Serial killer Ted Bundy’s ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall speaks out in “20/20” special
A woman who was dating serial killer Ted Bundy when he began murdering women in Washington state will speak out for the first time in 40 years on a “20/20” special.
The two-hour episode on ABC News airs Friday at 6 p.m. (9 p.m. ET).
In it, Elizabeth Kendall and her daughter Molly Kendall talk about the Bundy they knew and the shock that came after discovering he was suspected of kidnapping, raping and killing at least 36 women across the United States from 1973 to 1978.
“I still have a sense of disbelief that this man that I loved and that seemed to be a great guy could go out and do such horrific things,” Kendall told ABC News. “It’s just so hard to accept.”
Kendall dated Bundy for about five years. Their relationship ended in 1974, but it was Kendall he called after being arrested in 1978.
The two met at a bar in Seattle.
Bundy, who grew up in Tacoma, was studying at the University of Washington. Kendall, a single mother, had just moved to town from Utah.
Elizabeth Kendall had suspicions
Kendall said she suspected Bundy when the brutal slayings of women appeared on the news, but she couldn’t bring herself to accept the truth.
There was a composite sketch that resembled Bundy, he drove a Volkswagen Beetle like the suspected killer and there were reports that the killer called himself “Ted” at Lake Sammamish before a woman disappeared.
Even her daughter, Molly, said she teased Bundy about matching the killer’s description.
“When they had a profile of him, I brought up the similarities to him,” Molly Kendall told ABC News. “I said, ‘This guy’s name’s Ted. Your name’s Ted. This guy has a Volkswagen. You drive a Volkswagen. You know it’s you,’ and he just laughed. [He said], ‘No, Monkey, of course, I would never do anything like that.’”
The Kendalls still have several photographs of family time spent with Bundy before his arrest.
Bundy arrest and execution
After being convicted of raping and killing two sorority sisters and a 12-year-old girl in Florida, Bundy was sentenced to death.
He died in the electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989.
In 2011, a Tacoma police detective initiated a search for Bundy’s DNA so it could be entered into the FBI’s database and possibly connected to cold cases nationwide.
Tacoma police were investigating whether Bundy was involved in the 1961 disappearance of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr from her North End home.
Bundy, who was 14 at the time, denied involvement in the girl’s disappearance in a letter he wrote to her mother while he was on death row.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 2:17 PM.
