PROFILE: Ted Bundy Part 3 - The Florida Trials, Bob Keppel & Old Sparky

Ted Bundy was offered a deal. Plead guilty to three murders, take three twenty five year sentences, live. He was going to take it. Then he realised he would have to stand up in front of the world and say the word guilty, and he could not do it. Nine years later he was dead.

Part three of three. The trials, the interviews, and the last two hours.

Dr. Cathy Barrett, forensic psychologist, closes the case. Shannon asks the questions.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) What we're covering tonight

(02:08) Five lawyers, all fired

(04:48) The plea deal he almost took

(06:50) The bite mark

(07:15) Seven hours, and two death sentences

(09:49) Orlando, and Kimberly Leach

(11:38) Carole Ann Boone, married in court

(13:58) Stephen Michaud, before the fall

(17:35) The man who wouldn't say "I"

(17:59) Bob Keppel arrives

(18:28) The Green River Killer gambit

(21:27) Georgann Hawkins, and the map

(24:21) "The ultimate possession"

(25:50) Preparing him for the chair

(28:22) Hacksaw blades and John Hinckley

(30:18) Diana Weiner, the last lobby

(31:38) Old Sparky, 7:16am

(32:22) Our very first series

IN THIS EPISODE

The plea he rejected. Public defender Mike Minerva said it plainly: Bundy realised he would have to stand up in front of the whole world and say he was guilty, and he just couldn't. Cathy on why a narcissist blows up his own best outcome at the last possible second.

The bite mark on Lisa Levy, and a forensic odontologist matching the castings to the wounds. Jury out less than seven hours.

Stephen Michaud's interviews, recorded before Bundy was convicted, in which he described the killings in enormous detail and never once used the word I. He would hold the recorder, close his eyes, and speak into it in what observers described as a trance, with a welt rising on the left side of his face that faded when he came out of it.

Bob Keppel, the detective Bundy contacted in 1984 offering to help catch the Green River Killer. He gave up far more about himself than about anyone else. Five years later Keppel came back and said, I want to talk about you.

Georgann Hawkins, the crowbar, and the panic afterwards, which is not something psychopaths are supposed to feel.

The last two hours. The sixty day request, the suicide threat, and the crowd outside Raiford setting off fireworks as the hearse went past.

Contains discussion of murder, sexual violence, execution and the death penalty.

CORRECTIONS

The third victim in the plea offer was Kimberly Leach. Cheryl Thomas, attacked in her apartment after Chi Omega, survived.

John Hinckley Jr shot President Reagan in 1981. The episode says Kennedy.

Bundy married Carole Ann Boone during the penalty phase of the Leach trial in Orlando, not at the Chi Omega sentencing.

Stephen Michaud wrote The Only Living Witness with Hugh Aynesworth. Those interviews are the source of the third person recordings.

THE SERIES

Part 1: Childhood, teenage years, college

Part 2: The killings, the escapes, Chi Omega

Part 3: The trials, the interviews, the execution

Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

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