Ted to Liz, 1978

On June 15, 1978, six weeks before his famously public indictment for the Chi Omega murders, a jailed Ted Bundy composed a bitter, melodramatic letter to his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer. The letter was then (mistakenly?) addressed and delivered to Carole Ann Boone, who was still living in Seattle at the time. Carole dutifully forwarded it on to Liz, and included a brief, facetious note:

“Dear Liz,

Enclosed is *your* letter. Either old Bun is slipping or he's playing a prank on us. I believe a similar incident originated in a 1948 Joan Crawford movie. We could chastise him soundly (I love to nag) or else forget it. Life is hard. Ted gets a bit addled (adled?)

Regards, Carole”

Liz later described receiving Ted’s “sickening” letter in her book, The Phantom Prince:

“At the end of June, I got a strange letter from him. It was addressed to me but had been sent to Carole Boone who forwarded it to me with an odd, light-hearted cover letter. Ted wrote that he had heard I had gone to the police and had been saying some ‘fairly uncomplimentary things’ about him. He said he was having a hard time believing I would do something like that:

‘From a purely factual perspective. the reports filtering back to me reveal what you allegedly told these people and what I told to you over the phone that night from Pensacola are two very dIfferent accounts...

I still cannot imagine you broadcasting the conversation we had. While I will not pretend to be Prince Charming, I do think it fair to say that for 2 and a half years now I have done everything to keep your name out of the news and avoid embarrassment for you...

Several friends and reporters have called me a fool since they believe that you were in some way responsible for the things that were happening to me...

But if you did go to the police, you went to them thinking they might be able to use what you thought you had heard. What if, dear Elizabeth, the King County authorities were desperate enough to charge me, based on your representations...

Do you want to hurt me so badly that you would twist the truth to see me swing from some wooden beam by my neck?...

AlI I am saying is that you could have gotten yourself in much hot water, and you are fortunate that what you thought you had was of no value to the police...

If you did what I have been told you did, you were not thinking of your welfare, or Molly’s, or your parents’, or your new life…’

As sickened as I was by the letter, the guilt trip didn't work any more; it didn't change the truth. Several weeks later he called and sheepishly told me that he had never intended to mail the letter and that he was very sorry that he had ever written it. We talked for less than a minute. It was the shortest phone conversation we had ever had, and it was also the last time I talked to him.”