy, the serial killer that the book is about. She masterfully intertwines her personal relationship with her friend and the story of the murderer’s vicious crimes into a page-turner that incites sympathy towards one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. Ann Rule’s career is to write books like this one, and that was her job when she was volunteering at a Crisis Center in Seattle when she first met Ted Bundy. The two bonded over late nights answering phones to help people struggling with suicide and other internal conflicts. Due to her ‘in’ with law enforcement,

Ann was aware of a possible string of murders in the Pacific Northwest, by a man supposedly named Ted. She reluctantly told the police of her friend at the Crisis Center who shared the same first name as the serial killer who murdered and assaulted 14 women in the states of Washington, Oregon, and California even though she never truly suspected her close friend. The two grew apart due to life differences, but they still exchanged Christmas cards each year, and the ‘Ted’ killings ceased in the Northwest. Similar murders picked up in Utah, Colorado, and Idaho and unbeknownst to Ann, Ted moved to Utah in 1974, five years after the first murder that he confessed to committing. In those three states he killed 13 more. He was arrested for theft in Colorado, but the police were very aware that he was in all likelihood responsible for the countless heinous murders, but they lacked on thing, concrete proof. During this time, he exchanged letters with Ann, often containing very cryptic lines that were a cause of concern regarding his mental state. She didn’t even want to think of the possibility that the man that she thought she knew could have killed these innocent women. Rule would send money to Ted in jail, which he was very appreciative of.

She describes herself as one of the handful of women that Ted kept around for emotional support. Meg Anders and Carole Ann Boone were both crazily in love with Ted, which Ann claims she never was, but Bundy was able to keep them all under his spell. In Colorado, Ted escaped from jail twice, the first for only 6 days in June 1977, when he became a local celebrity in Aspen. Six months later, he escaped again, but this time he was much more ‘successful’ as he made it all the way to Tallahassee, Florida where he lived for two months as Chris Hagen and killed at least 3 young women. He was finally apprehended on February 13, 1978 and tried in the state of Florida where he was convicted for the death sentence three times over. Ann Rule was in Florida for the trial, where she finally admitted to herself that the man she thought she knew was the bloodiest serial killer in American history. Theodore Robert Bundy was executed on January 24, 1989, 9 years after his conviction. Nobody will know how many people Ted killed, some reports state upwards of 100. People can only surmise as to the reasons that Bundy killed innocent women for over 10 years; Ann Rule was one such person to look into his background and come up with a

possible root of his violence.
Many psychologists have performed tests on Bundy, and while diagnoses include bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder), and narcissistic personality disorder, the most common and widely accepted categorization is that Ted Bundy had antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)(colloquially referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy). This psychological disorder is characteristic of a person who appears to be a fully functioning member of society but deep down garners no remorse for wrongdoings and is capable of keeping up a strong façade that hides ones lack of emotion. Ted exhibited these and more symptoms when in court on trial for murder; he would stand with a sly smirk on his face, as if aloof of his impending death sentence. Ted’s intelligence level was very high, so one cannot claim that he didn’t know what was going on. It was all an elaborate plan for him, and he precisely covered it all up behind a charming smile and great hair. He was very narcissistic and in trial exuded an aura of entitlement, in his regard of law enforcement. While free and on the run, he was repeatedly quoted, saying the police are dumb and the feds don’t know what they’re doing. He knew how smart he was and felt as if he had the entire world in the palm of his hand and was the sole controller of a game that cost countless lives. His giftedness certainly allowed him to know right from wrong, but this had no effect on his behavior, as he believed that he was too smart to ever be caught. When he was eventually apprehended, for the third and final time, he never relinquished this power that he gained through his intelligence. He exhibited this by repeatedly firing his lawyers and insisting on representing himself in the state that was known as “the nation’s death belt” because he thought that his masterful intelligence that had aided in alluding law enforcement officers for so long would once again come to save him.

He was wrong. Even though his lawyers highly recommended it, Bundy refused a plea deal from the prosecution that would have given him life in prison in exchange for a guilty confession for three Florida murders. Subsequently, he stood trial for murder, where his mother, Louise Bundy, testified against the death sentence, which proved unsuccessful. Ted resented his mother. She gave birth to him out of wedlock at a young age. Louise’s parents took him in as their own to avoid the stigma surrounding unwed mothers at the time and raised then Theodore Robert Cowell as their own son with Louise as his older sister. Rule states that he found his birth certificate in 1969 and discovered the truth. He moved away from his mother, and that was the first year that he was suspected of murder. Antisocial personalities develop in early childhood, so his feigned parenthood did not cause his mental illness, but rather invigorated the symptoms. His mind relies on the pleasure principle, which desires instant gratification of needs. A characteristic of ASPD is that its sufferers do not have a superego to take into account societal norms that should influence behavior.

Sigmund Freud’s three parts of the ‘psyche’ include the id, which serves to gratify the instant desires of a person, the ego, that takes into account the moral and ethical rules of society, and the superego, which spans both parts to regulate a person’s actions. Bundy is not lacking an ego, for he was fully aware that the actions that he committed were both highly deviant and criminal. What he is in want of was a superego, the regulation between the reality and pleasure principles to govern one’s behavior. Because he felt no remorse, Ted was able to act and feel instant gratification without the superego reminding him that his actions were morally wrong (according to the ego.) Along with feeling no regrets, Ted felt no compassion; he had trouble connecting with people. As Ann says, “Ted loved things more than he loved people.” He desired power and control over himself, others, and the world that he fabricated around his superficial personality. His charming wit and good looks got him far with women; he knew exactly what to do to control them. Because of his ability to dominate women, intellectually and physically, he saw them as items, things to accumulate that he identified with his sense of self worth. Lacking a deeper level of emotion, it was easy for Ted to find conflict with people. The first person that truly did Ted wrong was his father, abandoning him before he was even born. By having no attachments to a male father figure, he developed and Oedipal complex, where a young boy develops feelings for his mother and jealousy and resentment toward the father. The woman that he was most romantically attached to throughout his life, Meg Anders, was very similar to his mother in demeanor, further exemplifying his internal conflict. The few men that he made meaningful connections with were the exact opposite of his impression of his father; they were powerful, intellectual, and masculine. When he eventually confessed his crimes, it was to these authoritative men, who he had yearned to be like all his life. He did so with pride and excitement, as if he were proving himself to these men that had hunted him down. Women, in Ted’s mind, were not capable of admiring him for his ‘accomplishments’ but only for his superficial disposition. Even though he really had none, women had more access to Ted’s ‘deep’ emotions. With this greater access, women had the potential to embarrass and hurt him, which causes him to choose weaker women, like Meg and Carol to associate with. An infrequent high school girlfriend Stephanie Brooks was the first to truly hurt him. She left him humiliated and confused after a year together with no explanation. He chased her for a couple years, and when he finally had her in his grasp again, the first thing he did was gain revenge by abandoning her, just as she had done to him. His victims tended to look like Stephanie, tall, slender, and with long blonde hair parted in the middle. By using power, intellect, and taking advantage of his guiltless personality, Bundy brutally killed over 35 young women. Ted’s troubled upbringing ridden with mental illness and social complexes relating to inferiority and desire for domination drove him to commit the violent actions that came to characterize the man that Ann Rule called “The Stranger Beside Me.”