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Terrible Secrets: Ted Bundy on Serial Murder
"Ted Bundy is the most darkly fascinating, and widely analyzed, serial killer of the past century, possibly ever. No sex criminal, from Jack the Ripper to Zodiac to the Green River Killer, casts nearly so macabre a spell on the popular mind as does Bundy. Now, the two men who know Bundy’s criminal nature best – Dr. Robert D. (Bob) Keppel and author Stephen G. Michaud – have teamed to write the definitive narrative of Bundy’s bloody career, as well as the inside story of how Keppel tracked the elusive killer for 15 years, from his first days as a rookie Seattle homicide investigator to a series of tense encounters within the Florida State Prison where Bundy, in a doomed attempt at forestalling his execution, finally gave up some of his Terrible Secrets.
The story of Keppel’s long struggle to identify the handsome, articulate onetime law student, and confront him with his crimes, is abundantly illustrated with photos, drawings and documents from the investigator’s personal file. The book’s dozens of pictures include a map of Bundy’s Issaquah, Washington, hillside body dump that Ted drew for Keppel at the prison. Also shown for the first time are handwritten notes from Bundy’s investigative file.
Interspersed with the text are numerous video clips, plus audio files of Bundy from the hours he spent talking with Keppel at the prison, grooming the detective to take his confessions when the time came, and sharing with Keppel his deepest, bizarre reflections on serial murder as a way of life — even claiming at several points that he and his brother murderers are victims, too, of the powerful urges that shape their killing careers. Above all, Bundy repeatedly told Keppel, a serial killer must suppress his “terrible secrets,” the ghastly particulars of his degenerate crimes, lest they rise up, overwhelm and destroy him.
The authors also draw from Keppel’s extensive mail correspondence with Bundy.
The result is a riveting, close-up portrait of a “diabolical genius,” as a federal judge described Bundy, stripped of myths and misinformation and revealed — in his own words — for the archly-sly, murder-obsessed predator he became. There’s never been a book quite like Terrible Secrets.
"
The story of Keppel’s long struggle to identify the handsome, articulate onetime law student, and confront him with his crimes, is abundantly illustrated with photos, drawings and documents from the investigator’s personal file. The book’s dozens of pictures include a map of Bundy’s Issaquah, Washington, hillside body dump that Ted drew for Keppel at the prison. Also shown for the first time are handwritten notes from Bundy’s investigative file.
Interspersed with the text are numerous video clips, plus audio files of Bundy from the hours he spent talking with Keppel at the prison, grooming the detective to take his confessions when the time came, and sharing with Keppel his deepest, bizarre reflections on serial murder as a way of life — even claiming at several points that he and his brother murderers are victims, too, of the powerful urges that shape their killing careers. Above all, Bundy repeatedly told Keppel, a serial killer must suppress his “terrible secrets,” the ghastly particulars of his degenerate crimes, lest they rise up, overwhelm and destroy him.
The authors also draw from Keppel’s extensive mail correspondence with Bundy.
The result is a riveting, close-up portrait of a “diabolical genius,” as a federal judge described Bundy, stripped of myths and misinformation and revealed — in his own words — for the archly-sly, murder-obsessed predator he became. There’s never been a book quite like Terrible Secrets.
"
40 pages
Published December 15, 2011
6 people want to read
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