Bundy’s story of growing up in Tacoma, as recorded by him on a tape in 1980

In preparation for the book “The Only Living Witness”, published in 1983, Ted Bundy made some tapes and also talked personally to Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.

He was both interviewed by Michaud and Aynesworth in 1980, in the prison interview room (while the guards were periodically looking in on them through a glass pane in the door), and he also prepared tapes for the authors, speaking into a tape recorder from his own cell: it’s these tapes that he made in his cell that I’m sharing publicly, courtesy of Rob Dielenberg who obtained them and shared them with me.

I will start by sharing the first of Bundy's prison tapes. I have also transcribed most of the prison tapes. At the beginning of this first tape I’m sharing on my archive.org channel, Bundy can also be heard saying that he had developed a procedure of hiding from the guards the fact that he was recording himself, by leaving the tv in his cell on...

He made this tape in the evening, and on the tape he can be heard talking about his childhood adventures while growing up as a 5- 6-year-old in Tacoma. He can be heard recalling the parts that symbolized how he felt during that period of his life, when he lived on Sheridan Street. He also spends some time on his memories of Stanley Elementary School.

I hope that by sharing these tapes of Bundy’s own original narrative of his early life, I’m providing useful insight into his mindset and communication style.

To listen and download the tape follow this link on https://archive.org/details/nam_apap213_bundy_tape1, and the transcript is here below.

Bundy, on tape:

“Today is January 26^th, 1980, Saturday, 10 o’clock in the evening, I’m in my cell at the Orange County Jail... This is Ted Bundy. I’ve just finished two or three hours on the phone with you, Steve, discussing... uhh, pardon the interruption: a guard just came by, there’s the normal round for them, didn’t want him to see me recording. [...] I’ve put the television show in the background, I hope it doesn’t interfere with this recording... [...] Steve, you and I have spent the evening discussing my arrest in Utah, things that happened subsequent to my release on bail in November 1975, other associated material... And then a guard came by around 9:55 to pick up the phone...

But what I’m gonna do on this tape is take up where I left off on the earlier tapes and I’m going to begin describing my recollection of things that took place beginning with the time when my parents and I moved from Dash Point into Tacoma, on Sheridan Street?...”

Then he goes on to describe his impressions of his new life there, in the house on Sheridan Street, the early days on Sheridan Street, how he once ran away from home because of some disagreement he had with his mother over something, and how it made him feel confident that he was running away and that would show his mother that she couldn’t make him take a nap as she had wanted to... On this tape he is basically describing his teen years.

“It was on Sheridan Street the school that I began to attend, the kindergarten... that was a family school which was about three-four blocks away from the house we had.

“I believe that I discussed on the latter part of the last tape some of the activities that stand out in my mind in those early days on Sheridan Street, the explorations in the company of friends and dogs, the frogs, the bicycle riding... But I could roughly divide my life into three sections... It occurred to me that I had three separate lives: there was the life of friends, the adventures that were associated with the friends, and there was school... One thing just occurred to me shortly after I finished recording the last piece of tape you received from me... and as I was thinking back, and I remember... for some reason I remember telling you, Steve, that none of my brothers and sisters had ever run away from home, and I think I said this in the context of the disintegration of the nuclear family in this day and age... That speaks well for my own home life and my parents’ treatment of this running away from home... At least it begins by giving me a real sense of the world...

“But I did once run away from home and for the life of me I can’t remember the reason why. This is when I was living on Sheridan Street. I believe I was in kindergarten or I may have been not too much past the age when I would have been in kindergarten... And I kind of remember my mother and I having some disagreement over something... I might be able to remember it... something significant about me not wanting to take a nap and my mother insisting I take a nap... It was still during those stages in life where I was expected to take naps in the afternoon and I knew damn good well there were a lot of interesting things happening on the streets... But I can remember, speaking of the house that one afternoon, and collecting Lassie, and maybe a couple of stray chocolate chip cookies, and feeling sorry for myself and going for a long walk and I would walk down alleyways with no particular destination in mind, feeling terribly confident that I was running away and that I would show my mom that she couldn’t make me take a nap... And I did damn well know I didn’t wanna take a nap.

“I’m not sure that this has been an exceptional childhood experience and if other kinds don’t do this, but I was certainly preoccupied, as I walked along, about the significance of what I was doing: I was leaving home and it was a demonstration of my independence, of whatever independence a five-six year-old had. But I’m terribly certain that within a mile or two it became to dawn on me that the realities of being homeless and hungry... it began to dawn on me in a way which... I basically depended on the family for survival! And I think it took maybe three hours for being an official runaway for me to decide that my demonstration was a sufficient demonstration that would prove to me and my mother that I damn well was right, she damn well was wrong... Besides, my chocolate chip cookies were gone and I was getting awfully tired ‘cos I hadn’t had my nap, and I was just a little bit worried by the thought of not being able to go home. I’m sure somewhere in the recesses of my relatively unsophisticated mind, it dawned on me that I whether I accepted it or not, that I wanted to go home, that I needed to home, and so I returned home conveniently enough before dinner.

“My impression is that my mother did not know I had run away... I believe I had to tell her that I ran away. And I believe that her reaction was that in one way she was humored by that, because it had escaped her attention completely. But she wasn’t mad, as I recall... She consoled with me and gave me a somewhat heartfelt lecture about doing what I should be doing and forgiving me for running away and perhaps a few other words of motherly advice.

“And so ended the only time in my teen years that I ever seriously contemplated running away from home... I believe I had told you over the past days that my brothers and sisters never ran away from home... In the true sense of the world I think the story I’ve just related to you is not so much a story of running away, it’s just a story of growing up and learning on which side my bread was buttered, so to speak.

“This business of relating to the tape recorder my childhood is no easy fare. I’m inclined to want to put it together chronologically, as it appeared to me in a chronological fashion.

“I also... One of my personality traits is that I’m in a hurry to get it done. In such a hurry that I wanna get it done so fast that if I can’t get it done faster I don’t wanna do it at all. Rather than labor over... for instance giving personality sketches of my various friends or my teachers, or relating to you the hodge-podge of memories that come back to me when I think of my Sheridan Street house, of the camp trips the family went on... My first club scout meeting that my mother and I attended, or my first day in school... the day I went to the principal’s office for throwing rocks... the day my mother berated me for nicking a couple of nickels out of her purse to buy an icecream cone, or studying my toes, elbows, knees and other sort of extremities of my body... or my first escapade in crime, as it were... of falling into the bad company of a ruffian on the block who convinced that if I go to the drugstore and I get him half a dozen of comic books then he would, in turn, get for me a pocket knife. I did it and he kept his side of the bargain too. Or the time my dog... my collie was mauled by a bulldog down the block... Or the girlfriend I had... whatever one has... as a matter of fact I think I had two or three... I was quite a Romeo as a kindergartner first grader.

“But then it seems that might take a while. I wanna try to make some sense out of it... I’ll try to get the high points... these parts that symbolized how I felt during that period of my life, that’s the period when I lived on Sheridan Street. Otherwise highlight or illustrate it... I’m sure I can go on for days, if not months, perhaps, remembering little incidents that happened during that period that I forgot to include in this original narrative. But I hope to give you some flavor for that period and whatever I leave out I have to leave it up to you to ask me...

“So early I had these three portions of my life to be divided into school, friends and family. So let me spend some time on my memories of Stanley Elementary School. I believe I mentioned earlier that I can remember being walked... the first day at Stanley School when I was walked up, walked to the school by my mother wearing my... wearing the shirt she had made for me out of material that had cowboys, Indians, horses’ heads and Western paraphernalia painted all over it. I can remember something of the odd confusion, apprehension of this novel experience of a life I had... I can recollect a large area, going into a large room to fill out the required paperwork as part of my registration at Stanley School. And then it’s pretty much a blur. For instance, in kindergarten I remember my fingers not strong enough or the clay was too hard to mould into shapes... I can remember my old blanket that I used to take naps on the floor in the kindergarten room, but I can remember no feelings... I don’t have any recollection of any strong dislike or fear that I had... My outstanding impression of those kindergarten... was I had lots of company... my peers were all full of energy and monkey business and vaguely recall my kindergarten teacher was a nice woman... what else can I say... my kindergarten teacher was a nice woman was always telling us to be quiet, but more often than not, having us do interesting things, whether it was all singing together or playing with clay or painting with our fingers, or trying to teach me how to skip! You can’t imagine... my greatest... my only traumatic memory of my kindergarten days was that I was the only one in my entire class who did not know how to skip! I felt like some sort of invalid: everybody in the entire class could skip except me and for some reason skipping was something that you were expected to be able to master, you know! But skipping rope is just simply skipping, and I could never jump off... I had a hard enough time just skipping down the sidewalk and I damn well knew I wasn’t able to jump rope and I never ever, as an elementary school child, could skip rope, although I must say in my defense it was not considered a masculine thing to do, it’s something the girls did. But skipping was another matter, I mean a kid just had to skip and for what it’s worth, one of the greatest discoveries I ever made was on one afternoon on my way home from kindergarten, late in the year, walking home with some guys, the heavens parted, lightning flashed, if one listened closely you could have hardly through the words of gods being spoken and I could skip, and I remember the awe of my friends...”