REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Zac Efron
Born: October 18, 1987 Birthplace: San Luis Obispo, California, USA | Ted Bundy
Born: November 24, 1946 Birthplace: Burlington, Vermont, USA Death: January 24, 1989, Florida State Prison, Bradford County, Florida, USA (Execution by Electric Chair) |
Lily Collins
Born: March 18, 1989 Birthplace: Guildford, Surrey, England, UK | Liz Kloepfer
Ted Bundy's Girlfriend |
Angela Sarafyan
Born: June 30, 1983 Birthplace: Yerevan, Armenian SSR, USSR (now Armenia) | Marylynne Chino
Born: February 16, 1945 Renamed Joanna in the movie |
John Malkovich
Born: December 9, 1953 Birthplace: Christopher, Illinois, USA | Judge Edward D. Cowart
Born: February 17, 1925 Birthplace: Plant City, Florida, USA Death: August 3, 1987, Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA |
Kaya Scodelario
Born: March 13, 1992 Birthplace: Holloway, London, England, UK | Carole Ann Boone
Born: August 8, 1954 Birthplace: USA Bundy's Wife |
Jim Parsons
Born: March 24, 1973 Birthplace: Houston, Texas, USA | Larry D. Simpson
Florida Prosecutor |
James Hetfield
Born: August 3, 1963 Birthplace: Downey, California, USA | Robert "Bob" Hayward
Born: November 18, 1926 Birthplace: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Death: August 5, 2017 Ted Bundy's Arresting Officer |
Grace Victoria Cox
Born: March 10, 1995 Birthplace: Lexington, Kentucky, USA | Carol DaRonch
Born: abt 1956 Birthplace: Utah, USA Survivor |
In researching the Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile true story, we learned that Bundy obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Washington and went to graduate school at the University of Utah Law School in Salt Lake City. He would later use his background in law to defend himself at his murder trial.
Yes. In the movie, we see Bundy (Zac Efron) meeting secretary Liz Kloepfer (Lily Collins) for the first time at a Seattle college bar in 1969. The real bar was the Sandpiper Lounge. Like in the film, Kloepfer was a single mom of a young daughter named Tina. Kloepfer became Bundy's domestic partner during the years that he was establishing himself as a prolific serial killer. They remained together for seven years. However, according to Ann Rule's book The Stranger Beside Me, Bundy dated "at least a dozen" other women while attending law school in Utah. Kloepfer dated other people as well.
Yes. A 1992 multi-agency team report directed by the U.S. Department of Justice confirms what's seen in the Ted Bundy movie. The report states, "He would feign an injury and indicate he needed assistance or he would portray an authority figure such as a police officer. He thus persuaded the victim to voluntarily accompany him to his tan Volkswagen Beetle where he had secreted a crowbar near the rear of the vehicle.
Upon reaching the vehicle, he would retrieve the crowbar and strike the victim over the head, rendering her unconscious. He would then handcuff her and place her in the passenger side of the vehicle, which he had modified by removing the seat." The report was based on interviews with Bundy while he was on death row.
Like in the movie, the Extremely Wicked true story confirms that Bundy confessed to the murders of 30 females. However, his attorney, John Henry Browne, and others have stated that he could have killed as many as 100 women between 1973 and 1978, in addition to one man.
"We may never know the total extent of his devastation," said former FBI Director William S. Sessions in 1992. Bundy's killing spree stretched across the country; he confessed to murdering 11 people in Washington, one in California, two each in Idaho and Oregon, three each in Florida and Colorado, and eight in Utah. -People
Yes. The true story reveals that Ted Bundy's attachment to Liz Kloepfer in the movie is accurate. According to Kloepfer's 1981 memoir The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy, his affection was genuine and he even panicked at the notion of losing her after he was arrested.
Yes. According to the Department of Justice report, Ted Bundy made return trips to all of his crime scenes.
No. In the movie, Bundy keeps telling Liz about author Henri Charrière's prison-escape novel Papillon. He even gives it to her as a gift when she comes to visit him in prison. In real life, Liz never mentions Papillon in her memoir. Instead, it seems to be a symbolic element added to the movie to give Ted hope that he will one day get out of prison.
Yes. It might seem far-fetched, but in examining the Extremely Wicked true story, this actually happened. Ted Bundy was taken into custody in 1975 and was convicted of the kidnapping and attempted murder of Carol DaRonch. Several months into his prison sentence, he was charged with the murder of a Colorado woman named Caryn Campbell. The murder trial was held in Aspen, Colorado and Bundy was transferred to Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado prior to the start of the trial. He managed to escape by jumping from a second-floor courthouse library window while acting as his own attorney. He was recaptured eight days later.
No. "Jerry is an invented character who is just sort of in the position of trying to pull Liz out of the Bundy black hole," Osment said at Sundance, "and to sort of try to get her to envision a life beyond him" (IMDb). While there was no real colleague named Jerry who she turned to, in her memoir, she eventually confides in a man she calls Hank who she met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Yes. Bundy inflicted the bite marks during his murderous 1978 killing spree at Florida State University's Chi Omega sorority house, where he bludgeoned four women with a piece of oak firewood. Two of the women died from their injuries and authorities were able to match bite marks on one of the deceased women's buttocks to castings of Bundy's teeth.
Even though the 1970s weren't that long ago, forensic science has come a long way since then. For example, DNA profiling wasn't used by law enforcement until the late 1980s (it was first accepted as admissible in U.S. courts in 1988), roughly a decade after Bundy's final arrest.
Yes. In performing our fact-check of the Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Ted Bundy movie, we confirmed that this part of the film is largely accurate (in part because there is footage of the trial). The former law student acted as his own attorney after brushing his state-appointed council aside. It was the first nationally televised trial in America and Bundy became the star of the show. He indeed wore a blue blazer and a large, dark bowtie, as if he was a performer (or a used car salesman) ready to sell the audience on his innocence.
No. Director Joe Berlinger admitted that the in-person encounter at the end of the film is fictional. Ted Bundy actually revealed the truth to former girlfriend Kloepfer during a phone call, not in person at the prison. "The phone call is far less dramatic than a final real-life confrontation," Berlinger told Collider at Sundance, "but the emotional truth of what occurred in that conversation, whether it's done in person or versus a phone, you're going for the same emotional truth. That's my philosophy anyway."
According to Kloepfer, unlike the movie, Bundy never directly admitted his guilt to her. He told her that "there is something the matter with me ... I just couldn't contain it. I've fought it for a long, long time ... it got too strong." When she asked him to clarify, he responded, "Don't make me say it." He never did and the phone call ended.
For his crimes in the state of Florida, Ted Bundy was executed by way of Florida's electric chair on January 24, 1989 at age 42.
Watch Ted Bundy take the stand in this footage from his 1979 murder trial in Florida. Also witness Judge Edward D. Cowart deliver Ted Bundy's death sentence.