Netflix brings you the grisly, gripping tale of Ted Bundy

From the stylised and gory TV escapades of Hannibal or Dexter to the real-life brutality of Britain’s Jack the Ripper, America’s Jeffrey Dahmer or South Africa’s ABC Killer, Moses Sithole, there is no denying the public fascination with serial killers.

Now Netflix gives its viewers an up-close and personal encounter with Ted Bundy, another of America’s most notorious psychopaths.

Theodore Robert Cowell (aka Ted Bundy) was a burglar, kidnapper, rapist, murderer and necrophile accused of assaulting and killing numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier.

Shortly before his execution in 1989, and after more than a decade of denial, he confessed to 30 homicides that he committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. However, the true number of victims is unknown and possibly much higher.

Ted Bundy. Picture: Getty Images

In its four-part docu-series, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, which will air on January 24, Netflix reveals previously unheard audio interviews with Bundy from his time on death row and focuses on his killing and how he lured his victims to their deaths.

Experts at Psychology Today believe there are a number of reasons why we’re so enthralled by serial killers.

“Serial killers appeal to the most basic and powerful instinct in all of us – that is, survival. They and their crimes are exotic and tantalising to people, much like traffic accidents and natural disasters.

“Serial killers are so extreme in their brutality and so seemingly unnatural in their behaviour that people are drawn to them out of intense curiosity.”

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. Picture: Netflix

All of these reasons are possibly why true crime series have proven so hugely popular, raking up massive viewer ratings for various TV networks. And Netflix has realised it’s a gold mine.

No strangers to the genre, they have already gripped viewers with offering such as Making a Murderer and The Keepers, which have generated significant traffic to the streaming giant.

So step inside the mind of a brutal killer when the series premieres on January 24, which is also 30 years to the day that Bundy was executed for his crimes.

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