Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 204 - Edmund Kemper Part 1 - Red Flag Means Stop Ed

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Ed Kemper is the next dip into the True Crime pool, and while Ed certainly hits a lot of those serial killer bingo cards, he's unique in many ways. Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - EVERYONE AT HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Canva - http://www.canva.me/chill Nuts - http://www.nuts.com/chill Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet Sources/Videos: Sources: The Co-Ed Killer: The Untold Story of Edmund Kemper Mind Hunter Inside the FBI Elite Unit

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chaluminati podcast, episode 204. My name is Mike, as always, one of your hosts, and joined today by I, you know, I'm not going to lie, Jesse. I'm thrown off by you being here. I wasn't ready. I didn't, I didn't have a prepared thought of who you're going to be. Oh, daddy's back. I don't think I've done this, uh, Mulder and Scully of LA, Alex and Jesse.

Wow. Wow. That's accurate. Yeah, that checks out. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Most accurate I can ever come up with because I didn't...

Which one's Mulder and which one's Scully? Would you say? Jesse's the Scully, for sure. Okay. Yeah, the smoldering hot one. He does have red hair. I understand who is who. Do you?

Yeah, I do. Are you sure that you don't know that you are Mulder? I do know that. You are more Mulder than you could ever know, man. You have no idea. Patreon.com slash ChaluminatiPod is a fine place where you can find us finally showing X-Files to Mathis. For his birthday, we're going to get pizza.

We're going to make it nice and comfy. We're going to hang out for a while. We're going to chill out and eat nice, mid-range, birthday-appropriate pizza, and we're going to watch the first couple X-Files episodes, and it's going to be mind-blowing. What is this happening? As soon as we can at Patreon.com slash ChaluminatiPod, support us. Go there. Get free stuff.

It rules. Mel is the best artist that we've ever worked with professionally in our lives. Go see the art. Have a great time. Get a mini-sode after this. That's what the Green Stone follow-up post-op mega-series, maxi-series, CU Cinematic Universe main event begins today in the Patreon. So go there.

Check it out. Get it. Go have it. What does that mean? What does that mean? Is the next Smurfs movie like a viral marketing campaign for the next Green Stone? What does that mean? What have I missed out on?

The new Smurfs movies coming out is the Smurfs and the adventure of the Green Stone. That's so funny. No, get hyped for that. I don't know what that means. I'm ready to see that movie. Yo, guys, do you think this is like soft disclosure? Don't get me started. That was last week, Jesse.

You were not here. Soft disclosure, guys. We're like, they're teaching us about the Green Stone right now a little bit. In the movies. You know what I mean? Like teaching us basic concepts. You know, like they're slowly letting us know it's real. Letting us know that you can just dream of anything that you want to dream and then

you can just go find it in the woods. What? Here's what's up. It's starting today. Go there. Jesse doesn't even know what I'm talking about. He doesn't even remember. Oh, yeah.

The next Green Stone bit is happening in the Minnesota. Today? Yeah. Well, technically it started two weeks ago. We're going to film. Yeah. Don't worry. What?

Yeah. This story never ends, bro. Don't even worry. This sounds like a scam, but okay. It's not a scam. It's no scam. Yeah. It sounds like a scam.

It's no scam. This is a true story. You guys over here scamming. Oh, what's going on? I sourced it with many sources. This is a true story. This is no scam. Now, were these sources?

Books? Yeah. Nonfiction. Really? The face you're making that the listeners cannot see is one of dubious trustworthiness. I mean, yeah. Okay. You know what?

I can't wait. I can't wait. Keep that third eye open. But you know what? Green Stone continues after this. The truth is out there, guys. Jesse. Patreon.com.

I want to believe. We had a great week without you last week. I want you to know we missed you. I don't believe that. I don't believe you had a great week. Jesse, I want to show you what I got for my birthday from one of my friends. What happened? And it sits on my desk now under my monitor.

And she's beautiful. I think you'll very much. Who is she? What is? Stop. Stop this. Not only is this alien sexy, but she's cake up. This is from my thank you, Alexis.

You're awesome. I appreciate you for this birthday gift. Go ahead, Jesse. Continue. Yeah. I want to say for the record, my birthday is this week and no one sent me an alien. So I'm just putting that out there. Um, yeah, it's an alien, but with an ass laying like posing like one of your French girls

and it is genuinely hilarious. Like not goofy or weird, just like real funny. I need a name for her. So if you guys got a name for her, please let me know in the comment section of wherever you're listening to this too. I vote for something cute, like Allie. Allie. And Texas too.

So it works. How about how about Sue F. Oh, thank you. I love the show. We talked about the topics at some point. I promise you, we get there. We get there. Jesse, I wanted to welcome you back with a uplifting story. I knew this was going to be like this.

I've been that, you know, I knew this was going to happen. That's why I tried to string out the sexy alien bit as long as possible. Do you have your bingo cards ready, gentlemen? Oh boy. Your serial killer bingo cards at the ready. Because today we're talking about what I would consider the first layer underneath the pop culture serial killers. The ones everybody knows about, like your John Wayne Gacy's, like your Ted Bundy's

and your Dahmers. We're going to go a little deeper. I feel like I've gotten, I've given you a relatively decent education on your, on your surface level stuff. So we're going to go one step lower. And today we're going to be talking about who you may still have heard of. One step lower. I don't know if that's the phrase, but it seems that it means how much lower

can we fucking go, bro? Oh, you don't want to ask that question. Edmund Kemper, also known as the coed killer. Are you aware of him and any passing way? Yeah. This, this is, this is this serial killer was a character recently on mine hunter. Yes. Actually, that is correct.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't watch that. So I didn't know. Also Ed Kemper is like, yeah, you're right. Like not quite the top, the top tier. It's a little deeper. Yeah. Ed Kemper is on the list.

He's like number 15. Edmund Kemper is a fascinating killer to talk about because he's actually one of the very first ones to ever speak with the behavioral therapy branch of the FBI and they're relatively newly formed serial killer unit that kind of popped up in around this time because living around this time in the 60s, it felt like every major city had about three or four serial killers just kind of hanging around all operating on their own, sometimes crossing into each other's territories and just kind of just being everywhere. And no, I'm, I say that it's just their territory.

They laid claim to it by birthright. It is there. Okay. I mean, I can't dispute this. So I'll say, okay. But yeah, so he's able to give a little bit of insight and he's also one of the first serial killers where a lot of what we learn about him comes from his mouth first. He was much more willing to discuss what he did.

And of course, with any serial killer, when we eventually get to that in the next part where it should only be two parts, but we'll see, you obviously you take it with a grain of salt, but the evidence and forensics do match up quite well with what he described. As we talk about serial killers in the past, he's also what I would consider our first, what is known as a displacement killer, brand of killer, where he is very much targeting one individual that really is the source of his ire, but then takes it out on others because they remind him of where they're easier until they eventually get to a Ted Bundy was very much a displacement killer.

There was that woman he could never have. And so every girl that fit that description, the brown hair, brown eyes, a certain height, that was his target because he never because they've never got to woo or win over the woman that he wanted until he did. And then she let and it was all you remember Coleson is serious if you want to. He also kind of seems to be the template for like the character from a TV show that's a serial killer that like talks to the cops. Absolutely.

A hundred percent. He's just very a matter of fact almost. And I like, I don't know that much about Ed Kemper, but that's something what I know. Yeah. Like he's kind of like got the he has the the like, like whoever did the first acting job like used this dude as their source material. You know what I mean? It would make sense.

And if you're curious what Ed Kemper sounds like, obviously you can go listen to whatever interviews are out there. But in prison, he recorded a ton of audiobooks. So there are audiobooks, which we'll talk about in part two of what Ed Kemper is just the narrator. He wrote or just he picked books, then recorded them. Some some that I think he did write one about himself. But other ones that he read, just as like a community thing, I think, like a community

project, again, details will be in the next episode for that. For what community? He just has a good voice in community. Like he and he just has that he's a very droll, hypnotizing sounding kind of just wanted he just yeah, he just liked reading out loud. And he's a weird one where I feel like because he's one of the displacement killers who eventually did get to his target, who did get to kill the person that infuriated him.

And we see how that impacted him psychologically and what that ended up leading to afterward. But obviously, before we dive into any of that, I want to list a few of the sources that I have used for this episode in particular. Obviously, the books that I'm mostly using are The Co-Ed Killer, the untold story of Edmund Kemper by Christopher Berry D, as well as Mindhunter inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. And a little bit of dabbling into the serial killer, like big book I have of

serial killers that give a little bit of tidbits of information, along with the monster of Florence, a true story of killers that references Edmund Kemper, but is actually about an entirely different group of people. There's a ton of stuff out there. If you want to go listen to more, like they said, Mindhunter on Netflix is about it. He's actually a part of the serial. The dude is amazing, by the way. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

But I just read. I just if you ever have seen any footage of Ed Kemper and then you see this guy, you're going to be like, whoa, that guy, like really like that guy should win some awards. Yeah, I've heard it's incredible. How many there are multiple Mindhunters now, right? There's like two or three seasons. Yeah, based on different killers. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't I don't know if it's different killers or not, but they it got it got kind of like canceled, like it's done. Well, yeah, I might go watch that after we do this, you know, series. But yeah, Ed Kemper is just fascinating because he's a lot of firsts and he's he was one of the early ones willing to speak with it because you have to understand, you know, serial killers are an FBI or a police worst nightmare because finding them is fucking impossible. You have to wait for them to make a mistake almost always before you can really get a lead on them.

You know, we found patterns over the years that they tend to stick in an area that they know and that they typically target, you know, more vulnerable people and stuff. But obviously with DNA, we've come a quite a long ways, but they're still being very careful. It's very hard to catch somebody. We had one in San Antonio that has been killing young men, homeless young men that nobody can find, like he's still out there and he still cannot be found. So it's like it's out there, like it's still happening. So him being able to open up information about how they think really did help them

move into the next phase of how they look for serial killers. But as always, get your bingo's cards ready, boys, because we're going to start way back, back on his birthday. Edmund Emil Kemper, the third, who eventually became notoriously known as the coed killer, is a figure that sits in the annals of American history standing at an imposing how tall, you know, he's tall, right? He's like a huge, he looks like Michael Clark. Duncan, he looks like he's like one of those guys.

Six foot nine inches is how tall Edmund Kemper was. And possessing an IQ that kind of bordered the genius range. This is the very last guy you want to be your serial killer that's chasing you down. Yeah, he's huge, he's strong and he's very, very smart. Like the other day I saw a video and Stephen Merchant was talking about being six seven. That's Stephen Merchant. So in my mind, I'm like, this dude, that dude is huge. Yeah, he's a massive guy.

And it's his crimes still reverberate in our the FBI is how they act today. That's like he had a big impact across the world, most in pop culture and in the crime side of things. He was born on December 18th, 1948 in Burbank, California, boys. How far is that from where you are? 15 minutes. Yeah. Edmund Kemper's childhood was just loaded with familial discord, abuse, mental health issues and a ton of early indications that little Ed Kemper

might have some violent tendencies a little bit. He tends to act out in violent ways that are kind of reminiscent of Dahmer. If you remember that first Dahmer episode we did from a young age, Kemper exhibited signs of a much darker path in his minds and his thoughts that he would traverse much more detailed and heavily in his later years. These signs were often overlooked or just entirely dismissed by their family in their initial stages, more. And I had to just dismissed out of not that.

Well, nothing's wrong with him, but the family truly did not care for this boy. Like they did not give a shit about him. And so they were just completely ignored, dismissed and contributed significantly to the escalation of his violence, which eventually culminated in the horrific series of murders that were just the definition of his young adulthood. But before we get that far, we just got to talk about his childhood a bit. Edmund Kemper was born into a home rife with tension and conflict. His parents were Edmund Kemper the second.

And his mom has such a beautiful name, Clarnell stage. I'm sorry, what was that first one? Clarnell, Clarnell, C-L-A-R-N-E-L-L. That's the name of like an animated pal with like pants on. Oh, is it Cow and Chicken? I remember that cartoon. Clarnell, that's like when Disney cartoons were scary. That's the vibe there.

What's absolutely crazy is that when you type in Clarnell, it's such a unique name that the only person who shows up is Clarnell stage. That's the mother of Demon Spawn, only one Edmund Kemper. Thank you to Cannes for sponsoring today's episode. No, look, I know our main show is podcast audio, but a visual product is a huge part of what we do here at Chaluminati. Everything from our Twitter post to Instagram to TikTok now, which we're on, having a visually appealing content is now essential to what we do here at

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so disconnected and while he wasn't abusive per se, he was just not present. Like, like emotionally, he wasn't there. He just ignored his kid like they were an object, more or less. Kemper's father was a World War Two veteran who then afterward later tested nuclear weapons in the Pacific Proving Grounds before coming back to California to work as a tech electrician. This man did not give two shits about his son at all. And I'm sure World War Two was not a great time.

And then going to just test nuclear weapons, that can't be relaxing. That just can't be. And his mother, Clarnell, was kind of just described as a domineering woman with a strong personality, which sounds familiar to the way I think who was the mother of a what was her name? Ah, the serial killer, the nanny Granny Doss. I think her mom was like similarly seen. That's the vibe we get a lot, though. Yeah, a lot.

It happens a lot. Absolutely. You're correct. The marriage was completely fraught with incestant battles, often revolving around Clarnell's contempt for her husband's menial electrician job. So he's just getting yelled at for just basically doing not. Your job is shit, and it's not good enough, I guess. And Kemper and Edmunds, the father Ed Kemper's frustration with his wife's consistent, quote, unquote, domineering temperament. The constant disagreements coupled with Clarnell's severe

neurotic system and potential borderline personality disorder created a toxic environment that played a huge role in shaping Kemper's Kemper's early perceptions of relationships, especially relationships. Those with women. It's something you don't realize as a kid is like whoever you're growing up with, whatever you watch kind of becomes what you think is the norm on a level. I think there's not obviously this grand extremes that even you know, might be a little off, but as somebody who grew up in a very

kind of tumultuous house, you don't get it until you're out of that situation. And then when you're out of it, you're like, you kind of see it. So like him growing up and seeing horrible fighting between his parents absolutely made a stamp on that man's front below. That's how like every family is, though, in like a low key way also, right? Like not everybody's, you know, in a completely horrible situation. But sometimes you just find the first time you encounter another culture, you see a totally different thing.

And it, you know, everybody's got their own little weird headspace that they're in. So it's kind of interesting to think about that some of them are like so and up so depraved and so strange. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to say and to point out and mention, too, is that just because he suffered such and we say this a lot, but just because he suffered such a horrible childhood that no one should ever experience, it does not excuse nor allow him to get away with what he got away with. Because he still knows right from wrong.

He knows what's still good and bad. He was just more willing to not give much of a shit about it because of the way he was brought up, which we'll talk a little bit about the kind of abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother primarily. He was often just straight up beaten by his mothers for the smallest infraction to school, to the way he spoke back to her. And he was frequently locked up in the closet when they didn't want to deal with him. So they just shoved little like he's like six, seven, you know,

and just shoved into a little they don't want to deal with him in the closet. You go time to go play pretend. And it reminds me of Dahmer playing Infinity Land in his own little empty basement as a kid and like the swirling vortex that he would go to. Though there was no weird game that temper plate. But I can't imagine just getting shoved in a locker by your parents. It's ridiculous. So weird. And thus Harry Potter was born.

Yes, it reminds me of a documentary I watched that it might be it might be interesting watching it with the two of you. Just the concept of when you see stuff like this, where someone there's clearly something wrong with them on like a not just emotional but cognitive. Like just it always every time it traces back to like, boy, the parents or lack of parents or whatever, whoever was in charge of them being raised showed them no love or emotion or compassion or and it always

it's crazy to me. It's a huge part of it. This goes back to like, hey, some people aren't ready to have kids. Oh, God, yes. You probably shouldn't have kids. We need to have like a we have a societal conversation about like maybe you don't have to have kids if you. Yeah, I don't know, man, because it breaks my heart because I feel like it does. If there's clearly there's tension and issues between the mom and the dad, right? Oh, if they didn't just decide to like bring some people into the world,

they probably like this would probably want to be an issue. You know what I mean? It's wild to me. Yeah, I can if someone had stepped in and was able to just offer help, who knows, you know, who knows what could have happened. But you know, that's just not what it is. I what is it that you're talking about watching? There's just for, you know, the stuff we do here for Ron Popcorn, there's a Netflix special that's about I don't want to spoil it in case we watch it,

but it's about a guy who becomes very, very popular. And then it's discovered that like something's wrong with him and he kills a dude. And then people are like, what? What? And then they get the back store and they're like, Oh, this is very similar to all the stuff we're talking about with people who just indiscriminately kill because they there's something in them that when they were growing and when they were coming into their own, no one, you know, gave them that right wrong thing.

Whether it be through morality or religion or just like being raised right. There wasn't anything there that was like, hey, killing people isn't cool, bro. Yeah, you know, no one did that. And they have a lot of anger and there's a lot of problems. They're dealing with and there's no switch in their head that says like, all right, well, maybe you don't take that anger and those problems out on other people in violent ways. Like it isn't there. Right. You know, it's not there at all because that's how he was treated.

Like, you know, he was thrown in the closet when they didn't want to deal with him. And his mom beat him. And while he was getting beaten, his dad did nothing. His dad also never stood up for himself against Clarnell. He was just a quiet, withdrawn man who clearly was had a fucking. I can't imagine the things he saw in the World War, man. And then I can it's just shouldn't have had kids, basically, it's what it boils down to. And because of all this, of course, Edmund Kemper started to feel like he was worthless.

He didn't feel like his parents cared about him or wanted him. And eventually his parents did have another child. And he had a sister by the name of Adora, A-D-O-R-A. I kind of like that. I think it's a cute name. I like Adora a lot. I like the name Adora. It's very cute. Yeah. Adora was also beaten relentlessly by his mother, and he was forced to watch it a lot of the time. And Kemper's mother actually once told him that he was straight up a mistake

and that she had wished that he had never been born. Who does that shit, dude? I got your bingo card and stamp that sucker down real hard. You get that one that's right next to the free space. As he got bit grew and clearly was going to be a very tall individual, Kemper's mother also repeatedly told him and referred to him as a giant freak that it would never amount to anything. Just being braided by it.

It's insane to me. It's like, why do you have a second kid anyway, lady? Like, somebody, Jesus Christ. I hate how clearly we're falling into the if this guy didn't think I'll teach you, mom, while he killed people. I don't know what was going through his head. Like, this is so clearly going down that path. Like, I don't know what you do, man.

Like, it's crazy. And on top of the abuse he was suffering at the hands of his mother, he also had a number of traumatic events happen in his early childhood that also obviously bled into what he became. And when he was six years old, his family just uprooted from California and moved to Montana, where he was relentlessly bullied by his classmates, which sounds like, oh, everybody gets it. But going to a new school after you already knew maybe you were in a school

for a year, kids do kids are mean. They don't know how to keep their mouths shut. They just keep, you know, whatever skirts by the frontal lobe comes right out the lips of a frickin five or six year old, which reminds me. Jesse Dodger was listening to the podcast. Oh, boy. And she was listening to one of the episodes we talked about, a four year old. And Jesse, I think you said something like four year olds don't think about

anything they're useless for the most part. They're just kind of like silly. And I wanted you to know that you were at the very least you stand by that. She said, and I quote, I was just listening to it while stripping wallpaper. And you guys are talking about what four year olds think and joke that they aren't thinking much. I just want to chime in and say about Clark, who spent her entire fourth year of life asking bangers like, where does our skin go when we die?

What do you think about when you're dead? When my scabs come off, is that a dead part of me? And only she said that it only got more and more existential as it went on. Shout out, Clark. Yeah, it doesn't mean that thinking about it. It just means they're asking a question out loud. I don't think there's any like registering going on there. Yeah, yeah, you might be right.

And that's probably what happened to Kemper when he went to school and got bullied. They were just making fun of how big he was. And this is the same kid that actively tried to sting herself with a B to see how it worked. Oh, that's Sam's kid for sure, dude. So like, I'm not saying kids aren't smart. I'm not saying I'm just saying they're also very stupid at the same time. That's that's that's hilarious.

I love that she tried to do that. That's I would never I'd be too scared as a four year old to do that. Are you kidding me? I guarantee we did all sorts of wacky stuff like that when we were young. We just don't remember because it was like, again, not a thing that registered in our brain. We had a thought acted on it.

And and again, that's kind of some of the problem here with all these people we talk about. They have a thought they act on it and do it. There's no there's no societal blocker. Yeah, yeah, there's nothing that's stopping them from being like, wow, that would honest to God, I'm so glad you brought that up. It does ring true to like, you know, if you think about what Dodger said about Clark and like the dead skin cell or whatever.

It's like this thought process of like taking time to think versus. Yes, person made me mad or I don't like them or I'm they're beautiful. So they must die. And that's like a like a thought they have rather than just like. But if I kill them, they'll no longer exist. They'll be like that flake of skin like that kind of stuff like no one. I don't know, man. It's it's interesting thought.

Now put a brand new six year old into a room of them. Who's also freakishly tall and let the bullying commence. It's going to happen, man. Now, every kid's make it from make fun of other kids for everything, especially at that age, they're just in a lot of ways, they're just kind of repeating how their parents act at home in a lot of ways. So beyond moving and being bullied. He also ended up witnessing like he watched the death of his pet cat,

which was hit by a car right in front of him. And he loved that cat and it just fucking traumatized him at a very, very young age, which also because the cat was one of the only things he actually like had a connection to. He didn't have friends, his parents fucking hated him. The cat was the only one of the only things he cared about. And then that stamp it on the bingo card, bro. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Which just can further contributed to his feelings of isolation, loneliness and worthlessness. And his turbulent home life had had obviously a profound impact. And he developed over time, as I imagine many of us might, a very deep, deep hatred for Clarnel Kemper or Clarnel stage, his mom. And he admitted to at a very young age, beginning to fantasize about killing her. Yep.

We're talking like 11, 12 years old. Yeah. This is still this is early, even for a serial killer to begin fantasizing about murder in this way. For Dahmer, it didn't really happen until he was 16. And the jogger that would run by his house every day where those fantasies of basically killing him came in. And so this is still pretty early, but I get it, man. I get it as well, maybe not the fantasies about killing her part,

but the hatred part. Yeah. He also developed, because of his mother, a big fear of women. He absolutely women scared the hell out of him. And he began to slowly, because of that, begin to see women as instead of people, objects that were just there for, you know, whatever it felt like they were there for, because he was so afraid to ever get to know them. I don't want to lessen what we're talking about by going fool silly.

Dude, this is I need you all to develop a much bigger sense of dark humor so that I can be I can let myself run free. OK. Oh, no, I'm there. I'm just saying next time we do this in preparation over on Reddit or on the Patreon, wherever, can we start creating bingo cards? Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's actually weird how like stereotypical it is, like how effectively media.

I mean, it definitely removes all the nuance, right? But it also is just so wild, how similar it all is. I know people have heard, you know, there are some people out there on our show who are big true crime fans and may have heard of these. But it's also, you know, I think it's important when doing these two to do the details because that shit's important. You know, the media likes talk about the dramatic aspects and the terrible crime parts.

But the stuff leading up to it is still is interesting. And if nor if even more so important right than the actual crimes themselves a lot of the time. But so, yeah, his house was just an absolute shit show. He lost his cat and he began fantasizing about killing his mom. And that fear of women turned women into weird objects in his mind. And one of the earliest warning signs of Kemper's fascination with like the dark and decrepit and death was he would often

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Oh yeah, that's that's right in the middle. Yeah, it's it's very true, though. Like it's very in in America. Anyway, it's very white male driven period. You can stop right there. It's very white male driven. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Throughout the world, because, you know, it's very male driven. There's a male in general is across the world when it comes to serial killers is

the. And when you're not talking about serial killers, very same thing. Yeah, weird, huh? I almost feel like there should be some sort of mental wellness check on men in general. I don't know. Maybe decades, centuries of like internalized that shit man up. Maybe wasn't the healthiest thing for people. I don't know that that's real. Just put it out there.

What you think you think that's that's the case? You think so? All by yourself, dude, walk it off. Walk it off is so good. Just walk it off. Just don't worry about it yet. So he's killed. He killed, including his sister's cat after the loss of his pet.

Animals almost became bizarrely nothing to him. And he did get a new pet at eventually a parakeet. But that parakeet also fell to his hands and death as he killed his. Parakeet often. What do you mean? He killed his pet care parakeet and he killed dogs and cats as well over the course of years. Again, also caught. It wasn't a secret. He was found multiple times, but they didn't do anything about it.

They didn't care. It didn't really bother. What do you mean? They didn't do anything. They just were like, do you kill this bird? And he's like, yeah. And they're like, OK, they probably got beaten for it. What can his parents do at this point beyond put them in a hospital,

which they clearly didn't give a shit enough to even think about? What more can these parents do to him to stop him from doing that? You're right. Because they've already they're already beating him, locking him up like he. There's no. What else could they do? The exact opposite? Love him. Yes. Love him. Sure. Just the exact about everything they're doing.

If it's not working, try something else. Like these people aren't going to do that, basically. No, absolutely not. No, that's a that's a long gone. Oh, my God. Complete like thought in their mind. I don't think loving him was ever part of the equation. I think even having him,

they immediately regret it until they had another kid after that, you know, makes a whole set, but then they just beat the hell out of that kid. Yeah, like that. Well, the kid we wanted, what we got to beat her to, we're setting an example. It's just all part of his sociopathy. If he was born with it, which he very much, I think, was. I think sociopathy or like a psychopathy is just a development in the brain. But there are psychopaths and sociopaths that exist and are good people.

So like just they don't all they're not all killers. But all of the things that his mom are doing to him are just hanging him up for a knockout home run in serial killer par. She often would belittle him, humiliate him, and once told him that she'd wished he'd never been born again, told him multiple times afterward that he wished never been born. And his father was such an important factor in being an absent father for being emotionally unavailable and not stopping the life from beating him

that he just didn't even think of his father as a real person. Jesse, why are you cackling? You said serial killer park and all I could think of was no names stadiums after anything these days. And I don't know why that made me laugh so hard. I was like, first it's crypto, now it's serial killer. No name after anything. It was just a bit happening in my head.

And I couldn't say anything because you were talking. So I was laughing at the own bit I was doing in my own head. That's all on top of all this. Kemper also had a history of mental illness. Surprise, surprise. He was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, which doesn't exist anymore. And it's just more sociopathic, which is because back then that was characterized as a lack of empathy and remorse, which is sociopathic nowadays

in the DM, whatever, five, I think this disorder also had an intent, had sometimes violence associated with it, which, of course, he had. The warning signs obviously should have been red flags to those who knew Kemper, but they were often ignored. And as a result, he was able to just continue his violent behavior. The slow, slow, slow ramp up until it all bubbled over. And he eventually had his or committed his first kill, which we'll get to here in a moment.

Do you think actually, let me put this on the table for you. As you know, we now play serial killer bingo. Do you think his first kill was are we talking stranger that may have looked like his mom or some? Who do you think his first kill was? Best guess, I think the first one's like a accidental one. OK, yeah, that happens a lot with serial killers. Very often, it's an accident.

That's my guess. I'm going to say this one was targeted. John Wayne Gacy's was an accident, quote, unquote. Remember, he's kind of a passion is what I mean. Like he would like not like a like an extremely planned murder. No, I'm saying this was this was this was targeted. OK. All right. So we got somebody who says it was a stranger accidental and this was targeted non purpose. OK, I'm down. Those are both very possible.

In terms of like what he did specifically to give you an idea of where he was at age like 12, 13 already, in terms of his like willingness is violent toward violence as a child. The signs of cruelty towards animals was pretty, pretty rough. He buried a pet in the pet cat alive, Jesus, which it eventually died. And after it died, he dug it back up and decapitated it and then mounted its head on a spike, which, if you remember, Dahmer did something similar with the dog and the intestines that he pulled out

and stretched across the tree branches for people. Very similar. A few years later, he killed another family cat because it believed it favored his sister over him. And in addition to this cruelty, Kemper also exhibited a morbid fascination with the concept of death. He had he had his own favorite imaginary game to play. Are you ready or do you want to make you guess it could be anything? I'll just tell you what it was.

Wait, he is he is obsessed with death. He's obsessed with death at a young age. And he has an he's imaginary game that is you play dead or he pretends to be dead and he lays there like serial killers who do that. That's not him, though, but there are. That's not him. Oh, I was hoping for another stamp on the old no, you would have missed it. You would have missed it on that. All right.

What about you, Alex? You got a guess? A game that he played with himself. That's death associated getting in the cupboard and pretending to be in a coffin. Yeah, fantastic. Honestly, Jesse was the closest because you'll see what I mean. He had a game that he called gas chamber.

Really fun, a great man. And he would what he would do is he take a blindfold, go to his sister and ask his sister to blindfold him, lead him to a nearby chair and then pretend to execute him. I gas inhalation like the Adams family, bro. Like I can't. These are like he's like 10, 11. He's not like four.

Yeah, but at 10, 11 kids, especially young boys, getting that weird kind of like, you know, even though I'm not sure how PC it is now, but like back when people were doing cowboy Indian kind of stuff or they were doing like a shootout thing. I would be the kid who loved. I would love to get my death. Sure. Oh, like if I was doing a Civil War reenactment, I want to be one of the soldiers who got like shot.

I'd be like, yeah, but he's not doing anything. He's like, I love my sister sister. Can you just gas me? OK. Yeah, but I think he's just rehearsing that I'm not losing life. Kind of trying to understand what it. Yeah, that's it. There's no lead up other than blindfold me. Take me to a chair and flip the switch.

But did he like a whole battle? Was he like, because I have so many questions, by the way. Yeah, switch like, how would you be like, I'm gassing you? Like, how would the kid know he's covered them? How would you? I think that's how I do it. I'd be like, ready, set, click. I hate that. I hate, I absolutely hate that.

Maybe do you think he made the sound effects for himself? He was like, I think he probably. Yeah, like a kid, I imagine they'd be like, I bet it was just quick. I bet it was just like, oh, I'm dead. Like he's like, thank God I'm dead. Yeah, I don't know. I guess you're honestly, I guess you're probably right, because why would he include the suffer part?

I was wrong, but he's like age eight at this, doing this. I think it's just just being very curious about the moment of death and just kind of trying to explore it. I think you're right. Like, wow, this is painless. This is going to end up being one of those like stairs. And I like to watch their eyes and the light fades. Is it like one of those movie trope bits?

Is that where we're going? Not so much. I mean, he's very tropey because he's the kind of the base of a lot of tropes out there. Oh, I guess you're right. So a lot of the tropes that I'm I mean, like, oh, this is so tropey. It's because his parents didn't like him at nine years old. They finally decided to get rid of him and sent him off to live with his grandparents. His parents divorced.

He moved with his mother and at this point now, two sisters and to Montana. Kemper's relationship with his mother remained fraught and hostile and hostility and belittlement, further straining his mental well-being. And at the age of 15, unable to tolerate his aggressive behavior, Kemper just ran away from home. He was like, fuck this, I am out. And he went back to California in an attempt to reconnect with his father, who apparently had moved back to California after the divorce.

Wait, so the father got out. They divorced the mother and heard the three kids all moved with his grandparents while he the father went to California. Fascinating. OK. Oh, no. Is this where? Hold on. Where's my bingo stamp? Is this going to be the moment where he has a chance to not become a killer and then completely ignores it?

Because I can't wait for that one. Kind of. There may have been an opportunity, but when he arrived and actually did track his father down by the time he got there, this is now six years after they moved out. The father had remarried and had a and had a stepson that the wife had from another marriage, leaving little room for Kemper to stay anywhere. And at this point, he's like well over six feet. He is very, very tall at 15 years old.

So he was sent off to go live with his paternal grandparents instead in North Fork, a decision that would trigger the onset of his murderous path that he would find himself in for quite a while. He found life with his grandparents stifling and even described his grandfather as senile and his grandmother as constantly emasculating him and his grandfather. So his grandparents fucking sucked, too. Like just absolutely miserable people who had kids who became miserable, who had kids who were then beaten and became miserable.

When we talk about generational trauma, I was thinking the exact same thing. There's a beautiful example of it, right? Because none of them healed from the things their parents did. So they just do it to the next generation. And Edmund Kemper lived in a time where there was like no support for any of this. He just this was just it. The dads were back from, you know, these part of the baby boomers generation of just all the dads back from World War Two, the dads were all fucked up

and they were raised in a generation where, you know, people were had like child labor. You know, the life as we know it, treating a child as a child didn't come into existence until around the 50s, 60s. I would say late 60s, more likely. It's like new culture that was not with new culture. Yeah, war wasn't there, like, you know, as for as long for a longer period of time. And then people could start seeing, you know, start healing rather from. And even then it took generations, you know, my parents, you know,

didn't really heal from it until my mom didn't until way late in life. And it took my whole life until she basically realized it. But like, it takes a long time. So in this time, he's, you know, he's just in a bad place and having his grandparents not be supportive is just another fucking gut punch. Kemper's deep seated anger culminated eventually just when he was 15 years old. His first murder was at the age of 15.

This is young, young, young. Even for every killer we have talked about, this is young. Basically, what ended up happening was he was just pissed. And while he definitely wanted to kill his mother, he ended up killing his grandmother instead. What he did was he took a gun, went to his grandmother, who was sitting at the table and shot her in the back of a head. The head following a heated argument they recently had had,

claiming he, quote, just wanted to see what it felt like to kill grandma. I don't know why you got to leave that silence there for a minute, man. Like, what? Again, I think that goes back to the whole idea, like, I just want to see what would happen. Like, it's a kid mentality. Yeah. And he's a kid. I just want to see what's going to happen if I do this.

And you don't think about consequences or what comes next. You just like, I guess I'll check it out. See what this does. And that's just you don't if you don't understand the weight of it. It does. It's just like doing anything else. I can't imagine much to this man had weight at all with the way he was raised. Nobody came and saved him. Nobody gave a shit.

It seemed like everybody just, you know, you got to do what you got to do. And nobody stopped his parents from doing it. So what's, you know, let's see what's like to kill grandma. I killed animals. Well, let's see what it's like to kill a person. Like a cat pushing a fucking jar off a fucking table. Yeah, it literally it's a great way to describe this. And when his grandfather returned from grocery shopping, Kemper shot him too,

explaining to the authorities later that he killed his grandfather so that he wouldn't have to find out that his wife was dead. Yeah, he didn't need the grandfather. Didn't even like make it very far into the living room before he just put a bullet in his head. So this wasn't this wasn't even like an accident. Like, dude, he is detached already killed a person to see what it would be like. And then was like, oh, I don't want grandpa to be upset.

I'm going to kill him too. Like, yeah, that's the last that's a rationalization bonkers. It was right after this that you didn't get away with this. You know, he wasn't trying to hide the bodies. This ended up leading to his arrest and subsequent commitment to the Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum security facility that housed mentally ill convicts. And he was now we're going to see something very akin to what I would say

is John Wayne Gacy, because at the hospital, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, though there is some contention that he actually was schizophrenic. They don't truly necessarily believe that he was. However, his intelligence and remember, I said at the beginning, this man had an IQ that bordered on genius, allowed him to manipulate every doctor in this hospital for the years that he spent here. Kemper was a model inmate and was even trained to administer

psychiatric tests to other inmates to just help out. Why on earth would they? I mean, it was because he was so young. What a practical time to hit them with, like, I'm just a little baby boy. I'm not a bad guy. I'm a chicken and a Kentucky fried chicken. The man was just, you know, he was just to himself charming. Yeah, I think him being young.

Hugely played into it and he used that to his advantage. Yeah, I don't understand in a maximum security facility. They're like, all right, Jen Henry down there. He needs a psychiatric evaluation. I'm going to go on my lunch break. Kemper, you want to go check it out? I would love to. And he's like, hand him the paper down the hall.

He goes with that slow, clopping walk. He's six foot nine, man. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. He just opens the door, he's a duck under the door. I'm here for your psychiatric evaluation. It's like, this is going to suck. I can't believe that, like, they let him do that.

Maybe he was like killer. I have no idea. Maybe he was like, excellent at it. He needed to be kept there for the rest of his life. And he was. And he was. And that's the end of the episode. No, no, he literally spent years planning and plotting, laying the foundation to prove to his doctors that he had been rehabilitated.

Like he was planning ahead and like, you know, he was answering questions in ways that made it realistic and looked like there was growth happening and true rehabilitation and only after six years at the age of 21 against the recommendations of several doctors who assessed him, he was released to California under the care of one of the people that the doctor specifically mentioned

not to release him into the care of his mother. I just don't understand, like, I don't understand why you would not go to the like, why do you ignore the doctors? Maybe it's just a prison, like, you know, quantity thing trying to get people in and out. I don't I don't know what the case was. This is we're looking in the 70s now or in the 70s at this point in the story. And once again, under her care, despite the toxic relationship,

his mother had gained employment at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which indirectly then exposed Kemper to the group of women that would become his primary target for victims, female college students. Now, after his release, Kemper held several jobs, learned to blend into society as normal as possible and did what all serial killers who get away with it for way too long always do made friends with the local police officers.

He would see them at, you know, restaurants and bars and on the patrol and he would talk to them and be friendly. It's so insidious. It's massively insidious. But he asked proof it can work when he was in the institution. He called them all. So he's like, if I can do it to them, I can do it to anyone. It's just funny, like, you know, all those cops have those stories, like,

and would you could you believe that the serial killer was the guy that was helping me, you know, like day after day the whole time. And it's like I kind of can because I feel like part of the profile of these guys is that they like want to be close to you and like want to know what you're doing. They strive to disappear while still holding power, like 100 percent. And that is a path that was attempted to be followed by Kemper himself. Because when he got out, it's not like he jumped right back into a killing.

He did attempt to lead a normal life, like many of these killers end up doing. But it ended up just becoming a cover, like a fake life for the real him that would go out at night. And so much so that he actually did attend community college for a while with the hopes of becoming a police officer. That was his goal was to become a police officer. And the only reason he got denied was because he was too tall. His giant stature prevented them from being accepted.

And so he was rejected and he took that failure extremely personally, like very personally, which is crazy that his history in prison or mental state facility for criminals wasn't enough to stop him from being considered a police officer. No comment. Oh, especially out in L.A. in California, Jesus, dude. No comment. He would go on to murder 10 people in California between 1964 and 1973,

gaining the name the co-ed killer because, like I said, he had just met his victims. He was a very intelligent man. His IQ score specifically was 136, which is considered to be in the genius range. And again, articulate and outspoken. His intelligence allowed him to manipulate people in a vague capture for a very long time. He was able to charm his way into people's lives and simply just gain their trust by being sociable and charismatic. He was also able to use his intelligence to plan his crimes carefully

and avoid detection, showing purpose on these from. There's no accident from this point on. It wasn't even accident for his first kill. He was one of the serial killers where he didn't set up an accident. And he was like, fuck my grandma blowing her brains out at the kitchen table. And then I feel bad for grandpa. So I'm going to blow his brains out so he doesn't have to live like this. He's a diff.

He's a different in that regard in terms of like your serial killer format. Kemper would often pick up hitchhikers who were more likely to trust a man of his size and intelligence, and he would then drive them to a secluded area where he would then plan to kill them and then drive around and then let them out. He would play with his own he was like edging. He was serial killer edging himself where he would drive people around and then play around like, oh, and his mind fantasize about a drive away from where they want to go only to drive them back.

And he would pick up high college girls and do the same thing, bringing them to school while detouring. And once they started getting a little nervous and asking questions, he would say, oh, it's just a shortcut. Don't worry, there's traffic or whatever. And then he would bring them to college. So he was not like, you know, he was the best he was edging. He was edging his little fucking serial killer boner the best he could.

That's so deeply creepy. I hate that. Yeah, it was that night his fantasies began to put him toward the path of picking up females at hitchhikers, practicing and honing his charm and his ability to put young women at ease. Because you remember women scare him. So he's literally putting in the work so that he can be charming enough to get women to trust him.

He's out there like getting his like he's working his what do you call it? He's like bit out there. He's trying out his set on these girls to see what works. And while these early interactions were nonviolent, they absolutely served as a rehearsal for his violent spree that was on its way. Despite the brief respite in his violent tendencies, Kemper's deep rooted resentment for his mother and women in general, combined with his need for control, were gradually propelling him

toward a path of no return. The stage was set for the horrifying series of crimes that would earn him the notorious moniker, the coed killer. And in May of 1972, Kemper's dormant violent urges, resurfaced in his first victims were two college students, Marianne Pesch and Anita Luchesa, who were hitchhiking. Kemper offered them a ride, but he diverted the route and drove to a secluded area like the many times he'd practiced before he became overpowered by his dark urges.

And Kemper murdered both women and transported their bodies to his apartment. The way he would murder women was usually strangulation or beat them to death if they if he couldn't. But he preferred to strangle them. And that's usually what he did. This event would mark the beginning of Kemper's killing spree during which he picked up hitchhikers, murdered them, and then often engaged in necrophilic actions and dismemberment.

Kemper had an innate ability to gain the trust of these unsuspecting victims, which made him a particularly dangerous predator. Between 1972 and 1973, Kemper murdered four female students, following a similar modus operandi. And that's what we'll pick up next week as we dive into the details of his killing decade, where it led him, how it ended. God damn. And to his eventual arrest and imprisonment, which he did do.

And I and then ended up recording some audiobooks. Yeah. And that's the end of the episode, boys. Part two will be the final part. It shouldn't be the final part of the Edmund Kemper story. A little bit different than your than the serial killers we've kind of had, but a lot of similarities as well. Jesse's just been shaking his head no for about two straight minutes. I don't know what else there is to do.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know what else there is to do. It's it's fascinating how well he worked himself into the cops. And we're going to look at that in more detail as well, as it's a huge part of the reason this man got away with what he did for as long as he did. Thank you, everybody, so much for listening. We're off to go do a mini soad over at patreon.com slash Illuminati pod, where you can go listen to our mini soads at the $15 tier.

You have ad free episodes down to the $5 tier. And the bingo cards will be at whatever the lowest tier is. I'll just throw it up there for people to grab. We'll definitely do those bingo cards. That's a great idea. Hilarious. Yeah. So whatever lowest tier is up there, we'll put it out there for you. Thank you guys so much.

And thank you for letting me to dive back into crew two crime. I always love it. We'll see you next week. Goodbye, everybody. Goodbye. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Illuminati podcast. As always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin.

Join by the. I don't know who they are. There's two. What? Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. No. Neo and Trinity. Oh, I don't understand.

And I probably never will. Let me just tell you right now that there's two. Beyond Kennedy and Clarence. You'll tell you, I think he literally just looked up famous duos. Sheech and Chaw. And he's been going through the list ever since. I'm trying to dig deep. Which one of you is a dick power?

Me? Your name's Jesse Coss. No. Oh, oh, oh man. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Illuminati podcast. But as always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joined by Alex and Jesse. Like a shooting star across the sky, that's actually a UFO.

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