Worth Books - Summary and Analysis of The Stranger Beside Me: The Shocking Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy: Based on the Book by Ann Rule

Summary and Analysis of

The Stranger Beside Me

The Shocking Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy

Based on the Book by Ann Rule

Contents

Context

The known crimes of Theodore Robert Bundy began after the 1969 Manson Family murders and the last gasps of the free-love movement. Feminists were blazing trails for the very types of women that Bundy was attacking and killing. He shattered the perceived safety of college campuses and forced women, and those who loved them, into a frenzied fear. The fact that he looked just like an everyday college guy was even more terrifying. A nice boy killing nice girls.

In addition, the 1970s and 80s were decades when serial killers seemed to be operating everywherefrom the Hillside Strangler in Los Angeles and Son of Sam David Berkowitz in New York, to John Wayne Gacy in Chicago, and the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, in Washington State.

Ted Bundy is one of modern Americas biggest celebrity criminals. Part of his appeal is what likely helped him obtain so many victimshe was handsome, charming, witty, and intelligent. On the outside, he was a man many women would be proud to bring home to their parents. His popularity was such that his trials were televised and female groupies attended every day. In one case, prospective jurors lined up in hopes of being a part of the spectacle. The very fact that The Stranger Beside Me exists, and is a bestseller, is a testament to Bundys celebrity status, despite his horrific crimes.

Murdered and missing women remain of special interest in popular American culture. From the tragic death of Nicole Brown Simpson and the killing of Laci Peterson, to the disappearances of Natalee Holloway and so many others, the media and public continue to be drawn to these stories.

Overview

Acclaimed true crime writer and former police officer Ann Rule was friends with infamous American serial killer Ted Bundy. Having met while working together at a suicide hotline, the two became close and remained so even during Bundys killing sprees.

Ann Rule, trained in criminology, recounts the story of how she began researching the missing women in her area and the search for an abductorlater known to be a killernamed Ted. Rules familiarity with local law enforcement lend an insiders view to the tale, while her own knowledge of Ted Bundy allows for a particularly detailed view into the mind of a killer. While her background led her to realize that her friend Ted Bundy fit the profile of the killer Ted, Rule found it impossible to believe he could really be the one they were looking for. Though she reported him to police as a possible lead, she didnt expect anything to come of it.

As Ted Bundys guilt became more and more clear, Rule continued to feel empathy toward him and struggled to understand what would make her friend commit such horrors.

Throughout his jail time, his escapes, his trials, and his years on death row, Ted Bundy and Ann Rule continued to correspond. In the final edition of The Stranger Beside Me , Rule updates the case and its aftermath through the use of an epilogue and several addendums, the last one written in 2008.

Summary

The Final Chapter?2008

Some characters in this book are referred to using a pseudonym. In these cases, an asterisk (*) appears after the name.

On the twentieth anniversary of publication, interest in Ted Bundy remained high. The author, considered a go-to expert on the serial killer, still received many letters from young women enthralled with Bundy, and from older women who thought they had escaped his clutches decades ago. Some survivor stories were more believable than others. Rule also answers the most common questions she is asked about Bundy, such as Did Ted Bundy really father a child in prison? (Most likely), Were you in love with Ted Bundy? (No), and Was Ted Bundy ever cleared of homicides he was suspected of? (Yes).

Preface1980

Rule, who began writing the book that would become The Stranger Beside Me , could never have imagined the vicious killer could be someone she considered a friend. Bundy was aware, even when he was incarcerated, that she was writing this book, yet he continued to confide in her. It became a deeply personal book, and Rule attempted to chronicle the horrors Ted Bundy committed while still showing the man that she knew.

The Stranger Beside Me

Ted Bundy was born to a single mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, at a time in the United States when this was a shameful start in life. His father was unknown to him. Cowell, 22, gave birth to Theodore Robert Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24, 1946. She returned home to Philadelphia with the baby, who would grow up believing Cowell was his sister.

When he was four, Cowell moved with him to Washington, where she met and married Johnnie Bundy. More children followed. After the marriage, the boy became Theodore Robert Bundy. Bundy was remembered as a good, well-liked student in high school. But in 1965, still a juvenile, he also had his first brush with the law on suspicion of burglary and car theft.

In 1967 at the University of Washington, twenty-year-old Bundy fell in love with a beautiful, wealthy student named Stephanie Brooks*. She had long, dark hair, parted down the middle. Nearly a year later, Brooks realized that aimless, timid Bundy was not for her. The breakup devastated Bundy and he began to wander, eventually to Philadelphia and Vermont, a trip during which he discovered that he was an illegitimate child. His mother had never told him the truth.

Ted Bundy was determined to become the type of man Stephanie was looking for. He found a new place to live and renewed vigor, even taking a ski trip to Colorado. He changed his major from Chinese to psychology, at which he excelled.

In September of 1969, Bundy met Meg Anders*, a divorced mother, who quickly fell in love with him. The two began a romance that seemed headed for marriage.

Ann Rule, a true crime writer and former police officer, met twenty-four-year-old Ted Bundy in 1971 at the Seattle Crisis Clinic. She liked the handsome, amiable man right away. He seemed a throwback to the young men of her generationshort hair, a clean shave, conservative. The two worked late at night alone in a Seattle building, taking calls from, and sometimes saving, suicidal people.

Bundy confided in Rule about his illegitimacy, his relationship with Meg, and his abiding fixation on winning Stephanie back. And Bundy always walked Rule to her car on the nights they worked together, for her safety.

By June of 1972, Ted Bundy graduated from college and Rule, about to be divorced, quit volunteering at the hotline. Bundy worked for the Republican party, attending functions and rubbing elbows with politicians (including the soon-to-be governor), and began studying law at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.

A new Ted Bundy contacted former flame Stephanie Brooks in summer of 1973 and swept her off her feet. Still in a relationship with Anders, Bundy made Brooks his fiance. But by the new year, he turned cold and broke her heart. They would never speak again.

During their brief, second stint, Brooks noticed a dark, brooding side to Bundy. She believed that Bundy had planned to break her heart in revenge for breaking his.

Young women were being attacked in the Seattle area in early 1974. One woman survived a brutal sexual attack on January 4. The next morning, twenty-one-year-old Lynda Healy did not show up for work. Her roommates discovered she was missing from her basement bedroom, and that the door to the outside was unlocked.