‘Sed'nsSosany fears thes area bes pst ‘Fed Bany ater hs aretn Tata in 800 crys mun mo ‘See BUNDY om page 104 Bondy hs wanted nthe more than si years ne eon,‘The Ted Bundy image’ has a life all its own, Bundy claims Sen pecan og Sate Se metrran eres Sanshrencmmeeeas econ cette eceeneel Seeeeeeeens Seceiee ececieriss Peace reece eee Soe necommon ment. yes_ sot Syne shed tem sone ‘tony ten berwe crop seed tyre ao nce Teree | STOMAOWNAN, [Seer tence nacber bese ‘theme one ‘abecve level sch Sieg anew a Teor wh Sere. “Tat ee eis reson ret etn cesig tet “ie pra condoned “Guried win. Dull coway Oat one cn cy barypomeaty waaveee wai | Bundy’s lawyers appeal over hypnotized witness i ; i i E i i 3 4 i 7 i i i i i i ithe duh fag SSC caren Seed Sec ob umber a ns Deyo etThey ‘don’t want deterrence, they want blood,’ Bundy says © This ts the last in a series of three articles based ea New York Times reperter Jon Nordheimer's recent ia- Bundy was sentenced to death for the murders of two FSU sererity sisters and for the slaying of Lake City JON NORDHEME Pel vel Tine: Win aiace l Q De you still contend you're a victim of circum- stance, that death just happened to follow you around? He smiles. “At the clemency hearing they called me fades. “Not a very good metaphor but I guess it works.”- Q. But people whe are familiar with your case — and! don’t say this lightly — consider you a monster. “Ye.” Q. It's part of their defense mechanism. They can understand a monster committing these crimes. But maybe they don’t want to understand how you er seme- “ome like Ted Bundy could commit these crimes. Se they deprive you of your humanity? “Yeah, but they can understand an Air Force pilot who drops a bomb ovér-Hiroshima and incinerates 200,000 They can understand that. They can understand someone talking about “star wars” and evacuation plans in case of a nuclear war. I’m not trying to undermine the Seriousness.of people's concerns, The problems of vio- lence in this society are very real and deserve attention. But they are inseparably linked with violence at all levels which seems to go somewhere outside the psyche. “We're not just talking here about serial murder or individual murders, but we're talking about levels of vio- lence that are both real and intellectual, that are acceptible or unacceptible. Bob Graham is a father and a ‘the plague’.” Bundy’s voice goes lower and his smile Bundy e. From page 1A Q. But society after centuries of effort . has agreed to rules of behavior. Self de- fense, of the individual or of society, is an accepted part of our culture. There is gen- eral acceptance of capital punishment to- day because society nv longer knows how te cope with unprovoked violence. The more senseless the crime, the greater the fear. Is it governors and the bomber pilots who create a climate of violence, _ individuals? tire! “Péople can discover the answers such as. they are when they are willing to look at themselves, study themselves; and see how they accept a lot’of violence in their own. the ability to come to grips with violence whatever forms it takes..." He takes another ~long-pause,-shrugs_in_mild_em| and averts his eyes. : _ “I kind of lose track of mythoughts let's seé, where was I? Oh, yes... “By accepting the death penalty as a solu- tion, it’s kind of out of frustration. They re- turn to the time-honored myth that the ‘death —penalty-isa-deterrent-The root of the death because penalty is anger and desire for vengeance.” “ Q. But murder and its victims are not an intellectual abstraction. Young girls were killed in senseless crimés. This is surely ‘anger borne out of the commission of © senseless, coldhearted crimes. “Yes, but ...” ; Before he can finish his thought the lights ~ go ut again. 4 ~” “Oh, there-it-goés....,” he says: = ~-Q._ The-generator has switched back over to regular power? * re -“Yes, but getting back,” he picks up his thought as the lights come on. “I know this as. much as I can know it, not therotically but knowing it from the experience of watchi it. They say they tiave the death penaity-in Florida not out of vengeance or retribution but because: of the theory of deterrence. : Well, let's see... Governor Graham received ‘the University of Florida back in 1983 say- ing there’s no way it’s a deterrent to murder _in this society. All the studies have shown it isn’t. Deterrence is just what we give lip ser- vice to. What we really want is to strike back. An eye for an eye. i “At my clemency hearing they didn't talk about deterrence, which is what the gover- nor says the death penalty is all about. What they heard was passionate and descriptive terms about the crimes designed to arouse the anger and hostility of the board. Think about it. If tomorrow some magical thera- peutic technique could be developed to guarantee that 100 percent of the men on Death Row would never again commit a crime of violence, and could go back into sociéty and-never revert, and ever harm: another soul again, do you think they would "Say, ‘OK let them go back?’ I think there are just:a lot of people out there who afe damned mad, OK? They’ are angry, OK? They don't want deterrence. They ... want... blood. —“What I think is sad i . son they want killed is killed, they don’t feel any better than they did before. There is still it, _an emptiness there. The killing doesn’t solve anything. It just continues this hateful pro- ‘cess that mankind seems to have been en- gaged in for the past 10,000 years.” Isn’t it because’ the type of crimes you ,are accused of — random and brutal Killings of young women — frighten people there_is no protection against them. A killer drifts into a community and | steals a daughter away for no other reason than she crossed his path? Of all the levels of violence, this is one that no one knows how to protect themselves from and: peo- ple irisist governors like Graham put the offenders to death? fi 4 __“You're right. People are searching for-a— solutio® but it’s 4 solution that’s bankrupt. The murder fate went up in 1984. 1984 was the first year in-20-years that there were executions from the beginning of the year to the last. I think there were eight executions. That certainly doesn’t say the death penalty is a deterrent. I. was reading a study the other day that said there's no way these sta- tistics will prove the case conclusively one way or another that capital punishment is a deterrent. Again, this is the fallacy of those who say capital punishment “thie person respo for crimes, those sad crimes, all across the country? mea, women and children and says he would do it again. “Well He pauses and takes a deep breath. “..1 don't know what to say. I...L.1 He pauses again, looking around “All I can say is that I have never killed anyone. I can say that the experience of be- ing in prison, however, has been, interest- ingly enough, a very positive one in many respects. One that has been very ‘helpful in helping me come to terms with myself.” Q. What do you mean by “come to terms with yourself”? “Well... accept... accept myself as I am and not worry about the future, or place any undue expectations on myself. Not to be un- happy that things didn't turn out in the past the way they could have; being remorseful husband, here is a decent person, but he is also a killer, when you think about swift and sure punish- ment, OK? You murder somebody, you go to trial, you're ¢onvicted and ...BOOM! ...you're gone, OK? What kind of society does that breed? The kind of. society they have in Iran, OK? i “It's one of those paradoxes that you have a society so regulated, as a Moslem society, and they will march children off to the bat- tlefields as missile fodder. It doesn't say to me that because you are ready to execute someone at the drop of a hat that you value human life. If they did they wouldn't be sending those waves of people.off to Iraq to be slaughtered. That's the practical incon- sistency we face.” i : Q. Does printing interviews with you en- or regretful about things that are done, and’ lighten anyone or is it just a matter of titil- simply learning from the things Y've been lating the public? through, and coming through into the mo- . “Who really knows? I don’t know, wheth- ment and equalizing that knowledge and un- er it’sa magazine article or a book, whether ——Q-That’s_a very benign attit guess.so," “~~ soe ieee ‘a state apparatus that- wants —Q. We'll keep in touch: You think about.It He laughs lightly. “Well... I don’t know where to begin. Changing in ways that are Profound and beautiful all at the same time.” wat | tal mee Q. Can you expand on that? “I don't worry about things. I'm relaxed. 1 don’t judge people.-I try not to judge people. It"would-be real easy for me to say Bob~ Graham is a real cruel, vicious person, or that he’s just an idiot wio doesn’ know what he’s talking about. I know: that’s not true. I know Bob Graham is like a lot of people, like me. Put him in an orange T-shirt and no one Could tell him apart from anyone else-in here. I don’t think he’s a bad person.” ude. about to execute you? . ft “That's true. There's a lot-of bad things that happen on the planet-at.one time. We _ can only hope that, one person by one per- son, our ways can be transformed, But I have to begin that process by myself. I can’t change the Ayatollah or Bob Graham.” | Q. That’s an invidious comparison. “The Ayatollah’s probably a:great guy to sit down in a tent with and have a great time. within a Week.after the conviction of a crime.-They are probably the model-society. “IS _derstanding to‘change." ee you can enlighten people in such-a way that * £ | they feel they know who I am or what I Q, How have you changed? think: But that’s your obligatioft. You're do- ing your job as-best you can, I think. . “The reason I'm talking to you, and to The New York Times through you, is to say, here is what I'm dojng. and T don’t have an attor-- ney, and I'm-looking for-Some help. I make no bones about it. : “But if you want to go into something Mmore-detailed-in-the-not,too distant future, then I certainly-would-bé open toa more far- reaching kipé“Of interview, if that's what your inter€st is.” eS Q. I’m interested in who this Ted Bundy is and what should we learn from his case. Your case is special, whether you like it.or- not. : Bor and decide. whether. we’should keep in touch, What.are you reading these days?” Bundy. gets up to leave as a guard is sum- moned to unlock.the cell. “The last big volume I read was about Amundson and Scott at tlie South Pole. Re- cently I read ‘Why Johnny Kills. He looks-bewildered for a second before he corrected himself with, a nervous stammer. -* “Er ....Why Johnny Still Can't Read.” * ere _was_a—fleeting enigmatic ind Prisoner 069063 was Ted away by the guard, headed back to death row, with clanging barred doors closing yehind him. Tm not saying that in 4 way to humiliate him or but he is a part of a mechanism he sets in motion: It may -be his duty, but he is rationalizing it. He still kills. He ts part of the same cycle of violence that he so .. justifiably _€T, Opposes. “In order to oppose = problem like murder people be- come murderers themselves. Let the punishment fit the crime sort of thing, an eye for an eye — they don't see that are becoming a part... and are using the same mental Processes that the condemned use. It really is the same.” See BUNDY on page 183A