Childhood
Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell (1924–2012; known as Louise) at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in . His father's identity has never been confirmed. His birth certificate is said to assign paternity to a salesman and veteran named Lloyd Marshall, though other accounts state his father is listed as "Unknown". Louise claimed she had been seduced by an war veteran named Jack Worthington, and the has him listed as the father in their files. Some family members have expressed suspicions that Bundy might have been fathered by Louise's own violent, abusive father, Samuel Cowell, but no material evidence has ever been cited to support this.
For the first three years of his life, Bundy lived in the home of his maternal grandparents, Samuel (1898–1983) and Eleanor Cowell (1895–1971), who raised him as their son to avoid the social stigma that accompanied birth outside of wedlock. Family, friends, and even young Ted were told that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. He eventually discovered the truth, although he had varied recollections of the circumstances. He told a girlfriend that a cousin showed him a copy of his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard," but he told biographers Stephen Michaud and that he found the certificate himself. Biographer and writer , who knew Bundy personally, believed that he did not find out until 1969, when he located his original birth record in Vermont. Bundy expressed a lifelong resentment toward his mother for never talking to him about his real father, and for leaving him to discover his true parentage for himself.
In some interviews, Bundy spoke warmly of his grandparents and told Rule that he "identified with," "respected," and "clung to" his grandfather. In 1987, however, he and other family members told attorneys that Samuel Cowell was a tyrannical bully and a bigot who hated blacks, Italians, Catholics, and Jews, beat his wife and the family dog, and swung neighborhood cats by their tails. He once threw Louise's younger sister Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping. He sometimes spoke aloud to unseen presences, and at least once flew into a violent rage when the question of Bundy's paternity was raised.
Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent for depression and feared to leave their house toward the end of her life. Bundy occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior at an early age. Julia recalled awakening from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the kitchen and Bundy standing by the bed smiling.
Bundy as a senior in high school, 1965
In 1950, Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson, and at the urging of multiple family members, she left Philadelphia with her son to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in . In 1951, Louise met Johnny Culpepper Bundy (1921–2007), a hospital cook, at an adult singles night at Tacoma's First Methodist Church. They married later that year and Johnny Bundy formally adopted Ted. Johnny and Louise conceived four children of their own, and although Johnny tried to include his adoptive son in camping trips and other family activities, Ted remained distant. He later complained to his girlfriend that Johnny wasn't his real father, "wasn't very bright," and "didn't make much money."
Bundy had different recollections of Tacoma when he spoke to his biographers. When he talked to Michaud and Aynesworth, he described how he roamed his neighborhood, picking through trash barrels in search of pictures of naked women. When he spoke to Polly Nelson, he explained how he perused detective magazines, crime novels, and true crime documentaries for stories that involved sexual violence, particularly when the stories were illustrated with pictures of dead or maimed bodies. In a letter to Rule, he asserted that he "never, ever read fact-detective magazines, and shuddered at the thought" that anyone would. In his conversation with Michaud, he described how he would consume large quantities of alcohol and "canvass the community" late at night in search of undraped windows where he could observe women undressing, or "whatever [else] could be seen."
Bundy also varied the accounts of his social life. He told Michaud and Aynesworth that he "chose to be alone" as an adolescent because he was unable to understand interpersonal relationships. He claimed that he had no natural sense of how to develop friendships. "I didn't know what made people want to be friends," he said. "I didn't know what underlay social interactions." Classmates from told Rule, however, that Bundy was "well known and well liked" there, "a medium-sized fish in a large pond."
Downhill skiing was Bundy's only significant athletic avocation; he enthusiastically pursued the activity by using stolen equipment and forged lift tickets.
During high school, he was arrested at least twice on suspicion of burglary and auto theft. When he reached age 18, the details of the incidents were expunged from his record, which is customary in Washington.
