Penn State professor recalls close encounters with Ted Bundy

One of history's most notorious serial killers is now in the spotlight again. The fascination surrounding Ted Bundy, the infamous convicted murderer who left little traces behind his crimes throughout the 1970s, has not yet dwindled. That has been proven through a new Netflix docu-series premiering 30 years, to the day, since his execution and a new movie coming out, starring Zac Efron as Bundy. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 murders across seven states on death row, but it is still unknown how many young women he assaulted and killed.

One Penn State professor has a unique perspective on the master manipulator. Dr. Diana Fishbein, Penn State Department of Human Development and Family Studies Professor and Program Director, says she came face-to-face with Bundy just days before he murdered two young women and assaulted three others at Florida State University. 6 News' Samantha spoke with her about her close encounters and the decision that may have saved her life.

In 1978, Dr. Fishbein was a dual major in criminology and neuroscience, pursuing her PhD at Florida State University. The young student in her early 20s began every morning by going to a coffee shop right next to campus, with her long brunette hair and books in hand. However, after months of going to this coffee shop, she decided to find a new one because of several uncomfortable encounters with a stranger.

Dr. Fishbein says, "I noticed this man sitting there across the way, without coffee, without anything to eat, without anything in front of him, and he would just stare me down and he was just very creepy and I just, you know, tried to ignore him but he was just very intense looking. The next day I went, he was there again. It was two or three days of going there and having this man without anything in front of him just staring at me and I just stopped going."

Days later, she learned of the two brutal murders and two violent assaults at the Chi Omega sorority house, as well as one other assault victim. She recalls that all of her windows and doors were open when it happened, "I was home alone that entire evening a half a block away. To discover that, it just sent chills up my spine -- how close I was and how little I cared about security at that time in my life. It just wasn't even a concern so it was really a very frightening thing."

The coffee shop, the campus, the sorority house...all were within a couple blocks-range of each other. Dr. Fishbein had no knowledge of the killings at the sorority house when they occurred, "The next morning, the campus closed down. It was just completely traumatizing to everybody. It was just the most horrendous murder you could ever imagine. I just had absolutely no idea who did it at that time so I didn't realize how close to the murderer I had come."

Flyers covered the campus, telling everyone -- especially female students -- to never walk alone, no matter the time of day. When Bundy's picture was finally revealed, Dr. Fishbein knew the face, "I went 'Oh my gosh, that is the man. That was the man who was in my coffee shop.' I was absolutely floored and shocked. It sort of just really shakes you up."

In the Netflix docu-series, "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes," Ted Bundy's blue eyes are described as seemingly turning to black at the mere thought of committing acts of evil. Eyes that Dr. Fishbein remembers vividly, "His eyes looked black to me. They really did. I could not tell you what his eye color was, they were so piercing and they didn't look light and, you know, that might have actually humanized him a little bit. It was just like having somebody just really pierce right through your, you know, your skin. I don't think I'm exaggerating, that's how I really felt because that's why I didn't want to go back into that coffee shop. I didn't want to run into him again and this was even before the murders."

Given her area of research studying the minds of psychopaths and killers, Dr. Fishbein knew some of the police officers in Florida when Bundy was taken into custody. She recalls, "One of them told me that when he was arrested, that he said to the officers, 'I have an uncontrollable need to rape, mutilate and kill young girls. Somebody should study me.' And I was -- I wanted to be that person because I was already, you know, interested in psychopaths and he was the ultimate psychopath." She adds that her experiences with Bundy gave her a personal tie to her studies, "I'm absolutely fascinated with people, individuals that are literally born without a soul, that have no conscience, that have no moral compass."

Dr. Fishbein wanted to interview or study him, but she was unable to get the clearance. She believes if people don't study and try to understand where serial killers come from, and how they become the way they are, "then we can't prevent, you know, our society from creating more people who have this, this need to kill."

She says the sorority house was an ideal opportunity for him because he was looking for a high-volume target, a challenge that would excite him, explaining that, "Serial killers have a habit of scaling up their targets so they'll start with weaker targets and then as they're successful in what they're doing, they start to gradually increase the risk associated with what they're doing."

When asked why she thinks the fascination surrounding this case has continued all these years, she says, "Ted Bundy seemed to be such a personable individual and smart and...had such wherewithal and such charisma that these weren't like raving maniacs. I think this was the first time that people started to realize that they're not irrational, you know, obviously sick people that you could immediately detect on the street. That these are people that are disguised by their normality."

She adds that a lot more is known about serial killers now than was known back then...adding that, most serial killers -- if not all -- were traumatized as children. Therefore, she believes that if issues can be detected earlier, there can be interventions earlier as well, "It's the combination of something genetic...and something that they have experienced that was very negative in their childhood that leads to them being so callous and so unemotional as adults."

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