Wondering Whatever Happened to the Cute Daughter of Ted Bundy’s Ex-Girlfriend?
Kay, so by now, you’ve watched Zac Efron’s new Netflix movie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and spent at least half an hour getting familiar with Ted Bundy’s very creepy Wikipedia page. Hello, welcome, I’m right there with you.
There are a lot of questions begging to be answered about Bundy’s life after seeing Extremely Wicked-and high on the list is what the hell happened to everyone in the movie IRL? Kay, so for one thing, Bundy died. He was given the death penalty three times at separate trials and was eventually sentenced to capital punishment by the electric chair.
But enough about Bundy-what happened to his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer (played by Lily Collins in the movie) and her daughter, Molly? You can find out what Elizabeth is up to right this way, but honestly, not a lot is known about Molly. Which makes sense. Would you want your entire life defined by a serial killer who your mom happened to date when you were a child? No. Not so much. That said, here are the answers to a few basic questions:
Wait, so who’s her dad?
There’s very little info out there, but according to Oxygen, Elizabeth was married before she met Bundy and, well, her husband was a convicted felon-but she didn’t know this until after they made it official. They weren’t married for long, and Elizabeth met Bundy when Molly was just a toddler.
Kay...where is she today?
According to Extremely Wicked, she’s in Washington state with her mom-and that’s about all we know! But if you want to learn more about Molly’s childhood, you should definitely check out Elizabeth’s memoir about her relationship with Bundy. She wrote it in 1981 and it'’s creepily called The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy.
Note: Elizabeth refers to Molly as Tina in this book. It’s unclear which of these two names is her real one-Netflix may have used a pseudonym to protect her identity.
What does she think about Extremely Wicked?
She hasn’t seen it, and according to director Joe Berlinger, neither she nor Elizabeth plan to. Molly did, however, visit the set with her mom-specifically for the film’s happier scenes. “Those were few and far between,” Berlinger told Vanity Fair. “It was very touching to see her, Zac, Lily, and Molly interacting.”
He also confirmed that Molly has no interest in doing press for the film: “They have both had a hard time processing this. It took a lot of trust for them to meet with us. They still haven’t seen the film and don’t want to see the film and don’t want to do press for the film. Elizabeth still has a hard time with it. But I think she is happy we made the film and happy with Lily portraying her....It is still a painful experience. But I think, generally speaking, they’ve moved on with their lives and are both in a good place.”
Did Elizabeth know she was dating a killer?
This is an important question (especially since Molly, a minor/innocent child, was involved), and the answer is complicated. Bundy was definitely murdering women while he was dating Elizabeth, but he was also a master manipulator. Even so, Elizabeth suspected he was up to something nefarious. In fact, she reported him to the police three times and told officers she’d found creepy objects she “couldn’t understand” in his apartment. Objects like crutches, a meat cleaver, surgical gloves, and a “paper sack” of women’s clothing. In other words, she knew something awful was going on.
Fortunately, Bundy moved to Utah (er...unfortunately, as he continued murdering people there) and then had less in-person contact with Elizabeth and Molly. On that note, it’s important to remember that Molly spent a tiny sliver of her life with this man, and the fact that she wants nothing to do with his posthumous pop culture revival is more than understandable!
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