News

By Kathleen Gilbert

COLORADO SPRINGS, January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On the 20th anniversary of his execution, the final interview with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, in which he warned of the deadly effects of pornography addiction, the primary factor that he says led to his notorious killing spree in the 1970s, was re-aired by Focus on the Family.

Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, also appeared on Fox News’ “Glenn Beck” last Friday to discuss his historic final interview with Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.  Last Friday marked the 20th anniversary of the Jan. 23, 1989 interview, which took place on the eve of Bundy’s execution in a Florida state prison, and was originally released as Focus on the Family’s 1989 videotape, “Fatal Addiction.”

“Pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my home 20, 30 years ago,” Bundy told Dobson. “I’ll tell you, there are lots of other kids playing in streets around the country who are going to be dead tomorrow and the next day and the next day and next month, because other young people are reading the kinds of things and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today.”

Bundy permitted only Dr. Dobson to interview him in his final hours because, as Dobson noted, “Bundy wanted to talk about the role media violence and particularly violent, hard-core pornography had played in his years-long killing spree, and he knew the mainstream media wouldn’t report that story.”

Despite growing up in an almost idyllic Christian home, Bundy said that his moral values were subverted by the softcore pornography he discovered outside his home as a preteen.  The addiction led him to view materials that were not only pornographic but also violent in nature.  “The wedding of those two forces – as I know only too well – brings about behavior that is too terrible to describe,” said Bundy.

“Those of us who have been so influenced by violence in the media, particularly pornographic violence, are not some kind of inherent monsters. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in regular families,” he said.

“There are those loose in their towns and communities, like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media in its various forms – particularly sexualized violence. What scares me is when I see what’s on cable TV. Some of the violence in the movies that come into homes today is stuff they wouldn’t show in X-rated adult theatres 30 years ago. 

“That is the most graphic violence on screen, especially when children are unattended or unaware that they could be a Ted Bundy; that they could have a predisposition to that kind of behavior,” he said.

Bundy emphasized his full accountability for the murders, but made clear that his addiction to pornography ignited and fueled the crimes that otherwise would never have happened.  He also insisted that, of others he met who had a similar tendency to violence, “without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography.”

“Sadly, Bundy was right,” Dobson said. “Pornography has been found in the possession of almost every killer where sex was the motivation.”

To see excerpts of the interview, go to: https://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000009138.cfm