AMES, Iowa -- An Iowa State University professor says one of the nation's most prolific serial killers' career was likely longer and deadlier than is actually known.
He says Ted Bundy may have started killing people five years before his record shows.
"If the 1969 start date is correct, that's five years ahead of his official murder timeline of 1974 to 1978. Bundy's response is that 1969 itself was far off from when he started to kill," says ISU Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Matt DeLisi.
In his book, “Ted Bundy and the Unsolved Murder Epidemic: The Dark Figure of Crime” DeLisi says Bundy’s murder count was likely 100 or more and that his first killing was in adolescence.
He also says Bundy, and his killing spree, was a product of his time in the 1960's and 1970's.
"It was a much more open and primitive society in terms of surveillance. The hitchhiker culture--that was really how Bundy and sexual homicide offenders like him procured a lot of their victims. You had someone who just simply traveling," DeLisi says.
He says Bundy and serial killers like him could be responsible for many of the thousands of unsolved murders.
"Of the 250,000 to 350,000 unsolved murders, statistically it would have to be the case that the preponderance of those are going to be perpetrated by this very small subset of the worst offenders," DeLisi says.
He says more of those unsolved murders could be cleared as more states collect DNA samples from people when they're arrested.