Kitsap woman writes book about notorious cousin Ted Bundy

For most of her life, Edna Cowell Martin tried to keep it a secret that she was a cousin of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy.

But the burden of keeping that bottled up over time led Martin, now 70, of Kitsap County to write a book about her discovering the truth about Bundy, a man five years older who she admired growing up and someone she thought she knew well.

“For the last 50 years or so since all this nightmare started I could never get him out of my mind,” Martin said in a recent exclusive interview. “He’s kind of this unfortunate icon, and I didn’t want anyone to know I was related to this guy.

“It was such an ultimate deception and manipulation. I’d been played like so many people. You need to shine a light on things. It’s been cathartic to get it out.”

Dark Tide: Growing up with Ted Bundy was published July 23, and is co-written by Martin and writer/screenwriter Megan Atkinson. Martin began working on the book during the COVID pandemic, and said Atkinson was a huge help in getting it published.

In the book, Martin delves into the shocking and chilling encounters she experienced with Bundy—ranging from confronting him about his criminal acts to waking up to the FBI at her door following his escape from a Colorado prison in 1977.

Her message to readers is to have “situational awareness” and to always question “what’s behind the mask. It just completely blew my mind that I had missed the signs with Ted. He was so good at masking himself that none of us were aware.

“I was close to Ted. We were friends,” Martin added. “Having grown up with him, it’s a hard thing for any family member to find out somebody you trusted turned out to be not at all who you thought they were.”

Growing up

Bundy was born Nov. 24, 1946, as Theodore Robert Cowell to Eleanor Louise Cowell. His biological father’s identity was never confirmed. For the first three years of his life, Bundy lived in Philadelphia with his maternal grandparents. In 1950, his mom moved to Tacoma to live with her cousin, John Cowell, (Martin’s father) and his family and took with her young Ted.

Soon after settling in, his mom met Johnny Bundy, a hospital cook. They got married and had four kids together. Bundy ended up adopting Ted, which gave him his famous last name. Growing up, Martin said she saw Bundy quite a bit during the holidays and family get-togethers. “We were the only relatives they had in the area,” she said of her family.

College years

Bundy attended the University of Washington in 1967, studying Chinese. While there, he became romantically involved with Diane Edwards, who Bundy later described as “the only woman I really ever loved,” per a Heavy.com article from 2019.

He ended up dropping out from the UW in 1968 and worked a series of minimum-wage jobs. He attended the Republican National Convention that year in Miami. In 1970, Bundy re-enrolled at UW as a psychology major, and he became an honor student. Following his graduation from UW in 1972, Bundy joined Gov. Dan Evans’ re-election campaign. He allegedly shadowed Evans’ opponent, former Gov. Albert Rossellini, to record his speeches so Evans’ campaign could analyze them.

About this time, Martin spent two years as a student at the University of Arkansas, but then moved back to Seattle in 1972 to finish her degree, also at UW.

“That’s when I got close to Ted,” Martin said. “He would drop by frequently and hang out with us. He was really open and engaging, super friendly, big smile, sparkling eyes. That was his weapon. All my friends really liked him.”

Martin said Bundy would often show up at her apartment with a bag of groceries so “he was always welcome. Anybody that showed up with a bag of groceries had free access. That’s the crazy thing—here this guy was so dangerous, and yet all he had to do was knock on the door, and we’d let him in.

“I rode around in that infamous Volkswagen Bug that he’d transport his victims in. I had no idea. We’d go out for dinner one night and then two nights later he attacked and abducted Georgann Hawkins. It just makes me ill to think about it.”

Martin recalled one “odd” encounter with Bundy. He and her roommate one night were slow-dancing when all of a sudden his facial expression changed.

“I didn’t even recognize him. It didn’t look like Ted at all,” she said. “It was this very tense and mean look on his face. He looked so angry. His eyes, which are bright blue, we’re completely black.

“I said, ‘Ted, are you OK?’ I thought something was wrong with him. Then he completely snapped out of it and transformed back into Ted, and he smiled. Then he abruptly left. I have no idea where he went after that. We just shrugged it off and didn’t think anything about it until all these other things started happening.”

Finding out the truth

Martin was a senior at UW when Bundy began his killing spree in 1974. She said four of the abductions/murders occurred within walking distance of where she lived. One of the murder victims, Lynda Ann Healy, was really good friends with Martin’s roommate.

“That one hit us really hard,” she said. “I had met her…One after another it started happening. We lived in fear. There were tons of hitchhikers back then; not after that started happening. We were afraid to walk to campus by ourselves. We had no idea that the person who was doing it was still coming by to my apartment.”

Bundy was first arrested in Utah in 1975. At the time, Martin was working in Alaska packaging crab when her brother called and told her. Bundy was released on bail a few months later, and Martin ended up coming back to Seattle to confront him.

Fast forward to December of 1977, and Bundy escaped from a Colorado prison, the second time he had done so. The night before, Bundy called Martin from prison and asked her what she thought about him trying to escape again.

“I answered it, and it’s Ted, and I’m just floored,” Martin recalled. “Throughout the conversation, I was sure his calls were being monitored but I found out later since he was representing himself he was given phone privileges.

“I didn’t know what to think, I was very leary. I said first of all you tried that once, and it didn’t go well for you. Second of all, you need to stay where you are and go to trial. I never thought he’d be able to do it again.”

That was the last time they both spoke, although they did write letters up until Bundy’s execution in 1989.

Following Bundy’s second prison escape, Martin awoke to the FBI at her door the next morning. “They were very stern with us that we better not provide sanctuary for him,” she said. “My husband said if he comes here it’s going to be a fight to the death. We did not own a firearm but (my husband) took all his tools and hid them around the property. Every night he took a 2 by 4 and wedged it by the door so if he did come he couldn’t break in. Until he was captured, we had no idea if he’d come by or not.”

His execution

Before Bundy’s execution at a Florida prison in 1989, Martin wrote him letters urging him to offer explanations for why he committed the gruesome crimes and provide locations for the unfound victims.

“I went after him with everything I had,” she said. “I said you’re going to die, you’re not going to live through this. Now is the time to take one small step to make it up— at least do something for these families whose lives you’ve destroyed. Those families have never had closure, and that still really gets to me.”

Bundy ended up confessing to 30 murders, although the real number is unknown. Eight murders were in Washington, the most of any state. Other murders were in Utah, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Idaho and California.

“I hated him and loved him at the same time,” Martin said. “I loved who I thought he was, and I really hated who he had become. He was doing so many things that could have given him a good future.”

Martin shared a quote from one of Bundy’s letters that reads, “I have no guilt, remorse or regret over anything I’ve done.”