When it comes to famous serial killers, certain names immediately ring a bell: Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Jack the Ripper and most certainly Ted Bundy. Between 1974 and 1978, Theodore Robert Cowell aka Ted Bundy assaulted, raped and killed between 20 and 30 women. His crimes earned him the nickname 'Lady Killer'. Sentenced to the electric chair in 1980, he was executed on January 24, 1989, after nine years on death row. But do you know Carole Ann Boone, his wife of six years from 1980 to 1986?
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How Carole Ann Boone met Ted Bundy
Carole Ann Boone and Ted Bundy met when the Lady Killer had just begun to unleash his killing spree in 1974. The two were co-workers at the Department of Emergency Services in Olympia, Washington, USA. This government agency was involved in the search for missing women, among other things.
At the time, Ted Bundy was still in a relationship with his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer and Carole Ann Boone was in the midst of a second divorce. Despite Ted's insistence, the two had a platonic relationship at first, Carol emphasizing the fact that Ted was already involved with another woman. But as time went on, the two became more than just colleagues.
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Carole Ann Boone became Ted Bundy's wife
In 1978, Ted Bundy's life was shattered. The charismatic man who had all the makings of an ideal son-in-law turned out to be a cold-blooded sociopathic killer who had taken the lives of 30 young women according to his confession, 20 according to the police. In complete denial, despite the overwhelming evidence against her boyfriend, Carole Ann Boone swore she would not rest until she proved Ted Bundy's innocence.
In 1980, while Bundy was in the midst of the trial that would lead to his being sent to death row, he took advantage of the fact that Carole Ann Boone was testifying on his behalf on the stand to propose to her. You can relive the scene in the YouTube video below. Theseare not actors, but archive footage from the trial.
Incarcerated in Florida and waiting patiently for his sentence to be carried out, Ted Bundy lived his life as a married man, often seeing his wife in the visiting room. They even managed to have a child, despite the prohibition on physical contact between inmates and civilians. Carole Ann Boone, who already had a child from a previous union, James, had alittle girl whom they named Rose.
Still convinced of her husband's innocence, she moved to Florida to be closer to her partner. In 1986, however, everything fell apart for Carole. Although she was more than convinced that Ted Bundy had nothing to do with any of the murders he was convicted of, she finally heard reason from...Bundy himself. So she divorced him and moved away with her two children.
As for her ex-husband, he lived until January 24, 1989, when the State of Florida carried out his sentence.
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Carole Ann Boone, the aftermath of Ted Bundy
We didn't know much about Carole Ann Boone before she met Ted Bundy, so we don't know much about what she did with her life after her divorce either. Logically, in order to keep the media pressure off her and her children, she changed her name and went into hiding, as many people do when they have encountered a serial killer.
No one would hear from her or know where she'd been until January 2018 when the announcement of her death came. She reportedly died of septic shock in a nursing home in Washington state.
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Carole Ann Boone played by Kaya Scodelario
Although she had been forgotten until his death, it's hard to talk about Ted Bundy without mentioning his main defender. And so it's no surprise that she was represented on screen when Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was released on May 3, 2019. Alongside Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, it's Kaya Scodelario who was cast as the very naive wife blindly in love with the Lady Killer. The film has been well received by the critics, and we've included a trailer below.
Finally, to learn more about the Ted Bundy case, we also recommend the Netflix documentary series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. It brings together genuine video and audio archives of the Ted Bundy trial, which was, incidentally, the very first televised trial in American history.
Here's the trailer.
This article has been translated from Gentside FR.
