By Megan Leitch-Dymond
Ed Kemper is well-known to many people thanks to his distinctive size and stature. He is currently 74 years old, 6 feet 9 inches tall, and weighs a massive 300 pounds. The Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’ recently brought him back into the public eye and, for his four-episode portrayal as Kemper, actor Cameron Britton received an Emmy nomination. The actual Kemper is still incarcerated in California.
Edmund Emil Kemper the third was born on December 18, 1948, at 11:04 p.m. in Burbank, California’s St. Joseph Hospital. At birth, he weighed 13 pounds and was the child of 29-year-old Edmund Emil Kemper Jr. and 27-year-old Clarnell Elizabeth Stage. He was not reared by two loving parents, and his childhood was not one filled with happy recollections. His mother was described as an alcoholic with a problematic relationship to drink who was also aggressive and neurotic. His father could only put up with her for so long because she continuously made fun of his profession as an electrician. His father served in the Second World War and tested nuclear weapons, although he later remarked that ‘living with her [Clarnell] was worse than suicide and atomic bomb missions’. They eventually split up and got a divorce in 1957. His father moved to Van Nuys, California, and his mother travelled to Montana with young Ed in tow. She subsequently returned to California. After their divorce was officially finalized, Clarnell focused on her son, despite having a younger sister named Allyn and an older sister named Susan. She spared no maternal tenderness for little Ed, refusing to console or exhibit affection for fear that she may ‘turn him gay’. Ed’s mother would make fun of his height and his ‘weirdness’ and have him spend the night in the freezing basement, out of fear he would hurt his sisters. Ed was an introvert from a young age, according to his sister Susan, who also remarked that he never seemed to be interested in playing with other kids. She was fiercely protective of her younger sibling and thought he had good intentions, but sadly that wasn’t enough. He exhibited some of the serial killer stereotypes from his early years, such as killing animals, and some of his depraved behaviors were a horrifying premonition of what was to come. He once burned the family cat alive before burying its corpse. He then went back for its body, dismembered it into various pieces, and severed the head. The head was placed on a spike. Years later, Kemper could remember the strength and secret satisfaction he experienced when lying to his family about the occurrence. It wasn’t an isolated incident, however, as the replacement cat suffered the same fate a few years later. In order to punish the small animal and keep its body parts as souvenirs, Kemper tortured and killed the cat because he was envious of the animal’s preference for his elder sister. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the siblings had a bad relationship, however, as together they would play a game called ‘electric chair’. The game required Susan to bind Ed to a chair and flick a fictitious switch. After flipping the switch, Ed would begin to wiggle and tumble to the ground while acting as though he was being electrocuted to death. Additionally, he would practice decapitation on his sister’s play dolls, displaying early signs of interest in the practice. He once said that there was a ‘sexual thrill’ experienced when ‘you hear that little pop and pull their heads off and them up by the hair – that’d get me off’.
When Ed was 14 years old, he could no longer handle his mother’s rejection and hostility, and so fled in the hopes of having a nice reunion with his father. His father had since remarried, though, and the couple had a son. His step-mother persuaded his father to take action since she did not feel safe around Kemper. As a result, his father made arrangements for Ed to reside in North Fork, California, with his paternal grandparents – Maude and Ed. His resentment was increasing now that he had been rejected by both of his parents. He soon noticed the bond between his grandma and grandfather once he had settled into his new home. In addition to projecting his animosity for Clarnell onto Maude, he said that his grandmother would emasculate his grandfather in a manner similar to how his mother did to his father. Maude requested Kemper to stop killing birds as they were sitting at the kitchen table on August 27, 1964. As the discussion descended into an altercation, Kemper stormed off. When something did not go his way, according to his sister, Ed’s temper always got worse. She also mentioned how upset he would become. He returned to the kitchen after grabbing a gift from his grandfather – a .22 calibre hunting rifle. While she was still seated at the table, he shot his grandma three times: once in the head and twice in the back. Multiple stab wounds were discovered on her body during the post-mortem examination, indicating that he ferociously attacked her corpse. He then awaited his grandfather’s arrival at the house before opening fire on him in the driveway to prevent him from discovering his dead wife. He dialled his mother because he didn’t know what else to do, and she advised him to call the police and wait for them to show up. He did as she said, and when the police arrived he surrendered.
After being identified as having paranoid schizophrenia, he was classified as a ‘criminally insane juvenile’ and sent to the Atascadero State Hospital. According to psychiatrists, Edmund killed his grandparents as a way of expressing his feelings of rejection from his father and abuse from his mother. He underwent a number of tests once he arrived at the hospital, and other psychiatrists came to the conclusion that the initial diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia was incorrect and that there were instead no signs of delusions, hallucinations, or strange thinking – all characteristics of a paranoid schizophrenic. Instead, a passive aggressive type of personality trait disruption was identified in him. Further testing revealed that he had an IQ of 145, which is regarded as ‘exceptionally smart and skilled’ and indicates that he is smarter than 99.9% of the population. He put in a lot of effort to earn the respect of the staff during his incarceration and was seen as a role model for his fellow prisoners. He eventually received authorization to administer psychological examinations to other patients, and it was at this time that he gained the knowledge necessary to rig tests in order to produce the desired outcomes. Additionally, he learned some helpful tips on how to kill a lady after raping her from chats he had with convicted sex offenders in the hospital, the most crucial of which was to leave no witnesses. After spending six years in the hospital, he was released on parole on his 21st birthday. What’s more, he was able to have the official records of his first murders expunged because they occurred when he was still a minor. Despite medical advice to the contrary, psychiatrists thought he had been rehabilitated and moved in with his mother in Santa Cruz, California. His mother was now working at the University of California after three separate marriages and divorces.
Kemper didn’t waste any time organizing his life, enrolling in a community college while holding down multiple jobs. In 1971, he finally found a secure position with the Department of Transportation and got engaged to a high school senior who was only 16 years old. Although his ex-fiancée chose to stay fully unknown and little about her has been revealed, she was horrified to learn the kind of man she was engaged to and fled into seclusion. Within the same year, while riding his motorcycle, he was struck by a car, which led to a major arm injury and a compensation of about $15,000. Since he was no longer employed, he focused on other extracurricular pursuits. A fascinating fact about Kemper is that he applied to be a State Trooper but was rejected due to his enormous size (he weighed over 300 pounds and was 6’9” tall). He continued to hang out with the police, perhaps to maintain a false sense of power and authority, and they even gave him a gun loan, a training school badge, and handcuffs. The 1960 Ford Galaxie he ultimately decided to purchase with the settlement funds even had the appearance of a police vehicle, he started noticing the enormous number of hitchhikers while driving in this car, paying particular attention to the fact that they appeared to be young female college students. By keeping supplies like knives, blankets, bags, and handcuffs in his car, he started to assemble a ‘kill kit’ and started picking up and dropping off young women. Before his sexual compulsions – which he would refer to as ‘zapples’ – took control, he gave rides to more than 150 women and dropped them off unharmed.
Kemper killed 10 people between May 1972 and April 1973. He picked out young female hitchhikers, enticed them into his car, and took them to a remote location where he killed, beheaded, and dismembered them. He would then perform sexual actions on their severed heads and body parts after the process of dismemberment. After a violent outburst with his mother, he would go out and locate a victim, and psychologists thought the women he killed were just a stand-in for Clarnell. Kemper essentially corroborated this idea in an interview he gave in 1984, saying that his victims symbolized ‘not what my mother was, but what she liked, what she coveted, what was important to her’ and that he was ‘destroying it’.
Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa were hitchhiking to Stanford University on May 7th of 1972 when Ed Kemper pulled over and offered them a lift. The two 18-year-old women agreed and entered his vehicle. He would take them to a wooded environment while keeping in mind the caution to leave no witnesses. He handcuffed Mary Ann and locked Anita in the trunk. Each girl was separately stabbed and strangled before Mary Ann’s body was added to Anita’s in the trunk. The bodies were brought back to Kemper’s flat, where he had sex with them before taking pictures of them, decapitating, and dismembering them. After having his fill of them, he dumped the bodies nearby; three short months later, Mary Ann’s skull was found. The region was thoroughly searched, but the remaining body parts were not discovered.
The next time Kemper would attack was on September 14. Dance student Aiko Koo, 15, was on her way home after class. She decided to hitch a ride after missing the bus. Kemper decided to make a detour to a wooded location after Aiko entered his vehicle. After pointing a gun at the young girl, he unintentionally locked himself out of the vehicle; she was able to help him get back in. He then started to choke her until she passed out, raped her, and killed her. He carried her body home with him and committed the same offense twice. Aiko’s body wasn’t discovered, just like his first victims.
The death of Cindy Schall occurred on January 8, 1973. She agreed to ride with Kemper and vanished into thin air. The police repeatedly warned the public not to take rides from strangers after her murder. They specifically warned college students to avoid getting into a car without a sticker from their school. Unfortunately, Kemper’s mother had one because she worked for the university.
The whole thing ended on April 20, 1973. At night, when his mother was reading in bed, Kemper went into her room. He said “No”, when she asked whether he wanted to stay up all night talking, “Goodbye for now”. While waiting for his mother to doze off, he left the room. Then, sneaking into the bedroom, he battered her with a claw hammer before slitting her throat. He beheaded her after she left and then used her severed head for sexual acts. After finishing, he set the skull on a bookshelf and briefly used it as a dartboard. After an hour of screaming at it, he removed the tongue and larynx. The garbage disposal was used to dispose of these. Then, before heading out for a drink, he raped what remained of her body and concealed it in a closet. He contacted ‘Sally’, a friend of his mother’s, as soon as he got home in the morning and invited her over for dinner. When she came, she was strangled and decapitated. After defiling her body for the remainder of the evening, Ed stuffed it in a cupboard.
Like before, Ed called the police personally, confessed to killing his mother and Sally, and waited patiently for them to show up. He ultimately faced 8 counts of first-degree murder charges, and twice while being held in pre-trial detention, he attempted suicide. He admitted to cannibalism, albeit later he reneged on that statement. He pleaded not guilty due to insanity, but court-appointed psychiatrists determined that he was in fact sane at the time of the killings, and he was subsequently convicted in 1973. Kemper asked for the death penalty as his punishment, but at the time California had a death penalty moratorium, thus he was given eight life sentences instead. Kemper discussed his experience following his arrest in during a parole hearing in May 1979. He said that he received no mental health assessment at all and was placed in isolation right away, where he stayed for five weeks. He described his inner anguish, including feeling incredibly despondent and suicidal after going from the centre of a media frenzy to utter and total seclusion. Kemper has frequently claimed that he knew he was doomed to kill because his fantasies became so vivid and persistent that he felt compelled to act them out.
Despite the seeming unusual and intriguing connection between his relationship with his mother and the women he would prey on, he isn’t the only serial murdered to experience ‘mommy issues’. The most well-known of these is Ed Gein, who had an abusive mother and a violent alcoholic father. After her death, he would specifically pursue women that resembled her. H.H. Holmes underwent physical and psychological abuse from both of his parents as a child, and his father was also an alcoholic. Later, he would build a murder house where he would torment and torture 27 women before their death. And the mother of Charles Manson allegedly exchanged him for a beer.
It is interesting to note that Kemper and Herbert Mullin developed a close relationship while spending a few months as cell neighbors. Kemper discussed his experience testing behaviour modification therapy with Mullin in an interview from 1991. Mullin was hesitant to accept Kemper’s offer of peanuts because of Kemper’s intimidating size and appearance, but Kemper wanted to introduce himself as a friendly face. Eventually, he started rewarding him with peanuts when he ‘behaved well’ and punishing him by pouring a cup of water over him when he ‘did bad’.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written. Edmund Kemper is recorded in this archive at ten deaths. The eight counts of first degree murder described here are the 1973 convictions, which cover the six students, his mother and her friend Sally Hallett; the two earlier deaths, his grandparents, were killed when he was fifteen and dealt with in the juvenile system, which is how the total reaches ten. He asked for the death penalty, California's moratorium was in force, and he received eight life sentences. Two asides need flagging. The murder house and the twenty seven women belong to H.H. Holmes, not to Kemper, and twenty seven is the number Holmes confessed to rather than a proved figure; Holmes has no entry in this archive. The story that Charles Manson's mother sold him for a jug of beer is a long standing anecdote that his own biographers regard as unverified, and it is repeated here as “allegedly”.