“Call me crazy but Ted Bundy is hot.”
Tweets like this have became popular since the release of “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” in January.
One might wonder if Bundy’s victims had the same thought before he charmed them, lured them away and murdered them.
The recent release of “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” on Netflix and the upcoming movie “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” starring Zac Efron have sparked debate on why people find the mass murderer appealing — even after coming to know the details of his gruesome crimes.
Bundy is one of the most well-known rapists and serial killers from the late 20th century, widely known for his “attractive” looks, intelligence and charm.
At the time of his execution, Bundy confessed to the murders of 30 women — although experts believe he may have killed over 100 people.
Bundy was executed by electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989, but documentaries, films, and novels have kept his legacy alive.
“The more people hear of [Bundy], the more they want to hear,” said Kathy Kleiner, who was attacked and beaten by Bundy in the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in 1978. “He’s someone that’s not gonna go away, and people are going to keep talking about him… He’s one of those notorious serial killers.”
“Conversations with a Killer” is a four-part Netflix series delving deeper into the life of Bundy, from childhood to his execution.
The series uses over 100 hours of interviews — including taped conversations with Bundy himself while he was in prison.
Included in the interviews is Carol DaRonch, who Bundy abducted and attempted to kill on Nov. 8, 1974. Kleiner said she was never contacted by the series.
Upon its release, the series sparked a mania of people tweeting about Bundy’s attractiveness, creating a back-and-forth culture of people commenting on Bundy’s looks and others calling anyone who found Bundy attractive “crazy” and claiming there was something psychologically wrong with them for finding a serial killer attractive.
Experts say people are attracted to serial killers like Bundy, in part, because they want to understand their horrible acts — notoriety that can cause lingering harm for a killer’s surviving victims and relatives of those who died.
Bundy’s “attractiveness” gives him an “added component” that other serial killers may not have possessed, said Scott Bonn, criminologist, professor and author of the new serial killer novel “Evil Guardian.”
Obsession with serial killers like Bundy often comes from a desire to know why they committed the murders and what led them to the dark side — and often from a place of fear from not understanding, Bonn said. They “need to understand why someone can abduct, mutilate, torture, kill, and in some cases, commit necrophilia.”
“If we understand them and understand the motivation and why they’re doing this… it’s no longer this unquantifiable horror,” Bonn said. “Once it makes sense, it becomes a little less frightening to us.”
Bryanna Fox, professor at the University of South Florida for criminology and faculty affiliate at the Florida Mental Health Institute, said people want to know how someone would “feel like taking a human life” — and why serial killers have a desire to commit those acts.
“People just want to understand why. It’s exotic in a way,” Fox said.
Kleiner understands Bundy’s horror firsthand. She was awoken in the middle of night when she heard noises in her bedroom — Bundy began beating her in the face. He then attacked her roommate, Karen Chandler, before he ran out of the room.
“He never left victims alive,” Kleiner said.
A light — likely from a car on the street outside the Chi Omega house — shone in the window of Kleiner and Chandler’s room, which Kleiner believes scared Bundy away. Kleiner is the rare exception as one of Bundy’s victims who lived to tell her story.
Riding a roller coaster, watching an action movie or going bungee jumping are all things people do to seek a feeling of thrill or excitement — but with a “safety net” — meaning they are not usually in imminent danger. Fox said serial killers can offer the same feelings for people if they are dead or behind bars — because they don’t pose any real threat to the person watching.
“It’s a very safe thing to put a tweet about someone who’s dead and say he’s hot,” said Christine Sarteschi, associate professor of social work and criminology at Chatham University.
Bonn said he believes these people are searching for something or someone to nurture.
“I’ve interviewed people in my own work,” Bonn said. “Women say, ‘I understand him, I understand his motivations.’ It’s that sympathetic understanding and empathy.”
What was once a mere desire for understanding the serial killers becomes an attraction, and sometimes an obsession. With the obsession, however, comes a split from the killer’s heinous acts. Often, women become obsessed with and even attracted to serial killers when they hear about them — to the point of professing their love in the form of letters or marriage proposals.
“Bundy got a huge number of marriage proposals when he was in prison,” Fox said.
During his trial, Bundy actually proposed to a woman named Carole Anne Boone who he had worked with previously when he was representing himself on trial — and she accepted. The two were married, and later conceived a daughter together, who was born in 1981.
“She didn’t think he was guilty,” Sarteschi explained. “He was a charismatic person.”
Boone later came to the conclusion that Bundy was guilty, and the two divorced.
He wasn’t the only serial killer to have a fan club professing their love, however. Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez and Chris Watts all received love letters while they were in prison.
Often, it may not be entirely from a sense of attractiveness — but the person in love or attracted to the serial killer may believe they can make them into a better person, Fox said.
There is also a condition called Hybristophilia, where a person can be aroused or gain pleasure knowing their sexual partner has “committed an outrage or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery,” according to Psychology Today. This has also been referred to as “Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome.
Documentaries, films, and novels that give attention to the serial killers only build upon the minority of people who become obsessed — and create “celebrity monsters” out of the serial killers.
This celebrity comes with a price, however.
When serial killers become “pop culture figures,” they are separated from their acts. Therefore, they can become “separated” from their crimes.
Some serial killers like Bundy are “attention seekers,” and feed into the media and pop culture. When these serial killers are “sensationalized” by the media, their crimes become separate from the celebrity status many of them seek.
Media representations throughout the decades have given Bundy attention that has caused him to grow “larger than life,” Bonn said — which has been consequential.
“Ted Bundy as a character has become separated from his acts.”
While Bundy was executed 30 years ago, he has been given a second life with his continued attention that has gained made him a twisted “celebrity” of sorts.
The names of his many victims have faded from memory, however.
“Can anyone recall the names of even one of those women?” Bonn asked. “To the extent that we focus on them and sensationalize them, it’s harming the victims twice.”
Kleiner said she understands why documentaries like “Ted Bundy Tapes” exist, but feels it can harm the victims if documentaries only show the charming side of Bundy and attention to victims is never paid.
Kleiner said she hopes “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” shows the dark side of Bundy and the “deviant” side that emerged more as his charm deteriorated and “the monster and the beast in him took over” — not just the attractive, charming aspects.
“I think at that point… I’m not OK, but I understand this part of him that they’re showing,” Kleiner said of the charming aspect of Bundy being shown in documentaries and film.
“And also, I hope that [the upcoming movie] talks about the victims because without that side of Bundy that was so able to kidnap victims and to rape and kill them. The story wouldn’t be the same if all they did was glamorize,” Kleiner said.
Kleiner watched “Ted Bundy Tapes” and said she gets why the victims’ stories were not told the same way Bundy’s was.
“The tapes were Bundy’s story — it was the the tapes of Bundy. So you know, to show him through his life, as a school boy to the day of the execution… I don’t think that was the right genre to talk about the victims and his tapes, I understand why victims weren’t a part of that story,” Kleiner said.
“In my mind, they should have their own tapes.”
Kleiner knows firsthand the pain suffered by the women who were attacked by him — and what could have been her fate.
“There were so many young, beautiful women who were attacked. and mutilated, and raped, and killed, and they all had lives. They all had dreams.They were happy people who wanted to live and look forward to the rest of their lives and it’s so sad that these stories aren’t being told.”
“They all had lives and Bundy just killed them, and it just stopped. Their lives just stopped.”
