“Guilty By Reason of Insanity” by Dorothy Otnow Lewis, M.D. (post 4): Interviewing violent people; serial killer Ted Bundy’s puzzling inconsistency

Ted Bundy kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least thirty women. He was executed at Florida State Prison in 1989 (1). Although not the main subject of Dr. Lewis’s book, he is her opening:

“The secret of working with violent people is knowing when to end an interview…For example, several years ago I was locked in a room with Theodore Bundy…

“He and I were locked inside a room, adjoining the administrative area of the Florida State Penitentiary at Starke…A guard was posted just outside the glass where we could see him and he could see but not hear us…

“I would have felt trapped were it not for my clear view of the guard and his clear view of me…Once an interview is under way, I am oblivious to my surroundings.

“We had been talking since nine o’clock…I looked at my watch. It was a little after twelve noon. Time for a candy break…I turned from Mr. Bundy, on whom my attention had been riveted, and tried to catch the eye of the guard to unlock the cubicle so that I could get to a candy machine. The guard was gone. Not only was he gone, but everyone else who worked in the surrounding offices had also disappeared. They had all gone to lunch. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was alone, locked in soundproof room, with a man who had murdered more than two dozen women…

“I turned my attention back to Mr. Bundy. “You were saying?”…

“Only one of Mr. Bundy’s statements during that period of time remains with me: ‘The man sitting before you never killed anyone.’ During a previous interview with him, Theodore Bundy had described to me in detail several of the murders he had committed. I made a clinical decision: I chose not to point out the discrepancy between our two interviews. Alone in a room with a serial killer is neither the time nor the place to quibble about inconsistencies” (1, pp. 1-3).

Search “puzzling inconsistency” for past posts on this clue to the presence of multiple personality. Of course, Bundy would not have had multiple personality trait, but rather, multiple personality disorder.

1. Wikipedia. “Ted Bundy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy

2. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, M.D. Guilty By Reason Of Insanity: A Psychiatrist Explores the Minds of Killers. New York, Fawcett Columbine/Ballantine, 1998.