Editing Ted Bundy (section)

== Pathology ==
Bundy underwent multiple psychiatric examinations; the experts' conclusions varied. [[Dorothy Otnow Lewis]], a professor of psychiatry at the [[New York University School of Medicine]] and an authority on violent behavior, initially made a diagnosis of [[bipolar disorder]],{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=152}} but later changed her impression more than once.{{sfn|Rule|2009|p=xiv}}{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1999|p=331}} She also suggested the possibility of a [[dissociative identity disorder|multiple personality disorder]], based on behaviors described in interviews and court testimony; a great-aunt witnessed an episode during which Bundy "seemed to turn into another, unrecognizable person&nbsp;... [she] suddenly, inexplicably found herself afraid of her favorite nephew as they waited together at a dusk-darkened train station. He had turned into a stranger."{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=154}} Lewis recounted a prison official in Tallahassee describing a similar transformation: "He said, 'He became weird on me.' He did a metamorphosis, a body and facial change, and he felt there was almost an odor emitting from him. He said, 'Almost a complete change of personality&nbsp;... that was the day I was afraid of him.{{' "}}{{sfn|Nelson|1994|pp=231–232}}

While experts found Bundy's precise diagnosis elusive, the majority of evidence pointed away from bipolar disorder or other [[Psychosis|psychoses]],<ref name="Mack1999" /> and toward [[antisocial personality disorder]] (ASPD).{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1999|p=13}} Bundy displayed many personality traits typically found in ASPD patients, such as outward charm and charisma with little true personality or genuine insight beneath the facade;<ref name="Long" /> the ability to distinguish right from wrong, but with minimal effect on behavior;<ref name="LilienfeldArkowitz2007-11-28" /><ref>"[Ted knew the difference] between right and wrong, but it didn't matter, because ''he'' was special, and ''he'' deserved to have and do what he wanted. ''He'' was the center of the world; we were all paper-doll figures who didn't matter." {{harvnb|Rule|2009|pp=611–612}}</ref> and an absence of guilt or remorse.<ref name="Long" /> "Guilt doesn't solve anything, really," Bundy said in 1981. "It hurts you ... I guess I am in the enviable position of not having to deal with guilt."{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth |1989|p=281}} There was also evidence of [[narcissism]], poor judgment and manipulative behavior. Upon assessment using the [[Psychopathy Checklist|Psychopathy Checklist–revised]] (PCL-R), Bundy was reportedly evaluated as 39/40.<ref name="next_door">{{Cite episode |title=The Psychopath Next Door |url=https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2618078499 |series=Doc Zone |series-link=Doc Zone |network=[[CBC Television]] |station=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=November 27, 2014 |season=2014–15 |number=7 |minutes=3 |access-date=May 2, 2023 |archive-date=May 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502231627/https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2618078499 |url-status=live }}</ref> Prosecutor [[George R. Dekle Sr.|George Dekle]] wrote, "Sociopaths are egotistical manipulators who think they can con anybody."{{sfn|Dekle|2011|p=131}} "Sometimes he manipulates even me," admitted one psychiatrist.{{sfn|Von Drehle|1995|p=288}} In the end, Lewis agreed with the majority: "I always tell my graduate students that if they can find me a real, true psychopath, I'll buy them dinner," she told Nelson. "I never thought they existed ... but I think Ted may have been one, a true psychopath, without any remorse or empathy at all."{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=316}} [[Narcissistic personality disorder]] (NPD) and its subtype [[malignant narcissism]] have both been proposed as alternative diagnoses in at least one subsequent retrospective analysis.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Douglas B.|last1=Samuel|first2=Thomas A.|last2=Widiger|title=Describing Ted Bundy's Personality and Working towards DSM-V|journal=Independent Practitioner|publisher=Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky|location=Lexington, Kentucky|date=2007|volume=27|issue=1|pages=20–22}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Griffith |first=Kaitlyn |title=You Might Think This Article Is About You: A Neurological Overview of Narcissistic Personality Disorder |url=https://digital.kenyon.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=skneuro |journal=The Scientific Kenyon|volume=5|date=December 2021|access-date=1 April 2024 |archive-date=December 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203231315/https://digital.kenyon.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=skneuro |url-status=live }}</ref>

On the afternoon before he was executed, Bundy granted a videotaped interview to [[James Dobson]], a psychologist and founder of the [[Evangelicalism|Christian evangelical]] organization [[Focus on the Family]].<ref name="BundyDobsonInterview" /> He used the opportunity to make new claims about violence in the media and the [[pornography|pornographic]] "roots" of his crimes. "It happened in stages, gradually," he said. "My experience with ... pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality, is once you become addicted to it ... I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Until you reach a point where the pornography only goes so far ... where you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it would give that which is beyond just reading it or looking at it."<ref name="Shapiro2005" /> Violence in the media, he said, "particularly sexualized violence," sent boys "down the road to being Ted Bundys."<ref name="Meyers" /> The FBI, he suggested, should stake out adult movie houses and follow patrons as they leave.{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=319}} "You are going to kill me," he said, "and that will protect society from me. But out there are many, many more people who are addicted to pornography, and you are doing nothing about that."<ref name="Meyers" />

While Nelson was apparently convinced that Bundy's concern was genuine,{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=319}} most biographers,{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1989|p=320}}{{sfn|Rule|2009|p=611}}{{sfn|Keppel|2005|pp=401–402}} researchers,<ref>{{cite web|first=P.|last=Hyatt|title=Ted Bundy's Final Interview|url=http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2012/10/statement-analysis-ted-bundys-final.html|website=Statement Analysis|publisher=[[Blogspot.com]]|date=October 3, 2012|access-date=June 18, 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130907141045/http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2012/10/statement-analysis-ted-bundys-final.html |archive-date=September 7, 2013}}</ref> and other observers<ref name="Goldstein" /> have concluded that his sudden condemnation of pornography was one last manipulative attempt to shift blame by catering to Dobson's agenda as a longtime pornography critic.{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=318}} He told Dobson that "true crime" detective magazines had "corrupted" him and "fueled [his] fantasies ... to the point of becoming a serial killer"; yet in a 1977 letter to Rule, he wrote, "Who in the world reads these publications? ... I have never purchased such a magazine, and [on only] two or three occasions have I ever picked one up."{{sfn|Rule|2009|pp=611–412}} He told Michaud and Aynsworth in 1980, and Hagmaier the night before he spoke to Dobson, that pornography played a negligible role in his development as a serial killer.{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1999|p=340}} "The problem wasn't pornography," wrote Dekle. "The problem was Bundy."{{sfn|Dekle|2011|p=219}} "I wish I could believe that his motives were [[altruism|altruistic]]," wrote Rule. "But all I can see in that Dobson tape is another Ted Bundy manipulation of our minds. The effect of the tape is to place, once again, the onus of his crimes, not on himself, but on us."{{sfn|Rule|2009|p=611}}

[[File:Bundy & Hagmaier.jpg|thumb|right|Hagmaier and Bundy during their final death row interview on the eve of Bundy's execution, January 23, 1989]]
Rule and Aynesworth both noted that for Bundy, the fault always lay with someone or something else. While he eventually confessed to 30 murders, he never accepted responsibility for any of them, even when offered that opportunity prior to the Chi Omega trial, which would have spared him the death penalty.{{sfn|Rule|2009|pp=603–604}} He deflected blame onto a wide variety of [[scapegoat]]s, including his abusive grandfather, the absence of his biological father, the concealment of his true parentage by his mother, alcohol, the media, the police whom he accused of planting evidence, society in general, violence on television and, ultimately, true crime periodicals and pornography.{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1989|pp=216–222, 250}} He blamed television programming, which he watched mostly on sets that he had stolen, for "brainwashing" him into stealing credit cards.{{sfn|Rule|2009|p=404}} On at least one occasion, he even tried to [[Victim blaming|blame his victims]]: "I have known people who ... radiate vulnerability," he wrote in a 1977 letter to Kloepfer. "Their facial expressions say 'I am afraid of you.' These people invite abuse ... By expecting to be hurt, do they subtly encourage it?"{{sfn|Kendall|1981|p=167}} Another significant element of [[delusion]] permeated Bundy's thinking:

<blockquote>"Bundy was always surprised when anyone noticed that one of his victims was missing, because he imagined America to be a place where everyone is invisible except to themselves. And he was always astounded when people testified that they had seen him in incriminating places, because Bundy did not believe people noticed each other."{{sfn|Von Drehle|1995|pp=288–289}}</blockquote>

"I don't know why everyone is out to get me," Bundy complained to Lewis. "He really and truly did not have any sense of the enormity of what he had done," she said.{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1999|p=340}} "A long-term serial killer erects powerful barriers to his guilt," Keppel wrote, "walls of denial that can sometimes never be breached."{{sfn|Michaud|Aynesworth|1989|p=xi}} Nelson agreed. "Each time he was forced to make an actual confession," she wrote, "he had to leap a steep barrier he had built inside himself long ago."{{sfn|Nelson|1994|p=280}}