The Stranger Beside Me Read Free Page A

of curly brown hair gave him a faunlike appearance did as he was told, and yet he sensed that he was living a lie.
    Ted adored his grandfather-father Cowell. He identified with him, respected him, and clung to him hi times of trouble. But, as he grew older, it was clear that remaining in Philadelphia would be impossible. Too many relatives knew the real story of his parentage, and Eleanor dreaded what his growing-up years would be like. It was a working-class neighborhood where children would listen to their parents' whispered remarks and mimic them. She never wanted Ted to have to hear the word "bastard."
    There was a contingent of Cowells living in Washington State, and they offered to take Eleanor and the boy in if they came west. To insure Ted's protection against prejudice, Eleanor-who would henceforth be called Louise-went to court on October 6, 1950 in Philadelphia and had Ted's name legally changed to Theodore Robert Nelson. It was a common name, one that should give him an anonymity, that would not draw attention to him when he began school.
    And so, Louise Cowell and her son, four-year-old Ted Nelson, moved 3,000
    miles away to Tacoma, Washington where they moved in with her relatives until she could get a job. It was a tremendous wrench for Ted to leave his grandfather behind, and he would never forget the old man. But he soon
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    adjusted to the new life. He had cousins, Jane and Alan Scott, who were close to his age and they became friends.
    In Tacoma, Washington's third largest city, Louise and Ted started over. The beauty of Tacoma's hills and harbor was often obscured by smog from industry, and the downtown streets infiltrated by honky-tonk bars, peep shows, and pornography shops catering to soldiers on passes from Fort Lewis.
    Louise joined the Methodist Church, and there at a social function she met Johnnie Culpepper Bundy-one of a huge clan of Bundys who reside in the Tacoma area. Bundy, a cook, was as tiny as Louise, neither of them standing an inch over five feet. He was shy, but he seemed kind. He seemed solid.
    It was a rapid courtship, marked principally by attendance at other social functions at the church. On May 19, 1951, Louise Cowell married Johnnie Bundy. Ted attended the wedding of his "older sister" and the little cook from the army base. He was not yet five when he had a third name: Theodore Robert Bundy.
    Louise continued working as a secretary and the new family moved several times before finally buying their own home near the soaring Narrows Bridge.
    Soon, there were four half-siblings, two girls and two boys. The youngest boy, born when Ted was fifteen, was his favorite. Ted was often pressed into babysitting chores, and his teen-age friends recall that be missed many activities with them because he had to babysit. If he minded, he seldom complained.
    Despite his new name, Ted still considered himself a Cowell. It was always the Cowell side of the family to which he gravitated. He looked like a Cowell. His features were a masculinized version of Louise Bundy's, his coloring just like hers. On the surface, it seemed the only genetic input he'd received from his natural father was his height. Although still smaller than his peers hi junior high school, Ted was already taller than Louise and Johnnie. One day he would reach six feet.
    Ted spent time with his stepfather only grudgingly. Johnnie tried. He had accepted Louise's child just as he had accepted her, and he'd been rather pleased to have a son. If Ted seemed increasingly removed from him, he put it down to burgeoning adolescence. In discipline, Louise had the final
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THE STRANGER BESIDE ME
    word, although Johnnie sometimes applied corporal punishment with a belt.
    Ted and Johnnie often picked beans in the acres of verdant fields radiating out through the valleys beyond Tacoma. Between the two of them, they could make five to six dollars a day. If Bundy worked the early shift at Madigan Army Hospital as a cook-5