The Stranger Beside Me (48 page)

As always, Ted's credit card purchases would be worrisome for him, especially those where he purchased gas. Among the 328

twenty-one cards found on him when he was arrested by Officer Lee were cards that had been stolen from Kathleen Laura Evans (Gulf), Thomas N. Evans in (Master Charge), and William R. Evans (Master Charge), cards that had all been in Ms. Evans's purse in Tallahassee when they vanished. Over the years, detectives had found that Ted seemed to have a phobia about running out of gas, often purchasing gas in small amounts many times in one day. On February 7th and 8th, the Gulf and Master Charge cards had been used to buy gas in Jacksonville. One charge was for $9.67, and another was for $4.56. The license plate? 13-D-l 1300. The desk clerk of the Holiday Inn in Lake City, Randy Jones, recalled registering a man he described as "kind of ratty looking, with three days' growth of beard," on the evening of February 8th. Jones had noted that the man's eyes seemed "glassy," and another clerk had surmised that the man was either under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He had signed in under the name of "Evans," using one of the cards stolen in Tallahassee. He had charged a meal and several drinks in the lounge. The next morning, "Evans" had checked out-but not officially. It would have cost him nothing to pay for his motel room, since he'd stolen the credit card in the first place, but he left directly from his room at 8:00 A.M.

Less than an hour later, Kimberly Leach was seen being led into a white Dodge van by an "angry parent." Firefighter Andy Anderson continued home to change clothing and said nothing about the incident. He was, he would later say, "half afraid of starting a turmoil ... of seeing law enforcement sent on a wild goose chase;" he didn't really feel that the girl he'd seen with her "father" had any connection to the missing teenager. When Anderson did go to the police six months later, he willingly allowed himself to be hypnotized to bring back the scene in detail that he'd witnessed on the morning of February 9th, and he was able to describe Kimberly's clothing and the man who had taken her away.

"The man was clean shaven . . . 29-30-31, good looking, 160-65 pounds."

Jackie Moore, the surgeon's wife, had gone to the police, but she would not be able to identify Ted absolutely until she saw him erupt in anger in an Orlando courtroom two years later as she watched the television newscast of the trial. Only then, when she glimpsed the enraged profile of the defendant,

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could she superimpose it on the face that lingered in her memory. Clinch Edenfield, the school crossing-guard, another eye witness, would prove to be an ineffective witness. Two years later, he would recall that February 9, 1978 had been a "warm, summery day." In fact, it had been blustery, near freezing, and drenched with torrents of icy rain. 1

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There would be few periods in the next eighteen months when Florida papers did not carry at least some story about Ted Bundy, but he would not be permitted the jail "press conferences" he wanted to hold. Once his anonymity had vanished, Ted wanted to tell the press his feelings about the spreading news coverage which pegged him as the number one suspect in both the Tallahassee and Lake City cases. He did manage to sneak out a few letters to newspapermen in Colorado and Washington denouncing the sweeping indictment of him by the Florida press. The state of Florida was more interested in getting samples of his hah-and blood-which were finally supplied. Ted refused to supply handwriting samples. Judge Charles Miner said that if Ted continued to refuse, he would be denied his right to be provided with information on the forgery cases.

On April 10, 1978, he was charged with two more forgery cases. One count alleged he had used a stolen Gulf Oil card in Lake City to buy gas on February 9th; the second was for the use of a stolen Master Charge in the same city. Lake City now had a legal hold on him. But Lake City would have a long wait; there were still sixty-two charges extant in Leon County. And, of course, he was still wanted in Colorado for murder and escape.

His legal troubles continued to pile up. On April 27, a warrant was issued to Ted in his Leon County jail cell, a warrant decreeing that he would be taken from that cell to a dentist's office where impressions of his teeth would be made. These impressions would be compared with the bite marks found on Lisa Levy's body.

Sheriff Katsaris was quoted as saying, "It's not an impossibility that someone will be charged in the Chi Omega killings in the near future . . ." At the same time, Judge Minor called off Ted's May 9th trial for auto theft and burglary,

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and said it would not be rescheduled until the suspect agreed to provide samples of his handwriting. The sudden trip to the dentist's office appeared to have been deliberately planned as a surprise for Ted; the word was that authorities did not want to give him a chance to "grind down his teeth" before the odontology impressions could be obtained. There was much speculation that murder charges might be immediately forthcoming, but Katsaris scotched those rumors by saying, "They will probably be within the next couple of months ... or not at all." With the months creeping by-and no murder charges-it seemed that the Florida murders might culminate just as the earlier cases in Washington and Utah had; perhaps there was not enough physical evidence to risk going into trial.

In the meantime, Ted seemingly had once again acclimated to jail. The Leon County Jail is a white brick building four stories high, not new, but not a sweltering rathole as southern jails are often characterized in fiction.

He was being kept in isolation in a four-man security cell in the center of the jail on the second floor. He had no contact with the other 250

prisoners, and his only visitors were local public defenders. He seemed to like his jailers, particularly Art Golden, a lumbering, ruggedly good-looking man who was in charge, of the jail. But then, Ted had never had much criticism for his jailers; it was the detectives and prosecutors who drew his diatribes.

His cell was clean, air-conditioned, and he was allowed a radio and newspapers. He knew that the Grand Jury seemed to be moving toward his indictment on murder charges.

Mindful of Ted's previous escapes, his captors were cautious. The light fixture in his cell was far too high for him to reach. The outer door had been beefed up with two extra locks, and only one jailer had a key that would open both. As usual, Ted decried his lack of exercise, the food, the lighting. He could not see the outside world. There were no windows in his cell, even barred ones.

Millard Farmer, still not officially Ted's attorney, hinted that he would filf federal charges because the jail conditions violated Ted's rights. It was an all-too-familiar chant.

Although J had written to him several times during the spring of 1978. T didn't hear from Ted again until July. By that time, I had finally broken free of my sweatbox of a cell, the 8X10 room where I had been writing a movie script for

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seven months. That room hadn't had windows either, and it hadn't had air-conditioning. Only the worst smog in Los Angeles in twenty years had been able to creep through the cracks in the door, and the temperature in our "writers' room" had hit 105 degrees. Ted's July 6th letter was an example of the sardonic humor he was often capable of, and a far cry from the desperate letter he'd mailed soon after his arrest. It was typed; along with what the jailers called his

"stationery store" of legal supplies, he had been given a typewriter to prepare his defense.

He apologized for failing to answer my last letter sent from California on May 21st, and, again, thanked me for the check I'd enclosed. Money was lasting him for quite awhile; he had stopped smoking. Ted had been surprised to find that I was still working away on the movie script in Hollywood into the îate spring of 1978, and suggested that perhaps I had been naive when I'd signed the contract and that I should ask for additional money for the four extra months I had worked. At least they could give you 'mugger money' so the buggers don't have to go away empty handed. You said you lived in a 'trick pad?' Sorry, I can't interpret the L.A. dialect or whatever, oh there's the wprd: colloquialism. Does this mean that magicians hang out there; you know, rabbits out of hats and things. Or do you mean ... do you suggest ... a ... ahmmmm . . . that persons get to know each other carnally for a negotiated price? If so, and if it pays better than writing-it would almost have to-you might consider getting into administration . . . You could apply for a small business loan to get started. As far as his own life was going, Ted wrote that there was nothing happening to him that reincarnation wouldn't improve on. He didn't think about it; he viewed his world from the position of a "spectator, a captive audience."

He was due that afternoon to appear to stand trial for fourteen counts involving the use of credit cards. But. as he'd told me years before, he didn't sweat the small stuff and he had a "disposition made of duck feathers." He called the credit cards "damn pesky things," as well he might.

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"Perfect time to use an insanity defense," he mused. "I saw them used on television, and, honest, I couldn't help myself." Ted was not unaware of what was happening with other famous suspects, and he had followed the Son of Sam case, and concluded that if David Berkowitz could be found sane, it meant that no murder defendant in the country could be found legally insane.

"So I am pursuing a straight not guilty defense, since, for the record and the benefit of the censors reading this letter, I am innocent of those charges as a matter of law and fact. CYA*, my Dear.

"Bon chance, bon voyage, bon appetite, catch you later, don't talk to strangers unless they talk to you first, down some chablis for me, love, and so on ... ted."

It had all become a grimly hopeless joke. I smiled a little at Ted's jest about his "defense." He had stolen the television set that he blamed for brainwashing him into stealing credit cards. His life was indeed a vicious circle. And his last admonition to me, "don't talk to strangers," was, under the circumstances, dark humor. I answered in the same vein. "Sure, you can give up smoking . . . you're not under pressure the way / am."

I would write to Ted a few more times, but this was the last letter I ever got from Ted Bundy. There would be phone calls-hour-long collect phone calls-but never again a letter.

The net dropped over Ted with a dull thud on July 27th in what has been termed a "circus," and a "zoo." The latest episode in what Ted referred to as the "Ted and Ken Show" occurred on that steamy hot night in Tallahassee.

Sheriff Ken Katsaris had a sealed indictment, and he summoned reporters for a press conference at 9:30 that evening. Ted had been in Pensacola all day for a hearing and he was in that city when the Grand Jury handed down the indictment at 3:00 P.M.

Ted had been back in his cell an hour when he was taken downstairs where Katsaris waited. The sheriff was impeccable in a black suit, "White shirt, diagonally striped tie. Ted wore baggy green jail! coveralls as he emerged from the elevator under heavy guard. The strobe lights for the cameras blinded him as he walked into the hallway and realized, instantly, what was happening. He quickly retreated into the elevator,

*CYA-"Cover Your Ass" in police and con lingo. 334

mumbling that he would not "be paraded" for Katsaris's benefit. Ted's face was the sick white of jail pallor, and his face was drawn, giving him an ascetic appearance. Finally, realizing there was no place for him to hide, he walked out of the elevator almost jauntily. Katsaris opened the indictment and began to read: "In the name of, and by the authority of the state of Florida-"

Ted plainly hated his guts.

The prisoner approached the captor and asked sarcastically, "What do we have here, Ken? Let's see. Oh, an indictment! Why don't you read it to me? You're running for re-election."

And then, Ted turned his back on Katsaris, lifted his right arm to lean against the wall, and stared straight ahead, jaw set, head up. He was the persecuted man and he would play it that way. He seemed to rise above the nondescript coveralls, the jail slippers. His eyes blazed into the cameras.

The cameras were all on Bundy, but Katsaris went ahead through the indictment, ". . . the said Theodore Robert Bundy did make an assault upon Karen Chandler and/or Kathy Kleiner . . ." Ted spoke to the press, "He said he was going to get me." And to the sheriff, "O.K. You got your indictment; that's all you're going to get." Katsaris ignored him and continued to drone out the legalese which meant that Ted Bundy was being charged with murder. ". . . did then and there unlawfully kill a human being, to wit: Lisa Levy, by strangling and/or beating her until she was dead, and said killing was perpetrated by said Theodore Robert Bundy, and did then and there unlawfully kill a human being, to wit: Margaret Bowman, by strangling and/or beating her until she was dead . . . and that Theodore Robert Bundy, from or with a premeditated design or intent to effect the death of said Cheryl Thomas . .."

It seemed to take hours, rather than minutes.

Ted made a mockery of it. He raised his hand at one point and said,

"I'll plead not guilty right now."

Ted was gaining control of himself, grinning widely. He continued to interrupt Katsaris. "Can I speak to the press when you're done?" Katsaris read on, many of his words lost behind Ted's banter.

"We've displayed the prisoner now," Ted said mockingly. "I think it's my turn. Listen, I've been kept in isolation for six months. You've been talking for six months. I'm gagged .. . you're not gagged." When the indictment was finally completed, Ted was taken back to the elevator. He took his copy of the papers and held them up for the cameras . . . and then he methodically tore them in half. For the first time, Ted Bundy would be on trial for his very life. He would not betray whatever emotions swept through him as he realized that.