Ted Bundy’s cousin publishes memoir

SEATTLE — A perspective of one of the nation’s most prolific killers coming to new light as the cousin of Ted Bundy pens a new book, detailing the deception, the pain, and the reasons she kept quiet for nearly 50 years.

Edna Cowell Martin had been reflecting on her years come her 70th birthday. Along with the solitude the pandemic provided, she brought up the idea of sharing her story with her daughter on a walk around Poulsbo.

I think that a lot of us keep things buried that we don’t want to acknowledge or let people know about and I learned it’s good to get that stuff out.”

Edna Cowell Martin grew up in Tacoma with her brother, mother, father, her aunt (Bundy’s mother) and Bundy.

Martin’s father convinced Bundy’s mother to move to the Pacific Northwest to give her a fresh start and escape the judgement she faced as an unwed mother.

She remembers family gatherings, days on the lake, waterskiing they all enjoyed together because for a while, they were all their closest family.

She and her family had moved away and come back for her final two years of college, attending the University of Washington. She moved into an apartment just a few blocks from Bundy’s.

“Ironically I felt a lot safer knowing my big cousin who is five years older than I was was close by, my parents were happy he was close by.”

She would have friends over and would invite Bundy as well. His political career, languages he knew, status on the Seattle Crime Commission, and even him writing a pamphlet on rape prevention for women, impressed the group. In her book she describes the fear felt in Seattle at the time and the feeling women had of always looking over their shoulder.

“I talked to him about and he said, ‘Oh I know it’s terrible,’ and meanwhile he was the one who was doing this.” Martin recalled, “To find out he was the cause of all of this was absolutely the worse deception, manipulation I felt so wronged by what he did and so appalled.

One of Bundy’s victims lived around the corner from Martin, Bundy would have to walk by Martin’s house to get to the victim’s home. Her former roommates and good friends at the time were best friends with one of the women who was killed. After their death, Bundy was at Martin’s home with them.

“Somehow you felt responsible but you’re not responsible for it, it was a terrible feeling.”

She writes in the book the moment she found out Bundy was arrested in Utah on charges of attempted kidnapping. She was on a boat in Alaska and couldn’t believe it and neither could her family.

Martin had to speak to Bundy herself. When she returned to Seattle and Bundy was on bail, they met at a now-closed bar and grille to catch up. Some of Martin’s friends were at the table as well, and heard Ted say his name.

Bundy’s road to infamy had just begun with reporting that he may be linked to crimes more heinous than kidnapping. He seized the chance to put that journey into full speed.

“One of them asked what his last name was,” she recalled, “The guy said, ‘Not the Ted Bundy?’ [Bundy] kind of stood up straighter and his chest stood out and he said yeah, I’m the Ted Bundy and he said it with such pride in his voice. I turned around with shock in my face. I felt this isn’t something to be proud of.”

They left the bar. Martin, through broken words, asked Bundy if he attacked and murdered the women. Bundy simply denied it, saying it was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On the way home, Martin had to grab something from the store. As she was checking out, a crowd amassed outside.

“I could see my cousin in the middle of this crowd, and he was standing on the corner like a messiah and was slowly turning and proclaiming I’m Ted Bundy over and over again.”

Martin put her hand over his mouth, pulled him down and pulled him to the car. That’s when she the perception of the man next to her, the boy she had grown up with, shattered in an instant.

“We were driving away and that’s when I went oh my god he killed these women, he did these things and he’s in the car with me right now. I turn and I look at him and he’s looking back at me and he’s smiling. Brandon, and I go oh Jesus, and I’m starting to think what if he makes a move at me because I don’t know this person.”

In her book, Martin describes the scares during the times Bundy escaped from jail, her conversations with the FBI, and the letters she and other family members exchanged with Bundy and with each other.

“I don’t know if they will ever 100 percent heal but at least I’m talking about it. If you would’ve asked these questions two years ago, I couldn’t have even verbalized how I felt. Even just the mention of his name would send an electric shock through my system.”

She thinks about the 30 women, though some investigators think there are more, that Bundy confessed to killing. She says her heart has ached for them for nearly five decades.

“I can’t emphasize enough the concern for the families that are still suffering and don’t know where some of their daughters are buried. We think about them all the time.” Martin said.

Martin’s book, currently for sale, is called ‘Dark Tide: Growing up with Ted Bundy.’

©2024 Cox Media Group