What a pricey it is!

[spiff@interport.net]

Ted Bundy's car hits the auction block

                 SALT LAKE CITY - Serial killer Ted Bundy's tan 1968
Volkswagen
                 Beetle, its interior ripped out in a search for the
residue of murder, is
                 being offered for sale by a former lawman who sees money
in the
                 macabre. 

                 Before he died in Florida's electric chair in 1989, Bundy
used the car
                 to lure some of his victims and to haul the bodies of no
fewer than 11
                 of them. 

                 Lonnie Anderson, a former Salt Lake County sheriff's
deputy who paid
                 $925 for the car at a sheriff's auction in the late 1970s
after he had left
                 the department, recently placed a classified ad in The
New York Times
                 listing the VW, along with ownership papers bearing
Bundy's signature.

                 The asking price, Anderson said, is $25,000, and he
claims to have
                 had more than three dozen inquiries. He wouldn't identify
any
                 prospective buyers. 

                 "I know there are (victims') families out there right
now," he said. "But I
                 bought it for a purpose, and I'll take all the heat that
comes as long as
                 that money goes in the bank." 

                 The car, its passenger seat removed by Bundy to
accommodate the
                 corpses, has sat for nearly 20 years in a storage yard.
Just about
                 everything else on the inside - seats, carpet, door
handles - is also
                 gone. 

                 "I just can't imagine what kind of person would do this,"
said Belva
                 Kent of Bountiful, whose 17-year-old daughter, Debi,
vanished from a
                 high school play in 1974 and was killed by Bundy.
Anderson "ought to
                 put himself in my shoes before he decides to make a
buck." 

                 Don Blackburn of Spokane, Wash., found out about the ad
on
                 Monday - 23 years to the day since his daughter, Janice
Ott,
                 disappeared along with another girl from a park. 

                 "I think this is quite sadistic," he said. "It's not
something I'd expect a
                 law enforcement man to do." 

                 It was the car - and what police found in it - that
brought Bundy down.

                 Bundy's first arrest came in the early morning hours of
Aug. 16, 1975,
                 as he prowled a Salt Lake neighborhood in the VW with its
lights off. 

                 The car, missing its passenger seat, contained handcuffs,
a ski mask, an
                 icepick and tape. A search of the VW eventually turned up
hairs that
                 linked Bundy to some of his victims. 

                 By The Associated Press