Ted Bundy Holds Court: Remarks to Reporters During His Miami Trial, June 1979

During a recess in jury selection for his Chi Omega murder trial, Ted Bundy sat on the defense table and chatted with reporters about jail life, security and choosing a jury.

Subject

Ted Bundy

Recorded

June 29, 1979

Runtime

4:29

Content warning: The page refers to the murders of two women and attacks on three others in a sorority house and a nearby apartment in 1978.

The Interview

On the afternoon of Friday, June 29, 1979, the court hearing the Chi Omega murder case in Miami took a short recess. Ted Bundy, under guard, sat on the defense table and talked informally with reporters while a television camera ran. He answered questions about how he spent his time in jail, the security around him, the jail food and the selection of his jury. The Miami Herald's report the next day, as quoted in the video's description, called it his "first Miami press conference".

Historical Context

On January 15, 1978, two women, Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, were murdered at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Two other women there were injured, and a fifth woman was attacked in a nearby apartment and survived. Bundy, who had escaped from jail in Colorado at the end of 1977, was arrested in Pensacola on February 15, 1978. Because of the publicity in Tallahassee, his trial for the Chi Omega murders was moved to Miami. It is widely described as the first criminal trial in the United States to be televised nationally.

Circumstances of the Interview

Jury selection began on June 25, 1979, before Circuit Judge Edward D. Cowart, and the jury was seated on June 30. Bundy was represented by assistant public defenders, but he took an active part in his own defense. The remarks were not part of the court proceedings: they were an exchange with the press during a pause, picked up by the microphone on a news camera. The film survives in the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at Miami Dade College, whose watermark appears on the clip; the station that shot it is not identified.

What the Interview Covers

Much of the sound is hard to make out, so this summary follows only what can be heard. Bundy tells reporters that he cannot work in his cell and that arrangements have been made for him to work outside it. He praises the jail officers as well trained but says that, because of the publicity and security concerns around him, security weighs on his situation. Asked what seems to be a question about exercise, he says the facilities exist but the organization is slow to move. He jokes, apparently about the jail food, that it would be like eating at the Holiday Inn, and he talks about jury selection and stereotyping by age, sex or race. He also makes a comparison with a football coach.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The clip shows Bundy at ease in the courtroom, managing the press during his own capital trial. That self-assurance was part of how he presented himself throughout the trial, and the Herald's headline on the episode, as quoted in the video's description, was "No Doubt About it, Bundy Runs the Show".

Archival Importance

Much of the surviving footage of the 1979 trial shows the formal proceedings. This clip preserves an unscripted exchange from the same courtroom, recorded during the first week of the trial.

Important Caveats

The sound is poor. Large parts of the exchange are only partly intelligible, and the transcript marks many words as unclear; it has not yet been checked by a human listener. The reporters are not identified. Bundy's remarks about his treatment and his case are his own statements. He was convicted on July 24, 1979, of the murders of Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman and of three counts of attempted first-degree murder, and was sentenced to death on July 31, 1979.

Ted Bundy: I'm starting to lose some of my juices in the [unclear: "village"]. I'm concentrating on some of the stuff. [inaudible] I could be in a certain place, I could be in a meeting. [inaudible]

Unidentified Voice: [unclear: "Wait long."] [unclear: "Don't watch the news world."]

Reporter: Well, how do you feel? How do you feel about hearing all these people [unclear: "today" / "they will not be sure"]?

Ted Bundy: [unclear: "I was here for sassy."] [laughter] [unclear: "There's an idea for it."]

Reporter: Do you think much of [unclear: "my old stuff"]?

Ted Bundy: Well, I did [unclear: "mail in French mail"], but I don't get that. I don't get that. [unclear: "You marked it legal, please." / "legally"]

Reporter: When you leave here, you pretty much just go back to your cell and go to bed?

Ted Bundy: So there's no, you can't do much legal research or anything like that. I don't know [unclear: "who's seen the cell"], but you can't work in the cell. So they have made arrangements to let me work outside the cell last night.

Reporter: [unclear: "Are there any days to step on any other travels?"] [unclear: "Even with a question." / "Even with an acquittal."] [unclear: "Even with a question." / "Even with an acquittal."]

Ted Bundy: Yes. Well, if you don't... If I was a football coach, I'd say, you know, when you first [unclear: "came out of"] the season, you don't [unclear: "sound a little bit super full"]. That's really too far away to say. I really feel like I would be able to keep working and it would be [unclear: "stressed"]. [unclear: "I'm happy, because it's a long time. That's a long time, but it's a long time. I think it's a long time."]

Reporter: [unclear: "I was in a meeting with a dealer this afternoon."] Excuse me. [unclear: "I was in a meeting with a dealer this afternoon."]

Ted Bundy: Well, for the, for the compliment, I think it's an excellent operation. The [unclear: "local management"] officers are all well trained. Decent, decent [unclear: "close to three times" / "clubs"], lots of services. But the big, and truly personal, in my situation, because of all the publicity and all the security concerns, [unclear: "I won't say lifeless, but really I came to share"]. [unclear: "I've done"] a great deal to inspire security in the jail, and as a result some of the people are [inaudible]. [unclear: "I wish we could obviously look at the burden of security."] So security does kind of add a [unclear: "repressive"] atmosphere, a [unclear: "repressive" / "home-pressed"] atmosphere, in my particular case. They do the best that [unclear: "you should"]. [unclear: "Beyond this and forth"], we're pretty good people.

Reporter: Have you been able to work out anything for [unclear: "extra sales" / "exercise"]?

Ted Bundy: No, [unclear: "you have" / "we have"] to do something. They have the facilities here. I think it's just a matter of [unclear: "trotting beasts" / "finding the beast"] enough times to get it to move. It's a big organization. You can't get it to move as quickly as you can. [unclear: "Can I share some more?" / "We've got the sheriff's department there."] All you've got to do is get to the [unclear: "share" / "sheriff"], and that's usually just a kind of compliment.

Reporter: [unclear: "What's the company that I agree with? What can I totally agree with?"]

Ted Bundy: What everybody else sees.

Reporter: You okay?

Ted Bundy: It would be like eating at the Holiday Inn. [unclear: "I'd call them at the same time."] That's what I hear.

Ted Bundy: There's no such thing. This is something [unclear: "to have" / "I have"] to get away from. There's no such thing as an ideal [unclear: "to your people" / "juror"]. Anybody who's Black is going to be [unclear: "sure that it's not so, for each person"], and they have to fight against the [unclear: "tenets"] of this very issue, and that's the [unclear: "voice of the body"]. Stereotyping age or sex or race, and it seems not clear. [unclear: "That's a few things to do."] ---