Ted Bundy was born out of wedlock on November 24, 1946 to Eleanor ‘Louise’ Cowell. His paternal lineage is unknown but his Grandfather was ruled out as a contender thanks to a DNA test. Ted was born at The Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont (also referred to as ‘Lizzie’s Home for Naughty Ladies’). Louise initially left her little boy behind but his Grandparents forced her to bring him home, and because their daughter was young and unmarried Samuel and Eleanor planned to raise the child as their own. For the first five years of his life Ted lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1950 Louise moved little Teddy across the United States to Tacoma, Washington, where she gave him the last name of Nelson and moved in with her Uncle Jack Cowell, a music professor at the nearby University of Puget Sound. In May of 1951 Louise married an army cook named Johnnie Bundy. The couple met at a church function and married shortly after. The couple went on to have 4 children together and Johnnie formally adopted Ted in 1951.

While Louise has said Ted’s father was a ‘sailor,’ true crime writer Ann Rule claimed that on the serial killer’s birth certificate an Air Force veteran named Lloyd Marshall was listed as his father. However, in the book ‘The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy,’ journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth claim that a war veteran named Jack Worthington was his father. The truth of Ted’s fathers identity will most likely never be known.

When Ted was 21 years old he took a trip to the east coast, where he visited Burlington and obtained a copy of his birth certificate. It was then that he realized for certain he was an illegitimate child, a fact he didn’t take well. According to loved ones he was extremely bitter about the circumstances surrounding his birth and his parental lineage. He also resented Louise for keeping it a secret from him.