Ted Bundy’s Living Victim Tells Her Story
Kathy Kleiner was asleep in her Florida sorority house in 1978 when the notorious serial killer broke in and brutalized her — but she didn’t let the experience define her
By Tori Telfer
Every now and then, Kathy Kleiner Rubin likes to duck into a bookstore with her husband, Scott, and head straight for the true crime section. She’ll scan the shelves until she spots it: a book on the serial killer Ted Bundy. The Stranger Beside Me, maybe, or perhaps The Only Living Witness. Whatever it is, she’s probably read it already, but she’ll grab it off the shelf anyway and flip through it until she finds her name. Then she’ll look at her husband and grin.
“Now you find a book with your name in it,” she’ll say.
You wouldn’t know, watching her joke around, that Kleiner is holding a book about the man who almost killed her. She was 20 when Ted Bundy crept into her bedroom at Florida State University, 22 when he was sentenced to death, and 32 when he was finally strapped into Old Sparky, Florida’s electric chair. As the years went on, Kleiner could have tried to forget him, but instead she decided to figure him out — which is why she’s so comfortable in the true crime section of any bookstore.
