The Stranger Beside Me (2003)

A female voice-over states that she wishes she could envision a time before the killings. The images are of Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy (Billy Campbell), carrying the body of a blonde young woman across the fields up to a barn. Ted clumsily applies lipstick to the woman's face, and those reminiscences are mixed with a police car's sirens stopping him.

Ted undresses the young lady and smashes her head, splitting blood onto his own face. Ted, sweaty and nervous, looks petrified, but the police officer insists. A phone rings. Ann Rule (Barbara Hershey) was sleeping, dozed on her couch, until the police pass her to Ted. CUT to Seven Years Earlier. She was attending a busy telephone line which supports women. Ted and Ann work together, and it's clear they get on well. Ted talks to one Sally who cries over her husband having left her. Ted mentions a "long tall Sally" he used to know. Sally doesn't answer when Ted offers to go out with her. Ann calls the police on her behalf, so Sally is taken to hospital. Ann hugs Ted, because he has saved Sally's life. During a break at a diner, Ted shows Ann the kind of detective comics he usually reads. Ann is already a published author, and Ted talks about the girlfriend who dumped him. Kim Manson's body has appeared. Leslie Rule (Meghan Black), Ann's daughter, goes out with a guy, but her mother shoes her some photographs of other teenagers who were attacked and killed. Ann is obsessed with crime, as she investigates and reports true crime stories. A jogger founds a skeleton semi-buried in the woods. Ted and Ann meet at a fund-raising political reunion. Governor Evans (Michael St. John Smith) has given Ted a job as a driver. Ann is surprised to see him dressed as a Republican. Ted introduces Margo (Brenda James) to Ann. Margo says that Ted talks about Ann all the time, and that she is going to get ready to him. Police think that there are already six girls missing, related to that case. Margo wants to see Ted more, who'sreading the newspaper, whose first-page is the news of some missing girls. At the gym, Ted looks at a young teenager. Ted is wearing an arm in a string. Ted tells Katie (Crystal Bublé) to help him charge the battery of his car. Katie finds weird a comment he makes about the areas, when he has just said that he doesn't know anybody in the area. Katie leaves, so Ted has to find another victim - another teenager. He chit-chats with her in a friendly manner, until he hits her on the head. Ted comes back home with a bouquet of flowers and some takeaway dinner to take while dancing and kissing Margo. He reminiscences about the body of the second teenager. Ann is getting nervous and tries to control Leslie, who can't even take the bus on her own to pay a visit to her father. Ted tries to make peace. Ann inquires about a bandaged hand, and Ted says he's cut himself. Ann Rule is also a detective who will help police with the case. Ann is worried that the rape and murders can happen to any girl - and Leslie fits the mold of the girls who interest the killer. Ted promises Ann that nothing bad will ever happen to Leslie. Ann goes to the car park where Ted lured the young girls. Katie has described "Ted", but they think that the name is fake and the male face of the young man is a bit too generic. In any case, Ann doesn't recognise the portrait of Ted Bundy. Detective Payton (Matthew Bennett) and District Attorney Baines (Aaron Douglas) discuss the case with Ann. Ann realises that her friend Ted looks a little like the killer, but the cop doesn't think it possible that the murderer used his real name - that would be stupid. Some other day, Ted introduces his friend Kelly Parker (Suki Kaiser) to Ann at the café. Ann asks Ted about Margo, and he tells her that she was from Utah, so that she came back to her family. Ted mentions that the killer is second-to-Jack-the-Reaper, and asks about the case in return. Ann says that nobody feels threatened by that man. The three of them laugh about Ted - and thousands of men like him - being possible suspects. Ann suggests he goes to the police station to have some tests. Kelly laughs it off ackwardly, they are just two friends goofing around. Ted's hand has healed perfectly well, not even a scar as proof. CUT to Utah, 1975A moustached man possing off as a police officer, Roseland, in street clothes lures a girl to ckeck on her vandalised car. He offers to take her to the police station to report on the crime after showing her his star. He tells Julie Wyatt (Kimberley Warnat) that his wife is about to have a child, and that Julie is one of the names in their list as a baby name. Suddenly, Julie starts getting nervous, as they are not going the right way. He asks her how often her boyfriend tells her that she's beautiful, which makes her frantic, as she hasn't mentioned a boyfriend at all. He tries to handcuff her to the car, but she manages to run awaywhen another car approaches, and the driver (Johnny Sawchuk) stops to help her. Ted Bundy leaves in his car. He takes off his fake moustache, and mutters that the situation is stupid. With the excuse of his car's dead battery, he talks to a ticket girl (Tara Hungerford) at a cinema cabin. As usual with Ted Bundy, he looks friendly, well-kept, and finally takes a young school girl dressed in a school uniform, with her musical instrument by her side. He applies make up with a brush and then hits her in the head. Leslie and Ann wonder about why somebody would do something like that. Meanwhile, Ted tries to compose himself in his car. A police officer (Mark Lukyn) asks him what he's doing there, and he says that he saw a film at the Redwood cinema, but that he took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up there, lost. The cop asks a nervous Ted whether he can look around in his car. Ted gives in, because the opposite would look suspicious, and the cop notices dented tools at the back. The ticket girl can give a clear positive identification of Ted, as several days have gone by. Ted is interrogated. He's shown the pictures of some Utah girls, including Susan Wayne (Sarah Edmondson). They may have something on him: the handcuffs which Julie ran away in. There is a radio broadcaster says that Ted has been arrested. Leslie and Ann amazed at that. Ted phones Ann and tries to convince her that she "knows him, he wouldn't hurt a fly". He reassures her that they are friends, and that when he leaves jail, he'll visit her. Her editor puts some more pressure on Ann because of her biding contract to the publishing house. They want her to exploit her friendship to Ted. Ann admits that she's scared of Ted, but that book may do away with her financial problems. Ann and many other cops search for clues now that they have a suspect. Ann thinks she should have known, but her friend tries to reassure her that there is not way she could have suspected him. Margo also thinks that there were clues: he read the articles about the case, he watch the TV. Margo admits to a female friend that Ted could only have sex with her if he was choking her, or if he tied her up. Ted bails himself out. He phones Ann from a street phone, saying that he's staying with Margo in Seattle. Ann wants to talk with him to know what makes him click. Ted is being followed. Ted hired a private detective who's going to prove that he's innocent. Ann admits to him that she's not convinced of his innocence. He answers her personal questions. They are at a different café, and the young waitress (Mia Lotringer) recognises Ted Bundy's face and asks him for an autograph! Ted expresses his confidence he would be declared non-guilty. However, he's declared guilty of a kidnapping with aggravants. Ann and Kelly talk outside the meeting room in prison. Ann tells him that he'll be accused of seceral murders. There were fibers of the victim's clothes into Ted's car. Ted's face changes but he still insists he's innocent. Ted says that the monster is still out there, that he's only a escapegoat, and that he isn't crazy. Ann starts seeing a therapist (Maureen Thomas) because of her own guilt feelings. A psychiatrist (Roger Haskett) visits Ted to assess whether he's crazy or not. Ann Rule says to her psychologist that she wanted to speak for the victims. Ann misses her writing, but at that moment, she can't cope. Ted wants to represent himself in Colorado. Florida, 1978Six days have gone by since Ted escaped from his Colorado prison. He's grown a beard. He's making himself pass as a young guy whose surname is Kashoggi. He's considered armed and extremely dangerous. Ted notices a young girl and follows her to her dorm room. He is wearing leather gloves and a torchlight. Ted stares at the girl in her nightie and hits her with his torcklight. Another student notices him while he runs down the building stairs. When that girl sees the blood and the body, she screams. Soon afterwards the police siege Ted's car. Another police officer (Shawn Reis) points a gun towards him. Ted ass the cop whether he knows who he is. There is a fight, but Ted is captured again. When Ted goes back to prison, there are plenty of cameras and reporters waiting for him. Ted makes jokes about that possibly being an election year. Ted pleads non-guilty again. Ann visits him. Ted looks satisfied because of the media attention. Judge Harris Carlton presides Ted's judgement. Ted's lawyer asks for more time, and Ted stands up to speak up. Ted's girlfriend describe him as good fun, charismatic, self-assured. He had stopped pursuing the girfriend when she said "yes" to him. Ann tells her that Ted must have started killing peopel long before he met any formal girlfriend. Everybody who knew the kind and "normal" Ted tries to figure it out. Ted was an illegitimate son who grew up with his grandparents, and his granddad was pretty violent towards him. Ted'sgrandmother, while arrenging a bouquet of flowers, remembers a quiet girl back in 1962 who vanished from the face of the earth and whose disappearance has never been explained. Ted himself questions one of his girlfriends. The ex-girfriend had hoped to marry him. Ted had never been violent towards her; all the contrary, he was a warm affectionate man. The jury looks at him with good humour, and Ted kisses her girlfriend before the judge, who tries to prevent things like that. Ted promisesto marry that girl, and he even convinces her of making love with him in the visiting room of jail. Ted says that somebody else committed the crimes and that he finds the crimes gruesome and unspeakable evil. The jury finds Ted guilty, and Judge Carlton sentences him to dead. In a way, the judge recognises Bundy's intelligence, as he says that in other circumstances, he'd have been proud to have a lawyer like him talking infront of the jury. For once, Ted doesn't look proud of himself; his face is forlorn and sad. However, he shrugs his shoulders looking at Ann Rule. Ted is preparing his own appeal to the Supreme Court. He has left his last girlfriend pregnant, and she looks happy and satisfied to support him through the ordeal. Talking to Jay, the prison guard, (Deejay Jackson), he is pretty satisfied with the fact of going to have a baby. He says that it's like becoming immortal. Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida. Ted has decided to become vegetarian, although the jail system doesn't care much for specialy dietary specifications. He talks to Ann, who keeps on visiting him. She asks about his childhood to him. Ted dismisses it: would Ann rather have Ted inventing something sordid going on in his family, like his grandfather raping his mother? Ann keeps on trying to understand, but can't. Ann says that it's clear that Ted has a defect somewhere, but Ted says that he hasn't got any. "I can't tell you the truth because there is no truth to tell. " Ted states that he's like any ordinary person, and that he used to be a normal teenager at 14, like Ann herself, 99% of the time, but that he's still judged harshly. Ann wants Ted to admit that he killed all those girls. She also feels a weird need to see Ted behave like a moster. Suddenly, Ted ask Ann whether she can remember "Long tall Sally", the girl he saved. Afterwards, Ted tracked Sally through the health paramedics who had saved her - Sally was not even her real name. She ended up slitting her veins in her bedroom. Ann leaves in anger. Ted says that nothing would have done her any good. When Ann Rules arrives home, she cries. Ted talks to her girlfriend and his daughter already 5 years old at least. Ted tells the mother that she must plead with the relatives of the victims: he will tell them where the bodies of the girls are if they plead with the governor to give Ted a pardon. She is dumbfolded: she can't believe that he knows where those girls are. He says that he can speculate, - so he's not admitting to having done anything yet. She wants to leave with their daughter, but he tries to stop her and insists. Ted has been on death row for nine years. It looks like his last moment is about ot approach. He pleads for three more years: he will say where the girls are buried and will speak about the girls' last moments alive. However, his female lawyer tells him that the relatives and the families of the girls refuse to speak in his behalf, no matter what. Ted can't understand that the families can live without knowing where the girls have been buried. The lawyer suggests him giving out that information without expecting nothing in return. Ann also wonders whether there will be a last-second confession, or even a last-minute pardon. Ann rejects to be interviewed. There's still no confession. 24th Januray 1989Ted is in prison. He sends a message to his family saying that he's sorry. Ann talks about Sarah Jane Sweeney (Ginger Broatch /Haili Page), a girl neighbour of young Ted Bundy (Trent Wittal). Sarah Jane was at home on a school day because she was sick. Her mother thought she was on her room sleeping, but she went to the porch and was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair. Ted passes by in his bike, as he is the paper boy of that neighbourhood. Sarah Jane must have been lured by Ted, . When her mother checked on her, she was not in her room and she was never found out alive or dead. Ann Rule thinks Sarah Jane Sweeney must have been Ted's first victim. Ted loses his cool while he walks the green mile. He has to be carried by the prison guards. In a voice over, Ann Rule's voice keeps on wondering about Ted Bundy and Sarah Jane Sweeney. She was 8, he was 14. Ted tries to plead for some more time, but he's tied to the electric chair without more ado. Officially, Ted killed 36 girls and women, but Ann Rule thinks that there has to be some more nobody knows about. She wonders whether Ted was born a monster, or he became a monster. Ann realises that there are no answers to those questions, over images of the ambulance which disposes of Ted's dead body and young Ted luring Sarah Jane away, in a friendly manner. CAPTIONS:The term "serial killer" did not exist before Ted Bundy. Many of the families of the victims never recovered their daughters' remains. The family of SarahJane Sweeney held a memorial service for her in 1999, 38 years after her disappearance. Ann Rule haswritten 20 national best sellers and has become a leading advocate of the rights of victims' and their survivors.