CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

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CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

Title: Psychological Analysis on Ted Bundy

Aayushi Bagga

Edith Cowan University

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this case study is to assess Ted Bundy’s criminal record through

investigating significant life events in correlation with psychological theories and research.

Beginning with an initial introduction into the basis of Bundy’s criminal life, the case study

then discusses both the legal and behavioural definitions of his offences. Bundy’s offending

behaviour may be explained by the inferred diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. The

causes behind Bundy’s criminal behaviour are thus examined using psychological literature.

This case study will focus on the dismissive attachment theory, operant learning and

reinforcement, and the effects of violent media in explaining Bundy’s criminal career. Such

research is considered in unification with Bundy’s significant life events, comprising his

father’s rejection prior to his birth, misperception of family figures, separation from his

parents and exposure to violent media as a teenager, to conclude the reasoning behind his

criminal behaviour.
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

Table of Contents

Introduction………

Legal Definitions of Offences

Clinical Definitions of Offences

History of Offender and Psychological Explanations

Conclusion

Introduction

Theodore Robert Cowell, infamously known as Ted Bundy was born on November

24th 1946 in Burlington Vermont, to Louise Cowell. He was an American serial murderer

who violently killed and sexually attacked a known thirty female victims. Bundy was

notorious for the nature of his crimes, as he faked injuries and handicaps as a means to gain

the victims trust before murdering them. He persistently returned to a number of his victims

to engage in sexual activities with their deceased bodies until they had deteriorated. Whilst
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

travelling the country searching for his victims, Bundy escaped lawful authority on two

events before served with capital punishment in January 1989.

Bundy was known to be canny and achieved well in his law and psychology courses;

however since an early age experienced severe emotional issues and a lacked the ability to

socially engage in others. Despite the façade of being socially interactive, Bundy favoured his

own company and found it difficult to associate with others, especially after his first breakup.

The dismissal by his former girlfriend is suggested to have triggered Bundy’s severe

frustration and anger, indicating that his first murder was a result of this rejection and the rage

associated with that trigger.

This case study will examine some significant events in Bundy’s life using the

Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), psychological theories and

research in an attempt to explain why he committed these crimes. The psychological

principles covered include personality disorders, attachment theory, and operant learning and

positive reinforcement theory.

Legal Definitions of Offences

Bundy was found guilty of sexual penetration, kidnapping and murder. Section 325 of

the Criminal Code Act Compilation Act 1913 (WA) (Criminal Code) defines sexual

penetration (rape) as a person who sexually penetrates another person without the consent of

that person. Under s. 279 of the Criminal Code murder is defined as the unlawful killing of

another person where there is either the intent to kill, or cause grievous bodily harm, with the

knowledge that death or grievous bodily harm would occur. According to s. 333 kidnapping
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

is outlined as a person who deprives another person of personal liberty by taking or enticing

the other person away, or by confining and detaining the other person in any place.

Clinical Definitions of Offences

Using the DSM-V (2013) and literature available explaining Bundy’s behaviour and

his criminal history, it can be inferred that he may have suffered from antisocial personality

disorder. Antisocial personality disorder is defined within the DSM-V (2013) as a pattern of

disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others, beginning in childhood and continuing

into adulthood. The following key elements of the disorder are all strong indications that

Bundy suffered from APD as adult, however the diagnosis only requires three or more of the

succeeding components:

● The involvement in deceit and manipulation of others, evident in the repetition

of lying, use of aliases and conning others from his own personal profit and

pleasure. For example, Bundy lured his victims him by first gaining there trust

through faking injuries before sexually assaulting them.

● A consistent failure to conform to social norms, as indicated in Bundy’s lack

of ability to engage in others in an appropriate manner recurrently engaging in

serious antisocial behaviour and delinquency.

● The disrespect for lawful behaviours as apparent by recurrently performing the

illegal acts of murder and kidnapping.

● Actions should show impulsivity or the failure to plan ahead. Evidently,

Bundy tried to enact the police’s identity and lure a woman into his car, but

she managed to escape from his hold and later identified him at the police

station as the man who tried to molest her.

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

● Behaviour is aggressive, irritable and displays a reckless disregard for the

safety or others. Bundy’s arrest and conviction for sexually assaulting and

murdering more than 30 women depicts his aggressive behaviour and lack

disregard for others.

● Consistent irresponsibility is apparent by Bundy’s repeated failure to sustain

consistent employment or honour financial commitments.

● Maintaining a lack of remorse is a significant element within Bundy’s

behaviour, indicated by his actions of pursuing his female victims through the

means of gaining access to them by portraying himself as someone

trustworthy. Additionally, the action of returning to his victims’ bodies with

the intent to sexually abuse them depicts not only his lack of remorse for his

victims, but his need for sexual gratification from them.

B. The individual is at least 18 years of age.

C. There is evidence of conduct disorder before age 15. According to Rule (2009),

Ted was caught for auto theft and burglary two times as juvenile.

D. The occurrence of antisocial behaviour is not exclusively during the course of

schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

History of Offender and Psychological Explanations

From birth, Bundy was physically and emotionally abandoned by his father as he left

both Bundy and his mother, Louise, before he was conceived. Despite his birth certificate

records stating that Lloyd Marshall was the father (Rule, 2000), Bundy’s family suspected

that Louise may have fathered the child with her own violent father (Michaud et al, 1999).
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

Since a child, Louise passed herself off as Bundy’s sister, with his grandparents acting as his

parents in order to save the family from shame. Despite the fact that his mother was there

with him amid his youth, she was unable to provide Bundy with the love and support he

needed from a mother as a child. Literature shows that a child who is neglected by his mother

is at high risk of developing antisocial and violent habits (Whitman, 2004). Children who fail

to develop a safe and connected association with their parental figures are likely to encounter

a scope of issues including personal, behavioral and social issues, all significant elements

constructing the development of antisocial personality disorder (Levy et al, 2004).

There is emerging proof that hereditary qualities may play a part in the development

of psychopathy which is considered within literature as significant linked to anti-social

personality disorder (Bartol et al, 2011). It has been accounted that Bundy’s grandfather

would beat the family dog and swung the neighbourhood cat by its tail (Shapiro, 2005). This

early misconduct and behaviour portraying complete disrespect and disregard for other’s

safety may have affected Bundy’s learning, as it was modelled that treating animals with

violence was acceptable. Once in a while displaying disturbing conduct, his grandmother

once woke up encompassed by kitchen knives, to see the three year old Ted grinning up at her

(Rule, 2009) – you need to reword this sentence, I don’t know if you are saying that Bundy

covered his Grandmother in knives by placing them around her? And you need to explain

why this is evidence of behaviour appropriate for the development of APD. As a young

person Bundy spent a significant amount of time viewing obscene magazines and books with

dead or damaged bodies (Nelson, 1994). It can be inferred that this visual triggered Bundy’s

behaviour of lurking around homes in search of females undressing themselves, also fuelled

by the uptake of profuse consumption of liquor (Michaud et al, 1999). Bundy has stated that
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

“once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of addiction, you look for more

potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material” (Shapiro, 2005).

At the age of four, Bundy was separated from his grandparents and Louise decided to

move to Washington to start a new life. In his early teens Bundy came to know about his

illegitimacy and later found out that his sister was his mother. Research proposes that this

family dysfunction and neglect caused Bundy to search comfort within himself, starting with

masturbation and sexual fantasies which feels pleasurable but enables him with a sense of

control (Whitman, 2004). Additionally, Bundy’s separation from his grandparents and

discovering the truth about his familial roles, contribute to the formation of his inability to

developed interpersonal relations. As a result of their environment, serial killers are often

damaged both psychologically (Carbajal, 2010), in Bundy’s case fearing loss or separation

generates strong feelings of anxiety and rage in the offender, resulting in his violent actions

(Bartol et al., 2011).

Bundy’s first relationship was with Stephanie and due to his strong feelings of love

for her was he invested a significant amount of effort trying to impress her. However Bundy’s

girlfriend felt he was inadequate and had no hope for the future, thus she broke up with him.

This rejection is believed to have triggered an accumulation of fear, anger, resentment and

frustration which he emitted by engaging in violent acts of rape and murder. Literature

supports this conjecture stating that serial murderers begin to kill as a result of increasing

feelings of rejection, frustration, anger and powerlessness (Liebman, 1989; Whitman and

Akutagawa, 2004). Accordingly, the women Bundy violently engaged him physically

resembled his former girlfriend Stephanie.

In his interview with James Dobson Bundy said that “From time to time, we

would come across books of a harder nature - more graphic. This also included detective
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

magazines, etc., and I want to emphasize this. The most damaging kind of pornography - and

I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience - is that that involves violence and sexual

violence. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder and gives you a

greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far

- that jumping off point where you begin to think maybe actually doing it will give you that

which is just beyond reading about it and looking at it” - this is a waste of words and you

need to rephrase it in a sentence and then state why its important > what does it mean?. Most

of the general public believes that rapists are psychopathic, sexually frustrated individuals,

who are unable to control their sexual urges (Allison, Adams, Bunce, Gilkerson, & Nelson,

1992). Bundy would go back to the victim’s dead bodies, and perform sexual activities with

them until it was physically impossible. Also, Bundy forced his girlfriend Meg, to act like a

dead body while he performed sexually – unless youre going to reference this and link it to

the rest of the paragraph its not needed. Necrophilia can best be described as sexual arousal

stimulated by a dead body (Hucker, 2005). Killers frequently engage in necrophilia, which

allows them to feel complete control over the body of victims in both life and death

(Carbajal, 2010). Other research also shows that exposure to explicit violent content increases

the level of sexual aggression toward women (Shope, 2004). * you need a concluding

sentence the sums up what you have said, but explains WHY it is significant.

Bowlby (1969) was the founder of Attachment theory which drew attention of

many researchers (Ainsworth, 1979; Birnbaum, 2007; Bowlby, 1969; Burton & Lyn, 2004).

Attachment theory has an evolutionary proposition and says that babies develop connections

to a parental figure to secure their survival (Birnbaum, 2007). Diverse connection styles will

develop based upon the quality of the relationship between the new born and the parent

(Birnbaum, 2007). Attachment theorists propose that an interruption in the production of

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

connections between the child and mother within the earliest stages will prompt issues in

adulthood concerning relationships, connections and self-control (Feerick, Haugaard and

Hien, 2002). It is the assessment of this paper Ted Bundy built up an avoidant-dismissive

attachment style – makes no sense what are you trying to say? Re-word simply and clearly.

which has been portrayed as a characteristic for somebody with a dismissive

attachment style (Arrigo and Griffin, 2004). When Bundy was four years of age he was taken

from his grandparents, who he accepted were his parents (Tenet, 1980). Leaving his

grandfather may have been an "interruption" in the development of an association with

somebody critical to Bundy, which could have started the dismissive attachment style.

However, as Bundy was conceived inside an organization for unwed moms, this too could

have been the reason for him to develop dismissive attachment style. In such an organization

it might not have been a sustaining situation in which Bundy could get a ton of consideration

from his mother. Thus dismissive attachment style and combined with exposure to violent

pornography could have been the factors in making Bundy sexually aggressive.

– Okay you need to re-structure and re word this paragraph. Make it simple and clear, firs

you need to define what a dismissive attachment style is, and then you need to state why

Bundy has it succinctly. Don’t include his father and stepfather because its irrelevant. Who

did he have a dismissive relationship with? Who was the main caregiver? You need to

identify that and then say why a dismissive relationship developed with that caregiver, and

then explain how the type of attachment may have caused sexual aggression

Ted’s criminal actions can also be explained using operant learning and reinforcement

theory. For every crime Bundy committed, he gained something he anticipated as a

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

consequence of his behaviour; this may deduce that positive reinforcement was occurring

(Bartol & Bartol, 2011). Criminal behaviour is learned and strengthened because of the

reinforcements it brings (Bartol & Bartol, 2011). As an example, his violent crimes appeared

to be driven by a desire for social and psychological reinforcements such as self-esteem,

through rewards of pleasure (Bartol & Bartol, 2011). The expectancy theory argues that a

person’s performance level is based on their expectation that behaving in a particular way

will lead to a given outcome (Bartol & Bartol, 2011). For example, people always seek for

power, control, and security when they think of engaging in illegal conduct (Bartol & Bartol,

2011). In regards to Bundy, the operant learning and positive reinforcement theory supports

his criminal behaviour through the satisfaction he received from sexual pleasure of assaulting

his victims, whilst the expectancy theory relates strongly to his need for control over women.

The displaced aggression theory states “Aggression is displaced when the target is

innocent of any wrongdoing but is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time” (Bushman,

2005). In Bundy’s life this theory could be associated as he faced rejection from Stephanie,

someone he loved and she was the only person he had been able to form a relation after issues

with his family. It is believed that it was after Stephanie broke up with him, Bundy started

committing crime. – if you are going to use this and you need to state it in the introduction.

Also you need to conclude it with WHY does this theory support the cause behind his

murders?

Conclusion

Bundy’s behaviour in conjunction with the psychological literature discussed

indicates that his criminal actions were caused by an accumulation of anger, resentment and

lack of self-control. It can be concluded that the dismissal of a father figure, violence

modelled by his grandfather, the absence of a motherly figure and rejection from his former
 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

girlfriend were the core of Bundy’s aggression. There are various psychopathic characteristics

evident within Bundy inferred from the available literature which could have been

exacerbated by his youth obsession on violent and sexual pictures. Additionally, the

dismissive attachment theory supports the inferred diagnosis of antisocial personality

disorder, as he was never able to secure any relations in his life. The psychological theories

and related literature support the view that certain personality traits, influenced by

environmental factors, can increase the likelihood of a person developing criminal

tendencies. Thus Bundy’s criminal record can to some extent be explain by a clinical

diagnosis and the environment of which he developed in, specifically involving the lack of

emotional connections and immense rejections.

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1979). Infant-mother attachment. American Psychologist, 34,

932-937.

Allison, J.A., Adams, D.L., Bunce, L.W., Gilkerson, T., & Nelson, K.L. (1992). The

rapist: Aggressive, dangerous, power-hungry, and manipulative. Paper presented at the

convention of the Association for Psychological and Educational Research in Kansas,

Emporia, Kansas.

Arrigo, B. A. & Griffin, A. (2004). Serial murder and the case of Aileen Wuornos:

Attachment theory, psychopathy and predatory aggression. Behavioral Sciences and Law, 22,

375- 393

Bartol, C., & Bartol, A. (2011). Criminal Behaviour, A Psychological Approach .

Pearson .

Birnbaum, G. E. (2007). Beyond the borders of reality: Attachment orientations and

sexual fantasies. Personal Relationships, 14, 321-342.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Attachment, volume 1. London, UK:

Hogarth

Bundy, T. & Dobson, J. (2004, January 27). The last interview with Ted Bundy.

[Radio interview]. Retrieved from http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1515802

Burton, D. L. & Lyn, T. S. (2004). Adult attachment and sexual offender status.

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2, 150-159.

 CASE STUDY- TED BUNDY

Carbajal, K. (2010). Dr Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter and Serial Killers: Does

abuse beget violence? The science of fiction: Evolutionary explanations of hypothetical

human behaviour volume 2. California, LA: University of California.

Hucker, S. J. (2005). Necrophilia. Retrieved from Web

site:http://www.forensicpsychiatry.ca/paraphilia/necro.htm

Leibman, F.H. (1989). Serial Murderers: Four Case Histories. Federal Probation.

53(4), 41 – 44.

Levy, T., & Orlans, M. (2004). Attachment Disorder, Antisocial Personality and

Violence. Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association. 7(4), p. 18.

Michaud, S., & Aynesworth, H. (1999). The Only Living Witness: The True Story of

Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy. Irving, Texas: Authorlink Press.

Nelson, Polly (1994). Defending the devil: My story as Ted Bundy’s last lawyer. New

York: William Morrow.

Rule, A. (1980). The stranger beside me. New York: W. W. Norton.

Rule, A. (2000). The Stranger Beside Me. (Paperback; updated 20th anniversary ed.)

NY: Signet

Rule, A. (2009). The Stranger Beside Me. (Paperback; updated 2009 ed.) NY: Signet

Shapiro, Ben (2005). Porn Generation. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. p. 160.

Shope, J. H. (2004). When words are not enough: The search for the effect of

pornography on abused women. Violence Against Women, 10, 56-72. doi:

10.1177/1077801203256003

Whitman, T. A ., & Akutagawa. (2004). Riddles in serial murder: A

synthesis. Aggression and violent behaviour. 9(6), 693-703

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