What happened to Ted Bundy’s wife, Carole Ann Boone?

Serial killers have always been enigmatic figures in culture, but few get as much attention the way Ted Bundy has. While most people are rightfully disgusted by their actions, there is always an element of intrigue as we study the actions of the absolute worst of humanity. 

For some people, this intrigue turns into complete obsession, and in some rare cases, a fan gets their biggest wish. However, the story of Carole Ann Boone, Ted Bundy’s wife, is a bit different and more tragic. Here’s everything about the wife of one of the world’s most notorious serial killers and the mother of his daughter. 

Carole Ann Boone’s twisted love story

Carole Ann Boone lived a relatively normal life before she met Ted Bundy. She was born in 1947 and was the second of three children. When she met Bundy, she was in a failing second marriage, had a young son, and was working at the Department of Emergency Services in Washington, where Bundy was interning.

She befriended Bundy in 1974, and they maintained a platonic relationship even when he left the state. When news of his arrest came to Boone in 1975, she couldn’t believe it, and when asked about him for the police investigation, she only had good things to say about her friend. 

Much of Boone and Bundy’s relationship was chronicled in the book Conversations with a Killer by Stephen Michoud and Hugh Aynesworth, which included interviews with Bundy himself, as well as interviews with Carole Ann Boone and excerpts from their letters to one another. The book inspired the Netflix docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, one of many documentaries that have been made about the killer. 

In 1980, as Bundy’s trial for the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach was approaching, he and Boone appealed to the Orange County Jail to allow them to perform a wedding ceremony. The request was denied, and while Bundy seemed fine with this, Boone couldn’t accept it. At her insistence, the couple came up with an unconventional plan.

In the state of Florida, the only requirement for a legal marriage is that vows are exchanged in front of a court official. To execute their plan, Boone was brought on the stand as a witness. Bundy, who was handling his own defense at that point, began questioning her. Through his line of questioning, he asked if she would marry him and she accepted. 

What happened to Carole Ann Boone?

Following Bundy’s execution, Boone stayed away from the public eye, likely due to shame for her steadfast defense of him. She changed her name and her daughter’s and the two started new lives in Washington. She remained anonymous and only briefly came out of the woodwork to deliver some of Bundy’s letters to Dr. Dorothy Lewis, one of Bundy’s psychiatrists, while he was in prison. 

Carole Ann Boone died at a nursing home in Seattle at the age of 70 in 2018, though reports on the cause of her death remain slightly inconclusive. Their daughter, Rosa, has stayed anonymous, and little is known about her life and whereabouts.