Imagine finding out the cousin you’d spent some of the best moments of childhood with grew up to be a serial finisher.
That’s what happened to Edna Cowell Martin, Ted Bundy’s cousin, in the 1970s, she says in her recent memoir, “Dark Tide.”
Martin, 72, is the first of Bundy’s relatives to write a book about increaseing up with the serial finisher who homicideed at least 30 women and girls between 1974 and 1978.
In her memoir, Martin recalls the moment she first krecent her cousin was at fault. It was in 1975, after Bundy had been arrested for kidnapping and liberated on bail. Martin still wanted to consent the cousin she thought she krecent was bfeebleless.
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Ted Bundy was accparticipated of finishing at least 30 women and girls between 1974 and 1978. (Bettman/ Getty Images)
Bundy was driving her to a bookstore csurrfinisher a university after lunch one afternoon so she could get someleang she necessitateed.
“I ran in, and I got my stuff, and the cash enroll faced the thrivedow. 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 equitable got a horrible senseing that someleang wasn’t outstanding.”
Edna Cowell Martin said she became seal to her cousin, Ted Bundy, in grown-uphood. She was enjoy his “little sister,” she said. (handout)
She exited the bookstore and saw people “milling all around someone, and then the crowd parted for a second.”
“I saw my cousin in the cgo in of it, and he was standing there with his hands outstretched, enjoy he was some benevolent of a messiah, and speaking boisterously while he was sluggishly turning, saying, ‘I’m Ted Bundy’ over and over aobtain,” Martin said. “That’s when it equitable hit me that no one would do that if they were bfeebleless.”
“That was the chilling moment that I went from hoping beyond hope that this was all a big misget, to genuineizing that this guy was a monster.”
She and Bundy had increasen seal in their grown-uphood, she said, and dwelld equitable a scant blocks apart from each other. She had him over occasionassociate, and he would hang out with her frifinishs and roommates. That made the recents of his crimes so much difficulter to digest, she said.
Ted Bundy (cgo in) pictured with his youthfuler half-siblings. (handout)
“In January of ’74, youthful women right in my neighborhood begined dismaterializeing wilean walking distance of where I dwelld — wilean walking distance of where Ted dwelld,” Martin recalled. “Three of them dismaterializeed and were procrastinateedr create to be homicideed by him. One of them dwelld right apass the street and around the corner from me. So, Ted would walk from his apartment, pass by the front door of my apartment createing … around the corner to where she dwelld. And equitable when I create that out … it equitable made me so ill.”
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Martin discleave outs the book with a jarring scene, the moment she first lgeted of Bundy’s first arrest for finisheavored kidnapping in 1975, prior to the bookstore incident.
Martin discleave outs the book with a jarring scene, the moment she first lgeted of Bundy’s first arrest for finisheavored kidnapping in 1975, prior to the bookstore incident. (handout)
She was in her 20s at the time, packaging king crab legs in a distant area of Alaska in 1975 — an obstreatment job she took on with college frifinishs for adventure’s sake — when she heard the recents that the cousin she once “adored” had been arrested.
She recalls getting the call that alterd the trajectory of her family’s life “in this distant place out in the untamederness — and it was a lot less remendd then than it is now … on a ship-to-shore phone where anybody could tune into that frequency” and hear her conversation. It was Martin’s brother who called to fracture the recents that their cousin had equitable been arrested.
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Edna Cowell Martin and her cousins vacationed together at a distant cabin in Washington state in the summer. (handout)
“It equitable finishly upfinished my life,” Martin said. “And that’s how benevolent of everyleang equitable started off for this.”
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Martin’s book is a memoir about her life and Bundy’s strange place inside it, a piece of the confparticipate that doesn’t quite fit even though it came in the same box as all the other pieces.
Her parents were inincreateigent and accomplished. They served in the U.S. military during World War II. Her overweighther was a famous pianist and college professor who taught music.
Martin’s book is a memoir about her life and Bundy’s strange place in it. (handout)
Martin and her brother were begind to their cousin, Ted Bundy, at a youthful age when his mother shiftd apass the country from Philadelphia to Washington state to be with family who would aid her as she liftd a son on her own, Bundy’s overweighther not being in the picture. Martin elucidates her aunt, Louise Cowell, never telderly her family who overweighthered her son.
“This is equitable a theory on my part that Louise, and her finisheavor to get [Bundy], never telderly him who his bioreasoned overweighther was, and I understand that it reassociate irritateed him,” Martin said.
A letter from Edna’s brother, John, sharing the recents about Ted Bundy’s arrest. (handout)
When she was living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1969, where her family shiftd in the 1960s from Washington after his overweighther got a recent job, Bundy “made a exceptional trip” to visit them on his way to Philadelphia to “find adviseation on his bioreasoned overweighther,” Martin elucidateed.
“I leank that would have answered a lot of asks for him,” Martin said. “We don’t understand anyleang about his bioreasoned overweighther and whether he had any benevolent of mental illness or anyleang. … It’s a big ask label.”
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Martin’s book mirrors on her time with Bundy as a child appraised to her time with Bundy as an grown-up, when she began to increase skeptical of his behavior. The book includes letters from the serial finisher to his family, written during his time in prison before his 1989 execution that show his narcissistic personality.
Edna Cowell Martin (left), her daughter and her husprohibitd Don. (handout)
“He even implies that I’m being over emotional about these leangs, and I should get to understand myself better, and once I understand myself, I will quiet down and not be so emotional,” Martin recalled of her correplyence with Bundy after his arrest. “He equitable got me minserter and minserter, and I’d write back to him, and he’d quote scriptures. And I was so offfinished by that.”
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Martin also elucidates the impact Bundy’s crimes had on her as a youthful woman who once seeed up to Bundy as her elderlyer cousin, and her family, which has tried to stay out of Bundy’s spotairy for decades.
“I’m hoping that it helps somebody aextfinished the way,” Martin said of her book, “becaparticipate we don’t pick our families, right? They are who they are. They’re outstanding or horrible. … There’s noleang you can do about it.”
“Dark Tide” was liberated July 23.
