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Louise Bundy

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Celebrity's Relative

The Resume

    (September 21, 1924-December 23, 2012)
    Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Birth name was Eleanor Louise Cowell
    Mother of notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy
    Gave birth to Theodore Robert Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont (Nov. 24, 1946)
    Resided in Philadelphia, later relocated to Tacoma, Washington, where she married John Culpepper Bundy (May 19, 1951)
    Later employed as a secretary at the University of Pugent Sound in Tacoma
    Testified on her son's behalf during his trial, defending him from accusations that he murdered at least 30 women and girls in Washington, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Florida (1979)
    Death was confirmed to The Associated Press by the Rev. Melvin Woodworth, pastor of Tacoma's First United Methodist Church (Jan. 9, 2013)

Why she might be annoying:

    She was mother to a man many believed to be Satan incarnate.
    She never came clean about the identity of Bundy's father, merely chalking it up to being 'seduced' by a sailor.
    Her family members expressed suspicions that she may have been covering for her own violent, abusive father, who either raped or committed incest with her.
    She spent years passing off Ted as her brother, allegedly allowing him to believe that his grandparents were his parents.
    While stories vary as to how Bundy discovered his illegitimacy, it is generally agreed upon that it was done after he came of age, and that realizing that he was 'a bastard' profoundly affected him.
    She abruptly changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson, and left Philadelphia with her son to live with cousins in Tacoma, at her family's urging.
    She eventually married and conceived four more children with John Bundy, a man of modest means, whom Ted deeply resented (he preferred the company of his 'father'/grandfather in Philadephia).
    Her son expressed a lifelong resentment toward his mother for lying about his true parentage, likely setting the stage for his sociopathic/homicidal tendencies toward women (paging Dr. Freud...)
    She demonstrated an almost naïve level of willful ignorance of evidence pointing towards her son's guilt, insisting to reporters 'Ted Bundy does not go around killing women and little children!'
    She gave an emotional testimony to the jury asking that her son be spared from the death penalty; the prosecution was largely unmoved, remarking 'how nice it would have been if Lisa Levy or Margaret Bowman's mother could have on the morning [of their deaths] and asked for mercy for them.'
    She remained in vehement denial even after her son's conviction, telling the press 'our never-ending faith in Ted - our faith that he is innocent - has never wavered. And it never will.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was almost selflessly loyal to her son.
    At the end of the day her son made his own choices and was responsible for his own actions.
    She was a better mother than Marceline Jones (which isn't saying very much).
    She was an active member of Tacoma's First United Methodist Church until she became too ill to attend.
    Her father exhibited violent and abusive tendencies, once throwing her sister down a flight of stairs (he also was known to express hostility whenever Ted's paternity was questioned).
    Even given her son's horrendous deeds, it couldn't have been easy having people party on the day of her first child's death like it was V-J Day.
    Ted Bundy's lawyer, John Henry Browne, described her as 'very quiet, [and] very much concerned about her son' (he also noted that she began to doubt her son's innocence even before his confession).
    Even after her son confessed his guilt to her, she remained compassionate; her last words to him over the phone reportedly being 'you'll always be my precious son.'
    She and her husband endured jokes and ridicule over the next thirty years, frequently finding themselves on the receiving ends of dirty calls and death threats.
    She defended her son, again, from posthumous accusations in 1999 that he was the culprit in the unsolved murder of an eight-year-old, when he would have been fourteen (he was later exonerated by forensic evidence).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 24 Votes: 91.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 13 Votes: 84.62% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 24 Votes: 58.33% Annoying