"I still have a sense of disbelief." Ted Bundy's former girlfriend has given a rare interview.

Elizabeth Kloepfer was a newly single mother when she was sitting in a Seattle bar with her friend Marylynne Chino, one night in 1969.

Marylynne noticed a man from across the room was observing them.

“That guy has been staring at you all night,” Marylynne told Elizabeth, who turned to look.

Elizabeth strolled over to the mystery man, who was sitting by himself, before starting up a conversation.

Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, that man was Ted Bundy – who would go on to be one of the world’s most notorious serial killers.

Within weeks of meeting, Bundy had moved into Liz’s family home, where she lived with her young daughter, Molly Kloepfer.

Speaking for the first time in 40 years, Elizabeth (whose last name is now Kendall) and her daughter Molly Kendall have reflected on their relationship with Bundy in a new five-part documentary series for Amazon Prime, 'Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer.

For seven years, right up until he was caught by police for his crimes, Bundy lived with Elizabeth, and helped raise Molly.

"I hate to even say this because it makes him sound normal, but I do think he loved us," Elizabeth Kendall said in an interview with 20/20.

Bundy was solely responsible for the murders of at least 30 women in America during the 1970s – many of whom he raped before killing. He was executed in 1989.

Nevertheless, Liz has fond memories of her relationship with Bundy – prior to her knowledge of his murders – adding he "put a lot of energy into making us happy, doing fun things… he always seemed to embrace us as a family unit."

"I loved going to places with him. He was never at a loss for words, whereas I was on the shy side,' she continued.

Molly, who grew up with Bundy as a father-figure in her life, simply said: "That's my childhood."

As Elizabeth showed photos to Molly of her as a young child with Bundy, the mother said she "kept those photos of us when we were happier, before we knew what he was capable of."

"I sometimes can’t believe this has really been my life."

Molly responded, "Unfortunately, the memories that are attached to those pictures have lost their original emotional content and become something different."

Despite keeping the photographs, it's clear Elizabeth still has a hard time reconciling the horrific crimes committed by Bundy and her personal and romantic relationship with him.

"I still have a sense of disbelief that this man that I loved and that seemed to be a great guy could go out and do such horrific things," she said. "It’s just so hard to accept."

"I always felt loved," she continued. “But with Ted, it's impossible to tell. It could've been love, it could've been just another manipulation.”

Just like the rest of the world, Elizabeth admitted she has wondered why Bundy – who evidently had an obsession with brutally killing women – left herself and Molly unharmed.

"I heard a story told by one of his attorneys he had. He said Ted told him that he would play games with these animals, I don’t remember if they were mice or something else," Molly said at one point during the new Amazon Prime documentary. “And he would let some of them live and some of them die, and to me, that’s us, we’re just these mice that were allowed to live."

As for if Liz ever noticed any peculiarities or alarming behaviour in her former partner's behaviour, she admitted she began to see differences in him by 1974.

"He would start walking home late at night, rather than spending the night at my house. Just subtle changes where I felt like maybe I was losing him or maybe he was seeing somebody else," she recalled.

"Never in my dreams did I think he was out stalking women and then eventually… abducting and murdering women. There was no context for that."

Indeed, as police searches for the perpetrator of the horrific crimes gained widespread media coverage in the summer of 1974, suspicions of Bundy were raised by Elizabeth and Molly. But Elizabeth insists it still seemed inconceivable that her partner would be capable of such a thing.

Molly recalls one night in particular, in which she jokingly asked Bundy if he was responsible for the murders.

"When they had a profile of him, I brought up the similarities to him," Molly recalled in the documentary. "I said, 'This guy's name's Ted. Your name's Ted. This guy has a Volkswagen. You drive a Volkswagen. You know it's you,' and he just laughed. [He said], 'No, Monkey, of course, I would never do anything like that.'"

Despite a number of murders and disappearances in 1974 in Washington and Oregon, it wasn’t until Bundy moved to Salt Lake City, Utah for law school in mid-1975 that he was on the police’s radar.

In the early hours of the morning, Bundy was driving in his Volkswagen Beetle with his lights off when a police officer noticed him. Bundy disobeyed his order to stop and was arrested by police – the beginning of the end, for Bundy.

Upon learning of what Bundy had done, Elizabeth said it "took [her] so long to really fully accept that he did those things.

"Even after he told me that, I still was spending endless hours trying to figure out how this could be, how this man that I thought I knew could do these things. It was really a struggle."

Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer is available on Amazon Prime. 

Feature Image: Amazon Prime. 

For more on this topic:

• The untold story of what happened to serial killer Ted Bundy's daughter, Rose Bundy.
• Liz Kloepfer met the love of her life in a bar. He turned out to be Ted Bundy.
• Molly Kloepfer was raised by Ted Bundy for seven years. This is what her life looks like now.
• The little-known story of serial killer Ted Bundy's first girlfriend, Diane Edwards.
• The faces we should be remembering when we talk about Ted Bundy.

Sign up for the "Mamamia Daily" newsletter. Your morning hit of the top news stories, to be consumed with a coffee in hand.