The Stranger Beside Me
1
No one glanced at the young man who walked out of the Trailways Bus Station in Tallahassee, Florida, at dawn on Sunday, January 8, 1978. He looked like a college student -- perhaps a bit older -- and he blended in smoothly with the 30,000 students who had arrived in Florida's capital city that week. He had planned it that way. He felt at ease in a campus atmosphere, at home.
In truth, he was almost as far away from home as he could get and still remain in the United States. He had planned that too, just as he planned everything. He had accomplished the impossible, and now he would begin a new life, with a new name, a contrived, "stolen'' background, an entirely different pattern of behavior. By doing this, he felt confident that his heady sense of freedom would continue forever.
In Washington State, or Utah, or Colorado, he would have been recognized instantly by even the most desultory of media watchers and readers. But here in Tallahassee, Florida, he was anonymous, only another handsome young man with a ready smile.
He had been Theodore Robert Bundy. But Ted Bundy would be no more. Now he was Chris Hagen. That would do until he ... read full excerpt from: Stranger Beside Me ebook
