Post-conviction strategy: Bundy, Kohberger parallels
Excerpts from the 2011 book The Last Murder by a Bundy prosecutor (Dekle) and the 1983 book The Only Living Witness by two journalists (Michaud & Aynesworth). You can read them for free with an Internet Archive account.
Interestingly, Ted Bundy’s attorneys tried to convince him to take a plea for the Chi Omega/Florida murders as a means of buying time for the case against him to “deteriorate” (via evidence breaking down or getting lost in storage, witnesses dying, etc.). They said after some years, he could file a post-conviction motion to throw out the plea, arguing that he took the deal under duress (Living Witness, p. 270). He ultimately chose to go to trial instead. He claimed ineffective counsel in open court and said he wasn’t being informed about their strategy, perhaps to salt the record for appeal (pp. 271, 284). His attorneys also argued that he was mentally unfit (p. 271).
As I’ve seen others suggest, it seems like Anne Taylor also tried to salt the record for BK in the lead-up to his plea, which he’s leveraging alongside claims of ineffective counsel to argue for another go. Perhaps if he gets a favorable ruling on the constitutionality of IGG, then he can try to get the DNA and other evidence suppressed, and end up with better odds at trial. If it doesn’t work out (and it likely won’t), then he at least avoided the death penalty by not proceeding with trial in 2025.