"Why Can't We Kill Ted Bundy?"
Added 2022-08-04 21:40:27 +0000 UTC"Repugnant as the public may find Bundy, the fact that he's still alive is not some bureaucratic error. It can't be blamed on bleeding heart liberals, who love criminals.
The U.S. Constitution is keeping Ted Bundy alive. At the very heart of America's greatness, is... Ted Bundy. Smirking.
Says Larry Helm Spalding, who runs the state office that represents death row inmates: 'very few knowledgeable criminal attorneys don't see a lot of problems with those cases... They are weak. Very weak. I've heard many good lawyers say 'Ted Bundy may well have received the most unfair trial of any guilty person they know.'"
Comments
That key isn't very good evidence though. There were only a few (like 3 or 4, I think) types of handcuffs available at the time and the keys for each brand were universal.
Cyrene
2022-09-05 21:27:16 +0000 UTCThere is ONE piece of forensic evidence that pretty much clinches it for me. The patella found in one of the searches was exactly where Bundy said Debbie Kent was buried. In 2015, the patella was positively identified through DNA as indeed belonging to Debbie Kent. I'd sure like more evidence though. Not a single DNA match could be made? But it's possible the evidence to match it no longer exists. Police depts weren't exactly known for their meticulous storage methods back then. They were always losing things or throwing them away.
Cyrene
2022-09-05 21:25:06 +0000 UTCBite mark analysis has been show to be highly dubious scientifically now I believe "more of an art than a science', as some of the 'forensic' evidence used to convict him but it was the best they had at the time and does retain some validity even in today's lights of much deeper vigorous forensic analysis. And keep in mind the circumstantial evidence become so overbearing at times, such as the handcuff key fitting the Utah school kidnapping found in the parking lot fitting in the cuffs he was found with with later etc. Also the jury was simultaneously so impressed and unimpressed with Ted, to quote (not exact as from memory) the Only Living Witness 'they wondered if we was so damn articulate, clever and a respectable young man, as he appeared to be, then why wouldn't he just explain where he was on those nights clearly in stead of playing all these games'. I agree with your post, but I think it was just the best forensics they had at the time, which is sometimes valid even in its nascent; and the circumstantial was just too much to bear. This combined with the odd young man who seemed more inclined to charm and play games around this whole thing that literally just explain coherently why it's all wrong, as he should have been able to do, just tipped it.
Joseph P Thomas
2022-08-05 06:14:14 +0000 UTCGuilty as Tedric was, there was a LOT of questionable evidence used against him in his various trials: microscopic hair evidence, bite mark evidence, eyewitness testimony, the use of hypnosis to try and enhance eyewitness testimony; things we know, 40 years later, are not all that reliable. I've been reading The Killer Next Door, which reminded me that the only evidence against Ted in the Caryn Campbell case was credit card receipts placing him in the area, a ski pamphlet with a couple of x's next to the Wildwood Inn, and one "microscopically indistinguishable" hair. The only evidence against him with Carol DaRonch, really, was her own (pretty shaky, even as such things go) eyewitness ID and the fact he'd been caught driving around at night with his headlights off and carrying burglary tools in his car. If the insight we get into the judge's deliberation process in the latter case is based on actual interviews with the man himself (which I'm assuming it is, rather than being mere speculation or "artistic license"), then he convicted Ted of kidnapping DaRonch because he "just didn't believe his story" about why he was out driving around that night. That... doesn't sound like 'beyond all reasonable doubt' to me.
Tony
2022-08-04 22:16:10 +0000 UTC
