Q&A With Thomas Amo - author...

This is my first Q&A with author Thomas Amo, and this week we're chatting about Theodore Bundy, famous serial killer.

Thomas and I regularly chat about serial killers (a strange thing to do, but some of you might relate) and we decided to do a little Q&A on some of our favourite subjects, starting with the “father” of serial killers, Theodore Bundy…

Niecole: How do you feel about the murders he committed? What do you think his motive was?

Thomas: Hi Niecole, thanks for having me be a part of your blog. It's exciting to interact with others who are as interested in the subject as we are.

To answer your question, Ted Bundy was obviously not the world's first serial killer, but he is noted as the first to be given that moniker. He is essentially the anchor  point the FBI began with when they started learning that this type of murder wasn't really as random as it appeared to be. Bundy told Christian radio personality Dr. James Dobson one of the things that began in leading him down the path he took was, pornography. In a way the pornography he viewed, objectified women, perhaps it was bondage, torture or rape scenarios that turned him on in the beginning. So it starts out as a fantasy in adolescence, most likely in the form of magazine masturbation and over time before he actually begins interacting with girls, this seems now to be the only thing that truly arouses him. But it's not something you just bring to the table with a sex partner. One has to wonder as well during intercourse with a partner when did he begin to separate himself emotionally. Or was there no association from the beginning. To sum it up, I think normal sexual encounters simply were not satisfying to him. They weren't like he imagined they would be, or were not like the stories he was reading about in magazines. So the next step is get your partner to agree to some "role-playing" and again it can only go so far. At first it most likely gave him a taste of what it's like. But he has a small personal connection to the girl he's with...he can't let go....go all the way...he needs a stranger with he has no emotional connection with, no history. As to how I feel about his murders, I think there is much to be learned about the pathology of serial killers. Bundy himself wanted his brain to be used to see if doctors could ascertain if there was obvious differences between his brain and that of brains of non killers.

Niecole: Why do you think he eluded the police for so long?

Thomas: He was for lack of a better term, lucky to kill in the time that he did. There was no Internet. Police are notorious for not wanting to share information with other departments. Part of that is a competition issue, the other is they don't want someone else to steal their thunder and get all the glory for their hard work.  There was no central data base during that time, no DNA. It was ultimately his teeth that gave him away, as his bite marks left on victims were traced back to him and used in court. Our teeth are like our fingerprints. And as we later learned with DNA, everything about us is SO very different from the person next to us.  The other thing is Bundy was able to blend in. He wasn't a Charles Manson who you could see a mile away. One look at Charles Manson and you can tell something sinister is going on behind those eyes. But Bundy is the guy who holds the door open for you, lets you cut in front of him in a grocery story check out. He's very disarming. He was able to throw on a sweater and polo shirt and walk on a college campus and for all anyone knows he's simply a student. He taught us, serial killers truly are, "the strangers beside us."

Niecole: What do you make of the theory that he murdered these girls because they looked like his ex?

Thomas:  I think he was attracted to a particular type of girl. All of us have things we are for one reason or another naturally attracted to. We can't explain why we like long hair, certain color skin tones, height, breast size or eye color. Bundy I believe targeted girls who he found attracted to, and at the same time in killing them he was exacting revenge on his ex. In a way, they were surrogates for perhaps doing what he truly wanted to do to her. Bundy claimed that it was nonsense about the victims looking like his ex, he said they were all very different.

Thomas: The question I always ask myself is why the rage? The night he brutally beat four girls, two survived. What was the trigger that caused that explosion. To calmly slip in a place undetected and to suddenly let loose. This particular crime doesn't seem to be sexually motivated at all. You hate to think, that the M.O. was simply the challenge of killing so many and getting away undetected.

One thing is for certain, I believe we haven't even scratched the surface of Ted Bundy

I want to thank Thomas for his answers and giving us some insight.

I agree Tom, we haven't scratched the surface, and it's scary to even think at what lies ahead!

(Go have a look for books by Thomas Amo here: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Amo/e/B004NIZCM6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1297884493&sr=8-1)