In an excerpt from her book, "Dark Tide: Growing up with Ted Bundy," his cousin Edna Cowell Martin revealed the conversation that made her realize she was speaking to a maniacal killer - and says he enjoyed making her uncomfortable.
Initially, Martin believed Bundy's pleas of innocence when he was first charged. However, during one chilling conversation, she began to suspect that he might be a prolific killer , despite his denials.
Martin says she questioned him at the time and sensed he may have been lying despite his denial and smooth-talking. Still, as family, she had plenty of moments alone with him - describing one in particular detail and coming to the conclusion: "My fear represented a power he had over me, and I could sense he liked it."
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After some accusations came to light, the two of them met at a bookstore, where Martin says she finally saw what she most feared in Bundy. As she paid for her things at the register, she noticed a crowd gathering down the blocks. She ran there as soon as she was done.
Reaching the end of the block, she recognized Ted , standing there in the middle of the street, with a crowd gathered around him, muttering something strange. "Somehow, I pushed through them, and there I got my first good look. This is the image that probably haunts me most, the image that still, fifty years later, makes my heart rate surge. Ted's arms were outstretched wide, a street-corner messiah, and he was slowly turning in a circle," she wrote.
Standing there smiling and chanting over and over, projecting for all to hear, he repeated the phrase, "I'm Ted Bundy. I'm Ted Bundy. I'm Ted Bundy."
"I knew then with certainty, as I watched him speak those horrible words, that Ted had another side, a darker side, and it was that Ted whom I was seeing. If, up to that point, I'd been viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, this was the moment they shattered," wrote Martin.
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Martin, now in her 70s, grew up with Ted Bundy 'like a brother' and has now published a book that describes their relationship and what the horrific killer was like to his family.
She reports that she had a moment where she asked him, "So, Ted, Did you do it?" But he denied all the allegations, as he would continue to do until nearly the end of his life.
"He didn't respond at first, and in that silence, a part of me died. It struck me then, for the first time, that he could answer yes, and if he did, I had no idea what I'd do. I took my eyes off the road to look at him," Martin explained.
"He smiled, a very familiar Cowell smile, and shrugged. 'Edna,' he said, 'of course not.'" Completely relaxed, he went on to explain that it was all a case of mistaken identity, and that the truth would come out eventually."
In recent times, Martin has become increasingly outspoken about her encounters with her notorious cousin. In June, she revealed letters exchanged with the malevolent mass murderer for the first time upon the release of her book.
The letters unveil Bundy's comparisons of his incarceration to the plight of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.
Edna, the first family member of Ted Bundy to publicly discuss their shared upbringing, has revealed letters and stories from their past. These communications, half a century following his arrest in 1975, include desperate pleas for him to reveal the location of his victim's bodies as his execution date approached.
In the 1970s, during his time in Tacoma, Washington, Ted Bundy was known as a "normal," charming individual. He managed to keep his heinous crimes hidden, even though some victims were part of his social circle.
The cousin remarked that her childhood felt largely normal with Bundy, who was five years senior, seeming more like an older brother. However, on reflection, she identified potential signs of early psychopathy in him, such as his fondness for lurid detective novels.
Edna ever endeavored to understand the warped mindset of the killer by questioning him about his assumed motivations behind the hideous crimes. Despite initially denying murder to his cousin in letters, Bundy ultimately admitted to it, shortly before his end.
"I will tell you this much, I have not killed anyone," was one line from Bundy's death row letter, who, according to Martin, played more of a "brother" figure in Edna's life. He coldly added, "I have no guilt, remorse, or regret over anything I've done. What's done is done."
Edna revealed her horrifying realization of Bundy's true nature as she tried to reconcile her happy childhood memories of the affable, caring boy she knew with Bundy's eventual evolution into a gruesome killer.
Bundy was first charged with murder in 1976, but not before dozens of women had already been tragically killed or vanished. After over ten years of constant refutation, Bundy finally confessed to 30 murders that he had committed across seven states from 1974 to 1978.
At the age of 42, Bundy was put to death in Florida State Prison, having confessed to the horrific murders of 30 women. He would usually beat his victims to death before committing unthinkable post-mortem acts on them.
It wasn't unusual for Bundy to spend entire nights with the lifeless bodies of his victims, engaging in physical relations with them.
The terrifying rituals would only cease when the victim's body became too decomposed or had been consumed by wildlife. Bundy even went as far as beheading some of his victims, taking their heads back home where he would continue his appalling acts.
He would brush and style their hair, apply make-up, and carry out sexual acts, displaying a demented form of gentility.
Adding to his stack of confessions, Bundy shockingly admitted to having consumed parts of his victims in a twisted effort to "possess them[" and incorporate them into himself. Half-boastingly referring to himself as a murder addict, Bundy asserted the act of killing transformed him into a God-like figure.
In one of his most eerie confessions straight from the depths of the dark human psyche, Bundy professed: "You feel their last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God."
Thankfully, the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy could have been apprehended before his final few murders. Several women had reported being approached by a man named 'Ted,' and even his ex-girlfriend had informed the police that she suspected Bundy was behind the killing spree.
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In 1975, Bundy was finally sentenced to 15 years in prison for the kidnapping of Carol DeRanch, one of the rare survivors of his attacks.
However, Bundy managed to escape through a jailhouse window just two years into his sentence. Although he was recaptured eight days later, Bundy astonishingly managed to break free again a few months later by climbing out of a hole in his cell's ceiling.
In 1978, Bundy was finally recaptured and confessed to the murders of 36 people. He received three death sentences and spent the remainder of his life on death row, where it has been reported that he was regularly sexually assaulted by other inmates.
However, experts and law enforcement believe that the actual number of victims who died at Bundy's hands is much higher than what he confessed to.
Edna wrote, pleading with Bundy: "For the sake of your family and especially the families of your victims, will you please explain what happened? Some of the women you murdered have never been found."
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