Below is something I wrote in 2009. Ann Rule was one of the more known writer's of non-fiction crime books. Often I read her material/ this book was rather chilling to say the least.
LA
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Just some thoughts:
So you think you know evil when you see it? Well not always.
He confessed to thirty murders he committed between 1974-1978. He was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist and a necrophiliac. He was probably guilty of even more murders than he confessed to. He was considered handsome, intelligent and charismatic. If you saw him chances are you would be attracted to him. He often used these qualities to take advantage of young women. He would even perform sexual acts with decomposing corpses. He decapitated at least twelve of his victims. He even kept some of the severed heads in his apartment for mementos. He was cleaver and engineered two dramatic escapes when once in custody of the authorities. He was described as a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human’s pain and the control he had over his victims. He was evil beyond belief, evil on steroids.
As a young girl, having relatives involved as law officers, she always had been interested in crime. She once said, “I was always interested in why and how folks got themselves locked up.” Over the years she went on to write some of the best and most read non-fiction crime books of past years.
In 1971 she started her career in crime writing and took a job volunteering to work the night shift at a suicide hotline. Sitting next to her and also answering phones on those evenings was a young law student. She described him by saying; “I remember thinking that if I were younger and single this would be almost the perfect man.”
The lady of crime writing fame was Ann Rule; I recently read her book The Stranger Beside Me. The handsome, charming, dashing, intelligent young man sitting next to her on those evenings at the hotline office was the one described in the opening paragraph. His name, Ted Bundy.
Rule was once asked if she was ever afraid when she worked next to Bundy. “No, I had always prided myself on my ability to detect aberrance in other humans because of my experience and training and I had that innate skill. I have berated myself silently for a long time because I saw nothing threatening or disturbing in Ted’s façade. He was kind to me, solicitous of my safety and seemingly empathetic. The only clue I had was that my dog, who liked everyone, didn’t like Ted at all. Whenever he bent over my desk at the Crisis Clinic, she growled and the hackles on her neck stood up. The lesson is clear: “Pay attention to your dog.” We think one can always recognize evil? Oh really?”
(I Samuel 16:7)
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August 15, 2009
Keep on,
Larry Adamson