Coffee Convos with Kail Lowry and Lindsie Chrisley - 210: True Crime Talk: Ed Kemper

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

[TW: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE]  On this month's true crime bonus episode Kail and Lindsie are covering serial killer Ed Kemper who was active between September 1972 to April 1973. They talk about Kemper's upbringing, his relationship with his mother, how he got caught and where he is now. Thank you to our sponsors! Wondery: Listen to Sydnee in the Sheets at Wondery.com 

I hate gift giving and receiving receiving gifts is so weird. What do you say? Thank you? This is coffee convos with kale Lowry and Lindsay Chrisley. I really want you to be in your feels kale That does not interest me whatsoever. I feel very attacked by you a spirited discussion about motherhood friendship Family and life in the public eye. I'm just not with the fakery anymore. There's a fakery bakery around here. Here's kale and Lindsay Good morning coffee combos Wait, where did that come from? I'm running on three hours of sleep right now. Wait, I thought you were going camera off I was and then I was like, you know what? Let me not leave her hanging. I'm gonna go camera on

I leave you hanging every week homie. That's okay every week. Um, I am so excited about this episode I Spent so much time doing my own Research and I hope that like I know stuff that you don't know I hope you do too because when I tell you the struggle that it was for me to even get all of this information I'm not even kidding you. I still don't have cable and internet still trying to get a hold of Xfinity So trying to like get bits and pieces from other podcasts online Sources like I didn't have time to come to the office and sit here because I have four kids

So I couldn't watch a documentary here at my office. So I hope that you have Okay, so We are covering Ed Kemper today for our true crime bonus and I actually got a ton of my information from co-ed killer mind of a monster Um, I watched it on prime video. I think I did too and I think I had to do like an extra Subscription or something because I don't think it came with like yeah, well, so I Last night I signed up for like 12 streaming services because I bought two bit two books On Ed Kemper and they were very very interesting, but I also paid

$5.99 for the Amazon situation. It was like a three-part series and then I also signed up for Showtime thinking there was something on there And then I also upgraded my Hulu service Thinking there was something on there, which there wasn't and so at that point it was two in the morning And I said fuck this like I'm going to bed, but yeah, there there's so much and I have like all my notes here I'm curious to see if we can get all of this stuff into one episode. Okay, so let's get started Okay, so let me start this episode by giving a trigger warning because I'm not going to go into super detail about all the victims But what I do have to say about his mom and what he did to his mom is very very upsetting And we get to that part you might want to fast forward or maybe you want to turn the episode off at that time

the second thing I want to say is I'm a little torn on Ed Kemper story because I do think a lot of what he went through and what he did is a nature versus nurture type of Situation you do. Yeah, I think a lot of what he did falls back on the state. Oh also agreed Okay, so let's start with Ed Kemper. This is Edmund Kemper the third He was born December 18th 1948 to Klarna and Ed Kemper senior Or I guess would that be junior Ed Kemper junior if he's the third Ed Kemper junior or senior. We're unsure We're unsure. So he was born like I said December 18th. He's a Sagittarius

I think which is already crazy in and of itself, but that's neither here nor there He had kind of a tumultuous childhood He did have a sister who was five years older than him and a sister that was two years younger than him his dad was either one of his parents were very affectionate or emotional towards him and Eventually his dad ends up divorcing his mom which later actually scars him even more because he just feels rejected by both of his parents at one point Ed is even I think around nine years old and his mom puts him in the basement and basically has him live there while the

two sisters get bedrooms upstairs And forces the door to be locked and he's very scared by this You can't turn the light on until you're already down there in the dark And it was just a scary place to be his little sister Alan said that he would have night terrors nightmares And he would also wet the bed and nobody really comforted him Alan Which is his younger sister also talks about his weird behaviors as a child He would cut off their dolls heads and arms and then he also killed their family cat

Unfortunately, he did decapitate the cat. Could you imagine being? Oh? being a little girl you open up your doll chest and the hands are cut off that seems to be a Pattern that he has to and I I couldn't find any information giving more Detail about that because he actually does that to some of his victims as well And I don't know what the significance is to him

so he well it said that it was like these Fantasies that he was having and it really all went back to control But the hands specifically we don't know how he was playing with the dolls. So as a you know nine-year-old boy who knows how he was playing or like Imagining or whatever like it could have been a control thing. I think pretty much everything that he did Stems back to control. I mean, I can't imagine feeling rejection from not what actually I can't imagine that Neither one of his parents ever gave him his mom

Allegedly didn't want to show him affection in fear of making her son be like turned gay. That was something that Alan had said So he kills the family cat cuts the bayonet with a bayonet Which I didn't know what it was. I had to Google it cuts the cat up puts it into wraps it in its in his robe And then shoves it in a suitcase That right there should have been enough for his mom to get him some therapy, but she doesn't and That's a common thing that serial killers do that target women or girls, which is terrifying He goes to live with his dad at some point and his stepmom notices that Ed sees her naked at some point and decides she does not want Ed in the house anymore

It does not will not stand for him living there So Ed's dad takes him to visit his parents Edmund Kemper. I guess the first And Ed's dad just leaves him there. He decides he doesn't want go ahead So he was born in Burbank then didn't he move to Halina, Montana like in 1957 yeah, so that's where the mom gave the two sisters bedrooms and put Ed in the basement then In 1963 he goes on a bus to visit his dad to stay with his dad Yeah, yeah, and that's when he sees the stepmom. She's very a very pretty woman They showed a picture on one of the documentaries that I watched and she just doesn't want Ed there

So dad takes Ed to go visit his parents and then ultimately leaves Ed there So the farm that they live on is like kind of desolate and it's a small place But lots of farmland so there's not a whole lot of like activity going on It's very like rural and I think that Ed struggles with this a little bit He gets into an argument with his grandmother about There's a conflicting things that I read there was like an argument about the gun and then that his grandfather bought him He says that he wants to go outside and the grandmother says don't shoot the birds But then other things were saying it was like unrelated to the gun

But she in turn takes the gun from him wants to take the gun from him Doesn't want him to use it when he decides that he's going to shoot his grandmother now before he could even think about it Ed later claims that he blacked out But he heard his grandmother coming or grandfather Sorry coming home and he didn't want his grandfather to see that he had just killed his grandmother So he then shoots his grandfather He did overkill his grandmother. It wasn't just like one shot to the head It was multiple shots to make sure that she was deceased and I think that is yeah kind of scary because

something like that is so unnecessary and also Just over an argument seems very very insane He goes to the California He actually calls the police. He's 15 years old He calls the police and he's like I just shot my grandparents and it's very cool come and collected about it Which is super chilling The police come and they end up diagnosing him with paranoid schizophrenia

and I didn't get a chance to look up if there's a difference between Schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia, but he basically becomes this model type of inmate and they sentence him to a max security hospital for the criminally insane and He's very well behaved. He's smart and he tests at a 145 IQ So at this point, he's extremely well behaved. He's getting along. He's a model inmate essentially and the psychiatrists are so Baffled by this by you know what he did and his IQ how he's acting and they end up giving him more responsibility So they give him responsibility by allowing him to give evaluations and tests to other inmates

patients because they are in a mental institution and he Uses these these tests as a way for him to Figure out how he can score high enough on these tests to be able to get out of the hospital and that was extremely fascinating to me because I don't think that anyone put two and two together that Wouldn't be a good idea for him to know the tests and learn the tests and how to score high because I mean We're already talking about someone that has almost a genius level IQ

The doctors and psychiatrists ultimately Ultimately decide that he's rehabilitated and can't believe the progress that he's made and decide to release him on parole at age 21 Go ahead. I want to say that this goes back to Sealing juvenile records. Yes, regardless if he was a juvenile or not. He Maliciously killed two people so for him to be able to even be eligible for parole or an honorable discharge Which qualified for him to be able to have his records sealed So he goes to get a job like none of this ever shows up. I don't think that's fair to

The general population of people that he's coming in contact with for them not to be able to make a safe decision for themselves I agree. I agree. I mean, we're not talking about someone who did like rob the convenience store at 15 years old We're talking about cold-blooded murder at 15 years old and this is after animal cruelty This is after, you know, major signs of mental illness It said and one of the documentaries that he had a fantasy as a kid about swallowing an eyeball and that He ultimately wanted to make this fantasy come real. I know I missed that part. Yeah, and that There really was like

Nothing it was in these interviews that you know were recorded and that there was nothing to cutting someone's head off and He had these fantasies about when he would do this type of behavior He would seek out pretty women because since she looked pretty she could taste pretty. Okay. I did not know that that I didn't know that and I wanted to touch on a little bit of the dad with a glamorous wife because I Wish I knew more about like what she saw exactly like was this like he was peeking through the crack of a door like What was this like and did she just generally get the heebie jeebies? From him. I mean, he was a rather

huge Individual so I mean that's already kind of like working against him. I know that it was said That when he had lived with his grandparents that when he would go to school that like girls would giggle and stuff about his height and That he actually had fantasies about blowing them away with his gun. He did say that in an interview I do I am also curious. So Ed Kemper was six foot nine and almost 300 pounds So he did get made fun of for his size in school and I think that contributed to the rejection and you know further into a depression I would be curious one to know where the height came from and also if there was in fact other

Mental illnesses in the family already and I know it was the 70s. So it's hard to say well Why didn't they get him help? But I do think that regardless of where Their society was on mental health and mental illnesses you have to know as a parent that Cutting Barbie dolls heads off and killing cats is not normal. So what could have been done to prevent this? type of situation that later happens There's so much negligence across the board with this like yeah

The parents now, you know, this state hospital that I don't know if you mentioned this or not But it's a mental hospital for adults like you put a 15 year old boy in a mental hospital for adults It said that there were 1,600 inmates 24 were murderers and 800 of them were sex offenders And you're placing him After after doing these heinous things you're placing him during his teenage formative years with inmates that have committed Similar or just as horrendous and heinous crimes You're essentially and he even learns and states that in one of and I wrote it down in in there

He learned from an inmate that if you're going to rape someone you have to kill them to get rid of the evidence Now these are adult criminals that are charged with being criminally insane Essentially teaching him showing him the ropes of how to do better as a as an offender Which is terrifying now at age 21 he goes in when he's 15 years old at age 21 he's released on parole and They release him to his mom even though the psychiatrist and doctors recommended against that They were going to release him back into society, but they really didn't want him going back to his mom So on some level people knew that his mom was not good for him

So They're back in Santa Cruz mom lives in Santa Cruz, and she is currently working her name's car Clarnell, I think you pronounce it car now she's working at University in Santa Cruz and ends up giving Ed a parking pass for the college Now I don't really know Why she gives him a parking pass that didn't make sense to me and especially if he's not a student and he's not working on campus What is the purpose now at one point? He was going to a community college and that didn't work out for him

So he gets a job in construction and again model employee. No issues Everyone is really convinced that he's cured and rehabilitated Which is so interesting. He had this facade that he was like this polite and cooperative Guy so nothing about him seemed really been yeah, I mean people who knew Ed Described him as very just like goofy But had manners he was polite They actually even went out to say that he didn't creep them out like he didn't creep people out He made people comfortable and he was fine

Ed applies to be a police officer. He wants to be a police officer But unfortunately he's turned down and not because he's not capable of the job but more because of his size Which is an interesting thing because I don't know if it was like a uniform thing Or maybe he would have a target because he's so big he would stick out kind of thing They didn't really have too much information on why but he be he befriends the cops anyways and they call him big Ed and sometimes he'll go have like a beer or something with them at the bar and They're just super friendly. Nobody thinks anything of it, which is you know, if you hold on to that information later You'll understand why that's important in

1972 Ed's juvenile record is expunged. So there is it was already sealed, but it's also now expunged He's described to have a very dry sense of humor and Just really good at building relationships with people. He was he was fine. He was friendly, which is so weird in Santa Cruz 1972 the term co-ed came about when colleges and universities started accepting women as students and It was interesting in the documentary that we both watched They said that co-ed was only referred to women like women were referred to as co-ed and that just meant that they accepted men and women

As students, which is so interesting because I that's not that long ago No, it's it's really not that long ago And I really liked that part of the documentary where it was talking about how the term was just so sexualized and I don't understand why would have only been used For women because it meant like women and men were both allowed, right? But then even in the documentary it said that there was a lot of in the porn industry There was a heavy emphasis on co-ed and it was like female students, which is so weird and very and very like sexist So around this time hitchhiking is also really big in the 70s because you know women are empowered

They're feeling freedom and you know, but maybe they're I don't know how that's Necessarily related because I think it was more so women. I mean men did it as well But I think it was a bigger deal for women in the 70s to hitchhike, but it was a big deal I'm in this area of Santa Cruz. It was very safe like a area of peace and love and like free and happy and These women just seem to be like on this women empowerment movement being able to go to co-ed colleges and I think that that was very very interesting and it is really in the grand scheme of things not that freaking long ago It's really not because I'm thinking I'm I'm pretty sure my mom was born in the 60s

So that would have put her I think my mom was born in 65 or 69. I can't remember I mean my mom is not that old, you know, she's in her 50s So she was around during hitchhiking times, you know, like it's so crazy to think that now you don't even see hitchhikers So what the heck is going on the cops in during this time? they didn't like that people were hitchhiking they they tried to warn people of it being unsafe and you know It wasn't really great, but people were so empowered and they felt like they could trust and They did it and it was easy and sometimes it didn't cost anything So, you know students especially women students would hitchhike and get a free ride to wherever they were going

This is where Ed starts his killing spree outside of the campus at this time he's not Getting women or hitchhikers on campus, but outside of campus So they I don't think that the police really connected the dots in terms of wow, this could be someone on campus He picks his first two victims Their best friends and he picks them up off the campus and he said that one of them had big blue eyes and turned him on He says that this was a very messy I don't want to call it a job a very messy situation

He ends up dumping the first two victims in the mountains Not far from the university and it said that he talked very sensibly to these girls it goes back to like this facade of how he was so polite and cooperative and That He knew that he had to like put on this front to make people think that he was sane Mm-hmm, and I would imagine that it was probably very a very nasty I don't want to say job either, but when with using a knife Must have been pretty bad. So terrifying also

I wrote down a couple thoughts on that that I'll get to in a minute, but hikers were hiking in the area and found a A jawbone and skull a human skull So Unfortunately because it was in California during this time it the bodies deteriorated so bad But they couldn't actually tell if the skull and jawbone were of a male or a female And I did look up body decomposition when I was researching this case to see on a normal just Every day what what it would take for a body to decompose which is actually I hope no one goes through my search history

Because they'll think it's weird, but it's for this podcast Like I always think of that when I google things I'm like who what would they think so it said that typically four to six months but because of it being outside exposed to the elements the weather the timing that it the body is probably Decomposed within six weeks and I mean we're talking the mountains have animals and you know Different rodents and things like that so it probably sped up the decomposition So at first they can't tell if it's male or female But Kemper says that he was very strategic about his evidence because he didn't want to get caught and because he was so smart He kind of already plotted out where he was going to do certain things so that he knew exactly what to do and how not to get caught

So it was interesting because during this time. There's no DNA during that period. So Right, um, like you said with it being like a coastal area Being warm in the summer the decomposition is going to be pretty quick But I thought it was interesting that it gave such a range Six weeks to a couple of months because that seems to be like a big difference a big difference, you know, right? Um, and it said that most of the flesh would be gone Um, I do have some things that I want to say about some of the flesh later An episode because I literally am so freaked out by the shit that he does agreed. I also feel the same way

Um, now when I was watching the mind of a monster on the Amazon video or Amazon Prime video They did go back to the dynamic between Ed's mom and dad when he was growing up So they described the mother as an alpha woman She was very much wore the pants in the relationship and the dad was a weak man He preferred work over his wife and didn't really There was not a good dynamic between husband and wife, so they fought a lot and now Ed is now essentially Mirroring the relationship that his dad had with his mom himself So now he is taking the role of his mom. They argued a lot. You know, he felt rejected. He felt weak

He felt submissive to her and, um, I just wanted to touch on that because I did forget to mention that earlier I did have a question and I don't know if you know the answer to this It was talking about how when you were talking about how he was like very careful It said that he threw away a lot of evidence like bloody rags old bloody newspapers Anything as like the cops could use as leads. He didn't want to give anything away at all But what was the bloody newspapers? Like what was he using newspapers for? I did think about that, but I thought maybe like he put the body on it or something Or maybe it was like, you know how like when you carve pumpkins you put newspaper down?

Well, I thought that like this sounds so horrible Uh, like guts, you know, I mean if he's using a knife to like literally I think newspapers like absorb like I think they're like very absorbent I don't know for a fact, but I think so Maybe that was his M.O. there Yeah It's really disturbing like what why and also how do you dispose? I don't think it ever touched on how he disposed of those things

Because unless you burn them where are you putting them without being found? Right. Yeah, it's it's weird Did you watch the interview of his younger sister and how they were talking about the dad Not being able to like get emotionally close to them as children Yes She corroborated everything that he that Ed Kemper had said about his parents She corroborated all of it And I think about how deep this pain and rejection must have truly been

Because allegedly the mom said that she noticed a difference in Ed when he was like two years old Two years old And which the dad was a World War two veteran So I thought well, you know, I don't know this information but I was thinking You know that could explain some of the dad's emotional issues with him You know being a veteran he could have had PTSD A lot of things Ed also said not in this documentary but later somewhere else

He had said that he believes that his mom suffered from some type of personality disorder And so that was one of the questions that I had was you know Ed was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia Was there a history of mental illness? Now I know at the time it wouldn't have been known you know Really what other mental illnesses were there except for like the schizophrenia and things like that That we are very familiar with But he claims that his mom had a personality disorder

So before you go any further on any of these other victims His sister said that Ed had no self-esteem, no confidence And that he basically would like really be down with really good looking girls And goes back to the self-esteem and confidence Because he felt like he couldn't compete with what he called little rich boys around town So he had this inferiority complex And he never got over it and felt superior when he had these women in control So I actually wrote a note down about that because I also heard where he said that he had the inferiority complex

It's very interesting to me that he's very aware of these things He's very self-aware of that he's not normal His way of thinking is not normal He has this complex He knows that it's because of being ridiculed and made fun of it from these women and other kids So it's very interesting to me that he's so aware of that And I wrote that down because I don't think a lot of people know that They think that it's normal

If they're like that they probably think that other kids are like that The crazy thing to me is that you can be the level of self-awareness I don't know if it goes back to him just being so incredibly bright But the level of self-awareness And the fact that he still does these things but is so self-aware It's interesting that you bring that up because I just talked to my therapist last week about the OCD I related it to food, right? I know I should not overeat this specific thing

But once the idea is in my head, it will not go away no matter how wrong I know it is I just ate something and I shouldn't eat this cupcake or whatever The cupcake as an example, I was going to say pasta, but whatever I overeat, overindulge, I cannot get it out of my head Even though I shouldn't, even though I already ate, even though I'm full I cannot get this cupcake out of my head, right? So that thought is an obsessive-compulsive thought I think, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, anything

But I do think there's some level of OCD in his thoughts He knows it's wrong, he knows that what he's doing is not okay, it's not normal But he has to do it anyway once he gets this thought inside of his head And I also want to just say that I think that my relationship with my parents is very, very, very similar to what Ed describes with his parents His mom was, you know, the provider, but very emotionally closed off Was not affectionate, was not loving, was not nurturing And the dad was, you know, you feel rejection from your dad

I only met my dad once, and so I do resonate with that However, that all being said, I also am very self-aware when it comes to mental health, mental illness, OCD, things like that I never in my life, I can honestly say I've never in my life thought about killing someone So it's very interesting for him to have this extreme Like, I just need to know the psychiatry, the psychology behind it, you know? Same, and I just, the mother, there's a big, big issue there Because to know these things that he had done just at nine years old, alone

And then for him not to get any type of professional help Which I don't know what type of professional help would have been, you know, readily available at that time But people still disciplined and had to be able to raise their children Why was none of this stuff ever addressed before it escalated? Well, I think her, her solution was he needs to be locked in the basement And, you know, that's his bedroom, and I'll lock the door so that he won't touch his sisters Like, she was thinking that he would maybe touch the girls And I just, which also raised a point to me and I wrote it down is

He never that we know of that I could find, he never went after his sisters in any way So I do wonder what that relationship was like because he's described as a sociopath Meaning he has absolutely no feelings I don't know how that could be If he is in fact super upset about being ridiculed and made fun of for his height For being a little weird, for, you know, he has to have some type of feelings Because he never went after his sisters and he has this rage for his mom So I just don't know, I don't know, I'm not a doctor

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If there was a lot of people around, if he thought that maybe his car or his person could be caught Or seen by someone or too many people, he would not kill that person So he ends up killing the third person, which was Aiko Aiko Koo, and she was the only child to a single mother, which I thought was incredibly sad I cannot imagine what her family went through And he says that he convinced her that he was going to kill himself And so it was kind of like this, I don't want to say comforting feeling, but basically made her feel safe But also scared her to the point where she was cooperating with everything that he wanted to do

And at that point he had let her know that you are being abducted, which is absolutely terrifying And I wrote down, I do wonder, I don't know what it would have been like, but my mind instantly went to a place where fight or flight Did any of his victims ever try to jump out of a moving vehicle? Would they have tried to escape? The thing is, is that he said that even outside of like the people who got in his car It was around 200 to 300 girls in two to three years time frame He said that he actually never committed himself to killing them unless he was for sure So it made me feel like he knew once certain ones got in the car Who would fight and who wouldn't

Okay, that makes sense, that does make sense He said that Aikoku was, there was nothing sexual about it that I don't think there was anything sexual about any of the murders until his mom He did reference back to multiple times that he would do this to pretty girls Because if they looked pretty, they would taste pretty And at 21 years old when he gets out of the mental hospital It said that he was sexually still about 15 years old because he had never been on a date Never really had sex, he

Total lack of knowledge He also talked about not being able to climax So he could be aroused for lack of better words But he couldn't actually ejaculate which is interesting I don't know if he just never got to that point or if it was trauma or if it was like a medical condition So he unfortunately convinces Aikoku to crawl into the trunk of his car where he ends up shooting her Very sad And at this point the police of Santa Cruz knew that there was a serial killer or more

Because other murders are starting to come up during this time There is a priest that stabbed to death in the church and some other murders that were happening And so they didn't really know what they had on their hands And they also didn't have the experience because like we said in the beginning of the episode This was kind of a small town where nothing really happened Like as far as violent crimes or anything like that So they were kind of perplexed and also just didn't have the experience to deal with something like this It said that there was just like such limited police department training because there wasn't that type of crime

And so they just knew when these killings started coming up That they were looking for like a butcher or a doctor Someone very smart, not like an outraged monster Definitely somebody who was thinking about what they were doing and not like a randomized killer And I just want to touch on Aikoku and him taking her back to his apartment Taking pictures after she was dead like positioning her body And then dissecting and dismembering it in the bathtub And he cleaned it up and specifically said that he cleaned it up so well

That no one would have known that he dismembered a body in that bathtub But I think I'm going to have to disagree I think that there has to be some type of sexual fetish involved in this Like you're taking this is like shit that you see on law and order Like those weird episodes where it's like So he also said though that this is not absolutely not justifying what he did I just want to say he said that he knew it was wrong So he took pictures of her in hopes that he could look back at those photos

And not feel the urge to want to kill somebody again He thought that if he took photos that he would be able to just look at them And it would cure the urge, which is so weird But he did the same thing with the flesh too Which I'm going to get there, hold on, hold on, hold on Because that was something that I actually didn't know Very interesting So I also want to say this about the mom, I don't know why this is like so far back in my notes

Ed's mother was described by someone in the documentary that she worked with Who said that she was kind of shy, not very chatty And was very much like carrying a burden Like she was, I don't want to say miserable but probably miserable And that she was kind of uptight and not really Like you know when you ask someone, oh hi, how are you? And they kind of like mumble and have, you know, you can tell that they're just not happy So, and the same woman describes seeing Ed pick her up from the school

And never, she actually says that he never looked suspicious or creepy in any way So that honestly goes to show like what type of facade Ed was putting on I do want to say, I do wonder how things would have been different If just one person, one parent, step parent, anything, loved Like if one person loved him, would things have had a different turnout Because I don't really know too much of the dynamic between him and his grandparents Or at that point would it have been too late? Like prior to him being 15, maybe like 7, 8, 9, 10

If people did show him affection, would it have changed it or at that point it was like nature versus nurture has taken its course At this point, we're at January 1973 About 13 different homicides at this point are being investigated But not all of them are actually Ed's Right, and the documentary was talking about how he was like truly just getting better as a killer as he went on He had a murder car, which I thought was insane First of all, how did he pay for that? Who bought that? And I wrote down right here under February 1973, I wrote down does his mom ever think that Ed is the one killing these women?

You know, she's the one that gave him a parking pass for this college that she worked at You know, she knew what he did to his grandparents Did it ever cross her mind that maybe her son was killing these women? I think it definitely did But she never says that And I would be curious to know what his sisters thought and you know, I didn't really find out too much information about his older sister But like where is she at? What was her thoughts on it? Because I think that there's a very high level of sadness for Alan because you know, that's his younger sister

And she does describe him to be doing very weird things, but she never really says anything awful about him So I just want to know what the dynamic is there more But a murder car kill murder clothes Who's paying for that? Who is paying for the murder car? Just like as a mom, if you already know that things are off about your child to the point where you're having them live in the basement You're locking the door so he can't touch the girls You know, you know that he's now killed his grandparents, she knew that You have to think something is up and you don't do anything about it

You don't say anything, you don't tell police to maybe question your son like nothing There has to be some type of severe mental illness there because for me, that's not that's not about protecting your kid or not caring That's like, I don't know All of this so boils down to rejection and control because these women, if you see, you know, photos of them All of them that he killed were pretty women And he referenced that the prettiest part of a woman's body is her head and that's why he cuts it off I didn't know that, that's really disturbing So I actually wrote down here, that makes sense now because I wrote down that he decapitated women

Yeah Like I said, there's another serial killer going on at the same time, completely different MO Like I said, I know one of the priests was shot, not shot, stabbed to death Okay, so we're moving on to Ed purchases a new gun He gets a handgun and I don't know if any of our listeners have a gun Or if you apply for a gun or know someone know the process, whatever But you have to fill out information which then alerts detectives or goes to the government to basically get like the clearance That's at any like gun dealer

And it was kind of bad timing because these homicides are going on So naturally any gun dealer is going to notify police of any new gun purchases So these are huge red flags and he did have a double homicide on his record during his juvenile, in his juvenile records So the police don't know if because the juvenile records are sealed, if it actually prevents him from being able to have a gun And so I think they did actually use their best judgment here and they decide that they're going to confiscate the handgun from Ed Until they get an answer from a judge to determine whether or not he should be able to have this gun The police say that he was very, very cooperative There was two police officers that show up at his house and they actually, he opens the trunk to get the gun out of the trunk

I don't know if this is his regular car or his murder car, we're not sure But the police officers actually separate from standing together to standing on each side of the trunk And later on Ed actually tells the police officer that he considered killing them but when they had separated he realized that he would not be able to kill both of them And so he just cooperates So he knows that at this point he has the gun and he gets it taken away He knows that he's about to be investigated, right? Because he does have the double homicides on his record And things are not going well for him and he feels like he's about to get caught

Before he gets caught, he decides that this is the time to quote finally as if this was like what he really wanted all along to kill his mom And I thought that was interesting because if that was what he wanted all along, why not just start there? Do you get what I mean? Like as horrible as that is to say, why go after all these young women who have done nothing to you if your mom was, and you knew your mom was the root of the problem? You knew that that was, I just thought that was very interesting He said that he was so angry at society, so that he was going to hit society where it hurt the most and he was going to target Which was young women, that makes sense for him So he kills his mom Now the details of the murder of his mother are extremely explicit

So I'm giving another warning if you are not wanting to hear this then maybe fast forward or stop the episode Ed is home with his mom and she's in her bed watching TV or doing what she does and he stares at her for two to three minutes I wrote down He stares at her for two to three minutes and he has a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other hand So he ends up beating her to death and then decapitating her and he said that he's always fantasized about this his whole life He actually removes her vocal cords and tries to shove them down the garbage disposal He cuts her tongue out and then proceeds to have sex with his mother's head He said that he screams at his mother's lifeless head until he's exhausted and his voice hurts but felt some relief in that it was over It was done, he did what he felt was going to make him feel better

Then he went for a drive, got drunk No, he killed his mother's best friend I wasn't going to say that until he turned himself in because nobody knew that, that was new information He goes for a drive, he gets drunk, he actually starts taking pills and when the pills start wearing off he just takes some more He doesn't know what he's going to do at this point but he drives until he can't anymore and that's where he ends up in Colorado He uses a pay phone and he calls the police and they're not really giving him the time of day, they're just like, oh it's like Big Ed, not really giving him the time of day So he calls again and at this point he says he killed his mom and the cops in California then call the cops in Colorado to go pick him up And that's where they hear what he has to say, he confesses and the detectives go to his home

and they said that they talked to the neighbors and the neighbors basically described a foul smell that was coming and going but they didn't really know, they didn't really think anything of it The detectives go into the home through a window and the cops said, you know, I don't know if anyone smelled a dead body before but when you smell a dead body you know what it is and it never leaves you So he knew that he smelled a dead body and that's where they find his mom in the closet, blood soaked bed and she was actually covered with a sheet in the closet Ed left a note for police saying that this was not a sloppy job, he just didn't have enough time and it's clear that he wanted to, I don't know, let me not say it's clear

but I was thinking, okay, he was proud of himself for how well he cleaned up the bodies that he had done before and so I do think it was a little weird that he didn't spend the time to clean up his mom's crime scene because I don't actually think he would have gotten caught if he didn't confess, not right away at least I think it was a manic thing because... Yeah, like it was because of the gun, like getting caught with the gun and not being sure So I did think that was interesting because I don't think that they would have, if he did not kill his mom and then confess to it I do not think they would have linked him to the other murders because that gun was a new gun he didn't necessarily use that gun to kill the other women

So as the police are looking through the house and there's this blood-soaked bed all the way down to the carpet they also find the note, but they're also finding other body parts so he did not just decapitate his mom, I mean he cut her up into pieces and that's when the police are going through the house, they actually find Ed's mother's best friend's body there's another body in a different closet and her name was Sally Hallett and Ed basically says that he kind of knew that his mom's best friend would check on her at some point that would have been her alibi or wherever she was

and so he said that he invited her over to the house to kill her and killed her within five minutes of her being there which is absolutely insane because it all happened around the front door and then he just put her in the closet like it was nothing and it's crazy because the more he killed the more it seemed like he was swift and didn't have any thought whatsoever in doing it it was kind of like, okay this is a job, this is something I'm going to take care of this will take care of the cover up for this

but it wasn't really, this part of his story wasn't as thought out as well as what I would have suspected considering he was looking for the alibi with the mom's best friend because this was over Easter weekend so it wouldn't be suspicious I didn't understand that actually so maybe family was going to be spending time with the mom or something I thought so maybe if it was said that she was like off with her friend but like nobody could get in touch with them then it was just like an understood that they would be off with each other

and no one would question anything got it, okay my thing is, is that if you don't want to get caught you've done all of these meticulous like cleanups up until this point then you sloppily clean or kill your mother's best friend and then horrifically murder her and then you get on the road and do you remember in that documentary when it was talking about how if he actually had gotten pulled over that he was going to have a shootout with the cops like he had already made up his mind

yes he left the house with all of his guns so he was going to and I think that's where he must have had some type of anxiety or I'm not really sure because he had gotten away with everything up until this point like he really didn't for as much as he wanted to kill his mom but then you know what as time went on we'll get to it but it was almost like he was cured after he killed his mom I mean he even argued to not get out on parole later on like he said that serial killers should not be under any circumstances let back out into society

he knew and that's where like the self-awareness is so hot like it was like he did what he had to do thought about having a shootout with the cops didn't really want to get caught but then turn himself in maybe again it could have been back to the control aspect he wanted to turn himself in before anyone else could figure out it was him that was kind of the conclusion that I came to I wrote down several things for my last page of notes I wrote down how scary that it probably was for the victims

who at some point realized that this is not a good situation and it's not going to turn out well like how scary those last moments are before knowing that they were probably going to die is absolutely heartbreaking so at this point all of the psychologists and psychiatrists are back to being absolutely fascinated by Ed Kemper and one of the psychiatrists, I believe it was a psychiatrist ends up giving Ed a truth serum it's called sodium amital and the military used this and tested it to see if people would kind of just be diarrhea at the mouth

and that's actually what happened so the doctor essentially collaborates with the hospital to administer this truth serum to Ed and this is where they want to decide if he was insane or if he had feelings about what he did and they found that Ed very much knew right from wrong and he did have a little bit of guilt for what he did and this is where he confesses that he was actually eating the bodies and I had not known that prior to learning this

he said that he kept, quote, chunks of their thighs to later eat because he felt like if he ate them later on it was kind of like the photos of Aiko it would prevent him from wanting to kill another person and he thought that he could essentially relive the crime, the brutal murders so that he wouldn't have to kill somebody again to get the same type of fix I guess and so I wrote that down and they ultimately did

my question is where was he keeping this and then defrosting it I don't know you know where and nobody else well that's what I'm saying I have to play some of the blame on his mom because I think a lot he never really that I know of or that I found really lived on his own he was living with his mom for a lot of the time

you cannot tell me that she did not look in the freezer and see something like the mom absolutely knew more than we know she knew does that make sense? correct so after that truth serum though that doctor was talking about how he truly did feel that or it was the doctor's son I think who was you know doing this whole thing

but it said that he felt like psychologically that he really was insane but legally he was sane because he knew the difference between right and wrong and did it anyway however I do agree with that but there's still mental illness there there's still underlying situations so you're right they say legally he's sane

but from a psychology standpoint he's insane and in the state of California there's the McNaughton rule which is he knew when how what he was doing and so ultimately they decided that he would not go back to a mental institution and he would go back he would go to prison and this is where he says like he does not believe that serial killers should go back on the street in any way he fought against being you know being paroled and as of 2021

Ed Kemper has become essentially like a recluse he doesn't want to talk to anyone he won't communicate but also there's no aggression they have not reported any amount of aggression from him or violence and they basically just said that Ed had a very very big complex within himself where he fought back and forth between the good Ed and the bad Ed and after all of this I can't help but wonder like what would have happened one if someone loved him

and like really gave him affection too I need to know more about him and his sisters and three had he started with his mom would all of these other victims have been like if he would have killed his mom first would he have killed anybody else and I'm not saying that that's okay either but I do wonder if that would have if it would have been different part of me and this is just an observation part of me feels like that this was like a self worth thing

like he was proving it to himself that like he could do these things and get away with him and that you know he was really getting back at society and he was such an angry person so I don't think that the story would have gone any different I think this was you don't know the like motherly and emotional side of me wants to just believe that had he been loved as a baby all the way up into his like throughout his childhood

that none of this would have happened I just don't know that I believe that he was born evil like I just just do not believe that but that being said and knowing that he has really made a home out of prison and like it's almost like he wants to be there he's comfortable there he actually Kristen told me this morning that he attempted suicide twice but was unsuccessful and he wanted to be executed instead of death row essentially which is so interesting to me because again like I just don't understand I don't understand it

there was a question at the end of the documentary that you know is redemption possible and my final thoughts on my notes are that I do think in some situations redemption is possible I do think that there are there are people who kill other people and are truly you know sorry and remorseful and redemption is possible for them but in this specific situation even though I know and well even though I think it was a nature versus nurture situation I don't think that redemption is possible for what he did like I don't personally believe that there is any way for him to be redeemed after this

there's too much pattern over such a long period of time that has been documented you know like all the way from the time that he was two years old and you know his emotional state to the time that he was nine years old and he was cutting the hands off of these dolls killing the cat putting it in a suitcase wrapping it up in a robe cutting it up killing his grandparents being a alleged perverted person spying on you know the dad's new wife or girlfriend whatever she was

and then killing all of these people and his mother I don't see where there's any room for redemption in this story Right, I agree with you it's kind of infuriating that anyone would think that after everything that he's done there's any type of redemption but I do understand that there are people who think that there is and you know I feel so horrible for all of the victims that were I mean I will say that I wish that we heard from people who were in the car with Ed Kemper and he didn't kill if they ever got any type of crazy vibe or creepiness or any of that

because the people that they did interview in the documentaries and from the books never described him as creepy at all so it would be very curious to know if anyone didn't have that experience or maybe I don't know I wanted to ask because I didn't really understand this he's segregated with just a few inmates where he's at now in this correctional medical facility in California why is he segregated like I don't know he's actually he was in prison with

correct me if I'm wrong what's his name Edward Mullen is that his name Edward Mullen Charles Mullen hold on okay so Edward Edmund Kemper was also in prison with Mullen and Charles Manson and he actually interacted with Mullen which is another serial killer and I just found that to be so interesting and talks about Kristen what was it called he talks about something behavior modification so what is that hold on I have the document let me pull it up it's so fascinating so Edward Mullen was in prison with Ed Kemper

and Ed Kemper talks about his interactions with Ed Mullen within three weeks Kemper's trial it began October 1973 the jury found him guilty of eight murders and sentenced him to 56 years to life in prison Kemper on the other hand wanted the state to execute him for his crimes specifically he requested that they torture him to death so much like Charles Manson Kemper escaped the death penalty due to the Supreme Court temporarily outlawing capital punishment which is so interesting to me because I feel like on one hand they should suffer in prison but on the other hand

they should be put like if they want to be executed I just don't understand that it's a sticky debate because it is and I would love to know what listeners think about it because on one hand I've talked about you know why is it fair for us as taxpayers to you know pay for these people who have done these heinous crimes when it would just be easier and if you know they want to be killed right you know that's probably just not humane so Ed goes up for parole in 2007 2012 2017 all three of those years and he argues against the release on parole which I had mentioned before

he said you know a convicted serial killer shouldn't be allowed back into society and in 2012 he waived his right even to have a hearing so his lawyer says that Ed is happy with his life in prison and part of me wonders if it's because there's structure there he knows what to expect he knows who he can be friend he knows that who he can't like I wonder if it's any any sense of like essentially like camaraderie like he he just knows he's safe from himself right and you know like and has he ever had the urge to kill ever again because it seems like

you know the the mom was really what what drove him and you know but that he's if he's happy with his life in prison he never had the urge to kill anyone again like that's just so interesting to me so he also so Mullen and Kemper had had something in common in where they both killed over five people I think Mullen killed 10 or more and he was sentenced to life in prison too so there was two serial killers in prison at the same time and the two serial killers were in jail says jail cells next to each other Kemper says that he did behavioral modification treatment

by giving him peanuts whenever Mullen was good and he sometimes bothered other prisoners by singing and stuff and so Kemper would splash water on him and then essentially like gave him peanuts when he was good and it helped change his behavior I don't know I thought that was like really weird but could understand where it came from because Ed spent so much time in the hospital for the criminally insane Mullen is still incarcerated and was eligible for parole in 2021 oh wow so maybe I need to cover him next yeah yeah there's just so much and also

Ed Kemper he recorded a lot of audio books while he was in while since he's been incarcerated and I thought that was interesting because his grandmother actually was a children's book author as well oh wow I didn't know that very very interesting if anybody else knows any information that we did not cover please slide into the DM and that's the story of Edward of Edmund Kemper the third alright guys well that is all we have time for today so if you have not followed us on at coffee combos podcast on Instagram make sure you follow us over there and you can subscribe to our show on any podcast platform that you choose the purple podcast app for iTunes

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