It’s been said that a rapist’s most powerful weapon is his victims’ silence.
Now, more than 40 years after she was brutally attacked, raped and almost killed by none other than serial killer Ted Bundy, Rhonda Stapley is finally breaking her silence, bravely telling her story for the first time.
In 1974, Rhonda was a pharmacy student at the University of Utah. A Mormon, a virgin, a straight A student, a petite girl with long, dark hair – she fit the profile of Bundy’s other victims to a tee.
One October day, Rhonda was waiting for the bus when a handsome stranger in a VW offered her a ride. She thought he was a kind, even flirtatious fellow student, until he pulled over in a secluded area and announced, “I’m going to kill you.” What happened next is the stuff of nightmares, followed by a miraculous escape, and yet Rhonda told absolutely no one about it for almost four decades.
Rhonda has chosen to share her very personal story now in order to encourage other survivors to come forward with their secrets, whatever their struggles may be. She reveals her battle with drugs, PTSD, years of painful silence and guilt, as well as the more healthy methods of coping with trauma that she has learned in recent years.
Rhonda Stapley’s new book, “I survived Ted Bundy: The Attack, Escape and PTSD That Changed My Life,” was vetted via FBI files and further validated by a foreword from one of the world’s foremost experts on Bundy—Ann Rule, whose bestselling book The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles the late true crime author’s friendship with the notorious serial killer.
