Ted Bundy was an American serial killer born in Vermont in 1946. He killed females between 1974 and 1978 in Washington, Utah, Colorado, and Florida [13]. He confessed to killing thirty women, but is suspected of killing many more, possibly over 100 [22]. During his last arrest, when he was asked by a detective about whether he had committed thirty-six murders, “Ted had reportedly replied, ‘Add one digit to that and you’ll have it’” [81] (p. 380). Ted Bundy was executed on 24 January 1989, in Starke, Florida [22].

Bundy produced a façade of great sincerity and a social veneer, which hid his true self as a murderer and he used this within social interaction. Many described Bundy as attractive, normal, educated, “nice person”, “mild mannered law student”, charming, “perfect son”, “perfect student”, and trustworthy [22,27,81,89]. But these were the virtual identities he managed and presented to everyone except his victims. According to Hickey [22], “ . . . his quest for identity served as a catalyst for constantly presenting himself, especially in physical disguise, to be somebody else . . . Ted created a series of social fronts and disguises to help him blend into the ‘right groups’” (p. 186, italics added). To his victims, he was a sadistic murderer. According to Bundy, “I became an expert at projecting something very different . . . a huge part of my life was hidden from everyone—a secret, as it were” [82] (p. 17). Bundy was adept at hiding his “true” self as a murderer from everyone in his life, but was a master at manipulating others to only see his virtual identities of law student, boyfriend, son, and
“nice, normal guy” [11,81–83,89].