Deena Williams Newman

Special to the Democrat

This January, like every January for the past four decades, I have thought about Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to meet them or their families, but their names and faces are seared in my memory.

Like Lisa and Margaret, I was a student at Florida State University in January of 1978. Unlike them, I lived in Dorman Hall, a dormitory a block away from their sorority house. Only a handful of classes stood between me and college graduation in June.

In late March I planned to leave Tallahassee and do my student teaching in Orlando, not far from my hometown. I had big dreams and a future filled with Poe, Thoreau, and Twain, and classrooms of high school English students ahead of me. Unlike Margaret and Lisa, I had a chance to pursue my dreams.

For some unknown reason, a perverted serial killer named Ted Bundy brutally ended their lives in the Chi Omega house that cold night in Tallahassee 40 years ago, on Jan. 15, 1978. (Three other young women were attacked that night in Tallahassee but survived: Cheryl Thomas, Karen Chandler, Kathy Kleiner.)

Margaret and Lisa would now be in their late 50s or early 60s, probably in the prime of their careers, likely married with grown children and perhaps grandchildren. How sad.

Tallahassee was a very different place in 1978 than it is today. FSU’s medical school and Governor’s Square Mall did not exist, and the new state Capitol was scheduled to open later that year.

Democrat Reubin Askew had been governor for seven years and would be followed in 1979 by another Democrat, Bob Graham.

Coach Bobby Bowden had arrived two years earlier, and thanks to him and Jimmy Jordan, Wally Woodham, Bill Capece, Ron Simmons, Larry Key, and other players, the FSU football team was on the rise after a miserable 0-11 season in 1973. The Seminoles ended the 1977 season 10-2 and had beaten Texas Tech in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. At least Margaret and Lisa had a chance to enjoy victory before they died.

The images are still there — the broken lock on the back door that allowed the killer to enter, gruesome details of the crime scene, sirens in the wee hours of the morning, devastated sorority sisters huddled together in the cold, yellow tape around the Chi Omega house, the orange VW bug Bundy was driving when he was caught.

I learned some powerful lessons that January at FSU long ago. I know that evil exists in the world and that bad things do happen to innocent good people, although I will never understand why. From all accounts, the dark-haired, clean-cut Bundy was articulate, intelligent, and handsome, but he was filled with venom. His warped, devious mind led him to create a large cloud on the FSU campus and on the city of Tallahassee and to leave two promising young women dead.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Tallahassee in 1827, he called the city “a grotesque place.” That description fit in January of 1978.

Decades before 9/11, I learned to be grateful for law enforcement officials, those who worked frantically to capture Ted Bundy, those who protected FSU students and Tallahassee residents until he was caught, and those who came to Dorman Hall and taught us safety tips. I learned to trust our legal system; I was relieved when Bundy was captured and convicted and was satisfied when he was executed in Raiford.

My experience in 1978 left me cautious and safety conscious, although at times I forget and become lax. We make sure our doors are locked, and I am especially careful when I go anywhere alone at night. I try to avoid stopping at an ATM or a mall parking lot after dark, I am always aware of my surroundings, and my cell phone is my constant companion.

I relied heavily on my friends during those scary days, and I learned to value them even more.

Some FSU students chose to leave Tallahassee that winter quarter of 1978, but I was able to stay because of our tight community of Bundy survivors – the male friends who slept in the lobby and halls of our dorm to make sure we were safe and walked us to and from class and the female friends who packed together in a locked room and stayed put for several days until we determined it was safe.

Gripped with fear, we didn’t even go down the hall to the bathroom alone, and we slept with baseball bats by our side. Until Bundy was captured, we stayed glued to the local news to get updates on the hunt for Margaret and Lisa’s killer.

I learned that life is far more than fun and parties, listening to the Eagles and the Beach Boys, and dancing at Big Daddy’s. That fateful Sunday morning when I found out about the murders, I lost my naïve idea that college life is always fun and carefree. I learned that life can at times be very cruel and unfair.

Deena Williams Newman was a Florida State University student in 1978 living in Dorman Hall when two Chi Omega sorority sisters were murdered. She now lives in Leesburg, Georgia, and works for Albany State University.

About the case

Serial killer Ted Bundy was convicted and sentenced to death in two separate trials for the 1978 murders of Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy at FSU’s Chi Omega sorority house and Kimberly Leach, 12, in Lake City, Florida. Bundy was executed at Florida State Prison in 1989.