They walk among us: Conversations with a Killer

In the early 1970s, the term “serial killer” had not yet been coined. It was a heady time in the United States: the country was withdrawing from the Vietnam War, Roe vs Wade was about to grant women improved access to abortion, protests against environmental pollution were on the up and up, and the Watergate Scandal was about to go big.

In among all of this was a generation of females that was more liberated and empowered than the one before. Women were obtaining university degrees, enjoying sexual freedom, and living bold and carefree lives. They left their front doors unlocked and drove their own cars around town.

Until, suddenly, things were not so safe any more. Reported rates of rape and murder sharply increased during this decade, and in the American North West, young women started disappearing.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes is the latest Netflix offering in the true-crime genre. This four-part mini-series tells the story of Ted Bundy, who, in his five active years, murdered over 30 women, some of whom were never found and others who were never even identified.

A masterful profile

The documentary cleverly fast-forwards and rewinds between present-day interviews with people who came into contact with Bundy and archival press and court footage and audio recordings from the time of his arrest and court cases.

The series not only builds for the viewer a masterful profile of an exceptionally disturbed man, but it also neatly tells the story of why the police struggled so to catch him, to prove his guilt, and even to keep him incarcerated.

Easy access for true-crime novices

Firstly, Bundy. I must admit here that I am not a true-crime aficionado, and although the name Ted Bundy is obviously familiar, I was not at all acquainted with the particulars of his crimes. Something to commend this documentary for is the fact that I did not feel compelled to consult Google even once.

The show is good for beginners: it requires no background knowledge to get into. Essentially, Bundy terrorised the Pacific North West, then the Midwest, and then finally the state of Florida, between 1973 and 1978.

He abducted, sexually assaulted and brutally murdered (not necessarily in that order) a number of young women who all looked vaguely alike: slim, long dark hair, big pretty eyes. He had a tendency to dismember their bodies and dump them in the woods where, to paraphrase Bundy himself, wild animals would continue the dismemberment process and destroy the evidence. Many of his victims were never found.

The boy next door

One of the major reactions to the show has been around Bundy’s good looks. I wouldn’t say he had movie-star quality, but Bundy was definitely easy on the eye, and he was also congenial, friendly, and generally not obvious serial killer material.

He never stopped smiling his big white smile, and in his earlier court appearances perhaps this played in his favour: the boy next door with the big blue eyes, joking about this big misunderstanding he found himself in.

But as time goes by, the smile makes him looks progressively more creepy and, frankly, unhinged.

The picture of a narcissist

The audio recordings paint a picture of a narcissist: a person who considered himself good at everything (despite evidence to the contrary), frustrated by the sheer stupidity of the people surrounding and talking to him, unfairly put upon by a world that didn’t understand how badly it was stressing him out and how much he hated prison food, but also desperate to be known and talked about.

Interviews with acquaintances paint a picture of a man who seemed a bit all over the place, dabbling in law school, the Republican Party, Mormonism.

Most people who met him thought he was a nice guy – handsome, well mannered – although a few ex-girlfriends report distressing behaviour, and ultimately the only long-term relationship he had was with Carole Anne Boone, whom he married while he was on trial and with whom he fathered a child.

Solving crimes in a different era

Then, to the law enforcement part of things, which was perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the series for me, as a person who grew up watching CSI and various other high-tech crime shows.

In the 70s, there was no CCTV, DNA evidence was not really a thing yet, and news didn’t leap through the internet like wildfire. Plus, the concept of a person who would commit repeated murders in a similar fashion was a very new one.

It took the police years to make the link between crimes committed in various different precincts, let alone in different states. Branches did not communicate with each other: the show makes mention of the fact that many of them did not even have fax machines, resulting in communication via the US Mail Service.

This meant that even after Bundy escaped prison in Colorado, where he was extensively featured on TV, he was able to take a tour bus, then a plane, then a train, to Florida, without being recognised.

When he was apprehended in Florida, it took the authorities almost a week to figure out who he was, and only then because he volunteered his true identity in exchange for a phone call.

Bundy on the run

The details of his two prison escapes also boggle the mind. The first time, he simply climbed out of an open window and walked into the mountains of Aspen, returning a few days later when he was cold and hungry.

Neither of the times he was apprehended was the result of good detective work: on both occasions he was stopped in his car because an officer had a “hunch”.

He was ultimately sentenced to death on the basis of eyewitness accounts and credit card records that placed him in the vicinity of his crimes, and tooth-mark evidence (he would repeatedly bite his victims) that in today’s courts would not be considered valid.

Guilty as sin

Of course, there is no doubt that he was guilty.

The show follows him on his journey from a confident, put-together Mormon law student in Seattle to a disturbed man who becomes increasingly more disorganised as he weaves his way to the furthest corner of the country, and then goes on a vicious killing spree in a Florida sorority house before taking a day out on the beach.

The series finale details his circus-like trial (during which he defended himself, and which was the first of its kind to be televised nationally in the US), the unseemly public lust for him to “burn”, and then finally, his chilling confessions, right before he was executed.

All the present-day interviewees still seem utterly haunted by him and, I’ve got to say, listening to him whisper how he disposed of one of his victim’s heads… Man, it’s terrifying.

People like him walk among us, perhaps “a little off”, but also perhaps not, and who is to say when one of them will rip someone we know from their beds, cut off their heads and bury them in the woods?

You just never can tell.