so the the Ted Bundy Netflix story has
reanimated a lot of people's interest in
this story and it's also created
interest in the story that many people
who never were alive or even wearable
happened there your recollections of the
story and I know it's asking you to take
a gigantic story to try to shrink it
down what what stands out to you as you
start to reflect on on this case what
were the things well I was working for a
rock and roll radio station KJR radio
and the first missing girl happened and
the city was frightened obviously then
the second one then the third one and I
was going out on each of these murder
scenes or each of the disappearances and
interviewing family interviewing parents
they all had the same characteristics
the Danish girl she was should be found
some time later nude raped beaten and I
began numbering the girls girl number
four girl number five girl number six
and not realizing that I was potentially
causing a problem with the city was
panicked especially when we got to
number 16 and 17 the two girls that were
found at Lake Sammamish just a short
distance from my own but Seattle was
almost crazed in its panic as these
girls were disappearing it used to be
that hitchhiking was how we got around
I liked thousands of miles up and down
the west coast when I was a teenager
there'd be girls on every corner
especially in the university district
hitchhiking we stopped we gave rise or
we took rise if we were hitchhiking
ourselves and that stopped like that
when these stories started coming out
[Music]
well he was he he was smart I won't say
it was brilliant but a sight of him must
have been brewing
but he was smart enough and smart enough
to cover up his tracks to make sure
there was no evidence left behind almost
all of the girls were dragged up into
the woods and what I know now from
reading homicide books and watching
stories over the years is that's the
best way to dispose of a body because
the animals will scatter the bones and
for 48 hours taking all the evidence now
back then there was no DNA
they used bite marks in court not
realizing that that turned out to be
pseudoscience bite marks are not a good
way of identifying a suspect
take us to when you well girls started
going missing in Washington State the
murder stopped but they started in
Oregon and and then in Colorado in Utah
and then in Colorado our news director
at that time was a guy named Ron Scott I
said Ron this is a national story this
is a huge story why don't you put me on
this this feat and he said it's a local
story I wanted to fly to Aspen to cover
the escape and he wouldn't
he said it's it's it Aspen is outside of
our viewing area it's not a Denver story
so he didn't want me to go well I was
going to go and I had been taking flying
lessons at the time and I called my
flight instructor and said what can I do
to get you to fly me and a photographer
to Aspen and he said well we have to pay
for my time on the gas and I said done
so I paid for our flight against well
the news director didn't even know at
the time until I started broadcasting
from Aspen about the about the escape
from the jail there the picking honey
courthouse
it was amazing very the distance to the
ground from that window is something
like 24 feet and he would have had to
jump into some bushes the bushes
probably saved his life or broke his
fall but the courage it takes to look
down that distance and decide I'm going
had to have been amazing oh he knew sure
he knew he was going to be executed
someplace in one of these states but my
photographer and I forget his name I
wish I could remember it my photographer
and I drove up and down for days hoping
we could find Ted Bundy and give him a
ride in our car and the race for the
police station but he had been hiding
out for four or five days now we came
back to town did stories here and still
the news director said it's not a Denver
story so once again I went down to the
airport and bought plane tickets on my
own for me and my photographer and we
vanished from the newsroom for another
couple of days and I did some more
stories on Bundy up there and all of a
sudden Ron Scott the news director
decided just must be a national story
let's cover it
I know how many I think he killed and I
think that number is going to be over a
hundred officially he killed 36 but he
told one of his attorneys in Florida he
had killed over a hundred girls I knew
of a number of girls in Colorado when he
was here whose bodies were found in just
that way
stripped strangled dragged up a hill
into the woods
in fact I got in trouble going to the
police chief here and saying I think you
have a problem as a serial killer here
and he said no we don't and I said we do
and I've got a list of names do you want
to look at it he refused to even look at
my list of names but I strongly believe
he killed over a hundred girls think of
this Ted Bundy knew the names of 36
girls can you even remember the names of
ten of the last people you've been much
less 36
I don't know because I didn't know him
[Music]
sure if you kill another human being
you've got something wrong chemically in
your body yeah he was in the same but he
was a very smooth lunatic he was
good-looking he was articulate he was
smart he made his way through law school
you can't be a dummy and go through law
school and he had worked in the Dan and
Dan Evans for governor campaign so he
was working around some very intelligent
people who never caught on to the fact
that this guy was crazy he just had a
good image a good cover
I wish he'd left on a stretcher and an
ambulance but he broke out of the Pitkin
County Jail first
and was on the lam for some time he was
recaptured and put into the jail and
going what Springs he broke out of that
jail cell maximum security by peeling
open a hole in the metal roof he was
able to stack books on the top bunk and
that gave him the height to reach up
there with a can opener or whatever he
had and just punch holes in the ceiling
and he crawled through the ceiling on
New Year's Eve when he knew all the
guards would be partying or drunk or
elsewhere and he was essentially alone
unguarded made his way over to one of
the deputies offices and dropped down to
the drop sailing and vanished and the
next thing we knew he was in Florida
killing girls down there I had to think
about it for a few days it's not really
pleasant story to me but they made a
couple of phone calls and they said
we'll give you a ticket fly you there
and we'll get your hotel and they did
and was first class all the way
a little I don't have Netflix or I
didn't until two days after this thing
came out I don't watch a lot of TV I do
more reading than anything else I'm a
youtube addicts well it's pretty much
the 40th anniversary of his execution so
and it's a story that still has legs
because there's still a number of girls
that have not been found we don't know
if Mundy did them or not so there's
always been a curiosity about this I'm
surprised at the attention this has
gotten I've gotten phone calls from all
over the country which is seems a little
odd but it's time that we talk to our
kids about taking chances because our
kids do take chances they I still take
chances I mean I have hitchhiked as an
adult before car breaks
knowing what I know that's pretty stupid
but I've done it but still our kids
can't identify with murders that happen
four decades ago and a lot of them I
think are looking at this documentary
and thinking to themselves I could be
picked up in that kind of circumstance
it used to be the police officers would
not talk across jurisdictional lines you
could have two rapes two murders a block
apart one in Denver and one in Lakewood
and the cops wouldn't know that they had
possibly a serial killer on the loose
because every police officer wanted to
solve the case himself in the news
business we don't talk very much to our
co-workers when we're working on a big
story we don't want to get scooped we
don't want a rumor to get out so we're
very much like even now the way police
officers were back then but some very
smart cops came along and decided we
need to share information we need a
common database the FBI was very much
behind that setting up the the national
database and computer that terminal is
in every Police Officers office
you know happenstance as well as times
they came close to ending his his run I
imagine for you and for anyone who sees
the story that's the frustrating part of
it it does seem like there were there
were chances there were chances but a
lot of things had to go right in other
words police officers had to be talking
across jurisdictional lines and sharing
information that didn't happen there
were times when he was in custody for
example in Salt Lake City where he was
able to essentially walk free walk away
from a case there and at that point he
ended up in Colorado there were lots of
chances to get him along the way
he was a law student in fact he had
graduated from the law school so he's
smart enough to know a lot about
criminal behavior and about police
behavior and about how to get somebody
out of trouble who you're defending in
court so he certainly had three years of
training in the law and used that
expertise to hide his tracks to do what
was necessary to not get caught there
was one girl that has always bothered me
it was in the some police friends told
me to drive to southern Washington and
make a certain phone call and I drove to
southern Washington and police officer
met me and said follow me and we started
hiking up the woods he's wet woods we
must have gone a mile up into the woods
and there was a police officer with a
shaker and a wire mesh shaker with two
by fours and he was picking up dirt and
putting it through there and and shaking
out the dirt and finding bone pieces but
it was a McCobb scene being in the
presence of this body and this police
officer who started doing war hoops and
like
an Indian dancing around a fire he was a
dancing around the grave yelling I found
it to with I found it to that was the
one piece of evidence that you can
actually use to identify a body but I
don't think that killing has ever been
attributed to Bundy despite the fact
that he was right there in that same
vicinity so I think there are a lot of
girls whose deaths have never been
attributed to him it's not one I look
forward to celebrating each year I'm
glad they executed him and I've never
been a big fan of the death penalty but
some people don't deserve to live and he
had caused so much grief to so many
families he was one of those