Episode 8: The Secrets they Keep

The disappearance of an 8-year-old girl, the stabbing of a little boy, dismembered remains of unknown victims scattered over the side of a mountain; why Ted Bundy and other serial killers keep certain memories to themselves. The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit shares insight into the secrets of monsters. And hear Bundy’s final admission recorded only 45 minutes before execution.

+ Read the episode transcript

Music

Narration: I’m investigative reporter Chris Halsne and this is Interview with Evil: Ted Bundy’s FBI Confessions.

This episode digs into a series of murders the famed serial killer says he did not commit -- yet ones seasoned detectives, still to this day, say he’s the number one suspect.

For the past several months, we’ve been going through rare audio files of Ted Bundy, on the cusp of his execution, confessing to all sorts of awful things.

Bundy: “What I wanted to do with you is something we haven’t done before, which is talk about something very specific. Something I have held, God forbid, but I have held for all these many years -- 15 years or so. I’m glad we started with that particular individual, case. Because it was one of the unidentified ones, more or less. I think you had your suspicious, strong ones, but so we start with a case which I think demonstrates or exemplifies what we are trying to do. What kind of information I have. I intend to talk to Colorado authorities about one of their cases (um-hum) where remains -- where they found nothing. Absolutely nothing and they can’t.”

Narration: Inside the prison room conducting the majority of the interview is Bob Keppel, a special investigator for the Washington Attorney General.

On first appearance, you might think Keppel is simply shooting into the dark by asking Bundy about certain unsolved crimes -- maybe he’ll admit to them - Who knows? Mind as well ask. No. Keppel is asking because detectives believe Bundy has knowledge of the crimes.

Bundy: “I think I know what you’re talking about. That date, August of 74? First of all you’re getting a little ahead of me. I don’t mind. I don’t want to get picky here. There is a lot of other stuff I need to let you and Bill know about that;s going on, but let’s just deal with that one for example. I was talking with my advisors and they said maybe there is information you can give to exclude you is just as important, cause I am linked with stuff that’s not real. If I’m not mistaken, that August ’74 date refers to a young woman out of the Southwestern part of the state that was found on the Pass somewhere. Her remains? I might be wrong about this.” Keppel: “The one I’m talking about is there were two skeletons found together in Clark County. August 2nd is the date one of the girls was last seen.”

Bundy: “Yeah. I’ve heard of it. Right. That’s nothing to do with me.”

Narration: To clarify, Detective Keppel asked Bundy about a pair of skeletons found outside Vancouver Washington -- near the Oregon border. One set of remains belonged to 20-year-old Carol Valenzuela. The other to Martha Morrison, although detectives did not know Morrison’s name at that point. We will fully analyze those cases in a few moments.

Introduce FBI profiler Mary Ellen O-Toole

“When I was in new agent’s training -- that wold have been in 1981…

Narration: To get a better perspective on Bundy’s believability, I called Dr. Mary Ellen O-Toole. She spent her career as a top-notch criminal profiler in the FBI’s highly touted Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU).

Dr. O’Toole: “You go into these interviews, like Ted Bundy, are psychopathic individual, if they have these traits. One if that they are profound liars. Pathological liars. We can’t accept what he told us. All have to cooberated by some sort of physical evidence. What’s amazing, partilly about serial killers. They will brag about murders they didn’t commit. So they can get the credit for them. Gary said he was the best of the best. You have to be knowable about her person you’re talking to. Once you do that and sit down and listen to them. Talk about victim selection process. What they did to the victim. How they grew up. Talk about themselves. It’s amazing what you walk away with. Not just in terms of content but style. What they presented. How they divulged. What makes them want to continue to talk. What worked and didn’t work.” Narration: Dr. O’Toole is an expert at interviewing sexual psychopathic serial killers and has noticed something that does not add up in the Bundy victim timeline. Bundy never admitted to harming anyone before 1974 ish. He was 27 years old at that point. O’Toole says it’s highly unlikely a serial killer all of a sudden starts mutilating women so late in life.

Dr. O’Toole: “We know that when somebody becomes a serial killer,they are on their game. They have developed their game. Practice murders proceeds that. You don’t wake up and you are a Ted Bundy. You know you want to use a gun, knife, ligatures, What the victims look like, Ruse. All takes practice. Pratice murders are first in a serial killer’s life. They learn to do it in a way they can get away and a way they like. The pleasure they like. Practice murders are sloppy. Use trial and error. Put them close to their neighborhood. When the become a serial killer -- they are really good at what they do. They can brag about that but the Murders not efficient or well done. They were just practicing.

(They don’t admit to them even if they admit to 12 others?)

They can admit to them, but as an investigator, knowing they may not be inclined to talk about the little boy down the street that they assaulted-- Gary Ridgeway talked about that. The boy lived and as an adult they contacted him and he confirmed that happened. It took a lot to get Ridgeway to admit that. Why. He went after the kid. Kid didn’t do anything to him. He failed. Didn’t want to admit that. The boy lived. He used a knife. He was trial and error. Gary took a lot of pride at being a lean mean killing machine. Those murders have a lot of mistakes. Not consistent. They don’t want to be attached. They don’t feel bad. Don’t mistake that for having empathy for practice murders. You go back to their late teens and early 20’s and look at those who died around them. Old lady down the street? Go back and confirm where those practice murders took place. You cannot wake up and be a professional at what you do.”

Narration: Using Bundy’s own words -- I say, let’s just start with one: Ann Marie Burr.

She was eight years old when she disappeared in the middle of the night from her bedroom in Tacoma, Washington August 31. 1961. A teenage Bundy lived with his mom in Tacoma at that same time. Let’s first listen to the unredacted section of Bundy’s denial and reasons he gave to Keppel as to why he is not the one who killed the little girl. And then I’ll tell you more about the case and why Keppel thinks he did.

Keppel: A thousand people asked me to ask you this. Bundy: Ask away. Go ahead. Keppel: About Ann Marie Burr Bundy: Okay. Great. That one’s easy. No. Absolutely not. Keppel: Definitely not?

Bundy: No. I wish people would believe. They believe everything else, but my answer is ‘no’ on that one. That’s very sad, but also very ludicrous because, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at it in the course your studies -- it’s all the way across town. Really from where I, as a kid hung out and had my paper route. In inference was, for instance, that my paper route came close to or included the Burr home. Well, my understanding is, well, for a kid, as it relates to where I lived -- it was in a different part of the world. Pretty long ways away. Different schools. Different high schools. Never went to that area. Never had any occasion to go there. It’s just, just, another part of the forest. (Hum-hum) And, uh, I was only like 13 or 14 years old. No. Absolutely not. And I wish that there was some way -- I wrote to Mrs. Burr’s psychiatrist one time who asked her… (Pontee?) Pontee. And he in turn wrote her several letters. Because it’s my hometown. Not that it should make any difference. But there are some allegations I felt I needed to answer back then. And I was an emphatic as I could be that I didn’t know anything about that.

Keppel: Where and when was your first murder? Bundy: One more question, right? Keppel: I’m sorry. I was just curious. Bundy. We’ll have to do that another time. If there is another time.

Narration: Bundy is so snarky -- right to his last breath. Keppel asks a great question: when and where was your first murder? Narration: Now here are the fact about the Ann Marie Burr case. The 8 years old went to sleep in an upstairs bedroom with her 3-year-old sister. It was a warm August night. The next morning, door ajar, living room window open.

Ther was a huge manhunt. Soldiers from a nearby army base and neighbors. Bundy was 14 at the time. Newspaper route wasn’t that far off and his favorite uncle lived nearby. A size 6 shoe imprint was found outside the house. An adult was never a suspect. In 2011, when I was working at the local CBS in Seattle, cold case detectives did two things: First they asked Florida prison officials to upload Bundy’s DNA into a national database. I was surprised that had not been done -- but there was a legal reason. The Florida legislature needed to update a statute which prevented DNA from being used in certain profiles. Once that new law was enacted -- Tacoma police sent a few old remnants of DNA evidence from the Burr case to the Washington State Crime Lab for testing. They hoped advances in micro-DNA analysis could held them match samples to Bundy. However, there was not enough material to draw any conclusions. Beverly, Ann Marie’s mom, told KIRO 7 “We’ll just have to keep going on, and pray and hope somehow we’ll someday know.” Both she and Ann Marie’s dad died without knowing who kidnapped their little girl.

Narration: Dr. O’Toole is currently the Director of the Forensic Science program at George Mason University and Author of a really cool book titled Dangerous Instincts: How Gut feelings betray us. She hasn’t listened to the Bundy Confessional recordings for years and didn’t get a chance to personally interview him, but she did interview the Seattle’s Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway. And she sees a lot of similarities.

Dr. O’Toole: “Some serial killers, impression management is very important to them. There are some behaviors, some things --and they will test you in an interview that they could tell you and they feel are so heinous that it could change your opinion of them. I’ve had serial killers jump up and down and say I’ve never killed a child. I only kill women. Like that is a laudable distinction, but they make that because they don’t want to be seen as a child killer or child molester. Only to find out that was not true and they crossed over the line. And so, as an interviewer, you have to do in and communicate you are open to all the violence and deviance and criminal behavior that they’ve been involved in. Because we know serial killer are so grandiose, you play to that ego. Sit and listen and communicate from them, you are learning from the master. The more they tell you the more impressive it gets and they more they rank up there on the most prolific or difficult to catch serial killer. You have to play to that personality. You can’t go in there and throw down the gauntlet and say let me tell you who I am -- how many interviews I’ve done. That will never work. They are going to control the interview. Control what they tell you. You have to get over it and move around that. To let them know you are listening to the master talk.

Halsne question: Doesn’t that just make you sick to your stomach though? How to you let someone he the master of something so horrible?

Dr: No. It doesn’t make me sick to my stomach at all. That’s the one thing for those of us that have done these interviews and really -- I hate to the word enjoy them, but find them fascinating and necessary, beneficial, educational-- sitting down and listening to their story, as deviant and criminal as it may be, you walk away with a lot of information. You raise a good point. In my 35 years, the worst interviewers don’t listen. You have to have a deep-seated interest in listening to their story. No matter if its Ridgway or Bundy. You have to ask yourself do I have a genuine interest in their story. They are the master. It’s your story. You tell I and I will listen. A lot of people don’t want to do it that way.”

Narration: To help me better understand some other unsolved murders Bob Keppel asked Bundy about during his confessional recordings -- I reached out to Tiffany Jean.

She runs at blog called Hi, I’m Ted!

I’ll tell you something. I have not found a more comprehensive data collection of Ted Bundy’s crimes and victim profiles anywhere. And Jean just keeps gathering the most amazing things -- undiscovered or previously redacted police files, notes, pictures, and recordings.

Jean: I didn’t really know that much about him when I started. But I thought it was so bizarre. It was the strangest story that I ever heard -- and I knew the name but nothing about the cases. The more I researched the stranger it got. So many moving parts. Layer to it. And it keeps going and I keep finding more stuff and I keep learning about the case. It’s such a strange, sad story. That’s what I am trying to do. Bring documents to light.I don’t do as much audio, but case files. Learning more about the victims too. I recently found a document in Washington State. A non-profit set up to give him money. People thought he was still innocent. After the Leach and Chi Omega convictions and he was on death row. Several people still giving money? People still believed in his innocence and believed he was a good guy who could never do these things.”

Narration: Once again, Kepple’s questions are hard to hear and I will recap in a moment. But listen to him asking Bundy about a string of unsolved murders. BTW, FBI profiler Bill Hagmeier is listening in on this conversation, but he rarely speaks. In this section, I find it interesting Bundy knew exactly who the detective was talking about although Kepple never used any of the victim’s names.

Keppel: I’ve got girls like in 1971 at WSU? A murder I am curious about. I got 2 stewardesses? Bundy: Yeah I can tell you.. I can do it that way too. In some ways that is easier. I can tell you what I’m not involved in. If you have a list of that type in your head. Keppel: There’s a gal up in Bellingham, the river strangled in 1970? Bundy: Nope. Keppel: Gal in 1971, Thurston County? Bundy: No. (Nothing that far back?) (Whispers) -- Hmm 72? Keppel: Two girls north of the State Park in ’73? Bundy: Yeah I think you once showed me that. No. No. Keppel: inaudible Bundy: Tacoma? Which one? (Burr?) Oh, No. Absolutely not. It’s important for me, my credibility. So much questions about that. I would take a polygraph. Do something to enhance the credibility of not just specifics but my overall account of these things.

Narration: Okay. Let’s first dig into those 2 dead stewardesses with Jean’s help.

Jean: “Okay what happened was In June of 1966, there were two stewardesses, flight attendants, as they were called back then, for a United Airlines. They were both very young. 19-20. Names were Lisa Wick and Lonnie Trumball., Living in Queen Ann, a district in Seattle. A third roommate, Joyce, came home around 9 am the next morning and found both Lisa and Lonnie in bed, still in their pajamas, but they had been severely beaten, mostly around the head and unconscious but still clothed. Lisa was still alive and the reason they think is that she wore curlers to bed and they cushioned her head against -- a piece of lumber. Sadly, Lonnie died. They did get a partial palm print and fingerprints but at that time, the police allowed news reporters into the crime scene to take photos and they were not careful about leaving their fingerprints around. Never been matched to anyone., The did try to match them with Bundy in 77 and they didn’t match, but they might have one of the reporters.”

Halsne: “Why do you think Bundy was associated with that one?”

Jean: “Probably because of Chi Omega that happened a decade later. The MO was kind of similar. A piece of wood -- in Chi Omega firewood and in this case, lumber. Man who entered an unlocked door and attacked women in bed. And he was from Seattle. He dropped out of Puget Sound U the year before. And he had a job at Tacoma City Light. He was in the general area.”

Narration: But for Jean, all of that is a little too convenient for police. She says a heavily redacted police file on the Trumball case indicates police -- much later -- had another suspect in mind -- a security guard at SeaTac airport -- who better fit the description of the killer as described by survivor Lisa Wick. The case remains open and unsolved.

Jean: “Another reason I don’t think it was Bundy is the woman were not sexually assaulted or molested. And that was pretty much a main motivation for Bundy’s crimes -- a sexual element.” Narration: Another interesting case on Jean’s Hi, I’m Ted blog under the section of “unconfirmed cases” is that of dead Washington State student ,Joyce Margaret LePage.

Jean: “A pretty girl. Long brown hair. Taller. Fit the profile. 5’8 or 5’9. Adventurous. Pilot’s license. Parachute jumper.”

Narration: LePage went missing from Washington State University the evening of July 22, 1971. According to the Lewiston Tribune, her body was found months later wrapped in carpet and dumped in a ravine south of Pullman. A student hunting for garnet gems found her body. The carpet came from WSU’s Stevens Hall dormitory. Next day police found the carpet missing. The FBI was called in. Bones markings indicated she had been killed with a knife.

Jean: “The only reason Bundy is tied to, associated with that case is because she fit the profile of being an attractive college-aged girl. Disappeared from a collage campus. He was known to stalk around. And in Washington. That’s it. They don’t have any other ties to Bundy. He would have been scoping around a place he was unfamiliar with to find that. And stabbed? Unlike Bundy. He preferred to bludgeon them with a crowbar and strangled them. Feeling of control, like God. Last breath. Light of life leaving them. More likely it was someone she knew or watching her for some time.”

Narration: And finally, I promised I would get back to those 2 girls found north of a state park in 1973. Their names were Carol Valenzuela and Martha Morrison. Valenzuela was ID’ed right away but it took police nearly 40 years to put a name to the bones linked to Morrison.

By then, another Pacific NW serial killer named Warren Forrest was already in prison -- and blood on a gun he had carried Morrison’s DNA. Because the bodies were dumped in the same location, detectives later informally believe Forrest also killed Valenzuela. Although her case officially remains unsolved.

NARRATION: This next piece of rare audio is courtesy Tiffany Jean. It is historic on so many levels.

It was recorded by Florida State Prison Warden, Thomas Barton at 6:15 am, Tuesday January 24, 1989 -- only 45 minutes before Bundy was executed.

Bundy admits to two additional murders and denies a series of others in rapid fashion.

Just listen as he calmly details where they can find the body of 15-year-old high-schooler Susan Curtis. Bundy: Do me a favor. See that almanac there. Open it up to -- I want to see a page. A map of Utah. Something that looks like a map to refer to.

Warden: You’re going to have to speak up for that mic to pick up. All right is it running? Light on?

Bundy: “Today is January 24th, 1989, It’s going to be hard between Price and Green River. About ten miles from Price on a road going south, maybe five ten miles., A side road to the left toward the mountains going east. A quarter mile in to the left. About 200 yards in, 100-200 yards in on the dirt road. Stop and to the left maybe 50 yards there are the remains of a young woman who disappeared from Brigham Young University in June of 1975. That’s as close as I can get it with the map what we have here.” Warden: Do you know her name?

Bundy: No.

Narration: Five-foot-seven, brown hair parted down the middle, Sue Curtis fit Bundy’s victim profile to a tee. Curtis disappeared from a Youth Conference in Provo, Utah, held on the BYU campus. She wore braces and detectives had hoped they could find her remains with a metal detector -- but still to this day -- her skeletal remains have not been found.

Warden: That it?

Bundy: No. Mike Fisher in Colorado…

Narration: Bundy also admitted in his final hour to killing 24-year-old Denise Oliverson on a trip through Grand Junction, Colorado.

Bundy: “I believe the day would have been April, 1975. The young woman’s body would have been placed in the Colorado River about five miles west of Grand Junction. It was not buried.” Narration: Warden Barton does his best to discover the rest of Bundy’s darkest secrets in one final push for information, but comes up short.

Bundy: “That’s all the ones I can help you with. The ones I know about. There are no missing ones outstanding we have not talked about.”

Warden: “Okay.That’s all of them, Ted?

Bundy: Yeah. Can we turn it off just a second. Can I get a smoke off somebody?

Warden: Somebody got a cigarette? Ted. I had some inquiries from Illinois and New Jersey.

Bundy: “Okay. Let’s just deal with whatever is outstanding. I can say without any question that there is nothing, no, involved with in Illinois and New Jersey.”

Warden: Okay. How about Burlington, Vermont? (No) How about Texas? (No) Miami (pause - No. No) Okay. That’s all you got? Okay Ted. Thank you.

Bundy: You’re welcome.

Narration: ‘You’re welcome’ - Bundy’s final words. Curious, gentle, and controlling his image until his very last breath.

Tiffany: I liked you Sharazod comparison to Arabian Nights. Maybe he though ‘I’ll just give them another nugget and they’ll give me another year’ And another nugget. He could have bought himself years cause he had so many murders. He could have given them one a year. Maybe one burial location a year. He could have bought himself more time. But I think people were just fed up. They were tired of him lying and manipulating them and they wanted it over. If he had actually come clean earlier, I don’t know, maybe it would have worked in his favor. It’s hard to say, hard to say.

Narrator Halsne: I’m investigative reporter Chris Halsne and this is Interview with Evil: Ted Bundy’s FBI Confessions. If you have enjoyed this series -- found it enlightening within all the clutter of Ted Bundy materials that have come out over the years -- please tell your friends, rate the show, and download the episodes from itune, spotify stitcher - or any other format you desire.

Visit our Patreon account as well and support our ongoing efforts to pry public records from the hands of hesitant government officials.

And finally -- if you want to check out the Bundy confessions profiled inside this podcast, download an app called CrimeDoor. Augmented reality creators are making a visual portal into the Georgann Hawkins kidnapping scene -- enhanced by Bundy’s voice and admissions. It’s an experience you have to try out.

Thanks for tuning in to Interview with Evil.