The Stranger Beside Me

by Ann Rule

I HAD NEITHER SEEN nor heard from Ted Bundy since the Crisis Clinic Christmas party in December 1973. And then, my phone rang on an afternoon in late September 1975. It was Ted, calling from Salt Lake City.

There seemed to be two Ted Bundys emerging. One, the perfect son, the University of Washington student who had graduated “with distinction,” the fledgling lawyer and politician, and the other, a charming schemer, a man who could manipulate women with ease, whether it be sex or money he desired, and it made no difference if the women were eighteen or sixty-five. And there was, perhaps, a third Ted Bundy, a man who turned cold and hostile toward women with very little provocation.

Florida’s electric chair was a terribly real threat. Only five days before, Florida had proved that it would carry out its death sentences. On May 25, John Spenkelink, convicted of the 1973 murder of a fellow ex-con in a Tallahassee motel room, had been executed. It was the first execution in the United States since Gary Gilmore had gone before the firing squad in Utah on January 19, 1977, at his own request.