One day, Julia Cowell woke up after a nap to find herself surrounded by kitchen knives, all pointing at her. Then she noticed her 3-year-old nephew Theodore staring at her by the bed, smiling.
The same boy was rumored to have tortured a stray cat by hanging it from a backyard clothesline and setting it on fire with lighter fluid. He also used to buy mice in a local pet store, only to pull them apart in the woods.
He was also known to construct “Punji traps” — hidden holes in the ground containing sharpened sticks with the sharpened end pointing upwards — and at least one girl was injured in one of his traps. Theodore seemed to be consumed by inflicting pain on animals, and on his peers.
When Theodore was fourteen, an 8-year-old girl called Ann Marie Burr disappeared from her bedroom in the middle of the night, and was never seen again. The only clue the police ever found was a size 6 footprint (thought to be of a Keds sneaker) near the open window of Ann Marie’s room — most probably from a teenager.
Coincidentally, Theodore had a newspaper delivery route in the Burr’s neighborhood, which crossed near the Burr residence. He was also seen on the UPS (University of Puget Sound) campus only a couple of blocks away on the very morning of Anne Marie’s disappearance.
Later, many people witnessed that Theodore’s eyes could turn completely black when for some reason he became consumed by the things he was telling, or the things he was thinking of. When young women started to disappear at an alarming rate, witnesses recalled seeing “a good-looking man with almost black eyes.”
In reality, Ted Bundy’s eyes were bright blue, but once the adrenaline rush started his pupils dilated and changed his appearance.
Psychopathy surfaces through inflicting pain on animals (and later on humans) because it is often characterized by lack of empathy and remorse, a desire to control and the sheer thrill of eliciting fear and pain.