An Interview with Rich Bundy, Part Two

A continuation of my conversation with Richard Bundy, Ted Bundy’s youngest brother.

---

Tiffany Jean 
…Did Ted ever exhibit any behaviors that seemed strange to you, in retrospect?

Richard Bundy 
Yes, yes, there were a couple. Well, this was just a few months before he was arrested. I was 14 I think. And I got to visit with him and stayed most of the summer with him, but this time, he sent me home early. I was really upset about it. And he wouldn’t explain why, he just said, I can’t recall exactly what it is, it was a very generic excuse; he just said, “I just got things I gotta do, and I don’t want you to be here, so I gotta send you home, I’m sorry.” I was pretty upset. But still, you know, I’m not gonna fight it.

So we’re at the airport, and waiting for the plane. And he’s probably about 20 feet away from me, looking out the window, at the tarmac. He did not notice me looking at him. And when I looked at him, he had this look on his face. Like he was about to throw up. Like he was just… that kind of look you see somebody get when they’re really disgusted at themselves. Mind you, I mean, you can’t always read that one accurately, he could have been disgusted at somebody else… But I really think I’m accurate in saying that he was not happy with something that he was dealing with personally. It looked like an internal disdain, you know, a moment of just… ill.  He looked sick for a moment there. And some people, they’re almost chameleon-like, you literally see a change in them physically. Then he started to notice, I could tell he was about to notice me looking at him. So I turned away real quick, you know, I wanted to give him some privacy. He did not notice me watching him. And when he walked back over to me, he looked better. He had composed himself, and he said, “Well, want to go get a soda before the plane comes?” And I pretended like nothing happened, and he did too.

I understand, an older brother to a younger brother, especially a young teenager, that the older brother often won’t– uh, we didn’t get too deep ever on that stuff. But he still did instill things into me that like a father to his son… a lot of important stuff like being polite to someone who brings you a meal and to thank them for the meal, whether you liked it or not. He taught me that. My dad taught me that too– my dad, he was a very responsible parent, but Ted also reinforced it.

One time, we were visiting with a friend who cooked me a meal outside in the backyard. And one of the things in the meal I did not like and I said it out loud to Ted after the gal went in the house. I said, “Ew those peas were awful, I hated it, blech.” And he said, “Hey, look, I don’t care if you didn’t like it, the important thing is, she made that for us. So just thank her. And don’t say anything about not liking it; it’s more important to tell her thank you for the meal. Keep your critiques for yourself.” I looked up to him, and when someone gives you some good advice or something– food for thought, you remember that better than getting it from somebody you don’t much care for.

TJ 
Right. But do you think he ever told you– did you ever talk about his feelings? Or you know, that kind of inside stuff?

Richard Bundy 
That’s a good question, um… well, not verbally too much. He would express it with a, you know, a sigh and a tone of voice for a moment, but he was good at compartmentalizing, which makes sense. How other way would he get away with all this for so long? So when he was with me, I was like a comedy relief for him. Not me being the comedian. But you know, us together.

TJ 
You know what comes to mind from that story? You said that happened in Utah, where the girl made you a meal?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, yes. That did happen in Utah.

TJ 
One of his girlfriends maybe?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. It was just a short time. I don’t really recall her name. She was a blonde gal, had a young child.

TJ 
Had a son? Yeah. That was Leslie Knudson.

Richard Bundy 
She was nice.

TJ 
It’s interesting though, because– I’m getting a little off track here. But you know, he was dating Liz [his Seattle girlfriend] at the time he was in Utah, and they were engaged to be married. But he was taking up with another girl.

Richard Bundy 
It’s funny because I remember being… kind of wondering, what was up with that. Because I do recall him saying once or twice “Oh Liz and I split up,” you know? And I just took that as it was and really didn’t ponder on about it because you’re a 14-year-old boy, what do you care?

TJ 
Yeah, well, that wasn’t true. They hadn’t split up. He was telling her that they were gonna get married.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. I do remember that, and I think about the record that I took from Liz a lot. Remember I told you recently? When I was 9 or 10 years old, it was a well-known rock and roll album by a band called Iron Butterfly, with their “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” song.

TJ 
Yeah, that’s a great song.

Richard Bundy 
And I remember thinking, “Oh, that’s that song from the radio!” I wanted to really absorb it fully. So I took it home.

TJ 
Did Liz know? Did she let you borrow it?

Richard Bundy 
No. She never knew. I still have that record. When Trish and I were doing the interviews, I mentioned to her, I liked the idea of, if Liz would be into meeting me, and if I could come see her, I’d like to give her that record back. You know, it’s kind of an ironic record to take, because the song is about “in the Garden of Eden,” it’s all about love. You know, it’s about love. But then it might not be such a… it might spark back a little bad situation or something, you know what I mean?

TJ 
Did he ever talk about Liz to you, like about his feelings for Liz or anybody?

Richard Bundy 
Not really no. Again, I think he could tell that, I wasn’t… not that I didn’t have any consideration for people’s feelings in relationships like that. But he probably figured, or knew that I wouldn’t have any kind of, it would not be a fruitful conversation or whatever. And I think he was right. I think, again, I wouldn’t know what to say. No, I think I would have just said, “Oh, well. I hope you guys are still gonna be friends” or something, a real basic response. And he didn’t want to trouble me with that, so it made me figure it’s not necessary. It’s not like I had a right to know.

TJ 
Yeah, so it was almost more of a paternal, fatherly relationship than–

Richard Bundy 
Oh yeah, yeah. You bet.

TJ 
Did you ever go to him for advice to ask him what to do about something?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, you know, I might have once mentioned to him about a girl I liked and I just said like, “Yeah, I dunno if she’s interested in me or not, I guess I’ll find out.” I remember it was just a really quick response from him like, “Well, that’s good, you’re old enough to start thinking about girls.” But he never… no, it was never that deep stuff. It was always playtime. He tried to teach me to ski once, in Seattle at his apartment. We went to the park nearby, there was snow on the ground. And he tried to teach me to ski. I could not. My legs were too weak and I couldn’t do it. After about half an hour, he was like, “Alright. That’s enough of that.”

TJ 
We got a little off track… you said there was one other time that he exhibited a strange behavior that you can remember. What was that?

Richard Bundy 
Oh shoot, airport, prison… um what was the third one…

TJ 
Oh, no, you didn’t tell us about the prison.

Richard Bundy 
The prison story. Yeah. When he was in prison [jail] in Florida, I went down to see him. And Carole Boone had gotten a hotel room for us to stay at while the trial was going on, or whatever it was, I forget. I went down there… that was when I took the bus by myself from Tacoma, Washington all the way down to Pensacola, Florida. And it was pretty cool. A new experience. So, I go visit Ted in Pensacola, Florida. And it was just a pretty brief moment. He could have visited with me longer but he… I forget how he stated it, that he needed to go, maybe to the bathroom or something, I don’t know. He wanted to cut it short.

The things we talked about were very… nothing to do with the trial, nothing to do with any of that. He just wanted to focus on me and how I was doing and how I was doing in school. Visiting with Ted, we had one-on-one time but he’s on the other side of a concrete wall with a hole in it. It was a pretty sizeable… almost like the size of a dinner service hole, you know what I mean, you can put a plate through it.

But I remember the whole time that I was visiting with him, he was not visible in the window. I couldn’t see him! He was off to the side. It was a creepy feeling man. It was dark. I couldn’t see him in there. It was all black. I know they got a light in the little room for him. But he chose to keep his face away from the opening, and maybe it was from shame. Maybe he felt like there are some people he just couldn’t face, and I guess I was one of them. It’s funny, some kids are more persistent than others, like “How come you won’t show your face, let me see your face, come on!” I didn’t do that, I just went with it. I thought, well, whatever reason, you know, I just kept having a conversation with him about school and music and whatever.

TJ 
So you were just talking through this slot in the door?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, yeah, it was, you sat in the chair, and the slot was about waist high. I don’t think there was even a screen on it. Usually, they put something over it, especially nowadays, so you can’t put anything through there, but they had somebody watching.

But anyway, I remember thinking, and I really believe the accuracy of my recall on this, you know how smells make you remember certain things? The memory of that makes me remember the feel and the smell of the room, and it was, the place needed to be painted. And it was just musty smelling. I can’t really describe the smell… it was just kind of dank. Not to make it sound like the prison was dirty, but the place– it smelled of death. Not like a physical person being dead on the floor. It just smelled… you know, people just existing there, but not living their lives.

But Ted on the other side, I looked into that hole and I could see the blackness in there. I was just, I felt like I was looking into a room that was strongly void of any… any kind of life. Any soul or any spirit, or anything. It was like he was hiding in there, he was fucking hiding from me, and he was not going to budge for anything. I remember I did say during the middle of our conversation I said, “Why can’t I see you? What’s the matter?” And he said– I don’t remember what his excuse was, he just sort of mumbled something to me about it. There’s no excuse. I mean, no, no other explanation for why he wouldn’t show himself. Because I’m his brother. I dunno, I really believe that he was just feeling really, really shitty.

TJ 
Ashamed?

Richard Bundy 
Something like that. Some kind of… but mind you, he didn’t exhibit that much of…

It’s interesting to me now, I remember I watched the interview between him and [Dr. James] Dobson. Dobson was on a big campaign to stamp out pornography, I think was his big thing. And he was using Ted as hopefully a spokesperson for that, and they both tried to dupe each other. Ted was using him to try to save his skin. And Dobson was trying to use Ted. One thing I appreciated about Ted on that was that he didn’t blame it on pornography. I mean, Dobson was trying to get him to say that key phrase, and Ted was like “Nice try, pal!” You aren’t gonna fucking trick him into saying something that… I could see it in the look on his face too, in Ted’s face. His expression said, “Yeah, I see what you’re doing here.” Trying to use him to say that [pornography] will cause people to murder or rape, that’s bullshit. It’s not that, you know, it’s just the person.

But anyhow. Yeah, that visit was pretty disappointing to me. I remember walking out of there just feeling uh, gypped.

TJ 
Yeah. And that was the only time you saw him on that trip?

Richard Bundy 
Yes. Well, I think I saw him in– I don’t think there was a trial at that moment. I think it was a hearing. I mean, a sentencing, perhaps? That kind of stuff I’m foggy on.

But I just walked out thinking– oh and after that, I took a little walk in the neighborhood, just like a half a mile around the building. When I got back to the hotel room, Carole was concerned, she asked where I’d been. So I told her I went for a walk around, and she reprimanded me, “Do not walk around in this neighborhood, this is a bad neighborhood!” It was nighttime. “In the daytime yeah, but please do not do that again, walking at night around here, it’s really bad. It’s really dangerous.” I remember appreciating that, and I apologized for worrying her.

TJ 
I guess you were almost the age of her son. Close to it.

Richard Bundy 
Jamey. Yeah, I think a couple years older. I can still picture what he looked like.

TJ 
So you took that cross-country trip all by yourself to see him and he just gave you a– through the dark, through a door, short conversation?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, I was only there for a few days. I was 17.

TJ 
So you think it was in Pensacola?

Richard Bundy 
Well, it was 1979.

TJ 
Okay, so maybe that was Miami.

Richard Bundy 
No, I think it was ’78.

TJ 
Okay. Tallahassee maybe?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, there you go.

TJ 
Tallahassee. Okay. That makes sense. That’s where he was being held for a while before they moved him to Miami for the [Chi Omega] trial.

Well, we’re talking about Carole Boone. Let’s talk a little bit more about her. How did she come into the picture? What’s your memory of how she came to know your family? And how did your family feel about her?

Richard Bundy 
Seems to me I have an accurate recall of Ted and Carole coming to mom and dad’s house and meeting them there. So that means that was before he was in prison.

TJ 
Okay, so he took her to meet your parents, when things were still normal, because they met each other at work. I didn’t know how close they were at that point.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, I remember them meeting Carole, my parents meeting Carole. I remember it quite well.

TJ 
So what I know about their relationship is that Carole met Ted while they were working in Olympia at the Department of Emergency Services in the summer of ’74. And so maybe that’s around the time when he took her to meet your parents, and they remained friends. And then he moved to Utah. And she actually, same summer you were there I think– she came to visit Ted in Utah, and stayed with him there. But I don’t think they were romantically involved until after he was in jail in Colorado. I think it was after he and Liz separated.

Richard Bundy 
Oh, yeah, well, sure. I believe it’s accurate to say that Liz completely severed ties once he was in prison.

TJ 
Yeah, for the most part, although, you know, he did call her the night he got arrested for the last time. But yeah, Carole kind of took over after he and Liz parted ways. And she became not only his girlfriend, but kind of his advocate.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, I think she, wasn’t she basically like the attorney’s secretary?

TJ 
Was that just part of her personality? She just wanted to do that?

Richard Bundy 
I think so. I could tell that she had clerical abilities, you know, somebody who could keep files and keep organized.

TJ 
She was obviously very smart.

Richard Bundy 
Yes, I sensed that too. I could tell she was very intelligent. And I liked her. When I meet someone who’s very intelligent, I keep an eye out for how humble they are. Because, you know, people who are very intelligent, they’re often just arrogant, and I’d rather be with a stupid person who’s kind. I felt she was really nice.

And I remember meeting her daughter, when she was probably maybe five or so, or maybe a little older. But then only half a dozen times, and then never again. I’m disappointed that she completely blocked her daughter out of our lives. I mean, but I also understand, and I certainly have no ill feelings towards her whatsoever. I can totally relate to wanting some anonymity, because some people can be really disgusting. Oh, you mentioned to me about people making copies of her daughter’s birth certificate??

TJ 
Yeah. And selling them.

Richard Bundy 
What’s the attraction of that? What’s the big deal with that?

TJ 
I mean, people just like to collect stuff related to Ted.

Richard Bundy 
Some people, nothing’s sacred. Why? But to me, that’s, I think that’s an indication of somebody planning to be really nosy beyond what they should be nosing into, you know? Just to satisfy their bullshit desire to– whatever it is. Because that was pain! She’s not the daughter of a celebrity basketball star, she’s the daughter of a disgusting murderer, and anything within my power, any chance I get to make sure that people do not get a hold of her, I will do. I will go above and beyond. I don’t care if she’s the worst person in the world. She still deserves to be left alone! I’m sorry. That just makes me so angry.

TJ 
I’m on your side. I just wanted to let you know that. I 100% support that and I’m on your side about that.

Richard Bundy 
Thank you. I wanted to say that– we are recording correct?

TJ 
Yes.

Richard Bundy 
Ok, so I wanted to say that if her daughter is out there, and hears me, this is her Uncle Richard, talking to her. It would be nice to see you sometime, and I hope life has been okay for you.

TJ 
You never saw Rosa again after Ted was executed?

Richard Bundy 
No. Uh-uh. We’re family, you know? But I understand if… <sigh> anyway.

TJ 
Did Carole give an explanation for– you know, tell you “no you can’t see her anymore”?

Richard Bundy 
Not that I heard. I’d like to think that Carole would at least have had a goodbye for my mom, or something. That bothered me. That I felt was a little unprofessional, if you will. That she couldn’t at least– my mom deserved that much.

TJ 
Carole just cut off all contact?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, and it was… I don’t know if it was sudden or gradual. Let’s see… it was kind of sudden. I do recall my mom saying something to the effect of “Carole is unreachable” or, you know, they don’t know where she is. I don’t 100% know that she said for certain “Well, it’s official, Carole said this is the last time we’ll be speaking, can’t have contact with us anymore.” I think what happened is Carole probably felt kind of bad about it, and just didn’t have the nerve to say it. And then my mom found out indirectly, I think she found out from other sources that was the case.
I know I’ve said a couple times in this interview that I don’t have any ill feelings towards Carole, but you know, in a way I do. Because to not tell us at least generally where you’re going to be when you have to do this extreme thing– to not tell my parents, that is telling them that she does not trust them. My parents aren’t dummies, you know, private information– they’re very good at keeping things to themselves. So that lack of confidence in my parents, that’s what really bothered me.

TJ 
I’m sure they would have really liked to see their granddaughter too.

Richard Bundy 
Well, yeah! But…

TJ 
It must have been hard for them.

Richard Bundy 
It’s just, again, I have to be careful not to be too upset about it because it’s an extreme situation. And sometimes that calls for extreme actions. And I wish… it would have been nice to see Carole before she passed away. But I tell you, this event with you has sparked a fire under me, really inspired to try to locate [Rosa]. I really would like to. It’s important to me. I know that if and when I get to, that very little of the time spent with her will have energy spent about her father. Because I imagine that she… now, I think you asked me, if she knew that Ted–

TJ 
I asked you, did she understand the situation?

Richard Bundy 
And I don’t know. Like I said, the last time I saw her she was 5.

TJ 
Yeah, I guess when she was 5, did she have any understanding of what was going on?

Richard Bundy 
I would imagine for Carole to really make her plan work, she would keep that secret from her. You know what I mean? Cause children just say things outright, you know? But I also think it would be her right to know, I’d like to think that at some point in [Rosa’s] life, that Carole told her who her father was and what he did.

TJ 
Do you think Carole was really devastated to find out that it was true, that he was guilty? Because I think that she believed he was innocent, like truly believed it.

Richard Bundy 
And then she began to find out that he’d been lying to her. Once you begin to find out when someone’s lying to you, that makes the snowball roll faster, and she knew that she was with a person that she did not want to be with anymore. So she got out of there quickly after surmising her situation.

TJ 
Yeah. Did she ever acknowledge– or I guess this is another question. Did she or your parents ever acknowledge there was a possibility that he was guilty before he started confessing?

Richard Bundy 
I know that at some point my parents weren’t in denial, they probably– but as far as recalling it, I mean it was just a brief moment where, you know, I’d hear my mom acknowledge it out loud. For example, she met with the mother of one of his victims [Vivian Rancourt] and was saying how bad she felt about what happened. She knew, then, you know, she knew that he did it.

TJ 
Yeah. Well, but when he was still fighting in trials and everything, and he was still claiming his innocence. Your mom steadfastly believed in his innocence, too, right?

Richard Bundy 
Of course. A son that skilled in lying, you know. Which really was part of the reason why I have great disdain for him, cause he, he lied to his mother about it. It’s one thing to lie to your mom about taking ten dollars out of her purse, but when you start lying about something like that– when it’s really important to speak up because time is ticking, and your confession can be vital in helping out other people and make sure things are set straight…

TJ 
Yeah. Did he tell your family that he was going to start confessing?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, boy. Uh… There was a gentleman who worked with the FBI who worked closely with Ted, named Bill Hagmaier. I really appreciated him because he was very consistent with staying in contact with my parents. By phone, not just by letter but by phone. And my mother liked him too. It really meant a lot to her. It’s kind of an ironic exchange of people, you know, the law…

TJ 
Hagmaier, he cared about your family.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, and I believe it’s genuine.

TJ 
I do too.

Richard Bundy 
Maybe he did, because I can imagine Ted telling Bill, and Bill turning around and telling my parents. So there you go. He probably did tell my parents, but maybe not directly. I wish I could have known how much ‘stand up and take account of for your actions’ Ted did. I mean, to me it was flimsy. To me it was too little too late.
But you know, I’m not against finding out about things he’s done– there are things I learned about Ted through Trish Wood. Little factoids that all of us in the family didn’t know, and it wasn’t really necessary to be told. But by all means, I listened, and when she had something to tell me about, I said okay, I didn’t know that. So I’m fine with [learning about Ted’s crimes], to a point. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the coroner’s file though, don’t need to know that.

TJ 
Did you ever listen to any of his confessions?

Richard Bundy 
No, no. The only thing I heard was that really lengthy interview, that one with Dobson, that I still have on VHS tape somewhere. But that’s not really a confession is it?

TJ 
No, not exactly. But–

Richard Bundy 
That was the night before [the execution]. So all these confessions were done before that. I understand that he did speak with the FBI for example, at length about his MO, his “motive of operation” which I guess really helped them learn about how to catch other serial killers.

TJ 
And Hagmaier has done interviews since then, where he talks about how he believes that Ted really was remorseful and thinks that’s because of his daughter. When he had his daughter, he realized that he needed to protect girls from people like him.

Richard Bundy 
You kinda did it backwards there Ted, you were kind of late on that one. There’s an example of how some intelligent people can be so fucking stupid sometimes. Like, really?? You didn’t think of this before? He had a sense of being polite, and all those tools he was given in life about how to behave in society. But he just shit on them, because he used those same tools to deceive women and get them into his car and murder them. So all the goodness that he cared about, even that he turned to shit.

You know if I was a fly on the wall, I’d probably see what you’re talking about as genuine remorse, but Ted didn’t really seem to carry that over beyond the moment. So Bill Hagmaier thinks that Ted was remorseful?

TJ 
That’s what he says. Other people say no he wasn’t. I think Bob Keppel, another detective in Seattle, he said “No, Ted wasn’t remorseful, I didn’t see any remorse.” But Hagmaier says he did think he was remorseful. So… what do you think? Do you think he was?

Richard Bundy 
And those are two different times too, when Bob Keppel had spoken to Ted, and when Ted was working with Hagmaier. Because– and I understand this concept too– it depends on who you’re talking to, right? With some people it’s easier to express strong emotions than it is with other people. So that could be accuracy of both their parts. When he met up with Bob Keppel it was kind of early on, right? In the stages…

TJ 
Well, he gave him a confession a few days before the execution. Bob Keppel flew to Florida, and he gave him a pretty long confession about some of his crimes in Washington State.

Richard Bundy 
Again, you know, you have to take into consideration Ted’s mental construction, how his brain was built, and his soul, and to read it… it’s not, it can’t be read with the same accuracy as you would the average person. When he confessed to Keppel, he was in a different place, different time. Ted probably had borderline personality compartmentalization going on, where he would behave the way that Keppel witnessed, because maybe that’s how he genuinely felt that the moment, and then later when he was with Hagmaier, he changed. Like Jekyll and Hyde.

TJ 
Yeah. And he called Hagmaier his best friend. So I guess he felt very close to him.

Richard Bundy 
Ted felt like Hagmaier was his best friend?

TJ 
He called him his best friend. Yeah.

Richard Bundy 
Okay, well, see there again that’s probably because Hagmaier has a certain skill of talking to people, a little bit more curious than others. That’s how you get someone to trust you, let you be their friend—it’s how you speak to them, not how much.

TJ 
Right and Hagmaier, I think he approached Ted with, you know, “I just really want to understand, I want to be able to catch these guys in the future. Will you help me?”

Richard Bundy 
I think uh… he was instrumental in helping catch… was it the Green River Killer? I don’t know. Anyway…

TJ 
So, do you wish he was still alive for any reason? Or do you feel like it was the right thing to do that they put him to death?

Richard Bundy 
Well, there’s… this is where I sit on the death penalty. Most of the people who are in prison for murder don’t need to be executed because they are not escape risks. But anyone who’s that skilled at escaping, and then when they get out, they continue killing again, I think they need to be put down. If they keep getting out… sorry, then yeah. If you think that you’re going to somehow solve the mystery of serial murder by keeping him around to study, okay, show me the check for the research. I think I’m 80% against the death penalty, because it just seems kinda futile, but with the exception, like I said, only for those who are the masters of their craft. Which Ted was. He would have escaped again, and again. And done it again.

TJ 
He tried to escape in Florida too [in 1984], but they caught him.

Richard Bundy 
I want kids to grow up in a world where they don’t have to worry about some guy breaking out of a prison that’s only miles from home. There’s only two recourses in life man. Either you learn by mental approach to stop, cease and desist, or you learn by physical means, which is “you’re dead now, you can no longer do that.” If you don’t stop doing something bad, there’s only one way to get you to stop right?

You know, Ted could have been really successful in this world. If he was just the opposite of the bad person that he was, he would have been a really strong, good person. I think he would have been so skilled, he could have made a difference, he could have come up with ways to keep sneaky criminals like politicians from taking advantage of loopholes in the law, stuff like that.

TJ 
You think Ted could have done something good.

Richard Bundy 
I think he could have done a lot of good, because it makes sense. Somebody of that intellect and passion… it’s too bad that he didn’t. So, I mean, there’s that, but I would like to think that…

So this kind of leads me to the next question. You asked me, did my parents take down Ted’s picture after his execution? Because we had a piano there with all of us kids, a picture of each one of us, you know, a portrait from school. And, no– it stayed there until things had to get packed up when my mom sold the house, many years later after Dad died. But you know, I understand that some people, if their son did horrible things, they go to extremes, completely disown them, and don’t consider them their son anymore. But my parents were really good about being diplomatic, you know, not extreme on this side or the other. So of course they disapproved of what he did, but at the same, you don’t just take the picture and throw it in the trash. It was sort of a subtle reminder of the person that could have been… and for a moment was, a decent human being. <Sigh> I can see it. I can see that picture clear as day…

TJ 
Was it his high school graduation picture?

Richard Bundy 
Yes. He attended UPS college just a couple blocks from the house I grew up in. For a brief time he went there. But it was kind of an expensive school so he moved to Seattle.

TJ 
Mhm. Did they ever talk about him after the execution, after everything was over? And if they did, did they bring up happy memories? What did they talk about?

Richard Bundy 
No, we didn’t really talk about it much, because what’s there to say? Sure, maybe a quick reminiscence about a funny moment, when he was younger… but even that just didn’t happen much. But you know what, it was me who kind of dropped the ball on discussing it much. It’s not so much that I felt it was voodoo, or not to speak of– I just felt like, what’s the point? It sounds like I’m cutting my family short on the concept of being able to speak cathartically. But I knew that I wanted to like, dive in deep on it. And I thought, well, that might be too extreme for my family. I didn’t want to get into all that I felt about it because I didn’t just feel sad and bad for me of course. I wasn’t just feeling for my family. What I was really focused on was the victims and their families. I was thinking, “Man, what a fucked up thing for someone to do, who portrayed himself such the opposite.”

Because you know, it’s so painful, the son who you believed was such a good person… that’s what does it, I think. If your child was always exhibiting the signs of going down a bad road, and then it happens, ironically, I guess you’ve prepared for it all those years, like, “Oh, I wondered if that was gonna be him.” But when your kid is very intelligent and takes cares of himself, you know, well-groomed and all the above, it’s a shock. You know what I mean? It’s like, you’re catatonic.

But at the same time, I saw firsthand how my parents were as people, in that they didn’t take to drink or drugs after that. They did not become argumentative towards each other. You know, some people fall apart when their kid does horrible shit. But they were even-keeled. They had regular stuff they had to do. Have dinner at a regular hour, watch Wheel of Fortune. They traveled a little bit, they went abroad, and they still were social at church. They’d go all the time. And so they lived their lives. They could still smile and they’d carry on.

TJ 
Did they ever share their feelings about what had happened?

Richard Bundy 
I think there was, there was the specific night where there was a symbolic, ceremonious moment of expressing your feelings and all that. I apologized to them later, but I didn’t attend. It was a few nights before he was to be executed, and my parents and my other siblings and their kids all went down to the church for a little moral support. And it’s not that– and I like all those people, I really do, they’re wonderful. I just couldn’t do it. I had to do it– my way was, I stayed at a friend’s place, played a little music, and bawled my eyes out for about a half hour. And I just sat there, and was left alone to think… and also not think. I had to, uh, think about what it all was, and then try my best to just meditate and clear my mind for a few hours.

TJ 
Did you talk to him on the phone? That last phone call?

Richard Bundy 
Yes, briefly. I don’t recall… I think I would remember if he would have given me any full-on admission to what he did. That conversation with Ted on the phone was very short, and it was a goodbye, and uh… When I was talking to him in that moment, I remember thinking to myself, “Oh what’s the fucking point?” You know? I hate long goodbyes. It’s like… “It’s not like I’m gonna see you again, so… see ya later, fucker.” I certainly didn’t say anything like “you’ll be forgiven” or whatever, that’s… <sigh>

If there is an afterlife, I really don’t imagine it being that romanticized thing that people have, like “Oh, in the afterlife, in Heaven, all is forgiven!” Oh, no, no, it’s not that easy. It’d be absurd. “Oh, we’re in Heaven now, everything is better. I know I killed your daughter, but everything’s happy, right?” But yeah, if there is an afterlife, if I ever see him again… he’s gonna get an earload from me.

TJ 
Do you think if he had been spared and he was still alive, would you communicate with him in any way? Or would you not want to talk to him at all?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, I’d communicate with him now. Every chance I get.

TJ 
What would you say?

Richard Bundy 
I’d formulate an eloquent, well-written lecture. I would give him so much what for, and I’d try and figure out a way to where he HAD to listen. Maybe somebody would help me get a law passed that says, relatives of an inmate have to get time to be able to go tell their relative who’s in prison… give them an earload. I wouldn’t try to make a public to-do about it, because I don’t want to be another Maury Povich, Just getting people on TV who do bad things to exploit them, you know?…

A few days before the execution a news reporter came from a local news station with a cameraman, an apprentice, and a microphone. Of course my folks weren’t home at the moment, which left me to deal with the guy. I’m glad they weren’t because I was fine dealing with it myself, or maybe a little too fine. There was snow on the ground, and the news reporter came on the porch by himself. He said: “We are prepared to offer you plane fare to Florida to see your brother if you would grant us an interview.” And I immediately, sternly, politely told him, “No, we will not do that. Do not come back here again. You leave this porch. And that’s it. Please, just go away. The answer’s no.” Well, he did that. But as you may know, he was within his rights to stand on the public sidewalk, and start talking into his microphone with the camera guy pointed at the house. It was all legal, but still… it’s funny how some laws don’t necessarily take consideration morality.

So I looked out the window and I see him out there. And I responded quickly, maybe I went overboard a bit. I marched out of the house, walked right up to him, and I pushed him down into the snow, and told him, basically yelled, something like “Why don’t you vultures fucking just stop it. Get the fuck out of here, go away!” And the cameraman, he’s kind of a big guy, holding his camera he goes “Don’t you touch the camera!” I said, “Just fuck off with your fucking camera, I don’t care!”

And the apprentice was a young lady, young woman and she just, she had this… she had a look on her face that she felt a little embarrassed to be there, I think. I can tell she didn’t look afraid of me. Because when I looked at her, I made it clear to her that I wasn’t upset with her. I wasn’t gonna go anywhere near her, you know, I wasn’t gonna shove her into the snow too. I’m glad that she sensed that, because I could tell she wasn’t scared. But she looked embarrassed. Which impressed me. Anyway, then I went back into the house. That night, they did not broadcast any mention of Ted on that particular station.

TJ 
Why did they offer you a flight to Florida? Like what did they think was gonna–?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, you know, they’re just, they’re trying to be creative. They probably thought it would help with their viewing audience, or to sell peanut butter, who knows <laughs>.

TJ 
Did you have any inclination to go to Florida at all? At that time?

Richard Bundy 
No, they didn’t care if I made something up!

TJ 
I mean, did you want to go to Florida one more time to see him, or no?

Richard Bundy 
No, that wasn’t, I didn’t see the point. If I knew that Ted was really gonna have something to say to me, something profound, you know, an epiphany or something, I would have considered it. But again, I don’t much care for long goodbyes. I thought it was an absurd notion.

TJ 
Did you talk to him in prison? Did you write letters back and forth?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. But we never touched on the subject at hand. They were just uh, as if, almost as if it didn’t happen. I mean almost as if it was like a denial thing. It was like, “Alright, now it’s letter writing time, I get to escape from the reality of why I’m in here. So how’s school? I see you got a new guitar, that’s great!”

Yeah. Fuck it man. Yeah, great. “So, how are your plans for breaking out of prison? <laughs> See you got a new shiv there, alright!”

TJ 
So it was just very light conversation and nothing in depth, I guess.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. I think we wrote a total of maybe a dozen times, if that. Because there were times when I felt like what’s the point you know, what the fuck. But I also independently thought, well shit, I want to at least say hi to him, because he’s in an unhappy place. And, you know, a combination of that and my mom saying, “Have you written Ted this year? Send him a Christmas card.” So I would, and it was pretty easy to scribble out something. But I didn’t see… I was kind of indifferent about all that.

TJ 
Did you feel like he was guilty by that time?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. There was… but again, it took a while to fully sink in. I carried this combination of knowing he was guilty, but also a type of numbness existed in me that made me behave in a way that said, “Well what’s the point of acknowledging it, when it won’t bring anybody back? Or saying anything at all. I’m not skilled in this field.” So to bring it up would only be unfruitful sorrow. What I mentioned earlier about approaching your feelings and bringing them up, letting them come out, I do that now because I know the end result will be good, and I’ll feel better. And so there’s a positive result with that, but with Ted, it was like, wow, what can be done with this? Nothing. There’s no fixing it.

TJ 
Do you feel like you felt he was guilty when your parents still thought he was innocent?

Richard Bundy 
Um… it was almost as if there’s different voices in my head, two of me going, “Yeah, he probably did it dude.” And another one saying, “No, man, this is crazy. There must be a mistaken identity thing going on.” And a third side thinking, “Yeah, but I’m too numb to know what do or say about that, what can you do?” During the numb years, I had a feeling that later on in life, which did happen, I would be really angry at him. Only about 10 years ago did I acknowledge, and allow to surface, the concept of being mad at him. And I think, I guess the reason I didn’t let that come to the surface was because, you know, I thought it would be silly. Why be mad at someone who’s dead, what’s the use of that? Nothing to aim at.

But I decided, well, I’m a creative guy, I like songs and stories, so why not express, why not exercise that? Even though he’s not around, I can still be mad at him. I can still… you know, that might be what caused those nightmares to surface, of Ted coming into my mind in my sleep. I’ve had these very realistic dreams where… in a couple of the dreams, I gave him a what for. Or I let him know that I wasn’t afraid of him. And that if I ever caught him doing that I would kill him. I remember in one dream I said, something to the extent of, “You assume the risk of being taken out when you do this kind of work.”

I’ve always believed the whole thing about, just because someone’s a blood relative, that’s no reason to give him a break, or to– I never believed that expression, you know, “Well, we gotta let him in. He’s family, he’s a blood relative.” I mean that’s stupid. So yeah, I would tell him– it would be interesting. Well I don’t know about interesting so much. But it would definitely be a colorful moment if I got in a room with him again.

TJ 
Do you think it would be cathartic for you to just let all that… let him have it?

Richard Bundy 
To a point but again, I’m not concerned about catharsis for myself and all that because I also know it’s a little bit futile, because we’re not talking about a stolen car or money. We’re talking about people’s lives, and there’s nothing that can bring that back, or make anything better. But I’d get a little satisfaction, like a little, if the person was made to realize the folly of his ways as the expression goes. I must admit, in this specific situation, between Ted and I, I’d have a real hard time not clonking the crap outta him. You know, I wouldn’t kill him because I’d want him to stay alive and live to suffer the knowledge of what he did. I’d probably smack him a real good one. But for the most part, I would just really exercise my vocal demonstration.

TJ 
Do you wish you’d done that while he was still alive?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. Not that I did not have any speaking skills. But, you know, if you’re really passionate about something, and you really want to say something, you’ll sit down for a while and figure out what you want to say. Yeah, I wish I would have, but when he was alive, I really didn’t have that level, that certain level of gumption to do it, you know? I just… and honestly too, it hadn’t occurred to me, oddly enough. And so for the last 10 years or so I’ve gained a little more skill in the whole concept of telling somebody…

TJ 
It might be healing.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, and I wouldn’t want to do it too much because it’d be unhealthy to continually… I would make it a point though, to be as skilled and make it as poetic a phrase as I could come up with.

TJ 
I was going to ask you, you know a lot of people have written in with questions on the fundraiser and the social media. And a lot of people asked if you had any plans to write a book. If you do, they would buy it.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, I haven’t given that a whole lot of thought, I have to admit. But I recently thought, what I would rather do, and I know it’s kind of a tall order when it comes to an idea in the marketing world of all that, but instead of a book, I’d like to be able to incorporate my music into this experience. Now I realize the first thought that might come to someone’s mind is, well you can make an album that addresses the whole thing. Uh…

TJ 
I think that’s a great idea.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. But again I’m not… really, the vision hasn’t come to full strength yet. And you know, I’ve never written a song about Ted, or any of my feelings on that, really. I didn’t consciously avoid doing that. A couple times I sat down with that idea. But then I just kind of came up short, and I thought, well, I’ve written a couple things that I just kept to myself. And that served its purpose. You know, it was a cathartic moment. These fantasies of chivalry will come through my mind throughout the years, you know, being there to save the day for someone.

TJ 
You mean for one of the victims?

Richard Bundy 
No, not specifically for them. It would be a fictional scenario that I would think of. Or maybe somebody I knew. Because I think to me it was more respectful to not imagine trying to save one of his victims, because that’s just being… that’s, to me, that’s a little absurd. “If I was there”… It’s just stupid. But anyway…

TJ 
I remember a story that you told Trish, where you said you think about how women walking alone at night might feel if they’re approached, you know, if there’s a man walking near them, and you go out of your way to make them feel more comfortable.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, if they’re on the same side of the street as me, walking towards me, maybe half a block away, I would cross over to the other side of the street, to give them a break. Or if I saw a man in the area, I’d kinda try maybe hanging out for a moment, or just read the situation, to make sure that she’s alright.

TJ 
Do you think that you would have done that if it wasn’t for what Ted did? Would you think about doing that? Or do you think that’s because of it?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah I think so. Yeah, I definitely would still be a gentleman.

TJ 
So you think about ways to make women feel safe.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, I do. Sometimes… when I was living in my friend Joe’s garage about a month ago, at night, he would just crash out. He would often not lock his door. He would leave the door unlocked while he’s sleeping. And me, I don’t, I lock it. Because if you think about it, when a person is sleeping, that is the most vulnerable moment, the most vulnerable hours of their existence is when they’re asleep. You could kill somebody, really quick and easy.

TJ 
Yeah, and Ted did.

Richard Bundy 
I know I sound like, people will go, “Ugh, what do you think about that for?” Well, because because it’s real, that’s all.

TJ 
Yeah. Well, let me ask you, how did the community treat you during this whole time? You said you didn’t really get bothered too much in school. How did the community treat you, your siblings, and your parents?

Richard Bundy 
The community… mostly… so within a year after the execution, I was playing in cover bands, and it’s common for the lead singer of the band to introduce each member of the band by name. And I had little annoyances in public, like in a bar people would come up, and say something stupid or just be annoying, or say just like “Oh hey, wow, cool!” No, it’s not.

So I decided that if I’m going to be in the entertainment business and my name is gonna be announced on stage, I needed some separation from this by having a different name, so that I could avoid all that. Here you are, out to have a good time, you’re playing music, the thing you like to do, you’re seeing friends, and this total stranger is all “Ooh, Bundy huh? Hey!” You know, it’s just a real buzzkill. The way they were saying it to me, it was as if my brother was a football star. I mean, I’ve had people use words like “Ted Bundy huh? Cool!”

And I’m like, oh yeah? You want him to meet your sister?? How would you feel about that? I don’t think you’d like that! Wouldn’t be so “cool” anymore… But not many, just here and there. It’s like a comedian telling a joke, you know, it’s not the joke you tell, but how you tell it.

So I remember specifically addressing my dad, face to face in the living room of the house we grew up in. He was very attentive, he was looking straight at me and listening. And I said, “Dad, you know I want to play music, and playing in a band, often your name gets announced on stage. I know the difference between somebody who does something bad that has a name– the acts they did has absolutely nothing to do with the name they were given.” And keyword– GIVEN.

I told him, “I know that it’s not any of our faults, there’s nothing that we have to atone for, and I’m not changing my name because I feel ashamed. I’m changing my name so I can have some privacy from the public bullshit.” So I’m sitting there telling him, I want to change my first, middle and last name. I chose the name Harvey because of the invisible rabbit. I liked that movie Harvey with Jimmy Stewart and his invisible rabbit friend Harvey, which is symbolic of being invisible to anybody out there who’s gonna annoy me with the subject of Ted.

Then I got to the middle name, the middle name Culpepper. That’s where I had the joy of showing my dad some respect and appreciation. Because Culpepper was his middle name. And I said “Dad I want to take your middle name, and make it my middle name, because you’re my dad, you know? You raised us kids and you’re a good man.” <crying>

I wasn’t always a good son to that man. He deserved better actions from me than I often displayed. And that’s why I get upset. I think if I had done less crappy things to him I wouldn’t be so damn emotional. It felt good, I’m glad that I had the chance to…

I told you, the last time I saw him before he died, I had a chance with him, one on one for a few seconds just to say “I love you” and he said it back to me because… he didn’t often say it, but it was okay. He didn’t say the words but he showed it with his actions. You know, some guys, some generations right? Men won’t say those words because they’re embarrassed or whatever, but they’re not embarrassed to love you, they just… it didn’t bother me too much… but when I went back to him to say goodbye and say “I love you” I was thinking, man hope I hear it back, because it’s just nice to hear the words from your father. And he looked at me and smiled and said, “I love you too.” He was about five foot seven, about there. But to me he was six feet tall.

TJ 
Did your mom say that kind of stuff? Was she more verbal with her affection to you?

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. And again, it’s kind of the culture in America I guess, you know women, especially from their generation… but in a way, my mom and I were a little closer.

TJ 
Yeah. Well, I only have a couple more things to ask you. Oh, did you want to tell the story about the horses? I asked you earlier if you ever saw Ted being empathetic and kind to other people or to animals.

Richard Bundy 
Uh, it was in Utah. So I was at a street fair one day with Ted, in the summer. And various booths were around, you know, everyone’s got things they’re doing. And at one of the booths there, there was a man who’d brought some horses with him. For what reason I’m not sure. And we’re walking along, kind of behind where the guy had his horses, and I couldn’t see what Ted saw. But Ted stopped and he told me, he says “Wait here a minute, I’m gonna go over and talk to this man and see what’s going on with his animals.”

So with all the people about, I couldn’t hear what transpired, and plus they were a good 30 feet away from me. Ted went over– and Ted was knowledgeable about horses. He really was. He took me riding a few times. Obviously, he never spoke about something in depth unless he really knew for sure what he was talking about. So he was trying to give the man advice about how to deal with his animal, the horse that he was not having success with. And apparently the man took offense to Ted doing that.

One thing I did hear was the man telling him to “get out of here”– he was very aggressive to Ted and gave him an adamant, you know, “buzz off, mind your business” kind of response. And Ted was not impressed by that and told the man that he was a fool and a jerk for not taking advice from somebody who could help him out. Ted also expressed he was very against that man having those horses because he felt, he said something to him to the extent of, “you don’t deserve to have these animals because you don’t know what you’re doing.” And so he walked away, and the man mumbled something and that was it.

TJ 
Was he mistreating the horses?

Richard Bundy 
Somehow. He must have been doing something that was of a mistreating nature to the animals because otherwise Ted would not have intervened. He didn’t say specifically what the problem was but he definitely made it clear that the guy had no business having horses especially at a public fairground type place and he also said something about “someone should take those animals from him.”

TJ 
Huh. So he cared about the horses.

Richard Bundy 
Oh, yeah. Ted was the kind of person who was smart enough that he didn’t have to pretend to know something. If he’s telling you something, you can bet that he was speaking accurately about whatever it is he was telling you, because he wasn’t gonna embarrass himself by BSing you, you know.

But I was really impressed by that. I thought that was pretty cool. What I liked about it was, the guy tried to intimidate him but Ted wasn’t intimidated. He was just like, “pah.” He gave that guy what for on something really cool, that’s important about the treatment of those animals. He just modestly said, “Yeah…” You know, unsatisfied, because he couldn’t do anything about it.

TJ 
And then you said there’s another story about when you were paddling in a raft and you came upon a waterfall…

Richard Bundy 
One summer Ted and I were rafting, two of us in an inflatable three or four seater rubber raft. Was it the American River or the Yakima River?… it was a modest sized river. Parts of the river were very dangerous, with rapids and all that. But we were taking the casual route one day, and there was a bend in the river ahead of us that was supposed to have a sign that said, “Warning, 100 yards from here is a waterfall.” I think maybe it was a manmade thing because people went there to fish, I guess it was a great place to fish right at the top of the waterfall. And it was like a 30-foot waterfall or something, just enough that it could kill you going over it.

So as you get closer to the top of the waterfall, the stronger the pull gets, the pull of the river because of gravity, right? So we’re going along, it’s like something right out of a movie or whatever. You go along and you don’t know about the danger until you come around the bend. You only have a couple of minutes to get yourself to the edge of the river before you go over. Because somebody had played a dirty trick and knocked the sign down.

Anyhow, I think the river was about 60 or 80 feet wide, which isn’t really that wide but wide enough. And we’re right in the middle of the river. And so Ted looks ahead and immediately sees what the situation is: there’s a waterfall up there and we got to scramble, paddle our asses hard to get to the side. And I remember it was the first time I ever saw a look of concern, great concern on his face. Ever. He said, “You better paddle your ass off like you never have before!” And we’re doing that and we finally get to the edge. We’re getting closer and closer to the waterfall but then there’s no sandy beach to get onto, it’s just rock. All those rocks and the water goes right up to it. And Ted’s grabbing a hold of the rocks and they’re slippery from years of water hitting them right? He’s grabbing them, and the pull is getting stronger so he’s grabbing the rock, and I’m trying to grab on too, and still it took us a while to come to a stop. And a couple of the people who were fishing were all scrambling to figure out a way to help us, you know, throw a rope, because it happened pretty fast. It happened really fast. So there wasn’t much time.

I thought it was kind of cool though. I mean, I was concerned. But somehow I knew if Ted was there, it was going to be okay. And we got out of there.

TJ 
Well, I was gonna ask, what happened to his ashes? Were they spread in the Cascades like he wanted to be?

Richard Bundy 
No, they… <sigh> people can be shitty. You know, my mom got the ashes and the instructions but somehow it got out to the public, and some church had to write to the newspaper saying “If that woman spreads those ashes and blah, blah, blah.. We’re gonna have a what for about it!!” So it kinda dampened the winds in her sails. I don’t think she ever got around to– I believe someone in the family still has them.

TJ 
Okay. So they were just kept in the family.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah. I recall that family member saying, “You know, we could do that sometime, we could go somewhere and spread them, no need to tell anybody.”

TJ 
Yeah. That’s true.

Richard Bundy 
But… I don’t have much enthusiasm for indulging in that ceremony. It just… you know, that’s usually something you do for somebody who you respected. But mind you, they are ashes. And out of just common courtesy to the whole universe, I wouldn’t go as far as being so vindictive to him that I’d take his ashes and put them in the toilet or something. You know what I mean? To try to make a statement: “Ha here’s what I think of you!” I would just say, for me, personally, I would have nothing to do with the ashes. I wouldn’t want to go one way or the other on it. Because I don’t want to add to all the negative shit in the world as it is.

TJ 
That’s very kind of you.

Richard Bundy 
Well… <laughs>

TJ 
How do you think all of this has impacted your life?

Richard Bundy 
Oh, boy. You’re already gonna have to edit a lot…

TJ 
Okay, well, maybe I won’t go too deep into that <laughs>.

Richard Bundy 
But there is a challenge! I’ll have to think about that. I mean, I don’t need to think about it, but I want to think about how I phrase it, into a nice tight little paragraph.

TJ 
Ok well, maybe some other time, we’ll talk about it. And my last question for you is, what would you like to say to people who are still interested in the Ted Bundy story, the Ted Bundy case, who still read the books, watch all the movies that come out? How do you feel about that?

Richard Bundy 
Well, there’s almost like two different types of addresses that come to my mind because there are people who have interest in… that subject… for the right reasons, but then again we all have a different definition of ‘right.’ So I am telling you all, if you can just take an interest in something while simultaneously maintaining respect for anyone attached to it, who does not want to be approached, then by all means, indulge. Maybe you have an interest in forensics, or just basic police work in general, in capturing those kinds of people or keeping them from happening to anybody else. Or maybe you’re a screenplay writer and you want to get facts for a story you’re writing or just for creative ideas. That’s fine.

But I’ll tell you… if you know you’ve got a problem, you better stop fucking around and feeding it because you’re going to cause a great big monster to grow up inside you and it’s going to crush you and crush others… somewhere at the end of the day, you know you shouldn’t be doing that because do you want people harming you? No, I don’t think so. We’ve got enough suffering in this world from scumbags who have to go around bombing other people for their stupid whatever. Sending children off to war to fight their arguments. We have enough problems with that as it is, we don’t need anyone adding to the worries of someone being hurt…

But there’s really a lot of detail in this subject to fathom, isn’t there? About how he was, and his motives of operations and, uh–

TJ 
His psychology, yeah.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah the psychology, the pre and the post of it all…

Really my desire is for what I just said, somebody who knows that they’re doing something not right– if you have just one tiny thread of sense in your head, do not do that, get your ass somewhere to stop doing that. Because if you don’t, I hope someone will stop you soon.

I believe that Ted had sense. I believe Ted knew he was doing shit that was wrong. And I tell you what, if I happened to stumble upon him doing that, I certainly hope that I would have had enough gumption to clunk him on the head to stop him from doing it. I like to think I would, but I might have– who knows? That would be a pretty big confusing moment for a 14-year-old to come into. But you know, I should give myself a little more credit though. I mean, you see somebody… murdering a woman… or anybody, it doesn’t take much to figure that out, and what to do.

Yeah, so anyway. Peace and love all you people who give a damn. Just try to understand each other. Don’t be too quick to… Don’t growl too much first, you know, try to just chill out. Try to solve it.

TJ 
Well, I guess that’s all I got for you for now. Thank you so much for being willing to talk to me.

Richard Bundy 
Well, thank you too Tiffany and I did really enjoy talking with you. I think you’re a good person and you’ve got your heart in the right place.

TJ 
Thank you. I think you are too. I’m really glad to have met you and I count you as a friend.

Richard Bundy 
Yeah, same here. That’s right, I was going to mention that. Remember I told you what I said to Trish Wood, I said, “Now I hate to tell you this, but after all this now I consider you a friend so, you’re gonna probably get some cookies around Christmastime…”

---

If you appreciate Rich taking the time to share his experiences with us, he is gratefully accepting assistance to escape homelessness here: https://gofund.me/662cc912

Thank you to all those who have already donated; it’s helped a lot and it truly means the world to him.