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A True Crime Author, a Serial Killer, A Strange Friendship

Author: Ann Rule

Ann Rule, prolific true crime writer, worked side by side, and even developed a meaningful friendship, with one of the most prolific serial killers in American history: Ted Bundy. As Ann unknowingly began working on a book about the serial rapes and murders of young women across several states, her confidant and friend, Bundy, watched from the sidelines. As the investigation continued and Ann began to suspect Ted, the lines between friendship and loyalty, crime and punishment blurred, creating this explosive account of one woman’s friendship with a serial killer, his multiple escapes from prison, and his eventual execution.

Rule has long been recognized as the queen of true crime, with over 100 books in print covering various murders of both passion and precision. The Stranger Beside Me, however, is unique because this time the author is central to the story. Ann begins by showing Ted as she knew him: a gentle, handsome young man who worked beside her in a crisis clinic. In between saving lives, they spent the nights chatting. Just as Ann was confronting divorce and difficulties in her career, Ted’s future was looking bright. He was young, had a steady girlfriend, another hidden girlfriend on the side, a promising future in the Republican party, and was working on a degree in law. Despite his success and Ann’s declining life, the unlikely pair stayed friends and confidants. Ted was always there for Ann.

Meanwhile, the years and the business of life separated them, and they occasionally came together to share a meal, have a phone call, talk business and pleasure. Then, the murders started, and Ann received her assignment to write a book on this unknown killer, to follow the investigation.

Ted Bundy’s car
DCTWINKIE5500, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

As the story progresses, Ann goes back and forth between her warring sentiments: her surety that her gentle friend could never do such a thing and her growing suspicions about Ted’s secret life. As is typical of Ann, we spend time with each of the victims. We learn about their hopes and dreams, their lives, and the horrifying brutality of their deaths. Bundy was a man with no conscience and no mercy, but he played on the sympathies of others, luring young, intelligent, pretty women to their demise through a host of antics, including wearing fake arm slings and bandages and asking for help carrying items to his car. Ann shows the kindness of the killer’s victims juxtaposed against the brutal, unfeeling nature of the crimes. It’s stomach churning, and a warning to women everywhere. I would have helped Bundy. I would have helped an injured man to his car. Most of us would have. Most of us would have died.

As the book continues and Bundy is caught for the first time, we get a secret look into his mind through his letters and phone calls to Ann. Is there any sense of guilt? Is this friendship real, and will Ted ever possibly confess to Ann? We watch as Bundy’s hubris expands, as the courtroom antics begin. Bundy often represents himself, dressed as a lawyer, touting legal knowledge, ruining his own case.

Ted Bundy after his first arrest Florida Photographic Collection |  / State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Then, Bundy escapes, not once, but twice. He is a clever man. He could easily slip into another life, yet his desire to kill, whatever it is bred from, continues. That’s when we get the infamous college campus murders, when Ted’s spiraling life finally causes him to be caught for the last time and executed.

Throughout the story, Ann captures all the details, showcases the intricacies and failures of the court room, oscillates in her emotions, and focuses on the question that haunts us all: what makes men into monsters. There is no definitive answer. Whatever secrets Bundy had, whatever reasons or justifications that enabled him to continue, died with him. Again, it’s all supposition laid over a dire warning: here’s what could happen to you. Here’s how this monster got loose, killed time and again, and got away with it, and here’s how even the smartest among us – a woman with a background in policework and knowledge of forensics and crimes – was also taken in by a psychopath. It’s a chilling and intense read, one that is deeply personal as Ann still, in the closing, looks back over her friendship and is torn between the reality of her friendship with Bundy and his ultimate depravity.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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