and i was like “..the what?”

and she was like “the painting of the bird on the branch. can you put it there” and she pointed to the abstract painting

and i was like “how is that a bird”

and she said “well what do you think it is?”

and was like “it’s a beached whale with a giant eye, blowing blood out of its blow hole onto the legs of a guy who’s running away”

Instead I will be reading and thinking about Ted Bundy’s victims. I wonder where their movies are. I wonder why their names aren’t raised.

I wonder why we don’t hear about Lynda Ann Healy, a 21 year old psychology major about to graduate that semester. Lynda worked with handicapped children and got up early every day to report on the skiing conditions for local radio.

I wonder why we don’t hear about Debra Kent, a 17 year old aspiring social worker who was known for always having change to feed parking meters for strangers.

I wonder why we don’t hear about Susan Curtis. Susan was only 15 years old and was riding her bike to church that day. She was a star on her high school track team.

In a world filled with kind, beautiful people, I wonder why we all know Ted Bundy’s name. I wonder if that isn’t giving him and people like him exactly what he wanted. And frankly I’m sick of hearing people talk about him.

I’d like to talk about 12 year olds Lynette Culver and Kimberly Leach, neither of whom turned 13 because Ted Bundy stole their innocence and their lives from them. Kimberly had just been elected first runner up “Valentine Queen” by her peers and never got to wear that pretty new dress. Do you think her parents still have that dress, hanging in the back of a closet? I bet they do. I bet her dad sits with it in his darkest moments. You ever thought about him when you hear the name Ted Bundy?

Let’s talk about 19 year old Susan Rancourt, who had a 4.0 GPA. 17 year old Laura Aime. 18 year old Georgeann Hawkins. 23 year old Janice Ott. 26 year old Nancy Wilcox. 23 year old Caryn Campbell. 17 year old Melissa Smith. 19 year old Donna Manson, who was an excellent flute player and by all accounts a bit of a goth. 20 year old Kathy Parks. 22 year old Brenda Ball. 20 year old Lisa Levy. 21 year old Margaret Bowman. 25 year old Denise Oliverson, who had just gotten into a spat with her new husband and had gone for a walk to clear her mind. Denise weighed 105 pounds. She was bound, gagged, raped, mutilated and thrown from a fast moving car. Have you ever considered what HIS life has been like since that day? How many hours of his life do you think have been spent on the floor, clutching the ring he had given her, apologizing into thin air?

These stories are real. These people are REAL.

I get that Ted Bundy was handsome and his eyes were very blue but please. Please stop glamorizing him like this. He ended and ruined lives. Nothing about him is cool or worthy of emulation. Ted Bundy raped, tortured, mutilated and strangled over 30 females, including 12 year old girls. None of his victims weighed more than 115 pounds.

Ted Bundy was a pathetic man.

Emulate Lynda. Emulate Debra. Raise their names and their voices to those around you. Honor them. They were very real people with promising lives and futures stretched ahead of them, stolen.

Please don’t elevate or whitewash this kind of rampant violence against women. I assure you the world is harsh enough for us without a new generation thinking Ted Bundy is a cool, fascinating guy.

Thanks.