ATH: REAL KILLERS: EDMUND KEMPER III

EDMUND KEMPER III

Edmund "Ed" Kemper III was 6'9" but despite his huge size, he was seen as a whimp in school. Ed was an incredibly smart killer with a sick imagination and an insatible lust for blood. Kemper killed his family cat at the tender age of nine by burying it alive in his back yard. He later dug up the cat corpse, cut off it's head, and stuck it on the end of a stick. He placed the head in his room where, it is said, he prayed to it and facinated about murder. His parents also seperated when he was nine. Although he only killed eight, Kemper is a sick individual.

In the begining

Ed Kemper was the son of Clarnell and E.E. Kemper Jr. E.E. Was a war hero and was admired by his son. Clarnell was a hard woman to get along with. After E.E. and Clarnell split up when Ed was nine, she began makeing him sleep in the basement at night to "toughen him up" and because she didn't want him sleeping in the same room as his sister. She continued to do this untill a breif return of E.E. put an end to it. In school, Ed was said to have been shy, not a trouble maker, and able maintain decent grades. He was constantly afraid of being beaten up by other children despite his size, and was unable to keep friends. Children teased him and he often facinated about what it would be like to kill them. He was cruel to animals, torturing and killing them to enact his murderous and sexual fantasys. He felt unloved and unwanted and eventually asked to be sent to L.A. to live with his father and Stepmother. His father also found him unmanagable and frightening, and after a holiday trip to his grandparents house, he was left with them. His grandfather gave him a gun which he loved to use to kill rabbits, gophers, and birds. Kemper's grandmother nagged at him constantly and often did not like the way that Ed looked at her. He often drempt of what it would be like to shoot her. This sustained his killing need for the time being, untill August 27, 1964 when he found his grandmother's nagging unbarible and shot her in the head at the dinner table at the age of 15. He then covered her head with a towel and brought the body into a bedroom. His grandfather soon returned home and began to unload groceries. Ed shot him in the back of the head. He later claimed that the reason he shot his grandfather was to protect him from having to see his wife dead, and possibly having a heart attack anyway. His first two kills bothered him, not only because he felt slightly guilty, but because he knew he would be caught. He called his mother, who told him to call the county Sheriff. Later, as he was being questioned, he confessed to both murders saying "I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma". Ed was incarcerated in juvenile hall while the California Youth Authority decided what the next step was. A court appointed psychologist diagnosed Ed as a paranoid psychotic, and he was sent to a mental hospital.

Ed in the hospital

Edmund Kemper learned alot in the asylum. He met rapists, and other murderers. As he talked to them, he began to make mental notes of what they had done wrong. He wanted to understand how not to get caught. He began to see that the other attackers had abused people they knew or attacked in too public of a place. Their other mistake was that they left witnesses and evidence. No planning. Comming into puberty and sexuality, he began to have sick fantasys of murder and sexual pleasure. He did not share his visions with the doctors though. He manipulated them. He made them think he was the model patient, being well behaved, clean cut, and showing a great work ethic. He started expressing intrest in becoming a police officer, but he was denied this chance because aside from having minimum hight requirements, both local and state law enforcement had maximum height requirements, and Kemper was too large. In 1969, Kemper was released. He was a square in a world of hippies who wanted to go against the grain. Kemper was clean cut and Had a nice mustache. He did not fit in at all. He was still under the watchfull eye of the Youth Authority.

The outside world...

Ed was dissapointed that he couldn't be a cop but bought a motorcycle, so he could atleast feel like one. After continued success in the outside world, he was fully released, but the hospital highly recommended that he not be sent back to his mother, because they felt she was the main reason that he was a sociopath. Despite the hospital's recomendations, the Youth Authority sent him to live with her anyway. His mother constantly hounded him about very trivial things and they constantly faught. Ed would often be seen at a diner that was frequented by off duty officers, whith whom he was very respectful and spent hours talking about law and guns. The officers refured to him as "Big Ed". He got a job as a leaboror for the devision of highways. His stay with his mother was short lived, as he soon saved enough money to move north just outside of SanFransisco. Kemper moved in with a roommate.

Studies in Murder

Kemper eventually saved up enough to buy a car that looked just like an unmarked police car. He equiped his new ride with a C.B. radio and a large whip antenna. He then began to pick up hichikers. His new companions tended to be beautiful young women. He began to study how they reacted to him. He learned how to make them trust him as he drove them, unharmed, to their destinations. He studied his passengers for about a year. Kemper kept weeding out all the posibilities as to what and how he would enact his fantasys. He rigged the back doors to not open from the inside. He also kept knives, rope, a gun or two, garbage bags, and a blanket in his trunk. Then the time came on May 7, 1972. Kemper made his well planned move. Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchese were hitchhiking to a college less than a mile away from where they had been picked up. Kemper eventually took out a gun from under his seat and took them to a gravel road. He put Anita in his trunk while he began to work on Mary Ann. He First tried to suffocate her with a bag over her head, but she bit through it and he soon stabbed her several times before slashing her throat. He then removed Anita from the trunk and stabbed her several times with a larger knife. Knowing his roommate was out for the evening, he took the bodies back to his home, where he dismembered Mary Ann's, taking pictures every once in a while. He later beheaded Anita's body. He put the remains of Mary Ann in the same bag he tried to suffocate her with and burried it. He kept both heads for a while but soon desposed of them. Mary Ann’s head was found and Identified in August. Neither Anita's head nor body were ever found. On September 14, 1972, Kemper picked up Aiko Koo, who was a 15 year old girl with a passion for dancing. She caught on to his plan, and began to panic. Kemper convinced her that he planned to use the gun on himself and would not hurt her if she didn't draw attention to them. She agreed. Kemper then drove her into the mountians where he killed her with her own scarf and his bare hands, raped her, and threw her corpse in the trunk. He drove to a bar, had a few drinks then paid his mother a visit. Kemper later took Aiko's body to his home where he dissected her and cut off her head. He burried her head and hands in a different place then the rest of her body, and to this day, not all of her has been found. No one suspected that her dissapearance had anything to do with that of Mary Ann or Anita. Between the four months since he had killed last, Kemper moved in with his mother.

Back with mommy

On January 8, 1973 Kemper bought a .22 caliber automatic pistol, with no problems, despite his past infringements with the law. His next victim was a woman named Cindy who he forced to climb into the trunk where he shot her in the head. The bullet from his new gun was lodged into her skull. Later that night, Kemper brought the body home where he waited untill his mother left for work before having sex with the body. He then broguht the body to the bath tub where he dissected it and carefully removed the bullet from the skull. He was careful to clean up any trace of what he had done. Kemper burried Cindy's head in his back yard then threw the body parts, which he had placed in plastic bags, off a near by cliff. Cindy's body parts were discovered within 24 hours. Althogh he noticed, Kemper did not worry. One month later, after a huge fight with his mother, Kemper was ready to kill again. February 5, 1973. Kemper picked up two hitchhikers, but this time he didn't even bother stopping the car and shot them both while driving. He pulled into a cul-de-sac lot to transfer the bodys into the trunk. He went home, but left his house after only a short time, and beheaded the bodies. The next day, he brought one of the headless corpses into the house and had sex with it. He then brought the other victim's head into the house to remove a bullet from her skull, as he had done with a previous victim. He drove to two seperate towns to despose of the bodys. One for the bodys and the other for the heads and hands. Then it was time for mother...

The final deaths

On the night before easter, Kemper waited and planned how to kill his mother. He finaly decided what he would do and carried out his plan at around 5:00am that morning. He stalked into her room and hit her with a hammer as hard as he could. He then slit her throat, cutting out her larynx in the process. He tried to despose of the larynx down the garbage disposal, but it spit back out at him, which he found slightly ammusing and not at all surprising. He stuffed the body in a closet and decided the next day that if his mother's body was found with another one, it would point the finger of blame away from him. Later that afternoon, he called his mother's friend, Sarah, who was a woman in her late 50s. As she arrived, he strangled her with the same scarf that he had obtained from Aiko. The next day he had sex with her corpse. He began to run. From himself, from the police, and from the fear that he knew he would be caught. He called local police and confessed to all eight murders. At first, police dismissed his call as a crank call, but after he gave details that only the killer could know, they paid attention.

In Custody

After being brought back to town, Kemper proudly lead the police to several sites where he had desposed of bodies. Kemper seemed to almost brag about what he had done and as he confessed to his crimes, he went on and on. He told of the pleasure he took in killing and why he killed. Durring his trial, Kemper plead insanity due to the fact that his confession left nothing to the imagination, but was convicted on all eight accounts of murder. At one point, Kemper even admited to cannibalism. Durring his trial, it was proven that Kemper craved attention, violence and sex. His crave of attention hit a peak when he triet to slash his wrists with a ball point pen in a botched suicide attempt. It has since been detirmaned that if he were released, carnage would insue. He has admitted that if he were let free, people would die. Before his trial Kemper stated that he wanted to be "locked up in a little room, where I can't hurt anybody and I'd be left to my fantasies."

In Conclusion

Since his incarceration Kemper has helped profilers learn more about the serial killers mind then most wanted to know. He did satalite broadcast interview with John Wayne Gacy in 1988, in which he and Gacy discussed their crimes. As always, Kemper was excited to discuss what he had done and did so in great detail. Kemper continues to enjoy discussions about his crimes and will do so from a cell that he now calls home. He has little to no desire to ever be set free. Kemper is one sicko psycho. But now you know his story inside and out.