Biography of Ted Bundy Essay Sample

In today’s time, the increasing rates and types of crimes also introduce many criminals, such as sex offenders, thieves, casual and hardcore criminals, and psychopaths. All other offenders are easy to understand and punish under criminal codes, but psychopaths are hard to read. According to Hare's psychopathy checklist (Hare 1993), psychopathic personalities in humans consist of a collectiveness of different traits and include traits of grandiosity, superficial charm, manipulation, cunning, deceitfulness, impulsivity, irresponsibility, reckless risk-taking, aggression, low levels of anxiety, callousness, egocentrism, lack of empathy, and poor social skills, and antisocial behavior (Hare, 1993, p. 34). R.D. hare states that if compared to other criminals, psychopaths are more manipulative, cunning, and successful at luring their victims into doing things against their will (Hare, 1993, p. 89). 

Psychopaths can easily manipulate others for selfish reasons such as money or power (Hare, 1993, p. 90). They tend to be charming, charismatic, manipulative, and have superior social skills (Hare, 2003 pp. 91-92). Psychopaths are extremely intelligent and capable of learning new things very fast (Hare 1993, p.93). Hare describes psychopathic personality traits in the following order: dominance, manipulativeness, charm, irresponsibility, callousness, egocentricity, and deceitfulness (Hare 1993 p.94). 

These psychopaths often encounter the criminal justice system, and Hare (1993) states that psychopaths are often involved in crimes, and both male and female psychopaths are most likely to get involved in aggressive and violent crimes than other individuals (Hare, 1993, p. 88). R.D. hare states that compared to other criminals, psychopaths commit more than twice as many violent and aggressive acts, both in and out of prison (Hare, p.88). Some researchers consider high psychopathy a mental health condition that affects approximately 1% of the general population (Hare, 2003). 

So, Hare introduced the psychopath checklist (Hare 1993) to study criminals with mental disorders and analyze the traits that lead to the psychopathic behavior of an individual. So, an offender with psychopathic traits must get properly analyzed by clinicians to get the deserving punishment and treatment. 

The criminal justice system uses the PCL-R checklist (hare 1993) as a clinician tool for analyzing a criminal with psychological traits before sentencing them under any criminal charges.

This paper will discuss a brief overview of the biography of Ted Bundy, his criminal history, and the importance of the PCL-R checklist (Hare 2003).  This paper also includes the analysis of Ted Bundy based on Hare and Neumann’s (2006) two facets, the four-factor model of psychopathy, along with the overall score of psychopathy, whether he meets the criteria of being a psychopath or not. 

Case study of Ted Bundy:

Biography: Ted Bundy, also known as Theodore Robert Cowell, was born in Vermont, United States of America, on November 24, 1946, (The Biography.com, 2014). His mother was Elanor Louise Cowell, and his father’s identity is unknown. Ted Bundy was brought up by his grandparents, Samuel Cowell, and Elanor Cowell, instead of his mother to avoid the social stigma of society being a single mother at a young age and preventing Ted from being called an illegitimate child (Biography.com). This remained secret from Ted Bundy as his grandparents always made him believe that he was their son, and his mother was his sister (The Biography.com, 2014). 

When Ted was five years old, his mother moved to Tacoma Washington, where she married Johny Culpepper Bundy after falling in love with him in 1951. After marrying Elanor, Johny adopted Ted and changed his surname from Cowell to Bundy. Ted later, in his teenage found out about his real relationship with his mother (The Biography.com website, 2014). In one of the chapters, Rule mentioned that Ted told her that he got to know about his real relationship with his mother in high school after he saw his birth certificate (Biography.com, 2014). Ted started believing that he was a bastard (Ramsland, 2013).  It is also one of the reasons Ted is emotionally detached from his stepfather, as his stepfather was a cook in a military camp (The Biography.com website, 2014). 

Apart from this, Ted always remained a brilliant student. According to Ramsland K’s Article “Many sides of Ted Bundy”, Ted completed his high school education at Woodrow Wilson High School in 1965 and then went to the University of Puget Sound in the following year of high school. Ted had an interest in learning Chinese, and he transferred to the University of Washington in 1966, but his stay there was not long term (Ramsland, 2013). He changed his university to the Temple University of Philadelphia for one semester but went back to the University of Washington in 1970 and graduated with honors in psychology (Ramsland, 2013). According to the journal article by K. Ramsland, Ted also dropped out of college once, in 1968. In 1974, Ted applied to the University of Utah for studying law. According to much data research and his family and friends, Ted was shy and introverted in his childhood, but he improved himself so much that he became the total opposite and turned out to be a confident, charming guy in his adulthood (Biography.com, 2014).