'Murderabilia' hot on the Internet

WASHINGTON — Round and chrome, it looks a lot like your average hubcap from a vintage VW Bug. But this one is special. And it's for sale.

It's off the tan 1968 Volkswagen Beetle that Ted Bundy drove as he roamed the West in the mid-1970s murdering young women. From Washington state to Colorado to Utah, Bundy is considered among the most diabolical serial killers in U.S. history.

Though he was executed in Florida's electric chair more than 18 years ago, anything connected to Bundy is a hot commodity in "murderabilia" — items offered by a handful of Web sites that cater to those fascinated by the nation's most notorious killers.

The starting bid for the hubcap from Bundy's Beetle is $3,500. If that's too steep, how about $1,700 for a signed note that Bundy smuggled to another prisoner on Florida's death row? A copy of Bundy's last will and testament, in which he asks that his ashes be spread over the Cascade Mountains, where he dumped the bodies of some of his victims, goes for $15.

Along with Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, Bundy's stuff is the most sought after, said Andy Kahan, director of the Houston mayor's crime victims office. Kahan has tracked the sale of murderabilia for eight years and has led the effort to limit such sales.

Even more recent serial killers, including Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer who confessed to murdering 48 women in Washington state, are represented on the Web sites. The opening bid for an envelope hand-addressed by Ridgway, postmarked from Seattle just weeks after his arrest, is $100. Also available, for $4.99, is a glossy photo of Ridgway in court wearing a white jail jumpsuit with "Ultra Security Inmate" stenciled across the back.

"This is really upsetting," said Susanne Villiamin of Seattle, the mother of Mary Sue Bello, one of Ridgway's victims. "This brings back memories. I've not gotten over it. I can't forgive him."

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., a former King County sheriff who tracked the Green River killer for years and even sought advice from Bundy during an interview on death row, said he, too, was upset by the murderabilia market.

"The families of these victims experience enormous, life-consuming pain by the crime itself and don't deserve this horrible, additional exploitation," Reichert said in a statement.

Several years ago, Kahan helped persuade eBay to stop trading in murderabilia, only to see dealers launch their own Web sites.