Rhonda Stapley

One of his interviews, the interviewer asked him, point blank, he said, Ted, Why did you kill?" And Ted kind of raised one eyebrow and kind of smiled and says, "'Cause I liked it."

Rhonda Stapley was a college student in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1974.

She says she survived a vicious attack by Bundy and was so traumatized she kept her ordeal secret for more than 30 years.

Nobody went out at night.

Bundy later claimed that he first killed in Utah on October the 2nd, 1974.

The victim was just 16 years old, and her body was never found.

Rhonda Stapley, a University of Utah pharmacy student, was waiting for a bus.

I had a dental appointment downtown, While I was downtown, I decided I would walk over to a city park, and then my mouth started to become numb from the dental surgery, and I could tell that I needed to go home to some aspirins pretty soon.

There was barely a mask left at all.

When we discussed Rhonda Stapley last week, we looked at a version of Ted Bundy who relied heavily on performance.

He was the one approaching women appearing ordinary or even vulnerable.

He created a situation where a woman was willing to move closer to him.

That distinction is important because traditional serial killer stories create a strange problem with the word victim.

We tend to divide women into two categories, the killer murdered and the ones who got away.

But what about the ones who didn't get away? What about somebody like Kathy, Karen, or Cheryl who survived but they were maimed? They didn't escape in the way that Rhonda Stapley did.

There was no moment they could physically break or run away.