In the 1970’s, one 6-foot, 9-inch tall man named Edmund Kemper towered over his peers,
and most considered him to be a gentle giant.
No one in his life could have imagined that he murdered six teenage girls hitchhiking
through Santa Cruz, California, or that he would finally turn his rage on his own mother.
No one in Kemper’s life ever got any bad vibes, and he didn’t show many signs that
there was anything wrong.
He actually had a genius IQ, and he was the kind of person you could imagine having an
fascinating conversation with over a cup of coffee.
He was so likeable, indeed, that no one would have ever guess that he could be capable of
killing a total of ten people and defiling their corpses.
He covered his tracks so thoroughly, that he would have never been caught, either...Until
he picked up a payphone and turned himself in.
Today on Biographics, we’re talking about Edmund Kemper; The Coed Killer.
Early Life Edmund Kemper was born in 1948 in Burbank,
California.
He was a very sensitive and intelligent boy.
Like many families at that time, Ed’s parents raised chickens and grew their own vegetables
in the backyard.
Ed idolized his father, and he loved to spend time with the chickens and other farm animals
like they were his pets.
He gave them all names, and played games with them in the backyard.
His mother was quick to reprimand and discipline him, so he was a very well-behaved child.
He had two sisters- one older, and one younger, who received more of the love and attention
from his mother.
Ed was still in primary school when his father chopped two of the chicken’s heads off in
front of him.
Later, his mother would cook the birds for dinner.
When he refused to eat his pets, his parents shouted at him over the dinner table, forcing
him to eat the chicken through his tears.
That night, he got on his bike and rode as far away as he could, but he would find that
there was no escape.
His father would force him to get over his sensitivity of watching animals killed.
As time went on, he grew numb to the blood and the beheadings, and learned to accept
it as part of life.
Ed later went on to kill a cat.
He couldn’t understand why the adults in his life were telling him that killing farm
animals was acceptable, but killing a dog or a cat was not.
His parents got a divorce when he was 9 years old, but his mother was so bitter, that she
began to take all of her hatred out on Ed.
She said that all men were worthless, and she began to treat Ed far worse than his sisters,
simply because he was a boy.
She moved them to Montana, and got remarried.
The second marriage did not work out either, and she went through a string of boyfriends
that never lasted as a positive male role model in his life.
As a child being raised by a now-single mother, they did not have a lot of toys, so they would
use their imagination, instead.
Ed read a lot of books from the library, and including horrific stories from history about
the vikings and the holocaust.
He suggested that he and his younger sisters should play a game called “the gas chamber”.
They tied each other up in a chair just to see who could get themselves out of bondage
the quickest, pretending that they were stuck in a room filling up with deadly gas.
His mother and sisters had bedrooms upstairs, and Ed had once slept a bedroom upstairs,
as well, but his mother decided to move his bedroom down to the basement.
She was convinced that he would hurt his sisters.
Instead of a bed, he had to sleep on a cot with a sleeping bag, with only a single light
bulb hanging from a string.
It was damp, cold and frightening, with only the rats to keep him company at night.
According to him, he interpreted that his mother had a deeper meaning behind her actions.
“(I) had a tough time differentiating the reason in that.
Why am I going to the basement?
I’m going to Hell.
They’re going to Heaven.”
Kemper’s First Victims Ed was incredibly tall for his age, so everyone
always assumed that he was older than he actually was.
He started driving when he was only 10 years old.
This was totally illegal, of course, but his mother must have allowed him to use the family
car.
One day, he drove himself to a carnival, and there was an attraction where people could
slide their head into a real guillotine and pretend to have their heads cut off.
It was such a strange contradiction to see people laughing and squealing in the face
of death just for the thrill of it.
Even though it was all just pretend, Ed Kemper got excited, and found himself wishing it
was actually real.
It was in this moment that his delusions began to get far worse, and he began to have difficulty
deciphering between reality and fantasy.
At 13 years old, life at home with his mother became so toxic, that he ran away from home
to live with his father and new stepmother in Los Angeles.
But their reunion would only last a couple months, because he sent Ed to live with his
parents on their 17-acre farm.
His grandparents lived in a remote location on the top of a mountain, surrounded by their
massive farm lands, so he was completely isolated from the outside world.
His grandmother was just as domineering and abusive as his mother, and his grandfather
had dementia.
Since they lived on so much land, his grandparents would allow him to use a rifle to hunt rabbits,
squirrels, and racoons.
His grandmother would carry the guns with her whenever she left the house.
For a year and a half, things were going fine, until Ed went back to see his mother for the
first time in almost two years.
She knew exactly which buttons to press to make him feel worthless.
Being around his mother triggered his delusions to come back, and any progress he made in
his mental health was lost.
Upon returning to his grandparents’ farm, he slipped back into a delusional mental state.
He pretended to leave the house, and shot his grandmother in the back of the head with
his rifle.
Then, he killed his grandfather, saying that he did not want him to live through the pain
of knowing that his wife was murdered.
During a later interview, Ed Kemper said that it was a good thing that he was so isolated
from society on the farm, because he was so angry at the world in that moment, that he
knows that he would have been a mass murderer.
When his delusion was all over, reality set in, and Ed saw his grandparents were bleeding
on the floor.
He could have driven far away from the scene, and no one would have known about their deaths
for a very long time.
But the first thing he did was call his mother.
He told her what had happened, and she told him to call the sheriff to turn himself in.
So, he did.
When police showed up to arrest him, he went willingly.
When asked for an explanation, he answered, “I wanted to see what it would be like to
kill grandma.”
Stolen Youth Since he was 15 years old when he killed his
grandparents, Ed Kemper was still considered a minor, and he went to a mental hospital
without having to serve any jail time.
Doctors gave him multiple tests, and they discovered that he had a genius-level IQ,
and he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Ed Kemper actually loved living in this hospital, because he was finally getting the help he
needed.
He took the proper medication, and there was a lot of structure and stability in his life.
His mind began to heal, and he was fully in touch with reality.
He was even given a job shadowing one of the doctors, because they believed that he could
get better, and that he still had a bright future ahead of him.
During this time, he paid close attention to the doctor’s notes to see what normal,
mentally healthy people said during their interviews.
So, he was able to remain calm and give the answers that the doctors wanted to hear.
They were convinced that he made a full recovery, and set him free after 4 years.
While he was in custody, he told his doctors all about the abuse he endured from his mother
as a child, and he begged for them to not send him back to live with her.
His doctors promised him that would not happen, and they agreed that living with her would
only make his mental health worse.
But the judge ultimately had the final say, and he put Ed Kemper back into his mother’s
custody.
Now that he was a full-grown adult, he grew to be 6 foot-9 inches all.
He was so huge, he had to duck in order to get into a room.
He spent his childhood being raised by conservative adults, and all of his teenage years were
spent in a mental hospital.
So Ed Kemper was shocked to be thrust into the “free love” movement and the hippie
cultural revolution in California.
He felt very awkward and uncomfortable, and could barely hold a conversation with a girl.
He was 21 years old when he went on his first date.
He took a girl to a Denny’s and a John Wayne movie, but he felt incredibly awkward.
He didn’t smoke pot, listen to good music, or go to parties like most kids his age in
the 1960’s and 70’s.
His mother had raised him saying that all men were awful people, and she worked at the
University of California Santa Cruz with female students.
In many ways, his mother was a third-wave feminist who truly despised men.
Having this shoved in his face on a regular basis made Kemper project his hate towards
his mother onto all other women.
He had fantasies about being with women, instead of being in a relationship.
The Blood Lust Begins Ed Kemper decided that he wanted to become
a police officer, because there was a lot of structure and order in the profession,
and it would be a steady job.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t his juvenile record that stopped him from becoming a police officer.
His record had been expunged, so it was as if he had never killed anyone at all.
It was his massive height that stopped him, since there was a limit of how tall a police
officer can be.
So, he decided that if he could not get a job as an officer, he still wanted to be friends
with cops, and started hanging out with the police at a bar called The Jury Room.
He found a job for the California Highway Department after getting out of prison, and
for a short while, he had his own apartment, and an independent life away from his mother.
But when he fell into financial hardship, he was stuck living with her again.
They would often get into intense arguments that made his situation worse on a daily basis.
Ed drove, and drove, and drove.
He took up a habit of picking up hitchhikers and giving them rides.
This was very common back in the 1960’s and 70’s, and college students held up signs
saying the location of where they wanted to go.
In his mind, he had a fantasy of killing a young woman that he picked up.
He would practice picking up both male and female hitchhikers, and let them go free.
He did this over 150 times, just as practice runs so that he could feel prepared for any
scenario.
At the bar, he was listening very closely to what police officers were saying about
their new cases, and they mentioned the fact that teenage girls ran away all the time,
only to show up some time later.
In his mind, he was living out a fantasy where he would pick up a girl so that he could rape
and murder her.
Through all of these practice conversations, he figured out what to do in order to make
people feel more at-ease.
He also concocted a plan to drop a chapstick into the passenger door, so that if his victims
tried to escape, they could no longer open the door from the inside.
His fantasy was finally realized on May 7, 1972, when he picked up two 18-year old girls
named Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa in Berkeley, California.
They asked for a ride to Stanford University.
He drove them to a secluded area in the woods, and locked Anita in the trunk.
He stabbed and strangled Mary Ann before opening the trunk and killing Anita in the same way.
After they were dead, he raped them, and stuffed their bodies into the trunk of his Ford Galaxie.
On the drive home, a police officer pulled him over.
He was able to remain calm, as if nothing happened.
The officer told him that his tail light was out, and he went on his way.
Later, he dismembered their bodies and dumped bags miles away from one another in order
to throw off the police.
Universities in the local area began to tell their students not to accept rides from strangers.
They also told everyone that if they have no choice but to accept a ride, to only get
into cars with a campus sticker on it.
Ironically, Ed Kemper actually did have one of these stickers from UC Santa Cruz, since
his mother worked for the college.
On September 14, 1972, he picked up a 15-year old girl named Aiko Koo who needed a ride
to her ballet class, and killed her in the same fashion.
On January 7th, 1973, he killed Cindy Schall.
Instead of disposing Cindy’s remains like he had with the others, he buried her head
in the yard, facing towards his mother’s bedroom window.
Cindy’s head was sitting in the trunk of his car when he went to his state mandated
therapy session.
His psychiatrist was convinced that he was better, and they released him from the court
order to continue therapy.
Even though he killed months apart, Ed Kemper continued to give rides to young women on
a regular basis, just so he could get information about what the public was saying about him.
These women were so unaware that Ed Kemper was a murderer that they would even have a
conversation with him about this “Coed Killer”, speculating about his motivations.
He would hang out at the Jury Room bar to learn new information about the case.
He also watched a lot of crime shows on TV in order to understand every possible way
they might try to catch him.
For example, he had the urge to go to the funerals of his victims and pay his respects,
but when he saw that detectives always show up to the funeral of a homicide victim, he
knew not to give in to his natural impulses.
On February 5th, 1973, he got into a very intense argument with his mother, and he went
out and killed two more girls- Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu.
He finally made the connection that the anger he felt towards his mother was the trigger
that set him off into a killing spree.
He knew that if he wanted the killings to stop, he would need to kill his mother.
But his plan would be put on hold, because the police showed up to the Kemper residence.
Catching Kemper A few days earlier, the police received a
tip that Ed Kemper had purchased a gun.
The shop owner could see that his personal record had been expunged, and that he committed
murder when he was under 18.
The shop owner reported it to the police, and gave them Ed Kemper’s name and address.
When the police showed up, they recognized him from the bar, so they assured Ed Kemper
that it was just a formality.
Ed lead them to his closet, where he kept several guns.
Sitting next to those weapons was a woman’s purse, and a box filled of mementos from his
victims.
Before the police officers took notice, he quickly distracted them and lead them out
to his car, where he had more weapons hidden.
They did not suspect him of being the murderer, but, he was paranoid, and convinced that they
were on to him.
For an entire week, he planned his mother’s murder.
He waited for her to go to a party, and she got completely drunk, as she always did on
the weekend.
When she came home, it was late at night, and Ed Kemper woke up to hear her stumble
through the front door at 4 o’clock in the morning.
He smashed her head in with a claw hammer.
He then decapitated her, sexually violated her face, and ripped out her vocal cords,
shoving them down the garbage disposal.
Then, he placed her head on the mantelpiece and started throwing darts at it.
When his rage subsided, he realized that he had to make this look like a break-in.
Otherwise, the police might suspect him.
So he called up his mother’s best friend, Sally Hallett, and said that he made a dinner
for them both.
When she arrived, he strangled her.
He then stuffed their bodies into a closet, and left a note for the police.
After killing his mother, the torment stopped.
He packed his bags and drove far, far away.
He was able to actually start speaking to women without fantasizing about killing them,
because the source of his anger was gone.
He realized that he couldn’t live with the guilt any longer, and he actually wanted to
stop hiding and pay for his crimes.
He found the nearest payphone to called to confess that he was the Coed Killer.
He waited patiently there for them to arrive.
On the ride back, he gave the police officers every little detail of his crimes, and the
police officers felt sick from listening to him.
When he was in custody, Ed Kemper openly admitted that he could not control these delusions
that took over his mind.
He begged for a lobotomy so that he never had the urge to kill anyone ever again.
But that never happened.
He was sentenced to 10 counts of first degree murder.
He is still alive, and currently spending life in prison.
In his time behind bars, he has shown a sense of remorse for his crimes, and he gladly assisted
in research on the psychology of serial killers by agreeing to video and audio interviews.
He began to teach classes in computer literacy to fellow inmates, and since he spoke very
eloquently, he even started reading audiobooks for the blind.
Since he was always so police and on his best behavior, he was allowed to leave prison and
live in a reform hospital.
Most psychiatrists who listen to the tapes of Ed Kemper describing his life believe that
his mother must have had Borderline Personality Disorder, and if it were not for all of the
abuse he endured, he would have never become a serial killer.
Others say that he was born a sociopath, and that killing meant nothing to him.
They believe that any sign of guilt or remorse is really just for show, because he was so
good at studying real human emotion.
No matter what the truth behind Ed Kemper’s mental state may be, none of it justifies
what happened to his victims, and it will never bring back the lives of the women he
killed.
If we can learn anything from the story of Ed Kemper, it is that we never truly know
what goes on inside the minds of the people we see everyday.
You just may never know if the kind man next door is a serial killer.