Name a famous serial killer.
There’s a good chance that one of the first names that came to your mind was Ted Bundy.
Over a period of years, mostly in the 1970’s, Ted Bundy killed at least 30 people that we know of, but probably more.
Finally, in 1979, the charismatic 33-year-old was caught, tried, and convicted in Florida.
He spent the next eight years in prison, as appeal after appeal went through the courts. Then, in 1987, he met the woman who would be his last lawyer: Polly Nelson.
A freshly minted lawyer with a big Washington law firm, Nelson was chosen to do some pro bono work – it turned out, it was the Bundy case.
For the next two years, Nelson worked on his case, trying to find some way to keep him off death row.
Bundy was executed in 1989, however, and five years later, I met Polly Nelson, when she wrote a book about the case.
So here now, from 1994, Polly Nelson.
Attorney Poly Nelson is 69 now.
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It’s such a shame that her and Dekle’s book were the last two to be released about Bundy, after oversaturation in the media from books like The Stranger Beside me and the Deliberate Stranger.
While Rule’s account is certainly compelling, it basically spun Bundy’s story from Bundy’s side, and that was a near-complete fantasy. He wasn’t movie star handsome. He wasn’t a genius. He wasn’t successful. I get the glamour spin in late-70s and early 80s tabloids for the sake of sales, but Nelson’s and Dekle’s account portray who Bundy really was: a complete failure in life, likely with a learning disability, and a very mentally ill man.
I’m not sure what men were like in the 1970s but the fact that anyone would have seen Bundy’s behavior at trial as “charming” or “competent” is is scary. Even his posture suggests someone who is seriously mentally ill. This wasn’t a football game, especially at the second trial. It was a murder trial where a 12 year-old girl lost her life. The idea that any semi-rational person would have been swaggering around the courtroom winking at jurors is absurd.
Since Nelson’s book was so honest, though, I’ll throw in my own honesty: Despite the fact that I believe Bundy was severely mentally ill, I also think he’s the only murderer in history who – due to his two escapes – you had to execute to protect everyone. She is correct that some things were unprecedented in Ted’s case, and I think that’s because no murderer before or since has been so determined to continue enjoying their murder fantasies.
Just want to add that I believe Nelson’s book is the best, most revealing book about the “real” Ted Bundy (if there were such a thing) and a necessary one for anyone who wants to get beyond the bizarre adoration of police, who seem to treat Bundy as if he were just a really great hunter.
He was freakishly sick. And as one of his lawyers once blurted out in court, a “Dumb shit!”