Kevin M. Sullivan | |
---|---|
Born | Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. | February 2, 1955
Occupation |
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Genre | Non-fiction |
Subject | True crime, history |
Notable works | The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History |
Kevin M. Sullivan (born February 2, 1955) [1] is an American history and true crime author whose works include seven books about serial killer Ted Bundy, along with several other crime books. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
A retired minister, Sullivan has written 18 books, seven of which are about serial killer Ted Bundy, including Ted Bundy's Murderous Mysteries: The Many Victims of America's Most Infamous Serial Killer and The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History. [2] He also teamed with New York Times bestselling crime author Gregg Olsen to write Unnatural Causes, along with three other co-authored titles with Olsen.[ citation needed ]
Katherine Ramsland, author of The Human Predator, in 2016 wrote about Sullivan's book The Trail of Ted Bundy in Psychology Today , noting, "Even if you think you already know everything there is to know about Ted Bundy, you’ll probably learn something new from this companion book. If you don’t know much about this poster boy for American serial killers, Sullivan’s renderings offer a solid and chilling portrait." [3] In 2023, Ramsland listed and analyzed, in a Psychology Today article, five myths about Bundy gleaned from Sullivan's book Ted Bundy: The Yearly Journal. [4]
The Book Authority included Sullivan's The Bundy Murders on its list of "20 Best Murder Biography Books of All Time." [5]
Portions of Sullivan's biography of Bundy are included in the college textbook Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders, by Susan Krauss Whitbourne and published by McGraw-Hill in November 2012. [6]
He appeared in a 2018 Reelz documentary "Ted Bundy: Serial Monster" TV Series. He also appeared in a TV miniseries "Ted Bundy: The Survivors" in 2020, [7] produced by Michael Hoff Productions. He appeared as well in two more Oxygen network segments in 2018, including "Snapped Notorious: Ted Bundy" an eerie documentary of Bundy's life [8] and the segment "Who Was Ted Bundy? Everything You Need To Know About The Twisted, 'Charming' Serial Killer." [9]
Sullivan appeared in ABC's 20/20 special, "Life with Bundy" in January 2020. [10] The segment was re-released on ABC's Nightline show. [11]
An excerpt published by A&E Networks of Sullivan's book Ted Bundy's Murderous Mysteries in an article titled Ted Bundy, Babysitter covered Bundy's relationships with children when Bundy babysat for them. [12]
About Bundy, the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper quoted Sullivan as saying, "He understood that normal people are not thinking about people like him tracking them and hunting them." [13]
He participated as a guest speaker in Duquesne University's 18th annual Forensic Science and Law Symposium in September 2019. [14]
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separate events. Their psychological gratification is the motivation for the killings, and many serial murders involve sexual contact with the victims at different points during the murder process. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, and killings may be executed as such. The victims tend to have things in common, such as demographic profile, appearance, gender, or race. As a group, serial killers suffer from a variety of personality disorders. Most are often not adjudicated as insane under the law. Although a serial killer is a distinct classification that differs from that of a mass murderer, spree killer, or contract killer, there are overlaps between them.
Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders. The total number of his victims is likely to be higher.
Hybristophilia is a paraphilia involving sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes. The term is derived from the Greek word hubrizein (ὑβρίζειν), meaning "to commit an outrage against someone", and philo, meaning "having a strong affinity/preference for".
Dennis Lynn Rader, also known as BTK, is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although he occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, Rader typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature. In addition, he stole keepsakes from his female victims, including underwear, driver's licenses and personal items.
Ann Rae Rule was an American author of true crime books and articles. She is best known for The Stranger Beside Me (1980), about the serial killer Ted Bundy, with whom Rule worked and whom she considered a friend, but was later revealed to be a murderer. Rule wrote over 30 true crime books, including Small Sacrifices, about Oregon child murderer Diane Downs. Many of Rule's books center on murder cases that occurred in the Pacific Northwest and her adopted home state of Washington.
Edmund Emil Kemper III is an American serial killer convicted of murdering seven women and one girl, between May 1972 and April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the "Co-ed Killer", as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment.
Robert Kenneth Ressler was an American FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term Serienmörder coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.
John Edward Douglas is an American retired special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Robert David Keppel was an American law enforcement officer and detective. He was also an associate professor at the University of New Haven and Sam Houston State University. Keppel was known for his contributions to the investigations of Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway, and also assisted in the creation of HITS, the Homicide Investigation Tracking System.
Gregg Olsen is a New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nonfiction books and novels, most of which are crime-related. The subjects of his true crime books include convicted child rapist and school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, product tampering killer Stella Nickell, fasting specialist Linda Burfield Hazzard, and former Amishman and convicted murderer Eli Stutzman.
The Stranger Beside Me is a 1980 autobiographical and biographical true crime book written by Ann Rule about serial killer Ted Bundy, whom she knew personally before and after his arrest for a series of murders. Subsequent revisions of the book were published in 1986, 1989, 2000, and 2008.
The rate of crime in Oregon, at least since 1985, has varied from below the United States national average to slightly above, depending on if one is looking at violent crime or property crime statistics. The violent crime rate remained below the national average every year between 1985 and 2022, while property crime generally remained above the average during that time. Every year between 2011 and 2020, Oregon maintained one of the 20 lowest violent crime rates in the United States. However, some of the most notorious serial killers in U.S. history were known for killing or operating in Oregon, including perhaps the most famous, Ted Bundy, as well as the second most prolific in terms of confirmed murders, Gary Ridgway, among many others.
David Owen Brooks was an American convicted murderer and accomplice of serial killer Dean Corll, who, along with Elmer Wayne Henley, abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered at least 28 boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston, Texas. The crimes, which became known as the Houston Mass Murders, came to light after Henley fatally shot Corll.
Necrophilia is a pathological fascination with dead bodies, which often takes the form of a desire to engage with them in sexual activities, such as intercourse. Though prohibited by the laws of many countries, there have been many reported cases of sexual abuse of dead bodies throughout history.
George Robert "Bob" Dekle Sr. is an American lawyer who was an Assistant State Attorney in Florida's Third Judicial Circuit from 1975 through 2005. During this time, he served as lead prosecuting attorney in the 1980 Orlando murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy, which ultimately delivered the death penalty that was carried out in 1989. Dekle's book on the case, The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy, was published in 2011.
Rebecca Morris is a New York Times bestselling true-crime author and a TV, radio and print journalist who lives in Seattle, Washington.
Ludwig Tessnow was a German serial killer known as the Monster of Rügen and the Mad Carpenter of Rügen, who murdered four prepubescent children in two separate attacks in 1898 and 1901.
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes is an American documentary that premiered on Netflix on January 24, 2019, the 30th anniversary of Bundy's execution. Created and directed by Joe Berlinger, the four episodes ranging from 51 to 74 minutes long were sourced from over 100 hours of interviews and archival footage of serial killer Ted Bundy, as well as interviews with his friends, surviving victims, and the law enforcement members who worked on his case.
Crazy, Not Insane is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Alex Gibney. It follows the research of psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis who studied the psychology of murders. It is narrated by Laura Dern.
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