Tacoma, Washington, is the city where I escaped being murdered. I lived there from age 4 to age 8, moving away in 1961. I remember the ranch style house where our family of 6 lived. I remember lying in bed with my head covered way past my bedtime reading by the light of a flashlight. I ran scared from little garter snakes hiding in the tall weeds in the woods behind our house. I was a quiet kid and spent most of school time praying no one would call on me. I remember my introduction to peanut butter on celery and looked forward to the dark hour in the middle of the day when we had naptime. What I do not remember is the story my mother told me much later of my brief friendship with serial killer, Ted Bundy.

I first heard this story in 1989, 28 years later. My mother saw a story on TV in which his mother was interviewed about Bundy’s upcoming execution and, totally shocked, realized that this mother of a serial killer was someone she had been friendly with, a neighbor who went to the same church. Even more shocking, was the realization that I, the oldest kid in our family, had ridden to Sunday School with Ted Bundy.

I did a little research into Bundy after hearing this story from my mother. He was 14 to my 8 in 1961. And thank God I moved away that year. Many people speculate that Ted Bundy’s first victim was 8 year old Ann Marie Burr who was kidnapped on August 31, 1961 and never seen again. The Burr family also lived in our neighborhood and Bundy had seen little Ann Marie on his paper route just like he had seen me on our rides to Sunday School.

Tacoma is the city where I went to Sunday School at First United Methodist Church with Ted Bundy. My mother trusted her friend and the son who later became notorious to drive me around on Sundays often stopping for candy or ice cream never aware of imminent danger.