I never thought I would have any face-to-face contact with Ted again, but for his trial, which began on June 25, 1979, I was subpoenaed as both a defense witness and a state’s witness to testify about the circumstances surrounding Ted’s bizarre phone call to me the night of February 16, 1978.
Ted was acting as his own cocounsel and questioning many of the witnesses during the pretrial hearings as well as during the trial. The defense’s theory was that Ted’s extremely inculpatory (incriminating) statements were involuntary, because his state of mind was psychotic, and thus none of them should be utilized at the trial.
I testified in detail about my recollection and drew from the notes I took during my conversations with Ted when he was still unknown to his jailers in Florida.
There was little hope, in my opinion, that any judge presiding over the Ted Bundy case would suppress any evidence, much less statements he allegedly made to the police, on tape and off, indicating his guilt in the crimes.
I underestimated the courage and intelligence of Judge Cowart. After my testimony and the testimony of others concerning Ted’s state of mind on February 16, Judge Cowart suppressed any and all evidence regarding statements made on tape or otherwise.
Furthermore, he surprised everyone by suppressing all evidence concerning Ted’s arrest in Utah and the items found in his car. Both of these rulings were a substantial blow to the prosecution, as they could no longer use Ted’s supposed confessions or point out similarities between the stocking mask found in Utah and a stocking mask found at a crime scene in Tallahassee.
I believe that Judge Cowart made these rulings based on his firm belief that they were the correct ones. However, some have speculated that Judge Cowart, as an experienced judge, suppressed the evidence because he knew the state didn’t really need it and that Ted Bundy could be convicted without such evidence, thereby limiting potential appeal issues. I come down on the side of Judge Cowart and believe he made these difficult decisions based on his impression of the facts and the law. He was a very fine judge.
I was staying at a Holiday Inn across from the civic center where the trial took place, and Ted was housed in a somewhat new cell in the Dade County jail. The day before my testimony I found him surrounded by guards who were watching him twenty-four hours a day, every second.
I had not seen Ted since his refusal to enter the plea in Tallahassee and wanted to explain to him the purpose of my testimony and get his permission for testifying, as it could involve a violation of the attorney-client privilege. A client can give details of horrific crimes, even murder, and the lawyer can never reveal that information without the client’s agreement or a court order. Here my testimony could do nothing to hurt Ted’s case, as he made no admissions in the February 16 phone call, just a lot of real crazy comments.
Ted was sprawled on the floor of his cell, and there were tears in his eyes. He had been emotionally upset all day, he said. I sat on the bunk. He stayed on the floor. He looked up and said, “John, I want to be a good person. I am just not.”
This was an extraordinary statement, as sociopaths never acknowledge that they are bad individuals. So here I was faced with the most infamous mass murderer in the history of the United States who had been, in my opinion, rightfully diagnosed as a sociopath and who was telling me, in an emotional state, that he knew he was a bad person.
This statement broadened my understanding of why Ted did so many self-destructive things, from becoming easily apprehended after his first escape and taste of freedom to leaving Ann Arbor and Chicago, places easy to recede into, and going to Florida, the center of the Death Belt.
It also would explain how easily he was apprehended in Lake City by an overweight police officer who at the time was chasing someone he had no idea had done anything wrong but was just acting suspicious. This would also explain, perhaps, why Ted actually wanted to die.
I was stunned by his statement. I took a deep breath and told myself to just listen. Still on the floor, he began to describe his first involvement in criminal activity as a young teenager in Tacoma, Washington. He admitted that he was obsessed with “control.”
He said he liked to control people even in the most mundane or informal settings, such as gym class and extracurricular activities in junior high and high school. He said that he would go to the local pet store and buy five to ten mice and take them into the woods in a cardboard box. He’d stare into the box and hold a hand over each one, deciding if that particular mouse would go free or die. If the mouse was lucky, he would reach in, rescue it from its cardboard prison, and set it loose in the forest. He would pick the unlucky mice up by the tails, grip their bodies with his other hand, and pull the tails and bodies apart as hard as he could, ripping out their spines, then dispose of the bodies with a toss into the bushes.
He said it was the same with the women he stalked. He would watch them and determine whether he would go further, basically on a whim. There were many times he chose a victim, stalked her for hours, and then determined that he would not assault or kidnap her. This, to him, was a form of “playing God,” and he would feel good about exercising his “mercy” when he didn’t follow through with his violent impulse.
He said he knew early on that he was wrong to behave this way, but he couldn’t control himself. And the more he was able to successfully control other individuals, the more he craved it.
After listening to Ted for half an hour or so, I began to ask him questions and take notes. I asked him whether there was a sexual component to his criminal behavior, and he said there was not. He did admit that he had “sexual relations” with his victims before and after their deaths, but often it was an afterthought. He also sometimes tried to confuse authorities into believing there was more than one perpetrator. In other words, some of the victims would show signs of sexual abuse, and others would not.
He told me that the excitement of stalking and controlling others, and ultimately making the decision as to whether they would live or die, did excite him sexually, which disgusted me thoroughly and made me question, once again, why I was doing anything to help this miserable human being.
I remember long pauses when I would stand up and hold the bars, as if looking for balance, some kind of guidance as to whether I should stay or not. I also vividly remember thinking that I had to get out of this business; I just couldn’t take it anymore. But I pulled myself together and stayed.
He told me again that when he was a teenager in Tacoma, he killed a fellow teenager, a male. I did not ask any further questions, nor did he provide details except that the victim was approximately his age and the incident started as a sexual exploration game and turned deadly.
It was my impression from Ted’s personality and the police reports and psychological evaluations I had read that he committed most of his criminal acts under the influence of at least some alcohol. I asked him the role alcohol played in these offenses, and he admitted that he drank on every occasion, not to the extent of being drunk but to the extent that his compulsions became stronger and his ability to control his behavior was weakened by the alcohol.
It was apparent to me that his use of alcohol triggered the lessening of his humanity, if he had any at all, and was part of his ritual involving the control and the ultimate taking of other people’s lives.
He explained he got little satisfaction after the deaths. Once his “prey” was dead the craving began again. He would often revisit the murder sites to have sexual contact with the victims’ corpses before moving them, in an effort to gain enough satisfaction to prevent him from killing again soon. At this point I asked to be excused for a break, went to the men’s room, and got sick to my stomach. I tried to call my friend and investigator Sylvia Mathews for some advice and solace but was unable to contact her. I returned to the cell.
Ted said that he was not certain of the exact number of individuals he had killed, but it was over one hundred. He told me that he took people’s lives in almost every western state as well as in the Northeast, Florida, and some midwestern states.
I asked him whether he had killed anyone between the time of his second escape and the murders in Tallahassee, and he told me he did not but came close in Ann Arbor, stalking a woman and then determining that she was one of the fortunate ones he would allow to live.
He continued. He said that his involvement with me for such a long period of time was because he could never control me, as my participation in his defenses was entirely voluntary. He told me that one of the reasons he originally sought me out as his lawyer was because we were “so much alike.”
And Ted revealed this: he had known all along that I had lost a girlfriend and that she had been murdered; though, to my relief, he didn’t seem to know any details about Deborah Beeler or her death.
My head was spinning.
I believe Ted was distraught that afternoon and evening before I got there because he was learning he was losing any ability to control the outcome of his case and life. I also believe the small “good” side of Ted had shown up, which explains his opening remark to me about his desire to be a good person.
It was apparent during the lengthy discussion of his criminal behavior that he knew he was evil and more or less had to be stopped.
I asked him specifically about his apprehension in Lake City after the killing of Kimberly Leach and how I thought it seemed almost intentional, as he could have easily outrun an overweight law enforcement officer. He indicated that that was true. He had been intoxicated during the events with Kimberly Leach, and as the alcohol wore off, it became apparent to him that he was completely out of control. The killing of a very young girl was a new direction he was taking, and he was thoroughly disgusted with himself. I know he told the cops that they would not want to find the site of Kimberly Leach’s body, as the scene was so disgusting that no human being should be subjected to that vision. (She was found in a pigsty, half eaten by hogs.)
At this point I asked him why he was telling me all this information, as he had never revealed so much to anyone. This question seemed to shock him, as if he had not realized what had transpired between us. A change came over him; he pulled himself together, and he became the usual distant, self-absorbed Ted. He never answered my question.
We eventually got to talking about the pretrial motions set for the next few days—he gave me his permission to testify about our conversations on February 16—and he washed his face in the combination sink and toilet and sat down on the bunk. All the time we were under the constant surveillance of many jail guards who were giving us privacy enough to speak confidentially but obviously watching our every move.
At one point during Ted’s emotional breakdown, one of the guards approached me and asked me if Ted needed to see the psychiatrist or a chaplain, and Ted looked up and said, “No thank you.”
I asked Ted, in light of all he had just told me, if he wanted me to talk to his attorneys about the possibility of negotiating some kind of plea to avoid the death penalty, and he told me in no uncertain terms not to pursue that option. I knew, given that he had turned down the deal in Tallahassee, that the state would never open the negotiations again, but I thought I would ask him anyway, knowing his answer would be no.
The next day I testified in the motion to suppress Ted’s statements. There was further testimony from other individuals who received phone calls from Ted on the sixteenth and had interactions with him on the sixteenth and the seventeenth. The police officers testified about their interactions with him and their opinions that his statements were voluntary and knowing, despite Ted being tired and emotionally distraught.
There was further testimony from Utah police officers about Ted’s apprehension in the Volkswagen containing the burglary tools and handcuffs. Ted questioned these cops himself, and did a very poor job. It was obvious the police officers were uncomfortable being questioned by him, but they consistently stated that he voluntarily gave them permission to search his car, and disputed his assertions otherwise.
It was an extremely bizarre scene: Ted Bundy, the mass murderer, was questioning police authorities as his own attorney. Shortly after these hearings Judge Cowart made his stunning ruling suppressing all of the statements and all of the evidence from Utah. It was the last time I saw Ted Bundy in person.
He was later convicted by the jury in Miami. At the time of his sentencing, Judge Cowart remarked that it was a shame that Ted had wasted his life, that he obviously had the capability to lead a productive life and contribute to society. These comments from Judge Cowart were sincere and reported widely, as was his last comment to Ted in his wonderful, grandfatherly southern drawl, “Take care of yourself, son.” And with that he sentenced Ted to die in an electric chair.