"OLD SPARKY: THE EXECUTION OF TED BUNDY AND THE LEGACY OF AMERICA'S CHARMING KILLER" (Part 4 of 4)

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media, Good morning, I'm reed Carter. November eighteenth, twenty twenty five. January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine, Florida State Prison, Stark, Florida. Seven am. Theodore Robert Bundy, forty two years old, was led from his death row cell to the execution chamber. Walked down the hallway, hands cuffed behind his back, legs shackled, guards on either side. No last minute stay, no reprieve from the governor, no miracle, just death. The execution chamber was small, cinderblock walls painted yellow.

0:43 In the center. Old Sparky, Florida's electric chair solid Oak, built in nineteen twenty three, had executed two hundred thirty nine people before Ted Bundy. Ted would be number two hundred forty twenty two. Witnesses sat in chairs behind a glass window. Victim's families, law enforcement, prosecutors, media, all there to watch Ted die. Some came for closure, some came for justice, some came to make sure he was really dead. Outside the prison, five hundred people gathered, some protesting the death penalty, most celebrating, holding signs. Burn Bundy. Burn. Tuesday is Friday. Thank god it's Friday. Vendors selling T shirts.

1:25 A carnival atmosphere. People cheered. When the prison lights flickered, signaled that electricity had been administered. Ted sat in the chair. Guards strapped his chest, arms, legs, placed a leather mask over his face, attached electrodes to his head and right leg. Soaked the sponges in saline solution to conduct electricity more efficiently. Seven six a m. Superintendent Tom Barton asked Ted if he had any last words. Ted's voice, muffled by the mask. Jim and Fred. I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends. Jim Coleman, Fred Lawrence, his attorneys the only people Ted acknowledged at the end. Seven o seven am. The executioner, identity hidden behind a hood, pulled the switch. Two thousand volts surged through Ted's body for sixty seconds. His body stiffened, strained against the straps.

2:22 Steam rose from the electrodes. The current stopped. Doctor checked for vital signs. Ted was still alive, heart still beating. Seven thirteen a m. Second jolt another two thousand volts. Sixty more seconds. Ted's body convulsed again. More steam smell of burning flesh filled the chamber seven sixteen a m. Doctor checked again. No pulse, no heartbeat, no brain activity. Theodore Robert Bundy was pronounced dead. Outside. The crowd erupted cheer, applause, fireworks, burn Bundy, burn chants, people hugging, crying, tears of relief. Finally, after ten years, Ted Bundy was gone. I'm reed, Carter.

3:12 This is Celebrity Trials Day four, The execution of Ted Bundy and the legacy that still haunts America. January twenty third, nineteen eighty nine, Ted Bundy's last full day alive. Death warrants set for seven am the following morning. No more appeals, no more stays, no more delays. Sixteen hours left. Ted spent the day in his cell Q three South, six by nine feet, same cell he'd lived in for nine years. Guards watched him constantly. Suicide Watch. Couldn't let him cheat the executioner. Ted's mother, Louise visited. She'd flown in from Washington State, brought his half siblings. They sat in the visiting room, talked through reinforced glass, picked up the phone.

4:00 Last conversation, Louise told reporters later she begged Ted to tell her the truth asked him directly, did you kill those women? Ted's answer wasn't recorded, but Louise left crying. She knew maybe she'd always known, but hearing it from her son, the boy she raised, the man she defended, shattered whatever denial she'd maintained. Ted also met with his attorneys, Jim Coleman and Fred Lawrence, discussed final options. None existed, the legal system was finished with Theodore Bundy. They talked about his legacy instead. What he wanted people to know, what message to leave. Ted wanted people to remember the pornography angle, to blame society for creating him, to see him as a cautionary tale, not a monster. His attorneys nodded, took notes, knew nobody would remember it that way. Reverend Fred Lawrence stayed with Ted for hours, prayed with him, read scripture, talked about salvation and forgiveness. Ted said all the right things, claimed to have accepted Christ asked God's forgiveness sounded sincere, but Lawrence later admitted he couldn't tell if Ted truly believed or if it was another performance.

5:12 He was so good at mimicking genuine emotion, Lawrence said years later, even at the end I wasn't sure who the real Ted was. Ted refused his last meal, didn't want anything special. Received the standard death row meal instead, medium rare steak, eggs over easy, hash browns, toast with butter, and jelly coffee juice. He ate some of it, not much appetite. Chain smoked cigarettes instead. Prison allowed unlimited cigarettes. On execution day, Ted smoked constantly, hands shaking. Around midnight, Ted's attorneys left, prison officials began final preparations. Measured Ted's head for electrode cap shaved his right leg where the second electrode would attach. Standard execution protocol necessary for proper electrical contact. Ted was moved to a holding cell near the execution chamber, six feet from death. He could hear workers testing old sparky electric hum, mechanical sounds, guards walking back and forth, final equipment checks. Two am, Ted tried to sleep, couldn't too much adrenaline, too much fear. For years, he'd maintained he wasn't afraid of death, said he welcomed it, that dying would end his suffering. But when death arrived, when it was real and imminent, Ted was terrified. Guards heard him crying, whimpering, talking to himself. The mask slipped, the charming confident Ted Bundy disappeared. What remained was a scared,

6:46 desperate man who knew he was about to die painfully. Six a m. Guards came for Ted time to prepare, gave him a fresh set of clothes khaki shirt and pants, new underwear, socks, slippers. Every would be burned after the execution, contaminated by death. Ted dressed slowly, hands trembling. Guards watched made sure he didn't try anything. Some condemned men fight at the end, try to hurt themselves, or guards force the execution to be delayed. Ted didn't fight, just moved like a zombie, mechanical defeated. Six thirty am. Superintendent Tom Barton visited Ted's holding cell, asked if he had any final requests. Ted asked to speak to his attorneys one more time. Coleman and Lawrence came. Ten minute conversation. Ted gave them messages for his mother, for Carol Anne boone for his daughter Rosa. Asked them to make sure Rosa knew he loved her, that he was sorry, that she shouldn't be defined by his crimes. Six forty five am, witnesses began filing into the execution chamber twenty two seats.

7:53 Twenty two people chosen to watch Ted die. Victim's families Jerry Blair, brother of Lynda Anne Healy, Carol Deranch, the woman who escaped Ted's abduction attempt in nineteen seventy four, the only living victim families of Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, families of other confirmed victims. Law enforcement Bob Keppel from Washington, Jerry Thompson from Utah, Mike Fisher from Colorado, Detectives who'd hunted Ted for years, who'd interviewed him, who'd gotten confessions, all there to see the end. Prosecutors Larry Simpson, who convicted Ted, and Florida Dan McKeever, Others who'd built cases against him. Media reporters from major newspapers, television networks, journalists who'd covered Ted's trials, who'd interviewed him, who'd made him famous, All sitting in rows behind glass, watching an empty chair, waiting for Theodore Bundy. Six fifty five am guards entered Ted cell. It's time. Ted stood, hands cuffed behind his back, legs shackled, walked from the holding cell toward the execution chamber.

9:03 Twenty feet longest walk of his life. The door opened, Ted saw old, sparky, solid oak chair, brown, leather straps, metal electrodes, death waiting. He hesitated. Guards pushed him forward. Ted shuffled toward the chair, sat down. Guards immediately began strapping him in chest strap, arm straps, leg straps tight, no movement possible. Attached electrodes one to his shaved head, metal cap with wet sponge inside, conductor for electricity. One to his right calf. Copper electrode, also with wet sponge. Electricity would enter through his head, exit through his leg. Cook him from inside, placed leather mask over his face, chin strap secured. Ted could see witnesses through small eye holes.

9:50 Saw familiar faces Carol de Ranch, detectives, prosecutors, people who'd spent years trying to stop him, now watching him die. Seven o six am. Superintendent Barton, Theodore Robert Bundy. Do you have any last words? Ted's voice muffled, Jim and Fred. I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends. That was it. No apology to victims, no remorse, no acknowledgment of the women he'd murdered, just a message to his attorneys to his family, about himself. Classic Ted Bundy, self centered until the last breath. Barton nodded to the executioner, hidden behind a partition, anonymous wearing a hood, hand on the switch. Seven o seven am. The switch flipped. Two thousand volts surged through Ted's body. His hands clenched, body went rigid, strained against leather straps, head pushed back, leg flexed.

10:50 Smoke rose from the electrodes, smell of burning flesh, sizzling sound. Sixty seconds, the longest minute of Ted Bundy's life. Every nerve on fire, brain shutting down, heart trying to beat against electrical assault, body dying, current stopped. Doctor approached, checked vital signs, pulse present, weak, but there. Ted survived the first jolt seven thirteen am. Second jolt, another two thousand volts. Ted's body convulsed again, more violent, this time, more smoke, more smell. Witnesses covered their noses, some looked away, others stared, watched Ted die. Current stopped again. Doctor checked, no pulse, no respiration, no corneal reflex, no response to pain stimuli.

11:44 Seven sixteen am. Doctor turned to Superintendent Barton. This man is dead. Theodore Robert Bundy dead at forty two, executed by the State of Florida for the murders of Margaret and Lisa Levy, suspected of killing at least thirty more women, probably many more than that. Guards removed the electrodes, unbuckled the straps. Ted's body slumped, skin red and blistered where electricity had burned him. Face contorted, eyes open behind the mask death mask of a serial killer. Witnesses filed out, some crying, some stone faced. Carol Deranch told reporters, I'm relieved it's finally over. He can't hurt anyone else. Jerry Blair, Linda Ann Healey's brother. This doesn't bring Linda back, but at least he's gone. At least he can't kill anyone else's sister. Outside the prison, the crowd erupted when news spread Ted was dead. Signs waved, burn Bundy, burn chants, fireworks, people hugging, celebrating a festival of death. Some people were disgusted by the celebration, thought it was in appropriate, disrespectful.

13:02 Death penalty opponents used the footage to argue against executions. Look at this bloodthirsty mob. This is what capital punishment creates. But victim's families didn't see it that way. They saw justice. After ten years of appeals, ten years of Ted giving interviews, ten years of him manipulating the system, he was finally gone, finally silent, finally couldn't hurt anyone. Louise Bundy, Ted's mother, released a statement. I loved my son, I always will, but I understand why this had to happen. I pray for the victim's families. I pray they find peace. Carol Anne Boone never commented. She divorced Ted, disappeared with rosa.

13:46 Wanted nothing to do with his execution or his legacy. Ted's body was cremated, ashes spread in Washington's Cascade Mountains. His request. Wanted to return to the place where he'd killed his first victims, even in death, claiming them, possessing them his forever. Make it make sense, We'll be right back with Ted Bundy's legacy. Why we're still talking about him thirty six years after his death, and what his case taught us about serial killers. January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine. Ted Bundy died, but his impact didn't. Thirty six years later, we're still talking about him, still making documentaries still writing books, still analyzing what made him tick why.

14:46 Part of it is the sheer horror at least thirty confirmed murders, probably many more, the brutality, the necrophilia, keeping severed heads as trophies, returning to corpses for sex. It's incomprehensible. We study it trying to understand it. Part of it is the facade. Ted wasn't a monster on the surface. He was handsome, charming, educated law student, political volunteer, crisis hotline counselor the kind of man parents wanted their daughters to date. That's terrifying. Evil doesn't always look evil. Sometimes it looks like the boy next door. Part of it is the system failures. Nineteen seventy five, arrested with a rape kit in his car, released on bail, kept killing, nineteen seventy seven, escaped from custody twice, kept killing. The system had multiple chances to stop him, didn't. Women died because police, courts, and prisons failed. But mostly we keep talking about Ted Bundy because he changed how we understand serial killers. Before Ted, the public image of serial killers was monsters, social outcasts, obvious creeps. Men like ed Gean who lived in isolated farmhouses, men like Albert at Fish who looked disturbed. Ted shattered that image. He was successful, attractive, socially skilled. He dated women, had friends, worked normal jobs, fit into society seamlessly. Nobody suspected him because he didn't

16:16 fit the profile. FBI profiler Robert Wrestler interviewed Ted extensively, use those interviews to develop modern criminal profiling techniques. Ted helped law enforcement understand organize serial killers, killers who plan meticulously, who blend in, who manipulate and deceive, who target strangers without obvious motive. Ted taught investigators to look for patterns, similar victim types, similar methods, similar disposal sites, to connect seemingly unrelated cases across jurisdictions. Before Ted, police departments didn't communicate well, didn't share information, didn't realize the same killer might be operating in multiple states. After Ted, everything changed.

17:03 VCaP Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was created, national database for tracking violent offenders, cross jurisdictional communication improved. Serial killer task forces formed all because of lessons learned from Ted Bundy. But Ted's legacy isn't just investigative techniques. It's cultural. He was the first serial killer to become a celebrity, the first to give TV interviews, the first to defend himself in a televised trial, the first to marry his girlfriend in court, the first to manipulate media so effectively that some people still defend him even today. Ted has fans, women who write him love letters posthumously, people who create fan art, social media accounts dedicated to him. True crime enthusiasts who romanticize him, call him attractive, excuse his crimes because he was charming. This is dangerous, glamorizing serial killers, making the famous, giving them platforms, creating entertainment from their atrocities, focusing on the killer instead of the victims. We know Ted Bundy's life story, his childhood, his relationships, his methods, his trial, his execution. We know everything about him. But do we know Linda Ann Healy wanted to be a radio announcer, that she loved skiing and had just started her career, that her family waited forty five years for justice.

18:26 Do we know georgi Enn Hawkins was planning her wedding, that she had fifty feet to walk to safety, that her fiance heard she disappeared and spent the rest of his life wondering if he could have saved her. Do we know Margaret Bowman wanted to go to law school, That she was brilliant, kind, full of dreams, That her mother Eleanor, spent thirty years visiting her grave every week. Do we know Lisa Levy loved to dance, that she performed in university productions, that she wanted to teach dance to children, That she died because Ted bit her so hard he left a permanent mark. We remember the monster, we forget the people he destroyed. That's Ted Bundy's real legacy.

19:08 Not the crimes, not the trials, not the execution, but our obsession with him, our fascination with evil, our tendency to make killers famous while forgetting victim's names. The families tried to change this. Jerry Blair, Linda Ann Healey's brother, spent decades advocating for victim's rights, testified before Congress, helped pass legislation giving victims families more participation in trials and parole hearings. Carol Deranch became an advocate for women's safety, taught self defense classes, spoke at universities about trusting instincts, about fighting back, about surviving. Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler, the chi Omega survivors, eventually spoke publicly about their experiences decades later, after years of therapy. They wanted people to understand and the permanent damage Ted caused physical scars, emotional scars, PTSD, nightmares, fear that never goes away. People think about the women who died, Cathy said in an interview, but they forget about those of us who survived. We live with this every day. The fear, the pain, the knowledge that we were targeted by a monster and barely escaped. These are the voices that matter, the survivors, the families, the people who live through Ted Bundy's evil and have to keep living with the aftermath. But media doesn't always focus on them.

20:35 Media focuses on Ted because he's more interesting, more compelling, better for ratings. True crime podcasts dissect his psychology. Netflix makes limited series dramatizing his murders. Zac Efron plays him in a movie, making him look heroic, misunderstood, sympathetic. Victim's families protested that movie, said it glorified Ted, made him look attractive, He made young people curious about him in dangerous ways. The filmmakers defended it, said they were showing how Ted fooled people, how he used his appearance to manipulate. But the impact was the same, more Ted worship, more fascination with a killer. Meanwhile, who's making movies about Linda Ann Healy, about Margaret Bowman, about Lisa Levy? Nobody? Because victims aren't as interesting as killers. Society would rather study evil than honor goodness. This is what frustrates me about true crime as entertainment, as an industry, as a cultural phenomenon.

21:33 We've turned murder into content, made suffering into spectacle, given killers exactly what they wanted, fame, attention, immortality. Ted died in nineteen eighty nine, but he's more famous now than when he was alive. More books, more documentaries, more social media posts, more people who know his name than know his victims' names. That's not justice, that's elevation. We've elevated a serial killer to cultural icon status, made him memorable, quotable, referenced in pop culture. Don't be like Ted Bundy has become a joke, a meme, casual reference to extreme evil, as if thirty Dead Women is funny. It's not funny.

22:24 It's tragedy, pure tragedy. So what do we do? How do we study serial killers without glorifying them? How do we learn from cases without giving killers fame? We center victims, We say their names, we tell their stories. We remind people these weren't just Ted Bundy's victims. They were daughters, sisters, friends, students, workers, people with dreams and futures, and families who love them. We stop making killers famous, stop giving them nicknames, stop focusing on their psychology and methods, start focusing on the damn they caused, the lives they destroyed, the families still suffering decades later. We support victims' families, listen to them, advocate for them, give them platforms, let them tell their stories, honor their loved ones memories, and we remember serial killers are cowards. They target vulnerable people, people weaker than them, people who trust them. There's nothing impressive about that, nothing fascinating, nothing worthy of study, beyond understanding how to catch them faster.

23:31 Ted Bundy was a coward who murdered women because he was angry at an ex girlfriend. That's it. That's the whole story. Everything else, the charm, the intelligence, the law school, the trials, is just decoration on a simple, pathetic truth. He died thirty six years ago, screaming, burning, terrified, and the world became safer. Someone has to say the victim's names. Someone has to remember they were people, not just casualties of Ted Bundy. They had lives, dreams, people who loved them, futures that should have happened. That's the legacy that matters. That's our Ted Bundy series, four days covering one of America's most notorious serial killers. At least thirty confirmed victims, women with names, faces, families, Linda Ann Healy, Donna Gale Manson, Susan Rancourt, George Anne Hawkins, Janis Ott, Denise Nasland, Margaret Bowman, Lisa Levy, Kimberly Leech, and so many more whose names will never know. January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine, Ted Bundy died in Florida's Electric Chair. The world became a safer place, the families got justice, and the killing finally stopped.

24:51 Tomorrow we begin our three day series on the Manson family murders. The night that ended the nineteen sixties, Charonate and four others murdered in Benedict Canyon the LaBianca murders the next night, and the trial that put Charles Manson and his followers on death row. I'm reed, Carter. This is celebrity trials.