He was born in November 1946 as Theodore Robert Cowell and used various aliases during his life. Some knew him as Chris Hagen or Richard Burton or even as Ken Misner.

When he died in the electric chair in January 1989, he was known to America as Ted Bundy and was one of the most famous serial killers of the 20th century.

Authorities believe his massacre lasted approximately four years, from 1974 to 1978, though Bundy himself said the first was in 1972. They believe he killed between 30 and 100 people. He confessed to 30 murders while on death row.

Ted Bundy was born and raised by a single mother, Louise, and the identity of his father is pure speculation. Ted and his mother lived with his parents in Philadelphia for the first four years of his life. Bundy grew up thinking that his mother was his sister and that his grandparents were his parents. At the age of four, Ted and Louise moved to Tacoma Washington, and Louise soon married Johnnie Culpepper Bundy.

Bundy was a very good student and active in his youth at the First Methodist Church of Tacoma, Washington. However, he was shy and not very sociable with others. He received a high school scholarship and graduated from the University of Washington.

While in captivity, Bundy told authorities that there was an entity inside of him that has always been fascinated with sex and violence. All of his victims were white, middle-class women. They were all beaten and then strangled. Once he started out in Washington state, he was killing at a rate of about one a month.

The first known victim was Joni Lenz in January 1974. She survived the ordeal, but brain damage prevented her from being of any help in capturing Bundy. In February, Lynda Ann Healy was murdered by Bundy. On March 12, 1974, in Olympia, Bundy kidnapped and murdered Donna Gail Manson. A month later, Susan Rancourt disappeared and her disappearance is attributed to Bundy. In May it was Brenda Ball and in June, Georgeann Hawkins. Finally, the Bundy massacre in Washington concluded on July 14, 1974 with the kidnapping of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund.

And then the killings in Washington stopped!

Bundy moved to Utah to attend the University of Utah law school and picked up the pace of his murders by killing three Salt Lake City women in October 1974.

In 1975, Bundy killed some women in and around Colorado ski areas. He was arrested on suspicion of robbery and subsequently escaped. It is not really known if he killed during the next two years, but in January and February of 1978 he killed three women in Florida using the same modus operandi and was finally captured for good.

Theodore Robert (Cowell) Bundy was executed in the electric chair at the maximum security prison near the remote town of Raiford, Florida on January 24, 1989 and will go down in history as a notorious serial killer.