Are You Dating A Murderer?

Good Evening, I'm trying to get back into a consistent writing routine... I’ve been distracted with things (most of them good) and have been doing research to prepare for this blog, a topic I have in recent years become obsessed with!

I want to talk today about relationships, and specifically Narcissistic relationships that can be extremely detrimental to your health and well-being. Not only are these types of relationships extremely harmful to your health, but they also make you question your own reality, often causing feelings of worthlessness and extreme emotional exhaustion to the point where it can mess with your work and enjoyment of everyday life. I’m going to take it a step further and talk about a relationship that goes down in history as maybe one of the most manipulative and the most destructive: the relationship between serial killer Ted Bundy and his long-term girlfriend Elizabeth "Liz" Kloepfer, also known by her pen name Elizabeth Kendall. But first I want to talk about the three stages of a Narcissistic relationship and then how it played out in the lives of these two people who were somehow fated to meet.

As Liz points out in her book, The Phantom Prince. “I was still in denial. Even after I had heard it from Ted himself that, yes, he was a serial killer, I stayed in a confused state for some time. I was constantly running scenarios in my head, trying to make sense of Ted and Liz and what had happened.”

1.  Idealization/Love Bombing: This Is the first step and maybe the most important. The Narcissist reels you in with charm, affection, passion, admiration. He seems perfect, too good to be true, a perfect gentleman… They imitate feelings of love and connection; make you feel like you’re the most important person in their life. As a victim of this, you don’t realize you are a victim until it’s too late, and by then you have become emotionally bonded to them. As a person who feels human empathy and emotion, you can’t believe that a person could act without them, often mimicking human emotion so well while possessing none of the real feelings behind them. Ted Bundy was the epitome of this type of behavior. He had all the outward appearance of charm, confidence, and affection without possessing any of the fundamental traits involved. When he met Liz, she was a newly divorced single mother, living in a strange city, without anything to her name, like many of his victims. Luckily, by some weird test of fate, she was able to survive him. She describes their first meeting...

“The chemistry between us was incredible. As I watched his handsome face while he went on about places to go and things to see, I was already planning the wedding and naming the kids. We collected Molly from the daycare center and went home to cook. I was impressed with Ted’s skills in the kitchen; he had left it spotless after Sunday's breakfast, and now he took command. I was amazed and pleased at how much Ted liked our domestic scene. He seemed hungry for family life. He took Molly and me out to all his favorite places: the public market; the main street of the University District called 'The Ave,' where we browsed through used book and record stores; the International District, where we ate Chinese food and Ted tried out his limited Chinese on the patient waiters. We made love every chance we got. I had never felt this close to any man before.”

2.  Devaluation:  This step happens after the partner is hooked and emotionally invested. The charm fades and is slowly replaced by criticism, neglect and/or manipulation, making the victim feel as if they’re ‘not good enough.’ It’s especially hard when the Narcissist is inconsistent, being charming and attentive sometimes and neglectful, manipulative and abusive other times. This causes the victim to be in a state of emotional imbalance and question what is real and what is fantasy. It also keeps the victim at the constant beck-and-call of the Narcissist, because they don’t know what to expect; but most likely they will always be waiting and hoping for the good to show up again… and when it does, they feel loved and cared for only to be let down soon after, and so the cycle continues. Liz writes about this, saying, "he began walking home late some nights instead of spending the whole night with me. We still ate dinner together, but sometimes he just didn't show up. At other times, he would show up when I wasn't expecting him. Our lives were out of sync." Liz talks a lot in the book about how she wanted to get married, but Ted kept dragging his feet, that they would make plans and he wouldn't show up, or he would say he was busy... but then he would show up in the middle of the night or when it was convenient for him. There was one instance when Ted and Liz were taking a raft out onto the river when Ted suddenly lunged at her and pushed her head under the water… “I looked up at Ted and our eyes locked. His face had gone blank, as though he was not there at all. I had a sense that he wasn’t seeing me. I struggled to pull myself into the raft. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak. I could find no expression on his face. I responded by saying, ‘why do you have to ruin everything? That’s not funny at all.’ He still looked at me as if I were a stranger. Then he looked away and said, ‘it was no big deal. Can’t you take a joke.” There were many other instances where Ted would do something to test the waters. Something that was potentially dangerous, especially with Liz’s daughter Molly, but then he would laugh it off as though he was just kidding around.

3.  Discarding or instilling fear of being left: This phase marks the end of the relationship and is typically characterized by the Narcissist suddenly withdrawing, ending the relationship abruptly, or behaving so cruelly that you are forced to leave. This causes shock in the victim and often occurs when the victim is trying their hardest to fix the relationship or please the Narcissist. The victim is often treated as though they never mattered or are completely disposable; they withdraw all emotional and physical affection. This often happens because the Narcissist feels you no longer serve their ego. During this time the Narcissist often preys on a new victim who will stroke their ego, and when they feel they need you again they will suddenly reappear with fake apologies and empty promises. This phase is especially traumatic because of the trauma bond and gaslighting that were created during the early stages of the relationship, often leaving the victim feeling shocked, addicted to the cycle and questioning their own reality. Ted Bundy could charm the pants off almost anyone, and he did. He had many contacts, mostly women, in every state he was incarcerated. He needed that constant “help” from women. He needed money and supplies while in prison, he needed his ego stroked constantly by women he knew were vulnerable and could be easily abused. How terribly sad that all these women really cared for and loved him, when all the time he was just trying to save himself. Here is part of a letter Ted wrote to Liz while incarcerated in Colorado. “Kim Andrews… is a loyal ad close friend. She has volunteered to do things for me which no one else down here has volunteered to do. If she has replaced you, I would tell you. If I loved her and no longer loved you, I would tell you. But she hasn’t and I don’t.”  ...and again, when he was in Florida State Prison: “I asked him who the friend was, and he hemmed and hawed and then told me it was some guy he had met in Salt Lake City, but I knew he was lying. A woman named Carole Boone had been to see him. I didn’t know who she was, and I didn’t care. This was the thousand-millionth time I had felt this way about Ted and another woman, but Ted was Ted. He would never change.”

The Realization/Moving Forward:

At the end of her book, Liz reflects on the horrific treatment she endured and the details of her relationship with Ted Bundy.

“As I write this, the facts are so unspeakably awful; I don’t know why it took me so long to accept the truth, but I did.”

Bundy abducted and killed two women in one day and then took me out to dinner that evening. He raped and murdered women and then slept with me.”

Reality and fantasy collide and the victim finds it difficult to accept truth. Was it ever really real? Was everything an illusion, a lie? When the realization hits, it can cause the victim to go into a deep depression, engage in self-harm, and/or disengage from everyday activities all together. The truth comes out as something separate from your own experience, and the realization can be devastating.

"By writing that Ted was warm and loving and loveable, I was avoiding facing the painful truth that I knew only a small part of Ted. And that small part was rapidly being overtaken by the rageful sexual deviant in him, as he repeatedly acted out his murderous fantasies. I now know that I was trying to protect myself from the unfathomable truth.”

“Over the years our sex life had been a strong bond between us, our desire rising and falling in cycles, but always tender and gratifying for me, and I knew why. I loved him with all my heart. He probably liked our sex because it was available, nothing more.”

“When we moved together loving, did we need the worlds permission? when we later lay unmoving had you loved an apparition?

One of the things that causes people to stay in these types of relationships far too long is the hope that things will change. When people wondered why Liz stayed with Bundy, even after she contacted the police, she responded, “I was an emotional mess. I thought and hoped I was wrong about him, and I loved him. I wanted a stable, loving home for my daughter and the other kids who would come along. I handed Ted my life and said, “here, take care of me.” He did in a lot of ways, but I became more and more dependent upon him. When I felt his love, I was on top of the world; when I felt nothing from Ted, I felt that I was nothing. But the fuel that fed my jealousy was his inconsistent treatment of me. We would be getting along fine and then a door would slam and I would be out in the cold until Ted was ready to let me back in. I’d spend hours trying to figure out what I had done or said that was wrong. And then, suddenly, he would be warm and loving again and I would feel needed and cared for.”

Towards the end, still some years before Bundy was executed, Liz went to visit him in prison; it was the last time she would see him. She had other occasions where she could have visited him, but the pain became too much. There comes a time when a victim can’t physically handle any more pain. It becomes unbearable. Despite any feelings of love, there comes a time when the victim must choose themselves above all else.

“It makes me sick to think of what you are going through but I cannot bleed for you. I get caught up in a way of thinking that I can somehow influence what you do or don’t do… or that if I suffer along with you, somehow your suffering will be lessened. But it is too heavy a price to pay. I know your need for support at this time is acute but know that I only have a limited supply because I must look out for myself first.”

 The ripple effect of someone who has been victimized by a Narcissist goes deep and can take many years to heal from. “Ted’s problems continue to affect me in many ways. On one level I find I have developed a grim view of human beings and what they are capable of doing to other human beings. That makes it hard for me to get close to people.”

“I am grateful that my daughter and I survived him. It is a gift to be able to make mistakes, find solutions, and move forward in life—a gift not to be wasted.”