Ted Bundy Spent The First Few Years Of His Life Thinking His Mom Was His Sister (2024)

• Ted Bundy's mom briefly appears in the new docuseries, Falling for a Killer.
• Bundy was born in a home for unwed mothers and grew up first believing his mom was his sister.
• After the serial killer's mom married his stepdad, John Bundy, he was adopted and took on that last name.

Serial killer Ted Bundy's story has captured America's curiosity about his life and background this past year, as movies like Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Amazon Prime Video's new five-part docuseries Falling for a Killer tell his story from different angles.

The newest exploration into Bundy and his 1970s killing spree (he murdered at least thirty women, though the exact number is still unknown) features interviews with many women who knew Bundy, including his ex-girlfriend, Liz Kendall, her daughter, Molly, the survivors of his attacks, and some victims' families. But one woman who wasn't able to be included in Falling for a Killer was Ted Bundy's mom, Eleanor Louise Cowell. In the docuseries, she appears only in an old television interview, during which she and the mother of Susan Rancourt, one of Bundy's victims, come to a shared understanding because they both lost their children. (Bundy received the death penalty and was executed via electric chair in Florida.)

Falling for a Killer doesn't spend too much time delving into this aspect of the serial killer's life, leaving many to wonder about Ted Bundy's parents and childhood. Turns out, it was pretty bizarre. Here's everything you need to know:

Bundy initially thought his mother was his sister.

He was born at a home for unwed mothers in Burlington Vermont on November 24, 1946. According to Biography, his mother, who was known as Louise, considered placing her baby up for adoption, but her father, Sam Cowell, wanted Ted to join the family in Philadelphia. So he was raise thinking Louise was his sister, not his mother.

Bundy was later raised by a stepdad, and they didn't get along.

At 3 years old, Bundy moved with Louise to the Tacoma, Washington area, where she met Johnnie Bundy, an Army hospital cook. They married in 1951, and Ted was supposedly jealous of the relationship. Johnnie eventually adopted Ted, and he took on the Bundy last name. Still, (Ted) Bundy would often act out, and it was a "tense" relationship and home life.

He had violent tendencies and started breaking the law.

In the Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer, Sandi Holt (who grew up with Bundy) said he "liked to scare people," according to Biography. She recounted how he liked to dig holes and cover them up, with at least one girl falling in and hurting her leg in what he called "tiger traps," per the Chicago Sun Times.

Bundy also started shoplifting and apparently forged ski lift tickets so he could ski for free, Biography says. He then became a "peeping Tom" who spied on strangers, according to A&E.

But Bundy's mom never abandoned him after his crimes.

According to USA Today, Louise Bundy died in 2013. For years, she, like Bundy's wife Carole Boone, believe her son was innocent and denied that he committed the crimes he was accused of in multiple states.

"Ted Bundy does not go around killing women and little children!" she told The News Tribune in 1980 after he was convicted in the Florida killings. "And I know this, too, that our never-ending faith in Ted—our faith that he is innocent—has never wavered. And it never will."

Her stance supposedly changed after Bundy made a number of death-row confessions, the newspaper reported, but she was in touch with Bundy all the way up to his execution, talking to him twice on the day he was executed.