Authorities opened the door on one man’s hidden life . . .
Mike DeBardeleben was known as the Mall Passer for the way he passed off fake money at local shopping centers. But when US Secret Service agents finally arrested him, they were met with more than just phony bills. They found that their counterfeiter led a shocking double life . . .
Only to discover a house of horrors.
DeBardeleben’s home was littered with drugs, bondage gear, and a collection of audio tapes in which he recorded the abuse of his countless victims. As the evidence mounted, a terrifying profile emerged of a man who forced women to be his accomplices, practiced sadism, even dressed up in women’s clothes-a serial killer whose depraved fantasies led to a spree of violence that would last as long as eighteen years . . . and would end in a sentence of almost 400 years in prison. As terrifying as it is true, this is the story of a man who proved to be, beyond the shadow of a doubt, Beyond Cruel.

Presented for the first time in audio format, the chilling transcript of Stephen G Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth’s interviews with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, as seen on the hit Netflix documentary series Conversation with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes–based on their New York Times bestselling book.

Handsome and educated, Ted Bundy killed scores of women during the 1970s, eventually confessing to thirty murders committed over seven states between 1974 and 1978. In 1979, much to the surprise of the nation, Bundy made the bold decision to represent himself in the Chi Omega murder case, thinking that his intelligence and enigmatic charm could best the prosecution. He was convicted, however, and was incarcerated on death row in Florida State Prison. After he exhausted all appeals, Bundy spoke to detectives, confessing to other homicides he committed across several states. He had already spoken frankly about himself, his victims, and his crimes to famed journalists Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.

Thirty years later, thanks to the combination of an unlikely killer, a sensational murder trial (featuring Bundy acting as his own attorney), and a series of Death Row interviews that represented the dynamics of any extraordinary psychological profile, this prolific serial killer continues to intrigue and haunt the American popular imagination. Yet as Netflix’s sensational show reveals, an old case is never as preserved as it may seem.

Presented in audio format for the first time, Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer provides shocking insights into the killer’s 11th-hour confessions before his death in a Florida electric chair in January 1989. Drawn from more than 150 hours of exclusive tape-recorded interviews with Bundy in 1980 by Michaud and Aynesworth–in which the veteran journalist used a psychological tactic to get Bundy talking in the third person-this audiobook, voiced by a cast of narrators, is a harrowing portrait of a serial killer’s final reckoning and the two journalists trying to understand the psychology behind the darkness.

Twenty-two years in the FBI, sixteen of them as a member of the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit. Thousands of homicides, rapes, suicides, and other gruesome crimes. Roy Hazelwood, like many investigators, has seen it all. But unlike most, he’s gone further-into the dark and twisted psyches of serial killers and sadistic sexual offenders-and has emerged as one of the world’s foremost experts on the sexual criminal.
Now, acclaimed true-crime writer Stephen G. Michaud takes you into the heart of Hazelwood’s work through dozens of startling cases, including those of the Lonely Heart Killer, the “Ken and Barbie” killings, and the Atlanta Child Murders. Here Michaud and Hazelwood go beyond the lurid details, to a deeper understanding of the depraved minds behind the grisly crimes, in a stark, startling, and fascinating work you will not soon forget.
Contains mature themes.