Ted Gunderson was born in Colorado Springs. He graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1950. Gunderson joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in December 1951 under J. Edgar Hoover. He served in the Mobile, Knoxville, New York City, and Albuquerque offices. He held posts as an Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge in New Haven and Philadelphia. In 1973 he became the head of the Memphis FBI office and then the head of the Dallas FBI office in 1975. Ted Gunderson was appointed the head of the Los Angeles FBI in 1977. In 1979 he was one of a handful interviewed for the job of FBI director, which ultimately went to William H. Webster.
Post-FBI
After retiring from the FBI, Gunderson set up a private investigation firm, Ted L. Gunderson and Associates, in Santa Monica. In 1980, he became a defense investigator for Green Beret doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who had been convicted of the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Gunderson obtained affidavits from Helena Stoeckley confessing to her involvement in the murders which she claimed had in actuality been perpetrated by a Satanic cult of which she was a member. He also investigated a child molestation trial in Manhattan Beach, California. In a 1995 conference in Dallas, Gunderson warned about the supposed proliferation of secret occultist groups, and the danger posed by the New World Order, an alleged shadow government that would be controlling the United States government. He also claimed that a "slave auction" in which children were sold by Saudi Arabian agents to men had been held in Las Vegas, that four thousand ritual human sacrifices are performed in New York City every year, and that the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was carried out by the US government. Gunderson believed that in the United States there is a secret widespread network of groups who kidnap children and infants, and subject them to ritual abuse and subsequent human sacrifice. In Labella v. FBI, Gunderson submitted an affidavit stating, among other things, that "thousands of victims have been targeted by an illegal government rogue criminal enterprise that is active 24 hours a day within the U.S... whose administrators can instantly initiate surveillance, phone taps and harassment against any individual in the country."The affidavit supports some of the allegations made by so-called targeted individuals.
Personal life
Gunderson had an association with music producer and conspiracy theorist Anthony J. Hilder and was interviewed by him on various occasions. The two men appeared at numerous conferences together. They both said that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a result of FBI agent provocateurs. Gunderson was a member of the Constitution Party. In 2008, Gunderson stated that he had tested positive for arsenic and cyanide poisoning. Gunderson's associate, Dr. Edward Lucidi, treated Gunderson and stated that his fingers were turning black, a characteristic symptom of arsenic poisoning. On July 31, 2011 Gunderson's son reported that his father had died from cancer of the bladder.
