An Interview with Rich Bundy, Part One

In April 2022 Ted Bundy’s youngest brother, Richard Bundy, kindly granted me an interview. Rich was only a few months shy of his 14th birthday when Ted was arrested, and for many years fervently believed in Ted’s innocence. He never imagined that the older brother he idolized and adored could commit these terrible murders, then lie about it for so many years. When the truth finally came to light, Rich was heartbroken and profoundly affected.

Music became Rich’s lifeline while dealing with the tragedy, and he channeled this passion into a career, becoming a professional musician in Tacoma, Washington. However, his family name brought prejudice, the haunting memories brought depression, and society can often be unkind to artists. Today Rich struggles with poverty, disability, and homelessness.

In this first part of our hours-long interview, we discuss Rich’s memories of early life and adolescence, when Ted got arrested in Utah and his life permanently changed. He also describes his life since Ted, what it was like participating in the documentary Falling for a Killer, and his thoughts on survival and forgiveness.

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Tiffany Jean:

I’m gonna start recording now. Are you there?

Rich Bundy:

I am here.

TJ:

Well, I just wanted to say I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. This really means a lot to me, and I know a lot of people are really interested to hear from you. And so, first of all, thank you so much.

RB:

You’re welcome.

TJ:

Most people know who you are and why I’m interviewing you is because you’re Ted Bundy’s youngest brother. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about yourself and the story of your life, what you did, just your life in general, tell us a little bit about that.

RB:

Well, I went to local schools in Tacoma where I grew up. I went to Mason Middle School and that’s when everything started with Ted. I was in, I guess, eighth grade when Ted was arrested– and here’s the nice thing though about that. Nobody at school, really razzed me about it at all for, and usually, that’s the age when kids are prone to be razzed, or made fun of, or teased, but it never came up. Ironically, though, the only person I felt made me feel guilty by association if you will… I had a girlfriend when I was attending middle school and her mom was very overprotective. She wouldn’t let us see each other outside of guardian supervision, well she did, but still was very overboard with it. And I understand where the woman was coming from.

I don’t mean to speak of my girlfriend’s mother wrongly or make her seem like a bad person, but it was really tough for my girlfriend and I, cause we loved each other a lot and we had to sneak around, just to see each other. And for example, my parents had lake property and they invited her to come with us for a weekend and her mom would not allow that to happen. I can’t say 100% that she said, “Because you’re related to that guy,” but it’s just doing the math later in my head. It just came to me. The girlfriend, and I dated, we dated from ninth grade until about 11th grade when, just before 11th grade, when her dad had been relocated, he worked in railroads and they moved back to Illinois. So anyway like I said, none of kids at school were bad at all to me about it except, but again, I felt the only ill will I received was from the girlfriend’s mother who just on one hand, she said she trusts me, thinks I’m a good boy and all that, but yet, she won’t let me be with her daughter in normal– most parents would’ve let her go with me in these situations because my parents were there. And her daughter, my girlfriend, she was very, very, very responsible and a very, very good person. And didn’t even, she never drank a drop of alcohol or smoked any pot. And I’d been smoking pot for a year or two, by that point. I had loads of respect for her and did nothing but treat her right. Anyway, so that was really, really hard.

TJ:

How did that make you feel at the time? Did you think that it was because of Ted at the time or did you think it was just because her mom was overprotective?

RB:

At the time, because of her mom being overprotective. Because at the time I didn’t have this, I have to call it a theory that I have now about her, why she wouldn’t trust us to be alone together. So I really felt like she was just not a kind person because of the overprotectiveness about her. I could see most girls of that age were twice as tough to handle than my girlfriend. Anyway, so that was pretty hard on us, it was tough. And my parents, they covered all the bases with us kids. They just taught us the wrongs and rights and, and all, all the subjects of life. And so it’s not like I wasn’t trained properly. <Laugh>

TJ:

Right.

RB:

So, that was high school. And during that time in high school, there was only one occasion of someone who spoke disrespectfully to us via the telephone. I’m guessing they were maybe in their twenties and, and these guys had, they had a twisted sick sense of humor. So when that phone rang and we’re all home… And I think I picked up the phone and these two guys are doing their version of a prank phone call saying “Hey, is this the Bundy residence?” And I said, “yes, it is.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t happen to be the home of Ted Bundy?”
And I said, “Yeah, who the fuck is this?”
And my mom was right there and she was catching wind of the conversation very quickly. And they said… I’m trying to recount exactly what the theme of their joke was. They said, “Yeah, well, you better watch it. Cause next time it’s gonna be you!”, telling me that, next time I’ll be the one getting into trouble I guess. And they were laughing and then they hung up.

TJ:

When was that? When you were still in high school?

RB:

Yes. This was probably right about, well I dropped out of high school in my junior year about the middle of 11th grade. I think I was still in school though.

TJ:

Why’d you decide to drop out?

RB:

Well, cause one, I was young and stupid. Two, I was impatient. I had a huge passion for playing my guitar and I just… I was noticing that six months before I dropped out, it seemed like every class I went to, the teachers were just not into it. I mean, they were textbook adequate, but like almost every day I’d come in and they’d say, “Okay, open up your books and read from page 8 through 15,” blah blah blah. And then they go back and sit at their desk, and there wasn’t any interaction going on. There wasn’t that passion, it just was strange to me, I’m thinking. So I added that with my desire to play music.

And I wanted to get out on my own. I just wanted to be… I couldn’t fully understand myself yet. I couldn’t tell my myself, well, this is the deep reason why I wanna leave high school and why I have the urge to be on my own because, I mean my parents were pretty– my whole life was fine. I could have gone to alternative school, stayed home and got my diploma, still played music as much as I wanted to. I could have got a job and finished school and, and rented a little studio somewhere. But no, I didn’t know. I was a handful <laugh> but my parents, they tried to talk me into staying in school. And, and at that time, I don’t know if you still need to, but I was under, I was 17 years old when I dropped out of school.

And so not being an adult, I needed to get a note from my parents in order to drop out of school. And an example of showing early independence… My first initiation of that was I got all my stuff out of my locker. And I went to the office. I said, “I’m leaving school. I wanna leave school. I want to go get a job.” And the secretary said, “Well you can’t just leave. You have to come back with a note from your parents.” So I said, okay, fine! <Laugh> It didn’t get me at all. I went home and here’s something, that regret number two, I guess I have a few regrets in life. I told my mom what I wanted to do. I wanted to drop out of school. I told my dad too, but he knew that there was no talking me out of it.

He just went, “Oh boy. Okay.” Anyway I remember sitting up in my parents’ bedroom, just my mom and I, and I said, “I need a note, will you sign this note?” And she knew, 17-year-old boy, they’re gonna do what they want do, but I really believe that I would have adhered to their strong demand. If they would’ve said, “No way, if we have to shackle you to a desk, you’re gonna stay in school. You’re gonna finish,” I would not have run away. I would not have been a problem child. I would’ve been flustered and I would’ve felt “ugh.” But I would’ve done what they said, but they were, they were spent on me. They, they were, they were–

TJ:

Well, and you think about what was going on at that time too, in your lives. That was when Ted was getting tried in Florida.

RB:

Well, I suppose it could have been a deep psychological thing that, that was steering me like that. But I, I mean, I wasn’t consciously thinking, “Man, my brother’s in prison and it’s really messing with my head. I gotta get outta here.” Wasn’t like that because otherwise I would’ve been, I think more extreme with my choices of the road that I was taking. I would have disassociated with family and everybody that I knew.

TJ:

Well, it may have affected your parents though, I guess.

RB:

Pardon?

TJ:

It may have affected the way your parents handled it, your decision to drop out. They may have just been so tired at that point.

RB:

Oh yes, that’s a very good point. They probably were thinking, “Man, we got enough to deal with with Ted. And that’s the bigger priority than, maybe Richard will pull his head out and get back in school, at least he has sense enough.” Cause I remember one selling point I was giving to my dad. I said, “I’m not gonna just be a bum, I wanna go get a job. I wanna get a job and get my own place.” And he appreciated that cause he was a very independent guy. He knew I had a lot of appreciation for that. So he said, “Okay, just know that there are alternatives to get your high school diploma.”

TJ:

Well what did you do after that? Did you get a job and move out?

RB:

Oh yeah, I got a job right away, but, but to finish up my point, my story about what happened with my mom signing that note.

TJ:

Oh sure. Mmhm.

RB:

Because I loved my mother dearly. She– not just for material reasons, not just cause she helped me buy my first music gear and all that. No, I loved her because she was a kind, wise, level-headed, tolerant person. So here I am. I had this note. And… I can see her as if this happened five minutes ago. She has a book in her lap, she’s gonna sign it, and she, she didn’t come to full tears, but she was sad. I, I put, I broke her heart in that way. I really… She fully understood the concept of finishing school and getting, you know, it’s just… At least, even if you don’t learn anything, just the idea, the concept of completing something, and from her generation, not all kids were lucky to go to school and she saw kids who were uneducated have bad, difficult lives.

And I mean, I acknowledged, I could see, I acknowledged her reaction and I felt, I did, I felt bad at that moment. And I said to her, I said, “I’m sorry that you’re disappointed. But don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.” Anyway I got the note, I went back up to the school and I gave it to them and I headed on my way at age 17. Got a job at a restaurant, a busboy job. Had my own, my first apartment. But it’s funny. I almost said in a way, it allowed me to save a man’s life. I guess anybody there in my place would have done that. But…

TJ:

What do you mean?

RB:

Well, my studio apartment just happened to be next door to a married couple, that were my age Nancy and her first husband’s name, uh, we’ll call him John. And John was a very hotheaded guy. He was a wannabe biker, wannabe tough boy. And he would go into these fits of anger. And anyway, one day, like they were, I could hear them next door arguing, we were right next to each other. On the other side of the wall, he was going off. He was scaring her because he was alluding to hitting her and he was punching the walls and just making, just having a raging fit. So it ended up out in the hallway and she knocks on my door for a little shelter and she asked if — she was scared, and without hesitation, I said, go into my place and just chill, you know, she had nowhere else to go. We didn’t know anybody else in the building. She went in there and he was out in the hallway. Fortunately he didn’t aim his anger at me.

He started waving his arms around and yelling. I forget what he was saying. He was just going off. And then he punched his arm through the window, and in doing so he caused a profound gushing of blood was coming outta his arm. I mean, he was literally like a water fountain. It was spewing and he was bleeding quickly, very, very fast. He was losing blood. So I get him to sit down on the floor and sit up against the wall. And I yell at Nancy “grab all my bath towels, clothes, anything, I need something to absorb his blood.” I started wrapping his arm up and I’m holding his arm up and he’s still ranting on and on. And he, he puts his arm down. He kept putting his arm down and I just grabbed him by the head. And I made him look at me, and I said, “If you do not keep your arm up, you’re going to bleed to death. Look at yourself, man! There’s blood everywhere!” And he finally understands. He finally realizes what he has, and also he was starting to get weak. The medics showed up. And as they were leaving with him, one of the medics turns to me, making sure no one really heard him. He goes, he goes, “Man, that guy’s lucky. You probably saved that guy’s life.”

TJ:

Wow.

RB:

I never saw him again. And then subsequently then of course, Nancy divorced him and met her husband now, and they’re still married to this day. And actually ironically, I lived at their house for about a month and a half just up until a few months ago…

TJ:

Well, how did you start performing, and what was your music career like?

RB:

In the music business, entertainment business, if you don’t have a lot of gusto and willingness to keep knocking on doors and accepting those rejection slips, you know, hearing ‘no’ a lot… Or you gotta get yourself a good agent, someone who believes in you to do it for you, right? So, I did not have that, that extra power in my soul to be knocking on doors and sending tapes to anyone and everyone to give me that big break, cause my energy was in me being a musician, making songs and going to work. I had to keep a job. And so, it’s really crushing. It was really crushing. But I still, I kind of sort of ignored that little disappointment and I just figured something will happen someday. Something’s gotta happen! And I was levelheaded enough where I kept telling myself, if you never make it, in the music business, where you can have your own home with, with rewards, financial rewards of music and buy a loaf of bread, you still gotta be happy that you have this ability to play music, and this notion of being fulfilled with song and also enjoy giving music to people. So when you ask me about what was my music career like… It was patchy as far as paying gigs, I can tell you that. Very little paying gigs, but again, I didn’t make it a key element as to my success in what I did. I think true success in playing music is when you inspire somebody with song or you just play til other people like what you do and people come up to you, strangers will come up to you and they say, “Man, that’s really awesome what you do.”

So, in my music career I’ve been in, between high school and now, oh, maybe about maybe six or eight bands. Some of those bands, we played what are called cover songs. And we learned songs from the radio that people like to hear. And we did that as paying house band kinda stuff. And then one day somebody confirmed the notion in my head, which I had floating around in the back, which was “Man, here’s a thought, I can write my own songs. I wanna make my own songs. I wanna put my songs out there!” These songs are in these jukeboxes from people who were once where I am, everybody was once, right?

So I started, I started playing music about… I started learning how to play guitar when I was about 14, about a year before Ted was arrested, which was good timing in those fates we have because I really believe if that if I did not have music– the ability to play music to the point where it really fed me, I would’ve been in big trouble. If I didn’t have that, I was gonna say, develop or discover a power of music in myself, it’s all over <laugh>. But it’s funny. Cause I just, I’ve never been married. I’ve never, I don’t have any children and it wasn’t like I didn’t try, throughout my life. I would meet somebody and have a relationship, get a good relationship going. I used to like the idea of having children and a family, but it just didn’t happen. Because of fate or combination of that, and myself, said, “Man, you got to make yourself available to the child you do have now which is music.”

So I started playing when I was 14 and I’m 60 now. So that’s 46 years I’ve been playing music and up until I guess, five years ago, more than that now, about eight years ago I played every single day. I would play my guitar every, every day. And I never had to say, “I gotta do this or I’m not gonna get better.” I just, it was natural. It was like breathing and eating. The reason I say up until about eight years ago, shortly after my father passed away, I was still living with my folks. And so it was just my mom and I in the house. Cause I wasn’t about to, I was just about to move outta the house when they became ill with pneumonia at the same time. And my dad passed away from it [in 2007], and I thought, “Well, I can’t leave my mom here.” <laugh> I mean, mind you, there were other siblings in town and other people who could have helped her out, but I just, I’m a very protective person and I, and I just, couldn’t just up and move out on her. So I stayed.

So anyhow, after my dad died, I started my own landscaping business, basically glorified groundskeeper, lawn maintenance, yard maintenance guy. And I was acquiring clients around town. I got a little truck and some basic tools and it was a one-man operation for about five years. But then I started hurting myself. I’d fall on a concrete step and hurt my tailbone. And about the second time I fell or injured it somehow, my back became very susceptible to going, going out as the term is. One day I, I bent down to pick up my work boots– that’s all I did! I just wanted to pick up my darn boots man. And my back went {pop} and it went OUT. And when your back goes out, you go down <laugh> on the floor, you can’t move sometimes for a couple days. I think the first time that happened, I was thinking, man, this is not a good situation.

Plus, and then on top of that, one time I had a really bad fall in my apartment where I tripped over something. The way I fell, I fell face first. I hit the floor. I didn’t have time to break my fall or bend or something. And so my head, my forehead hit the floor, like a two by four, bang, like a cartoon bouncing. And when I hit that floor, I was lucky enough to have an extra throw rug, my head landed on it. I almost passed out. And I thought to myself, “Oh, I’m gonna die.” <laugh> I mean, my head, my neck got messed up and my head was all woo. And I blacked out for a moment and I just, I laid there for, I don’t know, 10, 15, minutes while my buddy Bill was outside in his van, waiting for me to bring some things out to him. He was helping me out with the situation. And uh, and finally he came in, just to see what was up, and he finds me on the floor. And, anyhow, so that, that was the start of, I had to take– I could not play guitar for almost a month after that because my arm was so messed up. I mean, I literally couldn’t at all. That was that really worried me.

To this day I still can’t– I can’t use it. If I give somebody a hug, I can’t fully embrace. Like you normally do with a hug, my left arm won’t come all the way in, I can’t lift it. I can’t reach it up high anymore and I can’t carry much. But fortunately about a month after that fall, it took about another month to get back to where I could play properly.

I had a pretty awesome rock/punk rock band, called “The Plasterds,” and we were playing our own original songs. And so I played with them for about five years until the demise of The Plasterds. One of the members had a situation come up with his life where he had to back out of the band cause he had to take care of life. And we were just starting to get popular at that point too. And I wasn’t necessarily mad at them, but I was very angry for several months that that fell apart. And then at that time it was like I said, I had to give up my landscaping business. I couldn’t, I knew I just, I couldn’t do it. I’d fall apart or, or just, just no way. I did that and I had some money, cash, tucked away like a dummy in my apartment. Anyhow it got stolen.

So the place where I was renting an apartment, the two people, the landlords were a husband and wife team who are wonderful, very generous, kind people. They let me stay there, rent-free for like five months, which is unheard of. Nobody does that. Because I told them something’s gonna break here. Someone’s gonna come through, something will come through. I was on the phone and trying to figure something out. So anyway, Joel and Renee, the two landlords of the building, they, again, they’re really kind people. And it pained them to come to my door with an official eviction notice. They said, man, we hate, we really hate to have to do this, but we’ve given you more time than anyone, we can’t do it anymore. And I understood, I made it clear to them that I did not have any ill will towards them at all. So, I owed them, like $2,500 for rent all those months and they– another example, another example of their generosity– they said, don’t worry about paying us back, because, it’s going to be hard enough as it is, to get going again and on your feet, and we’re not gonna put you on the, I don’t know, black list, they said they wouldn’t write it down, so it won’t show up on a credit report.

TJ:

Very kind.

RB:

Yeah. Anyway.

TJ:

Sounds like they’re good friends of yours.

RB:

Yeah. I, at one end moving out of there kind of made it more official that I could call, we could call each other friends, right? So I remember, yeah, I think about a year ago, maybe I was talking to Joel, wondering if he’s still okay with me and he goes, “I love you man. I love you, brother.”

TJ:

Well, let’s go forward a little bit. So you got approached by Trish Wood a few years ago to do that documentary [Falling for a Killer on Amazon Prime]. And you decided to do it, can you talk about why you decided to start speaking about your experience? Nobody else had done that before from your family.

RB:

Right. Yeah. It’s been almost about three years now, I think at this time in 2019.

TJ:

So when you heard from her, why did you decide to talk to her? I feel like your family had probably been approached many times.

RB:

Yes. Not, not too many. I mean just a few, but still enough to where my mom didn’t like being approached once about it.  The old thing with “no means no.” So anyhow. Trish Wood, exercising the proper way of doing the work she does, did not try to contact me directly. In her line of work, there are people who know how to get information, there are people whose job is, uh, the impossible <laugh>. And getting a hold of people, for example. Anyway, here’s how it went.

So my friend was involved with, had a technical position in a local film that I was in. I was in a movie, written and directed by his brother and so– I mean the movie had a little bit of success, got around. I think Alice Cooper has a copy! Now, so Trish Wood contacted John and asked him if he would deliver a message to me saying that Trish Wood is wondering if I would like to speak with her and be interviewed about Ted. John’s a pretty discriminating guy. I mean the fact that he thought that it was on the up and up is why I just even, even considered giving her time of day. Cause I would, I would expect John to go, ‘oh man, don’t talk to those people.’ But he said, “Hey, maybe you should give it a chance or check into it.” So I spoke with Trish Wood on the phone. The first time I met her was on the phone, we spoke for over an hour. And I told her, “Well, let think about this. I’ll get back to you.” I think, oh, one of her helpers gave me a call back just to see how I was doing and to see if I had a yes or no. And he made it very clear– they’re very good at, at phrasing their politeness because they’re legitimate. And he said, “We’re not trying to pressure you. We just wanna know if you want to or not. We understand if you don’t.” And I said, well, I’ll talk with Trish again on the phone. So Trish called me, and we spoke for a longer amount of time. And so that second conversation on the phone was making me become comfortable with her. So, and not only, not just what she was saying to me as a professional in her field, but also how she was saying it as just a person. And I was glad. And she, and of course, just as an example of when you’re in that field of work, you need to understand how people, if someone seems extremely guarded towards you, you have to respect that you can’t expect people to just seem happy. No, some people get very angry in that line of work, right?

But I did tell her, I said, “Well, I’m strongly considering doing this.” But I also said, “The instant I find, the instant that I not only sense, but find out that you’re full of shit, I’m gonna point you to the door and you will never be permitted to speak to me again.” I won’t give you the time of day because you just told me now, you gave me the impression that your heart’s in the right place. You’re trying to get something, some sort of positive light on the subject. Something that is not a rehash of sensationalist, “dun dun dun!” kind of production. And this is an extremely serious, life-changing, soul-bending occurrence. And it’s huge.

TJ:

Yeah.

RB:

I said, now if you want, if I’m gonna do this, the only way I’m gonna do this is if you and I, Trish Wood, if you and I sit down and talk for several hours. I’m not just a drive-thru burger joint, fast food information where you can just come up to me and get what you want in half an hour. I’m not gonna do that.  I’m gonna stop. I’m gonna say, “Hey, look outside! See that dog? That dog’s only got three legs!” <Laugh> Neighborly, common folk conversation. Because that’s also, because it’s so important subject matter, that’s how I get to know her, and see if I could trust her. She, <laugh> she put up with some of my, my tangents and a little joking around and carrying on and, uh…

TJ:

Maybe she enjoyed it. <Laugh> I do!

RB:

Oh yeah! It’s a balance. Like again, when you’re interviewing people, even though their time is valuable, they have to account for the humanism of it. You have to be easy on your subject matter. I still didn’t give her an absolute hundred percent yes. She on her own– cause at the time by then they were up in Seattle and they were already interviewing other people who knew Ted for this documentary– she came down by herself, in her car, and met with me in person. Cause that’s what I said. I said, “No, I’m not gonna just feel comfortable, like I trust you, from talking on the phone.” She picked me up in front of the house where I was living. I was living in my RV in my friend Vicky’s backyard.

Anyway so she got there and called me and I came out, we went to a little diner around the corner and were sitting in there. And it was funny because I hadn’t been in that situation before, where I talk about something sensitive in public. And, we were sitting at the table and she just, very gently asked, said “What do you want to know?” I was trying to start this conversation with her and I couldn’t get a couple sentences out. And it occurred to me, it was almost like stage fright, or almost like a little kid in a pool of water, learning how to swim. And I was, I was stammering and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go on about it right there in public because it wasn’t the right element.

It’s funny, even though I did it on camera and the whole world sees it, that’s different because it was… Uh anyhow. So she caught on pretty quick. She, instead of making me sit there and try to get me to drag it out of me right there, she said, “If you’re not comfortable talking about this here, let’s go. Let’s get out of here. You wanna go back, we can go back to your camper and talk there, are you more comfortable with that? I’m okay with that.” I said, “Yeah, that would actually be the best thing to do.” So we went back to my RV, she sat in that RV with me for a few hours and shot the shit. And of course, talked about this subject, and we covered everything in serious discussion as well as lighthearted and so when she walked out of that camper she had an absolute yes.

TJ:

Hmm. What were you worried about possibly happening?

RB:

Well, that’s the thing I wasn’t so much worried, and it wasn’t so much an issue of privacy. It was just– don’t shit on me. Because I have living family members who– we all experienced the same pain and all that, and none of them want to be, they wanna be able to live their lives and be left alone because they’re not– I use the term “wired” for that kind of attention or taking that risk. They all have families and you don’t want to take the risk of a nut job showing up or whatever, and making their lives difficult. So I, again, literally I was the only one of my remaining three siblings– and I have, nieces and nephews who are who are full grown adults and have children, and they expressed concerns. They didn’t want that kind of anguish coming around. And then, the other concept of, you tell me that your documentary has this mission, has this vision. It wants to present to the world a kind… the term “ray of hope” isn’t… It knows that it cannot answer the question why he did it. It was not about that. It was about the people who were affected by what he did. The people who were affected by a person who commits horrendous crimes like murder and rape. And how their lives were.

…I’m careful to use this term because some people, mothers of victims might not take much solace in it, which is “we were also victims.”

TJ:

Oh, you absolutely were.

RB:

Yes. And I still don’t carry that description a hundred percent. Cause I don’t, I just feel like– only because… one reason. If I was in the same room with a mother or a friend of a victim, it, would not only, not make them feel less pain, but it might stir up a little… you gotta understand, man, somebody’s gonna go, “Why he’s a victim, shit! He wasn’t murdered or anything like that, he just had to deal with the anguish of it. And he still gets to live his life.” But there is the concept of my soul and my mind. So yeah.

TJ:

Well, that’s very empathetic of you, actually.

RB:

My sense of confidence was uh… You, you can be affected by something and not know it, in a profound way. So yes. I was one that had to endure the anguish of his deceit.

TJ:

Yeah.

RB:

And, and many facets of uh… Oh, so there’s something that came up, one question you asked me about… If you don’t mind, where you asked– did my parents treat Ted or, or– in growing up, did my parents treat Ted any differently than us? Was that it?

TJ:

I asked what was Ted’s relationship like with your mom and your dad, and was his relationship with them different than the relationship you and your siblings had with your parents?

RB:

Right. And I never thought of that before. For some reason, it’s just fresh to me. And that question I thought was a very good question and interested me. It caused me to have a realization about something, uh… deep in my mind and heart. But I’m going be so bold as to say, going through this, if you don’t survive, living this experience– By that, I mean, yeah I could’ve ended up just really messed up in the head and sideways, whatever. But if you do survive it, then chances are good, you’re gonna gain a little wisdom about life and a little extra than most people, all the others who I went to school with and friends, who, if you will, have a normal life. So it made me think about the question about the concept of parents, parents with children. <Laugh>

Uh, I like the idea, the notion that for a mother and a father to successfully love their children, the concept or philosophy of “how much love” does not apply. You can’t measure it like a cup of oil. So to really simply put it– the concept of how you love your children is essential in how they end up. Mind you, it’s not any fault of them, if they, say, love their children to a level where the children are honestly content. And then the kid says, “Yeah, my mom and dad, I’m sure glad that they gave me genuine love. That’s great… But now– they did that– and now, now I’m just gonna shit on that. I’m just gonna go over here and indulge in this lame-ass way of behaving that really goes against what they taught me. And I’m not gonna pay any attention to the other voice in my head that says, wow, man, you’re a hypocrite, you’re being disrespectful to people who taught you the basic business in life. What it’s like to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And my parents, they loved all the kids equally. There was no favoritism going on. None, not an inkling at all. We all were disciplined the same, degree, level, if you will and all acknowledged the same and again, not quantity, but just quality. And it was right down the middle of the road, in our household. There weren’t any great exaggerations of celebration of something, but there weren’t any extreme expressions of disappointment like, “Oh, you didn’t, you didn’t get an A in that, or you didn’t finish Mr. Johnson’s yard. No, that’s horrible!” There were no extremes in our family. It was very, very even keeled. They were the rare types that understand how your life was as a child growing up can have an effect on how you are going to make your home be for your children. Which, it’s kind of a drag, you’d think that if you had a crappy childhood, that you would really wanna make sure that it doesn’t happen to your children, it’s really great to leave a dirty slate behind. Like, “Okay. That wasn’t the greatest childhood that I had, but, shit, we’re happy. The other events are behind us,” and my parents were those other people where they had a job, an income, and a nice home and, and everything’s fine. It didn’t have to be, it didn’t have to be extremely great. Never was extremely bad. I never got, us children, we didn’t receive like a cash allowance, like it’s common for kids to get a dollar a week from their parents for whatever. But our parents gave us the concept of, you’ll help around the house, because it’s nice to be nice. That’s why. You get the pay of knowing you are a team player. Cause that should be pay enough. And at Christmastime, I don’t know how they did it. <laugh> On low income– well not low, but they fed us, clothed us, and at Christmastime, we still got presents. I mean, but again, it was simple, simple things that were very fulfilling.

TJ:

So it seems like your parents did a really good job you think, right?

RB:

They did a good job and it wasn’t a job. Shit, they were frugal. They knew how to use a coupon and get practical. They were practical, very practical. But they were still able to purchase a very humble little patch of property at a lake a few miles out of town. Very nice natural little place out in the woods. And my dad, he was in the Navy in World War II, and he learned how to do things from nothing. You take a scrap of wood, what a lot of people would normally throw away, and he would–  the expression “jimmy rig”, somebody who can fashion something out of a few other things that normally, the other guy would go down to the store and buy it all factory made. That guy spent 50 bucks and here my dad spent 28 cents to make something <laughs>.

So he went to, I guess, military surplus, he got three tents that were military issue, each one could hold like four people. And he made platforms to put them on out at the lake property so we’d have something to sleep in, and we’d go to this lake property, like during whenever it was nice out, especially in the summertime we spent days of time out there. It was a beautiful little lake that had minimal motorboat usage, no cars or planes or noises or tractors. Just quiet and nature. You go out there and just, take it easy for a moment. And they built a little cookhouse, was about 10 feet by 10 feet by 7 feet tall– made that little thing. So they put a wood burner in it, a little stove to cook breakfast. I’ll never forget that feeling, that smell. You get up, the smell in the morning. It’s quite nice. You can smell the nature, it’s almost indescribable. You get up, you go, and smell the pancakes cooking, you go and waddle into the ol’ cookhouse there and Dad’s sitting down and says “Hello! Have some breakfast.”

TJ:

That sounds like a good memory.

RB:

Yeah. Yeah, it was. My dad and mom built a dock. We had a boat– we didn’t have a motorboat. We had a little rowboat. Anyhow, oh, I love this story, of getting up just before sunrise and the lake would be calm normally, and you can see a little mist out there on the water, and my Dad was like, “Just go, go in the rowboat and float around on the lake. Maybe do a little fishing.”

TJ:

Well, let’s talk about your dad a little bit. So, he was your dad biologically but he wasn’t Ted’s dad biologically. Was that ever, I mean, was that discussed in your family? When, how did you find out?

RB:

My mother trusted some person, a man and I’m sure she felt genuine love for him for a degree of time, a moment there. Whether or not he got her trust long enough, just to be physically intimate for the little time they were together, I don’t know. Or he could have been genuinely in love with her for a moment there, but maybe some guys, when suddenly a baby is in the picture they get cold feet and run off, that’s it, can’t help it. But for whatever reason, uh, the guy abandoned her and left her an unwed mother and I never knew his name. And, I can understand, I sort of get it if some children get a little upset with their parents like, “How come you didn’t tell us about this, you don’t trust us with this kind of information? We have a right to know!” Well, not really. Because it doesn’t affect you. You didn’t know this person, it has nothing to do with you, and knowing wouldn’t make any difference.

It’s not that they would just mistrust us with the information or, you know, or felt like it was taboo. It’s just, I would imagine my mom was probably just, when the guy left her, she was a combination of heartbroken and scared. And also back in those times, back in the forties very, very often unwed mothers were kinda frowned upon, the concept of having a child without being married was extremely taboo. So she was having to balance the joy– I’m sure when she found out she was gonna have a baby that her first thought was “Oh, wonderful.” I’ve no doubt in my mind she thought, “Oh, I’m gonna have a baby. That’s great.” Cause she was thinking that she had a man with her. And then, boom!, right? So you’re still trying to, you’re balancing this joy of having a child while balancing being ostracized or even having the child taken away.

So anyway I don’t feel an ounce, at all, of any ill will toward my parents not telling us about that man. And I didn’t know about it until Ted got arrested.

TJ:

Oh really?

RB:

Right. So, and I made sure that my mom especially– and my dad too, but mainly my mom because this is her business really– I said, “Oh so Ted’s from a different dad.” Cause the whole thing about “technically he’s your HALF brother”– no, no, he was just, he was still my brother. It didn’t bother, didn’t matter to me blood relation or not. He was my brother.

TJ:

So that just didn’t come up.

RB:

Yeah. It didn’t come up. I think for my mom to have to tell all us kids, each one of us, “Oh yeah, by the way, Ted, he’s from a different man,” blah, blah, it was probably just too painful. And, again, not necessary at all. Never saw him. That guy, never saw him again, ever. So my dad, when he met my mother– they met here in either Tacoma or Seattle– think it was here in Tacoma. And my dad met my mom and fell in love with her. And I’m sure that, from the minute he met Ted, when he was four at the time, he probably, without question he would just say, “Hey you little human, I’m Johnnie! Nice to know you, I love your mother. We’re gonna get married. Is that okay?” Something like– “Would you like me to be living with you and mom?” That kind of conversation. Like he was his own boy child. And uh–

TJ:

Well he adopted him.

RB:

He adopted him. As you do. Right? He he married a woman, she has a child and he put it on paper, this is my son. And I remember, every time Ted would come by– cause again, so when Ted graduated high school and he moved out, got a job and, and started going to college, he would come by and visit. So my dad would always be glad to see Ted, he’d say “Hey Ted!” So I’m sure that, growing up here, he was probably a very good son as far as that basic thing goes and they probably– I can picture those two together. They’re probably pretty strong and, you know, confident. I’ll bet those two probably had a really good father-son relationship. Cause I often spent weekends with Ted, up in Seattle.

So when he was 18, I was three. And he grew up in a different house than I did. When I was four or five, Ted moved out, and so my parents looked around for a house to buy. The house Ted grew up in was a rented house, in a different part of town. And they would have, by that time they had enough money for the down payment on a house so we got the one that I grew up in. So I was, well between ages five and nine, I periodically spent a weekend with Ted in Seattle, maybe just overnight, Friday, Saturday, or whatever, but consistently. So I would stay with him, weekends in Seattle until he moved to Utah, then I’d go spend summer vacation with him. And that, that happened about, I guess, three years in a row, maybe four. Up until… Bam! He got arrested. And the shit came down.

I had a surreal experience when I was about 13, having a newspaper route in the neighborhood where I grew up. And here I am delivering these newspapers. It was the morning newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. They’d drop off a bundle of papers at my parents’ door. In the house I’d fold em up into a little shape and put ’em in the bag that you wear over your shoulder. And on each paper I look at, the front page says “HELP US FIND THIS MYSTERIOUS TED. WHO IS TED?” and I didn’t didn’t even, didn’t even make a connection for a second! There’s a million Bobs, a million Georges and I was thinking, a million Teds, right? And here I am delivering these papers, delivering the bad news around town, just kind of, doodley-doo, going on with my life. And the especially creepy irony is here I am delivering these newspapers and there was a sketch, a composite of the “mysterious Ted,” what he looked like. And he kinda looked like… Well, sort like Ted.

But anyway, so about a year later, I remember being upstairs in the house, something got my attention that somebody called, talked to my mom– probably the police– saying we have arrested your son. I remember sensing– funny, how you can sense things. Part of you says, you need to get over here and listen to this, cause something is going on. I went down the steps and sat on the bottom step, and by the way she’s talking– kinda somber, and serious, and technical– businesslike, and she just had this calm worry. And also, I could tell too it’s well, very important. It’s– something’s wrong. Somebody– it’s common for people to get wrongfully mistaken for somebody else, right?

TJ:

Mm. That’s what she thought had happened?

RB:

At first, sure. I mean, your child– some people who are horrible criminals quite often will show signs of… of that. Right? When they’re growing up. We’re all thinking this is a mistake. So, right away my parents got a lawyer. Part of me knew– obviously I knew it was very serious, but it was kinda surreal how I didn’t worry. I thought, well, I know this is serious, don’t joke around. Gotta get on it. But I had this calm reassurance, I calmly reassured myself, I said, “Okay, it’ll get fixed.” His girlfriend at the time, not knowing that she was instrumental in his being arrested, thank goodness– it’s too bad that the detectives didn’t really listen to her the first couple times she tried to tell them… She knew…

TJ:

She suspected. Yeah.

RB:

She was with him, and he was starting to exhibit really freaky things towards her. And, the old thing about woman’s intuition and good for her for… Good for her. Yeah…

I can’t give an exact time or situation where, how, and when I went from loyalty, and belief in him to… “You scumbag.” I’ve got a pretty logical mind. Pretty good sense of intuition, but—it was a combination of, he was so good at deception and putting on a face it’s too bad he didn’t take up acting. He’d have been very successful. It was a trickle-down, slow drip coming home to my mind when I had to tell myself, dude, just give up. I have pretty good intuition about people. We all have different degrees of abilities to know when someone is deceiving you, but especially back then, I was still developing all the levels of personality traits. My ability to see through his lies wasn’t fully on spot, and him being the big brother who I looked up to– uh to use the reference “Wally and the Beaver” might not mean anything to people, anyone under 40 wouldn’t know what that means.

TJ:

<Laugh> I know what it means.

RB:

All right. How old are you?

TJ:

<Laugh> I remember that. Yeah. That TV show from the ‘50s.

RB:

Yes. Oh yeah. So I was as devoted as a youngest little brother could be to his older brother that one could imagine, and I thought he was the ultimate good guy of the world. He was going to law school. He made me– well not made me, but he, I just, I thought I wanted to do that too, be an attorney, help people out and do the right thing. Uh so anyway I was biased. I just, I think because I was so, I mean, carrying so much love and respect for the guy, it was difficult to fully see the truth because of that. Mind you, I was, independent enough of a thinker, when someone’s full of shit to a point, it doesn’t matter how much you respect and appreciate them, when it comes down to the bottom line, you can’t fool– you’re not gonna fool yourself and go, “Oh, I know he did it, but ah, come on. He’s family!” No. I can’t love somebody who does that anymore. I can’t love someone anymore who does that.

TJ:

Yeah. That’s understandable.

RB:

It’s just, no, sorry. You’re scratched right off the list, man. It’s not my place to say the term “forgive you.” I mean, how, what a horrible, disgusting thought to, especially again, to the mothers of the victims. How dare I say, “God forgives him, try to forgive.” Ugh God, I, I, I would– blech. I can’t imagine anybody saying that.

TJ:

Right. Right.

RB:

And especially in earshot of family members of the victims, or even not in earshot, it’s just… No…

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