In the Bundy community children are usually considered “off-limits,” meaning (the handful of us that do know) about adult Rosa don’t share what they know (I’m loyal to who told me and I’ll never tell a soul) and we blur out her face in any early childhood pictures. After Amazon’s “Falling for a Killer” I had hopes that there’d be a season two featuring Carole Ann and Rosa… little did I know she passed away and Rosa completely dropped out of the public eye (good for her).

Ted met Carole Ann in 1974 in Olympia, WA when they were employed at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services. When the pair first met she was newly divorced, working full time and was raising her teenage son, Jamey/James; additionally one of her uncles had just recently died. Carole’s one time colleagues said she was very maternal, and often acted like a sister/mother figure to the department. Although competent, smart, and good at her job, the young Mother still reportedly had a goofy side and often would engage in office pranks and antics with her work friends (such as starting a rubber-band war or going on a three-hour bender in the middle of the afternoon at the Voodoo Room at the nearby Bailey Motor Inn). Bundy’s brief employment with the DES (he was only there from May 3, 1974 to August 28, 1974) caused quite a commotion with both men and women, as most people employed there found him charming and intriguing. As for Carole Ann, she was immediately dazzled by him: she felt Ted was an introvert and that he carried himself with “a certain dignity.” At the time she was reportedly in a complicated relationship with “a large, unpleasant man” and Ted was still with Liz Kloepfer (although that didn’t seem to stop him from straying); their relationship didn’t turn romantic until Bundy’s Florida’s trials started in 1978. The couple famously wed in January 1980 while Ted was on trial for the murder of Kim Leach. She got pregnant with Rosa while Bundy was on death row and the pair started a very unconventional family (she gave birth in October 1982); that didn’t last long as she divorced him in 1986. About Rosa, Ted said in a letter dated November 16, 1981: “my joy over Rosa remains too sublime for words, and it” …. “that it shall stay that way for as long as I live. I have had four visits with her since her birth and the sense of the miraculous had not worn off. The extraordinary beauty of what Carole and I have created is awesome. I am fascinated with watching her whether she’s asleep, nursing, crying or studying me with those curious blue eyes of her. I’ve become very proficient at changing her diapers, too. (another pen bites the dust. This one isn’t much better) I must add.”

Carole Ann was born on April 12, 1947 in Seattle, and sadly passed away at the age of 70 on January 13, 2018. After Bundy was executed she lived under an assumed name and eventually ran into some considerable health problems (it is speculated she had multiple sclerosis and in later years was confined to a wheelchair). She checked herself into a retirement community/nursing home in Seattle, where no one knew who she was. Carole’s friends there said she “enjoyed knitting and watching soccer,” and that she “she had attitude. She loved nature programs, especially ones about sharks.”