Scissor Sisters
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In March 2005, body parts were found in an Irish canal that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the infamous Scissor Sisters.
Ted Bundy’s Execution
"You know, they want to kill me"
In the early morning hours of January 24, 1989, the electric chair and Raiford prison, known as ‘Old Sparky,’ was used to execute serial murderer Ted Bundy, who had been convicted of three murders committed in 1978, but was suspected by detectives of claiming as many as thirty or more victims. His death was celebrated by those outside the prison, who cheered at the passing of one of the 20th Century’s most notorious serial killers.
Ted Bundy: Stays of Execution and Appeals
Convicted of the murders of two students at the Chi Omega sorority house on January 15, 1978, and the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach on February 8, Ted Bundy had been sentenced to death and began serving his sentence on Florida’s death row. Suspected of involvement in many other murders, he continued to deny his guilt, claiming his innocence in the face of mounting evidence.
Many investigators from different states wanted to speak with Bundy about unsolved cases in their jurisdictions, crimes in which young women had either been brutally murdered, or disappeared without trace. There as many as twenty cases detectives were certain Bundy was responsible, long with another dozen or more in which his involvement was suspected.
For the families of his victims, Bundy’s death was a way to ensure justice for their loved ones. Young women who had their lives cruelly snatched away by a cold-hearted and monstrous serial killer who committed unspeakable crimes to satisfy his uncontrollable urges and deranged fantasies of control. For these grieving loved ones of the murdered and missing, the execution of Ted Bundy was something they wanted almost as much as answers about what happened.
A date for Ted Bundy’s execution was initially scheduled for March 4, 1986, but a brief stay was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court while his new defense attorney, Polly Nelson, began work on his appeals for the previous Chi Omega murder convictions. Another date was then rescheduled in April, and the following month his appeal was denied and another death warrant was issued by the State of Florida.
Meanwhile his appeals continued. The new date for his execution was given as July 2, 1986, and it was then that Bundy confessed his involvement in his crimes to Nelson and FBI special agent Bill Hagmaier. Less than fifteen hours before his execution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed it indefinitely.
This was because of legal issues arising from Bundy’s mental competency. A new date of November 18, 1986, was set for Bundy’s conviction in the Leach case. However, the day before, the Eleventh Circuit Court issued a stay. By mid-1988, the Eleventh Circuit ruled against Bundy, and within hours of the final denial, a firm execution date of January 24, 1989 was set.
With his appeals fast-tracked, the last of which was made to the U.S. Supreme Court, who eventually denied Ted’s last stay of execution on January 17, 1989, he was out of options. With his appeals exhausted, Bundy resorted to offering up more confessions and the locations of where some victims had been buried.
As his execution date grew nearer and when it became clear that no further stays would be forthcoming, Bundy’s supporters tried to lobby for the only remaining option, executive clemency, something that would be given by the Governor of Florida. Florida attorney Diana Weiner asked the families of several Colorado and Utah victims to petition Florida Governor Bob Martinez for a postponement.
Bundy’s legal team hoped this would give him more time by revealing more information. “The families already believed that the victims were dead and that Ted had killed them,” wrote Nelson. “They didn’t need his confession.” However, Governor Martinez refused saying “We are not going to have the system manipulated, for him to be negotiating for his life over the bodies of victims is despicable.”
Ted Bundy: The Eleventh Hour
During his incarceration on death row, Ted Bundy had always maintained his innocence, claiming that he had been wrongly convicted, despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt, in the Chi Omega murders and the killing of Kimberly Leach. Carole Ann Boone, the woman he had married during the Leach trial, strongly believed in his innocence.
However, in the last days of his life, he decided to confess to more crimes. Dr. Bob Keppel, the Washington State Attorney General’s chief investigator for the criminal division, was appointed to record the details of Bundy’s crimes. Having already offered his help to Keppel in the Green River Killer investigation, Bundy trusted Keppel and Bill Hagmaier.
In the hours leading up to his execution, Bundy spoke with detectives from other states about unsolved murders, and denied involvement in many other crimes for which he had long been suspected. Having finally admitted his guilt, Carole Ann Boone considered these admissions as a betrayal, and she decided to move back to Washington with their daughter.
On the eve of his execution, he talked of suicide. “He did not want to give the state the satisfaction of watching him die”, Hagmaier said. Bundy had hoped that by confessing to his crimes, he would gain more time or even a stay of execution. Any negotiation for his life was in vain, even when he tried to offer up the locations of his undiscovered victims.
He burst into tears when talking with Bob Keppel, begging for “sixty, ninety days. A few months”. At some point earlier there had been a similar plea with Bill Hagmaier, and with tears in his eyes, he said “You know, they want to kill me”, he was surprised. But he never showed any remorse for his victims, or their families who yearned for answers.
The night before his scheduled execution, Bundy was interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, a Chruch leader and founder of Focus on the Family. The meeting last some forty-five minutes, during which Bundy discussed the effects that pornography had on his life, as well as claiming that it had a contributing factor in his crimes.
Bundy made an attempt to contact Boone, but she refused to accept his call. She had long championed Bundy’s cause and was steadfast in her belief that he was an innocent man, all the while everyone else believed in his guilt. His final confessions were deeply hurtful to her, as well as his last, apparent, relationship with his attorney, Diana Weiner during his final years in prison.
He made two phone-calls to his mother Eleanor, saying goodbye to the one person who had stood by him throughout his trials and imprisonment. The usual custom of offering the condemned prisoner a last meal was afforded to Bundy, and he was served steak, eggs, hash browns and toast. He had declined to choose something personalized, and so was given a standard meal, which he refused to eat.
Ted Bundy: Execution in Old Sparky
On the morning of Tuesday, January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was prepared for his imminent execution. As part of the procedure in preparing him for execution, Bundy’s colon was packed with cotton and he wore a diaper to avoid soiling. Dressed in a blue prison uniform, with the right leg cut off, Bundy was led to the execution chamber.
His head shaved, he was almost carried into the room by two guards either side of him. His lawyer Jim Coleman said of Bundy, “he looked very small and very helpless.” He was then sat in the chair and straps were buckled around his arms, legs and body. He appeared neither frightened or showed any other emotions, “he was very subdued,” said Coleman.
Given an opportunity to give a final statement, Supt. Tom Barton asked if he had any last words. Bundy hesitated, his voice quavered as he spoke. Bundy turned and spoke to Coleman and Methodist minister Fred Lawrence directly. “Jim and Fred, I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends,” he said.
Then it was time. The guards stood either side and pulled a thick leather strap across Bundy’s mouth and chin, before a metal skullcap was bolted in place. Finally, a black hooded veil was placed over the condemned man’s face. The guards stood aside and Bundy’s breathing increased as he awaited the inevitable.
Barton gave the go-ahead and an anonymous executioner, whose face was obscured, pushed the button. The low buzz of the current could be heard as the electricity was turn on, as two thousand volts surged through the wires and into Bundy’s body. His hands tightened into a clench as the power surged through his body. A tiny puff of smoke lifted from his right exposed leg.
After a minute had passed, the machine was turned off, and Bundy’s body went limp in the chair. A paramedic stepped forward and opened the blue shirt and listened for a heartbeat, while an attending doctor shined a light into his eyes. The time was 7:16am, and Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers was pronounced dead.
Ted Bundy Execution: Celebrations
The curtains were then drawn, concealing the death chamber from those witnesses in the gallery, who were led out of the room. Outside the prison, a large crowd had gathered to bear witness to Bundy’s impending death. There were men, women and children and representatives of the media who came together to in celebration, and many of those present were holding large hand-made placards.
Some of these were held aloft and read “Teddy is Deady” and “Watch Ted Fry, See Ted Die!”. There were barbecue grills, Bundy burgers and singing and dancing. In the words of Bundy’s last lawyer, the scene was “almost reminiscent of a football game.” One man was even cashing in on the death of the serial killer, by selling white Ted Bundy t-shirts.
Standing next to a sign which red “Tuesday Is Fry Day…” the man had a pile of t-shirts with “BURN BUNDY, BURN,” emblazoned on them in blood read print, above a cartoon sketch of Bundy sat in the electric chair. A thought bubble besides him had the words “Now what am I gonna do?,” while at the bottom, beneath the electric chair was written “BUNDY’S LAST CHARGE IN LIFE!”
Fireworks were suddenly set off in the pasture opposite from the prison, when word of Ted Bundy’s execution reached the large crowd. The body was removed and placed inside a white hearse, and as it departed the prison, the people cheered, chanted and jeered at the vehicle carrying Ted Bundy’s corpse passed the crowd.
Ted Bundy’s Executioner
A popular misconception that has emerged around Bundy’s execution involves the identification of his executioner as a woman. In one particular film about Bundy from 2002, the person who presses the button is shown to be an individual whose face is hidden behind a hood. Once this face covering is removed after his death, this person is revealed as a female corrections officer.
For many, this distortion of the facts serves to give Bundy’s death a sort of poetic justice. Having killed so many young women, who were kidnapped, raped and murdered, before having their bodies defiled by the Necrophiliac Bundy, the fact that his demise should come at the hands of a young beautiful woman who fit his preferred victim type, acts as sort a revenge from the women whose lives he so cruelly snatched away.
It is in fact unknown who pulled the switch that day. The Florida department of corrections has stated in a report that the executioner was a private citizen who was paid $150 and never wore a hood. This person was in the death chamber’s control room that was obstructed from the view of both witnesses and the condemned, their identity remaining anonymous.
Ted Bundy’s Execution: Aftermath
After Ted Bundy’s execution, his brain was removed during the autopsy and examined by experts who wished to detect any abnormalities that may have hinted at a reason of the horrific crimes he carried out. Injuries to the brain has been a contributing factor in some criminals misdeeds, however Bundy’s brain apparently indicated no signs of trauma.
Newspaper headlines at the time published photographs of Bundy’s corpse with the title, “Killer dies with a smile on his face,” and the sub-heading, “The smirk that haunts families of his victims.” As per the request in his will, Bundy’s body was cremated and his ashes scattered in Washington’s Cascade Mountains, the same mountain range where the killer had hidden the bodies of at least four of his victims.
One of the most prolific and dangerous serial killers had finally been put to death for his crimes. For the families of the many victims whose remains were never recovered, the pain and sorrow of not knowing what happened to their loved ones, was something that would endure. But for many others, his painful execution provided some small comfort.
Written by Nucleus
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