At some mystical level, the two deserve each other. One is a cold-blooded, heartless con man, a swindler, a deceiver on a grand scale. The other is Theodore Bundy, the man who may have killed 28 women.
You should read the interview. It has that kind of coy, self-deception of an interview with a politician conducted by a friendly “journalist”. The two know exactly what each other wants and needs, but they want to make sure they dip together, and don’t pump their elbows too energetically: this is not a polka.
Dobson wants a celebrity endorsement for his belief that all that ails America today is sexual liberation. Bundy wants to convince somebody, anybody that he is not as evil as, well, that man in the mirror. He carefully asserts, early in the interview, that he is not blaming pornography for his evil misdeeds. Oh no– that would be unseemly. That would be to expose himself (and Dobson, allegedly an expert on psychology) to ridicule. But, just a few paragraphs later, Bundy claims to have had a normal, healthy upbringing (including church attendance) until he encountered porn magazines at a corner store, which eventually drove him into a sexual frenzy. But, no, it wasn’t the porn.
Dobson generally looks foolish and tightly asinine at the best of times but he never looks more like an ass or a fool than here as he nods solemnly at Bundy while credulously affirming the “normal upbringing” shtick. The truth is known: Bundy was born out of wedlock in a home for unwed mothers at a time when society had nothing but contempt for such women. Some feel he may have been fathered by his maternal grandfather, who had a violent temper and “dared to discipline”, and was abusive to his grand mother and mother. He was raised as if he and his mother were brother and sister. He was active in a Methodist church and the Boy Scouts. In high school, he was a loner and an introvert and a thief. Dobson probably feels that the Boy Scout involvement was a positive indicator.
In spite of the fact that Ted Bundy was a ruthless serial rapist and killer and an extraordinarily good liar, Dobson attributes a kind of expertise and authority to him. It reminds me of when Canadian serial killer Clifford Olsen announced he was in favor of the death penalty and some conservatives cheered it as if this was an endorsement of some kind.
Dobson sounds a little thrilled. He points out that Bundy didn’t invite any other reporter, oh no, for his last interview. Even celebrity killers are celebrities, and Dobson is known to drop names and brag about his meetings and phone calls from powerful Republicans. Powerful Republicans and Ted Bundy.
Bundy claims a conversion experience but it has been noted that he never came clean about all the killings or revealed the location of any more bodies after his “conversion”. There are good reasons to believe the “conversion” was a last-ditch effort to try to win clemency. There are good reasons to believe that a genuinely repentant Bundy would have had some news for the cops: these are the other women I murdered. Here is where their bodies are located. These families will now know the truth of what happened to their children. So either you believe that the police had a perfect record in Bundy’s case and correctly attributed every last victim (I doubt the police themselves believe that), or Bundy’s conversion was just one more con.
I believe that Bundy, by the time his execution was imminent, was not going to dispute any of the facts– he knew that would not further his only aim at that point– to save his own life.
A converted Bundy might have accepted that what he did was deserving of death. But this Bundy coyly invites the families of the victims to forgive him, because his death won’t bring any of the victims back. He claims he is on a mission to do some good: to teach America that porn turns otherwise morally healthy young men into frenzied sex killers.
Either way, it doesn’t surprise me that James Dobson is utterly credulous.
He must have the same expression on his face when George Bush tells him that his real agenda is to restore America to Godly virtues, stop abortion, and affirm traditional marriage.
Impure Intimacy: Dobson
Interviews Bundy
Oh, we are so glib, so ready to believe…. Kimberly Leach disappeared from her school on February 9, 1978. Bundy was charged with her murder, pled not guilty by reason of insanity, lost, and was convicted of her murder in 1980 and executed January 24, 1989.
Only one witness, Clarence Anderson, “saw” Bundy take Kimberly, and he only recalled seeing it in July, 1978, after the enormous publicity of the missing girl, and after seeing Bundy on TV identified as a suspect. The only other evidence? The infamous matching fibers!
If you are convinced by this, I can get you a job as a prosecutor in pretty well any state in the union.
His memory of the event was extremely thin. Given what we now know about wrongful convictions, it is rather chilling to read that according to some reports, he could not recall any specific details about the man he saw, his age, whether he had a beard or a sports shirt, and so forth. However, after hypnosis (!), provided, helpfully, by the police, he was able to recall such details, and even the exact date of the event. This testimony was actually allowed in court.
This conviction was a joke.
The Florida Supreme Court said that Anderson’s testimony was crucial to the case for the prosecution– the only evidence that linked Bundy directly to the kidnapping of Kimberly Leach.
Okay– maybe you believe in hypnosis. I don’t. Burden of proof? You will not find any scientific evidence anywhere that hypnosis works. You might as well tell me they consulted an astrologer.
The Florida Supreme Court, by the way, agreed with me about the value of hypnosis, but then ruled, bizarrely, that the error of using hypnosis didn’t matter. They pretty well said, “We think it would be very satisfying to execute him anyway.”
Well, this is the American injustice system.
Anderson did not have any specific details that would have made his testimony convincing without the hypnosis. So, magically, he acquires those details and a jury is convinced. The main problem here is that there was wide publicity about both the crime and the suspect before Anderson came forward– his “enhanced” testimony lacked the one element that could have made it even remotely convincing: the disclosure of new facts that could be independently verified.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the evidence given by Anderson before hypnosis was probably compelling enough to convict Bundy without the crucial details.
If you still think the Supreme Court is comprised of the most astute legal minds in the country…. well, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re just like anybody else: occasionally really stupid.
Everybody, by then, wanted Bundy executed.
The only other evidence in the Leach case was the infamous “matching fibers” for which forensic chemist Joyce Gilchrist is now so famous. Do they match? Do you want them to match? By golly, yes they do.
Anyway, did Bundy actually kill Kimberly Leach? I doubt we’ll ever know for sure. Bundy allegedly “confessed” near the end of his life, but his confession was conspicuous for the fact that he did not identify any victims the police did not already know about, and conspicuous for the way they served the only possible purpose from Bundy’s point of view: to try to win a stay of execution.
I would have voted “not guilty” because of the hypnosis, but also because Bundy had never been known to target girls that young (Leach was 12– no other known victim was younger than 17). There was a reasonable doubt. It didn’t matter to the jury or the police by then. It was part of the ceremony, that someone should pay, so everyone could give their speeches, raise money for their campaigns, indulge in hypocritical outrage and apoplectic fury.