Influence of Genes and Environment
Influence of Genes and Environment on Ted Bundy’s Behavior
Did you know that Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer? Ted Bundy was born of an unwed woman by the name Eleanor Louise Cowell in 1946 in the United States of America. Ted Bundy grew up knowing that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was introduced to him as his elder sister. He later obtained his bachelor’s degree from Utah University in his early adulthood. He grew up in a challenging environment such that his childhood experience made him grow up into a bad person. The identity of his real father was not disclosed to him in the childhood period of which made him lack good parental direction. When his mother got married, the stepfather used to bully him due to his shininess personality. This paper will discuss how the environment and genes contribute to change in behavior in line with Ted Bundy an American serial killer.
A serial killer is an individual who performs more than three murder cases in a month out of own abnormal selfish gain. Ted Bundy was a serial killer who admitted to having done thirty murder cases in less than four years and several rape cases. His childhood environment greatly influenced his later behavior, for instance, he grew up in a lonely environment which made him a psychopath. The loneliness nature made Ted Bundy be involved in negative behavior like watching a porn video and this resulted in him being a sexually aggressive individual. Ted Bundy suffered attachment disorder in his childhood experience as a result of his mother being introduced to him as his older sister (Owen and Michael 2006). When his mother, known to Ted as his sister, got married, the stepfather used to bully him so much and this tortured his mind and made him lack good parental direction. In relation to his behavior, his grandfather was of raging temper day in day out.
Everyone in the family suffered from the violent acts of Bundy’s grandfather hence making the family unstable both physically and emotionally. Once in his childhood, Ted Bundy witnessed his grandfather raping Louise his mother of which contributed to his suffering both physical and psychological torture. The raping instinct later surfaced in Ted Bundy’s life and so many women were raped and killed. The extraordinary abuse and extreme violence from his grandfather made Ted Bundy grow into a serial killer and rapist. At this point, Ted Bundy’s behavior is attributed to his uneventful childhood environment.
Ted Bundy started violent actions when he was at a tender age. In school, Bundy wanted to hit his fellow scout boy with a stick from behind for no reason. According to Holt, in “conversation with a killer” he describes Bundy as an individual who likes scaring people, bullying them and getting them in pain. As a teen, Bundy liked laying traps for people to fall in, for instance, he was fond of digging holes in the ground, putting sticks insides and covering the hole with vegetation. His traps once injured a girl who fell into the hole and injured her leg to the extent of going into shock due to excessive bleeding (Rowe and David 1994). Ted Bundy also had shoplifting behavior at a tender age; he could do this for the things he admired and had no money to buy them. He wanted to live a life beyond his parent’s means and therefore turned out to be a thief as a result.
The stealing behavior is linked to both the genetic makeup and environment he was raised from. The desire to have fancy things in one’s life originates from inside and the lack of money to buy the fancy things he wanted to be was environmentally based.
Ted Bundy’s education also greatly influenced his career as a serial killer at a later stage after college. Ted Bundy studied law at the University of Puget Sound and while pursuing his psychology degree, he gained more knowledge and insights about how to isolate criminals. The law career made him perform the murder, later represent himself in court and escape custody because he knew all the tricks surrounding the law field (Birch et al 1998). Ted Bundy as an undergraduate student at the Washington University majored in psychology which helped him to manipulate people’s minds when performing his killing acts. He used a high level of psychology to play around with women’s minds, full of pretense that made women sympathize and draw near him without knowing his soul intentions. It is said that sometimes he used crutches, not that he is injured but for women to see him and sympathize with him thus drawing near to help and took this as an advantage to rape them.
