On November 24, 1946, Theodore Robert Cowell was born to the single twenty-two-year-old Eleanor Louise Cowell. At the age of five, Cowell's young son assumed the surname of his new step-father, Johnnie Culpepper Bundy. While he was academically successful as a child, Ted Bundy grew up to be a serial killer.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bundy successfully studied psychology at the University of Washington, sent out applications to attend various law schools across the country, and became active in politics by doing volunteer work for the Republican Party. Bundy also began to lead a secret life: he assaulted and murdered a reported thirty-six women in as many as four states.

During the spring and summer 1974, at least seven female students disappeared in the states of Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Over time, officers investigating these disappearances discovered that many of the missing women shared similarities in appearance and...