Bright Young Women: A New Perspective On The Ted Bundy Murders
Ada Lambert | December 6, 2023
By now, everyone has likely seen some version of a documentary or biopic of Ted Bundy — the bright and handsome young man who was destined to be a lawyer but got sidetracked on the way. Jessica Knoll, author of Bright Young Women, took a chance to offer a fictional recount of the women Bundy killed, something no other author or director had thought to do.
Bright Young Women follows the lives of Pamela, a sorority girl at Florida State University, and Ruth from Issaquah, WA, ten years prior. The unique part of Knoll’s novel is that it is based on real events, dates and even some of the characters. The first chapter begins with Pamela talking to her sorority sisters, one being her best friend, Denise, whom she has recently grown distant to. Unlike her sisters, she has no desire to go out for the night and watches as they prepare for an evening on the town. Eventually, she goes off to her room to study and sends the girls off.
This will be the last time Pamela sees her best friend Denise alive.
In the middle of the night, she awakens to crashing noises and goes to investigate. Originally, she does not see any of her sisters and continues down to the foyer of the house. The TV is on, but nobody is sitting on the couch. There are glass shards on the floor, everything is a mess. She groans, annoyed with the upkeep of the house, but this is no cause for concern. It wouldn’t be the first time the house was in disarray after the girls had a night out.
But then — out of the corner of her eye — she sees him. A young man, short in stature, with a ski mask pulled over his face revealing only his eyes and lips. At first glance, she thinks it is Denise’s ex-boyfriend, but then horror floods her body as she realizes it is a stranger and he has a short, wooden bat in his hand. That night, she is saved by the dark nook under the stairs that she was standing in as he made his escape.
She returns upstairs to investigate, and what she finds mortifies her. One of her sisters is running down the hall, holding a part of her jaw in her hands. Blood is everywhere. The girl tries to talk but cannot make a sound, the mutilation of her face barring her from any ability to communicate. Pamela discovers that another girl has been beaten similarly and calls the cops. She tries to wake Denise up, but she will not rise. In a frenzy of denial and panic, she assumes she has fallen into a very deep sleep and calls the cops for the other two girls.
Four of the girls are taken off to the hospital that morning, one being Denise. Pamela is in charge of making all the calls, letting them know “there has been a robbery,” or so they assumed. The detectives on the scene tell her that the girls are all okay, but that is not the reality. She receives a call, not long after, informing her Denise and another sister had died.
The problem is, when she first talked to detectives, in a frazzled state, she told them she originally thought it was Denise’s ex-boyfriend leaving the house.
This resumes the long, drawn-out investigation of Bundy, called the defendant in the novel.
Ten years before, Ruth, a young woman recently divorced and living with her controlling mother, was seeking out group therapy to grieve her father’s recent passing. Her storyline is one disconnected from the defendant at first. She is in the process of taking back her life, falling in love, and gaining confidence. She is one of the many women who were simply going about their lives when the defendant derailed their futures. Just like Pamela, Ruth is a bright woman who is moving up in the world.
Knoll wrote this story to honor the women who lost their lives to a ruthless killer, one who was consistently glamourized for his looks and charm well after his death. Even in the recent biopic, there is a sense of the director wanting to investigate Bundy — to capture his essence in film and present him as unsuspecting. Pamela’s character is based on a real person — Nita Neary, who was the only eyewitness to testify in court, just the same as Pamela did. Likewise, Ruth is based on one of the defendant's victims, Janice Ann Ott. While some parts of the story are fabricated or reworked for entertainment purposes, the purpose of the novel does not lose its impact by the fictional aspects but rather is amplified.
This book was a refreshing take on today’s rampant true crime entertainment section. It was not overtly violent or vile and aimed to celebrate the achievements of the women who were impacted by his horrific crimes. If you are interested in true crime but are tired of the misogynist perspective of it all, this is the book for you.
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