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PARK CITY — A trio of University of Utah alumni released a teaser to a Ted Bundy documentary they say will uncover new facts previously unknown about the infamous serial killer.
The project — set to spotlight Bundy's Utah ties — began earlier this year and is currently projected to be released in 2019, with the group eying a submission to Sundance Festival, according to Celene Calderon, the director of the film. It also goes into detail about his personality and why analyzing his story matters in today’s world.
Red Spur Films launched a Kickstarter campaign hoping to cover the remaining costs of the film, such as legal fees, obtaining rights for archival footage and insurance. A good chunk will be toward traveling to other Bundy-related areas.
Those locations are Vermont, where he was born, Seattle, where he grew up, Colorado, where he escaped from a courthouse, and the prison in Florida that carried out Bundy's execution, Calderon said. However, she said the projected 2019 release date may have to be pushed back without the extra funding.
Bundy was executed on Jan. 24, 1989, for abducting and murdering 12-year-old Kimberly Diane Leach who was reported missing from her junior high school in Lake City, Florida in 1978.
Bundy confessed to the murders of Nancy Wilcox, Melissa Smith, Debi Kent, Laura Ann Aime and Debbie Sue Curtis, who all disappeared from Utah between October 1974 to June 1975, while he lived in state in the mid-1970s.
He was also arrested in West Valley in August 1975 after attempting to evade a police officer. Police eventually found handcuffs, a ski mask and pantyhose with eyes holes for the eyes cut out in the car he was driving. Bundy was eventually tried and convicted of kidnapping in the Carol DaRonch case in 1976.
The documentary is about 60 percent complete, Calderon said. She added the group has unearthed a few new documents and Bundy’s own personal belongings. Those include letters to various correspondents, poems and short stories written from Bundy.
Some of that information is featured in the book “Violent Mind: The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy,” which was released in September. The book was written by Dr. Al Carlisle, who was the former psychologist for Utah State Prison at the time Bundy was in incarcerated in Utah. Carlisle is among those interviewed for the documentary.
There are also interviews in the film, including friends of Bundy, friends of Bundy’s Utah victims, former Utah law enforcement officers and even the man who was Bundy’s Mormon bishop after Bundy converted to the religion while living in Salt Lake City.
When the documentary is released, the team of Utah alumni plans on donating 5 percent of earnings to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, an anti-sexual violence organization that has helped more than 2.5 million people since 1994.
