Ted Bundy, a serial killer who admitted to killing over 30 young women in the 1970s, exchanged letters with his cousin, Edna Martin, while he was on death row in Florida. These letters are now part of a new Oxygen documentary that came out.
Edna Martin started writing to Bundy after reading a book about him. In her first letter, dated September 9, 1980, she asked for his thoughts on Ann Rule’s book, “The Stranger Beside Me,” which was about Rule’s friendship with Bundy.
Martin, who is now 74, said that Bundy replied, saying the book was not true. He also said he was happy to get her letter and that it had been five years since they had last seen each other.
Martin also wrote a book about her experiences with Bundy, called “Dark Tide: Growing up with Ted Bundy,” which came out in July 2024.
Martin said she wrote to Bundy because she wanted him to admit what he had done. She felt that she might still have some influence on him because they were close. She trusted him completely, which made it even more shocking to find out what he had done.
Martin and Bundy became close when she was in college and he was working for a governor. He would often bring food to her and her friends, and they all liked him because he was fun to be around.
At the time, Martin didn’t know that Bundy was hurting women in the area. She remembers him saying the attacks were “terrible.”
Even though they exchanged letters, Bundy never told his cousin the details about the killings. He never admitted to the crimes in those letters.
Martin said that Bundy always signed his letters with “Love, Ted.” She said that he was two different people: one person to his family and friends, and another to his victims.
