Ben Rakes

On January 23, 1989, Ted Bundy had less than 24 hours to live. He had confessed to killing 30 women across seven states. He escaped from custody twice. He defended himself in court, and the judge who sentenced him to death told him he would have made a good lawyer. Outside Florida State Prison, a crowd was already gathering. People were selling T-shirts. Some brought frying pans to bang when the news came. In the video below, the most notorious serial killer in American history sits across from psychologist James Dobson and tries to explain where it all came from. Not with a murder. With a magazine. He said he grew up in a good Christian home. Two loving parents. He called himself a normal person with good friends and a normal life. Then, as a boy, he found pornography. And like an addiction, he said, he kept craving something harder. Something more vivid. Until looking was no longer enough. He speaks calmly. Almost politely. The voice of a former law student who knows how to hold a room. Then he says the line nobody expected from him. "I think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me." At 7:16 the next morning he was executed in the electric chair. The crowd outside cheered. People still argue about this tape. Some call it the most honest thing he ever said. Others call it his final manipulation, one last story from a man who lied to everyone for 15 years. Was this a real confession, or the last performance of a born liar?