Bundy’s MO and hunting paraphernalia suggest that he was a “hunter”: did he get off on hunting?...

 

I am constantly searching for knowledge relating to Ted Bundy’s killings, and I now recognize that the worldview that portrays Bundy as a “hunter”, may be accurate.

There is no reason to believe that Bundy wasn’t a “hunter”, after all the preparation and kit he used ahead of the murders, which Bundy himself described to detective Robert Keppel in January 1989, show that Bundy was a human predator.

Whether at university campuses, parking lots or the Lake Sammamish State Park, Bundy adopted an interactive way to kidnap his victims. He would fake a fractured ann/leg (as in the case of Jane Curtis, Kathleen Clara D’Olivo, Phyllis Armstrong, Georgann Hawkins), ask for assistance with his boat or his books, or dress and adopt a persona of an authority figure. Bundy himself described to Keppel how he approached Georgann Hawkins on an alley near her sorority house, using a briefcase and some crutches and asking Georgann, who he had seen walking down the alley toward him, to help him carry his briefcase to his car. And then when they reached the car, Bundy knocked her unconscious with a crowbar, which he had been keeping outside, in back of the car, along wih some handcuffs.

Keppel wanted to know how Georgann Hawkins was taken, time and events, and what were the circumstances at the time, and Bundy gave him enough information to help me conclude that he was a "hunter" of sorts.

Here is an exchange between Keppel and Bundy, from an interview that took place between Keppel and Bundy in January, 1989, that I feel is particularly revealing of Bundy must have gotten off on “hunting”:

“RK: Do you throw away some of your own stuff?

TB: Oh, sure. Ya. I threw away the briefcase. And the crutches and all that stuff. And the crowbar, everything. The handcuffs, everything. I’d get mad at myself a few weeks later because I’d have to go out and buy another pair. I mean, it’s not comical but that’s what would happen.”

The fact that he kept that paraphernalia (briefcase, crutches, crowbar, handcuffs) that served the purpose of luring a victim and knocking her unconscious, before driving away with her, proves that Bundy was a “hunter”.

In Georgann Hawkins’ case, Bundy himself described to Keppel in detail how he lured Georgann (the “prey”) to his car. We can say that when he lured Georgann to his car, he was on a “hunting trip”.

And I also wondered what drove Bundy to hunt for young women, that he would then kill?... What were the factors that played a part in initiating and facilitating his “hunting trips”?

When Bundy talked to Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, he described experiencing a feeling of uncertainty, for instance, and isolation from his peers (which prevented him from “letting off steam”) after failing his first serious relationship with Diane Edwards, and Chinese studies:

"I absorbed all this uncertainty, and all this confusion about why I was doing what I was doing, wondering where I was going, all by myself. Because I'm not the kind of person who socialized a lot, there was no way to let off steam." (Michaud and Aynesworth, "The Only Living Witness", 1999, p. 70)

In order to "let off steam" resulting from the above-mentioned life situations, Bundy engaged in compulsive and impulsive thievery according to Michaud and Aynesworth.

Michaud and Aynesworth suggest that it is also possible Bundy treated his victims as his stolen possessions. Bundy, referring to the killer’s reasons to murder women, stated:

"One element that came into play was anger, hostility. But I don't think that was an overriding emotion when he would go out hunting. On most occasions, it was a high degree of anticipation, of excitement, or arousal. It was an adventuristic kind of thing. The fantasy is always more stimulating than the aftermath of the crime itself. He should have recognized that what really fascinated him was the hunt, the adventure of searching out his victims. And, to a degree, possessing them physically, as one would possess a potted plant, a painting, or a Porsche. Owning, as it were, this individual." (Michaud and Aynesworth, "The Only Living Witness", 1999, p. 124)

and

“I think we see a point reached - slowly, perhaps - where the control, the possession aspect, came to include, within its demands, the necessity... for purposes of gratification... the killing of the victims... Perhaps it came to be seen that the ultimate possession was, in fact, the taking of the life. And then purely... the physical possession of the remains...” (Michaud and Aynesworth, “Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer”, 1989, Ted Bundy Talks about Himself section, para 1)

Lastly, Bundy indicated that the killer’s failure to control his life might have served as an additional attribute for him committing such "illegal" and "immoral" acts (Michaud and Aynesworth, “Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer”, 1989, p. 248).

“What happened was that this entity inside him was not capable of being controlled any longer, at least not for any considerable period of time. It began to try to justify itself, to create rationalizations for what it was doing.” (Michaud and Aynesworth, "The Only Living Witness", 1999, p. 124)

Whether Bundy referred to himself in the third person, or he genuinely speculated about what might drive a person to kill, indulging Michaud’s and Aynesworth’s curiosity, is debatable.

I also remembered that in the book "Terrible Secrets: Ted Bundy on Serial Murder", Robert Keppel and Stephen Michaud wrote:

"Ted also told Hagmaier that Kimberly Leach was a victim of opportunity. He claimed that he'd driven to her middle school that morning in the FSU van looking for a teacher, or maybe one of the kids' mothers, to kidnap and kill. But after circling the school several times in search of likely prey, he settled on what was available, a 12-year-old schoolgirl."

That passage, of course, proves that Bundy had been hunting before he saw Kimberly Leach. He had been hunting for the opportunity...

  

Bundy’s January 1989 interview with Keppel can be read here:

https://archive.org/details/ted-bundy-interview-transcripts/

Related reading: https://tedbundyarchive.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-factors-that-may-have-played-part.html

This topic may be further developed on this blog at a later date.