The Crimes Of The Notorious: book 1

January 1978

{THIS CHAPTER IS MUCH LONGER THAN THE OTHERS}

Once in Florida, Bundy committed his most violent crime yet. Filled with an undeniable urge to kill, he broke into a Florida State University sorority house where several young students slept in the early hours of January 15. 

In less than 15 minutes, Bundy turned the sorority house into a living hell.

He snuck into the bedroom of 21-year-old Margaret Bowman and bludgeoned her to death with a piece of firewood. He then proceeded to the room of Lisa Levy, 20. He beat her, strangled her, tore one of her nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock, and raped her with a bottle of hairspray.

Kathy Kleiner.

 She was 20 when Ted Bundy crept into her bedroom at State University.

She was born in 1957 to Cuban-American parents, and after her biological father died when Kleiner was five, her mother Rosemary married Harry Kleiner, a tall, kind German from Pennsylvania. As a sixth grader in Fort Lauderdale, Kleiner was diagnosed with lupus, hospitalized for months, and eventually put on an experimental dose of chemotherapy that made her so ravenous she'd eat mixing bowls full of Frosted Flakes and raw steaks warmed up in the oven. Post-chemo, her immune system was so weakened that she had to be homeschooled for seventh grade.

After lupus, Rosemary was convinced that her sweet daughter was breakable. She'd set up rules, handed down from the doctors: no physical education, no sunlight, and when she grew up, certainly no having babies. Instead of high school gym, Kleiner took theater, which she adored. After a junior high spent in hospital beds and chemo chairs, goofing off in front of an audience felt incredible. She was a tiny kid, just under five feet, and during one Christmas performance, she played the star at the top of the tree.

In the fall of 1976, Kleiner enrolled at FSU in Tallahassee, and pledged Chi Omega after being recommended for admission by her high school pal Suzy White. As a freshman, Kleiner lived an all-girls' dormitory, but her parents convinced her to move into the sorority house for her sophomore year. It had a housemother and combination locks on the doors. She'd be safer there, they thought. That December, Kleiner and her mom spent hours shopping for new bedding, and decorated her room in shades of white and green.

Kleiner's roommate, a junior named Karen Chandler, took equal care with her side of the room, and the girls were proud of the result. They kept a little trunk between their beds, which housed books, a lamp and Kleiner's glasses. Chandler hung plants in macramé holders from the curtain rod, and so the girls never closed their curtains. Their window faced the back of the sorority, and since they were on the second floor, they felt safe leaving the windows uncovered. Kleiner liked how the sunlight was always pouring in.

The Crime

January 14th, 1978 was a Saturday, and that morning, Kleiner dressed with care to attend a wedding at nearby Wesley Chapel. She'd been attending the little church since her freshman year, and was even dating a boy, David DeShields, from the congregation. The bride was a nursing student and a good friend of Kleiner's.

After the reception, Kleiner went back to Chi Omega, changed into her pajamas — a yellow flannel nightgown that she'd just gotten for Christmas — and studied in bed, as Chandler read quietly on the other side of the room. Around 10:30 p.m., the roommates turned off their light and went to sleep.

Around 3 a.m., their bedroom door creaked open, and a dark figure crept in and tripped over the little trunk between their beds. Kleiner woke up.

Around 2:45 a.m. on January 15th, Bundy made his way toward the sorority, where he found two important things: a pile of firewood outside the back door, and a broken combination lock. After picking up a log, he crept inside and moved up the beautiful wooden staircase that led to the second floor hallway.

He slunk into the first room, where Margaret Bowman was sleeping alone, and landed a crushing blow on her forehead, then strangled her with a pair of pantyhose. He crossed the hallway to Lisa Levy's room, where he beat, raped and strangled her. He also sexually assaulted Lisa with a hairspray bottle and bit her numerous times; the bite marks would be the first piece of physical evidence to link Bundy with his crimes.

He then crossed the hall again, pushed open the door to Kleiner and Chandler's room, and tripped over the trunk that ran between their beds.

"I remember the noise of the trip and something falling off the trunk, and that woke me up," says Kleiner. "The room was dark, and I didn't have my glasses on, but I remember seeing a black mass. I couldn't even see that it was a person. I saw the club, saw him lift it over his head, and slam it on me."

"The first time, it didn't hurt. It was pressure, like someone pressing on your arm. And then he hit me again. And I think that's where he hit me in the face and broke my jaw in three places and I passed out. But that's what I remember the most: him lifting the club and bringing it down on me."

The room was so small that Bundy was basically able to hit Kleiner with one side of the club, spin around, and hit Chandler with the other side. But before he could bring down a death-blow on either girl, their bedroom flooded with light.

Outside the back door, a sorority sister named Nita Neary was getting out of her boyfriend's car after a late date. Because Kleiner and Chandler never closed their curtains, the car's headlights were shining straight into their room.

"I saw the light, it was like God's light," says Kleiner. "I remember thinking, 'Oh my God, something cleared the room.'"

Bundy raced downstairs. "I guess he thought he was seen," said Kleiner. In fact, he was seen: Neary spotted his distinctive profile — thin lips, sharp nose — and would later provide the at his trial. Minutes later, as Nita was telling another sister what she saw, the girls saw Chandler stumble out of her room, covered in blood. When they moved to help her, they saw Kleiner sitting up in bed, rocking and moaning.

Before long, paramedics were bending over Kleiner, telling her that she'd been shot in the face. She tried to scream, but with a shattered jaw, a torn right cheek, and a tongue almost bitten in half, she couldn't make a sound. The paramedics lifted her onto a gurney and took her down the wooden stairs, and she saw the faces of her sorority sisters crowding above her. Outside, the air was full of flashing police lights. To Kleiner, freezing and confused, the scene looked like some sort of carnival.

In the emergency room of Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center, doctors cut off her yellow Christmas nightgown and stared down at her underwear, confused. She heard them wonder aloud if they should give her a rape kit examination, a thought that filled her with terror. But then she noticed a familiar face in the crowd of doctors: it was the bride from that morning, working a training shift at the ER on her wedding night. Kleiner heard her say, "With such a brutal attack, what are the chances that he would put her underwear back on?" The friend stroked her hair, and for the first time that night, Kleiner felt her fear drain away.

After a week in the hospital with her jaw wired shut and a guard at the door, police led Kleiner back to Chi Omega so she could tell them if her attacker had taken anything from her room. At her door, they lifted the yellow crime scene tape so that she could duck under it. Kleiner gasped.

"There was blood splattered all over the wall. All over," she says. "And my green and white bedspread was covered. My beautiful bedspread I had just gotten a few weeks earlier, that my mom and I had spent so much time picking out. The blood was everywhere. Everywhere. On the walls, and everything. That really stays in my mind. I can see it right now."

Cheryl Thomas

 Ted Bundy still wasn't done with his Florida rampage. After failing to kill his victims, he proceeded to break into the nearby apartment of 21-year-old FSU student Cheryl Thomas. Although Thomas escaped with her life because her neighbor heard the noise, she suffered permanent deafness and an end to her dance career.