Journalist Reminds Twitter Ted Bundy Was A Monster By Honoring His Victims
Something about the resurgent pop-cultural interest in serial killer Ted Bundy doesn’t sit well with Billy Jensen.
Jensen, a Los Angeles-based freelance investigative journalist who has focused on murder for nearly 20 years, said Netflix’s new docuseries “Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” and the trailer for the big-screen Bundy biopic “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” both fail to show viewers the full scope of Bundy’s crimes because of their superficial treatment of his victims.
“We know so much about this guy, and we know so little about the victims,” Jensen told HuffPost. “So often, when you read about the victims, the first things that are said is that, ‘She was pretty.’ Or, “She was beautiful.’ And I’m like, that’s bullshit. … That’s not what defines these women or these girls.”
So, Jensen, who said he always tries “to put emphasis on the victims as much as I can,” decided to do just that.
He began researching the girls and young women Bundy killed in his seven-state rampage in the 1970s. Jensen said he was curious to “find out what they wanted to do in their lives.”
“Like what they were doing, what they were heading towards, to give at least some semblance of humanity and the hopes and dreams that they might have had,” Jensen said.
Bundy confessed to 30 murders, though experts say they suspect there were more, and was put to death in Florida in 1989.
Jensen on Sunday decided to share what he found on Twitter in a long thread with an individual post devoted to each known victim.
As we all binge The Bundy Tapes on @Netflix and share the trailer for the Zac Efron movie, please remember the victims. These women all had hopes and dreams. They should all have movies made about them. I always try to remember what these monsters took away. #TedBundyTapes pic.twitter.com/Q5G0HvldCY
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
Some posts are brimming with information.
Georgeann Hawkins was 18. In her senior year of high school she was named a Daffodil Princess, and traveled across Washington attending events, giving speeches and once addressed the state legislature. Georgeann graduated with straight A's and excelled in her freshman year at UW. pic.twitter.com/1XBW5dnpjp
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
Debra Kent was 17. She wanted to be a social worker. Debby would walk down the street and feed the parking meters of stranger’s cars so they wouldn’t get a ticket. She loved to dance. pic.twitter.com/vkD3l4ByIl
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
Donna Gail Manson was 19. She was a student at Evergreen State College, a very good flute player and was described by Ann Rule as kind of a goth, as her roommate was concerned about Donna's interests in alchemy, magic and death. pic.twitter.com/CNYeyFxx02
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
Susan Elaine Rancourt was 19. She worked two full-time jobs in the summer to save up money for tuition. Susan wanted to go into medicine and had 4.0 GPA—while working full time in a nursing home in between classes. pic.twitter.com/bSfGFgNIaM
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
In others, Jensen tried to fill in the blanks.
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Kathy Parks was 20. She was a world religions major at Oregon State. There is not much written about Kathy. As someone who was also a world religions major, I can hazard a guess at what she might have been looking for—those truths we all have in common, no matter the religion. pic.twitter.com/XEVb3BQjHC
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
“One of the women was a world religion major and I was a religious studies major,” Jensen wrote of Kathy Parks, an Oregon State University student who Bundy confessed to killing in 1974. “The only thing I could guess is that she wanted to figure out what makes everybody the same. Try to boil every religion down to sort of one essence, which is what I was doing as a religious studies major.”
Many of Jensen’s posts have scarce information.
Margaret Bowman was 21. She was a sister in the Chi Omega sorority at Tallahassee's Florida State University. pic.twitter.com/StTUw81Igy
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 29, 2019
Susan Davis was 19. She was a student at Monticello Jr. College in Illinois. pic.twitter.com/QSazouAG6s
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 29, 2019
Lisa Levy was 20. She was a sister in the Chi Omega sorority at Tallahassee's Florida State University. pic.twitter.com/gJjzBNgfBV
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
“It was heartbreaking because there were so many times where there was so little written about the victims other than the listed circumstances of their murder,” Jensen said. “I didn’t want to focus on how Bundy got them. That’s how they’re being defined in history right now, and I didn’t want to do that at all.”
Jensen said he crowdsourced his research, asking people on Twitter who knew the victims to post information. In some instances, it worked.
Lynette Culver was 12. She was a student at Alameda Junior High School. If you knew Lynette and have anything you'd like to share about her, please do. pic.twitter.com/zNYA7MtDlh
— Billy Jensen (@Billyjensen) January 28, 2019
I’m from Pocatello Idaho. My mom was a teacher at Alameda Jr High for 30 years and had her in class. She told me that Lynette Carver was quiet, polite and very smart.
— Terryl (@terrylb89) January 29, 2019
Bundy’s crimes have long been a source of public fascination, chronicled in numerous movies, TV series and books, most notably Ann Rule’s 1980 bestseller The Stranger Beside Me.
But for the current romanticism of Bundy, Jensen’s post may act as somewhat of an antidote.
“The Ted Bundy Tapes” documentary emphasizes Bundy as being good-looking, charismatic and well-spoken. Some viewers have been so blinded by these superficial elements that Netflix felt compelled to share a tweet this week asking its audience to stop fawning over him and reminding people that there are “THOUSANDS of hot men” on its platform who haven’t actually killed and raped anyone.
I've seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 28, 2019
Jensen said he doesn’t think “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” which stars the conventionally handsome Zac Efron as Bundy, is helping the situation much, either.
“I was watching [the trailer], and I was going, ’Are they going show his warts and all? ’Are they going show everything about this guy?’” Jensen said. “This guy was a necrophiliac. He had sex with dead women. He killed women and then he went back to their bodies and raped them. And, are they going show that? No, they’re not. Because that’s not going be good for the movie.”
He added: “For me, you have to show all of that stuff in order to make a complete narrative about who this monster was.”
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.