Patricia Pearson

Until the 1970s, it was acceptable in Texas for men to say they had killed their wives as retribution for adultery. Now, they cannot as easily use that explanation, even if jealousy was the motive. They must come up with something else, both legally and culturally. So they talk of brain injury or too much sugar or a childhood of abuse. Ted Bundy blamed his attacked on women in the late 1970s in the states of Washington, Utah, and Florida on pornography. More than a few antiporn activists leapt on this confession as gospel truth. In another era, Bundy might have said he was possessed by the devil. The behaviour is so complex und unfathomable, even to him, that he grasped at the slim straws provided by popular rhetoric.