“I have known people who…radiate vulnerability. Their facial expressions say ‘I am afraid of you.’ These people invite abuse… By expecting to be hurt, do they subtly encourage it?” ~ Ted Bundy
I find it frightening but enthralling that Ted Bundy was able to verbalize what he saw in people and what drew him to his specific victims. He clearly knew how to choose the most promising victims so that he could get away with murder over & over again. Let’s face it, during Bundy’s killing spree of at least 30 victims (perhaps many more), only ONE of them ever got away. He was able to utilize the signals women gave off and use those signals to his advantage.
Bundy’s question about whether people subtly encourage abuse is interesting as well. While I don’t believe that most people intentionally want to be abused or killed (there are a few who do, believe it or not), I do think that we give off signals that tell others how to treat us. Dogs know when people are afraid of them or dislike them. I daresay that Bundy was superior at utilizing his animal nature when hunting his prey.
Overall, the quote listed above seems rather deep for someone who wouldn’t be expected to have much insight into his crimes. (Most serial killers have a rather shallow nature.) However, let’s remember that Bundy graduated with a degree in psychology and must have self-analyzed at some point. It’s too bad his self-analysis couldn’t stop him from killing so many young women all over the United States and leaving their families with nothing but some weathered bones and memories of the joy their daughters brought them before staring into the abyss that was Ted Bundy.
Confessions of a Bundyphile 
Ted was the ultimate human predator. He was very dangerous because he did not look like a killer, he was handsome and charming and used his good looks as bait to draw women in. I think it is probably true what you said about Ted sensing vulnerability in others and preying on that, just like an animal. He was a combination of animal instincts combined with analytic intelligence, a truly deadly combo!
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I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot, and it’s strange to me that other people don’t pick up on this kind of thing. Obviously I find it disgusting he believed that because someone radiated vulnerability, they deserved abuse/to be hurt. I have this weird thing where I feel like people like that need to be protected, probably because of my own abuse. But people do often radiate vulnerability and I personally tend to be attracted to those kind of people (as friends and partners, not as victims). I don’t think it takes much psychology to pick up on – it’s always felt like a really innate, natural thing to me. It’s the way people look, talk, how they hold themselves, what they say, their body language. And the odd thing is, I tend not to be very good at reading those things a lot in general… but when it comes to vulnerability, it’s very natural and innate for me to pick up on it, even in the most subtle ways, that no one else notices.
I imagine if you studied psychology enough you could do it too, but I wonder if Bundy just naturally had this talent. I’ve heard other sociopaths/psychopaths describe the same thing before, who haven’t studied psychology at all. Many of them also blame the victims using this same reasoning as well, just like Bundy. And I didn’t really learn anything about this in my psychology classes and was able to do it even as a child. I imagine it’d be a bit of a hard thing to learn. It’s interesting to me that so many sociopaths/psychopaths have described this similar thing, even those with no education or educational background in psychology. I wonder if they are just abnormally sensitive (because of biology, or environment, or whatever) to those kind of expressions.
There’s never been an explanation posited, and it’s a very curious thing. Bundy definitely wasn’t the only one!
(I’m bothering you on your blog again, I apologize. I was just re-reading back over some things.)
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I totally get what Bundy meant about being able to read vulnerability in people. I think anyone who watches the general public can read it in others. Bundy preyed on this as opposed to those of us who have positive motives. He definitely used this to his advantage & we can see he was clearly successful. A lot of psychopaths know how to determine which people would be their best victims, much to society’s detriment.
Please keep reading my blog & reading about the man himself. We can learn a lot about other psychopaths by reading about him.
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Manson was high, Rancourt or Parks had a father in hospital the other was breaking up with significant other I believe (may have confused vix), Hawkins had been drinking, Naslund was wasted, Ball closed a dive bar, Campbell was sick, was it Aimee who was jonesing for a smoke? Yeah either he could sense it or they just were more vulnerable and he hit on them by chance increasing odds.
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