Netflix film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is shining a light on the charisma of serial killer Ted Bundy, who was undoubtedly supported by a group of people through his execution. Bundy confessed to 30 murders before his death, but the number of women he killed is suspected to be higher. Despite his ugly, dark urges, Bundy was known as a charming family man, which is why so many doubted his guilt. Still, Bundy didn't escape his ordered death. Here's everything you need to know about how and when the notorious murderer died. Bundy was ordered to die by electric chair during his 1980 trial. This was the third time he was officially sentenced to death in his long list of murder trials. In the years that Bundy sat on death row, he continued to deny the violent murders he was accused of in multiple states, including Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Florida. He spent the years after his sentencing in a Florida prison. In 1989, nine years after his final death sentence, Bundy was executed in "Old Sparky," Florida's famed electric chair. It was the day of his execution that Bundy confessed to 30 murders. Bundy allegedly didn't believe he would actually be executed, and attempted to buy time to prove his innocence multiple times in his time on death row. Details about Bundy's death were published in Ann Rule's famous book on Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me: The True Crime Story of Ted Bundy. A handful of professionals who knew of Bundy and his crimes attended his execution and watched the killer's death through a glass window. Those who attended said Bundy was uneasy at the time of his death, and commented on fireworks and chanting people outside, who rallied outside of the prison with signs and applause at the time of his scheduled death. During the Florida trial that eventually led Bundy to his death sentence, he married his long-time friend, Carole Ann Boone. This was possible because of an odd Florida law that says any public declaration of marriage can be considered legal in a court with witnesses. Bundy proposed to Carole while acting as his own lawyer and questioning her. Her testimony turned into a legal marriage, which some claimed was to wow the jury. Boone moved to Florida to be near her husband, and the two conceived a child while Bundy was on death row. Rose Bundy was born in 1982. Her whereabouts now are unknown.<doc-sep>Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images From Men's Health The smoke billowed from the Florida State Penitentiary. Crowds of gawkers, those looking to cheer the death including off-duty cops, lined up with the TV cameras along the barriers and barbed wire, waiting from the overhead signal of a prison guard emerging from the prison. When it came, they were rapturous. They clutched their transistor radios reporting the death over their hearts. They hoisted their signs reading "Bon Voyage" and "Unwanted: Alive". They wore hats made out of aluminum foil and fashioned to look like the helmet-like conductive electrodes. Someone set off fireworks. It was 7:16AM on January 24th, 1989. And it was execution day in Florida. Ted Bundy, the man who confessed to murdering over 30 people across seven states between 1974 and 1978, had just been put to death in the electric chair. Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images Thirty years on from his death, the infamous serial killer's spree and the lives he took are being getting new attention in the culture with the release of movies like Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron as Bundy. After murders out west, and escaping from a prison cell in Colorado, Bundy had fled to Florida, where he was arrested on February 12th, 1978 in Pensacola. About a month earlier he had attached four victims at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Just a few days before, on February 8th, he murdered 12-year-old Kimberly Leach in Lake City, Florida. It would be the sentencing from that murder trial that would land Bundy in the electric chair. Bundy had actually been sentenced to death three different times. Two for the murders of Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman on attack on the Chi Omega House, and one for the abduction and murder of Kimberly Leach. It took 9 years from his sentencing until his execution. A series of appeals and stays issued from Supreme Courts pushed back and delayed the execution dates for the Chi Omega murders. In December of 1988, the Supreme Court denied a review of a ruling against Bundy by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and his final execution date for the Leach murder was set for January 24, 1989. Bundy was 42 years old. Story continues Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images After the execution, a white hearse carrying Bundy's remains drove past the cheering crowds lined up outside the Florida State Penitentiary. ('You Might Also Like',)<doc-sep>As the first televised national trial, Ted Bundy's prosecution was thrust into the spotlight, but the notorious killer tried to keep cameras out of the courtroom. Ted Bundy’s murder trial was in many ways the country’s first foray into reality television. Media from all 50 states and nine foreign countries descended on the state of Florida bringing with them more than 100 reporters, tape editors, producers, and camera operators to transmit the trial of the charismatic killer to news stations across the United States, according to the Miami New Times. The trials, reported as the first national televised trial to be transmitted across national airwaves, quickly became a circus-like atmosphere, with Ted Bundy groupies sitting in the courtroom, Bundy playing to the cameras, and even the killer’s own nuptials occurring during testimony. The trial wasn’t the only aspect of the case to be played out before the public. W. Kenneth Katsaris, the sheriff of Leon County, also invited the media to a public reading of the indictment even before the trial began. Netflix’s new biopic “Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile,” directed by Joe Berlinger, depicts the media frenzy with Bundy, played by Zac Efron, angrily accusing the sheriff during the indictment’s reading of keeping him “gagged” while the sheriff was able to play out the arrest before the public. “I can’t believe what they’ve managed to do,” Bundy laments in the fictionalized film to future-wife Carole Ann Boone. “They are using me as a ploy for the sheriff to win points in the next election. I am being used for political gain.” But were authorities really “using” Bundy for their own benefit? Why Was The Trial Televised? It turns out the decision to televise the trial was not made by prosecutors themselves (or Bundy, who made a movement to restrict cameras from the courtroom, which was denied, according to The Miami New Times). The decision to allow cameras in the court room was made after the Florida Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision authorizing the use of cameras and recording equipment in courtrooms across the state on May 1,1979, just a month before Bundy’s trial was set to begin. The decision was made to televise the trial, regardless of what the defense or prosecution thought of the matter, according to a news clip in the docu-series “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” also directed by Joe Berlinger. “We’re conducting the public’s business, gentleman, and we’re going to conduct it in the sunshine as we’ve said in Florida,” judge Edward D. Cowart said during the trial. Legal analyst Beth Karas told Oxygen.com that while she doesn’t know the specifics of the decision to allow cameras in the courtroom for Bundy’s trial, she doesn’t believe the move was unusual for the state of Florida. “Florida has historically been one of the most liberal states allowing cameras,” said Karas, a former prosecutor who covered trials for 19 years with Court TV. She believes prosecutors should always be transparent with the public and said certain safeguards, including not filming undercover agents or underage minors, are typically built into the process to add safety for those who need it. “You shouldn’t have anything to hide. Your case is transparent,” Karas said. “You are working for the people. You are working for the government and you shouldn’t have anything to hide.” According to Larry Simpson, the prosecutor of the Chi Omega murders, presenting the case “before the virtual nation watching” actually added an increased element of pressure for him. “I was a young lawyer at the time,” he said in the Netflix docu-series. “It was baptism by fire if you would, but quite frankly, from my perspective, I had to treat it like it was just another case.” Karas said the decision to televise a trial can also depend on the level of public interest in a case. For instance, she and another producer lobbied in 2011 to have cameras in the courtroom during the trial of Conrad Murray, the doctor who had been treating pop star Michael Jackson before his death. Their argument prevailed and cameras were allowed. “Probably the winning argument was that there was such public interest worldwide in this case that it was only fair to let everyone see this public drama unfolding and not just the few who could make it into the coveted public seats,” she said. Karas noted Bundy's murders also had a “ripple effect across the country” and were committed in various states throughout the 1970s. “This was a major high-profile case in the United States and the public had an interest in seeing justice unfolding and at seeing the public courtroom at work,” she said. Was There Prejudicial Publicity? However, defense attorney Michael Minerva, who helped defend Bundy during the trial, said the increased media attention around the trial could have negatively impacted Bundy’s ability to find an objective jury. “The problem with Ted Bundy was that he was not a typical defendant because he was so infamous, the media had flooded the whole state of Florida with all this prejudicial publicity about what Ted had done,” he said in “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.” Minerva added that all the information published in media reports went “a long way to destroying” the public’s perception or presumption of innocence in the case. Bundy was seemingly furious with the sheriff for reading the indictment in such a public manner, but Karas told Oxygen.com any indictment is typically a part of the public record. “Reading the indictment is routine in the courtroom and a lot of times the documents are simply made public,” she said. Regardless of Bundy’s thoughts on how the case was handled, he’d eventually be convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1989 shortly after confessing to 30 murders of women across the country.<doc-sep>Photo credit: Alcatraz East Crime Museum, TN From Car and Driver Rick Garzaniti was relaxing at home with his wife and toddler when his life intersected with that of convicted serial killer and escaped convict Ted Bundy. As the family watched the ABC Sunday Night Movie, Gator, with Burt Reynolds, Bundy was outside their Tallahassee, Florida, residence, stealing Garzaniti's orange 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle. It was February of 1978, and Bundy, who would eventually confess to killing more than 30 young women in four states, had recently escaped from his Aspen, Colorado, jail cell. It was his second escape in seven months. Just days before stealing the Bug, the 31-year old had walked into a Florida State University sorority house and savagely attacked four female students, killing two. Bundy's theft of the VW Bug shouldn't have surprised authorities. America's most notorious mass murderer—played by actor Zac Efron in a new Netflix movie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile—had a liking for the air-cooled German cars. In 1974, long before he topped the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives list, he had bought a tan 1968 VW Beetle in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, where his killing spree began. For two years, Ted Bundy's Volkswagen Beetle became part of his modus operandi as he performed dozens of murders, first in Washington and Oregon, then in Utah and Colorado. He had removed the Bug's passenger seat and its inside door handle, trapping his victims inside the car, where they were often handcuffed to the Beetle and strangled. The first time Ted Bundy was arrested, he was behind the wheel of that very car on the night of August 15, 1975. Utah highway policeman Bob Hayward stopped him at around 2 a.m. for a routine traffic violation in a residential area around Salt Lake City. Bundy was driving the Beetle without its headlights on. After Hayward spotted the car's missing passenger seat, Bundy consented to a vehicle search. An ice pick was found, along with masks, handcuffs, rope, a pry bar, and pantyhose. Story continues Photo credit: Netflix Many refused to believe the law student was such a monster. Like the character played by Christian Bale in the 2000 movie American Psycho, Bundy didn't fit the profile. He was intelligent, articulate, and well educated. He had graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology. He was also charming, and quite handsome with soft blue eyes and an infectious smile, all weapons the narcissistic psychopath used to beguile his victims. Out on bail, Bundy scrubbed the tan VW and sold it to a Utah teenager, but police seized the car in October when they charged Bundy with the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, who had identified him in a police lineup. In November of 1974 DaRonch had managed to escape while Bundy, claiming to be a police detective, tried to handcuff her to the inside of his Volkswagen. Despite Bundy's car-washing efforts, a forensics search revealed blood stains inside the tan VW and hairs from three slain women. Bundy was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to one to 15 years in Utah State Prison. Extradited to Colorado to stand trial for murder, he escaped from his Aspen cell three years later, and on February 15, 1978, he was arrested again, this time in Pensacola, Florida, while behind the wheel of Garzaniti's orange Volkswagen. Bundy was detained by police officer David Lee around 1 a.m., after what was described as a high-speed chase and a violent resist of arrest. "He grabbed my wrist and we had a struggle for control of my revolver," the officer told reporters. Bundy was carrying 21 stolen credit cards, many of which belonged to female FSU students. The following year, Bundy would be convicted of three killings in Florida, including the slaying of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, who vanished from her junior high school in Lake City, Florida, on February 9, 1978. He would die in that state's electric chair in early 1989. Netflix acquired distribution rights to Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile after it debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, just as the company was airing its own four-part documentary series, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of his execution. When authorities returned the orange Bug to Garzaniti, who would later testify at Bundy's trial, the VW's back seat was missing, and the entire car was covered in fingerprint dust. "I didn't think about it too much because I had a feeling that Kimberly Leach might have been in that car," he recently told a local television reporter. After driving the car for a few months the massage therapist decided to sell, but he was uninterested in turning a profit on the car's infamous past. It was sold to a man in nearby Orlando for just $1300. The buyer wanted it for his 16-year-old daughter. It was going to be her first car. Garzaniti says he was clear about the Volkswagen's history, but they happily bought it anyway. "I thought about it later that I should have put it in the National Enquirer, and some screwball might have given me $20,000 for it," he told the Pensacola News Journal in 1997. "It would be like having something Bonnie and Clyde owned." While Bundy was on death row, former Salt Lake City sheriff's deputy Lonnie Anderson purchased his tan 1968 VW with just such profiteering in mind. Paying $925 for the car at a police auction, he stashed it in a storage yard for nearly 20 years. In 1997, with most of its interior still missing from the forensic investigation, he attempted to sell it, asking $25,000 for the VW in the New York Times classified ads. Although the whereabouts of Garzaniti's orange VW Super Beetle seem to be unknown today, Ted Bundy's '68 Beetle has become one of the crime world's most treasured pieces of "murderabilia." In 2001 it was purchased by Arthur Nash, a known crime-memorabilia collector.<doc-sep>
Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer who murdered at least 30 women, went to trial in three states before receiving the death penalty. Bundy famously escaped trial twice in Colorado before fleeing to Florida, where he killed his final three victims. The Florida trials that ultimately convicted Bundy for life were some of the first televised trials in the U.S. Netflix's highly anticipated movie about Ted Bundy, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, officially comes out on May 3, in which you'll probably see scenes from the serial killer's most famous trial (the one that convicted him). But since the movie is told from the perspective of his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, who he was dating during the trial—and it's a dramatization of actual events—you might be left with a few questions. So here's a breakdown of Ted Bundy's trials IRL, starting with the very first one. Utah: February 1976 Ted Bundy was arrested and charged with the aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault of 18-year-old Carol DaRonch, who he'd lured into his car (by posing as a police officer) but was unable to kill. She escaped and testified against him. Bundy appeared relaxed and confident in court, according to The New York Times, but apparently (and tbh, thankfully), that didn't sway the jury. He was found guilty and received a one- to 15-year jail sentence in Utah State Prison, on March 1, 1976, per ABC News. Colorado: June 1977 Well, what should have been anyway. Around the time that Bundy was imprisoned in Utah, Colorado, detectives found evidence linking Bundy to the murder of Caryn Campbell, a 23-year-old nurse who'd been found dead near Snowmass in February 1975, ABC's 20/20 reported. He was charged with first-degree murder and transferred to a jail in Aspen to await trial. Representing himself in court, he'd been granted permission to use the Pitkin County jailhouse law library for research, where he jumped from a second-floor window and fled on foot, according to ABC News. He was recaptured five days later, but managed to escape again—this time for good—by losing enough weight to fit through a light fixture opening in his jail cell's ceiling, before his trial, according to Oxygen's Martinis & Murder. A WANTED sign from the FBI after Ted Bundy escaped prison ahead of his second trial. Bettmann Getty Images Florida: June 1979 through February 1980 After successfully escaping from Colorado in December 1977, Bundy arrived in Florida, where law enforcement didn't know him. He wasted no time in finding his next victims: On January 15, 1978, he attacked four women inside the Chi Omega sorority house at the Florida State University in Tallahassee, ultimately killing two. In February, he killed his last victim ever, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. He wasn't charged for either crime until he got into a scuffle with police, who randomly pulled him over for stolen license plates, according to ABC. Ted Bundy leaning on the wall at the police station following his arrest on murder charges, prior to his first Miami trial. Bettmann Getty Images The double-murder trial, which took place in Miami, was one of, if not the, first trials ever televised in U.S. history, per People. Yet again, Bundy represented himself, often referring to himself in the third person as "Mr. Bundy," according to A&E. He looked calm, confident, and nonchalant, grinning through his cross-examination in a khaki blazer and Seattle Mariners sweatshirt. For much of the trial, he had one leg up on a chair, as if he couldn't be bothered. At some point around this time, Bundy and his longtime girlfriend, Liz, split ways. Having had a couple of years of law school under his belt, Bundy was very careful in his responses, at times flipping them around in a maddening way. For example, when the prosecutor asked, "Do you recall your testimony in Utah?" Bundy responded, "I recall testifying in Utah." Bundy was offered a plea deal, but ended up refusing it, according to AP News. Ultimately, Bundy was unable to escape damnable evidence—most of which were his teeth. The prosecution had two forensic odontologists, Richard Souviron, DDS, and Lowell Levine, DDS, show a photograph of the bite marks left on one of the slain FSU students next to an imprint model of Ted Bundy's teeth. It was a match, per court record. Lowell Levine testifying during Ted Bundy’s double-murder trial in Florida.