Nice, smart, charismatic and tender. A man who had all those characteristics to get what he wanted in life. And he did it. He met the woman of his life and together with her daughter (from her previous relationship) he created a happy family that everyone would envy. Until the moment he was arrested and charged with a series of heinous murders, which shocked the public and continue to terrify anyone who reads his story to this day.
Ted Buddy went down in history as one of the most terrifying serial killers in the United States in the 70s, having raped, killed and abused corpses, despite the advanced decomposition of the bodies of dozens of his victims. These, proven even after his confession, amount to 28 with the experts believing that they could exceed 100. The cold criminal was sentenced to death three times and executed in the electric chair of the Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989.
His childhood and his studies
Known as Theodore Robert Cowell, as his baptismal name was, he was born in November 1946 in Vermont, Florida and was the secret of his mother's family, who brought him to life at just 22 and even out of wedlock.
Thus, until the age of 5, when his mother married John Buddy who adopted Ted, he thought of his grandparents as his parents and had his mother as his older sister.
"I grew up in a wonderful home with two devoted and loving parents," he told the venerable man who confessed 17 hours before his execution, arguing that he had never been the victim of child abuse.
He learned the truth about his mother at the age of 22, while studying in Washington, DC, where he moved to study Chinese. Since then the social young and excellent student has changed radically. He dropped out of school and became intensely indifferent to his future, with his behavior becoming unbearable.
His girlfriend could not stand him anymore and divorced him, with Ted feeling that the whole world around him was collapsing. Of the psychologists who have dealt with his story, many have considered his separation from Brooks as the reason for his heinous acts (no, but also the cause).
His "recovery" did not take long and by the early 1970s he had returned to university, managing to excel in the field of psychology, while in 1974 he turned to Legal. It's the same period that girls from the University of Washington began to disappear.
His action and his victims
As a charming and very sociable young man, Buddy did not have much difficulty in getting the victims of. Approaching the girls, pretending that he needed help because he had broken his arm or leg, he managed to make them follow him to his car, as they saw a presentable and kind young man.
The sequel they expected, however, never came. Instead, Buddy, who had lost his mind, isolated them in order to rape and kill them. In fact, it was not uncommon for him to behead his victims and hold their heads, as trophies in his home.
He then buried the corpses in isolated areas and returned after a while, as his sick mind would not let him rest, to mourn their bodies, even if they were in advanced decomposition.
His arrest, imprisonment, escape and death
His first arrest took place in 1975. In August of the same year, the police stopped him for a search and found in the trunk of his car strange objects such as crowbars, handcuffs, ropes, etc. When they managed to gather more information and link the attempted kidnapping of 18-year-old Carol da Ronds (the only one of his victims who managed to escape by jumping from his moving car and escaped) with Buddy, he was arrested and in February 1976 was convicted. in 15 years imprisonment.
He managed to escape on June 7, 1977, with the authorities arresting him on the 10th of the same month and escaping again in December of the same year. Until February 12, when he was last arrested, he added three more to his list of victims, a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old student, as well as a 12-year-old girl.
He was sentenced three times to death, through an electric chair, while during his trial (he had defended himself) he confessed to the murder of 30 women. On the day of his execution on January 24, 1989, thousands of people marched outside Florida state prisons for the death sentence of a bloodthirsty man. killer with the angelic face.