Long letter written by Ted Bundy to the Aspen Times back in 1977

An archivist from the Aspen Historical Society has sent me a copy of a long letter written by Ted to the Aspen Times, published in the newspaper's March 24, 1977 edition, in reply to an article which had appeared in the same newspaper earlier that month. I have shared the letter publicly on my archive.org channel:

https://archive.org/details/bundy-writes-on-trial-by-newspaper-at-march-24-1977

In the letter Ted basically criticized the article for having been devoted to a rehash of the events which led to his extradition to Colorado as well as the major circumstantial elements present in the prosecution's case against him, and he criticized the article's reliance on the prosecutor's account of the case as a "fact source" without an attempt to balance such a version with a defense viewpoint. He noted down that the prosecutor’s position was biased and so the context presented by the prosecution’s side might be misleading.

The fact that the alleged circumstantial evidence gathered by the prosecutor had made its way onto the pages of The Aspen Times newspaper, worried Ted that it might interfere with his Constitutional right to a fair trial and might disrupt the proper administration of justice. He noted down that the prosecutor’s position was biased and so the context presented by the prosecution’s side relating to the Campbell case might be misleading.

Ted worried that without the effacing effect of defense testimony, essential in a fair trial, the prosecutor’s biased and unbalanced out-of-court information provided to the Aspen Times reporter had a clear tendency to be read and interpreted as undisputable, proven fact.

He wrote: “After reading this report of my case, I initially felt a strong temptation to argue in detail against the prosecution’s allegations. (‘This bit of circumstantial evidence is valueless because of thus and such.’) It was, however, a temptation to become drawn into the very practice to which I am opposed: trial by newspaper. It is doubtful that the Framers of the Constitution ever intended the 1^st Amendment right of freedom of the press to be a license to publish proposed evidence in a criminal trial in such a way as to subvert a defendant’s 6^th Amendment guarantees of fair trial and his 14^th Amendment right to due process of law. What was intended, I suppose, was a trade-off preserving the rights of news organizations and defendants alike. I have requested the court to close pre-trial hearings where evidence material to the case is to be presented because I wish to avoid potential jurors in the case from being exposed to evidence which cannot or will not be forthcoming at the actual trial. My purpose is neither to deny some poor reporter a living nor to advocate secrecy for secrecy’s sake. I only wish to avoid seeing prejudice damage a fair trial. Ultimately, there will be no secrecy because the trial itself will not be closed to the media and the public. At trial, all that is legal and admissible can be reported without generating prejudice amongst potential jurors. The public’s right to know will not be frustrated. And herein lies the trade-off I referred to earlier. By simply refraining from publishing accusations or information which are material to the consideration of innocence and guilt, like those published in your March 10^th article, the Aspen Times and other news organizations can avoid having a detrimental influence on the criminal trial process. Such restraint does not jeopardize press freedom since the crucial and deciding forum, the trial, will be open to everyone.

“There is really no way I can force people in the news business to act in a responsible fashion and not to exploit this case for headlines and profit. Even if some pretrial hearings are closed, nothing but a sense of fairness will prevent reporters from speculating about what might have transpired. And only this same sense of fairness will prompt a reporter to seek to balance an article with a comment from the defense when a prosecution point of view is to be aired. In the final analysis, solicitations for fairness must be left to the consciences of the media people. In lieu of conscientious instincts arguments asking the media to respect human and constitutional rights become just so many words.

“My final reply to your article is this: I am innocent of the charge against me and no amount of biased news reporting will alter this fact.”