Ted Bundy free essay sample

Ted Bundy his Killings as Part of the Control Theory Ted Bundy was a serial killer in the 1970s, in Florida. He grew up in normal Christian loving home with five brothers and sisters. There was no drinking, drug use, or any such things round the house. Growing up Ted considered himself a â€Å"normal† kid. As Ted grew into his teens, he started having desirers of something more. Ted felt something was missing. He had a yearning for a release. Ted soon found his relief in store market porn, which served already to demonstrate his lack of ability to control his drive for deviance. As Ted aged, he found that magazine centerfolds helped him sooth his desire but he needed more. Ted progressed to movies, but his yearning needed more fuel. As the desires progressed he added violence to the print and movie porn. Ted still needed more. He needed to have his desired fulfilled. Only two of the seven girls was identified and revealed to be Janice Ott and Denise Naslund who both disappeared on the same day, for both these girls there were eye witnesses stating they say them with a man in a plaster cast who drove a VW beetle. During the months of October and November Bundy took another four victims when he moved over to Utah, one of those victims being the local police chief’s daughter. It was the Utah police that noticed that these crimes were very similar to the ones that had occurred in Washington, and sought assistance from the Washington police. It was Bundy’s partner of five years Meg Anders that recognised the description and called the police saying she thinks the killer might be her husband but because of Bundy’s charm they disregarded him as a potential suspect. On 8th November 1974 Bundy attempted to abduct a girl of the name Carol DaRonch that gave the police the break they needed as Carol had managed to escape her fate. On the same night though Debby Kent was not so fortunate being abducted and killed the same night. Caryn Campbell was the next victim to be identified on the 12th January 1975 succumbing to the vicious killing of Bundy. Police were starting to see that the Taylor Mountains was a favoured spot for Bundy for the dumping of the bodies. Despite though having found the desired dumping place police of all four states were no closer to catching Bundy then they were before. It was on 16th August 1975 that Bundy was picked up after a short chase in Salt Lake City after a police recognised the VX beetle. It was when the vehicle was searched and they uncovered handcuffs, a ski mask and a crowbar that they were able to arrest Bundy. Carol DaRonch was able to pick Bundy out of a line up and police were sure then that have caught the serial killer. A full scale investigation was set against Bundy where Meg Anders was able to assist the police; however Bundy continued to plead his innocence, although police at the time had evidence tying him to the Taylor Mountains area they were not able to tie him to all the murders that were found to be up there. Theories There are a few theories which can be applied to Ted Bundy to link together key events in his life to his offending behaviour. The first theory that will be drawn upon is the psychodynamic or hydraulic model, this theory believes that all humans if not managed properly or held in check will be prone to aggressive impulses and therefore are more likely to commit violent crimes. Sigmund Freud studied this model and came to believe that humans are born with this aggression and that it can build up during growth and if not dissipated or drained it can reach dangerous levels and hence an outburst or aggression of different types. Then there is the modelling theory, which was created by Albert Bandura. Bandura identifies three types of modelling theories being family members, members of one’s subculture and symbolic models provided by the mass media. The last model is the model that would fit best with Ted Bundy. The mass media which can include television, movies, magazines, newspapers and books are all types of symbolic models, with things such as the internet and video games advancing more and more every day. With growing children watching television more and more often, it offers to them hundreds of potentially powerful aggressive and violent models, these can range from what looks like the innocent cartoons all the way up to x rated cable movies that children have easy access to, deeming them model the behaviour they have seen and witnessed and the media no telling that it is wrong to model these types of behaviours (Barton Bartol, 2001). Both these theories can be tied into very critical events happened during his life. The hydraulic or psychodynamic model can be seen when he goes through the break up with Stephanie Brooks and then later that year he found out about his true parentage, which would have created a lot of pent up anger inside him and instead of talking to someone about it he just threw himself into work and university, and we can see this pent up frustration later when he again meets up with Stephanie and starts a relationship with her and then breaks it off with no warning just as she had done with him, giving him the revenge he wanted. Then there is the modelling theory which can be linked with his addiction to hard core pornography. Ted says in an interview with James Dobson â€Å"Before we go any further, it is important to me that people believe what I am saying. I’m not blaming pornography. I’m not saying it caused me to go out and do certain things. I take full responsibility for all the things I have done. That’s not the question here. The issue is how this kind of literature contributed and helped mould and shape the kinds of violent behaviours† (Dobson, 1995). So although the pornography wasn’t the main cause of Ted Bundy’s offences, he does believe that it certainly fuelled him and as he said it moulded and shaped the crimes which he committed. Conclusion In conclusion through this case study it is believed that the two theories being hydraulic and psychodynamic model and the modelling theory can be directly tied to key aspects in Ted Bundy’s life which could have contributed to him offending. It is believed that his addiction to hard core pornography was a key issue and although is not the primary reason he started offending it was a key mould in which fuelled his offending. There was also the break up and the finding out of his true parentage that would have caused very mixed emotions within Ted Bundy which he was not able to express and because bottled up inside of him. It was his intelligence and his charm that put police off him for so many years and was never arrested, but only to his own errors that he was eventually caught and convicted, which ultimately lead to his execution by electric chair on 24th January 1989 at 7. 00am. References Allhoff, F. (2010).