To think the judge who sentenced Ted Bundy said these words to him??

[ElektraLOL]

'You're a bright young man. You would have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. Take care of yourself. I don't feel any animosity toward you.'

I watched the documentary about his horrific crimes.

WTF was the judge doing talking to him like it's a shame he broke into someone's house? I'll bet the families of all those women (and child!) he murdered felt animosity towards him!

He was a good-looking, charismatic, white boy psychopath who had people eating out of his hands... as for the victims.... they were just silly women who should have known better!

From what ive read about him, he was a charming psychopath who would charm the bees 🐝 from the trees and had a knack for making everybody feel wanted and special. He was a charmer and this extended to the judge too.

Totally the same sentiment op. And it's not just hearsay either : that judge is on film saying that!

I think he seems exactly like Ian Brady, never happier than when the spotlight was on him.

^^

Nope. He's not like Ian Brady at all. For a start off, Ted Bundy was really, really likeable.

He definitely loved the attention and had a total narcissistic personality but I think he was incredibly right for his time : tall, good looking bright, high achieving, white guy. Hard to believe he was an utter sadist and monster. He certainly had that judge fooled.

Whilst Bundy was awaiting trial or whatever and had been released and /or escaped, and he had been heavily reported in the news, a woman is seen on camera giggling and saying 'oh yeah, he took me to dinner' : she KNEW he had been accused of kidnapping! She still went for dinner with him!

Apparently he was charm school personified

Here's a slightly fuller quote

In context it seems that he was explaining that the sentence of death was not one of personal vengence, but an dispasionate acr of justice (i don't agree as i don't think capital punishment can ever be just, even for someone like Bundy).

I am not sure how much compassion or respect you imagine the judge felt towards a man whom he had just, quite literally, decided to have killed.

Well he felt exactly the amount of compassion or respect he said - there was no need for him to say it at all but he did - because he was sentencing a white, personable, seemingly intelligent young white man to death for the murder of women. It obviously required a riff - right?

It would be interesting to search the long history of black men being sentenced to death and find a similar sentiment from a judge given just after he applied the death sentence. I doubt you will find one. Do black men get an explanation that this isn't personal when they are sentenced to death - don't be silly.

I suspect if bundy had limited himself to rape and not murder, he may well have been acquitted.

He was intelligent, likeable, plausible, manipulative, all in all he was a nightmare combination of evil hidden under a charming and seemingly trustworthy exterior which is why he was so dangerous.

A member of his defence team described him as: the very definition of heartless evil and he described himself as the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you will ever meet.

I agree, pallisers. He got away with what he did, and when he was finally apprehended in Florida it was far from the first time, because he was very good looking, personable, educated and white.

It’s one part of the judges sentence though. He did say ted buddy was heinous and ghastly and sentenced him to death. He did also say that things could have been different. It seems to me that part of his speech is more sadness at the judges responsibility in putting someone to death.

That fucking bastard. What blows my mind at the leniency he got, because he was white, when his victims were white. But they were female.

I'll never forget seeing one of the fathers of the victims a couple of years ago, his teenage daughter dead for 40 years, her mother long dead, after she disappeared on a night out, and how he still leaves the light on the porch on every night for her when he goes to bed, still living in her childhood home, still begging for her to come home.

After watching the ted bundy tapes on Netflix, he certainly does not come across as intelligent and charismatic; more shifty, creepy and intense. He seems to have been elevated by folklore into the role of 'good-looking, suave, brilliant with self-awareness', hence the recent movie starring Zac Efron. I can't watch it is, it is glorifying an obvious degenerate, all about him and the victims fade away as just numbers.He obviously was more egotistical than intelligent because he was massacred by the prosecution. On the judges comments, the portions widely available are a few short sentences, did he say more, I wonder? In a sense those few words were browbeating and perhaps calculated to affect Bundy, which they probably would have, maybe not, but without the whole transcript who knows.

He had teenage girls writing him love letters and dressing up to watch him in court, that's how skilled he was in manipulation!

It’s one part of the judges sentence though. He did say ted buddy was heinous and ghastly and sentenced him to death. He did also say that things could have been different. It seems to me that part of his speech is more sadness at the judges responsibility in putting someone to death.

And again I ask how often do judges express this kind of sadness at the death trials of black men - not serial killers of women - just black men who killed someone?

You cannot look at this judge's comments in isolation. It must be looked at in the context of societal attitudes to white men, to women, to women who were raped, and to personable white men who reminded judges of themselves. I say it again - if he just raped, god knows if he would ever have been convicted.

On the judges comments, the portions widely available are a few short sentences, did he say more, I wonder?

Again a white man in a position of authority given the benefit of the doubt. Why shouldn't we take what we can from what the judge was reported as saying without imagining other things he may - or probably didn't - say?

honestly I think you could trace a direct line from these comments to the judge who sentenced the stanford rapist to 6 months.

He had teenage girls writing him love letters and dressing up to watch him in court, that's how skilled he was in manipulation!

teenage girls aren't adults in responsible positions. They are allowed a moment of madness.

Male white judges are adults in responsible positions - they don't get moments of madness. When they say and do awful things we are allowed to attibute it to their prejudices or their stupidity - but surely not that they are teenagers under the influence of hysteria?

www.tvguide.co.uk/detail/3242335/3451065/sex-on-trial

Tonight on Channel 4

What blows my mind at the leniency he got

Ted Bundy was electrocuted. That was literally no leniency.

'The remarks made by the Judge were awful and even worse would have played right into Ted Bundy's view of himself and vindicated his ego.'

Yes, exactly. The interview he did the night before his execution was all about him - poor him(!) how he ended up torturing, raping and mutilating so many innocent young women because he had run out of pornographic material depraved enough to satiate his perversions!!! Not once did he show any remorse for his actions.

Whatever his eventual sentence (and for the record I'm anti death penalty) it is so disrespectful to the victims and their families that a judge would express such sentiment as 'oh what a shame you turned out to be a serial killer, you'd have made a great lawyer'

Those women who he murdered in the most brutal, sadistic ways had their whole lives ahead of them. It is they who should be remembered for what they never had the chance to do because their lives were stolen from them.

He was a psychopath and what interests me is the other thread on here with people bragging if they get high psychopathic traits on the quiz. It’s all part of the same problem that we find these characters fascinating and alluring. So did the judge quite obviously and I bet he would have also bragged about his high score!

It's slightly off-topic, and it's horrible to say, but Ted Bundy must have had a disproportionate amount of charm (albeit superficial). He was played by Mark Harmon from NCIS fame in the telemovie "The Deliberate Stranger" (1986) when Harmon was young and considered incredibly charming and selected for that old cliché of Peoples magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive."

Total misrepresentation by OP. I wonder if anyone else has seen (& liked) The Green Mile. The strategy makes sense to be professional & civil to evil men on death row, coz frankly, there is nothing to be gained by treating them badly at that point. Cowart's preface to the "What a waste your life became" words to Bundy were:

The court finds that both of these killings were indeed heinous, atrocious and cruel. And that they were extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life. This court, independent of, but in agreement with the advisory sentence rendered by the jury does hereby impose the death penalty upon the defendant Theodore Robert Bundy. It is further ordered that on such scheduled date that you'll be put to death by a current of electricity, sufficient to cause your immediate death, and such current of electricity shall continue to pass through your body until you are dead.

Wikipedia goes on
Cowart died of a heart attack at the age of 62. Bundy was executed two years later in 1989 after failing numerous appeals to Cowart and the Court of Appeals to overturn his sentence or be granted a new trial.

It's interesting that he said the killings were evil- not that Bundy was. Like when you tell your child that they aren't naughty but have done something naughty, so they don't feel unforgivable.

'You're a great bloke, but you've done some terrible things so you have to be punished, try not to take it personally.'

Is it a case of punish thencrine not tjencrinunal? However, in Bundy it's impossible to separate the 2.
Watching the Bundy doc and Yorkshire ripper doc on BBC, is helpful in putting the prevailing social view of women in the 60s 70s into sharp focus.
A woman was portrayed as a prostitute as she was in the pub Wilma McCann I think.
Police techniques have changed and profiling has certainly improved identification, but have violent assaults on women decreased?
Are there still Bundy and Sutcliffe out there?

The judge may have not believed Bundy himself was evil but his actions were

We have first hand accounts of Bundy being generous and caring

It’s the old argument are people evil, born evil or is what they do evil

I think putting the label evil on someone also takes away responsibility they couldn’t help it they are evil but Bundy made choices and what he choose to was cruel and inhuman his choose actions were evil

And shall we have the full quote, not the edited version?

The court finds that both of these killings were indeed heinous, atrocious and cruel. And that they were extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life. This court, independent of, but in agreement with the advisory sentence rendered by the jury does hereby impose the death penalty upon the defendant Theodore Robert Bundy. It is further ordered that on such scheduled date that you'll be put to death by a current of electricity, sufficient to cause your immediate death, and such current of electricity shall continue to pass through your body until you are dead.

Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself. It is an utter tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity, I think, as I’ve experienced in this courtroom.
You’re a bright young man. You’d have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. I don’t feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Take care of yourself.