What Ted Bundy Teaches Us About Trust and Deception By Sensei Liam Musiak

When people think of “evil,” they imagine someone who looks dangerous. Someone with devil horns, scars across the face, or eyes that instantly tell you to stay away. But unfortunately, reality doesn’t work like that.

Ted Bundy was, by all accounts, a handsome man. He was well-spoken, charming, even a law student. If you walked past him in the street, you wouldn’t think anything of him. And that’s exactly what made him so dangerous.

People like Bundy don’t come with warning signs written on their foreheads. They don’t look like the Hollywood villain who glares at you from across the room. They look like me, and they look like you. To most of us, even the thought of doing the kinds of things Bundy did makes us feel sick. But that’s what makes predators like him stand out—they don’t think like us, and they don’t feel like us.

Bundy’s methods were as manipulative as his appearance was ordinary. He would put his arm in a fake sling or wear a false leg cast, pretending to be injured so that women would help him carry books or load items into his car. He used the most basic human instinct—compassion—as a weapon.

It went further. He even impersonated a police officer, calling himself Officer Roseland. On November 8, 1974, Bundy lured Carol DaRonch into his car under this disguise. Later, it was confirmed by police that the handcuffs he used on her did not belong to the Murray Police Department, and in fact, no such officer named Roseland ever existed.

This tells us something crucial about trust and self-defence: you cannot rely on appearances. Just because someone seems respectable, polite, or official, does not make them safe. Predators know how to exploit these assumptions.

The lesson here isn’t to live in constant paranoia—it’s to stay aware. Awareness is the shield that can’t be faked. Trust your instincts, and remember: if something feels wrong, it probably is. Evil doesn’t always announce itself—it hides in plain sight.