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The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story

Book by Ann Rule · 20 quotes · Ted Bundy, Ann Rule, Monster

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The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story Quotes

“And that's when we knew we had been right all along: Our parents and teachers couldn't have warned us about this beast, Ted Bundy, because before Rule's book, the words to describe the friendly-looking miscreant that was Bundy didn't exist. This man didn't fit into our sheltered world of bad people who were obviously bad people and good people who were "attractive", charismatic, charming, well-educated people. The equation just didn't work.”

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“I had written to Ted about the scores of women who had contacted me about their "encounters" with him, although I didn't give specific times or names or places. I commented that he would have had to been superhuman to have been everywhere people "remembered" him. There had been a flurry in the press when campers found a tree in Sanpete County, Utah, with Ted Bundy's name carved in it, and the date: "'78." "I too am familiar with the phenomena of Ted Bundy sightings," he wrote. "Tells you a lot about the reliability of eye-witness identification, doesn't it. Eye-witness id [sic] is the most inherently unreliable evidence used in court. It also tells you a lot about fear.”

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“It is impossible to pinpoint just how much stress comes to bear on detectives involved in an investigation of the scope of the missing girls' cases, but anyone who is close to homicide detectives sees the tension, the incredible pressure brought on by their responsibilities. If a corporation president carries the responsibility of bringing in or losing profits, homicide detectives - particularly in cases like the "Ted" disappearances - are truly dealing with life and death, working against time and almost impossible odds. It is a profession that brings with it the occupational hazards of ulcers, hypertension, coronary disease, and, on occasion, alcoholism. The public, the victims' families, the press, superiors - all demand immediate action.”

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“Any homicide detective who has ever tried to cope with the anguish of parents who realize intuitively that their children are dead, but have not even the faint comfort of knowing where their bodies are, can attest to the fact that this is the worst. One weary investigator commented to me, "It's rough. It's damn rough, when you have to tell them that you've found a body, that it's their kid. But it's never over for the parents who just don't know. They can't really have a funeral, they can't know that their children aren't being held and tortured someplace, they can't face their grief and get it over. Hell, you never get over it, but, if you know, you can pick your life up again, somehow.”

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“When I began writing fact-detective stories, I promised myself that I would always remember I was writing about the loss of human beings, that I was to never forget that. I hoped that the work I did might somehow save other victims, might warn them of the danger. I never wanted to become tough, to seek out the sensational and the gory, and I never have. I have joined the Committee of Friends and Families of Missing Persons and Victims of Violent Crimes, at the invitation of the group. I have met many parents of victims, cried with them, and yet I have somehow felt guilty - because I make my living from other people's tragedies. When I told the Committee how I felt, they put their arms around me and said, "No. Keep on writing. Let the public know how it is for us. Let them know how we hurt, and how we try to save other parents' children by working for new legislation that requires mandatory sentencing and the death penalty for killers." They are far stronger than I could ever be.”

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“The whole four to five weeks that we've been here in this courtroom has been for one reason. And that is because Theodore Robert Bundy took it upon himself to act as the judge, jury, and everybody else involved in this case and took the lives of Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman. That is what this case has been all about. They can stand before you and ask for mercy. How nice it would have been if Lisa Levy's and Margaret Bowman's mothers could have been there that morning of January 15, 1978, and asked for mercy for them.”

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“Bob Dekle, the prosecutor in the Leach trial, had a blunter, less charitable opinion. He saw Ted differently. He had seen too many sociopaths in his career to believe the mask. "A sociopath is a person who, if you sit down and talk to that person, you would like him. And the longer you listen to him, and he tells you about how society - how everybody's out to get him - you start to believe him. At times, Bundy had me believing him. But he's just another sociopath - except he has pretty face.”

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“I started to write to Ted to explain my feelings, and then - for the very first time - I truly realized that he could not, would not, understand or empathize or even care what my situation was. I had been meant to serve a purpose in his life; I had been the designated Bundy PR person - and I had failed to produce.”

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“Dr. Benjamin Spock, who worked in a veterans’ hospital dealing with emotional illnesses during World War II, commented at the time that there was a pronounced cross-sex problem in dealing with psychopathic personalities. The male psychopaths had no difficulty in bewitching female staff members, while the male staff picked up on them rapidly. The female psychopaths could fool the male staff but not the women.”

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“He had no alibi for the night of November 8, 1974, and he argued, "If I cannot remember precisely what occurred on a date which is now eighteen and one-half months prior to my arrest for kidnapping, it is because my memory does not improve with time. It is safe to say what I was not doing, however. I was not having heart surgery, nor was I taking ballet lessons, nor was I in Mexico, no was I abducting a complete stranger at gunpoint. There are just some things a person does not forget and just some things a person is not inclined to do under any circumstances.”

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“Just be careful," a Seattle homicide detective warned. "Maybe we'd better know where to find your dental records in case we need to identify you." I laughed, but the words were jarring; the black humor that would surround Ted Bundy evermore begun.”

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“As I write these recollections of women who survived, I hope my readers are taking careful note of why they did. They screamed. They fought. They slammed doors in a stranger's face. They ran. They doubted glib stories. They spotted flaws in those stories. They were lucky enough to have someone step up and protect them.”

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“And that was always Ann Rule's point, hammered home by the reveal that even she had been deceived by this wolf in sheep's clothing. That perhaps those glaring red flags would have gone unnoticed or ignored in our desperate want for this m an to be what he claimed to be: nurturing, kind, safe. That the. men in our lives didn't have to be strangers to pose a threat to us. That "stranger danger" was a terrifying myth that you wouldn't even realize was just a stupid rhyme until the wolf was sitting right beside you.”

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