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Judge to Ted Bundy: You'd Have Made a Great Lawyer

By William Vogeler, Esq. | Last updated on

Ted Bundy, who confessed to killing 30 women, apparently missed his calling.

At Bundy's sentencing, Judge Edward Clowart said Bundy would have made a good lawyer.

"I'd have loved to have you practice in front of me," the judge said. Three decades later, those comments are still troubling.

Conversations With a Killer

Bundy died in an electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989. Hundreds of people sang, danced, and set off fireworks outside the prison.

Today, on the 30th-year anniversary, he lives again in two new films. "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" is on Netflix now.

In the documentary, the judge pays Bundy the odd compliment about becoming a lawyer. Bundy did attend law school at the University of Utah, but dropped out after a year.

A feature film called "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile," however, is causing even more angst. Critics say it romanticizes the serial killer.

The Romanticized Serial Killer

Zac Efron, who portrays Bundy in the film, turns up the charisma. Kathy Kleiner Rubin, who survived a Bundy attack in real-life, says that's the way he was.

"The movie does glorify it more than I think it should be," she told Cosmopolitan. "But like I said I think everyone should see it and understand him as what he was even when he was the perfect son."

The perfect son, the lawyer, he wasn't. The killer, he was.

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