What is the story of Carole Ann Boone? Who is she, how old is she and is she still alive?

Even the devil has his charms, just ask Carole Ann Boone. Her love affair with one of the most notorious serial killers of our time made headlines as the pair’s romance took center stage during one of the most watched trials in history.

Carole Anne Boone for all intents and purposes looked like any other average 1980s Washington state woman. Yet beneath her unassuming exterior hid a woman whose claim to fame would make her stand out in any crowd. Carole Ann Boone was in love with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.

Who is Carole Ann Boone?

In 1974, a softspoken woman in her late 20s, Carole Ann Boone would meet someone who would alter the course of her life forever. Although she wouldn’t become his wife until six years later, the two would begin a friendship that would eventually turn into much more. It was in this year Boone met Theodore Robert Bundy, aka Ted Bundy.

Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, with a reported 36 murders (possibly more) attributed to him. The two met when they both worked at the Department of Emergency Services in Olympia, Washington.

Bundy appeared to be anything else than what the masses know him as now. “I liked Ted immediately,” she was quoted as saying in The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy by Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. “He struck me as being a rather shy person with a lot more going on under the surface.”

If only she knew then how right she was. The two developed a friendship even as Bundy was secretly kidnapping and murdering women. Over the years, their friendship developed into a romantic entanglement and when Bundy went on trial for murder in Florida, Boone was there to support him. In fact, she would do more than stand by him, she married him!

Bundy, with Boone by his side faces the consequences

Bundy was first arrested in Utah in 1975, but Boone held fast to her belief he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of. Despite the mounting evidence against him and even eyewitness accounts, Boone’s feelings for Bundy only grew. By 1979, Bundy was on trial for his life in Florida after allegedly murdering several members of the Chi Omega sorority.

During the trial, which was one of the most followed in history, the two got married. In a bizarre display of affection in the courtroom, Ted Bundy, while representing himself, proposed marriage to Boone while she was on the witness stand. A display of affection is counted as a legally binding contract in Florida law. And in that moment, Ted Bundy had just gotten married.

Boone would go on to become pregnant with Bundy’s child during a visit with him on death row. In 1981, Rose, aka Rosa Bundy, Ted Bundy’s only known child, was born. Boone held firm to her belief in his innocence all the way until 1986.

As his execution date neared, Bundy offered to show the families where the bodies of their murdered daughters were in exchange for a stay of execution. Boone then realized in order to know where the bodies were, Bundy would have indeed had to murder them. The two divorced and Bundy was executed in 1989.

Where is Carole Ann Boone now?

Carole Ann Boone was the legal wife of Ted Bundy and the mother of his child. Following their divorce, she moved back to Washington State, taking their daughter with her. Following the move, little is known about her whereabouts.

She and her daughter understandably dropped off the grid and out of the public eye. Many felt they might have even changed their names for a time. Ann Rule, the famous true crime writer, author of The Stranger Beside Me, and a former friend of Bundy’s reported to Oxygen that Rose was “kind and intelligent.”

Many documentaries, movies, and series have been made about Bundy, many of which shed even more light on the odd romance between him and Carole Ann Boone. Although Bundy had several other women in his life, most notably Liz Kendall as explored in the popular Zac Efron Netflix film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, he was only ever legally married to Boone and she was the mother of his only known child.

According to reports by Women’s Health, Carole Ann Boone died in a retirement home in 2018 at the age of 70.

It was an odd romance to be sure, and one that would keep Boone’s name in the headlines for years to come. Yet Bundy’s supposed charm was legendary as even as he stood trial for murder, throngs of young women flocked the courtroom hoping for his autograph.

Boone certainly wasn’t alone in being taken in by one of the most notorious serial killers of our time, yet it is she who will forever be known as Ted Bundy’s wife.