"Celebrate They Did": KUTV at Florida State Prison on the Morning Ted Bundy Was Executed, January 1989

Name: "Celebrate They Did": KUTV at Florida State Prison on the Morning Ted Bundy Was Executed, January 1989
Uploaded: 2024-08-05T00:00:00Z
Duration: 3 min 42 s
Description: Salt Lake City's KUTV reports from outside Florida State Prison on the day Ted Bundy was executed: the cheering crowd, a prosecutor's account of Bundy in the chair, and why Florida's reaction was louder than Utah's.

Salt Lake City's KUTV reports from outside Florida State Prison on the day Ted Bundy was executed: the cheering crowd, a prosecutor's account of Bundy in the chair, and why Florida's reaction was louder than Utah's.

Subject: Ted Bundy
Recorded: about January 24, 1989
Runtime: 3:42

Content warning: Refers to the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl and describes the preparations in the electric chair. No graphic detail.

The Interview

This is a news segment from KUTV, Channel 2 in Salt Lake City, broadcast on January 24, 1989, the day Ted Bundy was executed in Florida. After the anchor's introduction, a KUTV reporter named Bob (surname not verified) reports from outside Florida State Prison near Starke: spectators explain why they came, a prosecutor from Bundy's Chi Omega trial describes him in the electric chair, and the reporter then answers the anchor's question about why Florida's reaction was so much louder than Utah's. Bundy himself does not speak. The segment was posted to YouTube in 2024 by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns KUTV, on its news archive channel.

Historical Context

Ted Bundy was first convicted in Utah, of a 1974 aggravated kidnapping, and was later charged with murder in Colorado, from where he escaped twice. In Florida in 1978 he murdered two women at Florida State University's Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee, attacked other women, and kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl from Lake City. He was sentenced to death for the Chi Omega murders in Miami in 1979 and for the Lake City murder in Orlando in 1980. After nearly ten years of appeals and several death warrants, he confessed to about 30 murders in seven states in his last days.

Circumstances

Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison at 7:16 a.m. on January 24, 1989. Several hundred people gathered outside the prison before dawn; news reports at the time described cheering, chanting and songs about "Old Sparky", and a small group of death-penalty opponents. KUTV, which had interviewed Bundy in a Colorado jail in 1977, sent its own reporter to Starke.

What the Recording Covers

The anchor introduces the execution as taking place in "an atmosphere that was almost circus-like". The reporter's package describes the morning "people here have been anticipating for ten bitter years", with spectators saying "It's time for him to go" and answering "Damn right" when asked whether they are there to celebrate his death. He reports the time of the execution and that some witnesses said Bundy appeared shaken as he was led in, while a prosecutor who won the Chi Omega convictions says Bundy was "very calm and appeared resigned to his fate". The report closes with the hearse leaving for a Gainesville mortuary and Bundy's reported belief, in his last days, that God would forgive him even if the families of his victims would not. In a live exchange, the anchor notes that Bundy killed more people in Washington and Utah than in Florida, and the reporter explains why North Floridians, who had "lived and breathed" the case for ten years, reacted with such intensity.

What Makes the Recording Significant

It records the execution as seen by a Utah station, for a Utah audience, on the day itself: the scene outside the prison, a firsthand description of Bundy in the death chamber from a prosecutor who witnessed it, and a reporter's reflection on why the reaction differed from state to state.

Archival Importance

The segment comes from KUTV's own archive and was published by its owner, with an invitation to license the footage. KUTV is the station behind earlier Bundy material in this archive, including his 1977 jailhouse interview, so the page can show how one local station followed the case from Utah to its end.

Important Caveats

Bundy does not speak in this video. His views on forgiveness are reported second-hand by the reporter. The reporter's surname is given as heard and has not been verified. The prosecutor is not named in the report. The anchor's "36 women" was a suspected-victim figure of the time, not an established count (Bundy confessed to about 30 murders), and the reporter's remark that Bundy was "convicted near here" and "captured near the prison" is wrong: he was arrested in Pensacola and tried in Miami and Orlando. The upload begins mid-sentence.

Anchor: [The upload begins mid-sentence.] ...evening. It was one of the most bizarre scenes you can imagine, but then Ted Bundy was like no other man. And this morning, just after sunrise, the man suspected of brutally killing 36 women, many of them in Utah, met the long, drawn-out demands of justice. Bundy was executed before an atmosphere that was almost circus-like. KUTV's Bob Loy reports from the Florida State Prison near Starke.

Reporter: It was the morning people here have been anticipating for ten bitter years, the day state prison officials wired up the chair called Old Sparky and ordered Theodore Robert Bundy to take his seat.

Spectator: It's time for him to go. And now, I have a daughter that lives in Lake City, and I want him gone.

Reporter: For these Floridians, the execution was a chance to vent their anger and demonstrate their hatred toward the man responsible for at least three deaths here, and the legal system that allowed Bundy to survive three previous death warrants ordering his execution.

Spectator: I'm saying that he ought to die, and all the ones that's over there [unclear: "over the own are protesting" / "over the other protestant"], even the judges and the jury, the ones that's all been against him and kept him alive this long, they should be done the same way as he's going to get, if he gets it. And I hope to God he gets it.

Voice Off Camera: Celebrate his death?

Spectator: Damn right.

Reporter: And with the morning light spreading a soft glow across North Florida, celebrate they did.

Reporter: Theodore Bundy was executed at 7:16 a.m. in the electric chair at Florida State Prison, nearly 11 years to the day from the time he kidnapped, raped and murdered a 12-year-old Lake City girl. Ted Bundy died. Some witnesses say he appeared shaken as he was led into the death chamber, but the prosecutor who won convictions against Bundy for murdering two Florida State University co-eds says the killer was ready to accept the ultimate moment of truth.

Prosecutor: The, uh, hood, of course, was placed over him, and the electrode strapped to his leg, and, uh, Bundy, throughout it all, was very calm and appeared resigned to his fate.

Reporter: While most of the crowd was bloodthirsty, some took no joy in the execution. But the quiet protest of a few was overshadowed by those for whom the experience seemed almost a catharsis, therapy for the years of pain since Ted Bundy came into their lives. Now they believe the healing can begin.

Crowd: [Cheering.] Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Reporter: Ted Bundy's remains were carried by the white hearse to a Gainesville, Florida, mortuary. Before he died, he began considering himself a born-again Christian. He said he doubted the families of his victims would ever forgive him, but he believed God will. This is Bob Loy reporting live from the Florida State Prison near Starke.

Anchor: Bob, it's interesting to note that Ted Bundy killed more people in Washington and Utah than he did in Florida, but the outcry in Florida was much more vocal than it was here.

Reporter: Well, I was surprised by the size of the crowd here, but I wasn't really surprised by its intensity. For the people of North Florida, Ted Bundy is something and someone that they have lived and breathed for the last ten years. All the media attention that has been brought on Bundy has also been brought on the people of North Florida. He was convicted near here, at the prison. He, uh, was captured near the prison. And it's something that they've lived with for quite some time. Surely, the crimes that he committed here were no worse than the crimes he committed in Utah, Idaho, Colorado or Washington, but it's that intensity that these people felt and lived for so long that I think brought out their intensity today.

Anchor: All right, Bob, thank you very much. ---