Featured Image Credit: Bettmann via Getty
Topics: Ted Bundy, True crime, Death Row
Niamh Shackleton
Ted Bundy's family are speaking out for the first time in 50 years.
The notorious serial killer kidnapped, raped and murdered several women throughout the 1970s.
Bundy confessed to killing as many as 30 victims in just a four-year period - but it's widely believed that his kill count was higher.
Eventually he was caught for his crimes and received the death sentence.
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He was executed by electric chair in 1989.
Before taking his last breath, Bundy - like all death row inmates - had a final meal.
He had a standard-issue final meal of steak, eggs, hash browns, and toast because he refused to choose his own last meal.
Apparently he didn't touch his dinner and he died hungry.
Now, decades on from his death and his family are speaking out for the first time - his cousin, Edna Cowell Martin, specifically.
Martin grew up with Bundy and while they were only cousins, she described him as being like a 'brother' to her.
Ahead of the release of her upcoming book Dark Tide: Growing up with Ted Bundy, Martin spoke with DailyMail.com to discuss Bundy.
One topic that was covered was the 'red flags' their family missed about Bundy when he was a child.
One was his obsession with reading 'salacious detective novels'.
Martin has also divulged what Bundy wrote to her while he was on death row.
She had written letters to him about the accusations he was facing and urged him to tell the truth.
Responding to this, one chilling letter Bundy wrote to Martin read: "I wasn't sure it said what I wanted it to say.
"I won't disregard your accusations completely. I will say this much, I have not killed anyone.
"Let the dead bury the dead (Luke 9:60) for he is not a God of the dead but of the living: for all live unto him (Luke 20:38)."
Bundy went on to write that his cousin never really knew him.
He said: "What you seem to be basing what you said in your letter on is an assortment of random recollections and a multitude of impressions which have been drawn from years of being exposed to the sensational publicity, the rumors, the gossip about some character named Ted Bundy."
While Bundy claimed his family didn't really know the true him, his final words were in tribute to them.
He said to his attorney Jim Coleman and Methodist minister Fred Lawrence: "Jim and Fred, I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends."