Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Tuesday 12 February 2019
Ted Bundy's murderous charm still polarizes, 40 years later

By DAN SEWELL an unplanned interview, I
CINCINNATI (AP) — She sat while Bundy, unshaved
kept her eyes on the dap- and dressed in jail grays left
per, wavy-haired man who open at the top, leaned
smiled, winked and exud- back on his elbows on a
ed self-confidence as the bench, and went to work
courtroom proceedings on me.He told me he was
moved along. innocent, of course. Re-
"I don't know what it is he peatedly. So innocent, he
has, but he's fascinating," explained with that same
the teenage spectator ex- grin spreading across his
plained to me at the time. face, he wasn't losing any
"He's impressive. He just has sleep. "I'm not trying to
a kind of magnetism." sound callous. ... I'm very
It was that beguiling mag- confident we have a good
netism that investigators appeal."He professed to be
said helped make the ob- surprised and disappointed
ject of her interest — Ted by the jury's relatively quick
Bundy — one of the na- In this photo made available by the Sundance Institute, Zac Efron and Lily Collins appear in "Ex- verdict after a five-week
tremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile," directed by Joe Berlinger, an official selection of the
tion's most prolific serial kill- Premieres program the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. trial with complicated fo-
ers, with at least 30 women Associated Press rensic evidence. He told
and girls' deaths linked to me it would take a mind
him across multiple states in was on trial for bludgeon- his death in Florida's elec- women injured. Less than a like "William S. Burroughs"
the late 1970s. ing and sexually assaulting. tric chair, Bundy's deadly month later, on Feb. 9, he to explain it. Not a fan of
I reported the teenager's "I haven't lost any sleep charm continues to capti- abducted, sexually assault- the Beat generation author
comments for The Associat- about the verdict," a re- vate and perplex. ed and killed a 12-year-old he referenced, I didn't get
ed Press' coverage of Bun- laxed, self-assured Bundy Some reactions to a new girl in Lake City, Florida. She what he meant, other than
dy's 1979 murder trial in Mi- told me in a jail-cell inter- Netflix documentary series, was Bundy's final victim in a to show he was well-read.
ami, the first of two murder view a few days after the "Conversations with a Kill- gruesome series of attacks Bundy expected the death
trials he would have in Flori- jury swiftly convicted him er: The Ted Bundy Tapes," that claimed the lives of penalty but said he'd be
da. She was just one exam- of murdering two Florida prompted a Twitter appeal dozens of women in states "kind of stupid" to predict
ple of a regular courtroom State University sorority sis- to viewers asking them to from Washington to Florida. what Judge Edward Cow-
backdrop of spellbound fe- ters and assaulting three chill out about his "alleged During the trial, I inter- art would decide. He then
male spectators who were other young women in Tal- hotness," adding there are viewed other young wom- imitated the judge's drawl:
"attractive, young and sin- lahassee. many other attractive men en in Miami who talked "Ah can only hope that the
gle," as I wrote at the time, Nearly 40 years after that featured on the streaming about Bundy's handsome judge will look at mah case
just like the women Bundy trial, and 30 years after service who aren't con- looks and expressive eyes, with an open mind."
victed serial killers. Nearly si- and also the chilling testi- Bundy had me smiling,
multaneously, a movie star- mony about his crimes. A and he left me wonder-
ring heartthrob Zac Efron University of Washington ing about the contrast be-
as Bundy recently made psychiatry professor talked tween this personable, en-
its debut at the Sundance in a telephone interview gaging man across from
Film Festival with some criti- about him giving women me and the ruthless killer
cisms that the film, shot last "Dracula shivers." the jury found him to be.
year in the Cincinnati area, Jurors deliberated less The next week, Judge
glamorizes the killer. A Van- than seven hours on July Cowart sentenced Bundy
ity Fair reviewer wrote that 24, 1979, before convict- to die for "extremely wick-
at times, "the movie feels ing Bundy, then 32, of the ed, shockingly evil and
almost sympathetic to Bun- Chi Omega murders. Three vile" crimes — a quote that
dy." days later, I was assigned became the title of the
Filmmaker Joe Berlinger, to go to Dade County Jail new movie. Yet, as he had
who is the director for both and find out what I could throughout the trial, Cow-
projects, acknowledged about what he was doing, art showed judicial firmness
in a Salt Lake Tribune in- who was visiting him and mixed with some home-
terview he had tackled "a whether he was causing spun warmth toward the
very polarizing subject" with problems for jailers as he former law school student
Bundy, but insisted there's had at times during the who sometimes insisted on
no glorification. His movie trial. questioning witnesses, rais-
hasn't yet been scheduled A sergeant noticed I had ing objections, and disrupt-
for wider release. Efron, by been waiting for a while ing his defense team.
the way, isn't the first hunky and asked who I was there Cowart called him "a bright
actor to play Bundy — Mark to see. "Ted Bundy," I re- young man" who could
Harmon starred in the 1986 plied quickly. He took me have been a good lawyer,
TV miniseries "The Deliber- to a visiting cell where Bun- one he would "have loved"
ate Stranger." dy was meeting with one to have practice before
The July 1979 trial I helped of his attorneys. The cell him. "But you went another
cover was for Bundy's ram- door closed behind me. I way, partner," Cowart said.
page on Jan. 15, 1978, in introduced myself, and it As deputies prepared to
Tallahassee, Florida. Armed was clear by his grin that take Bundy away, Cowart
with an oak limb, Bundy left Bundy was amused by my added softly: "Take care
two Chi Omega sorority sis- audacity. Despite the at- of yourself," and Bundy
ters dead and three other torney's uneasiness about thanked him.q