Series Review: "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" (2019).

"America's most notorious serial killer in his own words." This is Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. This documentary series created and directed by Joe Berlinger. The series follows two journalists, Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, who set out to get the definitive story of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, as told by the man himself.

The series was sourced from over a hundred hours of interviews and archival footage of Bundy, as well as interviews with his family, friends, surviving victims, and the law enforcement members who worked on his case. Michaud and Aynesworth began their dive into the abyss when Bundy wanted to confess in his last days leading up to the execution. Michaud and Aynesworth began with the Washington Spree in which Bundy killed twelve women between 1973 and 74. In August 1974, Bundy received a second acceptance from the University of Utah Law School and moved to Salt Lake City from Seattle. Between 1974 and 1975, Bundy killed six women with the exception of one. Carol DaRonch is Bundy's only surviving victim to escape. In 1975, Bundy shifted much of his criminal activity eastward, from Utah to Colorado. In that year, Bundy killed five women. 

Afterwards Bundy was arrested by Utah Highway Patrol officer Bob Hayward in Granger for speeding in a residential area in the pre-dawn hours. Bundy was released due to lack of evidence, but Salt Lake City police placed Bundy on twenty-four-hour surveillance. In February 1976, Bundy stood trial for the DaRonch kidnapping. After a four-day bench trial and a weekend of deliberation, Bundy was found guilty of kidnapping and assault. He was sentenced to one-to-15 years in the Utah State Prison. Later that month, Colorado authorities charged him with Caryn Campbell's murder. During his preliminary hearing at the Pitkin County Courthouse, Bundy escaped. He lasted six days until he was caught. He escaped once gain in December 1977. Bundy travelled from Glenwood Springs to Denver to Chicago to Ann Arbor to Atlanta and finally arrived in Tallahassee, Florida. In Tallahassee, Bundy killed four women, including twelve-year-old Kimberly Diane Leach. Seven weeks later, after an intensive search, Leach's partially mummified remains were found in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park, thirty-five miles (fifty-six kilometres) northwest of Lake City. 

Bundy was once again apprehended after he was caught driving suspiciously slow west across the Florida Panhandle at 1am. Following a change of venue to Miami, Bundy stood trial for the Chi Omega homicides and assaults in June 1979. The trail was the first to be televised nationally in the United States. Despite the presence of five court-appointed attorneys, Bundy again handled much of his own defense. In February 1980, Bundy was found guilty and was sentenced for a third time to death by electrocution. On January 24, 1989, Bundy was executed at 7:16 a.m. EST.

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes is quietly unnerving. It is a perverse meditation Bundy, it is as hypnotic as it is repulsive.

Simon says Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes receives:

Also, see my review for Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru.