Alexa Roberts
Mark Putnam
EN-200
May 24, 2017
How Serial Killers Become: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy
A serial killer is a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern. Statistics show that the number of classified serial killers worldwide since 1980 is approximately 154 and approximately 87 in the United States. People are not born to be serial killers, their upbringing, obsessions and fears form this evilness. There are many infamous serial killers known, but three notorious killers are Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy. Each became well-known by the way they murdered and tortured their victims. These men did not just wake up one morning and decided to end innocent lives, it was a gradual outcome.
On November 24, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont, the “Lady Killer” Ted Bundy was born as Theodore Robert Cowell. Because his mother was only twenty-two and his biological father was not in the picture, Louise Cowell left Bundy in Vermont in an orphanage while moving back to Philadelphia. Louise’s father, Sam Cowell, adopted him and his mother pretended to be his “sister”. On May 19, 1951, Louise married Johnnie Bundy, thus came the name that initiated when heard: anger, sadness, and fear, Ted Bundy. Bundy’s childhood was somewhat sane other than the fact that he knew his mother as his sister and had an abusive grandfather and a mentally unstable grandmother. Bundy often told his peers that Samuel, his grandfather, was his role model and “identified with him”. This was the same man who often beats dogs and pushed Bundy’s aunt down the stairs because she overslept.
During his early life, Bundy turned to the macabre, and this resulted in an incident involving his aunt. When he was just three years old his aunt was watching him when she fell asleep, when she woke there were knives scattered around her and sat a young Ted Bundy. (Crime Feed) Growing up, Bundy often steered clear of people, often saying that he “chose to be alone” because he did not comprehend interpersonal relationships and did not know how form friendships. Bundy himself has said he used to consume large amounts of alcohol as a teen and go around town in search of opened windows in hope of seeing a women undressing. He also has said he used to search through dumpsters trying to find pictures of naked women. (Rockefeller pg. 4) In college Bundy was described as “immature and lacking ambition” by his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Brooks. He was devastated by the breakup initiated by Brooks and decided to move to different states eventually stopping in Philadelphia and enrolled at Temple University. He then moved back to Washington in the fall of 1969 and met a women named Elizabeth Kloepfer. Kloepfer made Bundy strive for success and he became goal oriented and reenrolled at University of Washington studying psychology. (Wikipedia, Ted Bundy)
In 1974,...
