Abstract
No Body, No Crime examines the challenges and dynamics that arise when interviewing psychopaths and the surprising incidents of honest disclosure that can occur. At times, the interviewer can use clever ploys, such as allowing the subject to speak in third person about their crimes to dissociate them from their conduct, something that Michaud and Aynesworth did during their death row conversations with Bundy. This approach provided numerous insights into Bundy’s offense behavior and its full extent that was previously unknown, which is consistent with the criminological concept of the dark figure of crime. A central theme that emerged from these conversations was that murders where the victim’s body was not recovered are much less likely to be solved, if ever and the revelation that Bundy buried most of his victims during the course of his homicide career.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bouchard, M., & Lussier, P. (2015). Estimating the size of the sexual aggressor population. In A. Blokland & P. Lussier (Eds.), Sex offenders: A criminal career approach (pp. 351–371). John Wiley & Sons.
Bundy v. State, 455 So.2d 330 (1984).
DeLisi, M., Caropreso, D. E., Drury, A. J., Elbert, M. J., Evans, J. L., Heinrichs, T., & Tahja, K. M. (2016). The dark figure of sexual offending: New evidence from federal sex offenders. Journal of Criminal Psychology, 6(1), 3–16.
DeLisi, M., Drury, A. J., & Elbert, M. J. (2021). Psychopathy and pathological violence in a criminal career: A forensic case report. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 60, 101521.
Drury, A. J., Elbert, M. J., & DeLisi, M. (2020). The dark figure of sexual offending: A replication and extension. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 38(6), 559–570.
Farrington, D. P., Ttofi, M. M., Crago, R. V., & Coid, J. W. (2014). Prevalence, frequency, onset, desistance and criminal career duration in self-reports compared with official records. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 24(4), 241–253.
Kendall, E., with a contribution from Molly Kendall. (2020). The phantom prince: My life with Ted Bundy (updated and expanded edition). Abrams Press.
Keppel, R. D., with Birnes, W. J. (2005). The riverman: Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River killer. Pocket Books.
Lee, S. J., & Park, J. (2019). Body transportation after homicides: Offender and offense characteristics. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 64(4), 1092–1095.
Mathesius, J., & Lussier, P. (2014). The successful onset of sex offending: Determining the correlates of actual and official onset of sex offending. Journal of Criminal Justice, 42(2), 134–144.
Michaud, S. G., & Aynesworth, H. (2019). Ted Bundy: Conservations with a killer: The death row interviews. Sterling.
Minkler, M., Bonner, T., DeLisi, M., Pechorro, P., & Vaughn, M. G. (2022). The dark figure of delinquency: New evidence and its underlying psychopathology. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 20(4), 279–291.
Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100(4), 674–701.
Schlesinger, L. B. (2007). Sexual homicide: Differentiating catathymic and compulsive murders. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(2), 242–256.
Scurich, N., & John, R. S. (2019). The dark figure of sexual recidivism. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 37(2), 158–175.
Theobald, D., Farrington, D. P., Loeber, R., Pardini, D. A., & Piquero, A. R. (2014). Scaling up from convictions to self-reported offending. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 24(4), 265–276.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
DeLisi, M. (2023). No Body, No Crime. In: Ted Bundy and The Unsolved Murder Epidemic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21418-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21418-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-21417-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-21418-9
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)