Surviving Ted Bundy | Kathy Kleiner Rubin Shares Her Story: Part I

Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum

iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline

True Crime

4.4 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this powerful episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, sits down with Kathy Kleiner and recounts her harrowing experience as one of the survivors of Ted Bundy's vicious 1978 assault on the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. Kathy shares the details of that night and how she courageously faced her attacker in court. But her story is one of remarkable resilience in the face of unimaginable trauma, having battled both childhood lupus and later breast cancer as well as two miscarriages.

Kathy Kleiner is a remarkable survivor who endured one of the most notorious crimes in American history - the brutal 1978 attacks by serial killer Ted Bundy at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University. Kathy is the author of the book "A Light in the Dark, Surviving More Than Ted Bundy."

Show Notes:

[0:00] Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
[0:10] Sheryl gives a background of the night Kathy Kleiner was attacked by the notorious killer, Ted Bundy
[1:20] Sherly introduces Kathy Kleiner to the listeners
[1:40] Question: What challenges did you face when you were 12?
[3:00] Kathy's childhood battle with Lupus
[5:00] College years and moving into the Chi Omega sorority house
[7:00] Question: Can you tell the listeners what happened on January 15th around 3 am?
[7:10] The night of Ted Bundy's attack
[17:00] Facing Ted Bundy in court
[19:10] “You lived through something and were able to give information and knowledge about something that is super rare.”
[21:30] The morning of the Ted Bundy trial
[22:00] Testifying at Bundy's trial
[26:00] A Light in the Dark: Surviving More than Ted Bundy
[29:30] Kathy's breast cancer diagnosis and struggles after chemo
[32:00] Question: So I know while you were recuperating from all the injuries from the attack by Ted Bundy, you had a way of dealing with that that was just beautiful. Can you tell us about it?
[33:30] How Kathy overcame her fear of men by working at a lumberyard
[36:20] “A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy. A wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim.” -M.A
Thanks for listening to another episode! If you love the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review!

---

Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, a Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.

You can connect and learn more about Sheryl’s work by visiting the CCIRI website https://coldcasecrimes.org

Social Links:

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Kathy Kleiner was sound asleep in her bed at the Kyle Mega House. It was in 1978 when the
0:15.7	notorious serial killer Ted Bundy broke into her sorority house and went on a murderous rampage. When he ran
0:24.7	out of the house that night, the crime spree was not over. Kathy was just 20 years old when she was
0:31.8	attacked. Later, she heroically faced him in court.
0:44.3	This monster that killed her friends and sorority sisters and attacked her and her roommate,
0:46.7	she stared him down.
0:50.3	She felt like it was up to her to put him away.
0:56.0	Kathy and her roommate survived this brutal attack, but two of her sorority sisters did not. She has had a road to recovery that continues to this day.
1:01.0	The effects of her attack are forever.
1:04.0	She had surgery not too long ago.
1:07.0	Kathy Kleiner is my friend.
1:10.0	She is fun. She's loyal. She's smart. She is full of life. She hands down.
1:18.3	Has the most positive outlook of anyone that I know. The attack by Ted Bundy is only part of her life story.
1:25.9	It ain't the end. It is my great honor and privilege to introduce
1:30.7	my friend, Kathy Kleiner. Thank you very much. I'm so happy to be here. Well, this is long overdue.
1:37.2	We have talked about doing it. We tried to do it a couple times and storms and technical issues.
1:42.2	Other things stopped us, but we are here tonight. Listen, your
1:46.1	life did not start or end with Ted Bundy, but let's start when you were 12 years old. What challenge
1:53.8	did you have at even that young of an age? When I was 12 years old, actually, I was in sixth grade.
2:01.5	Toward the end of the year, I became very sick.
2:04.4	I had a fever, and I couldn't get out of bed.
2:07.0	I was so, so tired.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -385 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.