Letters from Dr. Dobson, 1988
Added 2023-10-03 04:32:01 +0000 UTCAugust-December 1988 letters from Dr. James Dobson to Bundy on death row.
"...John tells me that your spiritual conversion is real, and that you are motivated now to serve the Lord even at great personal risk. I understand the situation with which you are confronted and admire your desire to help in the fight against hard-core and violent pornography. I believe you are in an incredible position to influence the nation regarding the dangers of obscenity, Ted. Most Americans are totally uninformed about this subject...
My point, Ted, is that the time is right for you to make your case against obscenity! Public opinion is the key, and you could be a molder of it. But to do so, you would have to throw caution to the wind and make the most emotional and powerful statement possible. That is easy for me to write and incredibly difficult for you to implement, of course, but in so doing, you could save the lives of more women and children than have been lost through prior-misdeeds..."
Comments
? Who are you addressing?
Tiffany J.
2024-07-27 20:31:59 +0000 UTCHe did discuss both murders in Idaho with state investigators near the end. See Sullivan's works.
Commie
2024-07-27 20:28:15 +0000 UTCfollow up question then. Follow my thinking please. Say when someone is with their best friend, or a group of people that "get you" like people of your same faith, or people of the same political beliefs, and so on....If it were say, hypothetically, Bundy, Ridgeway, and say Dahmer were all at a bar having a drink, laughing, and cutting up sharing their stories and experiences in a dark corner by themselves where they won't be overheard. Is that the only environment where Bundy is likely to just cut loose and tell the truth? I get the feeling that he enjoyed everything he did, in my opinion when you say things like “I haven't blocked out the past. I wouldn't trade the person I am, or what I've done, or the people I've known, for anything. So I do think about it. And at times it's a rather mellow trip to lay back and remember," that tells me there's a fondness to his memories including the murders. I would love to pick your mind on this one please. Was murder a hobby for him, just a passionate hobby that he knew society couldn't handle him being into, or is it more than that? I'm talking about Bundy himself. It's part of him, he enjoys it, he's driven by it sure but so is someone super passionate about say comic book collecting. I'm not trying to diminish the victims to a lowly hobby, I'm just asking would Bundy see it that way? Was he truly "the most cold hearted son of a bitch" that one would ever meet as he said?
Michael Clark
2024-02-01 22:42:09 +0000 UTCIf you read Polly Nelson's book "Defending the Devil," she addresses this at the end. She begged him not to discuss the Florida crimes with Dobson, on the off-chance he might gain a last minute reprieve somehow. She said that's why he hesitated to talk about Leach, but Dobson interpreted it as "pain," and Ted was fine with that. Hagmaier said that he was "embarrassed" of his underage victims, so that may have been part of it; he felt shame for killing those girls in particular. But who knows. He did speak about Lynnette Culver in the Idaho confession; it's on my blog. I'm not sure if he ever said anything else about her. If he did, I haven't seen it.
Tiffany J.
2023-12-29 17:51:42 +0000 UTCI have a question for @killerinthearchives: When I watched that video I recall Dr. Dobson asking him about Kimberly Leach. I recall him having his hands clasped together to the his left of his head, and he looked down as the question was asked "where were you Ted?" I remember his reply being "I can't really talk about that," or something to that effect, Dr. Dobson then chimed in saying "It's too painful," and it went from there. My questions are this: 1. Would Bundy even be able to say that it's too painful? Would the real answer from Bundy be (I loved every moment of what I did but I know enough not to say that) or is that too far and COULD HE even feel it's "painful" as Dobson described? 2. Him looking down and what not like that, not meeting Dobson's eyes at all during that particular question, if he can't feel remorse in how he's wired then CAN that be shame or why wouldn't he meet Dobson's eyes that really struck me. And 3. I've never heard of him even speaking about Leach or Lynette Culver, who was the same age as Kimberly Leach but was a few months older. Did he ever comment or grant insights on those crimes; maybe getting the answer from his other crimes? Is the answer as simple as he really enjoyed it and that's the end of it?
Michael Clark
2023-12-26 20:07:25 +0000 UTCExcellent observations.
Tiffany J.
2023-12-15 23:28:41 +0000 UTCThese letters are skeevy. Dobson keeps saying how busy he is, how he's carving time out of his hectic schedule, how he can't answer the hundreds of thousands of (fan) letters he gets, and he mentions his trips to Africa, Europe and a retreat center in Montana more than once. (Given Ted's insatiable desire for freedom and his unending need for attention, he must have been seething which is kind of funny to think about.) At the same time, Dobson is practically salivating over this potential "get" for his crusade against "the purveyors of smut." He declares himself a man of integrity and that he'll never be duplicitous, but while he's making those grand statements, he's scheming around how to get Ted to say what he wants him to say in order to advance his cause. Interesting that Dobson had his personal assistant write the third letter, after thinking Ted didn't bother to respond to his first two. Ted probably saw someone in Dobson who could potentially have enough influence politically and socially to get him another stay of execution, and all he had to do was lie (which he was very good at doing with little to no effort anyway). Dobson was an easy target. Ted threw some evangelical buzzwords around, tried to act deeply sorry and pretended to blame one of Dobson's well-known pet projects for his descent into murder. Who knows what role John Tanner played, considering he was close to Ted, very religious, very vocally anti-porn, and a lawyer in the Florida state attorney's office. Three massive egos all trying to "do the right thing." Sure, Jan.
Jay
2023-12-15 22:40:33 +0000 UTCI love the fact that they were essentially both using each other for their own ends and neither got what they wanted out of it.
Nunya consoin
2023-10-04 17:16:50 +0000 UTC
