Episode 32- Edmund Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer

Amanda: Hey, there all you true crime fans. I'm Amanda. Kori: And I'm Kori. Amanda: And welcome back to Colorado Crime. You guys know the drill. We're just two best friends who want to chat about all things true Crime. So let's get into this week's joke to lighten things up before we talk about murders. Just a disclaimer, we have integrated Serial Killer Tuesday into our regular lineup, so we will no longer be doing a podcast on Tuesday. But we just didn't want to get burned out like we were before, because we love being here and we love talking to you guys. Kori: And we were tired. Amanda: We were very tired. Kori: Okay, so are you ready for today's funny, hilarious joke? Amanda: Absolutely. Hit me. Kori: What gets wetter the more it dries? Amanda: Oh, Jesus. This isn't that kind of podcast. Gosh. Kori: It's a towel. Amanda: Oh, Amanda. Geez, you pervert. I like that one. Kori: It's cute. Amanda: It's cute. Kori: You're welcome. Fans. I know, Podcastians. Amanda: Thanks for always having jokes for us. I like having them. Kori: You're welcome. Some of them are not listener approved, but yeah, whatever. Amanda: Yeah. Guys, if you're listening, let us know what kind of jokes you guys want to hear. Like, I don't know, hypothetically, like your mama jokes or something. Just saying. If you're interested in that, let us know. Cory's got a good one. It's pretty funny, but we don't want to be offensive. So if that's not your cup of tea, then we won't put it on here. We'll just laugh between each other, and you guys miss out on the hilarity. But that's fine. Kori: All right. Amanda: Well, guys, before we jump into the infamous Edmund Kemper, otherwise known as the Co Ed Killer, we did want to take a quick second to remind you guys that we are accepting donations on our cast of site. So, again, please don't feel obligated to donate. But if you would like to, we would absolutely love your support, and we will link that in the show notes if you'd like to check it out. As always, listener discretion is advised. Kori: Okay, are you ready? We're going to get into the life and killings of Edmund Kemper. Edmund Emile Kemper II was born December 18, 1948. He was born in Burbank, California, to Clarnell Elizabeth Kemper and Edmund Emile Kemper Jr. He was the middle child of three and the only son. Ed's dad was a World War II veteran who tested nuclear weapons at the Pacific proving grounds. When he came back from the war, he then returned to California and became an electrician, which to his wife, Clarnell, was a menial job. Being electrician is a hard. Like, it's not menial at all. Edmund jr. Yeah. Edmund Jr. Had at one time stated that the suicide missions and atomic bomb testings were nothing compared to living with Clarnell. Amanda: Told you, jerk. Kori: Yeah. Can you imagine? You'd rather be on a suicide mission than live with your wife. When little Ed was born, he weighed a whopping 13 pounds. By the time he was four, he was a head taller than all other four year olds. By the age of ten, he was exhibiting antisocial behavior by torturing animals and insects. He had buried a pet cat alive. Then, once it had died, he dug it up, cut off its head, and mounted the head on a stick. When he was 13, he killed another pet cat that he thought liked his younger sister more than him. He kept pieces of it in his closet until his mother found them. Ed had a lot of dark fantasies and a really morbid imagination. He liked to perform last rites on his younger sister's dolls, which culminated into him cutting off their heads and hands. Once, his sister had teased him about not trying to kiss his teacher, and he told her that if he tried to kiss her, he would have to kill her first. Amanda: Yikes. That's some foreshadowing. Kori: As a young boy, Ed would sneak out of the house armed with his father's bayonet and go to his second grade teacher's house to watch her through the window. He also stated in several interviews that his favorite games to play as a child were gas chamber and electric chair. This game was played with his younger sister. He would have her tie him up and flip an imaginary switch. Then he would tumble over and writhe on the floor, pretending to have been electrocuted. Amanda: Yikes. Kori: I know that seems like a scary game, right? Amanda: It reminds me of the Adams family, right? Kori: Ed also had some near death experiences. As a child, his older sister tried to kill him twice. Once she tried to push him in front of a train, and the second time she pushed him into the deep end of a swimming pool where he almost drowned. Amanda: Oh, my gosh. Kori: I know. He had a very violent childhood. Ed was especially close to his father, and he was devastated when his parents separated in 1957 and eventually divorced in 1961. He was then raised by Clarnell and Helena Montana. His mother was not the nicest person in the world for sure. She was a neurotic, domineering alcoholic who belittled, humiliated, and abused Ed. She would keep him locked up in the basement of their home because she feared that he would harm his sister. She was probably not wrong about. Amanda: Like, I thought he was little when she did, like, before he even really started exhibiting any signs. I thought he was, like, five or something. And let's be clear, really? Kori: I don't know if she necessarily did it as much when his dad was living with them. I think, honestly, she started doing it when their dad wasn't there. Amanda: Okay. Kori: That's why he was close to his father. Amanda: This isn't a regular basement, though. This isn't like, oh, hey, I'm going. Kori: To be like, a scary basement. Amanda: It was a trap door that was located underneath their kitchen table, and they would lock it from the top, and he had to be let out. That's awful. Kori: Yeah. Amanda: Sorry. I digress. Kori: No, you're fine. She mocked him for being big and tall at 15. He was 64 and he was a big kid, and she called him a weirdo. Amanda: That's not fair. Kori: No. She refused to show him any affection for fear it would turn him also. Yeah. She also repeatedly told him that he reminded her of his father and that no woman would ever love him. Ed had described her as a very sick, angry woman, and it has been suggested that she had borderline personality disorder. When Ed was 14, he ran away from home to his father's house in Vanoise, California. Once he got there, he found out that his father had remarried and had a stepson. Ed stayed with him for just a little while until he was sent to live with his paternal grandparents, who lived on a ranch at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, 2 miles west of the town of Northfolk. He hated living there. He had described his grandpa as senile and that his grandma was constantly emasculating him and his grandma. He was not pleased to be left at the farm with his grandparents once the holidays ended, but he began to go to school there anyways and seemed to make some progress. His teachers at the Sierra Joint Union High School in nearby Toll House, California, found him quiet and rather meek. In fact, he never caused any trouble. He made average grades and drew no undue attention to himself, apart from how big he was. At home with his grandparents, however, the situation was tense but bearable. They found him disconcerting, as had his mother and father, but he kept busy and out from underfoot with his dog and a. 22 rifle given to him by his grandpa, Ed Kemper SR. He shot rabbits and gophers and birds, although he had been warned not to, and evidently contained his aggression to this one outlet, which was good. Amanda: Yeah. Kori: At the end of the school year, however, he returned to his mother and sisters in Helena and was supposed to spend the summer there. But within two weeks, he was back at the farm. Once he was back, his grandma, Maude Kemper, commented that he had evidently regressed. He seemed more sullen, more ominous, and now that he wasn't in school, he was ever present at the farm. For his part, Ed found his grandmother was a nag and his grandpa was a boar. His violent fantasies returned, this time starring his grandma, Maude. He imagined her in the outhouse as he shot it full of holes. He lined her up, unawares in the sight of his rifle, and thought about what it would be like to kill her. As the tension in the farm mounted, his grandmother grew more nervous. She took Ed Kemper Sr's 45 caliber pistol with her on at least one outing for fear it would fall into Ed's hands. She had warned him not to touch it, but obviously did not trust him to do what he was told. Edmund took this lack of trust as an insult and brooded on it all summer long. The tension was growing. I know. Can you imagine being scared in your own house, but of your 15 year old, 64, probably 200 pound grandson? Amanda: No. Kori: It's scary. Amanda: Well, I guess this whole case kind of raises the nature versus nurture argument, because I'm sure that Clarnell, the lovely Ever kind, was telling her parents or even her in laws that know, he's just such a troubled kid right. During this time frame. Kori: He's scary. Amanda: Yeah. And, I mean, kids words weren't taken like they weren't worth anything. Instead of the grandparents getting to know their grandson, I feel like they kind of took Clarnell's word at face value, and they're like, oh, well, he's a bad kid, and we think he's a bad kid, versus trying to connect with him at all. Not that Ed Kemper is a bad dude. I'm not saying that know, could have he did deserve better, though. I'm not saying he didn't deserve better because he's a human, but, I mean, it'd be interesting to see if you could go back and change it, right? Kori: Maybe if this kid better home or something. Amanda: Yeah. Well, on August 27, 1964, ed, who was 15, he was still at his grandparents farm. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his grandma Maude when they had an argument. Ed stomped off angrily and got a gun that he'd been given for hunting. He had had the gun taken away because he was using it to needlessly shoot animals. He went back into the kitchen and fatally shot his grandma in the head before shooting her twice in the back. His grandma's last words were, quote, oh, you'd better not be shooting birds again. End quote. Then when his grandpa Ed returned home from the grocery store, he went out to the driveway and fatally shot his grandpa in the car. Ed, being 15, didn't know what he was supposed to do next, so he called his mom, Clarnell. She told him to call the police. Ed called, and then he waited there to be taken into custody. After he was arrested, he told the police that, quote, he just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma. End quote. He then testified that he killed his grandpa so that he wouldn't find out his wife was dead and be angry with Ed. A psychiatrist named Donald Lund interviewed Ed when Ed was an adult. He had written that quote, in his way, he had avenged the rejection of both his mother and father. End quote. Ed's crimes were deemed incomprehensible for a 15 year old to commit, and he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He was sent to a Tuscadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo, California. At a Tuscadero. Psychiatrists and social workers disagreed with Ed's diagnosis. Their reports stated that Ed showed no flight of ideas, no interference with thought, no expressions of delusions or hallucinations, and no evidence of bizarre thinking. They observed him to be intelligent and introspective. Then they tested his IQ. The initial testing measured his IQ at 136. That's over two standard deviations above average. He was then rediagnosed with a personality trait disturbance and passive aggressive type. Later on, during his time at a Tuscadero, they tested him again. This time he tested at 145. So obviously, he was very, very intelligent. Kori: I also don't agree with the paranoid schizophrenic. He's not schizophrenic at all. Amanda: That's not him. No. So during his time there, Ed was a model prisoner, and they trained him to give out psychiatric tests to other inmates. It was said that he was a very good worker and that this was not typical of a sociopath. He really took pride in his work. Ed also became a member of the JCS while in a Tuscadero and claimed to have developed, quote, some new tests on some new scales on the Minnesota Multifacetic Personality Inventory, end quote. Specifically, an overt hostility scale during his work with a tuscaderopsychiatrist. After his second arrest, Kemper said that being able to understand how these tests function allowed him to manipulate his psychiatrists, admitting that he learned a lot from the sex offenders to whom he administered the tests. Kori: I am not surprised, but the JC's is like a United States Junior chamber. It's a leadership training service. Amanda: Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Kori: So he was a really smart kid and also a little manipulative, but yeah, whatever. Amanda: Maybe a little bit more than a little. I mean, I feel like every kid's kind of manipulative, but Ed takes it to a whole new level. Kori: On December 18, 1969, on Ed's 21st birthday, he was released on parole. Against the recommendations of his psychiatrist, he was released to his mother. Amanda: Oh. Kori: Yay Clarnell resided in Aptos, California, which was a short drive from where she worked as an administrative assistant at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ed had later demonstrated to his psychiatrist that he was rehabilitated, and on November 20, 1972, his juvenile records records were permanently expunged. Yeah. The last reports from his psychiatrist read as follows if I were to see a patient without having any history available or getting any history from him, I would think that we were dealing with a very well adjusted young man who had the initiative, intelligence, and who was free of any psychiatric illness. 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 any member of society. And since it may allow him more freedom as an adult to develop his potential, I would consider it reasonable to have a permanent expungement of his juvenile. Mm hmm. Amanda: That's something you lose sleep over at night later down the road. Kori: Right. While he was staying with his mother, ed went to community college, which was in accordance with his parole requirements. Ed really wanted to be a police officer, but he was rejected because of his size. At that time, he was 69, which now I don't think that would be, like a thing, but back in the 70s, they didn't want you to be a giant. He was given the nickname Big. Ed maintained relationships with the Santa Cruz police officers despite him being rejected from the force. He became a self described friendly nuisance and hung out at a popular cop hangout called the Jury Room. Ed worked a series of menial jobs during his day with his mother before he got a good job with the State of California Division of Highways. His relationship with his mother remained toxic and hostile. They had frequent fights that were often heard by the neighbors. He later described his fights with his mother as the following my mother and I started right in on horrendous battles. Just horrible battles, violent and vicious. I have never been in such a vicious, vertebral battle with anyone. It would go to fists with a man. But this was my mother, and I couldn't stand the thought of my mother and I doing these things. She insisted on it and just over stupid things. I remember one roof raiser was over whether or not I should have my teeth cleaned. That's kind of sad, right? You're just fighting with her all the time. When Ed had saved enough money, he moved out to live with a friend in Alameda. He still complained that he could not get away from his mother, as she would regularly phone him and pay him surprise visits. So she was kind of codependent, too. Amanda: Yeah, definitely. Kori: He also had a lot of financial problems, and that resulted in him frequently returning to his mother's house. When Ed was in his early 20s, he met a student from Turlock High School to whom he became engaged to in March 1973. Their engagement would last over a year, but they broke up when Ed was arrested the second time. And they didn't break up right when he was arrested. They broke up through the trial and everything like that because they were together for a year from March on. But I think when you go to. Amanda: Trial no, well, I mean, I think also as an adult, when you're engaged to a high school student, I mean, that's kind of doomed from the start. Kori: Right. But it was the 70s, so that's a different time. Amanda: Different time. Different times. Kori: Different times. When Ed was working for the Highway Division, he was hit by a car while riding his recently purchased motorcycle. His arm was badly injured in the crash, and he received a settlement of $15,000, which in 2022 would have been $98,883. Amanda: Wow. Kori: He bought a 1969 Ford Galaxy with part of the money and he started notice women, or he started noticing women hitchhiking. That's why it was the 70s. Amanda: Don't hitchhike anymore, right? Kori: Lots of people were killed hitchhiking. So he began storing plastic bags, knives, blankets, and handcuffs in his car. He began picking up women and then just peacefully letting them go. According to Ed, he picked up around 150 hitchhikers who were in line with this pattern. This was before he felt the homicidal sexual urges, which he called his little zapples. And then he later on began acting on those urges. Sometimes he blamed the women he killed for hitchhiking. He said they were flaunting it in his face that they could do anything they damn wanted, and that society is as screwed up as it is. Amanda: Okay? We're not telling you not to hitchhike because you're flaunting it, right? We're telling you not to hitchhike because we don't want you to get dead. Kori: Right? Amanda: What the hell, Ed? Get your life in order like that. Kori: Meme that's like, if you pick up a hitchhiker and the hitchhiker asks you why'd you pick me know, aren't you afraid I'm a serial killer? And you're like, well, the chance of there being two of us in the same car is slim to none. Amanda: I wish it was quicker on my toes, because that's a good one. Not that I would pick up a hitchhiker, really. Sorry. I wouldn't though. Anyway, back to our story. Ed killed eight people between May of 1972 and April of 1973. They were all women. He would pick up female students who were hitchhiking, then take them to isolated areas where he would shoot, stab, smother, or strangle them. He would then take their bodies back to his house, where he would behead them and perform aromatio on their heads, which you can look it up, but aromatio is a form of oral sex in which a male thrusts their basically, I don't need to get into this too graphically, but it's a very violent form of oral sex. Kori: Basically oral rape, yes. Amanda: And it's very violent. Ed would then have sex with their corpses. Then he would dismember them. During his eleven month murder spree, ed killed five female college students, one female high school student, his mother and his mother's best friend. Ed has stated in multiple interviews that he often would search for victims after he had a fight with his mother. She refused to introduce him to any women at the college that she worked at. He stated that she would tell him, quote, you're just like your father. You don't deserve to get to know them. End quote. Ed and his psychiatrists believe that the women he killed were surrogates for his ultimate target, his mom. Kori: Okay, now that we have the little backstory on Ed, we'll get into his victims. Like we stated before, Ed killed a total of eight women. The first two women that he killed were 18 year old Marianne Pesky and anita, Mary Lucheza, they were both hitchhiking college students from Fresno State University. He was driving to Berkeley and saw them and promised to take them to Stanford University. After he drove around for about an hour, he managed to reach a secluded area of the woods near Alameda. He was familiar with this area because of his work with the Division of Highways. He also managed to change directions without the women noticing. That is the sign of a good fucking driver, right? If you're driving and people are in your car and all of a sudden you're going a different way and they don't notice, man, that is some talented shit. Amanda: But I don't have my GPS. We're lost. Also, I'm going to turn down the radio to make the turn. Kori: Let's be honest, it was 1972 or whatever. Amanda: Yeah, it was the didn't have you. Kori: Didn'T have GPS or you had a paper map. Amanda: Did he spend a lot of his time? Oh, he worked for the Highway Division, yes. Kori: So once they got into the woods, he handcuffed Mary Ann and locked Anita in the trunk of his car, the 1969 Four Galaxy. He then stabbed and strangled Mary Anne to death and later killed Anita in the same manner. He told interviewers that while he was handcuffing Marianne, he accidentally brushed the back of his hand against her breast and he was embarrassed and he told her that he was sorry despite the fact that he ended up murdering her moments later. He also said that he would choose women that seemed like they were more upper class because he really didn't like the dirty, smelly, hippie types. It's interesting that he had a preference on different types of women. Once he killed both of the women, he put them in the trunk of his car and returned to his apartment. While he was driving home, he was pulled over by the police for having a broken taillight. But luckily for Ed and unluckily for the women in the trunk of his car, the officer did not detect the corpses in the trunk. Once he got to his apartment, he took both the bodies upstairs. His roommate was thankfully not at home at the time. Ed photographed both of the bodies, had sex with their naked corpses, then dismember them. He put the body parts in plastic bags and threw them away near the Loma Prietta Mountains. Before he disposed of their heads, he performed the violent iromatio with both of them. In August of 1972, mary Anne's skull was found on Loma Prieta Mountain. But an extensive search failed to turn up any more of her remains or any of the remains of Anita. Aiko Cool was just a young 15 year old high school student. On September 14, 1972, she had missed the bus that she normally would take to her dance class, so she decided to hitchhike again. Please do not hitchhike ever. Ed saw her and picked her up. He drove her to a remote area and pulled a gun on her. Then he accidentally locked himself out of the car. Now, if this happens to you, scoot over to the driver's seat and drive away because the keys are in the car. However, that is not what happened with Aiko. She let him back in despite the fact that the gun was actually still in the car with her at the time. Once she let him back in, he choked her until she was unconscious, then raped and strangled her with her own scarf. He then put her lifeless body in the trunk of Evie's car and went to a nearby bar to have some drinks. Then he went back to his apartment. He later confessed that once he had left the bar and went to his car, he opened the trunk and admired his, quote, catch like a fisherman. End quote. Amanda: EW. Kori: Once he got back to the apartment, he had sex with her corpse, then dismembered and disposed of her remains, much like he had done with the first two victims. Aiko's mother called the police to report her daughter missing and put up hundreds of flyers asking for information. But she never received any response, and they never found very much of her remains. Amanda: Ed found his next victim on January 7, 1973. By this time, Ed had moved back in with his mother again. He was driving around Cabrillo College campus and picked up an 18 year old student named Cynthia Ann, otherwise known as Cindy Shawl. He drove her to a wooded area where he fatally shot her with a. 22 caliber pistol. He put her body in the trunk of his car and drove back to his mother's house. He took her body out of the car and hid her in a closet in his room until his mother went to work the next day. Once she had left, he took the body out of the closet, had sex with it, and removed the bullet from her skull. He then cut her head off and dismembered her body, all in his mother's bathtub. Ed kept Cindy's severed head for several days, regularly having oral sex with it. He then buried it in his mother's garden, facing upward towards her bedroom. He discarded the rest of Cindy's remains by throwing them over a cliff. Over the course of several weeks, cindy's scattered remains were found, except for her head and right hand. The pathologist determined that her body had been cut into pieces with a power saw. When Ed was interviewed later on, he stated that he buried Cindy's head like that because, quote, his mother always wanted people to look up to her. End quote. Kori: Creepy. Amanda: Yeah, that adds, like, a whole weird psychological level that I feel like most murders don't have. Kori: Right. That's like, mom and him had a very traumatic clearly. Yeah. Amanda: That's like, anger on a whole new level, though. On February 5, 1973, ed got into a heated argument with his mother and left his house to look for someone to kill. At this time, there was a heightened suspicion of a serial killer preying on hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area, so police had advised all the students to only accept rides from cars with university stickers on them. Ed was able to find his way around this because his mom worked for the UCSC. So he just got a sticker to put on his car, which I feel. Kori: Like that was a dumb thing for. Amanda: The police to like that wasn't something hard to find back. I mean, you can get a college sticker. Mean, you can even get, like, college shirts at target now, which, I mean, like, yes, we're years and years later, but you told people what to do. Yeah. While he was driving around the UCSC campus, he encountered 23 year old Rosalind Thorpe and her friend, 20 year old Alice Helen Allison Lou. According to Ed, Rosalind got into the car first, then convinced Allison to get in as well. He fatally shot Rosalind first, then he shot Allison. He wrapped their bodies with blankets and drove them to his mother's house. Kori: Ed tried something new this time. He beheaded both of the women in his car first, and then carried their headless bodies into his mother's house to have sex with them. He then dismembered them and removed the mean. He was pretty smart. Yeah. He discarded their remains. The next morning, some of their remains were found at Eden Canyon about a week after their murder. More remains were found in March near route one. While Ed was being questions after his arrest about why he decapitated the victims, he said, quote, the head trip fantasies were a bit like a know. The head is where everything is at the brain, the eyes, the mouth. That's the person. I remember being told as a kid, you cut off the head and the body dies. The body is nothing after the head is cut off. Well, that's not quite true. There's a lot left in the girl's body without a head, end quote. A little bit creepy. Amanda: Oh, my god. Kori: Yeah. So if you remember, we told you at one point Ed was engaged. Well, on April 20, 1973, about three weeks after he had gotten engaged, he came home late one night from a party. 52 year old Clarnell, ed's mother, was sitting up in her bed reading a book. She noticed Ed coming into her room and said to him, quote, I suppose you're going to want to sit up and talk all night. Ed told her, nope, good night. He waited for her to fall asleep, then snuck back into her bedroom to beat her with a claw hammer, then slit her throat with a pink. He then cut off her head and humiliated her corpse. Ed put her head on a shelf and screamed at it for an hour. He threw darts at it and then ultimately. Smashed her face in. He cut out her tongue and larynx and tried to put them in the garbage disposal. But the garbage disposal could not break down the tough vocal cords and injected the tissue back into the sink. Ed stated to interviewers that quote that seemed appropriate as much as she bitched and screamed and yelled at me after so many years, end quote. Ed then hid his mother's corpse in a closet and went to have some drinks at a local bar because killing makes you thirsty. After he came back home, he invited his mother's best friend and the final victim, 59 year old Sarah Sally Taylor Hallett over to watch a movie and have some dinner. These people have some long ass names. And where do you get Sally from? Sarah. Amanda: I agree. Like you made it longer. Sarah spelled S-A-R-A for you guys listening. Sally is S-A-L-L-Y. So you went from four to five. You didn't shorten anything? Kori: No. So when Sarah arrived at his mother's house, he strangled her to death so he could create a cover story that his mom and her had left together on a vacation. Smart. He then put her body in a closet, cleaned up and left a note for the police that read, quote, approximately 05:15 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. End quote. I don't know why he left a note if he was trying to create a cover story, but I mean, crazy people do crazy things. So after Ed left the house, he drove nonstop to Pueblo. Amanda: Pueblo friends. Kori: Yeah. He was taking caffeine pills to stay awake for the over 1000 miles trip. He had three guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his car because at that time, he believed he was the target of an active manhunt. He was listening to the radio to catch any news of the killings of his mother and her friend, but didn't hear anything. So what did smarty pants Ed do? He stopped at a payphone to call the police. He confessed to the police over the phone about the murders of his mother and Sarah. But at the time, the police did not take him seriously and told him to call back later. Amanda: Oh, God. Kori: They're like, we don't believe you. Call back later. Amanda: Nobody kills their mom and their mom's best friend and confesses, right? Kori: You dumbass. Anyways, several hours later, he called back and asked to talk to an officer that he personally knew. He told the officer that he killed his mother and Sarah. And then once he was arrested, he confessed to the other six murders. Ed was asked at one time why he turned himself in. And he said, quote, the original purpose was gone. It wasn't serving any physical or any physical or real or emotional purpose. It was just a pure waste of time. Emotionally, I couldn't handle it any longer. Toward the end there, I just started to feel the folly of the whole damn thing. And at the point of near exhaustion, near collapse, I just said, the hell with it all and called it off. End the he had killed the bane of his existence, so he really didn't probably need to murder anymore. Amanda: I wonder, though, if he would have just. Kori: He probably could have got away with it. No one would ever know. Amanda: Right. But if he would have just killed Clarnell to begin with, these other victims probably would have survived. Kori: Correct. But you have to think about it. Amanda: Fixed himself, because that's a broken person. Kori: Yes. You have to figure, though, it was still his mom, so she just finally pushed him to the brink. So upon his arrest and return to Santa Cruz, ed led the investigators to all the various disposal sites that he had used and continued his seemingly endless confession. Amanda: Ed was indicted on eight counts of first degree murder on May 7, 1973 that's my birthday. He was assigned the Chief Public Defender of Santa Cruz County Attorney Jim Jackson. Due to Ed's explicit and detailed confession, his counsel's only option was to plead not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges. Ed twice tried to commit suicide in custody. His trial went ahead. On October 23, 1973, three court appointed psychiatrists found Kemper to be legally sane. One of the psychiatrists, Dr. Joel Fort, investigated his juvenile records and the diagnosis that he was once psychotic. Fort also interviewed Ed, including under truth serum, and relayed to the court that Kemper had engaged in cannibalism, alleging that he sliced flesh from the legs of his victims, then cooked and consumed three strips of flesh in a casserole. Nevertheless, Fort determined that Ed was fully cognizant in each case and stated that Ed enjoyed the prospect of the infamy associated with being labeled a murderer. Ed later recanted the confession of Cannibalism. Kori: I don't think he was a cannibal. Amanda: I don't think so either. But the thought of eating a human like Gross California used the M Notten standard, which held that for a defendant to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that at the time of the committing of the act. The party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of mind and not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. Ed appeared to have known that the nature of his acts were wrong, and he had shown signs of malice aforethought. On November 1, ed took the stand. He testified that he killed the victims because he wanted them, quote, for myself, like possessions, end quote. And attempted to convince the jury that he was insane, based on the reasoning that his actions could have been committed only by someone with an aberrant mind. He stated that two beings inhabited his body and that when the killer personality took over, it was, quote, kind of like blacking out. End quote. On November 8, 1973, the six man, six woman jury deliberated for 5 hours before declaring Ed sane and guilty on all counts. He asked for the death penalty, requesting, quote, death by torture. End quote. However, with a moratorium placed on capital punishment by the Supreme Court of California, he instead received seven years to life for each count, with these terms to be served concurrently, and was sentenced to a California medical facility in Vocaville. Shortly after arriving at California medical facility in 1973, ed was admitted to psychiatrists for reevaluation. He was re diagnosed with antisocial narcissistic and schizotypical personality disorders, which I'm just saying kind of fits. Oh, absolutely. But all of Ed's crimes were in California after Manson. It was after 72 when People versus Anderson overturned the death penalty. For as smart as he was, that was a stupid mistake. He should have known that he wouldn't have gotten death. He would now spend the rest of his life rotting away in a prison cell. Kori: Well, technically not the rest of his life, because he only got sentenced seven years to life. So he's up for true. Mm hmm. So in the California medical facility, ed was incarcerated in the same prison block as other notorious criminals such as Herbert Mullen, and showed which Herbert Mullen was actually killing at the same time Ed was. So it was confusing for police. Amanda: Oh, interesting. Kori: Yeah. Herbert Mullen. Between Herbert Mullen and Ed, they killed 21 people. Amanda: Oh, God. Kori: Yeah. So Ed showed a particular disdain for Mullen, who committed his murders at the same time and in the same area as Ed. He described Mullen as, quote, just a cold blooded killer killing everyone he saw for no good reason. End quote. Ed manipulated and physically intimidated Mullen, who, at five foot nine inches, was a foot shorter than him. Ed stated that, quote, mullen had a habit of singing and bothering people when somebody tried to watch TV. So I threw water on him to shut him up. Then when he was a good boy, I'd give him peanuts. Herbie liked peanuts. This was effective because pretty soon he asked permission to sing. That's called behavior modification treatment. End quote. They gave Ed a lot of leeway. Ed remains among the general population in prison and is considered a model prisoner. He was in charge of scheduling other inmates appointments with psychiatrists and was an accomplished craftsman of ceramic cups. Amanda: Okay, I have a question for you before we go forward. Okay. So do you think that Ed is in GP because of his size or because he would survive in GP? Kori: I think it's a little of both. Amanda: I agree. I think that the main contributing factor would be his size because nobody can really take advantage of nope. Hmm, interesting. Kori: And he's psychologically manipulative, right? So he can get people to do what he wants them to. Amanda: Clearly, Kirby Likes. Kori: Was a he was also a prolific narrator of audiobooks for a charity program that prepped material for the visually impaired. A 1987 Los Angeles Times article stated that he was the coordinator of the prison's program and had personally spent over 5000 hours narrating books with several hundred completed recordings to his name. Ed retired from these positions in 2015 after he experienced a stroke and was declared medically disabled. He received his first rule violation in 2016 for failing to provide a urine sample while he's been in jail. Ed has participated in a number of interviews, including a segment in the 1982 documentary The Killing of America, as well as an appearance in the 1984 documentary Murder No Apparent Motive. His interviews have contributed to the understanding of the mind of serial killers. FBI profiler John Douglas described Ed as, quote, among the brightest prison inmates he's interviewed and capable of rare insight for a violent criminal. End quote. He further added that he personally liked Kemper, referring to him as, quote, friendly, open, sensitive, and having a good sense of humor. End quote. Amanda: Ed is very right. Kori: Ed is very forthcoming about the nature of his crimes and has stated that he participated in the interviews to save others like himself from killing at the end of his murder. No apparent motive. Interview he said, quote, there's somebody out there that is watching this and hasn't done that, hasn't killed people and wants to and rages inside and struggles with that feeling or is so sure they have it under control. They need to talk to somebody about it, trust somebody enough to sit down and talk about something that isn't a crime. Thinking that way isn't a crime. Doing it isn't just a crime. It's a horrible thing. It doesn't know when to quit. It can't be stopped easily once it starts. End quote. Ed was first eligible for parole in 1979. He was denied parole later that year, as well as at his parole hearings in 1980, 1981 and 1982. He subsequently waived his right to a hearing in 1985. He was also denied parole at his 1988 hearing, where he said, quote Society is not ready in any shape or form for me. I can't fault them for that. End quote. He was denied parole again in 1991 and in 1994. He then waived his right to a hearing in 1997 and 2002. He attended the next hearing in 2007, where he was again denied parole. Prosecutor Arie Adney Simmons said, we don't care about how much of a model prisoner he is because of the enormity of his crimes. Ed waived his right to a hearing again in 2012. He was denied parole in 2017 and is eligible again in 2024. At this time, he is still in custody at the California Medical Facility in Vocaville, California. Amanda: All right, what's your thought? Do you think he should be released? Kori: So I have a hard time. I really enjoy Ed Kemper. I think not because I want to be a serial killer. Let's just get that out of the way right now. But I think as a serial killer, he was really fucking smart, and he still is really smart. However, I don't think he's going to kill again. I think he killed the way he needed to, and I think he's done with that. And he is an old man now, so that's the problem when you sentence somebody to charges where they can get parole. I mean, he is a model prisoner. He's done a lot for if you guys have ever watched Mindhunter, that is totally like that depiction of him is totally how he is. He was helpful. He's not really a bad dude. So I don't know. 2024 coming up. Maybe he'll get parole, maybe he won't. They let Manson's people out, so can't really say. It'd be interesting for sure. Amanda: I think I am on the other side of that camp. Kori: You're on the other side of that? Amanda: I think so. I think that's I like the idea of prison and it being used to rehabilitate people, and I think that he has shown definite improvement. But I also think that all these families have to go on without their kids getting to come home. Kori: Right. Amanda: So I don't think that life outside of those four walls for Ed is fair to anybody. Kori: Yeah, he'll be 76. I don't know. Amanda: I can't yeah, no, I absolutely don't think that he would kill again. Kori: I don't think he would either. Honestly. I don't think he would have ever killed again after he killed his mom. I honestly don't think he would have. I think she was his driving factor, and I think with her gone, I think he's kind of done with it. Amanda: I think so too. But he is, I mean, for me. Kori: Seven foot tall, practically. Amanda: Right. Kori: So he's large and scary. Amanda: That's so funny to me. Kori: And he also loves tall people. Amanda: Yeah, I don't know that I would have I feel like she was Barnell really harped on that, that he was too tall. Kori: I mean, he's six foot. He's he's a big dude. Amanda: Oh, for no, he's no Amanda Russell. Kori: That's for I mean, he did have a stroke too. I don't know. I think out of a lot of murderers, I think he's the. Amanda: Oh, I definitely could see. Oh, absolutely. I guess I just go back to he still has gotten to live this life. Clarnell's friend, she was innocent. All the hitchhikers, they were innocent. Really? Nobody deserves what he did, but I could see the only person that had any kind of atoning to do to him would have been Clarnell. But I think mental health was a lot different back then, too. It wasn't a thing. It's hardly a thing now. Kori: Right. Well, I also think, in a way, she's still his mother, so I think he killed other people. So he was like, I can't kill my mom. That's my mom. You know what I mean? And then finally he just snapped, I guess. Amanda: But then I think of all the kids who cut their parents off. Kori: Yeah, but that's how it is now. We've done enough podcasts on kids who kill their parents. So it happens. Amanda: Oh, yeah. I also don't think that Leslie Van Houten should have been released. Kori: Right. But again, what is she, 70? Amanda: I know, but you could have 20 years outside of prison. Kori: Yeah. Amanda: You could have 20 years of walking in the grass. I don't love that for you. I don't love that for anybody. Kori: I don't think he'll get out in 2024, but he could. Amanda: Oh, yeah. We both worked in corrections, and that is the whole point of the prison system, is to reform people. And I think people can be rehabilitated, but ultimately, I think that there needs to be some sort of a payment for what you did. Kori: Right. Amanda: All right, prime fans. Until next time. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. If you haven't already, please subscribe so you can be notified every time we upload. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. New episodes are released every Friday at 10:30, a.m. Mountain Standard Time. Go ahead and give us a follow on Instagram at Colorado Crimepod or on Facebook at the Colorado Crime podcast for information on next week's episode, as well as other true crime happenings, we hope you have a beautiful day wherever you are, and as always, stay safe. Kori: Until next time, podcastians have the weekend you deserve.