Ted Bundy's childhood home

This is the childhood home of Ted Bundy.

It is located at 658 North Skyline Drive in Tacoma, Washington.

The serial killer spent most of his childhood and teenage years living at this address.

In 1953, Bundy's family left their home on South Sheridan Avenue and moved to this house in Tacoma's West End. At the time, he was only six or seven years old.

For the next thirteen years, he lived here with his mother, stepfather, and half-siblings.

Bundy did not get along with his stepfather, Johnny Culpepper Bundy, and would often try to provoke him into arguments. He also told friends that Johnny wasn't bright.

Bundy was a materialistic individual who often compared his family's status to others. He craved an affluent lifestyle. Consequently, he resented his stepfather for being working class.

Although Johnny included him in activities like camping trips, Bundy remained distant from him and his younger half-siblings.

Bundy's path to becoming a serial killer started in this neighborhood

Serial killers often engage in voyeurism, fetishism, and auto-eroticism during their formative years. Occasionally, they encounter sensitive materials or distressing sexual experiences.

During interviews, Bundy recalled how he used to roam around this neighborhood late at night. At the time, he liked to steal things, peer through windows, and search through people's trash cans for detective magazines.

His interest in detective magazines had little to do with their articles about crime. Instead, he was fascinated by the photographs and illustrations of sexual violence against women.

It is likely that Bundy's continuous exposure to these images at such a young age played a significant role in the development of his deviant fantasies.

By repeatedly seeking this material out and associating it with pleasure, he was essentially conditioning himself to become aroused by sexual violence.

By the time he reached his teenage years, he was a voyeur who liked to sneak out of his house, creep around in the darkness, and peer through women's windows.

Shortly before his execution, he told a psychiatrist about one of the deviant activities that he engaged in when he was just 13 years old.

Bundy said that he liked to go into the woods at the back of his house, take off his clothes, and then run around naked. In his opinion, this particular activity marked the beginning of his "problem."

This behavior, which he cultivated at this location, would later escalate into the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of more than 30 victims.

Outcast

During interviews, Bundy said that he spent most of his adolescence alone. Interpersonal relationships were difficult, as he didn't understand them.

He did not attend school dances or hang around drinking with the other boys his age. Instead, he mostly kept to himself.

Although his classmates teased him at various points, he did not consider himself to be a social outcast.

As a teenager, Bundy was arrested at least twice on suspicion of burglary and motor vehicle theft. However, the details of these arrests were expunged once he became an adult.

Silas High School

During his time in Tacoma, Bundy attended Woodrow Wilson High School.

In February 2021, the school changed its name to Dr. Dolores Silas High School.

Bundy's parents sold the house in 1968

Bundy lived at this address until September 1966, when he moved to the McMahon Hall dormitory building at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

Two years later, in 1968, his parents sold the property and moved to 3214 North 20th Street.