Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer: The Death Row Interviews

by Stephen G. Michaud, Hugh Aynesworth

Drawn from more than 150 hours of exclusive tape-recorded interviews with Bundy, this collection provides shocking insights into the killer's 11th-hour confessions before his death in a Florida electric chair. A unique, horrifying self-portrait of one of the most savage sex killers in history.

This updated edition contains a new foreword by Robert Keppel, president of the Institute for Forensics.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Biography, Psychology, Audiobook, History

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the chilling account of Ted Bundy, notorious serial killer, in his own words. Over 150 hours of interviews were conducted to provide the reader with an insight to the mind of a unapologetic and unfeeling killer.

This does not detail his many crimes nor is it set out in an entirely chronological order. Bundy does not allow the 'conversations' conducted with him to continue in an ordered or linear fashion and often gets side-tracked by his own monologues. He fails to provide many of the answers expected of him but reveals select stories or theories at whim.

This never feels disjointed but it does not tell a complete story, for someone unfamiliar with who this individual is and the crimes that he had committed. To hear him assess the situations he was responsible for with a distanced perspective and a sometimes-nonchalance, chilled me to the core and disturbed me far more than I was prepared for.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched the Netflix documentary (Confessions of a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes) and it made me curious about the transcribed conversations in this book. I knew this would be a rough read....but I also knew my curiousity would not be sated until I had this book in my hands.

While killing 30 women (including a 12 year old girl) already proves that Bundy was a cold-blooded killer and crazy.....reading through these rambling, delusional, ridiculous conversations with the serial killer just proves it even further. The man was narcissistic, violent, and completely out of his mind. Michaud and Aynesworth could only get Bundy to talk about the murders by telling him he could speak of the killer in the 3rd person -- letting him pretend some other person did the killing and Bundy had some magical ability to peer into this unknown persons actions, motivations and thoughts. (Reminds me of that bullshit book by OJ Simpson -- If I Did It -- where he recounted exact details from the crime but used 3rd person....like someone else did it. *eyeroll*) The man never admitted what he did, never expressed any remorse, or took any responsibility. Instead, he made strange excuses about pornography, a second personality and things that forced the violent acts.

Chilling. Creepy. Disturbing. I read portions of this book and then re-watched the documentary. The documentary includes audio from the tapes and video of Bundy.....pairing that with the book.....wow. Just a powerful display of violence and depravity. Kudos to these men who spent time with Bundy, pretended to believe his BS, and got him to talk.....it really does give an insight into how his mind worked, how he thought nobody could see past his lies and deceptions (he lied to the authors multiple times during interviews) and how in the end the only thing he felt sorry about was his inevitable end in the electric chair.

I'm glad I read this book as I did learn a lot about a killer's mindset....but, in the end, I'm not sure it was information I truly wanted. Or needed. Ugh. I seriously need to watch some Disney+ and read a cute middle grade book or two....maybe three....to get this out of my head. I just feel drained and a bit creeped out.... So many lives cut short. So many innocent young girls...their short lives ending in absolute terror. What a piece of shit example of humanity. I have my doubts about the justice of the death penalty most of the time. But, if anyone really deserved capital punishment, Bundy's death in the electric chair in 1989 was as close to justice as the victims were ever going to get.

I think I'm going to avoid books on true crime and serial killers for awhile. As Nietzsche said, "If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.'' I need some sunshine. Enough dark.

[Shaghayegh · Rating 4 out of 5]

تد باندی یکی از مخوف‌ترین قاتلای زنجیره‌ای آمریکاست، قاتلی که توی مدتی کمتر از چهار سال سی تا زن رو توی شش ایالت مختلف آمریکا به قتل رسوند،
کسی که روان‌شناسی و حقوق خونده بود و حتی توی دادگاه هم عضوی از تیم وکلای دفاعی خودش بود. یه فرد کاریزماتیک که افرادی که در کنارش بودن به خواب هم نمی‌دیدن زیر اون چهره‌ی آروم یه هیولا خوابیده باشه.
تد دو بار از زندان فرار کرد و هر بار تا دستگیر شدن به قتل و تجاوزای خودش ادامه داد.
در تمام مدت دادگاهاش هیچ‌وقت حاضر نشد به قتل‌ها اعتراف کنه و تا آخرای ماجرا همه‌چیز رو حاشا کرد، و پلیس هم هیچوقت نتونست مدارک کافی برای تمام قتل‌ها پیدا کنه.
در نهایت تد برای سه قتلی که بهشون محکوم شده بود روی صندلی الکتریکی اعدام شد.
اما قبل از اعدام، و بعد از اینکه آخرین فرجام خواهیش رد شد تصمیم گرفت مصاحبه‌ای کنه و راجع به قتلاش بگه، اما نه از زبان خودش، قبول کرد که فردی که اون قتلا رو انجام داده بود ارزیابی کنه، یعنی چی؟ یعنی توی اتاق مصاحبه‌ی زندان می‌نشست و فرد مصاحبه کننده در مورد قتلا ازش می‌پرسید، و تد به عنوان یه روان‌شناس و وکیل به موضوع نگاه می‌کرد و قاتل رو (خودش!!!) ارزیابی می‌کرد، به عنوان سوم شخص ازش حرف می‌زد انگار نه انگار که تمام این کارا رو خودش انجام داده.
کتابی که من خوندم دقیقا همون مکالمات و ارزیابیاست، نمیشه اسمشو بیوگرافی گذاشت، چون روند زندگی تد باندی رو نشون نمی‌ده، اما اتفاقات مربوط به قتلا و تجاوزات و فرار از زندان رو تا حد زیادی مطرح می‌کنه. یه جور مستند بود که نمی‌شد زمین گذاشتش و من واقعا از خوندنش لذت بردم.
اولین باری که اسم تد باندی رو شنیدم توی کتاب همسر یک قاتل بود که یه لیست از قاتلای زنجیره‌ای آمریکا رو نشون می‌داد، و حالا بعد خوندن این کتاب حس میکنم باید فیلما و کتابای بیشتری در موردش ببینم و بخونم. چون هنوز هم با گذشت بیشتر از سی سال تد باندی یکی از انیگماهای تاریخ جرم و جنایته و ورای اون چهره‌ی آروم و خونسردش، چیزهایی وجود داره که منتظر کشف شدنه.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
This was such a uniquely intimate perspective on this infamous serial killer. It's incredible how the interviewers were able to get him to share so much information without actually making a legal confession.

It was incredibly disturbing to hear his twisted narrative as he explained and justified his horrible crimes. I would recommend the audiobook version in this case because most of this book is told through dialog. It was gripping and unsettling to hear his words spoken out loud. I will probably be haunted by this book for quite a while.

Of the books I have read on this case, this is one of the most compelling. I would recommend this to true crime junkies who can handle difficult subject matter.

[Erin Clemence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told in his own words, through interviews with the writers, the self-proclaimed “most cold-blooded son of a bitch you’ll ever meet”, Ted Bundy reveals his inner most thoughts and outlines his crimes, as he sits on Death Row.

“Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer” by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth is just as twisted and dark as you’d expect. Bundy is arrogant, charming and disturbed, claiming his innocence and refusing to talk about his crimes in the first person (in fact, the only way the authors can get him to talk about the crimes at all is to discuss them in the third person, encouraging Bundy to describe the murders from “the murderer’s” perspective). Throughout the novel, Bundy contradicts himself several times, claiming to abhor the attention of the public and the media, yet desperately impatient for the book to be published.

“Ted Bundy” is written almost entirely as a script, with Bundy telling his story and the writers occasionally throwing in a snippet or two. It is evident that Bundy loves talking about himself, even though he won’t speak in detail about the murders (hence he admit to being guilty, which he insists throughout the novel is wrongly placed on him) . He talks just enough to leave me utterly desperate for the details he is omitting.

This novel is not at all gory, as the details of the crimes are often barely discussed (since Bundy denies guilt) , and, since it is written by authors, there is not a lot of legal production, so it makes a great novel for those who love the psychological mind but hate the lengthy legal jargon or bloody descriptions of the crimes.

I applaud Michaud and Aynesworth for their “good cop, bad cop” interview style and their honest portrayal of one of the world’s most notorious serial killers. Anyone who has a desperate need to see how the criminal mind works will have to look a little deeper into this novel, as Bundy talks in circles, but the dark and disturbing sociopathology is there if you look hard enough, and it’s both interesting and thought provoking.

[MadameD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Story 5/5
Narration 5/5

This book is well written. It was very interesting, to dive into the mind of this pretentious, unapologetic, psychopathic serial killer.
I think that the scariest thing, in addition to all his horrendous murders, is that he seemed so normal.
It is the first book I read about him, next I’ll read one talking about his murders.
If you like True Crime’s stories, I recommend it to you.

[Ingstje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversations with a Killer is not a straightforward reply to all the questions we might want to ask Ted Bundy but it certainly is a good start if you’re curious about his personality. The interview gives an insight how he started and what sort of a person he is. I thought it would go into the crimes in great detail too but that is not the case, there are no big revelations in this novel in that way but I did manage to build some sort of a picture of him in my head and how he looks at himself and the world.

So who is Ted Bundy? After reading this book I have come to the conclusion that he comes across as someone who’s highly intelligent (much more than I had expected from someone who gives in to his impulses so easily), his attitude is quite confident and at times even cocky. He said he had low self-esteem multiple times and he explained that this lack of self-worth coupled with environment’s impulses (he means porn) made him what he is. He’s an expert in avoiding telling something he doesn’t want to, he’s a manipulator and even in his time with the authors I saw him trying to get his way, making false promises, leading them on. He didn’t sound like the devil incarnate when you hear him talk but when he said he didn’t feel remorse, he had nothing to feel sorry for, it pulled me right back to the crimes he committed and into thinking what sort of a monster he really was, a real wolf in sheep’s clothes. And to think he does everything to stay alive yet didn’t value the lives of the innocent people he pursued at all himself!

Even if you have to take everything this notorious killer says with more than a pinch of salt, it’s still intriguing. I’m sure he said a lot of BS but there are also other things that ring true and make sense. I’m telling you again, he was anything but stupid. I still can’t grasp how he could kill again and again and again (how many times, nobody knows really, Wikipedia tells me he never admitted a specific number) but it was fascinating to hear him talk, be it in a 3rd person voice about ‘the serial killer’. It did create some distance so I probably would have liked it better if he had just told us in his own POV but it wasn’t really hard to transfer his observations and thoughts onto himself either, everyone knows it was really about him.

Confessions of a Killer was a very interesting read and a unique insight in the mind of a killer. It’s a lot of things that it’s not: it’s not a confession, it’s not about the details of his crimes, but if you want to read about the person that is, or I should say was Ted Bundy, then it is certainly worth reading. I’ve certainly enjoyed this short time inside this devil’s mind.

[Juanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed gazing into the mind of this maniac. It was a page turner from the very start.

The one thing that I began to loathe was the fact that Bundy was lying about a lot of things. Only speaking in the third person, he promised to tell the authors of the book how and why he committed the Chi Omega murders but never did. He pretended that he only killed the girls because he didn’t want to get caught and that he beat and dismembered them only because he’d get enraged ahead of time. It was clear, from the murders, that he was a sadistic man. I bought the book thinking that I’d see what his motives were, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to prove that he was inhuman, that he was so far from being human that he was an anomaly. What I found, surprisingly, was that he was, indeed, human; that he had real feelings and even emotions though he often tried throughout the book to pretend that he didn’t. That was the scariest thing about the entire book: he was a man who decided that it would bring him joy to hurt others, and chose to act upon that. Yes, he was disturbed somehow, but really, the only things that made him different from others were his choices.

It was worth the read because I gained a greater understanding of the human psyche and helps in my studies of such. It’ll be worth reading for you too!

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The back cover of the book has the question: What goes on in the mind of a serial killer? And it turns out exactly what you’d expect. It’s unknowable. This type of person is too much of a narcissistic liar to divulge anything. The entire book reveals nothing. The hope was Bundy would confess to the crimes he was so obviously guilty of since he was already in jail and on death row. However, he was never going to do that. Every answer he gives is cloaked double-talk and generalizations. The interviewer tried to get him to speak in the third-person (to depersonalize himself from the crimes) and then asked him specific questions about the crimes. He’d invariably answer “I don’t know how this person would respond to that”, “It might’ve gone that way or maybe it didn’t”, or “possibly”. Ultimately he gives up no information even when it appears he might; he doubles back and cast doubt on what he just said, ad nauseam. He never admits to anything which makes the book pointless. Not very informative. But I suppose, what else would you expect from a psychopathic serial killer who doesn’t experience feelings like the normal part of the population? Exactly that.

[Ivana - Diary of Difference]

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, but this wasn't it...

Full review to come soon x.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer (CD) by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.

This CD is comprised of the original tapes with the killer during his stay in prison and just prior to his execution. The actors portraying T.B., the author, and the interviewer are Graham Halstead, Keith Sellon-Wright, and Jason Culp. These are the actual words of Ted Bundy. The author(s) begin by reporting that during the interviews the killer started answering questions in the 3rd person. thereby never admitting that he did the killings but that he (that other person) did them.

Ted Bundy was brought up by a loving mother and was her first son (illegitimate). Mrs. Bundy later married and had 4 other children when Ted was 4 years old. Ted grew into an intelligent and handsome young man and presented himself with charm as well as a sense of humor. Upon entering college life did not continue the way it had been planned. His grades started falling and Ted no longer found himself in control as he had been. Ted's coping mechanisms did not come in to play at this time.
Ted's mood swings turned into a rage that led to over 30 murders in 7 States during the 1970s. He finally admitted to these heinous crimes shortly before he was executed. However, many believed his murders reached over 100. He attempted to hold out on any information on the murders and their remains trying for a stay of execution. Those attempts ran out and he never would give the rest of the names out in order to give those families some closure for their loved ones.
I read/listened to this because I was curious about the motivation behind this monster. What exactly drove him to kill? The answer I arrived at is that it came down to a choice. The failures and rejections in Ted's life may have been more than he could cope with, but there are other choices.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Ann Rule's book about Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, I picked this up to learn more. From a journalistic standpoint, it's extremely impressive. The two journalist authors basically got Ted Bundy to confess (without technically confessing) and to explain the inner workings of his mind by allowing him to speak in the third person about a "hypothetical serial killer." The intro to the book states that police learned from this book project how effective the use of third person can be as an interview technique for certain types of criminals. From a true crime reader's standpoint, this is one of the creepiest books I've ever read.

[Marissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well I can say of every book I read, this was the longest read! I think I wanted more from it, but it was very boring at parts and frustrating to hear him deny over and over again any involvement with the murders. You do get some insight to his abnormal psychology, but otherwise one of my least favorite books.

[C. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another book that is a total waste of time. Bundy is a lying manipulator who gets a kick out of yanking these author's chains!

No more real insight here than in Ann Rule's book.

I doubt if any book or anyone can really know why such a monster becomes capable of such inhumanity, what causes such depravity.

[Omama. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of all the serial killers, I have been the most fascinated by Ted Bundy. Besides, preparing a report on him for my course work, I watched the movie starring Zac Efron, and the documentary made on him by Netflix, which is so good I had total goosebumps while watching; because it had video clips from original archives, and Bundy’s original interviews. If you’re reading this review, please watch that documentary which is of the same name as this book; and the book is equally good.

Bundy was very smart, and well versed, and having degree in Psychology from University of Washington, he definitely would had given himself a self-assessment. Seemed like a likeable, or interesting person, but that monster that lived in him wasn’t quite clear till the end. Bundy used this discussion to be vague, never truly giving insight or clear accounts of his evil deeds. Stephen and Hugh tried masterfully to get information from him, and succeeded in many ways. However, the sheer number of innocent victims will probably never be known, which are guessed to have been more than 100. Although, Bundy confessed to murdering 30. The judge who was reviewing his case, had the final remarks of:

The court finds that these killings were indeed heinous, atrocious and cruel. And that they were extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life.

[Siren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw one review that someone left that said they still didn't understand why he killed people after reading this book. I understand this person doesn't have the mind of a criminal, but to me it is so clear. It was about possession. He even said it, to him it was about possession, so he felt like he owned the girls after he killed them. It excited him to be able to kill so many people, get away with it, and become a celebrity of sorts in the process. Every time he would try to get his life together and stop killing, it didn't last for long, as the desire to control and posses took hold of him again. Killing people was so exciting, he didn't want to stop. Of course, he also had no form of a conscience, which made things that much easier for him. The fantasies he had that preceded murdering someone he described were always better than the actual murder itself, which left him unsatisfied and only wanting to do if again and to "get it right" next time. The murders became more sexually sadistic as time went on. In this book he tells his life story and it gives us some insights into his personality.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think "ah, I've watched the series on Netflix so I won't bother with the book" then you are missing out.

The book goes so much further than the series does and it's fascinating.
Given the subject at hand and the way Ted Bundy speaks and phrases things, it's a difficult read but so interesting and chilling. How Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth managed to take control of the situation and the patience they must have had was incredible. The subtle wording they use is so interesting, I found myself re-reading sentences a few times just to really get the gist of it.

The book itself is arranged in chronological order of when the interviews took place which I really liked and the version I recieved from Netgalley included the foreword written by Robert Keppel which is as interesting as the rest of the book. He writes of the changes made to the forces largely in part to these cases which is a nice reminder that something was at least learnt amid the horror of Ted Bundy.

[Ghoul Von Horror · Rating 4 out of 5]

*****SPOILERS*****
Release Date: 1989
Genre: True Crime
Rating: ❄️❄️❄️❄️

What I Liked:
1. Sometimes Ted can be so fucking hilarious.
2. A great outlook to a insane person

What I Didn't Like:
1. Sometimes it dragged
2. The chapters felt a little long winded

Overall Thoughts: it's so easy to see why people could fall for Ted Bundy. He is so charismatic has a way with words that makes him seem so interesting that you have to talk to him. The things that he says are just so ridiculous and hilarious and funny that you could see why a person would be tempted to fall into his web. This book really gives you the insight needed to understand what a complete narcissistic and manipulative person he was. It always amazes me how they serial killers are so quick to take a person's life but the moment when their lives are coming to an end they scrape at anything to survive. The study of Ted is such an interesting one. He came from such a good family and had loving parents but you can't hide what lerks in the mind.

Final Thoughts: You should definitely give this one a go if you like to study the mind of a killer and why not one of the most known killers at that. Old Ted loved to talk even when he wasn't actually saying anything.

[Michael Slavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an interesting book.

I am always reading about psychopaths and serial killers as research for my own novels. This was very different actually hearing Bundy discuss his stare of mind and some details of his killings.

Worth the read and don't give up on it. Bundy rambles sometimes and it feels like gibberish, but then he'll say something that is so insightful into his mind.

Very interesting.

[britt_brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was especially disturbing on audio as a separate narrator read the Bundy parts, and if you can let your brain go, it seems like it was actually him. The fascination with serial killers is disturbing, yet here I am. It’s that desire to try to understand, but there is no rationality. Bundy was truly delusional. How the interviewer got him to speak in third person about his crimes was brilliant.

[Sol · Rating 3 out of 5]

jornalista é um bicho mizera, abençoa. a parte mais horrível desse livro é que o ted bundy fala feito um podcaster.

tô num binge do bundy por pura coincidência do catálogo da netflix e agora, dois documentários e um livro depois, sinto que mais do que um estudo sobre a Terrível Maldade Humana, é mais sobre um homem realmente muito besta. não que besta vá diminuir a gravidade do que ele fez com as vítimas e suas famílias, mas muito OTÁRIO. muito imbecil.

o aynesworth até questiona como, em sua serenidade recém descoberta, o bundy reage aos que duvidam de seu RENASCIMENTO CONVENIENTE, aí recebe um monólogo bem previsível sobre, sei lá, o QUANTO ele não se importa. foda.

o livro é uma transcrição da maior parte das conversas do bundy com os dois autores. a primeira parte é bem otimista, todo mundo se dando bem e antecipando uma boa parceria, ou ao menos ambos mutualmente se engobolando em xadrez 5D pelo bem da investigação criminal. a segunda parte é o aynesworth puto que o bundy é... bem, o bundy, e o bundy tentando dar a volta na volta da volta e aí lecionando palestras gratuitas sobre seu nirvana espiritual e o comer/rezar/amar que alcançou em sua estadia na prisão. como se ele fosse um iluminado, onisciente e sábio.

as partes mais engraçadas são as do bundy falando seguidas de interjeições dos autores esclarecendo que ele está mentindo. uma anedota que me ajudou a entender como esse bicho é otário foi a de que ele sinceramente não sabia como haviam testemunhas oculares de seus crimes: ele não acreditava que pudesse ser visto, já que ninguém se importa tanto assim com as outras pessoas.

as partes mais engraçadas são essas: as colisões entre a arrogância nata do bundy com o saco cheio dos jornalistas.

muito besta. o caso bundy, pra mim, é impressionante pela união cosmicamente abençoada de incompetência policial e um homem branco estudante de direito. não deu outra. como o cara é denunciado 3 vezes pelo desaparecimento de várias meninas brancas de classe média-alta e AINDA ASSIM não é nem investigado? e agora ele é considerado uma das mentes mais brilhantes do acervo do cidade alerta. incrível. mas ainda acho que ele é muito é besta. contraditório, mentiroso, fajuto, não se segura sob um olhar aprofundado, sabe? pode ter pensado em tudo para evitar ter sido detectado, mas depois tudo que soube fazer foi piorar a própria situação e chamar toda e qualquer evidência de circunstancial.

tô pensando muito em como um homem desse quase se safou de tudo. como ele teve coragem, por exemplo, de comparar a questão da pena de morte ao aborto. como ele insiste que é são e consciente, mas teve a pachorra de tentar usar o que sabia sobre os crimes para obter mais tempo antes da execução, tudo isso com fitas GRAVADAS dele insistindo que todo mundo morre um dia e ele não tem mais medo de nada. como ele deve ter morrido se achando mais inteligente que todas as outras pessoas, mas pelo menos morreu, né.

[Janel · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things I always seek out when I read crime fiction is the chilling insight into a killer’s mind. But those killers are fictional, make-believe, and that creates a “safety barrier.” This book is nonfiction, a real killer, a serial killer, and this book gives us “barrier-free” access to his mind. And compared to all the fiction I read, this is truly terrifying. To read how Bundy speaks about his crimes, his twisted, warped views, chilled me to my core. I conclude that there is nothing more disturbing than a serial killer talking about himself in third person.

Prior to reading this book, I watched the Netflix documentary and I was worried I wouldn’t get much out of this book, that it’d be a repetition of information. But, let me tell you, reading this book was far more chilling than watching it. I thought the chill would come from hearing Bundy speak in the documentary, but when you read this book, your mind is processing what you’re reading, the shock, the horror, you may even reread certain bits because you’re convinced you read it wrong, because it’s so twisted it can’t be true! Most of this book is set out in interview format, it’s raw, it’s real, and most importantly [for me], it doesn’t have the sensationalist aspect the Netflix documentary did.

Due to the way this book is formatted, you see the word “uh” used an awful lot, see below for an example.

“TB: It wouldn’t. . . uh, change materially.”

This makes perfect sense, and it’s how Bundy spoke, so I totally get it, but it did stop the fluidity of the read at times, especially when it was included several times in one paragraph. Yes, it signified times when Bundy was likely thinking about how to say what he wanted to say, or biding time for whatever reason, but sometimes it created a stilted effect.

Overall, this is a book that does what the blurb states, so you can be confident that if you choose to read this book, you will get exactly what you are asking for – an insight into the mind of a serial killer, in his own words. The depth of your knowledge into Bundy is irrelevant, this book is accessible to all, while there are many books/studies about Bundy and his crimes, can any account be as powerfully told as the one the killer tells himself? If true crime is your forte, you could say this one is mandatory reading!

Side note: I vote ‘no’ to putting serial killers on the cover of books, I had to keep this book facedown whenever I wasn’t reading it, because walking past it and seeing this disturbing cover, Bundy’s ‘half-in-the-dark’ face staring at me was creepy as hell! At least, I can say the content on the pages is as disturbing as the cover! This book, Bundy’s words, really unsettled something in me, but credit to the authors for thinking of a way to get Bundy to speak about his crimes.

*My thanks to the publisher (Mirror Books) for providing me with a copy of this book*

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book provided a great insight into bundy's mind, if that were even possible. The fact that he kind of went into details of his crimes but he had to do it in the third person was interesting, like he couldn't accept that he could have done that. That part was intriguing.
Bundy is very smart about the way that he details the crimes he gives like little hints but then he doesn't give anything detailed enough that he could give anything away. He does not tell the whole story but he theorizes and even goes into detail about how he phone pranked one of the DA's wives.
He goes into the moments where he theorizes and even gives something away and then he tries to back step his thoughts. I really enjoyed this book and the insight that was given. I still think that his number is really higher than what they originally thought because he does say that they cant prove a crime without a body.

[Philomena Callan Cheekypee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel as if I’ve read this at the right time. I haven’t watched the Ted Bundy series on Netflix and now there’s a movie in the cinema about him. Personally I prefer to read rather than watch.

Wow what a story. Anything I imagined about Ted was thrown out the window when I read this.

This gives a very good insight into what kind of man he was. I thought he was clever and charming which I didn’t expect.

Personally I found this to be a fascinating yet chilling read. This has made me even more interested in reading or even watching more about Ted Bundy.

I’ve got to say I rarely read true stories as I like to escape from real life. However I was curious about Ted Bundy and I’m really glad I read this.

Well done to the authors on a well written story.

[Bernie Weisz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian Pembrone Pines, Fl USA Contact: [email protected] Dec. 24, 2008 Title of Review: "A Twisted Manipulator that Rambles to Save His Life" This book is a very frustrating read to say the least. Expecting a confession, Ted Bundy rambles with his little shenanigan of describing to the two writers, Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth in the third person in considerable detail what it "would be like" to be a serial killer. This confession of what he was eventually executed for in the electric chair sadly never comes. Ted Bundy was born on November 24, 1946. Bundy murdered numerous young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. After a decade of vigorous denials, he eventually confessed (although not in this book) to 30 murders, although the actual total remains unknown. Estimates range from 29 to over 100, with the general estimate being 35.

Generally, Bundy would bludgeon his victims, then strangle them to death. He also raped almost all his victims and engaged in necrophilia. On January 23, 1989, the night before Bundy was executed at age 42 at Florida State Prison in Starke, Florida, Bundy gave a television interview to James Dobson, head of the Christian organization "Focus on Family." During the interview, Bundy made repeated claims as to the pornographic "roots" of his crimes. He stated that, while pornography did not cause him to commit murder, the consumption of violent pornography helped "shape and mold" his violence into "behavior too terrible to describe." He alleged that he felt that violence in the media, "particularly sexualized violence" sent boys "down the road to being Ted Bundys." In the same interview, Bundy stated: "You are going to kill me, and that will protect society from me. But there are many, many more people who are addicted to pornography, and you are doing nothing about that." Bundy is interviewed in this book for over 150 hours, and throughout the pages denies that he ever killed anyone.

Bundy gives a rambling tale of his early school days, his shoplifting, his drinking and feelings of inadequacy because he was a small man, but he points specifically at pornography as the start of all his problems. Interestingly enough, for a "cold-blooded, savage killer" to point at pornography as the start of his problems is supported in a book written by David E. Caton. Caton supports Bundy's claim by stating: "The moral conscience of man becomes desensitized and seared from the use of pornography. Pictures which at one time were repulsive, obscene and vile become attractive to the porn user as his moral conscious erodes. By viewing soft core pornography, the porn user has opened the door for all wickedness and evil acts to become acceptable to him. The desire for harder porn becomes obsessive as the softer material appears less erotic to the porn user. Most often the porn user escalated his immoral behavior by indulging in hardcore porn, child porn, sadomasochistic porn, Satan worship porn, and snuff (actual killing) films. The damage done through this escalation of immoral behavior is irreversible without Jesus Christ."

Furthermore, Caton adds: "The porn user has now become a prisoner to the spirit of bondage. Such bondage often leads the porn user to act out scenes in pornography, thus raping, molesting and even killing innocent people." Aside from detailing his earlier career as a "peeping tom", Bundy has this to say: "In a pornography shop you can find a variety of perversions in sexual conduct, from homosexuality, to abuse, to lesbianism, etc. People who market pornography are dealing with a special-interest group. It offers variety and different kinds of literature, and a certain percentage of it is devoted toward literature that explores situations where a man, in the context of sexual encounter, in one way or another, engages in some sort of violence toward a woman-or the victim." Annoyingly, Bundy gives an example of how, if one was to become a serial killer(in the 3rd person, of course), how the idea would come to him to hurt a woman would be as follows:" On one particular evening, when "he" had been drinking a great deal...and as he was passing a bar, he saw a woman leaving the bar and walk up a fairly dark street. And for no, uh, we'd say that, something seemed to seize him!"

Next, Bundy continued with his hypothetical example with the following scenario: "I was going to say something crystallized, but that's another way of looking at it. But the urge to do something to that person seized him-in a way it had never affected him before. And it seized him strongly. And to the point where, uh, without giving it a great deal of thought, he searched around for some instrumentality to uh, uh, attack this woman with. He found a piece of two-by-four in a lot somewhere and proceeded to follow and track this girl". It's obvious to the reader who this "he" is. This gets irritating to the point that both Michaud and Aynesworth constantly remind Bundy of his evasiveness and that he deviates around a question if he doesn't like it. However, there is an important message Bundy sends to the public. Bundy states that the only thing that will stop a budding serial killer is to restrict or eliminate stimuli that could provoke that deadly behavior.

Elaborating further on limiting provocative stimulation, Bundy asserted: Bundy explains: "The things that can be done to prevent persons from engaging in homicidal behavior on a massive scale are things which society has to correct on a massive scale. If society were able to restrict or otherwise eliminate the environmental stimuli that provoke or otherwise create this kind of individual, or the mores that contribute to his behavior, then it would go a long way toward eliminating that kind of behavior". This statement of Bundy's is supported in a book written by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who claims that violent video games hardwire young people for shooting at humans and that the entertainment industry conditions the young in exactly the same way the military does. Grossman writes: "Some would claim that modern, ultraviolet movies and their video-game equivalents examined here serve as a form of sublimation that will make violence and war obsolete."

"Sublimation" is a term coined by Sigmund Freud to the turning of unacceptable urges and desires toward something socially desirable:taking the dark, unacceptable drives of the id and diverting them toward the sublime. Thus someone with a desire to slice open bodies may become a surgeon, or someone with an unacceptable urge toward violence may channel it towards sports, the military, or law enforcement. But watching movies is not sublimation. The entertainment industry is not providing a socially acceptable channeling of energy. Indeed, very little energy is generally spent in the passive reception of TV and movies. And this hardly qualifies as a socially acceptable or desirable channel for energies. Unless it has become socially desirable to kill outside the authority of the law, or to murder innocent victims-which, in the twisted world of the entertainment industry, it has. If violence in TV and movies were a form of sublimation, and if it were at all effective, then per capita violence should be going down. Instead it has multiplied nearly seven times in the span of the same generation in which this supposed sublimation has become available". Clearly, Bundy has a point.

There are two topics that Bundy explored that truly jump out at me in this book. First, if you didn't know that Ted Bundy had sodomized, decapitated, raped and murdered over 30 innocent women, you would get the sense that he was a very level headed, smart and sophisticated gentleman that couldn't be a savage, serial-killing degenerate. However, when Michaud and Ainsworth confront Bundy about if he had any remorse or guilt for what he had done, Bundy frightfully had this to say:"I don't feel guilty for anything. Guilt? It's this mechanism we use to control people. It's an illusion. it's a kind of social control mechanism-and it's very unhealthy. It does terrible things to our bodies. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt". Obviously, this man is very sick! Even more deranged, is his justification of a serial killer where he asserts: "Well, she or he (once again, Bundy talks in the 3rd person) would of hurt me if I hadn't hurt them. Well, there's so many people, they won't be missed. The victim was luring them or trying to arouse them, uh, in some way. They deserved it, you know, or uh, all sorts of things like that." Finally, this book, while being a let down because Bundy never admits as to his terrifying deeds, does give you a glimpse into how a charming, clean-cut, all-American boy and law student was truly a master manipulator and sadistic monster. This book, despite lacking a confession, was an interesting read worthy of your time. It will give you a glimpse of what made this sociopath tick!

[Lexi Kruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ted Bundy is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating serial killers on record. There’s just something about his case that has its hooks in me deep.

Somehow, no matter how much information I consume about Ted Bundy, there’s always one little morsel that lights my brain up, whether that be a detail I didn’t know before or even just a different perspective on the case. And with this book we, as the reader, got Ted’s actual perspective on the murders and got to hear his thoughts and feelings on what took place in his own words. Of course, the whole time he played it off like it wasn’t him doing these things (which added another level of craziness to the text) but it was intriguing nonetheless.

If you want some extra creep factor, there’s a Netflix documentary similar in title where you get to LITERALLY hear Ted having this conversations with the detectives. 😳 (As no surprise, I’ve already watched it, lolol!) Otherwise - if you’re a fan of true crime, give this one a try!

[Cherry's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha sido una lectura muy absorbente y una forma cuanto menos original de empezar mi año de lecturas.
El leer las conversaciones de primera mano te da una visión más completa de todo dado que nada está omitido, como si pasa en los muchos documentales sobre Ted Bundy.
Algunas reflexiones son muy interesantes, aunque evidentemente están motivadas o se ha llegado a ellas de manera interesada, debido a su situación como preso en el corredor de la muerte.

Lo único que he echado en falta ha sido una reflexión final por parte de los autores o al menos un epílogo con la información de las confesiones que hizo de última hora, previas a la ejecución. Creo que es una lectura casi obligatoria para todos los fans del true crime.

[Medina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched the Netflix documentary prior to reading this book.. but man, the book was really a page turner too. It’s just so wild to me how truly complex the mind of a serial killer is. The way he just kept denying any of these killings.. or how he was willing to create these “scenarios” in the third person about what this “killer” did was beyond me. Just goes to show how truly narcissistic, controlling and manipulative these types of people are.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.7

Bundy the whole book never admitted to the murders.
When getting interviewed he would say “they” and “he” when we all know he was the one doing these things.
He did slip up a few times in the book when asked a question about a killing instead of saying “they” must have done this he said “I” and quickly correct himself but it just shows how sick he was and how much of a pussy he is for not admitting it

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably should have read this instead of listening to it. I think I would have liked it more.