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Quote by Elizabeth F. Loftus

“In court the next morning I sat at a table in the judge’s chambers. On the other side of the table, close enough for me to reach across and touch him, sat Ted Bundy. He’s adorable, I thought, surprised at my first impression, because I’d pictured him in my mind as brooding, dark, intense disdain (p. 83). (Loftus testified as a defense expert for Ted Bundy in 1976, Bundy was found guilty of aggravated kidnapping)”

Quote by Elizabeth F. Loftus

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Elizabeth F. Loftus

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“Have you ever been in a great mood, or at least a good one, then decided, “You know what, I’m going to troll through Facebook and see what’s happening with my friends.”? I have. I shouldn’t though. It’s a disco strangler of good days. It’s the Ted Bundy of good moods. One minute you’re cruising along and the next you’re chained in a moldy hole in someone’s basement, waiting to be transformed into some psycho’s personal Halloween mask, metaphorically speaking, mind you.”

“The thought had occurred to me as I was flying to Salt Lake City earlier that day that Ted Bundy might offer to let me stay in his apartment” (p. 74). (Loftus testified as a defense expert for Ted Bundy in 1976)”

“These three women picked up subtle signals that Bundy was sending off. When questioned, they said that he seemed too intent on what he was after and was uncomfortably nervous. Furthermore, they said he had spoken rapidly as if he were reading a script and he acted as if he had had a hidden agenda. Of the five different women who were approached by the stranger that day but didn’t go with him, two would later become severely psychologically traumatized when the truth about “Ted” came out, at the thought that they could have become a murder victim.”

“The extent of this killer’s crimes was growing as more of the pieces of the puzzle came together. As the handlers rushed toward me with their eager search dogs sniffing the ground ahead of them, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t want them anywhere near this cranium. Dogs don’t care where they put their paws. Crucial evidence could be destroyed or altered if the dogs ran through this site. A basic tenet of Criminal Investigation 101 was racing through my head: protect the scene. But it was too late. Almost on cue, and certainly by accident, a dog’s paw struck the ground and a human jawbone erupted through the leafy surface. I yelled for everyone to stay back, but within a few seconds another dog walked across the leaves and dislodged another human jawbone. Then another dog stepped on another mandible. In stunned amazement, we all realized that a detailed search of the mountainside was required. At the very least, we had just discovered the remains of two people.”

“The press creates its own magnified version of an event. The more intense the feeding frenzy for exclusives, the more the story changes from reporter to reporter until what the public gets is a distorted version of the truth. It’s as if the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle were at work everytime a large story unfolds in the media, so that the presence of the media itself creates, changes, and redefines the story. You always have to be wary of what the media reports because the media itself has created parts of the story.”