Ted Bundy’s Advice for Talking to Killers
A new documentary probes a detective’s talks with the serial killer he sought.
Posted August 10, 2025 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
With so many documentaries and docudramas devoted to the infamous Ted Bundy, you’d think there couldn’t be more to discover. Yet, the interviews that Detective Bob Keppel recorded during his prison visits with Bundy, featured on Hulu’s Ted Bundy: Dialogue with the Devil , offer a different perspective.
I was pleased to learn that this project featured Keppel. I met “Kepp” years ago and invited him to teach a graduate course at my university. I was his tech assistant, and we became colleagues. He died in 2021 just short of his 77th birthday. I said then that if there’s another Bundy production, it should feature Keppel’s painstaking approach. Sure, there was a 2004 film The Riverman , but this documentary is better. It shows some great footage and includes interviews with people who’ve never spoken out before (like Bundy’s half-brother, Keppel’s mentor, and Keppel’s son).
Keppel was best known for his role in the investigation of a string of murders and missing women in 1974 in the Pacific Northwest. In June 1974, Brenda Ball disappeared. Keppel had barely started on this case when he had to replace an ailing homicide detective. On July 1, he joined his new partner, Roger Dunn (featured in this documentary). Two weeks later, Janice Ott and Denise Naslund vanished from Lake Sammamish State Park.
On September 7, Keppel was called to a woodsy area where human bones had been discovered. He realized how little he knew about what he faced. “The bodies had been dragged along animal trails for maybe 300 or 400 feet,” he told me. “The Search and Rescue people showed up, but I had no experience working with them. I just knew that the woods had to be searched. I didn’t know anything about skeletons or dental work, so I researched to learn where animals would drag things.”
This was the dumping ground for Ott and Naslund, and one more unidentified female victim. More sets of remains were found near Taylor Mountain. Keppel realized they had a serial killer.
“Recognition is the single most important concept in a serial murder investigation,” he once stated. “Without it, the probability of solving the cases diminishes. A key error is the mismanagement of information—failing to collect, analyze, and organize it according to effective priorities.”
Keppel fed lists of names of potential suspects into a mainframe computer, which eventually narrowed the cache of more than three thousand to twenty-five. Even so, he estimated it would take a year to investigate them all. Bundy was among them, but he’d left the state. Eventually, Utah authorities reported Bundy’s arrest. Out on bail, he returned to Seattle, where Keppel and Dunn approached him.
“He showed up to his friend’s apartment with some groceries, so Roger and I confronted him at the door. He wasn’t nervous. He agreed to talk with us in the future. But then he went back to Utah. We never heard from him.”
Bundy escaped from prison twice and was recaptured in 1978 in Florida. During this time, Keppel was studying in a doctoral program at the University of Washington that let him focus on several subject areas. He selected seven, which exposed him to exceptional experts, including forensic psychiatrist John Liebert (interviewed for the doc) and renowned memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus. He also began to work as chief investigator for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.
Then in 1984, Bundy sent a letter to the Green River Task Force. Bundy had read about the Green River murders and said he could offer some insight. Keppel decided to hear him out.
First, he consulted with his mentors, including Dr. Liebert. He wanted a firm foundation in the psychology of game-playing narcissists for his strategy. Then he formed ground rules: “First, question the interviewee at his level. Use the same words that he uses and the same sentence structure. This would make Bundy feel comfortable. Don't ask questions over his head intellectually and, at the same time, don't ask questions below his intellectual level or he will never cover what you want.”
He didn’t realize that Bundy would have some advice of his own—a fascinating part of this documentary. Keppel went to Florida with Detective Dave Reichert. Dealing with a life-long trickster proved challenging. “One strategy,” Keppel said, “was to ask Bundy a question that was blatantly false and determine his style, looks, vocabulary, and sentence structure when he defended the truth. He’d lied so much over the years that he looked highly comfortable when doing it.”
Still, Keppel spotted key behavioral patterns. “He would talk a lot about nothing when things approached the truth about him. I believe he wanted to confess so bad that he would be void of detail when his answers were close to what he would have done. This was a signal to me that I was getting dangerously close to his self-admission. This was a signal that he was answering things about himself. Go any closer and he might clam up.”
Bundy told him that talking to serial killers like himself required time and patience. “You have to be content with slowly learning, what kind of person is this? You can’t drag it out of a guy overnight.” He was saying that he’d eventually tell, but the other person had to stick with him on his schedule. Keppel believed that Bundy’s insights “could provide valuable information for homicide detectives in the future.”
Bundy didn’t confess that time, but the seed was planted. Just before his execution in 1989, he wanted to speak with Keppel, among others. He admitted to the Ott and Naslund murders and named the victim whose remains were found close to theirs: Georgeann Hawkins. He confirmed the eight victims on Keppel’s list and provided gruesome mutilation details.
By then, Keppel and his colleagues had developed an innovative software program to examine solvability characteristics of murder—Keppel’s driving passion. They called it the Washington Attorney General’s Homicide Investigation Tracking System, or HITS, which “collects, collates, and analyzes the salient characteristics of all murders and predatory sexual offenses in the State.” It was designed to improve the apprehension rate of violent serial offenders like Bundy. Keppel also added to our awareness of how to interview someone like Bundy.
I missed Kepp’s voice for the narrations in this documentary and the material could have been tighter, but I was pleased to see this focus on Keppel’s inventive approach.
Keppel, R. D. with Birnes, W. J. (1997). Signature killers: Interpreting the calling card of the serial murderer. New York: Pocket.
Keppel, R. D. & and Birnes, W. J. (1995). The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer . New York: Pocket.
Keppel, R. D., Michaud, S. G., & McCann, M. (2012). Terrible secrets: Ted Bundy on serial murder . MT 7 Productions.
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Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., is a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University and the author of 69 books.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.