With a noisy burst of anger, Theodore Bundy rose and left the courtroom here today, hurling a charge at the judge that the jury selection for his murder trial is "a game."
His outburst interrupted the jury selection process, now ending its second week, in Bundy's trial for the February, 1978 murder of Kimberly Leach, a 12-year-old Lake City schoolgirl.
Bundy was obviously upset when jury selection apparently took a bad turn for the defense. After the remaining jurors had filed out of the room, Bundy rose, exclaiming, "I'm leaving!"
Startled, the courtroom watched him head towards a service door, saying "This is a game and I won't be party to being in this kind of Waterloo! You understand?" he asked the judge.
Bundy had taken a few steps from the defense table when a plain-clothes guard lunged to grab his upper arm.
Bundy snarled, "Let go of me!" and pulled away. The guard seized him again. "We're going to the holding cell," Bundy said as they left.
Judge Jopling immediately recessed the proceedings...
In an afternoon outburst which caused more than five minutes of tension in the court, Bundy gestured in anger toward the judge and prosecutors, and slapped his hand on the judge's desk.
"Don't hit this desk!" Judge Wallace Jopling snapped.
"You want a circus?" Bundy shouted at Jerry Blair, the Florida state attorney directing the prosecution. "I'll make a circus! I'll rain on your parade, Jack. You'll see a thunderstorm!"
It had required two weeks and the questioning of nearly 150 Orange County residents to select a jury-- a process believed to be the longest criminal jury selection marathon in Florida history. Nearly everyone questioned had previous knowledge of Bundy and his murder convictions.
It was Bundy's second display of anger in one day. In the morning court session, he had stalked irately out of the courtroom.
Bundy's voice rose to a shout as he charged that the prosecution was loading the jury with people who have been heavily prejudiced by publicity-- "the attempt of the state to put people on this jury who have a lot of knowledge about this case, because the state's case is predicated on knowledge outside of this courtroom."
The state's case, he told the judge, is "shoddy." Repeatedly, the judge tried to quiet him.
"Use your mind, your honor," Bundy exclaimed. "Look at what they're doing here. They want people to bring that prejudice into the court... I can't accept it. I am leaving the courtroom. I am waiving my presence."
He scooped up some files and headed towards a door. A bailiff moved to cut him off. Bundy laid the files on a railing and removed his jacket. Five other guards surrounded him. He stopped. "I'm not going to be in this room when that jury walks in," Bundy told the judge.
"Sit down, Mr. Bundy," Judge Jopling ordered.
"You know how far you can push me!" Bundy shouted at him.
Blair argued that Bundy had to be present in the courtroom, which triggered an outburst toward Blair. Bundy threatened to cause a "thunderstorm" and warned the prosecutor, "This will not be the pat little drama you've arranged."
"Mr. Bundy, sit down," the judge repeated. Bundy picked up his jacket and slumped into a chair, his necktie askew.
"We've lost the jury. There's no point in playing the game," Bundy grumbled.
--excerpts from a January 18, 1980 Seattle Times article by Richard Larsen.

Read all of Larsen's extensive coverage of the Bundy case and trial, 1975-1980, on Patreon: [ Ссылка ]

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