‘What's one less person on the face of the Earth, anyway?’: Linguistic Manipulation and Nonverbal Communication taking Ted Bundy’s 1977 and 1989 Interviews as Case Study

Abstract

The present thesis focuses on the linguistic manipulation employed by the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, who was able to deceive many people with his charm both in the years he operated and nowadays. The thesis takes into consideration his language, through a discourse analysis, as well as his nonverbal communication, through a visual analysis of two major interviews that symbolize Ted Bundy’s manipulation skills; the first interview was conducted on March 17th, 1977, when Ted Bundy was still pleading innocent, while the second was recorded on January 23rd, 1989, which was the day before his execution, when he had already confessed of having murdered at least 30 women. The thesis also examines some of the theorical insights from pragmatics and psychology (mainly discussing Ted Bundy’s mental evaluations), and it includes a short biography of the serial killer, narrating some of the events which could have potentially led Bundy to become such a cruel and heartless murderer. The main findings of the analysis reflect Ted Bundy’s manipulatory behaviour and show the charm and charisma which managed to trick and deceive his victims and many people involved in the case. For this reason, the present thesis also includes some considerations on how Bundy was perceived by the public and how he was able to operate in plain sight for many years; furthermore, the thesis also shows how the media influenced the case and discusses how the Ted Bundy case is still incredibly popular even among young people. Future research could focus on the manipulation skills of other serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy or Richard Ramirez and therefore compare them with Ted Bundy so as to study how these people think and operate, hence trying to detect this kind of behaviour in advance in the future.