Biography
On November 24, 1946, Eleanor Louise Cowell gave birth to a boy at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont, and named him Theodore Robert Cowell. Raised to believe that Louise was his sister, Ted would grow up confused about the exact nature of their relationship. He learned the truth years later when he returned to Vermont to search his birth records.
Louise returned to her parents' home with her baby, where they spent the next three years. By most accounts, her father, Samuel, was a violent, tyrannical bully, and racist; Ted told Ann Rule that he "identified with", "respected", and "clung to" him. Ted would describe his grandmother, also named Eleanor, as a timid and obedient woman. She often underwent electro-convulsive therapy for depression.
In 1950, at the urging of multiple family members, Louise left Philadelphia with Ted, and moved to Tacoma, Washington. There, she met and married cook John Bundy, who adopted Ted. Although John tried to be a father figure, making it a point to include him in family activities, Ted remained distant; he told a girlfriend that John "wasn't very bright", and "didn't make much money". Aside from being a suspect in a few burglaries, Ted was, by outward appearances, a bright, well-adjusted young man who seemed destined for big things. He even attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami as a Nelson Rockefeller delegate.
Louise was working as a secretary at the University of Puget Sound when Ted began his killing spree. Biographers and criminologists agree that the killings were triggered by a girl who had ended their romance because she thought he was immature and lacked ambition; many of his victims bore an eerie resemblance to her. In 1973, four years after the breakup, Ted, now an assistant to the Chairman of the Washington Republican Party, and considered a rising star in state politics, re-entered her life. Swept off her feet by the "new Ted", as soon as she accepted his marriage proposal, he dumped her. On January 4, 1974, the day after the breakup, he assaulted his first known victim.
Even after confessing to her on the eve of his execution that he murdered at least 30 women and girls in Washington, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Florida, Louise remained Ted's staunchest supporter, her last words to him reportedly "You'll always be my precious son".
