Ted Bundy's alter ego first came to the surface during his student days at the University of Washington. In 1974, he killed seven women in as many months and inflicted permanent brain damage on another, using a metal rod to fracture her skull, then ramming it nto her vagina. From Seattle, he moved to Salt Lake City, enrolling in the University of Utah school of law. Before long, he had established himself as an up-and-coming young Republican with bright political prospects. At the same time, however, the creature that lurked beneath this brilliant facade continued to lust after blood. Young women began disappearing from his Salt Lake area--including a police chief's teenage daughter, whose nude and mutilated remains were eventually found in a canyon.
Bundy also made occasional forays into Colorado, where at least five other young women vanished and died. In 1976, he was finally arrested but managed to escape twice, once by climbing through a courthouse window, the second time by sawing a hole in the ceiling of his cell.
In January 1978 he turned up in Tallahassee, Florida. By now, his murderous side was taking control. No longer did Bundy bother to coax young women into his car. Instead, he simply slipped into their rooms at night and pounced on them. In one case, he nearly chewed off the nipple of a victim, then bit her buttocks so savagely that he left teeth marks in her flesh. Those marks were his undoing. After Florida police arrested him in February--for driving a stolen vehicle--they were able to match photographs of the bite makrs with impressions of Bundy's teeth.
At his trial, the erstwhile law student acted as his own attorney. He failed to impress either the judge or the jury--though he was able to delay his execution for ten years following his conviction. In a desperate effort to fend off death, he also began cooperating with authorities. Interviewed by agents of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, he offered invaluable insights into the psychology of serial killers. He also confessed to twenty-eight murders (though he is suspected of more, perhaps as many as one hundred).
Ultimately, the legal process caught up with him. He was electrocuted in February 1989. Outside the prison walls, hundreds of people toasted his death with champagne.