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A review by ladybouse
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
0.25
"It was clear that the detectives in that state did not want me, and what Ted wanted didn't matter in the least to them."
I tried to keep in mind while reading this book that Ted Bundy manipulated, tricked, and was underestimated by dozens of people before and after knowing what he was. I also tried to keep in mind failings happened on many people's parts that allowed for all of the horrors that took place. However, in Ann Rule's own words she makes excuses, mistakes, and admits to incompetence that simply can't go unacknowledged. Throughout her writting, this 40 year old mother of four, former police officer, and investigative crime journalist makes you feel as if she has no instincts or common sense what-so-ever. How her name in true crime is so revered I will never know. Bare in mind this woman volunteered with Ted Bundy at a crisis center for less than a year, from 1971 to the spring of 1972, then after leaving exchanged a few letters, cards, and "infrequent phone calls".
"I worried. She was so lovely, looked so much like the girls who were disappearing, and I was frightened to have her walk even half a block alone in the city. She was insistent that it was something she had to do, and I held my breath each day until she was home safe. I was experiencing the kind of dread that soon every parent in the area would feel. As a crime writer, I had seen too much violence, too much tragedy, and I saw "suspicious men" wherever I went. I have never been afraid for myself. But for my daughters, oh yes, for my daughters. I warned them so much that they finally accused me of getting paranoid."
(The 5th known victim June 1974)
"Twenty-six days later, a casual acquaintance of my elder daughter, Brenda Carol Ball, disappeared."
July 14th Composite Sketch Released with the name Ted.
"Something had been bothering me for two weeks as August drew to a close, I'd kept going back to the composite picture of the "Ted" in Lake Sammamish State Park, reading over the physical description, the references to a "slight English, or English type accent." And I saw a resemblance to someone I knew. I put it in the back of my mind, told myself that I too was being caught up in the hysteria of that long, terrible summer. I knew a lot of men named Ted--including two homicide detectives-but the only Ted I knew who fit the description was Ted Bundy."
"... I don't really think this is anything, but it's bugging me. I have a good friend named Ted; he's about twenty-seven, and he matches the description, and he used to live out by the University, but I don't know where he is now. Listen, I don't even think he has a car because I used to give him rides. And I don't want this to be like I'm turning him in or anything. I just want to know if he has a car now."
"I didn't lend much weight to the fact that Ted had acquired a Volkswagen. A lot of people drove VWs, and I heard nothing more to indicate that Ted Bundy was a viable suspect."
You're so worried for your children, yet all of these indicators including someone your child interacted with being a known victim and you just write it off this easily? Nah, not much merrit to all this mounting evidence at all just put it from your mind... 🤦♀️
"During that fall of 1974, I had no knowledge whatsoever of criminal activity in Utah. It was hundreds of miles from my "territory," and I was kept busy dealing with cases in the Northwest. I had learned that I would have to have major surgery-elective* but something that couldn't wait. It would mean that I wouldn't be able to work for at least a month. I had no choice but to write twice as many stories so that I could bank enough to see us through. Had I had either the inclination, the opportunity, or the time to investigate events around Salt Lake City during that fall, I would have read about cases that bore an eerie parallel to those seemingly ended in Washington."
See the parallels!? Lady, you couldn't put two and two together, aided with your fingers and a calculator. How on earth was this woman a cop and investigative journalist!?
Which brings me to:
"You'll be able to rent a helicopter and get me out of here. The prison maintains, falsely, that I had airline schedules. Can you imagine! If I were foolish enough to go to an airport, I certainly wouldn't give a damn which flight I jumped on as long as I was assured the plane could take off and land. Doing well, battling like hell. You know what it takes for the tough to get going.
love, Ted,"
"The talk of escape, however flippant, had begun to flash a warning light on and off like a subliminal message on a television screen, hidden among Ted's discussions of legal battles. But then, all prisoners dream of escape, and all of them talk about it-the possibilities, the odds. A miniscule number actually try."
"He told me he was reading a good deal. His favorite book was Papillon, the story of an impossible prison escape from Devil's Island. "I've read it four times."
"Again there was a subtle hint, but it seemed incredible to think that Ted could escape from the Pitkin County Jail."
Oh wow, he did, in fact, escape. Shock and awe... 🫢
"I had no doubt that Ted had planned his escape; he had alluded to escape to me so many times."
Hindsight, huh? 🤯 What ever gave it away lady? And you said nothing the entire time!?
"I read the newspaper accounts of Ted's second escape incredulously; I had detected no hints at all that he planned to bolt and run when we'd talked earlier on December 30th."
"The weeks ahead were uncomfortable, but not frightening. I had no fear of Ted Bundy. Even if he was what he was said to be-a mass murderer-I still felt he would never harm me."
"I received a letter from my mother in Oregon; in it, she enclosed a two-inch clipping giving the sparsest of details of the Chi Omega murders. And she wrote, "It sounds alot like the 'Ted" murders. I wonder ..." No, I didn't think so. If Ted had been guilty of the crimes he was accused of in Washington, Utah, and Colorado, and I'd always had great difficulty really believing that, he had made a clean escape. He was free. Why would he jeopardize that freedom which meant so much to him? The Chi Omega murders, the other attacks, had been different, the work of an almost clumsy, rampaging killer."
Her own damn mother with a few news articles was able to draw a reasonable conclusion, but this former cop and journalist can't fathom it being Ted...🤷♀️🤦♀️
"I felt the same emotions that would tear me up so many times. Looking at the man, listening to the man, I could not believe he was guilty. Listening to the detectives whom I also liked and trusted, I could not believe he was not."
And if i was inclined to extend her any grace, this action sealed any empathy or understanding I might have given her.
"Meg had gone out of Ted's life. Yet I wondered at her telling him she was involved with someone else. I had talked to her on the phone only a few days before and she had said there was no one, but that for her own survival she had to pull away from Ted. Perhaps she had made up a fictitious man, knowing that that was the only way Ted would release her."
2 pages later:
"Ted did not forget Meg that September. He called me on September 20th and asked that I send a single red rose to Meg, to arrive on the 26th. "It's the eighth anniversary of the night I met her. I want just one rose, and I want the card to read, 'My heart valves need adjusting. Love, Ted "
I sent Meg that last red rose, after arguing with the florist who insisted that I could get four red roses for the $9 minimum. Ted had stipulated it be only one. He never offered to pay for the rose. I don't know what Meg's reaction was. I never talked to her again."
After acknowledging for Megs own SURVIVAL she had to pull away from Ted, what does Ann do? Harasses her for Ted when he can't get to her! The times were not so different that a former cop or woman with half a brain cell couldn't see exactly how he's using her to abuse another woman.
"Yes, I believe Ted Bundy attacked Joni Lenz, just as I now am forced to believe that he is responsible for all the other crimes attributed to him. I have never said it out loud-or in print-but I believe it, as devoutly as I wish I did not."
"I believed that the verdict had been the right verdict, but I wondered if it had been for the wrong reasons. It had been too swift, too vindictive. Was justice still justice when it manifested itself as it had in the less than six hours of jury deliberation?"
I tried to keep in mind while reading this book that Ted Bundy manipulated, tricked, and was underestimated by dozens of people before and after knowing what he was. I also tried to keep in mind failings happened on many people's parts that allowed for all of the horrors that took place. However, in Ann Rule's own words she makes excuses, mistakes, and admits to incompetence that simply can't go unacknowledged. Throughout her writting, this 40 year old mother of four, former police officer, and investigative crime journalist makes you feel as if she has no instincts or common sense what-so-ever. How her name in true crime is so revered I will never know. Bare in mind this woman volunteered with Ted Bundy at a crisis center for less than a year, from 1971 to the spring of 1972, then after leaving exchanged a few letters, cards, and "infrequent phone calls".
"I worried. She was so lovely, looked so much like the girls who were disappearing, and I was frightened to have her walk even half a block alone in the city. She was insistent that it was something she had to do, and I held my breath each day until she was home safe. I was experiencing the kind of dread that soon every parent in the area would feel. As a crime writer, I had seen too much violence, too much tragedy, and I saw "suspicious men" wherever I went. I have never been afraid for myself. But for my daughters, oh yes, for my daughters. I warned them so much that they finally accused me of getting paranoid."
(The 5th known victim June 1974)
"Twenty-six days later, a casual acquaintance of my elder daughter, Brenda Carol Ball, disappeared."
July 14th Composite Sketch Released with the name Ted.
"Something had been bothering me for two weeks as August drew to a close, I'd kept going back to the composite picture of the "Ted" in Lake Sammamish State Park, reading over the physical description, the references to a "slight English, or English type accent." And I saw a resemblance to someone I knew. I put it in the back of my mind, told myself that I too was being caught up in the hysteria of that long, terrible summer. I knew a lot of men named Ted--including two homicide detectives-but the only Ted I knew who fit the description was Ted Bundy."
"... I don't really think this is anything, but it's bugging me. I have a good friend named Ted; he's about twenty-seven, and he matches the description, and he used to live out by the University, but I don't know where he is now. Listen, I don't even think he has a car because I used to give him rides. And I don't want this to be like I'm turning him in or anything. I just want to know if he has a car now."
"I didn't lend much weight to the fact that Ted had acquired a Volkswagen. A lot of people drove VWs, and I heard nothing more to indicate that Ted Bundy was a viable suspect."
You're so worried for your children, yet all of these indicators including someone your child interacted with being a known victim and you just write it off this easily? Nah, not much merrit to all this mounting evidence at all just put it from your mind... 🤦♀️
"During that fall of 1974, I had no knowledge whatsoever of criminal activity in Utah. It was hundreds of miles from my "territory," and I was kept busy dealing with cases in the Northwest. I had learned that I would have to have major surgery-elective* but something that couldn't wait. It would mean that I wouldn't be able to work for at least a month. I had no choice but to write twice as many stories so that I could bank enough to see us through. Had I had either the inclination, the opportunity, or the time to investigate events around Salt Lake City during that fall, I would have read about cases that bore an eerie parallel to those seemingly ended in Washington."
See the parallels!? Lady, you couldn't put two and two together, aided with your fingers and a calculator. How on earth was this woman a cop and investigative journalist!?
Which brings me to:
"You'll be able to rent a helicopter and get me out of here. The prison maintains, falsely, that I had airline schedules. Can you imagine! If I were foolish enough to go to an airport, I certainly wouldn't give a damn which flight I jumped on as long as I was assured the plane could take off and land. Doing well, battling like hell. You know what it takes for the tough to get going.
love, Ted,"
"The talk of escape, however flippant, had begun to flash a warning light on and off like a subliminal message on a television screen, hidden among Ted's discussions of legal battles. But then, all prisoners dream of escape, and all of them talk about it-the possibilities, the odds. A miniscule number actually try."
"He told me he was reading a good deal. His favorite book was Papillon, the story of an impossible prison escape from Devil's Island. "I've read it four times."
"Again there was a subtle hint, but it seemed incredible to think that Ted could escape from the Pitkin County Jail."
Oh wow, he did, in fact, escape. Shock and awe... 🫢
"I had no doubt that Ted had planned his escape; he had alluded to escape to me so many times."
Hindsight, huh? 🤯 What ever gave it away lady? And you said nothing the entire time!?
"I read the newspaper accounts of Ted's second escape incredulously; I had detected no hints at all that he planned to bolt and run when we'd talked earlier on December 30th."
"The weeks ahead were uncomfortable, but not frightening. I had no fear of Ted Bundy. Even if he was what he was said to be-a mass murderer-I still felt he would never harm me."
"I received a letter from my mother in Oregon; in it, she enclosed a two-inch clipping giving the sparsest of details of the Chi Omega murders. And she wrote, "It sounds alot like the 'Ted" murders. I wonder ..." No, I didn't think so. If Ted had been guilty of the crimes he was accused of in Washington, Utah, and Colorado, and I'd always had great difficulty really believing that, he had made a clean escape. He was free. Why would he jeopardize that freedom which meant so much to him? The Chi Omega murders, the other attacks, had been different, the work of an almost clumsy, rampaging killer."
Her own damn mother with a few news articles was able to draw a reasonable conclusion, but this former cop and journalist can't fathom it being Ted...🤷♀️🤦♀️
"I felt the same emotions that would tear me up so many times. Looking at the man, listening to the man, I could not believe he was guilty. Listening to the detectives whom I also liked and trusted, I could not believe he was not."
And if i was inclined to extend her any grace, this action sealed any empathy or understanding I might have given her.
"Meg had gone out of Ted's life. Yet I wondered at her telling him she was involved with someone else. I had talked to her on the phone only a few days before and she had said there was no one, but that for her own survival she had to pull away from Ted. Perhaps she had made up a fictitious man, knowing that that was the only way Ted would release her."
2 pages later:
"Ted did not forget Meg that September. He called me on September 20th and asked that I send a single red rose to Meg, to arrive on the 26th. "It's the eighth anniversary of the night I met her. I want just one rose, and I want the card to read, 'My heart valves need adjusting. Love, Ted "
I sent Meg that last red rose, after arguing with the florist who insisted that I could get four red roses for the $9 minimum. Ted had stipulated it be only one. He never offered to pay for the rose. I don't know what Meg's reaction was. I never talked to her again."
After acknowledging for Megs own SURVIVAL she had to pull away from Ted, what does Ann do? Harasses her for Ted when he can't get to her! The times were not so different that a former cop or woman with half a brain cell couldn't see exactly how he's using her to abuse another woman.
"Yes, I believe Ted Bundy attacked Joni Lenz, just as I now am forced to believe that he is responsible for all the other crimes attributed to him. I have never said it out loud-or in print-but I believe it, as devoutly as I wish I did not."
"I believed that the verdict had been the right verdict, but I wondered if it had been for the wrong reasons. It had been too swift, too vindictive. Was justice still justice when it manifested itself as it had in the less than six hours of jury deliberation?"