The Fall of Peg Entwistle

Peg Entwistile's name is little known today and she's remembered more for her tragic death than what she accomplished during her short life but her life gave a glance at the dirty underbelly of Hollywood and fame.  

Born Millicent Lilian Entwistle in Wales in 1908 but always known fondly as "Peg", she was brought up in London before immigrating to Ohio and New York City via Liverpool by 1913.  She did appear to have some dissension in her early life; some reports say her mother died while Peg was still fairly young but a Last Will and Testament written by her father in 1922 states that he divorced Peg's mother, was granted custody of the then still minor Peg and wishes that should anything happen to him, under no circumstance should Peg be returned to her mother.  Perhaps more common today but a father being granted custody of his minor child, and a daughter, in the 1920s was very unusual.  My guess would be that perhaps Emily Entwistle was ill.

Peg's father Robert was listed in the cast of several plays in 1913, helping to spark an interest in the theater in his young daughter. In 1922 tragedy struck for Peg when her father was killed in a hit and run accident in New York City.  She and her two younger half brothers were taken in by an uncle who managed actors.

Over the next five years Peg would act in a variety of stage plays, one even seen by the young Bette Davis, who would later remark that seeing Peg Entwistle on stage had inspired her to become an actress.  Peg became a member of the New York Theater Guild and would rack up an impressive ten separate play performances as a member between 1926 and 1932, with one play - - Tommy (1927) running for an incredible 232 performances.  She acted with many notables of the day - - George M. Cohen, Robert Cummings, Dorothy Gish, and Laurette Taylor, to name just a few.  Peg seemed assured of a solid and respectable career.

She married fellow actor Robert Keith in 1927 but the marriage would last barely two years with Peg requesting a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty, claiming that Keith had neglected to inform her that he had been married previously and had a six year old son.

Peg hit the road over the next few years, touring with her company, and made her last Broadway performance in 1932.  Unfortunately for her, she ended up in Los Angeles.

By May of 1932, Peg had hopes for the ironically named play The Mad Hopes but it would close after little more than a week.  It was at this time that she would land her one and only credited film role, Radio Picture's Thirteen Women, starring Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne.  While the film would later be appreciated as one of the first, if not the first, female ensemble films, when it was released in October of 1932 it was neither a critical nor commercial success.

It's unknown exactly when Peg felt she was out of options with her career or her number was up but on Friday, September 16, 1932, she left the home she shared with her uncle stating that she was going on a walk to see some friends.   Two days later a woman's shoe, purse and jacket were discovered below the Hollywoodland sign; a suicide note was discovered inside the purse.   Peg's body was discovered later that day, although she remained unidentified until her uncle made the connection between the moderately well dressed woman, the suicide note with the initials P.E. and Peg's failure to return home.  Why he wasn't actively looking for her after she didn't return on Friday is a mystery.
The story released to the media was that the blonde haired blue eyed actress had made her way to the southern slope of Mount Lee to the foot of the Hollywoodland sign, climbed a workman's ladder and jumped from the "H."  Her suicide note, as published in the local papers, read "I am afraid.  I am a coward.  I am sorry for everything.  If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E."

Was Peg referring to her own pain?  Or was she insinuating she caused others pain?  It was never known.

The coroner determined that she had died due to multiple fractures of the pelvis, which would indicate that she had jumped feet first and landed feet, or lower body, first.  It must have been agonizing.

Peg's death revealed a reality that Hollywood did not want America to see.  She was quickly forgotten in the industry, helped out by Paul Bern's death earlier that month, and even the Hollywoodland sign would undergo a change in the 1940s, distancing itself from its sad history., dropping the "land" and making the sign a more palatable nine letters versus the unlucky thirteen.

In October of 2015 Peg's name would again be in the media as it was reported that Peg's apparition was sighted at the Hollywood sign.  Is it possible that she continues to remain in the city that crushed her dreams?

What really happened to Peg Entwistle?  Why didn't she return to New York and back to her respected stage career?  Could this twenty-four year old have already been burnt out?  Was she that ashamed that she didn't make it in L.A.?   Was it possible that she suffered with something more serious, something along the lines of an undiagnosed mental disorder that led to her suicide?  Something that maybe her mother could also have suffered with, which had led to the divorce and loss of custody?  It will never be known.

A sad footnote to the story of Peg Entwistle is that the six year old son of her husband was Brian Keith, who would go on to become an actor himself.  While he would conquer stage, television and movies, his greatest success would be as the lovable and dependable Uncle Bill on the classic 1960s television show Family Affair in which he portrayed a bachelor raising his brother's orphaned children.  What  nod to Peg Entwistle.  In all, Keith's career would span a formidable four decades.  On  June 24, 1997, after suffering from declining health and finances, Brian Keith died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Two months prior, his youngest daughter Daisy had committed suicide.   Actress Maureen O'Hara firmly believed that Keith would not have committed suicide due to his Catholic beliefs.  She visited with him shortly before his death and found him in good spirits.  She knew he had a large gun collection that he was diligent about cleaning and believed that he had accidentally shot himself while cleaning a gun.

What Happened to Tiffany Sessions?

Much like the case of Julie Love (which I wrote about here), the disappearance of Tiffany Sessions is etched in my mind as an indelible memory from the 80s, helped in part by the fact that Tiffany Sessions and I were the same age and both college students at the time.

Tiffany would disappear from Gainesville, Florida, the same town that would be rocked by serial killer Danny Rolling a year and a half after her disappearance.  The Gainesville Ripper's (as Rolling was dubbed by the overzealous media) crimes and capture would take much of the national news away from Tiffany.

Tiffany had been a student at the University of Florida, majoring in finance.  She was twenty years old that February of 1989, a pretty girl with blonde hair and brown eyes.  She left her residence at the Casablanca East Condominiums, dressed in red sweatpants, a long sleeved white pullover sweatshirt, and Reeboks, carrying a Walkman, and telling her roommate she was going to take a walk.  The only other item Tiffany had with her was her ladies silver and gold Rolex watch.

Witnesses would later come forward to say they had seen Tiffany that Friday evening, some saying she had been speaking to several unidentified individuals in a vehicle. and possibly entering the vehicle.  Authorities have never been able to confirm or deny these reports or whether that woman was Tiffany Sessions.

The case went cold until 1994, when a missing child's hotline received a tip about Tiffany, the caller claiming that Tiffany was being held against her will in Austin, Texas, with two other missing young women (Tracy Kroh and Elizabeth Miller) and the three were being forced to work as prostitutes.  Tracy had disappeared from Pennsylvania in 1989 and Elizabeth from Colorado in 1983 but the police departments from all three states (including Florida) got together to investigate before determining the tip was nothing but an elaborate hoax and the case went cold again.

Inmate Michael Knickerbocker, sentenced to life for a 1989 rape of a Gainesville college student the same age as Tiffany, and the 1989 shooting death of a 12 year old Starke girl, told fellow inmates that he had chained Tiffany to a tree the night of her disappearance and then murdered her shortly thereafter, disposing her body in the Calosahatchee River near Fort Myers.   Authorities searched the area but found nothing of note (which is not surprising given that the waterway could have taken any evidence quite a distance away and enough time had passed to destroy any remaining evidence.)  In August of 2002, investigators searched an area outside of Gainesville where he claimed to have buried her sweatshirt and recovered a piece of bloodstained material.  Tests were run to determine if the blood matched Tiffany's DNA but the results have never been announced.  It's been said that the material does not match that of a sweatshirt.

Finally, in February of 2014 the biggest break in the case happened as Alachua County named Paul Rowles as Tiffany's abductor.  Rowles appeared to have been a career criminal, sentenced to prison in 1976 for the 1972 Miami rape and murder of his neighbor, released in 1985 and then sentenced again in 1994 for sexual battery, kidnapping and lewd and lascivious molestation against a 19 year old woman who escaped.  Rowles was such a sociopathic and terrifying individual that his first wife, the one who came home one day to find out that her husband murdered their neighbor, refused to sign a sworn statement against him, forty years after the crime and even as he lay dying in prison of cancer. After his death, DNA linked him to the unsolved 1992 homicide of Santa Fe College student Elizabeth Foster whose body was found in a shallow grave only a mile from where Tiffany disappeared.  He was also known to have worked at a construction project along Tiffany's normal jogging path.  Furthermore, a day planner Rowles kept in prison had the notation "#2" written in on February 9, 1989 . . . the date of Tiffany's disappearance.  Serial killers are notorious for remembering the dates of specific events in their "careers."  If Paul Rowles killed Tiffany Sessions, she would indeed have been his second victim.

Tiffany Sessions is still missing and her case officially unsolved.  What do I think happened?  I believe she went for what was a normal walk that late afternoon of February 9, 1989.  On this day she went by herself rather than with her roommate, with sad consequences.  I believe Paul Rowles was at the construction site and saw Tiffany, a pretty victim of opportunity. He likely lured her with some type of ruse, abducted and assaulted her and then killed her.  I think he buried her, wearing the Rolex watch that has never turned up despite its serial number being on a hot list, in the area where he would dispose of Elizabeth Foster three years later.  Rowles would angrily deny to investigators shortly before his death that he had anything to do with Tiffany Sessions but killers lie.

What about Michael Knickerbocker, who claimed to have chained Tiffany to a tree and killed her?  More lies.  Knickerbocker was not even in the Gainesville area when Tiffany disappeared so I believe that rules him out completely.

Paul Rowles was a known and convicted sex offender and murderer.  Tiffany was the right age and in his "territory."  Tiffany's father Patrick believes that Rowles killed his daughter but so far, Tiffany hasn't been found.  A search of the 10 acre area where Elizabeth Foster was found has been conducted but finding human remains nearly thirty years after being buried or placed there is a long shot.  The Sessions family would like to find Tiffany and bring her home.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Det. Kevin Allen of the Alachua County Sheriff's Office at (352) 384-3323 or by email at kallen@alachuasheriff.org.

Find out more about Tiffany and her case at www.tiffanysessions.org.

The MacDonald Case: The Icepick

The icepick as it was found on the morning of February 17, 1970

In the Jeffrey MacDonald case, the icepick was one of four weapons found at the crime scene, tossed under a bush outside the back door with the club and the Old Hickory knife.  The fourth weapon, as you may know, was the bent Geneva Forge knife found in the master bedroom just feet from Colette MacDonald's body and the knife MacDonald claims to have pulled from her chest.  I say "claim" because the dimensions of the Geneva Forge knife did not match any of the wounds on Colette's body.

But back to the icepick.  Both Colette and her youngest daughter Kristen were stabbed with the icepick.  Only Kimberley escaped being attacked with it.   The icepick was the MVP of the infamous pajama top experiment, wherein in recreating how the pajama top belonging to MacDonald was found on Colette's chest, it was discovered that the icepick wounds through the top aligned with the icepick punctures in her chest.

It's also been said that the bloody imprint of the icepick was discovered on the Hilton bathmat found across Colette's abdomen, suggesting that after using the weapon on his wife, MacDonald then placed the bloody pick on the bathmat until he was prepared to use it again.  And once his bloody and vicious assaults were complete, and in order to explain why blood was found on the bathmat, he placed it on his wife.

MacDonald's pajama top with icepick punctures, none of which
corresponded to any of his wounds

According to MacDonald's story, he had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room that night, being forced to sleep there after Kristen had wet his side of the bed badly enough so that he would not be able to crawl into bed.  At some point after falling asleep he says he was awoken by both Colette and Kimberley screaming and he saw four individuals standing around him on the sofa.  He claims that a struggle then ensued in which his feet were bound up in the afghan he had used for cover and his hands were bound by his pajama top, which had gotten pulled from behind over his head.  He thought that he was struck possibly more than once by what he took as a baseball bat and then claims to have seen the glint of a blade before feeling what he then assumed was a punch and later came to believe was a stab wound or wounds.

This is where it gets interesting with the icepick.  Remember that MacDonald says he saw the glint of a blade.

Upon regaining consciousness, he goes to check on his family members for signs of life and to attempt CPR before calling for help.  When the MPs arrive, they transport MacDonald out the front door to a waiting ambulance and to Womack Hospital.

During an interview conducted while he was at Womack Hospital, MacDonald says that "that is when I must have gotten stabbed with the icepick."

How does MacDonald know an icepick was involved?  Let's go back a couple of paragraphs - - he said he saw the glint of a blade during the attack, which would insinuate a knife, not an icepick.  The icepick was not found inside the house where he might have seen it; it was found outside.  And not outside the front door, where he was wheeled out into an awaiting ambulance on the morning of February 17, 1970 but outside the back door.  In no retelling of the murders has he ever suggested that he saw the attacks on either his wife or his daughters.  So he wouldn't have seen the icepick  being wielded on them . . . unless he was wielding it himself.

The icepick and MacDonald's own suggestion of icepick wounds to his body appears to be a major slip-up he committed in the immediate hours after the murders and one that he would manage to deflect.  Much more importance was placed on the origin of the icepick with MacDonald claiming never to have seen it before, the family having not owned an icepick, with the MacDonald babysitter and Colette's parents stating the MacDonalds did indeed have an icepick and the instrument would be used to remove Popsicles and other treats from the freezer for the children.

Where does the truth lie?  What do you think?

Van Houten Denied Parole; On to Beausoleil and Watson

Joyous Leslie then, serious Leslie now

Delayed news but Governor Jerry Brown did the right thing and denied Leslie Van Houten parole, despite the parole board recommending that the 66 year old convicted killer and former Manson Family member be sprung.  Thank you, Governor Brown.

Without getting too much into whether or not she's rehabilitated (which Governor Brown apparently didn't buy), let's realize for a moment that she has been incarcerated since late 1969.  That's 47 years, more than double the time she had lived in 1969.  To say that she's thoroughly and completely institutionalized is an understatement of the highest level.  (Granted, she was on bond in 1977 during her retrial.)  Things have changed since 1969 and even 1977.  The world has changed.  Van Houten herself is no longer a giggly nineteen year old singing songs on her way to and from jail.  If she were considered rehabilitated and released, could she be a healthy and productive member of society?  How?   She needs to pay for her crime with her life.  A life sentence should mean a life sentence.  And be grateful that society has granted her more mercy than she granted to Rosemary LaBianca.  Van Houten was allowed to live, more than four decades past Mrs. LaBianca, and was even able to obtain a college degree.  On the California taxpayers' dime, no less.

In October, two more Manson killers come up for parole and two more petitions need your signature.

Beausoleil today

Beausoleil in 1969

From July 25-27, 1969, Bobby Beausoleil tortured music teacher Gary Hinman.  He forced Hinman to sign over his two vehicles to him before stabbing him to death on July 27, while Hinman, who knew Beausoleil, begged him for mercy.  It's this crime for which many Tate-LaBianca devotees believe led to the August 8-10, 1969 massacre that would make Manson infamous, as some believe the Family was trying to commit copycat murders to free Beausoleil.  In 1984 Beausoleil was caught drawing cartoons of naked toddlers being spanked by adults and selling them to known pedophiles.  He has told various parole boards different stories about Gary Hinman's murder and his participation in it and even goes so far as to claim today that he was never affiliated with Charles Manson and the Manson Family in any way - - a fact that is easily disputed.  He once said "you'd better hope I never get out."  I say we heed that advice and make sure he doesn't.

Watson today

Watson in 1969/1970

The most infamous killer, outside of Manson himself, and one who participated in each of the brutal murders August 8-10, 1969 is Charles "Tex" Watson.  Watson, who now claims he prefers to go by his given name of Charles versus his Family name of Tex, also claims to be a born again Christian (isn't everyone in prison?) and has been allowed to marry and father four children while a longtime guest of the state of California's penal system.  That's right - - the man who personally stabbed to death the very pregnant Sharon Tate was not only granted the privilege to father children himself but to place the burden of the cost of those children on the state's taxpayers.  Seems fair.  He's also presented himself as some sort of pastor to a prison church that his now ex-wife helped him run (thereby having free reign with the tithes and donations) and has written several books, the most recent of which is nothing more than a finger pointing exercise at Charles Manson while claiming he was just a poor puppet influenced by the evil Manson and he's so, so sowwy for what he's done.  Yeah, not buying it.  Let's also not forget that he told his victims on the night of August 8-9, 1969 "I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business."   If this individual is eligible for parole in anyone's book, there is no justice.


Van Houten's denial does not bode well for Beausoleil or Watson.  It's unlikely that Watson will ever get out (nor should he) but Beausoleil, being less known and having one victim versus seven, has a better shot.  Beausoleil has been incarcerated since July of 1969; I would think it's not likely that during his incarceration he's become a mellow tree-hugging lover of people.

Debra Tate, Sharon's younger sister, has been an advocate for many years.  I encourage you to sign her petitions, asking the California parole board to keep both Bobby Beausoleil and Tex Watson behind bars.

You can find the petition to oppose Bobby Beausoleil's parole here.

You can find the petition to oppose Tex Watson's parole here.

Should Leslie Van Houten Be Granted Parole?

Van Houten in 1970

Vincent Bugliosi predicted this, although he believed it would happen many years ago.  He did think that the Manson "girls" would be granted parole, paving the way for Tex Watson, Bruce Davis, Bobby Beausoleil and eventually Manson himself.   So this shouldn't be all that surprising.

The Manson "girls" aren't girls any longer.  Only two remain - - Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten - - and both are in their sixties.  (The third, Susan Atkins, died where she should have - - still incarcerated and a guest of the State of California.)

Van Houten had her twenty-first parole appearance and the Board recommended that parole be granted.

This makes me angry.  I'm a resident of California and I don't want to see Leslie Van Houten (or any of the Merry Manson Band of Murderers) at my grocery store or in my neighborhood.   I know that some have said that she is the least culpable in the group of killers but killing is killing in my book.  She can whine all she wants about how Rosemary LaBianca was already dead when Leslie took a knife repeatedly to her back and it makes little difference to me.  Leslie held her down, Leslie aided and abetted Watson and Krenwinkle at the very least.  At most, she stabbed a woman who was still alive at the time.  Coroner Thomas Noguchi said that a number of Mrs. LaBianca's wounds were antemortem, meaning they occurred before death.  There is no way to say which wounds Van Houten delivered and which were delivered at the hands of Krenwinkle and/or Watson so I think it's best to err on the side of caution and assume that Mrs. LaBianca was still breathing when Van Houten attacked her.

Van Houten today

This is a woman who laughed and joked during the criminal trial, when witnesses were talking about the brutalization of the victims, their pleas for mercy and when her own life was on the line (she and her co-defendants received the death penalty.)    She admitted she felt no remorse for the victims' deaths, their pain or their loved ones' pain.  She admitted she only thought about Rosemary LaBianca while in the courtroom.  Within her first few years of incarceration, she was found to have a woman's prison guard uniform in her cell.  Until last month, she never admitted responsibility for her actions nor any remorse.  She blamed her actions on Charles Manson, on drugs, on her parents' divorce and on an abortion she had as a teenager.

To the finger pointing, I say this - - bitch, please.  We all deal with various shit in our lives.  Some of us have more to deal with than others.  Some of us handle that shit better than others.  None of it - - no matter how much or on what level - - justifies breaking into someone's house and slaughtering them.

I don't buy Van Houten's remorse.  I think she's a sociopath and this is just a calculated act in order to leave prison in something other than a pine box.

Something else about Van Houten scares me and that's this.  Bugliosi said himself that she was the least devoted of Manson's followers (and he should know.)  Think about that.  She was the least devoted out of this ragtag group and she was willing to kill strangers on his orders?  That's frightening.  What would she have done if she was utterly devoted to him?

If you don't believe that Manson ordered those murders, that would mean that Van Houten simply thrilled in killing.  Or maybe it's both.

Her attorney claims that this "violent act" was the only one of her life.  Not only would I hope so but isn't it enough?  Her "act" resulted in the violent and horrific deaths of two people that can never again live.  She has been given more compassion and mercy than the victims were.  They begged for their lives and were met with laughter, insults and the business end of a knife.  She and the others have been given the gift of parole hearings, of education, of families and of life.  Now she wants to beg and plead?  I say let's respond to her pleas with the same denial she gave her victims.  No business end of a knife but with a resounding "no."

While it's true that no amount of punishment will ever bring back the persons that were killed, punishment is punishment, justice is justice and life should mean life.

If she is granted parole, how long before Patricia Krenwinkle follows suit?  If Krenwinkle is granted parole, the clock will be ticking on the men.

Rosemary and Leno LaBianca

None of these people should get parole.  None of them.  I hope that Governor Jerry Brown is listening to the people and thinking about justice, the victims, the victims' families and what is right.

Sharon Tate's sister Debra started a petition to keep Van Houten in prison.   Add your name as a supporter here.

Let me know what you think.  Has Leslie Van Houten served her time?  Should she be paroled?  If so, why?  If you think she should remain in prison, give me your thoughts on that.

The Broderick Case: Was It About Money?

Linda and Dan, 1989

Betty and Dan, 1969

The Betty Broderick saga continues to be the most popular posts on this site.  For my previous posts go here and here.  It appears that the case still strikes a chord with many people, although opinions are as divided as Betty and Dan were.

A response to my original post on the case referenced Dan's greediness and suggested that perhaps if Dan had been more generous with regard to his settlement with Betty, the murders may not have happened.

So let's talk money and the Broderick case.

For what it's worth, I don't believe money was at the root of the murders. Let's put this into context.  It's true that Betty and Dan were living very well by the time he began an affair with Linda.  Betty had been a stay at home mother for years, rearing the children and keeping an immaculate home.  Prior to that, she had babysat and kept children to make ends meet while Dan attended medical school and then law school.  Yes, Dan got the education and it was his professional smarts that were bankrolling the homes, cars, jewelry and fabulous trips but without Betty's sacrifice and teamwork, he wouldn't have accomplished that.  By the time of their divorce in 1989, they had been married for nearly twenty years (although separated for the last few.)  Even so, Betty deserved a piece of the pie.

Prior to their divorce being finalized, Dan had been paying Betty an amount he deemed appropriate (albeit a hefty amount.)  Before you negate all sympathy for Betty, Dan also took it upon himself to financially penalize Betty for infractions such as leaving volatile messages on the answering machine and entering his home without approval.  Despite the frustrations such actions must have caused - - because Betty would often damage the premises - - he should not have had the right to deduct monies from her support.   Now, before you start feeling sorry for Dan, he did cheat on Betty for years while lying to her about it, all the while suggesting that not only was she crazy for thinking such a thing but she also needed to lose weight and do something about her appearance so that she would look younger.   So let's say they were both acting like jerks.

Betty had difficulty finding and keeping a family law attorney that would be willing to go up against Dan.  The legal community in general in a small one and no one in San Diego was willing to get on the wrong side of Dan Broderick.  Having dealt with a drawn out divorce myself, I can attest to feelings of frustration so great that you begin to feel mentally and emotionally unhinged.  Had I also had to deal with an ex who was an attorney himself and had connections all over the city that made my case difficult, I think I would have been on medication.  So I can imagine the stress Betty must have felt to not only be hitting the wall in an attorney search but going through these things when she didn't want the divorce at all.

Dan also allegedly sold their family home behind Betty's back, depending on who you believe.  I do think it's likely that Dan withheld funds and hid money from her but I also think that Betty did not want to deal with the sale of the home as it would firmly close the door on the marriage once and for all.

When a settlement was decided, with Betty of course not being happy about it, she was granted just over $16,000 per month.  That's a ton of money and this was in 1988-1989.  There is no reason she could not have lived very, very comfortably on that sum.   My opinion?  She didn't want to.  No amount of money would have pacified her because it wasn't about the money.  She didn't want the money.

She wanted Dan.  Not because she was in love with him because I don't believe she was.  She wanted him because she wanted the lifestyle.  She didn't want to fail.  And she didn't want Linda to have him.

Really, this is nothing new.  This same soap opera is playing out many times every day, although perhaps less likely by persons in their forties, as Dan and Betty were at the time.  What gets me though is why on earth Dan didn't change the locks of his house?  Not just at the end but years earlier, when Betty was leaving vitriolic messages on his machine, breaking items in the house and ruining his clothing?   Why didn't he tell her the truth when she confronted him way back in 1983 or 1984?   Why didn't he leave her sooner?  Why didn't he force the divorce sooner?

He was playing with fire.  Maybe he knew it, maybe not.  But it seems clear that he enjoyed tormenting Betty, if not the drama itself.     Just as Betty enjoyed tormenting him and Linda enjoyed tormenting Betty.  I said it in an earlier post but these adults were all acting like temperamental children.  Neither Dan nor Linda deserved to be murdered but neither were being very smart about antagonizing Betty.

I veered off a bit on the topic at hand but to state it briefly, I don't think money played a part in these murders.  Do I think Betty was humiliated by selling her La Jolla home?  Absolutely.  Do I think she hated living in a condo?  Sure.  Was she threatened by Dan?  Of course.  But I can't help wondering what may have been if she had just taken the alimony payments and kept her mouth shut.   She would have collected nearly $200,000 from Dan a year - -  that's nearly $400,000 in today's dollars.  Not a shabby bit of coin.

The bed, after

Speaking of money . . . did Linda fall in love with Dan because of his personality (despite the fact that he had a wife and children) or was it because of his power and money?  Did she fall in love with him at all or was she in love with what he could provide her with?

Was Dan in love with her?  Clearly money would not have been a motive for him but if he was in love with her, why did it take him so long to formally leave his wife, divorce her and marry Linda?  Did Dan ever love Betty?  (I'm guessing not.)

What do you think?  Did Betty kill for money?  Or partly because of money?  Did anyone in this twisted saga love anyone besides themselves?

The end result

Why Ted Bundy Continues to Fascinate Us

Some of Ted Bundy's victims

I recently read Kevin Sullivan's second book on Ted Bundy (review to follow shortly) and while reading it I started to contemplate why we are still fascinated with a serial killer who was executed twenty-seven years ago.  Okay, maybe it's just me.   (It helps too that Mr. Sullivan broached that very topic by the end of his companion volume.)

Ted Bundy wasn't the showiest serial killer although he did enjoy the spotlight when he was on trial in Florida.  The FBI doesn't consider him the most prolific, although I think their count of thirty-six victims is conservative and low.  And while he was smart  (scoring above average in IQ), he wasn't the only intelligent killer out there.   But Ted Bundy preys on the conscious - - I think of his victims often, although I have no connection to any of them.  None of them would have been my contemporaries although I have outlived them all.  What I find interesting about the "phenomenon" of Ted Bundy is that he is one of the few killers that is often referred to by his first name, as if we know him.  We don't refer to Richard Ramirez or John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer that way and Ted was just as egregious a killer as they were.  So why? 

And while the crimes of Ramirez, Gacy and Dahmer were just as horrific as those Ted committed, those killers have been relegated to the annals of crime without as much interest.  Again, why?  All of them, including Bundy himself, are dead.  Bundy, in fact, was the first to die out of them.  So why hasn't Bundy faded off into obscurity?

Like Bundy himself, I think the answer is multifaceted and complex. 

Maybe because he's the killer that shouldn't have been, at least per the logic we utilized before Ted began speaking about his career in murder.   He was raised in a good, solid home with a loving mother and caring stepfather.  Neither abused him, alcohol or drugs.  He had brothers and sisters, who would speak of him in glowing and loving terms after he was convicted of kidnapping in Utah.  He had a long term relationship with a girlfriend whose daughter he appeared to dote on.  He was a law student, an employee and was looked upon favorably by most coworkers, students and teachers. He didn't fit the mold of the serial killer as we knew it back then.

Some of his crimes were audacious - - Ted appeared to operate at will, with impunity and utterly impervious to danger.  Even while Seattle and its environs were giving a nervous eye to shadows and well aware that a coldly efficient killer was in its midst, he still managed to lure victims away.  One college student was abducted from the basement room where she slept, in a home with five other roommates, and carried out the front door; two young ladies were abducted from the same state park within four hours of each other on a day when the local police were having a picnic; he returned to the site of yet another college student's abduction the following day to retrieve one of her shoes and her earrings, items unwittingly left behind after he knocked her unconscious with a crowbar, while the area was teeming with police (and successfully rode by them on a bicycle and picked up the items).  Ted left nothing of himself behind, other than a somewhat vague description and a name authorities thought surely could not be his own.  Even then he was assured and cocky enough to use his own first name when striking up necessary conversation with a potential victim.

Some victims were never found; for the "luckier" ones that were it was too late to determine anything about their killer. The full truth of what they had been subjected to would stay hidden for many years (and I believe some truths accompanied Ted to the grave.)  These unknowns - - the true number of victims and their identities, where Ted buried them and hid their belongings - - helped to solidify a mystique of sorts about Ted Bundy, the same mystique that surrounds the notorious Jack the Ripper.  Jack the Ripper didn't operate for long - - only four months, as far as we know - - and had five official victims - - a paltry number by serial killer standards - - and yet he remains one of the most researched, talked about and written about criminals to this day.  The question of the Ripper's identity, how he operated and the true victims keep the story alive, much as they keep Ted Bundy's story alive. 

Unlike Jack the Ripper, though, Ted Bundy spoke of his crimes; first, in an obtuse third person dialogue.  Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth were able to get him to talk about the abductions and murders in a "what if" type scenario, stroking Ted's ego by claiming that only Ted could adequately explain to those of us less intelligent and in such close quarters with the criminal justice system how "the killer" could have managed to abduct and kill so many females at his leisure.  Reading Bundy's own words in their book is both chilling and insightful.  His victims - - lovely young women who were beloved daughters, sisters and friends - - were "cargo" to Bundy, "possessions" and playthings to be done with as he pleased until he temperamentally decided he no longer wanted to play with them.  He felt as much empathy and concern for them as he would a potted plant. 

Ted also spoke quite a bit with Bob Keppel, the King County detective who spent many years on his tail.  Despite Keppel's desire to find and incarcerate Bundy, Ted had a grudging sort of respect for Keppel because Keppel never lied to him.  Ted, the self-professed expert on serial murder, offered his services to Keppel in the mid-80s in order to help find and identify the then unknown Green River Killer.  True to form, such "help" would allow Bundy to exercise his vast knowledge on the killing of females while also perhaps keeping another killer from nabbing his prime serial killer status in the state of Washington.  Serial killers certainly aren't above such competition.

Bundy did provide Keppel with some helpful tips and Keppel managed to question Bundy about his own crimes and a fuller, more grim picture of exactly what atrocities he engaged in started to emerge, although it wouldn't be until after his 1989 execution that details began to be released. If law enforcement and/or families of the victims hoped that Bundy's deeds would be as dead as Bundy himself, it was a forlorn wish. 

Bundy's last interviews, those he gave in the days and hours before dying, revealed the full depth of his depravity.  Whispers of necrophilia, of keeping victims after death turned out to be true.  It was reported that he had admitted all of his murders and yet . . . there are still questions. 

How did Ted Bundy manage to kill so effortlessly, so easily for so long?  How did he manage to grab victim after victim, while rarely being seen?  How did he have this homicidal part of him coexisting (at least for a time) with what appeared to be a relatively normal part of him? How did those closest to him never see it? 

Bob Keppel once said that the "why" doesn't catch anyone.  True, but "why" still weighs heavily on my mind.  Perhaps Ted Bundy himself answers this best.  When asked why he had committed these terrible murders, his answer was painful and abrupt in its simplicity.  "Because I liked it."

And perhaps this, most of all, is why Bundy continues to fascinate us.  For those of us who don't fantasize about murder, who are without the constant urge to harm others, we cannot contemplate enjoyment in taking the life of a stranger, much less reveling in it.  Ted Bundy could and did; fifteen years after some of his murders, he could still remember exacting details of where he abducted his victims, what they wore and where he left them.

Bundy left an ugly, gruesome odyssey behind him but he also left us with a legacy of better understanding people like him. 

Looking back now it's interesting that my bizarre journey through Bundy's crimes started when I was a teenager - - his preferred victim age and close to the age of many of the young girls that had the terrible misfortune to cross his path.  Being that young and naïve, it was hard for me to conceive that this well educated and clean cut man could do the horrible things he was accused to have done (don't get me wrong, I absolutely believed in his guilt.)  Something about Bundy and his crimes stuck with me, leading me to read and re-read every book I could find on the subject and driving me into the study of psychology.  I even dreamt of chasing after Bundy - - with him running away from me - - telling him "But I want to talk to you!"  (This dream led my father to tell me that perhaps I should change my choice of reading material.)

In the end, once again, I am left with sadness for his victims - - the young women and girls who lost their lives to him, the families of the victims who were left with the unbearable grief of losing a loved one to a human monster, his family who believed up until the very end that he was not capable of such terrible acts, the friends who supported him for many years and felt guilt over that and Liz, the girlfriend who endured so much and received pain in return.  As I said above, I think about Ted Bundy's victims a lot.   Most of them were young, college age girls whose lives had not really begun when Ted snatched them away.  What might they have accomplished had Ted allowed them to live?  How would the world be different if they had?