Seattle attorney John Henry Browne, who represented Ted Bundy in the 1970s, is coming out with a new book with never-before-heard details about one of the country’s most notorious serial killers.
Before his execution in 1989, Bundy confessed to authorities to killing 30 women in seven states. But Browne said that’s not the whole story.
“Ted told me things that he’s never told anybody,” Browne said in an interview. “He told me he killed more than 100 people, and not only women.”
Browne said Bundy also confided to him that he had killed a man. It was his “first” murder, according to Browne. “That’s never been known,” he said.
Browne spent hours with Bundy and received numerous letters from him before he was executed. Bundy signed a release before his death giving the attorney the right to publish information about him.
Browne said he avoided writing about that period of his life for years. “It’s too creepy,” he said. “I didn’t want to visit those dark places again.” Eventually, however, Browne bit the bullet and tackled the project. “It really did depress me for six months,” he said.
Browne said working on the book caused him to reassess his view of the killer. “I actually kind of got more scared of him after putting things together the last couple of years of writing about it,” he said.
Browne said he continues to be haunted by how Bundy sought him out to be his attorney back in the ‘70s. “He knew where I lived, he knew what kind of clothes I had, he knew what kind of cars I had,” said Browne.
The attorney also is also chilled by the fact that the woman he was dating at the time was the same kind of woman that Bundy was killing. “I kind of put this together recently, and that creeps me out a lot,” he said. “My girlfriend when I was in law school was murdered in Berkeley,” according to Browne. When asked if he thought Bundy had anything to do with the unsolved case, Browne said he couldn’t be sure. “I pray to God that he didn’t,” he said.
Browne notes the murder was in a different part of California than where Bundy said he was at the time.
Browne said that the Bundy cased posed the biggest ethical dilemma he’s faced his entire career.
The night the killer was taken into custody in Florida for suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle he called Browne. The attorney realized that the authorities didn’t know they had Bundy in their midst. Browne knew if they released him “he would probably kill other people.”
But, Browne said, “as a lawyer, I’m not allowed to do that.” By the next day, before he was released, the police figured it out. “Thank goodness,” Browne said.
Browne said that unlike most serial killers, Bundy did have at least some sense of right and wrong. “Most sociopaths never admit they’re evil at all,” said Browne. “Ted really knew he was evil. Evil, evil, evil. And, believe me, really evil.”
