A Timeline Of Elizabeth Kloepfer & Ted Bundy's Relationship Includes What Extremely Wicked Missed

There’s no point in time when noted serial killer Ted Bundy isn’t going to be a controversial topic, and Netflix has once again moved him to the forefront of the conversation. Earlier this year they released the Ted Bundy Tapes, which gave us a look into the killer by the killer. Now, Netflix has released Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile a full-length feature movie starring Zac Efron and Lily Collins as Bundy and his on-and-off again girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, respectively.

The movie, based on a book Kloepfer wrote (under a pen name), The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, tells the story from Kloepfer’s point of view as some parts of the story are just as much her story as it is his. The two were together for almost a decade. They lived together, Bundy cared for Kloepfer’s young daughter, and he still tried to contact her even after he was placed on death row.

So how does a divorced mother of one fall for a serial killer? Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile will cover that with a very controversial and oversexualized portrayal from Efron as Bundy. In fact, the film spends more time on how charming the serial killer was than on actual facts about the central relationship. So if you’re looking for more details, here’s a timeline of Ted Bundy and Elizabeth’s real relationship.

After divorcing her then-husband, Kloepfer decides to start her life over and she and her daughter move from Ogden, Utah to Seattle, Washington. She finds a job working as a secretary at the University of Washington Medical School.

One night, a friend convinces Kloepfer to hire a babysitter and go out. They go to a bar and Kloepfer meets Bundy. She’s the one who actually goes over to talk to him, writing in her book that she said to him, “You look like your best friend just died." They begin dating a short time later.

Kloepfer expressed her desire to get married, so she and Bundy actually went to the courthouse and received a marriage license. However, Bundy and Kloepfer never actually got married. A few days after they obtained the license, Kloepfer’s parents were coming to visit and even though she and Bundy were already living together at the time, she didn’t want her parents to know. Bundy grew upset, believing that this showed she didn’t want to get married. He supposedly ripped up the marriage license in front of her.

As she writes in her book, in early 1972 Klopfer learned she was pregnant and knew she needed to terminate the pregnancy. Bundy was aware of it, but it’s unclear if he wanted the child or not.

Bundy graduated from college in 1972 and then enrolled in law school at the University of Puget Sound.

Even though he was still 100% dating Kloepfer during this time, Bundy begins seeing Carole Ann Boone that summer. Supposedly, the women did not know about each other.

Bundy leaves law school in Seattle to enroll the University of Utah Law School. Shortly after that, there are reports of young women being abducted and murdered in the area. He’s still very much dating Kloepfer, who remains back home in Seattle.

Though they weren’t living in the same state at the time, Kloepfer began to grow suspicious of Bundy, considering that young women were disappearing wherever he went. On August 8, 1974, she realized that a police description of the known attacker matched Bundy, so she called the police. However, the police didn't take any sort of statements and dismissed her.

Kloepfer reported Bundy to the police two more times, and both times she was ignored. According to the police, they looked into Bundy and cleared him of all suspicious behavior.

Even though she had just reported him to the police three times, Bundy came to visit Kloepfer and the two spent a week together after his final exams. She did not tell him that she had reported him to the police three times in the past year.

At the end of the semester, Bundy came to visit Kloepfer in Seattle. Once again, she did not mention that she had reported him to the police multiple times before and then two even discussed the possibility of getting married within the year.

Bundy is arrested in August 1975, but they don’t have anything substantial to hold him on so he is later released. However, the police finally started paying attention to what Kloepfer had said and realized that her descriptions of Bundy matched those from the crime scenes and witnesses. Kloepfer is finally questioned, and she reveals her suspicions to the police about Bundy.

Charges were finally brought against Bundy, for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He was freed on bond, and while he waited to go on trial he lived with Kloepfer. Her house was constantly under surveillance.

After a four-day trial, Bundy is found guilty of kidnapping and assault. Klopfer sits with Bundy's parents for some of the trial.

Kloepfer is not present at his execution. They did talk a few times on the phone while Bundy was in jail in Florida, and Bundy actually tells Kleopfer that he tried to kill her once, by blocking up the furnace in the house so she would inhale the fumes.

With very little fanfare, Kloepfer publishes her book, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy. The book became the inspiration for Extremely Wicked, but is currently out of print and there are no plans to reissue it again. You can currently snag a first edition copy of it for around $500 on Amazon.