Looking back is hell, especially when retrospect reveals how close true evil can slither up to your front door. Or in my case, the dorm door.
Back in the late seventies, serial killer Ted Bundy took a spin through South Florida, where I attended college. It was only after this smooth operator trolled up toward the Florida State/Lake City area and murdered several young women and a twelve-year-old, was a deadbolt added to the door of my dormitory to bolster the key lock.
Even after the in-state slaughter by Bundy, girls continued (per usual) to leave the door ajar for their boyfriends by using a block of wood as a lazy-woman's doorstop. Lazy being the operative word here, as God forbid these young ladies should walk down the stairs to open the door.
Fast forward past Bundy's conviction to the night before his execution. Being the narcissist that he was, old Ted managed to manipulate his way onto television, to air his reasons (excuses) for taking out his murderous rages on young women.
As said young woman coming of age during the time of his savagery, I watched Bundy toss the blame on pornography. I'm certain some believed that garbage.
But me?
I didn't sleep that night.
I tossed and turned remembering the social mores of the seventies, how my friends would leave bars with guys known only by what drink they ordered.
I recalled how my beater of a car broke down on I-95 in Ft. Lauderdale and how I jumped into the car of someone I didn't know, just to get to a gas station.
The electrical system went out on the same beater again, this time out on Powerline Road near Pompano. I got out of the car and started walking. Until two deputies stopped and told me to never, ever leave the car. Ever.
When the lights went out for Bundy for the last time--when he was finally executed--I was literally sick to my stomach. I barely made it to the bathroom. Years later, safe in my own home--complete with dead bolts, window locks and an alarm system--the moral of the story hit home hard for me as I flushed away the bile aka Ted Bundy with one single thought.
Us South Florida girls were lucky. Damn lucky. For trusting girls sometimes wind up dead at the hands of psychotic sociopaths.
Florida plans to execute Mark Dean Schwab this evening at six, should the U.S. Supreme Court fail to grant his final appeal.
But regardless of whoever the Sunshine State takes out, home state executions will always be about one good-looking asshole driving a VW bug that had a lethal way with the ladies.
Ted Bundy might have left the building back in 1989 but he shadows my mind for the rest of my days.
What the death penalty gives through ridding society of such people, the death penalty never succeeds in taking away the haunting of evil that this way came way too close.
Ever.
7 comments:
wow. Awesome.
I'm against the death penalty.
It's a crime, too.
And we've been wrong too often.
Ted was one disgusting mofo.
One thing: he taught us.
Like george he woke up a generation.
Evil monsters.
I know people get angry when I say this but ... there but for the grace of god .... I'll take MY life anyday over that of the life of a Ted Bundy.
We choose what we will be while we are deciding to come here.
Sometimes I can't imagine that I'd choose THIS (LOL) but ... it explains all those deja vu moments.
It's like with frodo .. your path is laid before you. He could no more stop that train than I could stop the one that ran me over.
And, we've all got that story somewhere.
Please don't misconstrue this as sympathy or understanding.
More like gratitude.
Gratitude sums this post up perfectly.
I'm still grateful--all these years later--because someone was watching over me while that jerk was running around Florida....and not just me---lots of other young women.
Creepy.
Ted Bundy was a piece of shit. I wish I was the one that could have executed his disgusting filthy carcass. All predators should be killed upon conviction of their first offense.
I'm not even certain we really know who his first victim was.....:(
"The Next Ted Bundy" is my son - so I've been told.
His cousin claimed he raped her repeatedly, at knife point - oral,anal,vaginally.
No one who knew my son, in his early teens at the time, could believe it!
I especially was having trouble believing the 'experts' who proclaimed my son 'The Next Ted Bundy'. I was 'in denial'. I just did't have their 'special knowledge'.
I did have some 'special knowledge' that was never allowed. I knew the accuser had accused others twice before - yet now denied it under oath, in a court of law.
Medical records showed an intact hymen - no physical sign whatsoever of the violence perpetrated upon her.
My son was jailed for passing polygraphs saying he didn't do it, and placed on an ankle monitor for failing the court ordered confession polygraphs claiming he did.
Although he had no prior history of any sort - children don't lie. It Must Be True.
It's been almost 3 decades since The Last Ted Bundy made his appearance. It's been only one decade since my son's accusation.
I'm still waiting for the monster to appear.
I remember being scornful of Ted Bundy's mother, knitting in the courtroom, steadfast in her son's innocence -- as The Next Ted Bundy's Mother I've walked a mile in her shoes since those days.
If only Ted Bundy were the only 'monster' out there.
I hear you.
Have you thought about filing a civil suit against the accuser?
http://smashedfrog.blogspot.com/2008/07/revisiting-ted-bundy.html
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