Facebook Molly Kendall and Elizabeth Kendall with Ted Bundy.
Molly Kendall, the daughter of Ted Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kendall, had a relationship with him that appeared pure and loving. But like many aspects of the serial killer’s life, it was a facade.
The women are sharing their story for the first time in 40 years. They were interviewed for a five-part series on Amazon, “Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer,” and with ABC 20/20. The Amazon Original will be released Friday, January 31, 2020, and on 20/20 tonight at 9 p.m.
Trish Wood, executive producer of the Amazon docuseries, told 20/20 she thinks it is important to reframe the story and share the perspective of the women in his life.
“I really felt we needed to hear their stories so we could reframe this finally once and for all from the perspective of the women,” she said. “And that was important to me also because I think we need to call this what it is. It’s misogyny, it’s hatred of women. We don’t need… to figure out what the diagnosis was for Ted Bundy. Simply, he killed women because he hated them. He obliterated them. So I thought it was important to reframe it.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Molly Kendall Loved Ted Bundy & Often Went Skiing & Bike Riding With Him
The women closest to the serial killer are finally breaking their silence after 40 years.
Molly Kendall had a relationship with Ted Bundy that appeared pure on the surface. He would often take her bike riding and skiing. He had a way of making simple activities into fun games. Elizabeth Kendall and Ted Bundy dated steadily from 1969 to 1975. At that time, Molly Kendall was 3 to 10 years old. Molly Kendall viewed Bundy as the dad she never had, according to the New York Post.
When asked on 20/20 why she thinks they were spared, she responded with a story she heard from one of Bundy’s attorneys.
“I heard a story told by one of his attorneys he had. He said Ted told him that he would play games with these animals, I don’t remember if they were mice or something else. And he would let some of them live and some of them die, and to me, that’s us, we’re just these mice that were allowed to live,” she said.
Ted Bundy was sentenced to death in the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. He was executed January 24, 1989. You can read an appeal filed in his case just days before his execution here and an earlier appeal here.
Molly Kendall, Elizabeth Kendall’s Daughter, Was Sexually Abused by Ted Bundy & Wrote About Her Experiences in a Book
Amazon’s new documentary, ‘Falling For a Killer,’ tells the chilling story of the survivors and victims of the infamous murderer.
While Ted Bundy was preying on college co-eds and starting a killing spree that would lead him to become one of the most widely known serial killers in history, Bundy was sexually abusing the daughter of his girlfriend, according to the New York Post. Molly Kendall looked at Bundy as a father. He was a constant in their lives from 1969 until his arrest in 1975. At the time, Molly Kendall was 3 to 10 years old.
Bundy and Molly Kendall were often together skiing or riding bikes. However, Kendall would realize later in life he was sexually abusing her. He once crawled into bed with her, and another time he played hide and seek with the young girl while naked, according to Elizabeth Kendall’s memoir, The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy.
Molly wrote in the book about her conflicted emotions about Bundy when she was a child.
“We loved Ted,” she wrote. “He had been such a positive figure in our lives, such a help to [us], I did not want him to get in trouble … I did not want him to have to go away.”
Bundy once bragged that he could “get away with anything” because he knew his “way around the law,” according to an appeal filed in his case. In Florida, he was identified by witnesses and by a bite mark and other forensic evidence, according to an the appeal said.
Ted Bundy wrote a letter to Elizabeth Kendall after they had ended most of their contact. Molly Kendall found the letter, and threw it in a fire, fearing Bundy would renew his grip on her mother, she wrote in the memoir.
“I honestly would have taken him out back and shot him myself rather than let him hurt one more person,” she wrote.
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