Bundy’s deadly charm still polarizes, 40 years later
By DAN SEWELL
CINCINNATI (AP) — She kept her eyes on the dapper, wavy haired man who smiled, winked and exuded self-confidence as the courtroom proceedings moved along.
“I don’t know what it is he has, but he’s fascinating,” the teenage spectator explained to me at the time. “He’s impressive. He just has a kind of magnetism.”
It was that beguiling magnetism that investigators said helped make the object of her interest — Ted Bundy — one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers, with at least 30 women and girls’ deaths linked to him in a multiple-state spree that spanned the late 1970s.
I reported the teenager’s comments for The Associated Press’ coverage of Bundy’s 1979 murder trial in Miami, the first of two murder trials he would have in Florida. She was just one example of a regular courtroom backdrop of spellbound female spectators who were “attractive, young and single,” as I wrote at the time, just like the women Bundy was on trial for bludgeoning and sexually assaulting.