Elizabeth Kendall - The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy

Copyright 2020 Elizabeth Kendall

Mollys Story copyright 2020 Molly Kendall

Cover 2020 Abrams

All photographs courtesy of Elizabeth Kendall

Published in 2020 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951722

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4485-3

eISBN: 978-1-68335-952-4

The material contained in this book is presented only for informational and artistic purposes. In the interest of maintaining the privacy of the individuals whose stories are discussed herein, many names, places, and other identifying characteristics have been changed.

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Molly and I know that we are incredibly fortunate to have each other. As we set about to tell our stories, we begin at a place of remembrance of those who were killed and compassion for the survivors, and for the families of all of Teds victims. EK

In May 2017, I learned via the Internet that a new Ted Bundy movie was being made, and the story was going to be told from the perspective of Bundys longtime girlfriend. I did a quick Internet search and got twenty-one thousand hitsall announcing the news about my story being told in a new Ted Bundy movie. I was stunned. How could they tell my story without ever speaking with me?

It had been a long time since Ted Bundys terrible crimes had saturated the media. I had hoped it would stay that way. Sure, his name had become shorthand in popular culture for a person who looks normal but is in fact dangerous. However, aside from the pasts occasional intrusion into the present, I had mostly been able to go about my life without Ted Bundy interfering with my happiness. Now that was all about to change.

Most books and movies had used either a made-up name for me or the pseudonym I used for my book, but a press release for the movie had used my real name. At least what my name had been. I havent gone by my old married name of Kloepfer for years, not since Molly was a child. Unfortunately, some still link the name to Ted Bundy.

I began getting inquiries from documentary filmmakers and media outlets, which I referred to my attorney. They assumed that since I had optioned my book to the movie studio, I would be willing to speak with them now. Of course, there had been no book option. Molly and I turned all this over to the attorneys to sort out.

In the meantime, we had many conversations about how to deal with the renewed interest in this part of our lives. On the one hand, we would have been happy if interest in Ted Bundy and his sickness faded away into the nothingness that it deserved. On the other hand, if the story was going to be told again, the only way we could influence the outcome was to work with the film and documentary makers. We decided this was the most empowering way to proceed.

After getting off on the wrong foot initially, the collaboration we had with the film was a good one. We were happy to find that director Joe Berlinger respected and acted upon our input. Everyone associated with the production was kind and treated us well.

We were able to face our fears and watch the finished film. It was well-directed and well-acted. We were left with the feeling that Zac Efron and Lily Collins got it right.

Even so, during the filmmaking process, we realized that with the dramatization of a true story, things must be omitted, condensed, or combined to help the story fit within time constraints. Molly and I decided that it was essential that we tell our story in our own words as we experienced it, which was why we decided to issue this second edition of The Phantom Prince.

This is also what motivated me, after so many years of silence, to participate in the Amazon Original documentary series Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer from director Trish Wood. I was interested in this project because of its emphasis on the viewpoints of many of the women involved in this tragic story. Trish and her crew from Saloon Media in Ontario, Canada, made the trek to Seattle several times with all their gearcameras, sound equipment, lights, etc.for interviews. They provided a calm and safe environment to talk about a difficult subject. For these projects, I have used my original pseudonym, Elizabeth Kendall, to spare Mollys fathers family name further association with Teds crimes.

In addition to the original text, you will find many photos of Ted and us from the years of my relationship with him, before the cloud of suspicion appeared on the horizon, as well as photos taken after the point when we now know Ted was abducting and killing young women.

I have written an afterword that follows the original text. I still cared deeply for Ted when I wrote the original book. It took years of work for me to accept who he was and what he had done. I still felt lingering shame that I had loved Ted Bundy. It was healing for me when women started telling their stories of sexual violence and assault as part of the Me Too movement. I could relate to keeping experiences secret for fear of being judged. I could see these women were taking back their power by saying, This is what happened. It is what it is. This is true, too, of my past with Ted Bundy.

To close the book, Molly has written an account of her experiences with Ted. This is the first time she has told her story publicly.

Healing and rebuilding our lives after the trauma of knowing how evil and immoral Ted Bundy was has been anything but linear. Often it felt like two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes Molly and I were in sync with our thoughts and feelings about the past, and sometimes we were not. Even so, we knew our love for each other would help us heal, move forward, and never give up.

In writing this book, I have gone through a wide range of feelings towards Ted. At times, the intensity of my love for him scared me. When I thought of some of the happy times we shared, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that he should not be in jail. But by the time I finished my writing, those feelings had turned to outrage that he had coldly, capriciously murdered all those women. It has been seven years since that first cloud of worry passed through my mind and it has been three years since I have known that my fears were true, yet some days it hits me as if for the first time.

In 1974, when the victims were disappearing, I identified with them even though I was older than they were, and I feared for my own safety. Seven years later as I wrote my story, I identified them with my daughter and could imagine the pain Ted Bundy caused their parents and the terrible void left by their deaths.