Criminology - Ed Kemper

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

Ed Kemper is a notorious serial killer who was given many different monikers. The Co-ed Butcher, the Ogre of Aptos, and the most well-known, the Co-ed Killer, are all names that have been assigned to Kemper. Ed Kemper had a troubled childhood, and over the years, he developed an intense hatred toward his mother. This hatred seems to be the driving factor in many of his crimes. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the infamous Ed Kemper. Ed killed his grandparents at a young age and was released when he was 21 years old. At 6'9", he was a very imposing figure. But, he managed to coax many young women into his car under the guise of giving them a ride. He murdered and dismembered many young women, and then he turned on his mother and one of her friends. The murders were shocking, but it's what Ed Kemper did with the bodies that made his crimes even more bizarre. You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It just might be your new go-to bedtime podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 231 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And I'm Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, how are you doing? I'm doing great.

Just realizing here it's November, you know, these months are going by and this year so quickly. And I don't know, I guess that's when you get older. That's what happens at the time just flies by. Yeah, I think it has something to do with our age. There's no doubt about that. But I will say this year has flown by, man, to think that we're in November now. It's tough. Yeah, maybe part of it that's coming out of COVID being stuck in.

everything being shut down and now everything's slowly but surely getting back to normal so that's good yeah could have something to do with it as well let's go ahead and give our patreon shoutouts we had elizabeth mottman and marie hoff durthie jumped up to our highest level tona ogle jumped out at our highest level and we had karen doll so that's a lot of great new support we really appreciate it yeah thank you all so much for that support it means a lot to us and for anyone out there that would like to help support the show, you can do so by going to Patreon.com slash criminology. All right, let's go ahead and jump into this episode, and it's a big one. This week, we're discussing the details of a killer who's pretty infamous in true crime

circles due to the level of depravity in his crimes. You may have heard him referred to by one of his many monikers, the co-ed butcher, the ogre of Aptos. Or most commonly, the co-ed We're talking about Ed Kemper, who not only is responsible for a series of murders of women and girls in Northern California from 1972 to 1973, but for the murders of members of his own family. And we always try to be as accurate as we can here on criminology. So just a quick warning, some of the details in this episode are especially shocking and graphic. Edmund Meal Kemper III was born on December 8th.

18th, 1948 in Burbank, California to parents Edmund Kemper the second and Clernel Kemper. Ed was quite a large child. He weighed in at 13 pounds when he was born. His entire childhood was troubled. Kemper would sneak out of the house as early as second grade to peep through his teachers' windows. He took his dad's bayonet with him on these excursions. Peeping through windows while armed is pretty alarming, and it was a red flag sort of behavior, especially for a second grader. But of course, Ed Kemper kept all of these activities to himself. His disturbing behavior didn't stop there. He would decapitate his sister's dolls and also like to play a game with his sisters called Gas Chamber, in which he would ask his sisters to blindfold him and put him

in a chair where he would flop around and pretend to die. In 1957, Ed's parents divorced, and Kemper went to live with his mother, Clarnel, in Helena, Montana. They didn't have a great relationship at all, his mother made fun of his size. His age never really caught up to a size. And she often called her son a weirdo under her breath or in conversations with people. Apparently, Clornell didn't realize her young son could hear her at the time, but he often did. And he resented her. And as a child, young Ed Kemper didn't seem very close to either of his sisters. When he was 10 years old, he buried his pet cat alive and waited for it to die before he dug it back up. up three years later, he killed another pet cat, stabbing it to death, because he felt as though

it liked his younger sister, Alan, better. He wanted the cat to be his cat, not his sister's cat. The violence between Kemper and his sisters was also disturbing. He made claims that his older sister Susan once tried to push him in front of a moving train. Another time, he claimed she pushed him into the deep end of a swimming pool, nearly killing him. His sister Alan claimed that once a gun went off and a bullet flew past her head, only for her brother Ed to tell her that he thought the gun he fired in her direction in the living room had been unloaded. His mother, in an effort to separate Ed from his sisters and keep them safe, would regularly lock him in a dark, rat-infested basement overnight to prevent him from being able to hurt his sisters.

So, Moore, if you mentioned the words red flags, and I think we're seeing a bunch of them here, the peeping while armed, the animosity and some of the strange behavior between Ed and his sisters. And then obviously you have the hurting of animals, which we know is a very huge red flag. But then I think you also have to dive into Ed's mother because she is a very big part of the Ed Kemper story, as we'll find out. you're diving into how she kind of tried to handle Ed, if that's the right word, locking him in a dark rat infested basement. We used the word troubled to describe his childhood. That was probably a euphemism.

I mean, there was a lot of really strange things going on here. Yeah, and I can understand perhaps the mom is concerned and she wants to keep her daughter safe, but I don't know if locking him in a basement is going to help the situation, if anything, it could exacerbate it and make it worse and cause him to have more problems. And there's also a lot of, according to Ed Kemper, take that with a grain of salt, violence coming towards him from his sisters. So if that's true, then you have this back and forth between them of violence and just all around just doesn't seem like a very, healthy, safe environment. Well, I will say this. You know, you and I have done so many different stories. We've heard some of these infamous killers talk over and over. The one thing that always runs through my mind is how much are they really being truthful? And from my perspective,

I tend to lean towards them not being truthful most of the time. Now, I do think Ed was truthful in a lot his conversations about many things. I'm wondering about how much violence there was on the part of his sisters. How accurate some of that stuff he said really was. Ed Kemper ran away from his mother's house when he was 14 years old. He stole his mom's car and he drove it to Butte, Montana, to catch a bus to Los Angeles. From there, he went to his father's house in Van Nuys, California, both soon sent by his dad to live with his paternal grandparents, Ed Kemper Sr., and Maude Kemper, near North Fork, California. Apparently, Ed Kemper Jr. couldn't handle his son and essentially pushed him off on his parents.

Ed Kemper Jr., according to the website, Edmund Kemper Stories.com, said his personality had changed so much that I was worried about him being here with my my current wife, who tried very hard to be a real friend to him, young Ed Kemper believed that it was actually his new stepmother who had basically banished him. As detailed on Edmund Kemperstories.com, Kemper said of his father, he didn't want me around because I upset his second wife. My presence gave her migraine. By the time he was 15, Kemper was an intimidating present standing at six foot four. He was socially awkward, didn't have friends, and didn't like school. While he was unhappy living with his mom and sisters back in Montana, he hated the town of North Fork, where he lived with his grandparents. Kemper seemed to like his grandfather, though,

and had a good relationship with him. Edmund Sr. bought him a 22-caliber rifle, and the two would go shooting and hunting together. Eventually, Modd requested that Edmund Sr. take the gun away from Ed, because he kept shooting birds and other small animals needlessly, not because he ate what he killed, but rather just to kill him. Tension began to brew at the home. Maud began taking Ed Senior's 45-caliber automatic handgun with her when she went out so that Ed couldn't get a hold of it while she was gone.

On August 27, 1964, when Ed was just 15 years old, it all came to a head. Ed Kemper shot and killed both of his grandparents. He and his grandmother, Maude, were at. the kitchen table, arguing she had been writing a short story for Boys Life magazine called Fire in the Cannon. Kemper got up from the table and he grabbed the rifle. His grandfather had taken away from him as he headed outside. Planning to go rabbit hunting with his dog Anka, Maude tried to stop him. And Ed stopped and shot her twice in the head. When she fell, he shot her one more time in the back. He then wrapped a towel around her head.

and took her body into the bedroom. He stabbed her three times, so hard that he bent the night. He would later claim that he didn't think Maude was dead and didn't want her to suffer. As his grandfather, Edmund Sr. arrived home from running errands. Ed greeted him in the driveway. As he stood next to his car, Kemper placed the rifle to Ed Sr.'s head and pulled the trigger. He then pulled his grandfather's body into the garage and tried to clean up the blood next to the truck, using a hose from the garden. After it was all over, though, Ed didn't run, despite trying to hide what

he had done by cleaning up the blood. Instead, he calmly called his mom and told her what he had done, and she had instructed him to call the police. Kemper did as he was told, and he waited on the porch to be arrested. Police arrived and surveyed the shocking scene. When Kemper was asked why he did what he did, he told them he killed his grandmother because he just wanted to see what it felt like, and killing his grandfather was to spare him from the anger and heartbreak upon finding out that his wife of 50 years had been killed. I think this is really interesting to look at Kemper's thinking here because on one hand, he mentions he kills his grandmother just to see what it felt like, but then he killed his grandfather to spare him the pain of finding out that his wife was dead. So it's sort of, you know,

some kind of contradiction going on where he's killing one person out of some kind of urge or desire to do it and then he's killing another one because he cares about him and doesn't want to see them go through this anguish. So very interesting when you think of it from that perspective. So, you know, to me more, here's a 15 year old who doesn't get along well with his grandmother. I think there's no doubt he had a better relationship with his grandfather. He kills his grandmother after, you know, an argument. And then like you said, later says, he just wanted to know what it felt like. But then he goes into a little bit of a cleanup mode, but he doesn't run. He calls his mom, tells her exactly what he had done. And then he follows her instructions by calling the

police and waiting on them. But I'm with you and trying to, you know, kind of sort all of this out, him saying that he killed his grandfather because he wanted to spare him the heartbreak of finding his wife of 50 years dead. You know, to me in these true crime stories, part of the fascination is trying to figure out exactly what was going on in the minds of some of these people. And I think with Ed Kemper, it's really tough because number one, most of us listening, hopefully almost all of us listening can't even imagine harming let alone shooting and killing our grandparents but it seems to me as though at least with his grandmother there wasn't a real big mental hurdle struggle to get over for him to do this now no doubt this kind of crime was shocking

and authorities were at a loss how something like this could happen kemper was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced to serve his time at a mental health facility, a Tascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo County as a criminally insane juvenile. At At At Tascadero, Kemper underwent routine psychological testing. He was found to have an incredibly high IQ. Eventually, he learned what answers would gain him trust, favor, and eventually Sandy, at least on paper. He told the doctors what they wanted to hear.

When he turned 21 on December 18th, 1969, Ed Kemper was released on parole. By this time, he was six feet, nine inches tall. He moved in with his mother, who now lived in Aptos, California, where she worked at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as an administrative assistant. But this reunion between mother and son was not an easy one.

Neighbors recalled hearing them argue quite often. Kemper had an interest in becoming a police officer. He applied to join the Highway Patrol, but he was actually too large in size, let alone his criminal passed, and his application was denied. He worked a few dead-end jobs before landing a job with the division of highways. But Kemper hadn't forgot his interest in police work. He liked to hang out at cop bars, and associate with officers in Santa Cruz and picked their brains.

All the cops knew him, although not everyone was aware of the murders he committed. Despite his intimidating size, Ed Kemper came off as friendly and soft-spoken. In 1971, he was in an accident while riding his motorcycle. He used some of his $15,000 settlement he received due to his injuries to buy a new Ford Galaxy. He kept handcuffs, a knife, and a gun in the car. Kempir began picking up young hitchhikers. Later, he would claim that he didn't have anything sinister in mind when he started picking them up.

As he has put it, it was a way for him to meet and talk to girls his own age. But Kemper soon found that sadistic sexual fantasies were beginning to fill his head. Ed Kemper was supposed to check in on a regular basis with both his social worker and parole officer, but he never did. And there were no repercussions. He wasn't checked in on. He wasn't yanked off the street for not following guidelines. Instead, he was basically left alone to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and with nothing to help keep his sadistic impulses in check, those impulses got the better of him. On May 7, 1972, Kemper picked up two 18-year-olds, Marianne Pesci and Anita Luchessa as they hitchhiked in Berkeley. The two students, both petite at five-foot-one,

were making their way back to Fresno University. Kemper told them he would drop them off at Stanford University. Due to his job with the highway department, Kemper knew many roads and secluded areas. After driving for an hour on the wrong route, Kemper pulled off into a wooded area and suddenly handcuffed Marianne. He forced Anita into the trunk of his car before attacking Marianne, stabbing her and strangling her to death. He then went back for Anita, who was trapped in the trunk, and killed her the same way. Kemper placed both bodies in the trunk and headed home to his apartment. On the drive back home, he was pulled over by police when an officer noticed one of his

tail lights was broken. He was let go, and he was able to continue the drive to his apartment, which was empty because his roommate was not home. And more if we have to talk about this, this is something that crops up in so many different stories. Now, obviously, the details come out after the fact, but it's, you know, these individuals get pulled over for something. In Kemper's case, it was something as small as one of his taillights being broken. But the entire time that this traffic stop is going on, he's got buying. in his trunk. And there have been so many notorious killers who have been pulled over by police

with bodies in their trunks. But obviously the police didn't know that. And with a broken taillight, unless there was something else suspicious, there would be no reason to search the trunk or anything like that. But I think the thing that always goes through my mind is, how do these people do it? How do they go through a traffic stop? like that, knowing what they've just done, knowing that they have, you know, a body or bodies in the trunk and basically just kind of go through it as anyone else would who didn't have something like that going on. Yeah, I wonder if there's such good actors that they're just able to act so nonchalant that

there's no threatening manner to them. There's no reason to say, hey, let me look in your trunk. they just play to the part that they're trying to portray the police at that moment and seem non-threatening and they're able to do it. I mean, we've seen it with other killers. Obviously, you mentioned, you know, Dahmer. The same thing happened. Ted Bundy, he's been pulled over. He was pulled over at times.

And because of his nature, because of how he portrayed himself, police said, okay, this guy is harm us. I'll let him go. So I think it's clear that these types of kids. killers sometimes are able to get out of a sticky situation like this. And I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that they don't have or display the same type of emotions that that most of us do. I think most of us would be so nervous in a situation like that that we might give ourselves away.

But I think some of these people, they don't have those emotions. So they're able to act very easily. more normally than most of us would be able to do. Yeah, that's a very good point. And I wonder, obviously, we're not experts or mental health evaluators, but I wonder if people that have studied these types of people could verify that. Yes, that is the reason while they're able to do that and get away with it. While the rest of us try and put ourselves in this situation and we imagine ourselves panicking,

these guys don't. When Kemper got home after being let go. go by police, he brought both bodies inside. He took pictures of them and he sexually assaulted their bodies. He dismembered both of the bodies and he put them in trash bags that he left near Loma Prieta Mountain, but he didn't throw out their heads right away. Instead, he used the heads to perform fallacia on him. He then later disposed of the heads in a ravine. So I said up front, right, some pretty graphic details. I mean, this is one that stands out to a lot of people, number one, because it's so sick,

it's so, you know, depraved. Yeah, we talk about serial killers so often and we sort of put them all in this big group, but then every once in a while, there's one whose deeds and things that they do just put them in a category all by themselves. And I think this is one of those details that puts Kemper in his own category. A blurb in the Daily Independent Journal from July 1st, 1972 about the two missing students pleaded, The girls are asked to call home to assure their parents they are safe. Miss Luchessa's mother is seriously ill.

It was hoped that the girls had just been off having fun, living life, being young, not thinking of their word parents sitting at home, waiting for them to call. Like many of the cases we discuss, Marianne and Anita were attacked a time when hitchhiking was very commonplace, and most of the time the people that hitchhiked would make it to their destinations. Marianne and Anita, who were traveling together, must have felt that they were safe, traveling as a pair. This was the buddy system, after all. We often hear that there's safety in numbers.

Unfortunately, in this case, hitching together didn't keep them safe. On August 15th, just over three months after the girls vanished, Marianne Pesci's head was found near Loma Prieta. The rest of her body, as well as all the remains of Anita Luchessa, were never found. news of the grizzly find and murders of the two hitchhikers wasn't enough to stop young women from hitchhiking on September 14th, 1972. Kemper picked up 15-year-old Iko coup. She missed her bus on the way to her dance class and she hitched her run. This time Kemper drove to a secluded area near Bonnie Dune. He ended up locked out of the car with Iko and his gun inside.

Somehow, he managed to get her to unlock the door for him. And when she did, he attacked her. He handcuffed her and put tape over her mouth. He pinched her nose shut until she died. He then sexually assaulted her before putting her into the trunk of his car. After throwing her body in the trunk, he took her body home with him. This time, he stopped for a few drinks at a bar near his apartment while her body lay outside in his trunk. Later, he sexually assaulted and dismembered her body, placed it into trash bags,

and disposed of it out in the wilderness. Iko's mom worried when she didn't come home. It wasn't like her daughter. Her mother knew that she wouldn't have run away, and she definitely would not have missed her ballet class. She was set to perform in St. Louis later that month. Iko's mom placed missing person flyers in the area she'd vanished from, but never saw or heard from her daughter again. Although various remains of murdered women have been found in the area she was disposed in, none of them as of now have been identified as those of Iko. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved. until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. On November 29, 1972, Kemper's juvenile criminal records were expunged. His probation psychiatrist supported the move, writing, It is my opinion that he has made a very excellent response

to the years of treatment and rehabilitation. and I would see no psychiatric reason to consider him to be of any danger to himself or to any member of society. Now, with even more freedom and no official record of what he had done to his grandparents hanging over his head, on January 7, 1973, Kemper bought a 22-caliber pistol. That same day, he picked up 18-year-old Cynthia Ann Shaw, or Cindy, as she was known. She was looking for a ride to the Cabrillo College campus when he pulled up. as he had done previously, Kemper drove to a secluded area in the woods. He shot Cindy, killing her with his new 22-caliber pistol.

Instead of driving to his apartment with her body in the trunk, he drove to his mom's house. He sneaked her body inside and hid it in his closet, waiting until his mom went to work the next day to sexually assault the body, and then used the bathtub to dismember it with a power saw and retrieve the bullet he had shot her with. He threw most of her remains off a cliff, but kept her head, and buried it in his mom's backyard garden. And Morve, I want to talk a minute about, you know, his juvenile records being expunged. That happens.

I understand that. But to me, it's really more about how Kemper was able to snow, psychiatrists and, you know, professionals. We talked about it earlier. You know, at some point, I think at Atascadero, he learned this. skill of, you know, determining exactly what people wanted to hear from him that would allow him to get what he wanted. I mean, to the point where, you know, this person wrote, I see no psychiatric reason to consider him to be of any danger to himself or to any member of society.

Now, obviously, we know that couldn't have been any further from the truth. He was very dangerous to society, but he had this person convinced that he wasn't. Yeah, we talk a lot about cases where somebody that's in jail for violent crime and they're going to be there for years, they make up these stories and figure out how to fool police just so they can get out and get some time out saying, hey, I'll lead you to a body, and then there's nothing there. And then you hear that it's just because they wanted to get out. Or, you know, we talk about Henry Lucas all the time, how he copped to things just,

for milkshakes and he had no involvement in some of these crimes. I think these guys just have a lot of time to sit around and figure out how can I get over on the system or on the people that are in charge of me. And I think Kemper, being in a taskadero, had a lot of time as well to sort of figure out how can I fool them into thinking I'm well. So I think it's a real common thing to see these people that are locked up for these crimes planning and plotting of how to fool people. Well, and the other thing that Kemper had going for him was that he was very intelligent.

And if you listen to some of his interviews that obviously he gave later on, and there are a lot of them, he talks about burying this head in his mom's backyard. And I remember in one interview, he said that he specifically, buried it so that it was looking up at his mom's window. And this was really kind of a way to, I guess you would say show his disgust toward his mother without her really even knowing about it, but he knew about it, right? Every night he knew that just outside his mother's window, there was a head buried looking up at it. hurt. So by this point, hitchhikers were on high alert in the area. Students in the Santa Cruz area

were warned not to accept rides with any strangers and to only get into cars if they had a university sticker, meaning they were someone affiliated with the school, a staff member, a fellow student. Kemper read about this. And since his mom worked at UCSC, he had no trouble getting a university sticker to put on his car, which gained him the trust of many students. The parking stickers were the same at multiple universities, so this helped him blend in at a number of campuses. On February 5, 1973, Kemper picked up 23-year-old Rosal and Heather Thorpe and 20-year-old Alice Helen Lou, or Allison as she went by, on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus. Like Kemper victims Marianne and Anita before them, they likely felt they were safer hitching together.

As he drove them, Ed stopped at a campus viewpoint, telling them he wanted to take a look at the view of some lights. He then shot Rosalind in the head and shot Alice multiple times. He drove with them dead in his car about 15 miles north of Davenport, where he put their bodies in the trunk. The next morning, he drove out to Eden Canyon in Alameda County and dumped their dismembered bodies. From there, he drove the San Mateo County, where he used both of their severed heads to sexually gratify himself before discarding them. Kemper, with his high IQ and knowledge of police work, was intentionally trying to confuse law enforcement and create jurisdiction issues. He kept his victim's IDs, clothing, and purses as trophies. On March 4, 1973, the severed heads of Rosalind and Allison were found south of Pacifica off Highway 1.

Later that month on March 29th, Ed Kemper told his family that he had proposed to his girlfriend. So somehow, despite all of these hideous things he was doing, Kemper had managed to meet and forge a relationship with this girl. There's very little known about her. And she has chosen to not come forward publicly. I don't think many people could blame her for that. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't want to find out. that they were engaged to a serial killer. Some reports say that she was 17 years old.

While others say she was an 18 year old from Turlock, California. The two had met on a beach in Santa Cruz. Just days later, Kemper had a run in with police. In early April, he had purchased another gun, a revolver. And for some reason, the police were alerted to this purchase. So officers visited him at his apartment. in Seacliff and asked him to surrender his weapon, which he did without incident. Kemper explained that he thought he was allowed to buy firearms since his record had been expunged.

Police didn't take any further action, and Kemper was free to continue on his warped path, searching for more victims. He wouldn't have to look far for his next one. On April 20, 1973, Ed Kemper's mom, Clarnel, came home from a party late at night. and the noise of her coming in through the door woke Ed up. He walked into his mom's room to talk to her while she was sitting up in bed, reading. She coldly said to him, I suppose you're going to want to sit up all night and talk now. Ed said, never mind and then went back into his room.

Once his mother was asleep, he crept into her room and hit her in the head with a hammer, before he slid her throat with a penknife. He then decapitated his mom and used her head to perform volatio on him. In a tape-recorded confession with police later that month, Kemper bluntly said, After I slashed her throat, I went ahead and slashed the rest of the way around her neck and took off her head.

I guess half as much of that was to make sure in my own mind that she was dead instantly and right then. I certainly wanted for my mother a nice, quiet, easy death, like I guess everyone wants. Years later, Kemper, in trying to pinpoint what fueled his behavior, would point to his mom laying much of the blame with her. Kemper cleaned up the scene and stashed his. his mom's body in a closet. He then went to a local bar to get a drink when he returned home.

He lured his mom's best friend and fellow UCSC colleague, 59-year-old Sally Hallett, over to the house under the guise of dinner and a movie. He strangled her and put her body in the closet next to his mom's. Apparently, Sally was killed merely because being close with Ed's mom, Clarnel, she would notice that she was missing and she would report it. But with Sally and Clarnel both missing, people might think that they had just gone off together. This plan would allow Kemper a head start to try and get away before they were discovered.

Ed Kemper left the note at the house that read approximately 5.15 a.m. Saturday. No need for her to suffer anymore at the hands of this horrible murderous butcher. It was quick, asleep. the way I wanted it. Not sloppy and incomplete, gents. Just a lack of time. I got things to do. After leaving this note, Ed parked Sally's car in Reno, Nevada, and rented a car which he drove straight to Pueblo, Colorado, a thousand miles away, stopping only for gas. In order to stay awake, he took caffeine pills. During the drive, he became paranoid and thought the police would be actively searching for him. But he was ready for a confrontation with them, and had two rifles, a shotgun, and plenty of ammunition in the core.

When Kemper arrived in Pueblo and found that no one had discovered the bodies, let alone begun to hunt for him, he called the police from a phone booth and confessed to killing Clarnel and Sally. Unfortunately, the person to answer his call thought it was a prank and told him to call back later. After a few hours, Kemper called the station again, but this time asked for an officer by name. That confession was taken seriously. Authorities went to Clarnel's apartment and found the body of Sally Hallett in one of the closets after confirming that it was a crime scene. They waited for criminalist Paul Doherty from the San Mateo County Crime Lab to arrive before searching the scene further. It was

reported that there was a photo of a beautiful blonde in Ed's room at his mother's house. This was a photo of Kemper's young fiancé, who had managed to escape being one of Kemper's victims. Just as when he had killed his grandparents, Ed Kemper waited calmly for police to come arrest him on April 24, 1973. Kemper was arrested in Pueblo. He then confessed to the murders of six students. Mary Ann, Anita, Iko, Cindy, Roseland, and Allison. Ed Kemper was transported back to Santa Cruz via a car because at 6 foot 9 and 280 pounds,

he was too big in size to safely and securely transport via plane. Meanwhile, Kemper's fiancé was devastated by the news and was allowed to stop attending class due to the media's spectacle and the shock of knowing who she almost married. And as we mentioned, she's never gone past. public with her story. And to this day, her identity is still not public knowledge. In a rare move, the media at the time respected her family's pleas for her privacy. And you say rare move, I think that is a rare move, especially, you know, if you think about how that would be handled

today, I don't know that the media would respect her privacy in the same way that they did back in 1973. I just don't think that would happen today. Yeah, especially with social media because one person blurted out and it's there forever with the internet. It's traveling at the speed of light. So I think it would be hard to contain that now. On May 7, 1973, Kemper was indicted on eight charges of first degree murder. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The only thing he could really do because of his complete confession, according to his attorney James Jackson. He cannibalized the portion of one of his victims,

something that he had fantasized about. To many people, it was clear that Kemper was insane, but it would be up to a jury to decide his fate. The grand jury transcript revealed that Kemper claimed he felt he was going to be caught soon, and he wanted his mother to avoid suffering embarrassment. So that is why he decided the best thing to do would be to kill her. But this clashes with him saying that he would also fantasize about causing her embarrassment.

Kemper admitted that he even thought about calling police in front of her to admit he was the co-ed killer, knowing how much it would embarrass his mom. But obviously we know he never did that. And, you know, this claim of not wanting his mother. to be embarrassed. That's that's one that I do not believe because if you listen to Kemper in a lot of his interviews, there is a lot of hate directed towards his mom. We mentioned the head buried underneath her window. He also talks a lot about how his mother kind of fawned over a lot of these girls that went to school. She worked at the school. She interacted. She interacted. with a lot of these these girls and she would talk about them in a way that I think really upset

Ed as though she had a lot of love or a lot of admiration for these girls but he didn't feel that love right all he ever felt in his mind from her was disdain and so you know there's a thought and I think it's even been said by him that it's one of of the reasons why he chose these co-eds to go after, almost as if he was doing it because his mom had this admiration or, you know, whatever word you want to use for these girls that she worked with. Yeah, what that really brings to my mind, too, is how often that we hear these killers have mommy issues, issues with their mothers growing up from early childhood. And I don't, fully understanding. I'm not a mental health expert or someone that's evaluated these people,

but we hear that time and again that that relationship between these killers and their moms are sometimes stressed or fractured or have some kind of issues. So we're definitely seeing that in Ed Kemper's case. On October 23rd, 1973, Ed Kemper's trial began. On November 8th, the jury, a 50-50 split of men and women found Kemper not only legally sane. but guilty on all eight counts after just five hours of deliberation. As detailed in a New York Times article, they believed it was clear that he knew the difference between right and wrong and that he understood the nature and quality of his acts.

Kemper was 24 years old at the time of the sentencing. Judge Harry F. Brower said to the jury, if I seem excited, it's because I feared you might arrive at a different verdict. Ed Kemper, having been found guilty, asked for the death penalty and went as far as requesting to be tortured to death. But a moratorium on the death penalty in California had been put in place. So instead, Kemper was sentenced to seven years to life for each count against him, with those terms to be served concurrently and not stacked on top of each other.

He was ordered to do his time at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, where he still remains today. Incredibly, by 1979, Kemper was eligible for parole. It's been denied many times since then. in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1988, 1991,

1994, 2007, and 2017. Kemper waived his right to a hearing in 1985, 1997, 2002, and 2012. And he'll be eligible for parole again in 2024.

And man, morph, when I look back on that sentence, seven years to life. Now, I get it, it was seven years to life. for each of the eight counts, but to be served concurrently. So it's really seven years to life. It is the way I look at it. Now, luckily, he's been denied parole. But just look at how many years

you just talked about. He's come up many, many times over the last 40 plus years. And he'll come up again in just a couple of years, I would find it very difficult to believe that given everything that we know about Ed Kemper and the crimes he committed, that someone could sit down and make the determination that, yes, this guy should be put back in with the general population. I know if it was up to me, I would have a very hard time signing off on that. Yeah, some people can be rehabilitated and there's a case for them to say, okay, they can be a member of society again and they're not going to be a danger. But at the same time, there are some people that are beyond redemption. And I think it's clear that Ed Kemper has to be one of those people.

This is someone that just cannot be in society, at least in my opinion. Well, I kind of boil it down to this. If you ask yourself the question, would I want Ed Kemper living next to me? I can't imagine too many people saying, yes, I would be okay with that. From behind bars, Kemper has narrated several books, possibly hundreds, as part of the Blind Project, helping make books accessible for people with visual impairments. This was long before Audible for just $3. Someone could send a copy of a book and request a recording.

Just some of the books he has recorded himself reading are Flowers in the Attic, Star Wars, Dune, Book 4, God Emperor of Dune, and the Glass Key. Kempter told the L.A. Times of his narrating, I can't begin to tell you what this is meant to me to be able to do something constructive for someone else to be appreciated by so many people, the good feeling it gives me after what I have done. And, you know, we always talk about kind of separating the truth from the lies. I don't know if this is a lie. It probably does make him feel good to do this and have people appreciate him for doing so. but that might be, you know, kind of part of the Ed Kemper story. I think it is, actually.

I do think Ed was a guy who, you know, was looking for something his entire life from his family, his mother. And whether real or just in his mind, he didn't get it. In 2015, Ed suffered a stroke and was no longer able to narrate books or coordinate the blind project. In 2016, he got in trouble for the very first time. While behind bars, this was after 49 years because he refused to provide a urine sample. Ed Kemper is perhaps one of the most self-aware serial killers we've heard of. He didn't shy away from talking about his crimes or his motives. He gave a lot of interviews with the grisly details, all included.

He was always open with investigators, unlike other serial killers like Ted Bundy, who seemed to want to toy with them and plant seeds of doubt in order to draw out and delay his execution. Sergeant Don Smith, one of the officers who went to Kemper's home to confiscate his pistol and who later escorted Kemper in court,

has publicly said that Kemper was nice and easygoing, that he had to constantly remind himself who Kemper was and what he had done. Kempir was also looked at for other murders, including another string of serial killings in Northern California. We discussed these before. They are the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker murders.

He makes a very compelling suspect, but he was taken into custody in another state just one day before one of the murders on April 25th, 1973, which makes it impossible for him to have committed all of those killings. Also, none of the victims of the Santa Rosa hitchhiker killer were dismembered. Unfortunately, there were a lot of killers. committing murders throughout northern California at the time that Ed Kemper was active. And this is something that you and I have talked about before. You know, the 70s in California into the 80s, I mean, there were a lot of active serial killers. It's been said that Ed Kemper, along with Ed Gein, inspired Buffalo Bill in the Silence of the

lambs. Ed Kemper has either peered in or been portrayed in many movies, documentaries, or TV shows. The Netflix series Mind Hunter features four episodes where Kemper's portrayed brilliantly by actor Cameron Britton. The show recalls how the FBI, including profiler John Douglas, interacted with Kemper in order to learn from him and help spot and stop killers like him from committing the heinous crimes that Ed Kemper did. Crimes that almost 50 years later are still as shocking and disturbing as they were back then.

And I know I've talked about it with you more. I may have even mentioned it on the show, But I love this show Mind Hunter. I'm actually so bummed that they haven't come out with a new season. It's been, what, a number of years now. But to me, the show is brilliant. And by far, this Cameron Britton guy who plays Ed Kemper really kind of steals the show. I mean, he's so good in the role that.

that it's almost scary. You know, he does the thing where, much like I believe Kemper did, he draws people in. And he's likable and affable. But at the same time, there's a very scary part to him. It's a brilliant performance for those who haven't watched it.

Yeah. And we've heard from a lot of listeners too, saying that they want Mindher to come back. So minehunter, people, if you're out there, and please bring the show back. But as we wrap up, you know, this episode on Ed Kemper, to me, you know, he's a fascinating study in true crime.

Go back to his childhood and kind of deconstruct that and see how some of the things that that happened back then may have led to, you know, what he did later on. And you have the murder of his granddad. parents at a very young age. And then you have kind of a, I guess what you'd have to call a second act, which is him murdering, decapitating and doing a bunch of other heinous things to these coeds. And for me, with Ed,

there's all kinds of side plots, I guess, if you will, you know, this notion that he really wanted to be a police officer. He went to police officer bars and he talked with them, you know, to the point where later after it came out that he was this kind of heinous killer, some of these guys were shocked. They had, they had set around and drank and talked with and swap stories with Ed Kemper.

The other thing that has always fascinated me about Ed Kemper is his size, you know, at 6-9. He was a big guy. He was a very imposing figure. He also was not what I think many people would call handsome. So the fact that he was able to get a lot of these women and girls into his car has always been something that has stuck out to me. I mean, we're not talking about a Ted Bundy here. You know, a lot of people thought that Ted Bundy was a good looking guy back in the day. Women were drawn to him. I think it's thought that it wasn't all that hard for Ted to maybe coax someone into taking a ride with him. But here you have six, nine, really big, big guy, Ed Kemper, you would think that just the mere sight of him.

would give people pause. But does it go to his IQ, his ability to talk to people? I think Ted Bundy had both of those. He had the looks and he had the ability to con and talk to people. I think Ed did most of it with his ability to kind of tell people what he knew they wanted to hear or what would bring their defenses down to the point where they would get into a car with him. Yeah, and I wonder if part of that was because he came across as maybe a gentle giant, big teddy bear, because he was soft-spoken, despite his size, he did seem like someone that, you know, was friendly. And I think maybe that allowed some of his victims to let their guard down.

One thing I really found fascinating was from everything we see, he seemed. seems like this loner that's just out there looking for victims, looking for ways to make his mom pay and punishing her, at least in his mind. But somehow he, in the midst of that, he's able to forge this relationship and get a fiancee. And that wasn't enough for him. He could have just tried to stop what he was doing and have this relationship with her. But instead, he kept on going with this obsession that he had. So to me, it was just very shocking that that that, happened and that he was able to have that relationship, but still was overcome by this need to punish his mom in his mind. Yeah, a lot of people are fascinated with Ed Kemper. I mean, he really is

kind of an enigma, a hard dude to figure out. But then on the flip side of that, unlike some people, he's been very talkative. You know, like we mentioned, he's done a lot of interviews. And he's given quite a bit of insight. Now, is all of it accurate? You know, you always have to weigh that with serial killers and people like that. But the thought is, is that, you know, he's opened up quite a bit in some of these interviews. So there's obviously a lot out there online where you can sit and watch and listen to Ed talk about some pretty fascinating and at the same time horrible things. So that's it for our episode on Ed Kemper. But if you love the show and haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating, a review.

And also keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So Morph, that is it for another episode of criminology. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with an all-new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morph.

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