The

The In 1979, a courthouse in Miami overflowed with a captivated audience.

Those who couldn't fit inside sat and watched from their televisions at home, but those fortunate

to make it into the courtroom

that day witnessed firsthand one of the most notorious and infamous criminals in our collective

history brought to justice. He stood between the judge and the jury, confidently representing

himself against his multiple charges of brutal and callous first-degree

murder. His name was Theodore Robert Bundy. Ted Bundy came into the world as Ted Cowell on

November 24, 1946, at the Elizabeth Lund home for unwed mothers.

Given the name of the facility, it's perhaps no surprise that Ted Bundy never found out

who his biological father really was, but his birth certificate stated that his father was a salesman

and a United States Air Force veteran. Ted actually spent the first three years of his life living with his maternal grandparents.

The Cowles raised him as their own so their daughter and his mother, Louise Cowell,

could avoid the scandal of everyone knowing that she'd had a child out of wedlock.

For all Ted knew himself, his grandparents were his parents,

and his mother was actually his older sister. Ted Bundy's story has been through various stages

of embellishment, but if accounts are to be believed, he began showing signs of his future tendency

for violence at a very young age. His aunt recounted a time when he was only

three years old, and she woke up from a nap to find herself surrounded by kitchen knives,

while her nephew smiled down at her. Perhaps this is a case of truth being stranger than fiction,

but where Ted's childhood begins to get a little bit clearer is when

it comes to his grandparents. Ted adored his grandparents, the people who at the time he still believed

...