In Railford Prison, the long night passed too swiftly. Ted spent four of his last hours praying with Fred Lawrence, a Gainesville clergyman, and with the Tanners. Reportedly calmed by massive tranquilizers, Ted went through the final preparations. There was no last meal. He had no appetite. His wrists, right leg, and head were shaved to facilitate the electrodes that would carry a peak load of two thousand volts in three surges, until he was dead. He was given clean blue pants and a light blue dress shirt to wear.
In San Francisco, we sat up all night. While the cameramen adjusted lights and camera angles, I talked for hours about Ted, and what he was like — or what he seemed to be like and, in truth, was not. The phone rang seventy-five more times. Even the hotel operator, who was married to a Bay Area probation officer, asked about Ted. When it was 7 a.m. in Starke, Florida, it would be only 4 a.m. in San Francisco. Not even sunrise.
At about 2:30 a.m., I stretched across the top of the bedspread and slept for half an hour. At 3 a.m., the camera crew woke me up. They were ready to start filming. Tom Jarriel and I sat in silk-covered chairs in front of a television set. The screen showed the Florida State Prison, and then it focused on the crowds who sang and drank beer and celebrated the coming execution. Three hundred people wore costumes and masks and held banners up that said “Burn Bundy!” and “It’s Fry-Day!” A man in a Reagan mask kept popping in front of the cameras. He held an effigy of a rabbit in one hand, his “Bundy Bunny” he explained. They all seemed quite mad. They had no more humanity than Ted.
Parents had brought their children to witness the happy event. There was a holiday feeling that appalled me. The 20/20 cameras were on us. Tom Jarriel asked me questions, and I watched the screen. I wanted again to be home. The green building that housed the death chamber was only dimly visible against the first rays of Florida’s sunrise.
At seven, we all gazed at the screen. There could be no reprieve now. It was really going to happen. I thought that I was probably going to throw up. I had not felt that particular visceral turmoil for a decade. I felt exactly as I had in Miami when I realized that Ted was guilty.
The cameras seemed focused up my nose, and I could hear Tom’s soft southern voice asking me a question. I shook my head, I couldn’t talk. We saw the lights outside the prison dim for what seemed a long time, and then they came back on bright. The expectant crowd murmured and hooted.
At exactly 7 a.m., a door had swung open in the death chamber. Prison superintendent Tom Barton stepped in. Escorted by two guards, Ted came next; his wrists were handcuffed. He quickly strapped into the electric chair. Ted’s eyes were said to be empty, perhaps the result of no sleep or large doses of sedatives. Or perhaps because he no longer had any hope or expectation. He looked through the Plexiglas partition at the twelve witnesses who sat on the shiny black and white chairs. Did he recognize all of them? Probably not. Some he’d never known, and some he hadn’t seen for years. Tallahassee Detective Don Patchen was there, and Bob Dekle, and Jerry Blair. State Trooper Ken Robinson, who found all that was left of Kimberly Leach, was there.
Ted’s flat eyes locked onto Jim Coleman and Reverend Lawrence, and he nodded.
"Jim…Fred," he said. "I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends."
Barton would have one more call to make. He called Governor Martinez from the phone inside the death chamber. His expression unreadable, Barton nodded to the black hooded executioner. No one knew who the executioner was, but one witness saw thick, curled lashes fringing his/her eyes. “I think it was a woman.”
I watched the television screen in San Francisco. The lights dimmed outside the prison once more. Once again. And then a blurry figure came out from somewhere in the green building and waved a white handkerchief in wide sweeping motion.
It was the signal. Ted was dead. It was 7.16 a.m.
A white hearse moved slowly from somewhere behind the prison. The crowds cheered and whistled joyfully as it picked up speed, officials worried that the mob might stop it and turn it over. Bill Frakes, of the Miami Herald, shot a picture of it, the same Bill Frakes who had captured the only image of Ted Bundy out of control. That photograph was shot at the Leach trial nine years ago. When Ted decided to leave the courtroom and deputies blocked his path, he had suddenly flown into a towering rage. That Ted was out of control, the Ted his victims saw. I use that slide to end my Bundy seminar, and the audience never fails to gasp. But the Ted Bundy who walked under his own power to the electric chair was in control. He died the way I always thought he would: without letting the witnesses see his fear.
- Ann Rule, Ted Bundy - The Stranger Beside Me
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