The Only Living Witness

Very thorough and insightful.

I was expecting to hear more from Bundy’s view of his history and his crimes, even if presented from a hypothetical third-person perspective. I also found the authors’ disdain for Ann Rule to be unnecessary. There was no need to refer to her as an “older woman” or say she had an active imagination unless there is some effort to explain the comments. That being said, read Ann Rule’s book, too.

It must be an arduous task to sift through everything that a serial killer has to say and determine what is truth and what is falsehoods. And even more so, to piece it all together to present an image of the mind of such an individual. Aynesworth and Michaud do an excellent job at weaving interviews, psychological analysis, and police documents into a story that has the reader captivated until the very end.
And a very apt way to end the book is with Bundy’s death, as there really is nothing more to say once Ted is sat down on the chair, and the only resolution to be given. Aynesworth is right in saying that only reason Ted was lost and given the chair was from his own mistakes. He was able to escape prison two times, cross multiple state lines and evade arrest, and murder more than two dozen women in his lifetime.
If anything to learn from this other than psychological lessons, is that we are never truly safe. For one serial killer like Bundt to be captured, there are maybe five or more still out there in the shadows, and no matter how laudable the police are, some never face their judgement in life.