Do you remember the cousin who came and played with you in your memories from childhood… what if that were a serial killer? Well that is exactly what happened to Edna Cowell Martin back in the 1970s when she found out that her cousin Ted Bundy was a serial killer.
Martin is the second Bundy offspring to write a book about her life with the so-called charmer who killed at least 30 women and girls between1974 and 78. Martin writes an equally chilling account in her paper and memoirs of the moment she says it dawned on her that Bundy must have done it.
It was 1975 and Bundy had just been arrested for kidnapping but released on bail. Nevertheless, Martin wanted to believe her cousin was blameless and can remember one particular afternoon when Bundy drove up from lunch time for the book store near a college.
“I ran in, and I got my stuff, and the cash register faced the window. So, I could see the street down below behind the store … and all these people were pointing and rushing down towards my left,” Martin recalled. “And I was wondering what was going on there. I just got a bad feeling that something wasn’t good.”
“I saw my cousin in the center of it, and he was standing there with his hands outstretched, like he was some kind of a messiah, and speaking loudly while he was slowly turning, saying, ‘I’m Ted Bundy’ over and over again,” Martin said. “That’s when it just hit me that no one would do that if they were innocent.”
That was the chilling moment Martin went from wishing and hoping to having no doubt leaving that her cousin was an animal.
Martin said he continued to live just a few blocks away from Bundy and the two would see each other often in adulthood. She used to have him over, and he would hang out with her friends and roommates.
“In January of ’74, young women right in my neighborhood started disappearing within walking distance of where I lived — within walking distance of where Ted lived,” Martin recalled. “Three of them disappeared and were later found to be murdered by him. One of them lived right across the street and around the corner from me. So, Ted would walk from his apartment, pass by the front door of my apartment building … around the corner to where she lived. And just when I found that out … it just made me so ill.”
Martin’s memoir, Dark Tide, delves into Martin’s life—and the horrific role Bundy played in that. From a loving and accomplished family to her struggles against the dark legacy left to be found by so many others arriving just ahead of nuclear oblivion.
Dark Tide was released on July 23.
