Ted Bundy on the relationship between mental illness and violent criminal behavior

Ted Bundy reasoned along these lines: a murderer who manages to not get caught and who leaves very little in the way of clues, cannot be mentally ill, but a rational individual. Bundy discussed the issue of “mental illness” in the context of murder investigations, and more specifically in relation to the Green River murders, when he consulted with the King County Sheriff’s Office in the Green River case. In Bundy’s opinion, the distorted mental processes which underlay the Riverman’s violent behavior would appear, from the facts and circumstances of the case, which Bundy analyzed, to be as well integrated as they were hidden from the view of those around him. Bundy shared these views in a February 5, 1985 handwritten letter he sent to Dave Reichert, in reference to a mental patients printout that the detectives included in the data that was being analyzed at the time in the Green River investigation. The detectives were compiling various lists meant to help them identify the likeliest ...