I thought I knew how depraved and despicable core serial-slayer Ted Bundy was when I began The Only Living Witness (1983) for the first time earlier this month.

I was wrong.

Keyly, corely wrong.

As I discovered when I reached this putrefactively performative passage:

I wanted to know how Lynda Healy had been taken from her bedroom. “I guess you would have had to dress her?” I ventured.

Ted ignored my use of “you”.

“In that kind of situation,” he replied mechanically, “a person who was alert enough to be able to dress would not be afraid in terms of struggling or crying out. So it would be unlikely that any attempt was made to clothe the girl.” — from chapter 5 of The Only Living Witness, Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth (revised edition 1989)

It’s always possible to go lower and get worse, it seems. Bundy trained as a lawyer. That’s bad. Bundy used “in terms of”. That’s worse. (dot dot dot)

Ted should of course have said: “afraid to struggle…” or “afraid about struggling…”

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• Ex-term-in-ate!
• All Posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”
• Don’t Do Dot… (also interrogates issues around “core” and “spike”)…
• Heresy, Homotextuality, Hive-Mind…