Ted Bundy--Emergency Manager

A BBC News Report I heard on the radio yesterday highlighted the fact that mass murderer Ted Bundy was executed on this day 25 years ago.  It is a sorry tale of a good looking guy who had a very black side to his personality and his actions.  To all the families who were impacted over the years with the loss of their daughters and sisters it is likely not a day to celebrate, but one to remember how old their loved one would be today, who they might have become, spouses and children that never were.

 

Since 25 years is a quarter of a century of time there are probably many younger people who never heard his name before.  His name is like others of my generation that we might remember, Richard Speck and John Wayne Gacy who also led infamous lives of terror.  

 

Emergency management personnel are generally hard working folks trying to do their best in the job that they serve in.  As hard to believe as it is, Ted Bundy was once an emergency manager at Washington State Emergency Management.  I worked at Washington State Emergency Management for five years in the early 1990's and in a casual conversation with a longtime state emergency manager he told of the story of how Ted Bundy had worked at the agency for a short period of time and then he turned and said, "Ted slept on that leather couch over there during EOC activations."  The linked Wikipedia item above even has a short paragraph on this connection to his past:

 

"During this period Bundy was working at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services (DES) in Olympia, a government agency involved in the search for the missing women. There he met and dated Carole Ann Boone, a twice-divorced mother of two who, six years later, would play an important role in the final phase of his life."

 

The person who relayed this to me shared that fact that people recognized that Ted Bundy's car matched the description of the one in the news as possibly being associated with the killings.  They joked about it because never in their wildest dreams would they consider Mr. Bundy to be that type of person.  It is one of the reasons why he probably got away from justice for so long since he didn't look or act the part of a mass murderer.  In fact, when he was finally arrested and charged with murder the state emergency manager who relayed the above tale to me even said he contributed to his defense fund because he didn't believe it to be possible.  

 

Sometimes at meetings, trainings and conferences there are trivia questions that are asked as part of the event.  This is not one that brings any pride to our profession, but the answer to, "Which mass murderer was an emergency manager?" Answer--"Ted Bundy."