Edmund Kemper

Serial killer

• Born: December 18, 1948
• Place of Birth: Burbank, California

Significance: Edmund Kemper is an American serial killer known for murdering eight women, including his mother, between 1972 and 1973. Kemper also murdered his grandparents when he was fifteen years old and spent the remainder of his teenage years in a mental institution. Upon his release at the age of twenty-one, he embarked on a murder spree that earned him the nickname the "Coed Killer." Kemper was known for his extreme height and above average intelligence. He was apprehended in April 1973 and found guilty of all eight murders.

Background

Edmund Kemper was born on December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California. Kemper's parents divorced when he was young, and he lived with his mother, a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. His mother was known to lock Kemper in their home's basement at night. She also mocked him for his height. The young Kemper was over six feet tall by the time he was a teen. He grew up to hate his mother, and often took out his frustration by torturing and killing animals and play-acting dark fantasies with his sisters' dolls. He liked to dismember and decapitate the dolls in a ritualistic fashion. Kemper also enjoyed playing twisted games as a youngster. One of his favorite games was pretending to be asphyxiated in a gas chamber. Although his childhood activities were demonstrably disturbing, Kemper was highly intelligent and possessed an extremely high IQ that was near genius level.

At fourteen, Kemper ran away from home to seek out his father. He located his father in Van Nuys, California, but the elder Kemper had remarried and now had a stepson. His father sent him to live with his grandparents in North Fork, California. Kemper experienced similarly abusive treatment from his grandmother, whom he grew to hate as he did his mother. When he was fifteen years old, Kemper shot both of his grandparents to death in their home with a shotgun. He later told police he just wanted to see what it felt like to kill his grandmother, and he only killed his grandfather so he would not have to find out that his wife was dead.

The courts deemed Kemper mentally unstable following his grandparents' murder. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane. He remained at the institution for five years. He was eventually re-diagnosed with a personality disorder and treated in accordance. Kemper was a very well-behaved patient and impressed psychiatrists with the progress he appeared to be making. He was released in 1969 at age twenty-one as rehabilitated, and his criminal record was expunged. By this time, he had grown to an imposing six-foot-nine and weighed close to three hundred pounds. Although the mental institution deemed him capable of reentering society, Kemper knew he was not psychologically recovered and continued to harbor dark, disturbing fantasies.

Overview

Much to his disappointment, Kemper was released into his mother's custody after his treatment ended. He began having fantasies about killing her soon after his release, but he decided he needed to practice killing others before he murdered his mother.

His first murder occurred two years after his release from the mental hospital. He picked up two female college students who were hitchhiking along the highway. He then drove them to a remote location and stabbed each of them to death, taking their bodies home with him and photographing the corpses in various poses. He also dissected and engaged in intercourse with the bodies. He later buried the women's remains and dumped their decapitated heads into a ravine.

Four months after this incident, Kemper kidnapped a teenage hitchhiker and strangled her to death. He then had intercourse with her corpse and took the body home. He repeated this pattern with three more female student hitchhikers, decapitating each victim and having sex with their corpses. Kemper also kept pieces of the women's bodies as keepsakes and occasionally removed and cooked pieces of their flesh.

Police caught on to the murders by 1973, dubbing the perpetrator the "Coed Killer." Kemper was friends with a number of policemen and evaded their suspicion for some time. His actions in the early hours of Easter weekend of 1973 eventually led to his apprehension, however. At this time, Kemper entered his mother's room while she slept and bludgeoned her with a claw hammer. He then slit her throat and decapitated her. Kemper violated his mother's body in several ways, ripping out her larynx and sending it down the garbage disposal. He then proceeded to call his mother's best friend and invite her to dinner. When she arrived, he smashed in her skull with a brick and engaged in various acts with her corpse.

He left his home after the murders and drove to Colorado, where he telephoned police to inform them of his crimes. Police did not believe his confession, as many of them were his friends and thought it was a prank. Kemper revealed things about his previous crimes only the killer would know and convinced the authorities of his confession's authenticity. He was arrested and charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. Kemper was sentenced to life in prison at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California. In the years following his imprisonment, Kemper was denied parole four times before refusing parole hearings altogether beginning in 1985. He reportedly did not believe he was fit to reenter society. Kemper was denied parole in 2024, after a psychiatric evaluation concluded that if released, he would be a high risk to reoffend. At his hearing, Kemper was reportedly in poor health, suffering from a recent stroke and coronary heart disease. As of 2024, he remained incarcerated at the California Medical Facility.

Impact

Kemper's murder spree has been the subject of a number of true crime books and documentaries. Kemper himself has been featured as a character in multiple films and television series, and he has served as an inspiration for fictional serial killers, including Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Edgler Vess in the Dean Koontz novel Intensity. Actor Cameron Britton also portrayed the real-life Kemper in the Netflix original series Mindhunter.

Bibliography

Baine, Wallace. "Santa Cruz Serial Killer Ed Kemper Denied Parole Again." Lookout Santa Cruz, 9 July 2024, lookout.co/santa-cruz-serial-killer-ed-kemper-denied-parole-again/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Bonn, Scott A. "The Real Life Horror Tale of the Twisted 'Co-ed Killer.'" Psychology Today, 17 May 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201403/the-real-life-horror-tale-the-twisted-co-ed-killer. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

"Ed Kemper: The Co-ed Killer." Crime Investigation, www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/edmund-kemper. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Gaudette, Emily. "Netflix's 'Mindhunter': All the Real Serial Killers, from Ed Kemper to BTK." Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2017, www.newsweek.com/mindhunter-serial-killers-ed-kemper-dennis-raider-btk-686399. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Schechter, Harold.The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Pocket Books, 2006.

Tallerico, Brian. "Watch the Real-life Interviews with Serial Killer Edmund Kemper." Vulture, 18 Oct. 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/10/mindhunter-who-is-ed-kemper-serial-killer.html. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Vronsky, Peter. Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. Berkeley Books, 2004.