every one of the 52 hostages was alive, was well, and free. every one of the 52 hostages was -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight our topic will be murder as a growth industry. >> murder has become an epidemic in america. >> in the last ten years, the homicide rate has increased by leaps and bounds. >> my god, somebody fired a shot! >> these tragedies keep getting closer and closer to home. i'm afraid to let my kids walk out the door. >> urban crime wave will touch off a new round of gun buying. >> step out, mr. bundy. >> i'll plead not guilty right now. >> there has been a disturbing growth in cult phenomenon in this country.

♪ ♪ >> all the elements are present for one of the most sensational murder trials in american history. seven murdered, young girls

supposedly under the spell of a bearded svengali who allegedly masterminded the seven murders. >> the '70s is a decade of just brutal violence on any front and anywhere you look in america. >> at the time of a mass murder, there's a lot of media coverage. but usually after a brief period of time, the identity of the perpetrator tends to fade from the public's consciousness. but not so with the manson case. >> it was the biggest publicity case the d.a.'s office had ever had. >> the manson trial begins the 1970s on such an evil, sadistic note. seven innocent people died, steve parrot, a teenager, abigail feeling olger, folger c, wojciech frykowski, jason sebring, gary hinman, leno labianca, rosemary labianca and sharon tate. >> all of you know how beautiful she was, but only a few of you know how good she was.

>> and you had charles manson himself, the charismatic leader of the family who didn't show any remorse or any respect for the system. >> are you all happy? >> good. >> am i happy? it's your court. i wouldn't accept it. >> the problem was he did not physically participate in the murders, but only manson had a motive to commit these murders. and that motive was helter skelter. >> manson envisioned that the white man would turn against the blackman if they thought they committed the murders and there would be a civil war between blacks and whites. manson foresaw the black man would win this war but he said the black man because of inexperience would not be able to handle the reins of power. so you have to look at the white people who had survived, who escaped from helter skelter and turn over the reins of power to charles manson and his family. >> when the words "headlight

xelter" -- "helter-skelter" were found at the murder scene, i said this was manson. >> manson sat through this saying nothing but had an "x" scratched in his forehead. it's his way of saying he has x'd himself out of society. >> susan atkins, patricia krenwinkel and leslie van houten sang as they went to and from court today as if to show they are with manson and he is with them. >> the three women were coached by charlie every morning, here's things i want you to do. so they would do everything from singing mocking songs to the judge to, when charlie is making one of his impassioned speeches, mouthing the words along with him. >> i don't have any guilt. i know what i've done, and no man can judge me. i judge me. >> are you bitter? >> bitter? no, no.

>> price? you have eyes. open them. >> charlie manson is a great presenter, but vincent was better. and when he put these two antagonists into a courtroom, america thought, this is entertainment. >> people who are curious about the tate murders go to the los angeles hall of justice where they wait in long lines. some people are so interested that they get to the courthouse at 4:00 a.m. something else this trial has done is gather together again those members of manson's family who are not in jail. >> the world is getting crazy. >> one read part of a letter that manson wrote the district attorney. >> i write to you because i don't think i'm getting a fair trial. i'm an individual, one man standing alone defending myself. contrast this with the facilities you have to you. >> i noted the coverage of the charles manson case. here is a man who is guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.

here is a man who as far as the coverage was concerned appeared to be rather a glamorous figure. >> l.a. times the next morning, manson guilty, nixon declares. manson got ahold of the paper, stands up in front of the jury with a silly little smile on his face, and he shows the jury the headline. >> a tight ring of security surrounds the hall of justice today as the manson jury deliberates. meanwhile, members of the manson clan continue their vigil outside the hall of justice. they've been there since the start of the trial. >> if charlie were convicted of these charges, what happens to the rest of the members of the family? >> there's no if. charlie will get out. all of the people in jail will get out, and we'll all go to the desert together. >> the jury hearing the charges against charles manson and three girl members of his so-called family heard the verdict this afternoon.

>> outside the court, manson's girl followers got the news by radio. >> they've convicted these people, and you are all next. all of you. there's a revolution coming very soon. >> today the judge formally passed sentence on charles manson and his girls. the death penalty he said for seven senseless murders. he said not only was the sentence appropriate but almost compelled in this case. so death in the gas chamber, he said. >> the very name "manson" has become a metaphor for evil, catapulting him to almost mythological proportions. and there's a side to human nature, for whatever reason, that is fascinated by pure, unalloyed evil. >> if the death penalty is to mean anything in the state of california other than two empty words this unquestionably was a proper case for the imposition of the death penalty. >> the california supreme court ruled today that the death

penalty is unconstitutional. that will save five women and 102 men, including charles manson, from the gas chamber. >> should there be a supreme penalty for committing a crime? >> what do you think? >> i'm the one who's asking you. >> yeah, but if i don't give you >> yeah, but if i don't give you the answer that you want -- >> it doesn't matter to me. it's your opinion. >> i don't have the authority to say anything like that. >> you have the authority to believe. >> i believe what i'm told to believe, don't you? ♪ i built my business with passion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio.

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the boy was shot right at the side of the car, and the girl apparently tried to run. she was shot and found 28 feet further on. >> do you have any idea what the possible motive might be for this killing? >> we have no motive at this time. >> the zodiac killer, this unknown person, committed dozens of murders in the 1960s, 1970s. we really don't know the full dimensions of the case, but we know he is the zodiac because he started to write to the police claiming credit in great detail, articulating and explaining what he did to these victims. >> "the chronicle" received two letters. they notified us immediately. the criminologist was sent over to the newspaper, as were inspectors, and the two letters were examined and opened.

>> the zodiac's reaching out to the police repeatedly and in great length was something new. >> the psychotic killer has already murdered five, one at a lover's lane near a lake just north of san francisco, three others in nearby vallejvallejo. the lateest, a taxi driver in san francisco. the zodiac killer seems to crave publicity. he sent letters and cryptograms to newspapers and police recounting his crimes, threatening more murders and making bay area residents very edgy. >> in the '70s there was a certain kind of killer who had the skill to get away with murder long enough to assemble a body count where they would be classified as a serial killer. >> in los angeles, a killer the police are calling the hillside strangler has murdered ten young women and left their bodies on the hillsides along the highways. today the police found another, number 11, they think. >> two young paper boys

discovered what appear to be the latest victim. the body had been dumped 15 feet down an embankment in a residential neighborhood. the victim was a 20-year-old woman and the body was nude. >> the series of murders has had a chilling effect on the people in the city. >> in los angeles, more women than ever before are learning to defend themselves. susan ball skipped night school for a week. she says she can't sleep because of the murders. >> i guess i just want to learn how to maybe give myself a few seconds so i can live. >> there are enough bodies over a wide enough area to strongly suggest more than one killer. but police say they really don't know. >> today the los angeles police say they have a suspect, a man in jail in another state. >> los angeles police say they have enough evidence to charge 27-year-old kenneth bianchi with ten of the hillside stranglings. police focused on bianchi only after he was arrested last january for the murder of two college students in washington state. >> what the police did not know is there is not one strangler but two.

today in a bellingham, washington, courtroom, kenneth bianchi in the hope of avoiding a death sentence confessed to participation in the los angeles hillside stranglings and accused his cousin angelo buono of being his accomplice. >> he was motivated because he was trying to show his older cousin, who he revered that he was tough and for angelo buono, he enjoyed the fact he had his younger cousin listening to him. and we saw this time and time again, pairs of killers who urge each other, and together they are extremely vicious and violent. >> is there any doubt this is a body? >> no doubt. skull and bones and everything. >> when did you first get word that there might be some bodies buried here? >> this morning. >> had you had any indication before? >> the man behind the killings was dean corll, 33 years old. or was.

he was shot and killed wednesday evening by wayne henley, 17 years old. he was one of two teenagers that lured teens to corll's home. >> dean corll would bring kids to his house and would incapacitate them and put them on what he called his death board and rape and kill them. >> the texas killings have become the worst murders in american history. four bodies of boys were dug up today, and that brings to 27 the number discovered so far. >> some people trying to make it appear that the police department has not done all that it could or should have done in these cases. the police department feels that these parents are not exactly discharging their own responsibility so far as raising and disciplining their children. >> these shocking murders finally focus national attention on a major problem, that of runaway children and what can happen to them. >> the children that run away from home today are not the

children we had running away from home in the '60s. in the '60s we had flower children and they ran away for sociopolitical reasons. today children are running from a situation rather than to a situation. >> kids are disappearing, and the police are saying, they probably ran away. it was to the demise of many who in fact were picked up by sexual sadists like john wayne gacy. >> in illinois, near chicago, a man who served time in prison for sex crimes was let out. today they found the bodies of at least three young boys buried under his house. >> police today found six more bodies under the john gacy house. >> illinois authorities today made their first positive identification of the 28 bodies unearthed so far. this grisly search ended tonight and will be resumed after christmas. >> prior to his arrest, gacy was well known in the community. he frequently dressed in a clown outfit for the benefit of youngsters. he was generally seen as a man young people liked. >> the coroner of this county

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from new york, this is abc news. >> good evening. the supreme court ruled today that there is nothing unconstitutional in the death penalty.

>> the court says the death spent an expression of society's moral outrage at particular crimes. >> in the 1970s, we had a four-year moratorium on the death penalty. the u.s. supreme court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. eventually, in 1976, with new statutes, the u.s. supreme court said it's constitutional, and then we started seeing the death penalty back in place, death rows repopulated with new criminals like gary gilmore. >> it seems that the people of utah want the death penalty but don't want executioners. i took them literal and serious when they sentenced me to death. >> his crimes were not especially extreme. it was two robbery murders. but when he was convicted, he wanted to die. he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. so two years later he was put to death by a firing squad and became the first person in america in this new era to be executed.

and his words were "let's do it." >> the order of the fourth judicial court of the state of utah has been carried out. gary mark gilmore is dead. >> tonight our topic will be murder as a growth industry. these are the national homicide figures. for the past ten years, every year has set a new high for murder in america. >> the statistics were stupendous. i mean, violent crimes of all kinds were soaring. the spectacles that people were seeing on their tv screens were unlike anything they had to absorb before. >> a small grocery store was robbed. the owner of the grocery store, nathan hurt, has been shot and killed. >> as i understand, a man came into the store and had a gun and asked for money and my grandfather reached for a gun he had and grabbed at the man's gun and it went off or he shot him twice, and my grandfather fell to the floor. >> why did he feel he had to

have a gun? >> because there are so many robberies in the area and thought he needed it for protection. >> today ordinary citizens who would not otherwise dream of having a gun are buying one because they're scared out of their wits. >> william rubiak is a ukrainian immigrant who owns a store outside of washington, d.c. he's been robbed at gunpoint four times in the past two years. now william rubiak has bought a gun and says next time he will use it. >> i will shoot, and i will shoot to kill. >> fear is the biggest seller of guns. studies have shown each urban crime wave has touched off a new round of gun buying. >> we have german rugers, small revolvers, magnums, some of these saturday night specials are small and can be palmed in your hand. >> it was shortly after 10:00 california time when the president left his hotel. not seen by the following cameras but scattered by secret service agent larry buendorf was

a hand with a gun in it coming through the crowd. the commotion erupted. secret service agents forced the assailant to the ground and then handcuffed her. she was identified as 27-year-old lynnette alice fromme, one of the earliest followers of charles manson who was involved in the tate mur murders of 1969. >> about the same time gerald ford becomes president, charlie in prison writes to squeaky that he has new rules. they want to do one big thing that's going to get the nation's attention back on charlie. so squeaky, wearing a red robe, comes up to the president of the united states with a big gun, points the gun in his face. the secret servicemen wrestle her to the ground and squeaky's first words were, can you believe the gun didn't go off? >> following your own close brush with death in sacramento a couple of weeks ago, i wonder if this has convinced you at all that we need tough gun control legislation in this country? >> i prefer to go after the

person who uses the gun for an illegal or criminal purpose. that, to me, is a far better approach than the one where you require registration of the individual or the gun. >> just minutes after making those statements, gerald ford walked into the street and heard the sound of gunfire. >> my god, there's been a shot! there's been a shot. we're being pushed back by the police. somebody has fired a shot here. we don't know if anybody has been hit. my god, somebody fired a shot! >> the president was not hit. witnesses heard the sound and saw a puff of smoke. the woman identified by police as sara jane moore was immediately seized. >> sara jane moore jumped out of the crowd, fired off a weapon,

and was tackled by another citizen. her background it turned out was as sort of an eccentric, lower rung political figure. she was kind of an odd duck. >> when gerald ford became president, within the space of one month were two attempts on his life, squeaky fromme and sara jane moore. both tried to shoot him. it's like, what's going on? why can't this be stopped? >> so once again this nation has narrowly escaped the tragedy, the trauma, of the assassination of our president. above all else, this points out the need for some additional measures, some additional precautions to protect the life of the highest elected official in the country. will it take another assassination in our lifetime to finally force some action? i heard you lost a close one today. look, jamie, maybe we weren't the lowest rate this time. but when you show people their progressive direct rate and our competitors' rates,

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in the '70s, new york was really in danger. the whole social fabric seemed to have been torn in half, and crime was just one of the many indications that we were lost. >> i would say the last ten years the homicide rate has increased by leaps and bounds. we hit our peak probably in 1972 when the bronx had 430 homicides.

in the '70s, the bronx looked like berlin after world war ii. literally looked like berlin. >> 1.5 million people live in this borough. once that smoke on the horizon signified industry, progress, jobs. now it means someone is burning down a building. it has become the arson capital of the world. it happens 30 times a day, and the flames are the signal of a national disaster. >> is there anything that can change the situation? >> the bronx in my own estimation is doomed with a capital "d." >> a lot of gritty stuff went down in new york and when you think of new york in the '70s you of course think of the son of sam murders. >> christine freund, soon to be married, 26 years old, is dead today. dead in a shooting that has no apparent motive. >> at the end of 1976, they transferred me to queens homicide. and the first victim that i came of course was a woman named

christine freund, who was sitting there with her boyfriend coming from a movie and got her head blown off. >> there was a series of the random shootings, and the ballistics comparison it was indeed the same killer using the same gun a .44 caliber weapon on these homicides. therefore, the police nicknamed it the .44 caliber killer. >> he struck april 17th at 3:00 in the morning, killing 18-year-old valentina suriani and her fiance, 20-year-old alexander esau as they sat in a parked car in the baychester section of the bronx. >> we get the shooting back in the bronx. a girl named valentina suriani. but at that scene where that shooting occurred left a note addressed to my supervisor, and he called himself the son of sam. >> he talks about being possessed by a man he refers to as sam and the man he refers to to as his father and he said his father requires blood. >> this got people's attention. i think it was the sheer randomness to it.

the fact you could be doing something as simple as talking to a friend in a car and someone would come behind you and open fire. it was pretty terrifying. it was frightening. >> i was in charge of the nighttime operation. there was part of the task force that wanted to shoot him on site. that was our job, take him out on the street. we flooded the streets of new york. >> there's people dying, and we're trying to stop it. it's everybody. it's not you. it's everybody. that's all we're trying to do. >> okay. >> in terms of the victim count, that doesn't place him at the top of the list in terms of the most deadly serial killers, but it was new york city. and what happens in new york city, well, that's international news. >> good evening. harry is on vacation. here are our top stories. 100 more police join the hunt for the son of sam killer in new york. >> the search continues for the .44 caliber killer who has come to be known as the son of sam. >> he warned in one of his sick and threatening letters to the

press and to the police, sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he's had his full of blood. >> it was a really miserably hot summer in new york. and everything went dark. i heard someone on the street go, oh, it's a blackout! the looters were out almost instantly. and it felt apocalyptic. i remember going to bed that night thinking it was the end of the world. >> new york city in the early morning after a night of no electric power. what it did have in the dark streets was a wild outburst of crime. >> when the greatest city in the world goes black, it showed a crumbling america. then you have the son of sam on the loose. >> we always look for patterns in victims. there was this belief that he was only killing women with long

dark hair. >> i know the .44 killer is after girls with long brown hair so when me and my friends go out at night we put our hair up. >> my hair is down past my shoulder. >> i cut it short because of the .44 caliber killer. >> well, his last victim was actually blond. >> a 22-year-old new york city girl died this evening a day and a half after she and her companion were shot by the son of sam. he's the nighttime killer who has stalked new york residential boroughs for a year. >> a postal worker walked out of his yonkers apartment last night, turned the ignition key in his car and found himself surrounded by police. well, he said, you got me. police say those words ended the biggest manhunt in new york city history with the capture of son of sam. and this is what they say tripped up the .44 caliber killer, a parking ticket.

david berkowitz drove this cream-colored ford galaxy from his home to brooklyn. police say he went to stalk his 12th and 13th victims. but in the place he parked was this fire hydrant, and police had the lead they needed. >> when we get him and i interrogate him, my attitude at this time, i want to take him and throw him out the window. this guy was so pathetic. it was liking to a zucchini, never blinked, a constant smile on his face. after a while it is hard to feel sorry for the guy. he's gone. >> i feel great. and i think the people of our city will feel great relief. >> praise the lord. it's over. we're very, very happy. >> that was the first thing we heard this morning. it was fantastic. it was great. >> serial killers tend to be cunning. that allows them to stay at large. and when they get caught, it's usually because of luck, good luck for us, bad luck for them.

>> when we arrested him, we searched his car. on the back seat of the car, the .44 will caliber gun that did the shootings. what more do you need? and then a machine gun fully loaded in the backseat and the night of interrogation they directed, i said, well, what were you going to do with the machine gun? and he said, i was on my way to the hamptons. and i was going to spray the place and kill as many people as i could. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. because it gives me... zero heartburn! prilosec otc. the number 1 doctor-recommended frequent heartburn medicine

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there are so many miracles in this church that it's hard to tell one without telling about two or three because they blend together and make a beautiful combination of miracles. you know, for 30 years i prayed to a sky god and i got nothing but disappointment and heartache. and now we have a father who loves each one of us so much. how thankful we are. thank you. >> the '70s were a very fertile period for new religious movements. what was so interesting about the rise of cults in our country is how many people wanted to ally themselves with these stigmatized and fanatical

organizations. >> and i must say it's a great effort to be god. i lean upon another but no one else has the faculty that i do. when they do, i will be glad to hold their coat. in the meantime, i shall be god and besides me there shall be no other. >> yeah! >> yeah! >> jim jones was an extraordinary figure. he was a community leader, social worker and minister. and he carried his ministry to california. ♪ walk with me ♪ walk with me >> what was particularly distinctive about him at that time is that he created a community that was united between whites and blacks. and this came at a time when the country was racially divided and churches were not integrated. >> some leading scientists say we have to have euthanasia. oh, no. oh, no. who's going to decide who and when a person is going to die? we must never allow that. because this is the kind of

thing that ushers in the terror of a hitler's germany. we must not allow these kind of things to enter our consciousness. >> i wanted to write a story very much about this guy and his power and the reach he had so i began to contact ex-members. and they said, all is not so good inside, that there were beatings if you got out of line. there was a lot of sex abuse. and the story took on a new life at that point. very soon afterwards, the church minutes members began leaving san francisco for guyana. he figures, if i'm in guyana, it really doesn't matter what's said or written. nobody's going to get me here. ♪ we are a happy family ♪ we are a happy family yes we are ♪ >> it was an escapade almost unparalleled in the history of religious movements. they had very little communication with their loved

ones at home. and naturally there was concern about where they'd gone and what was happening out there in the jungle. >> i think that jim jones took his group down there because he was afraid to face the publicity and answer the questions here in this country. >> he was talking immigration, he was talking helping people. he was talking better this and better that. >> what about now? what's your impression now? >> my impression now that those are fronts for him. i think he's gone crazy. >> congressman leo ryan started hearing the name jim jones more regularly. and he wanted to expose what he believed was going on down there that was wrong. and he thought it was certainly worth inviting members of the press to join him. >> very glad to be here. this is a congressional inquiry. i can tell you right now that whatever the comments are, there are some people here that believe this is the best thing that happened to them in their

whole life. >> so it's toward the end of the evening, don harris, who was the nbc reporter had been walking around the pavilion, and two people slipped him notes. and he hands the notes over to congressman ryan who opens them and says, oh, my god, it's true. everything we've been told is tru true. >> always a place. >> then word spread and more and more people wanted to leave. >> do i both understand you to say that you both want to leave jonestown on this date, november 18, 1978? >> yes. >> then i remember seeing this couple with a child between them. >> get back here! bring them back! don't you take my kids!

>> you could feel the tension. >> last night someone came and passed me this note. >> people play games, friend. they lie. they lie. what can i do about liars? you people leave us. i just beg you. please leave us. >> instead of just letting that plane take off with minimal damage to his movement, jones snapped. >> good evening. for about the last 30 hours, we here at nbc news have been trying to establish what happened last night at the airstrip at a place called port kaituma. we do have a particular interest in it. two nbc newsmen were shot to death there. >> don harris was killed. bob brown was killed. congressman ryan was shot 45 times. >> every time somebody would fall down wounded, they would walk over and shoot them in the head with a shotgun.

>> i was shot five times. i was lying on my side with my head down pretending i was dead. and then all of a sudden they just came and shot me at point-blank range. >> they are shooting. people die, including leo ryan. and back in jonestown jim jones is calling for a revolutionary suicide where we're all going to kill ourselves make a statement to the world. >> i first flew into jonestown last evening around sunset. there was absolute silence. nothing living was around. jonestown by this evening was the city of the dead. >> they found tremendous quantities of potassium cyanide poison. it had been mixed with kool-aid.

it killed quickly, within five minutes. >> we will never know how many people voluntarily drank the poison. but other people were either coerced, brainwashed, or took it against their will. they were murdered. >> i was lifted into this medevac plane, and i was so grateful. >> good evening. the searching american soldiers have finished counting the bodies in jonestown, guyana. 910 died in the poison ritual of the people's temple last week. >> this was americans killing other americans and themselves. in its own interest for its own well-being, this nation will have to find out why. can a business have a mind?

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there were a lot of strange people who committed a lot of strange crimes in the 1970s, but none of them was as mediagenic as ted bundy. >> you were surprised when you went to jail. >> surprised? i didn't know what to expect. never been in jail or arrested before. >> ted bundy is a prolific serial killer. we don't know how many killed. we know it's dozens. he was handsome, involved in

politics, was in law school. he didn't seem like the glassy eyed lunatic that many americans believed that serial killers would be. >> we still don't believe it. it just can't be. i keep shaking my head day after day saying, how can this be? because our son is the best son in the world. >> what the press wrote about bundy and his crimes wasn't the full details. the full extent of the barbarism, the fact that he would have sex with their corpses, mutilate the victims, that didn't quite fit with this image of the boy next door. >> you feel that everything will turn out all right, that you are innocent. do you feel that still? >> more than ever. >> you think about getting out of here? >> well, legally, sure. >> bundy was to stand trial on the charge of murdering a young woman in aspen. that trial never completed. during a court hearing break he was left alone in a law library. bundy bailed out of a second floor window and escaped.

>> he high-tailed it up into the hills where they chiased him around for nearly a week. he got lost up there and probably would have died of exposure if they hadn't arrested him. they caught him and he was put back in jail. and at christmastime 1977 he escaped again. >> bundy, starved down to less than 140 pounds, slipped through a hole in the ceiling of his cell and was free again. >> the fbi responded by putting bundy on its ten most wanted list. posters with a picture of ted bundy were circulated throughout the nation. >> ted did not have a plan when he escaped. he just wanted to get as far away from where he might be be identified as he could. so he stole a car and went to florida. >> his new quarters are cramped. he's under 24-hour guard and faces intense questioning. he is theodore bundy, jailed in florida. >> bundy was living in tallahassee at the time when five florida state university coeds were attacked on or near the campus. two of the young women died as a result of the attacks.

>> the police in pensacola, florida, stopped a man driving a stolen car and found to their surprise, and perhaps pleasure, it was bundy. >> step out, mr. bundy. >> what do we have here, let's see. oh, an indictment. all right. why don't you read it to me? you're up for election, aren't you? >> mr. bundy -- >> you told them you were going to get me. he said he was going to get me. you got the indictment. it's all you are going to get. >> bundy, having had some law training and a great deal of arrogance, decided to represent himself. for him, he was the star in the courtroom. >> since i have been in dade county -- >> don't shake your finger at me, young man. don't shake your finger at me, young man! >> inside the courtroom, the trial will be covered by a still photographer and one television camera. upstairs there are some 250 reporters and television technicians from around the country. >> bundy's personality is fascinating to a lot of people.

he doesn't fit the usual profile of a criminal. when he defends himself in court it's fascinating for people to watch. >> each day the courtroom is filled with spectators drawn by a fascination with theodore bundy himself or the gruesome details of the crimes. what is unusual to see is that many of the onlookers are women, young women. >> you are fascinated by him? >> very. i'm not afraid of him. he just doesn't look like the type to kill somebody. to try to imagine yourself in his place and see how he's feeling. >> the bizarre spectacle of ted bundy as a sex symbol really bummed out feminists, as you can imagine. i mean, he became a folk hero. there were t-shirts. because he was handsome. on the other hand, his violence was so incredibly women hating and his insouciance about that, we wound up being pretty depressed. >> i had a broken arm and crushed finger. >> i had five skull fracture and

multiple contusions on my head. >> is that man in the courtroom today? >> yes, he is. >> would you point him out for us, please. >> are you prepared for a guilty verdict? >> i think so. but you never know. i've never had to go through this before. >> after 6 1/2 hours of deliberation, the jury had a verdict. 32-year-old theodore bundy remained composed as he listened. guilty of first-degree murder in the strangling deaths of two florida state university sorority sisters 19 months ago. >> it is therefore the sentence of this court that you be sentenced to death by a current of electricity, and such current of electricity shall continue to pass through your body until you are dead. >> in some ways, ted bundy is an icon of the '70s. he mixed kind of showbiz and violence in a way that had never been done before.

>> at the end of the '70s, we've had a destruction of our innocence we had at the beginning of the '70s. >> it became an era where americans began to expect the worst. >> america had certainly lost its way. criminals were lauded, and killers were romanticized. >> it was the news media that helped carry this message that america is a dangerous place, that americans had a love affair with violence. ly actually, it was much more like a marriage. and the marriage for some people was until death to day they part. >> for a time, social scientists describe the violence that struck our cities as an epidemic, and they identified the causes, poverty, broken homes. for some, crime has become a permanent part of the fabric of life. sociologists call it a subculture of violence. the current wave of violent crime is well into its second decade. while we have deplored violence,

we've not done much about it. perhaps this is because confronting the problem of violence forces us to confront the most serious defects in our the most serious defects in our society. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. for two years, the bodies of black children had been found in the woods, then the rivers of atlanta, georgia. in all, more than two dozen victims, most of them strangled. by may 1981, the police and fbi were hiding in the brush beside and below the river bridges. this was to be the last night, s