Episode 2: The Hunt

The world’s leading expert on serial killers’ listens to the FBI’s unredacted Ted Bundy confessional recordings for the first time. Her insight into Bundy’s uncontrollable desire to dominate his victims, necrophilia, and the thrill behind hunting dozens of young women.

+ Read the episode transcript

Bundy: “The name that I just wrote down is Georgann Hawkins.”

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Bundy: “She said everybody called her George.”

Bundy: “And she used a safety pin because apparently her blue slacks were too big.”

Dr. Sasha Reid: “_It was this murder in particular, whether or not she said something or a realization he had on his own, this was the moment he thought “there’s no turning back”. It wasn’t just that one mistake this is now my life.” _

Halsne narration: I’M INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER CHRIS HALSNE – AND THIS IS INTERVIEW WITH EVIL: TED BUNDY’S FBI CONFESSIONS.

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THIS PODCAST IS NOT ABOUT THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF BUNDY’S CRIMES. THOSE HAVE BEEN COVERED AD NAUSEUM OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS. THIS IS, HOWEVER, A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO HEAR HIM CANDIDLY ADMIT TO SOME OF THE MORE GRUESOME ASPECTS OF HIS TWISTED MIND – LIKE WHY HE USED A TINY HACKSAW TO LOP OF THE HEADS OFF MANY OF HIS VICTIMS.

Bundy: “It was sort of a crude attempt to disguise the identity or avoid the identification of the remains. I had a metal tool kit in the front of the, the trunk as it is in the Volkswagen. It had everything in there. The metric tools. And I had a little hacksaw.”

Halsne: THE IN-PERSON CONVERSATIONS WERE RECORDED ON CASSETTE TAPES ONLY A FEW DAYS BEFORE BUNDY’S DEATH ROW EXECUTION IN JANUARY OF 1989. I’VE TRACKED DOWN SOME OF THE WORLD’S LEADING EXPERTS ON THE CRIMINAL MIND AND I’M ASKING THE QUESTION – DOES UNDERSTANDING TED BUNDY HELP LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS CATCH SERIAL KILLERS OF THE FUTURE?

Dr. Sasha Reid: “Forget the moralizing. If you want to, please be my guest. But if you can forget that for a second, look what he does has to offer and its quite a lot. I think it’s important to remember we don’t discount the words. There’s value of anybody. There is so much we can learn.”

NAT SOUND “Record cold in Calgary” montage from forecasters

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Halsne narration: I’M TOLD CALGARY IS PARADISE IN THE SUMMER, BUT THAT’S NOT WHEN I CHOSE TO FLY TO CANADA. INSTEAD, I LINED UP AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. SASHA REID IN THE DEAD OF WINTER AND ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.

NAT BREAK

(In apartment setting up) “I want to hear a little bit about you first. (Okay, sure)”

Halsne narration: HER DOWNTOWN CONDO SHE SHARES WITH HER SURGICAL RESIDENT HUSBAND – AND CAT – BECAME OUR SOUND STUDIO.

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Halsne: I WANTED TO HEAR WHAT THE WORLD’S MOST DISTINGUISHED SERIAL KILLER EXPERT HAD TO SAY ABOUT TED BUNDY…

Bundy: “Also, in the area maybe 15 yards to the east down into a ravine was an abandoned cabin. Ring a bell?”

Halsne: AND ON THE FLIP SIDE, DR. REID WAS EAGER TO HEAR MY AUDIO RECORDINGS.

Dr Reid: “Every time I hear something new, it gives me an appreciation for and respect for and an understanding for human psychology.”

Halsne narrative: DR. SASHA REID IS A DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST AND CRIMINOLOGIST CURRENTLY TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY. HER PASSION AND JOB IS ANALYZING SERIAL KILLERS – AND WHAT MAKES THEM TICK.

Dr. Reid: “I do that primarily by way of analyzing their diaries, their speech patterns, interviews, and auto-biographies which are always interesting. Very self-serving.”

Halsne narration: SHE NEVER ADMITTED TO ANY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA THAT SENT HER LOOKING FOR ANSWERS – RATHER SHE TOLD ME SHE’S BEEN FASCINATED WITH FEAR AND THE UNKNOWN AS LONG AS SHE CAN REMEMBER.

Dr. Reid: _“I think there is a thrill in thinking there is something scary out there. At least that’s what it was like when I was a kid. I grew up. Vampires and werewolves don’t exist, sadly. But, monsters in big air quotes. Monsters do exist. The scariest thing is they are just like me an you. Just like me and you. They don’t have fangs or claws or scars and boils. They can be beautiful. Porcelain skin, blue eyes, and perfect smiles. They can own candy shops. They can be just like you and I.” _

Halsne narration: Dr. Reid says when she first started really studying serial killers, she built a database of 75 killers with 330 variables – and found not one single common denominator. How’s that possible?

Dr. Reid: “I ran basic frequency statistics and pie square analysis and nothing. I spent that summer taking break because it was so demoralizing to not have seen anything statistically relevant. When I say significant, we were looking at variables like were they abused as a child, mother or father an addict, loner, bullied in school, were they criminals or juvenile delinquents early on – none of this had anything to do with anything. So I took a break and went to work in a prison.”

Halsne: WHILE INSIDE LOCKUP – SHE HAD AN AWAKENING: A HARDENED CRIMINAL’S REALITY – OR MORE IMPORTANTLY THEIR PERCEIVED REALITY – CAN’T BE FULLY CAPTURED IN RAW STATISTICS.

Dr Reid: “When I was there, I worked with an interesting group of offenders. I had a group of anti-social males. A group of schizophrenic females. I had domestic violence individuals. A had a rapist. A Crip gang member. A psychopath and a bunch of other colorful fellows. In my sessions with them I came to realize they saw the world so much differently than the rest of the people I knew.”

Halsne narration: SHE ASKED HER ECLECTIC GROUP A SIMPLE QUESTION. IF YOU WERE TO GET ON A BUS IN TORONTO WITH 100 RANDOM PASSENGERS, HOW MANY WOULD HAVE BEEN TO JAIL? THEIR ANSWER WAS 80. THE REAL ANSWER IS ABOUT ONE.

Dr. Reid: “I stepped away from quantitative data and started collecting these interviews of serial killers and gong through the data and, oh my God, what a pattern emerged. Things like – they see themselves as a victim. 100 percent of the time. They always see its someone else inflicted trauma.”

Halsne: LET’S STOP THERE. SERIAL KILLERS ALWAYS SEE T HEMSELVES AS VICTIMS. THAT’S WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. THINK ABOUT THAT. JOHN WAYNE GACY TORTURED 33 YOUNG MEN AND BOYS THEN KILLED EACH ONE EITHER ASPHYXIATING THEM TWISTING A GARROTE AROUND THEIR NECKS. HE SEES HIMSELF AS A VICTIM. AND DR. REID’S COMMENT HERE BRING ME BACK TO TED BUNDY’S FBI CONFESSIONS. IT PUTS THIS ‘POOR ME’ SEGMENT IN CONTEXT.

Bundy: _“Make no bones about it, I am looking for an opportunity to tell the story best I can and the way it makes sense to me and will help you or the families, though that’s very important, but my own family. You see I saw the look in my stepson’s eyes yesterday after he had been told for the first time, he’d always believed in his heart and mind that I had never done anything like this. As hard as it is for you to believe that, there are people who do believe that. There are people close to me who believe that. To see the look in his eyes confirmed my worst fears. He was absolutely astounded. He couldn’t understand. He was writing questions furiously and I could see how bewildered he was. And I need to give him a chance to know and others a chance to know what was really going on – and what it was really like for me.” _

Dr. Reid: (snickering) _“He’s such a narcissist. Purely narcissistic. You hear a lot of me, then as soon as he says me, he’s like my family so he’s quick to reposition back away from himself because he knows he’s not going to be getting sympathy from these people.” _

Narration: IN ADDITION TO ALL BEING VICTIMS – DR. REID NOTICED ONE MORE, PERHAPS MORE OBVIOUS TREND.

Dr. Reid: “They are completely disturbed in the way they understand death. This was for everybody. These were commonalities. I didn’t see any in quantitative data. So as soon as I started seeing the way they thought I combined them – the whole world opened up. I could finally make sense.”

Halsne: NOW, DR. REID HAS EXANDED HER SERIAL KILLER DATBASE LIST TO NEARLY SIX-THOUSAND MURDERERS WORLDWIDE. THERE ARE 1440 DIFFERENT CATEGORIES IN DROP DOWN MENUS UNDER EACH NAME.

NATS GUNFIRE

Halsne: SHE DIDN’T WANT TO INCLUDE MASS MURDERERS, LIKE LAS VEGAS MUSIC CONCERT SNIPER STEPHEN PADDOCK – WHO KILLED AT LEAST 58 AND WOUNDED 413 PEOPLE FROM A WINDOW AT THE MANDALAY BAY HOTEL.

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Halsne: SO, TO KEEP EVERYTHING CONSISTENT, SHE’S CAME UP WITH HER OWN DEFINITION OF SERIAL KILLER.

Dr. Reid: _“It’s called compulsive criminal homicide and there is many, many things. A person has to kill two or more people over an undefined period of time. In between murders there is a cooling off period- return to a calm or normal period of time. The murders not carried out at behest of others. Or because of revenge purposes. Not for money or financial purposes. And it has to be intentional and purposeful. You cannot be psychotic, which I know causes ruffled feathers but for me, you have to have conscience deliberation.” _

Halsne interview question: “You are choosing people who simply want to kill someone?”

Dr. Reid_: “Not only want to kill, but somebody who derives pleasure from acquiring victims, watching, stalking that victim. Sometimes the murder just happens because they don’t want to get caught. A witness? To get away with it. Sometimes the pleasure comes from the act of hunting. At the end of the day you still have to have killed two or more.”_

Halsne: DR. REID HAS STUDIED THE MOST NOTORIOUS MURDERERS IN HISTORY – SON OF SAM, THE GREEN RIVER KILLER, JEFFREY DAHMNER – BUT BUNDY – BUNDY IS REALLY SPECIAL.

Dr. Reid: “It’s rare to hear a serial killer talk eloquently and what appears to be a good amount of insight and for such a long period of time. You’ve got interviews with like Joel Rifkin and Gary Ridgway but they are snippets. Five minutes here. Five minutes there. With Ted? He goes on and on and on and he’s a good storyteller.”

Bundy: “This would have been in early 84, I mean ‘74.”

Detective Kepple: “How about the Evergreen college girl?”

Bundy: “Oh. Oh. yeah.”

Kepple: “Where’s she?”

Bundy: “She’s up in the mountains (ha ha) In the Cascades.”

_@ 13:00 COMMERCIAL BREAK. COMMERCIAL BREAK. _

Halsne: A REMINDER HERE FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT HAVE SKIPPED THE FIRST PODCAST. THE AUDIO YOU’RE LISTENING TO IS TED BUNDY TALKING TO FBI CRIMINAL PROFILER WILLIAM “BILL” HAGMAIER AND FORMER KING COUNTY WASHINGTON SHERIFF’S DETECTIVE BOB KEPPLE.

Bundy: “I hear you Bob. You have a legitimate need to know it all you want to start with ID’s dates but there are more important stuff. Never talked to anybody about this.”

Narrative: BUNDY IS SET TO BE EXECUTED IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR “OLE SPARKY’ IN TWO DAYS – AND HE’S HOPING IF HE STARTS TELLING INVESTIGATORS (AFTER MANY YEARS OF MAINTAINING HIS INNOCENCE) DETAILS OF HIS CRIMES – THEY WILL GO TO BAT FOR HIM WITH FLORIDA’S GOVERNOR – WHO HAS THE POWER TO POSTPONE THE DEATH SENTENCE.

NATS CASSETTE TAPE STARTS

“Date is 1-20-of 89”

Halsne: As Bundy begins the interrogation, there’s no other way to put it, In charge – actually in command of how the police are going to talk with him and what he’s going to offer. I’m going to play this from when detectives first hit record – and let it go unedited for a while so you can hear Bundy’s tone, attitude, word choices, and aggression.

Bundy: “Okay how to I expect this to proceed? Well this is what I hope we can work on. I think what I need to do is tell you what is going on in terms of me. Practical day to day stuff, limitations, you can understand and appreciate that this Phase 2 death watch puts us under constraints. But, I think we can get started. What can I do to proceed? First thing I have on my list is to talk about the importance of, at this stage, that we have an agreement of confidentiality. I certainly won’t say anything about the contents of this meeting. Diana won’t. None of do until we’re further down the road. Too much has been said any way. That’s killing us.”

Kepple: “We talking about other law enforcement agencies?”

Bundy:_ “We have an understanding that any statements you or any of us make to the public we will advise the other party.” _

Kepple:_ “No statements.”_

Bundy: “Nothing whatso ever? You have my word. I don’t intend to, well I don’t intend to talk about this meeting. Depends what things look like Monday. I won’t disclose anything you don’t want me to disclose.”

Halsne narration: What don’t you hear? Fear. Dr. Reid told me that’s partly due to Bundy’s IQ – he might actually believe he’s going to use a silver tongue to escape justice.

Dr Reid: “I do think he starts off with a sense of urgency to an extent. He’s still composed. He is still able to exerts himself as somebody who is dominant force. ‘I have this knowledge.’ He uses the word ‘we’ a lot. He’s almost positioning himself in line with everybody else, so he’s not some person out there on his own island. He’s working with people. That’s what he’s trying to do.:”

Halsne question: “Part of the detective team?”

Dr. Reid: “Yeah! I have the word ‘we’ written down big and multiple times. He positions himself as a lead.”

Bundy continues: “I’m looking for us to reach a way for me to talk about some things (laughs) My feeling and I want your reaction and Bill’s reaction to this: is not unrealistic – I don’t have enough time to tell you everything I know in the next 2 or 3 days. Which is basically what we’re looking at. I mind as well give you, right up front how I see this in terms of my participation. I’m at the point where, finally, I see that I am going to have to tell you and others everything about so-called unsolved cases. You can look at it pessimistically or skeptically, but the fact is I am at that point. It’s an uncomfortable position. I may have waited too long? Ha. But we are here. I am here. We gotta work with what we got.”

Dr. Reid: “So not only is he is part of this team but he’s the lead of this investigative team. He is the guy driving it. He’s the one with the secret knowledge. Enticing. He balances it really well. He says I am the lead but at the same time, it’s us together. We. He makes this brilliant balance between I got all this knowledge, but we are a team.”

Bundy: “Sure. I can give you corroboration on.. look I know what you are pushing for and I don’t blame you. (tap tap on mic) Is this still working? You sort through your litany of cases and pick, I don’t want to tell you, but pick one more case other than Issaquah and we’ll talk about it. You want corroboration and I’ll give you one more.”

Narration: KEPPLE HAS USED HIS COPY OF THE RECORDINGS TO WRITE BOOKS AND DO SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS ABOUT BUNDY BUT HAS NEVER RELEASED THE RAW RECORDINGS, ONLY SHORT SNIPPETS. A FRIEND OF HIS TELLS ME THAT’S BECAUSE KOEPPLE PROMISED THE FAMILY OF 18-YEAR-OLD VICTIM GEORGANN HAWKINS – HE WOULDN’T.

Bundy: “I again knocked her out and strangled her and drug her into the trees.”

Narrative: UNTIL I ACQUIRED THE UNREDACTED 4 ½ HOUR SET, I’M TOLD THE FBI HAS THE ONLY OTHER KNOWN COPY. TO DOUBLE CHECK, I FILED A FREEDOME OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST WITH THE STATE OF WASHINGTON AND THE FBI. BOTH SAID THEY WOULD NOT RELEASE THE RECORDINGS.

Bundy: “On the other hand, for it truly to be of benefit to you and law and social scientists, I need to tell you the whole truth. Nothing more less. Certainly nothing less. Bill knows, you know the FBI studies on serial killers and how important it is to get the antidotal behaviors and all that stuff and put it all together in the context of hard-core data. What I am after here is a total understanding. I realize people are very skeptical of me and my intentions. They have good reason to be. You can look at me as a hypocrite, but the fact is, better late than never. Something can be done.”

_@ 21:58. COMMERCIAL BREAK. COMMERCIAL BREAK _

Narration: For hours of that so-called interrogation, Bundy whines and pleads and manipulates – he teases but does not talk about specific facts except for a handful of victims: 19-year-old Donna Gail Manson, 23-year-old Janice Anne Ott, and 18-year-old Denise Marie Naslund. Those last two went missing on the same day – kidnapped from a state park outside Seattle in broad daylight.

Bundy does gives a full play-by-play of killing Georgann Hawkins. She was the Puyallup Daffodil Princess who went in June 1974 after leaving her boyfriend’s fraternity house on the University of Washington campus. That was covered heavily in part of one of this pod cast. After describing her kidnapping and murder in excruciating detail, Bundy suddenly started holding back.

Bundy: “Oh oh, that.”

Narration: In this part, Detective Kepple pressed him about why he didn’t talk about raping Hawkins.

Bundy: “And we’ll have to get back to it sometime, but I don’t -- it’s just, just too hard for me to talk about. Gee. This is probably the hardest part, I don’t know. We’ve been talking abstractly, not really, but we’re getting to it right now. I will talk about it but I hope you understand it’s not easy to talk about.”

Narration: At one point, about an hour into the interrogation, Detective Koeppel realizes Bundy isn’t simply a monstrous rapist who refused to admit to the violent act– but that Bundy is a necrophiliac – someone who has sex with the dead.

Detective: “Did you go back?”

Bundy: “Um-hum.”

Detective: _“When?” _

Bundy: “Next day.”

Detective: “What did you do the next day?

Bundy: “Went just to check out the site. Make sure nothing had been left there. Uh. See. The feeling is that I reached the point I half expected she wouldn’t even be there. I hadn’t even killed her.”

Detective: “How about going back to that scene?”

Bundy: “_Again? Maybe about a week or two weeks I went back for a third time. _

Detective_: “What for?”_

_Bundy: “Again, just to see what was going on. There is a lot psychological stuff going on here I just don’t have time to explain. There is an aspect here of possessiveness that Bill talked about here. I’m sure you are familiar with the after affects. This is why I am so keen on the staking out of crime scenes of this type afterwards. _Fascination with death. Necrophilia. All that. Uh, but in June after a week with all the local wildlife, there is not much left.”

Detective: “Were you going back to that scene to commit sex acts?”

Bundy: “Well, that’s something I don’t want to talk about right now. I will talk about that some day, but I don’t really have enough background on that. I want us to work into that. (okay)”

Narration: Dr. Reid says her research found Bundy was suspected of having sex with corpses – with he never actually flat-out states it in any public record. These recordings are as close as he gets.

Dr. Reid: “We know Ted Bundy is a necrophile and we know this because of what investigators and what legal actors have shared. We don’t know the extent of it. He’s not open about this. I think it’s something he’s deeply ashamed. Again, there is this whole thing about psychopaths not being able to show shame and I think it’s really important to deconstruct what we know a out psychopathy because it helps us better understand a person like Ted. When people think psychopaths, they think no guilt, no remorse, no emotions at all and that is fundamentally flawed thinking. It’s very black and white. That’s not the way human beings are. We operate on gradients. Yes. He might have felt extreme shame. Yes. When it comes to things like necrophilia, he feels shame. Yes. It looks different and It makes sense in a different way for us. He does not want to share because it is uncomfortable for him.”

Dr. Muscatel: “I hate to be blunt, but who cares. Do we already .. I’m going to use language that is a little tough but this guy is a real sick fuck, okay?”

Narration: Dr. Ken Muscatel has interviewed more than 700 murderers – and counting- as a forensic neuropsychologist. He listened with great interest to the FBI Bundy confession recordings with us inside his Seattle office. When it came to the sections where Bundy was talking about having sex with his dead victims, Dr. Muscatel grew uncharacteristically emotional.

Dr. Muscatel: “This guy is bad. He’s made her suffer. He’s killed her. So, if he has sex with her corpse, in a sense, like okay. Who cares? To by blunt. The horror was done when she was alive. He may have sexually assaulted her – he may have while she was alive or while she was dying. He’s not saying almost anything about her suffering. Her experience. If he sexually assaulted her or didn’t, strangled her, looked into her eyes? All those things are, sounds she made, all the human experience. The horror. The human experience. That’s what he’s not giving you. I don’t want to talk about having sex with her dead body.”

(Bundy on recording. Sasha listening in Calgary): “It’s just too hard for me to talk about.”

Halsne question to Sasha. “_Why is he okay talking about wrapping a cord around her neck and no about having sex with her.” _

Dr. Reid: “Serial killers from my research define themselves very very similarly. So, there’s the ‘good man’ and this is the person who is practiced. Who goes to community meetings and Fackbook pages and they are known as a good person. The neighbors say ‘I can’t believe he could have done such a thing.’ That’s the good man. The serial killer knows they are that person. They are very much also aware of what they call, I call, Dr. Shawcrass, has called, the bad man. And the bad man is the face, the person that is unpracticed. Known only to the serial killer and the victim. It is their most intimate self. And I think Ted knows both. Is personally acquainted with both. He accepts both. But, he does not always accept their actions.”

Bundy: “I can describe the Issaquah site if you like, three, remains of three individuals found. Two identified and one not because of the the kinds of remains were so few. What do you want? Description of the site? You just don’t make this up.”

Narration: NOW WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT HUNTING. THIS ISN’T OUT OF LEFT FIELD. DR. REID HAS FOUND POWERFUL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HOW HUNTERS EXPERIENCE KILLNG ANIMALS FOR SPORT AND SERIAL KILLERS KILL HUMANS FOR PLEASURE.

Dr. Reid: “He didn’t just kill and then forgot about it. This is something he sat with. Thought about. And reminisced about. He probably would have made that drive several times to relive the hunt. If you talk to a hunter, for example, and you ask them where they got their last moose or deer kill, they will describe in as much detail: the trees the grass, like they remember. The reason they have such a keen visual memory -- 15 years later? It was to a certain extent a hunt. A visceral, very primitive action. He is smelling the smells he had on the way to that cabin. He’s probably seeing in great detail everything he saw. Because it was a great hunt and great kill.”

Narration: And as guys like Bundy kill again and again, research shows they delete certain memories from their brain archives and keep other key memories to themselves – a sort of private mental lockbox.

Dr. Reid: “I think the reason some serial killers keep things to themselves - it varies. Not the same for everybody. First, they just forget. The moment of the murder was so trivial, it was not the murder they were looking for, it was the release of a building tension. Then the world just. Fades away. They forget. Sad and horrible given the pain families and victims endure, but they forget.

Two. Leverage. I know more and can share more in exchange for.

Three. Those are your secrets. Those are your prizes. It’s like letting someone in your underwear drawer. You don’t want somebody touching something so personal and private and maybe arousing. It’s getting to venerable with another person because your victims, who you chose and how you chose to victimize reveals quite a lot about you and your psychology, your pain. Some people don’t want to share things with their own doctor. This would essentially be just that. By opening up and sharing what they did, they’re letting you into their mind.

And I guess, four? There is pleasure for its only yours. It’s not the fear of letting someone in but knowing something so grotesque and violent... its heinous, possessive, and pleasurable.”

Narration: I’M INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER CHRIS HALSNE – COMING UP NEXT WEEK ON INTERVIEW WITH EVIL: TED BUNDY’S FBI CONFESSIONS -- HOW CLOSE BUNDY WAS TO GETTING CAUGHT BEFORE HE EVEN GOT STARTED.

Bundy: “No more than 2 weeks before that, I was using the same modus operendi in the same neighborhood in front, in front now of the same sorority house as Geogann Hawkins, I encountered a girl going out the door.”

Pete Klismet/Original FBI Profiler: “The guy is a pathological liar to start with. He’s a bullshit artist.”

Narrative: And we speak with one of the FBI’s original criminal profilers. How this interrogation might have gone differently had he been in the room.

Klimet: “He’s doing everything he can right now to divert from the main topic and they are getting absolutely nowhere. At this point, I would be really mad. Say look you’re going to to the point, left turns on a highway? Or I am going to bang you upside the head. And that’s straight up buddy.”

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