Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers

Although Fraser narrates the stories of multiple serial killers in Murderland, the book’s primary focus is Ted Bundy (1946-1989), a Tacoma-based serial killer who was active while Fraser was growing up in the Seattle area. Between 1974 and 1978, Bundy killed dozens of women, and Murderland is one of many books attempting to explain or shed new light on his murders. Fraser addresses major theories, such as abandonment and sexual abuse, before suggesting that, like many serial killers in the 1970s and 1980s, he grew violent as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals. However, Fraser differentiates Bundy from the others by suggesting that he was uniquely influenced by violent stories of true crime in detective magazines. This theory supports Bundy’s own insistence that the urge to kill came from beyond him.

In introducing Bundy, Fraser points to two major theories about his childhood: that his violence was influenced by either his early abandonment issues or sexual abuse. In her description of Bundy’s teenage mother making the anguished decision to bow to societal pressure and place her newborn son for adoption, Fraser writes that she “[left] him, like a package at the train station, like lost luggage” (29). Bundy and his mother eventually reunited, but Fraser suggests that he lost her again when she remarried, and the former only child was “displaced by Bundy babies” (49).