tedbundy:

Police say Bundy 1st  sought death, then changed his mind

From the Mobile Press Register - Sunday, January 22, 1989

Ted Bundy initially said he wished he had been killed, but then vowed to use stalling tactics to prolong his execution, say police officers who arrested and interrogated the suspected serial killer.

Pensacola Patrolman David Lee, now a captain with the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in Lake City, where Ms. Leach was killed, arrested Bundy in the pre-down hours of Feb. 15, 1978.

Lee, 38, fired his revolver twice, once into the air as the two men struggled and then at Bundy when he broke away. Bundy went down but was unhurt. He was playing possum, then struggled with Lee again before the officer subdued him with a whack to the face with the barrel of his gun.

Once in Lee’s patrol car, Bundy made some startling comments.

« He made the request several times that he wished I had just killed him, » Lee said in an interview with the Rocky Moutain News of Denver, Colorado. « He said, ‘If I run when I get to the jail, will you shoot me?’ »

But Bundy later changed his tune, telling Pensacola Police Lt. Norman Chapman Jr. he planned a succession of delays to forestall his execution.

« He said, ‘This is how I’m going to survive,’ » Chapman recalled in an interview published today in the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach. « He laid out exactly what he was going to do. He said, ‘I’ll delay and stall.’ »

Bundy’s plan included « messing with attorneys, » Chapman said. During his two Florida murder trials and the ensuing appeals Bundy frequently changed legal tactics, as well as lawyers. Sometimes, he acted as his own.

« Over the last 11 years I’ve watched and everything Bundy said would happen has happened, » Chapman said.

« The second night we had him, he told me he wasn’t going to confess to anything, » Chapman said. « He would have to compromise something in himself to tell about those other murders. I don’t think he can do that. »

Bundy who had eluded capture for years and then escaped from a Colorado jail, was caught after Lee spotted him driving without lights from behind a closed restaurant in this city at the western end of Florida’s Panhandle.

Lee suspected he might be a burglar, and he turned on his blue lights, Bundy accelerated. But Lee caught up with him after about a mile and pulled Bundy over.

Bundy, who gave a false name, kept asking what was wrong.

« He sounded real sincere, » Lee recalled.

« I’m thinking, maybe there’s a mistake here. »

But Lee knew it was no mistake when Bundy kicked his legs out from under him and jumped on top the fallen officer.

« When I went down, I fired a round in the air, » Lee said.

Bundy ran. Lee said he had forgotten he managed to get chrome handcuffs on one of Lundy’s wrist. When he saw them gleam in the light of a street lamp he thought it was a gun and fired another shot. He shot to kill this time and Bundy went down.

« When I rolled him over to see how bad he was hurt, that’s when he came back ‘alive’, trying to take my pistol from me, » Lee said.

Bundy yelled for help and a homeowner looked out the front doors and shouted, « Somebody help that man. »

Lee laughed and recalled, « I needed help probably more than Bundy did. »