For Edna Martin, Ted Bundy was more than just a cousin; he was a guardian, a source of comfort—until the shocking truth about his crimes shattered that image. Martin, who attended the University of Washington, lived just blocks away from Bundy, unaware that he was secretly preying on women like her, committing heinous acts of stalking, rape, and murder.

Reflecting on those days in the Oxygen special Love, Ted Bundy, Martin recalls the chilling irony. “We were aware of a predator in our midst, and as women, we were his targets,” she said. “Ironically, I felt a sense of security because Ted was nearby. He would visit, and we’d discuss our fears about the unknown assailant, with Ted expressing genuine sympathy.”

Martin’s life was turned upside down with the revelation of Bundy’s true nature after his 1975 arrest for the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch. She vividly remembers the moment her brother relayed the news to her while she was working on a ship in Alaska, seeking a break from her Seattle life.

“Everything seemed to stop,” she recounted. “I needed air, an escape from the overwhelming vibrations of the ship. I rushed outside, onto the deck, and just screamed, trying to purge the disbelief that someone I grew up with, someone I trusted and felt safe around, could be behind such horrors.”

The story began years earlier when Bundy was born out of wedlock to Eleanor Louise Cowell. Martin’s father, her uncle, extended a helping hand, encouraging Cowell to move to Seattle, where he had established his family, unknowingly bringing a future serial killer into their midst.

Ted Bundy’s Childhood in Seattle, Washington

After Bundy was born out of wedlock to Eleanor Louise Cowell, her uncle—Martin’s father—encouraged Cowell to come to Seattle where he’d settled with his own family.

“They ended up living in my parents’ house. And it really worked,” Martin said in the special. “It gave her a fresh start.”

Eventually, Cowell married Johnny Bundy and had four more children, but the two families remained close.

“Ted was my cousin, but I loved him like a brother,” Martin shared. “I adored him.”

Women Begin Disappearing from Pacific Northwest in 1974

In 1972, Martin—who was five years younger than Bundy—headed to college at the University of Washington, where Bundy had recently graduated from with a degree in psychology. At the time, he lived just blocks away from his younger cousin.

He’d often stop by and cook Martin and her roommate dinner or entertain Martin and her friends with stories of his time working in the psych ward at Harborview Medical Center or volunteering with a crisis hotline (the same post where he’d met future true crime writer Ann Rule). 

“He used to drop by frequently with a bag of groceries and a bottle of wine,” Martin, who described her cousin as charming and attentive, recalled. “We were thrilled to have him there.”

But two years after Martin arrived at college, young women began to disappear. First, in February 1974, there was student Lynda Ann Healy—a close pal of Martin’s best friend—then Donna Manson, Susan Rancourt, Brenda Ball, Roberta Kathleen Parks and Georgann Hawkins.

“These girls looked like my friends and I,” Martin said. “That was really unnerving thinking, ‘Man, whoever this is, they’re hunting people just like us.’”

As feared gripped the area, Martin’s brother John came by to install a deadbolt on her apartment, which Bundy helped with.

“Ted and I are sitting there watching John install this barrel bolt to protect us from the very monster that’s sitting in my house right at that very moment,” she reflected in the documentary. “The irony of that still gets to me to this day.”

Not long after Bundy moved to Utah to attend law school in August 1974, the killings in the Seattle area stopped. Martin never realized Bundy’s move coincided with disappearances starting in Utah. 

Ted Bundy Relishes in Attention After Arrest

Bundy’s dark secret was finally revealed after he was arrested in August 1975. Bundy was pulled over by Utah Highway Patrolman who noticed him lurking in a neighborhood and found burglary tools, handcuffs and a pair of pantyhose with holes cut into it inside his vehicle. He was later identified in a line up as the man—using a police badge and a fake story about a broken into car—who tried to abduct 18-year-old Carol DaRonch in November 1974 from a Utah mall.

When Martin learned of Bundy’s arrest, she described it as “one of the worst days of my life.” 

Still, Martin was convinced there must be some kind of a mistake and arranged to meet with Bundy—who was out on bond while awaiting trial for the kidnapping charge—in December 1975. 

Although Bundy denied having any role in the murders, Martin noticed he seemed to relish in his new-found notoriety, first at a restaurant with friends and later on a street corner as others began to recognize him. She came out of the bookstore and found him standing with his arms out, eyes closed, spinning on the street corner, surrounded by a mob of people, as he declared, “I am Ted Bundy.” She quickly rushed him into her car, but the moment forever changed how she viewed her cousin.

“I’m freaked out, and I turn my head, and I look at him, and he’s just smiling at me,” she recalled of the moment she realized Bundy’s guilt. “Oh, God, he knows I know.”

Martin feared for her own life, imagining ways she could crash the car to save herself, but it would never come to that. Bundy calmly got out of her car and walked into his house.

Not long after, he was convicted of kidnapping and—after two escapes from custody and more murders in Florida—ultimately landed on death row.

Edna Martin Confronts Ted Bundy in Death Row Letters

For 10 years, Martin had little contact with her cousin until she reached out to him in 1986 through letters, urging him to confess and tell the grieving families of his victims where the bodies were hidden.

“I’m not interested in hearing excuses, but would certainly be impressed if you would open those floodgates that have been so tightly shut these past years,” she wrote in one letter. “What do you say? Ted, it’s a chance for salvation.”

Bundy, however, insisted he never killed anyone; until, in the final hours before his 1989 execution, he confessed to killing 30 women. 

“Ted’s final words when he was on his way to the execution chamber were, ‘Give my love to my family and my friends,’ And that was it,” Martin said in the special. “When I heard that it was just…a very difficult moment. You know, just, just, I was very sad about how this person who had so much potential, completely went off the rails.”

In the decades that followed, Martin has been forced to reconcile the fond memories she had of the man she thought she knew with the monster he turned out to be.

“Families are probably the last ones to let go of their feelings of hope for somebody, because they just don’t want to believe that someone they love and that they grew up with could be somebody completely different,” she said. “The person that I thought I knew was this very attractive mask that he wore, and underneath it was this demon.”