Five hours before his execution, Ted Bundy called to tell his mother goodbye and sounded "wonderful . . . very much at peace with himself," she said.
"He kept saying how sorry he was, that `there was another part of me that people didn't know,' " Louise Bundy said.For unexplained reasons, Bundy was allowed two 10-minute calls, rather than the one expected by Mrs. Bundy, the Morning News Tribune of Tacoma reported.
At the conclusion of the second call, Mrs. Bundy told the confessed serial killer, "You'll always be my precious son."
When the first call came shortly before 11 p.m. PST, Bundy's adoptive father, John Bundy, turned to his wife and said quietly, "You do the talking."
After the initial hellos, she said, "We just want you to know how much we love you and always will."
Her voice shook with emotion. When he spoke, she rapidly wrote down the messages he asked her to give friends and loved ones.
"He sounds wonderful," his mother said after the first call. "He sounds very much at peace with himself.
"He said, `I'm so sorry I've given you all such grief . . . but a part of me was hidden all the time,' and then he said, `but the Ted Bundy you knew also existed.' "
In the second call, she told him, "We're all praying for you." Later she told the friends in her living room, "He said God's spirit was with him."
The mood at the Bundy home was grieving but subdued. Mrs. Bundy raised her voice only when asked about the death penalty.
"I think it's barbaric!" she said. "What good does it do? It's legalized murder is all. It's not a deterrent. They've been killing people for thousands of years (in executions) and what good has it done?"
On Monday, she said she was upset her son hadn't told her about the killings before confessing to law enforcement officials.
"It's a terrible thing," she said. "He wasn't raised that way. He was raised in a good, loving, caring family. We still love and care for him, but want to know what caused this."