But also, once the Co-Ed Killer was on the rampage, he had a direct line into the progress of the investigation, allowing him to anticipate their next move’. This made him feel like an insider, gave him the vicarious thrill of a policeman’s power.
Like many serial killers, Kemper’s fascination with authority means he’s on friendly terms with many of his local police and they think it a prank by their friend, ‘Big Ed’.The FBI profiler John Douglas later observed that Kemper liked to ‘frequent bars and restaurants known to be police hangouts and strike up conversations. So, he puts in a call to the police back in Santa Cruz and confesses. On just a practical level, there’s little chance that this murder won’t be linked to him. He makes it to Colorado but realises that with the killing of his mother, it is over. On Easter Sunday, 1973, Edmund Kemper flees. Kemper is charged with eight counts of murder.November 1973 Kemper is found guilty of eight counts of murder.2012 Kemper’s next scheduled parole hearing. In fact, it takes several calls before anyone takes him seriously. He does the same to her friend, 59 year old Sally Hallett.23 April 1973 Kemper rings the Santa Cruz police and confesses, much to their disbelief. He beheads, and rapes both the severed head, and the headless body, and then disposes of the remains wherever is easiest.Easter 1973 Kemper finally focuses on the cause of his rage and kills his mother. After killing, he performs what has now become his routine. Kemper kills her.7 January 1973đ9 year old student Cindy Schall is picked up and killed by Kemper.5 February 1973Ē4 year old Rosalind Thorpe and 23 year old Allison Liu are picked up by Kemper on campus grounds. But the policeman doesn’t check the boot and lets Kemper go.August 1972 The remains of Mary Ann Pesce’s head are found.14 September 1972Ěiko Koo decides to hitchhike rather than wait for the bus. Returning home with their bodies, he’s stopped because of a broken rear light.
After finding he was too tall to join the police, he takes on a series of unremarkable jobs.May 1972 Kemper murders hitchhiking students Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa. They already have one daughter, and will soon have another one, but Edmund will be their only son.1957Ğdmund’s parents’ divorce and his father leaves home1963 Kemper kills both grandparents and is imprisoned.1969 Kemper is released from the state hospital on parole. (They release him, without irony, into his mother’s care.)ġ8 December 1948Ğdmund Kemper III is born to Edmund Kemper Jr and Clarnell Strandberg in Burbank California. This is against the advice of his doctor, and Edmund himself. Tests reveal him to have an extremely high IQ. He masks his obsession with sexual violence with an outward calm. There, he especially likes listening to serial rapists retell their crimes. Edmund says later he killed him so he wouldn’t have to see what Edmund had done to his wife.Įdmund rings his mother and the police and waits for them.ĭiagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he’s sent to State Hospital. When his grandfather returns, Edmund shoots him dead. ‘I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.’ On his first summer there, he shoots his grandma in the head and then repeatedly stabs her because. His father again rejects him and Edmund is made to live with his grandparents on their ranch in California. At 15, Edmund tries to reconcile with his father. His mother locks him in the basement fearing he’ll rape his sister. Puberty for Edmund involves masturbatory images of killing everyone in town and then having sex with their corpses. As the writer Harold Schechter notes, for serial killers, ‘animal torture isn’t a stage. He slices off the top of its skull all the while holding onto its leg so he’s showered in its blood. This is his first trophy.Īt 13, he uses a machete on the replacement cat. Once dead, he digs it up, decapitates it, and displays it on a spike. A ten year old Edmund buries alive his cat. At home, he decapitates his sister’s doll: Then his pets. One of his favourite school games is pretending he’s being executed in a gas chamber.