In the beginning of 1986, John Warnock Hinckley, who was serving time in a mental hospital for attempting to assassinate president Ronald Reagan and killing a person in the the progress, exchanged letters with Ted Bundy which was later leaked to the public. Excerpt’s of the letters read:
“… I hope I’m not being rude, but I just saw the article about you in the post, and I thought you could use a friendly word from someone who truly knows firsthand how tough it can be to stand up and tell the world, ‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I just went totally apeshit.’ The paper talks about how you didn’t want to plead insanity at your trial. (Hey, who does?) Like that means you weren’t nuts? (If you ask me, it proves it!) And how you were only doing it on appeal to escape the death penalty. (Duh.) Ted, I heard that same exact baloney, and I got so bummed that i tried to commit suicide three times. So what I really wanted to tell you is, don’t let the bastards get you down. You have as much right to appeal as anyone else, even if you killed and fucked a hundred dead girls. (But why am I telling you that? You went to law school!)”
“… I must ask that you refrain from profanity in any future letters. On that day two years ago when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour, I took the trash out of my life. I can’t un-do my past- I am sorry; I did go non compos mantis- but today I am His Lamb. Look to Him, John. There are no loners in His flock.”
“… You think you’re so smart, but who’s going to Yale? Jodie Foster.”
Bundy’s response, which included a cruel mention of one of his victim’s Lisa Levy, who Ted savagely bit multiple times during her attack nearly detaching her nipple from her breast in the progress, reads:
“I don’t know what they’re putting in your pill cup old boy, but one snide joke- for which I now hasten to beg your forgiveness- is no reason to upholster your .22 automatic and strafe a crowd of suits. Take it from a fellow who on more than one occasion bit off more nipple than he could chew. Let go of the anger.”
Hinckley’s third letter to Ted:
“You’re so right about needing to let go of some of our anger. When we lash out, we don’t just hurt other people, we also hurt ourselves. The therapists tell me this all the time, but it means a lot more coming from you.”
Finally, Ted’s last letter sent to Hinckley dated April 21st 1986:
“I received some most disheartening news this week- yet another ruling that I was competent at my trial and thus deserving of the death sentence. It’s always the same: The judge sees my grades, my Boy Scout merit badges, the pamphlet on rape prevention I authored on when I served on the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee, and finds that I was sane. That these aged, black-robed cretins can’t grasp that a sane man could not have performed such unspeakable acts just slays me…”
Source- Ted Bundy: A Visual Timeline by Rob Dielenberg
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
titsay
jbbartram-illu
