Ted Bundy’s cousin Edna Martin reveals moment she knew he was guilty

Edna Martin was driving by Seattle along with her cousin in late 1975 when she acquired out to run an errand, leaving him within the automobile. When she returned, he was now not inside. A crowd had gathered round him. Along with his arms outstretched, he turned, appeared on the sky and mentioned, “I am Ted Bundy.”

The legislation scholar had been arrested in Utah a number of months earlier and launched on bail. By then, investigators started linking him to a collection of kidnappings and murders. Bundy appeared uncannily just like the suspect they have been in search of. The household refused to consider he was their husband.

Martin coated his mouth along with her hand and rushed him again into the car. They rode in silence. After a couple of minutes she checked out him. He smiled.

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Theodore “Ted” Bundy is seen right here after the homicide of FSU college students Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy, circa 1978. (Getty Photographs)

Martin’s coronary heart sank. It was then that she realized the allegations have been true. She silently panicked, questioning if she must crash the automobile if it all of a sudden got here in the direction of her. After they arrived at his home, he stayed quiet, calmly acquired out of the automobile and walked inside. Martin dropped onto her handlebars and mentioned to himself, “He did it.”

“My mother and father, my brother, we simply mentioned, ‘This cannot be taking place. It needs to be a mistake. They acquired the fallacious man,'” Martin, now 74, instructed Fox Information Digital. “Possibly he was within the fallacious place on the fallacious time.”

Ted Bundy was energetic within the Seventies and confessed to murdering a number of younger ladies in a number of states. (Bettmann by way of Getty Photographs)

The Washington state insurance coverage dealer admitted that her household didn’t wish to consider that Bundy – as soon as the sweet-natured baby who beloved fishing and swimming – might commit such heinous acts that will later shock the nation. Time and again they mentioned to one another, ‘This cannot be taking place.’

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“The very first thing I wished to do was meet Ted and listen to it from him,” she mentioned. “The Ted I believed I knew wasn’t the Ted who was with me. It was a distinct individual. I felt uncomfortable, however I felt shocked.”

Martin shares her story in Oxygen’s new true crime documentary, “Love, Ted Bundy.” The movie explores how one among America’s most infamous serial killers fashioned a detailed bond along with his cousin as a baby – a relationship that become what she calls “an evil persona” that haunted her for greater than 5 many years. It additionally highlights the letters Bundy despatched her whereas on dying row.

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Serial killer Ted Bundy mugshot, circa 1975 in Salt Lake County, Utah. (ALAMY)

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Bundy murdered a minimum of thirty ladies in a number of states within the Seventies. For Martin, that quantity is staggering as a result of every sufferer was somebody’s daughter, sister or pal.

Ted Bundy was one among America’s most notorious serial killers. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

“I knew one aspect of Ted,” Martin mentioned. “He was the man I frolicked with. After I moved again to Washington to complete my junior and senior years on the College of Washington, he lived about 5 – 6 minutes away. My mother and father have been glad to have him round – they thought he might handle me if I wanted something. I appeared as much as him as an enormous brother and somebody I might belief, somebody I might introduce to my pals.”

“We appeared similar to the ladies he began killing,” Martin mentioned.

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Serial killer Ted Bundy in his highschool yearbook, circa 1965. (ALAMY)

In keeping with Martin, Bundy was 5 years older than her. When his household moved to Washington, they lived underneath the identical roof as hers for a few yr.

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Investigators consider Ted Bundy might have murdered greater than 30 ladies and younger women. (Getty Photographs)

“His mom had him out of wedlock,” Martin defined. “That was a tough label to dwell with within the mid-Nineteen Forties. Folks have been laborious on unwed moms again then and my mother and father wished to provide Louise, his mom, a second probability. So he was a part of our household from the beginning.”

“He was all the time very good to me,” she mentioned. “He all the time took the time to speak to me. He appeared regular, outgoing, and my mother and father beloved him.”

Ted Bundy, left, with Leon County Sheriff’s deputies on this undated file photograph. (Tallahassee Democrat/IMAGN)

Wanting again, Martin mentioned she witnessed moments of Bundy’s unusual habits that startled her — “like he was remodeling earlier than my eyes.” When he was along with her pals, his jaw all of a sudden clenched, and he appeared ‘imply’. His brilliant blue eyes would flip black. When Martin referred to as him, he shook his head and smiled, as if nothing had occurred.

Edna Martin beforehand wrote a e-book printed in 2024 titled “Darkish Tide: Rising Up With Ted Bundy.” Earlier than talking out, Martin remained silent for greater than 50 years. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

For years, Martin questioned what went fallacious with Bundy.

“I’ve speculated about this rather a lot, and perhaps it was simply time, however his mom by no means wished to inform him who his organic father was,” she defined. ‘It grew to become more and more pressing for him to know who he was. I do not know if that was as a result of he was discovering issues about himself or if he simply wished to know what that connection was on that aspect of the household.”

“Love, Ted Bundy” options the letters the late serial killer wrote to his cousin Edna Martin. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

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“In 1969, he got here to see us on his technique to Philadelphia so he might attempt to discover out who his father was,” Martin continued. ‘I feel that had a big effect on him. He by no means came upon and his mom withheld that info. Possibly she thought she was defending him, however perhaps it had one other impact on him.”

Edna Martin speaks out within the Oxygen true crime documentary ‘Love, Ted Bundy’. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

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Nonetheless, Martin emphasised that the struggles Bundy confronted might by no means justify the lives he destroyed.

Ted Bundy is seen in custody right here on February 18, 1978. (PROPOSE)

From 1972 to 1974, feminine college students like Martin started to vanish. The Seattle Times reported. It scared her and lots of others. 4 of the lacking ladies have been from the identical faculty district the place she lived. Lynda Ann Healy, Bundy’s first recognized sufferer, disappeared in 1974 and was mentioned to be one among her roommate’s greatest pals.

Mrs. Nita Jane Neary seems at a diagram of the Chi Omega sorority home throughout her testimony within the Ted Bundy homicide trial. Neary mentioned she is assured Bundy is the person she noticed sneaking out of Florida State College’s home the morning two of her sorority sisters have been murdered. (Getty Photographs)

Martin emphasised that she by no means believed Bundy might have a darkish aspect. The documentary exhibits how she launched him to her pals and he charmed them along with his cheerful persona. When witnesses described a light-colored Volkswagen Beetle pushed by a person calling himself “Ted,” he laughed it off as a case of mistaken id.

Martin believed him.

On this 1977 photograph, serial killer Ted Bundy, middle, is escorted out of courtroom in Pitkin County, Colorado. (Glenwood Springs Submit independently by way of AP)

“I keep in mind being in Alaska and getting a name that he had been arrested,” Martin mentioned. “I simply fled [until] I lastly felt protected sufficient to scream it out of my system – as a result of how might that be? The whole lot I believed I knew about somebody was fallacious. What it does – and you actually need to combat this – is undermine your capacity to belief somebody. After I take a look at folks now, I all the time marvel what’s behind the facade.”

Edna Martin instructed Fox Information Digital that she does not like to the touch Ted Bundy’s handwritten letters along with her naked arms as a result of it makes her really feel uneasy. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

On December 30, 1977, Bundy was held within the Garfield County Jail in Colorado. He referred to as Martin’s brother and requested which states had the strictest dying penalty legal guidelines. His cousin replied, “Most definitely Texas or Florida.”

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Ted Bundy’s picture on a tv display screen on the garden of the Florida State Jail. He was executed in 1989. (Getty Photographs)

In January 1978, the FBI arrived at Martin’s residence. Bundy had escaped. In keeping with the documentary, she questioned if he had “a dying want.” Martin mentioned she’s going to by no means know the reply.

Ted Bundy waves to TV cameras right here as his costs are learn within the Leon County Jail. Bundy wished to make a press release to the press, however was instructed {that a} courtroom order banning him from chatting with reporters was nonetheless in impact. (Getty Photographs)

“He might have been drawn to the problem of being someplace that had a lot hazard,” she instructed Fox Information Digital. “Possibly it was a spot the place getting caught might imply execution. You’ll be able to’t assist however marvel.’

On January 15, 1978, Bundy carried out a horrific assault in Tallahassee, Florida, killing two Chi Omega sororities and wounding three different ladies, The Related Press reported. Lower than a month later, he kidnapped, abused and murdered a 12-year-old lady named Kimberly Leach in Lake Metropolis, Florida, the outlet reported. She was Bundy’s final sufferer.

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On February 15, 1978, Bundy was arrested for the final time. He was convicted of homicide in Florida in 1979 and 1980. He was sentenced to dying.

Portrait of Kimberly Leach, who was murdered on February 9, 1978. (Acey Harper/Getty Photographs)

Martin mentioned she wrote to Bundy repeatedly, hoping to grasp what drove him to homicide. In her letters, she requested if there have been another victims who had by no means been recognized and urged him to disclose the place the unrecovered stays may be. Bundy wrote again, however he gave her no solutions.

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In 1989, Bundy was executed in Florida’s electrical chair on the age of 42. For Martin, his dying meant an finish, however many questions remained.

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Edna Martin admitted to Fox Information Digital that she nonetheless struggles with trusting folks. (Oxygen © Versant Media)

Many years later, Martin mentioned the expertise eternally modified the way in which she views belief.

“I actually beloved that individual,” she mentioned. “Is that onerous to consider? I did not love the dangerous individual. I actually cared in regards to the individual I knew. All I might keep in mind was the person I knew. I did not know the opposite man. … The trauma did not go away. And I discovered which you can’t bury trauma.”

Oxygen’s “Love, Ted Bundy” airs February 15 at 6 p.m