Edmund Emil "Big Ed" Kemper III (born December 18, 1948), also known as "The Co-ed Killer" is an American serial killer and necrophile who was active in California in the early 1970s. He started his criminal life by murdering his grandparents when he was 15 years old Kemper later killed and dismembered six female hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area. He then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to the authorities days later. Kemper is noted for his imposing physicality, standing 6'9" (2.06 m) and weighing over 300 pounds (140 kg).
On August 27, 1964, Kemper's grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table working on her latest children's book when she and Kemper began arguing. Eventually Kemper shot her in the head. (Some sources claim that he also stabbed her with a kitchen knife after shooting her). When his grandfather came home from grocery shopping, Kemper went outside and fatally shot him in the driveway Kemper then called his mother, who urged him to call the police When questioned, he said that he "just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma," and that he killed his grandfather because he knew he would be angry at him for what he had done to his grandmother.
At age 15, Kemper was committed to the Atascadero State Hospital, where he befriended his psychologist and even became his assistant. Tests revealed that he had an I.Q. of 136.Kemper was released from prison in 1969, after serving less than five years. At the time of his release, he had grown to 6'9" (2.06 m) and weighed close to 280 pounds (130 kg). Against the wishes of several doctors at the hospital, he was released into his mother's care. Kemper later demonstrated further to the psychologists that he was well – and to have his juvenile records expunged.
He worked a series of menial jobs before securing work with the State of California's Department of Public Works/Division of Highways in District 4 (now known as Department of Transportation or Caltrans). By that time, he weighed about 300 pounds (140 kg).
Between May 1972 and February 1973, Kemper embarked on a spree of murders, picking up eight female students hitchhiking, taking them to isolated rural areas and killing them. He would stab, shoot or smother the victims and afterwards take them back to his apartment where he would have sex with their decapitated heads and bodies and then dissect them.He killed five college girls (four students from UC Santa Cruz and one from Cabrillo College). He would often go hunting for victims after arguing with his mother.
Kemper had managed to stay one step ahead of investigators by virtue of his being friends with many Santa Cruz County police officers. Edmund was a regular at a bar called The Jury Room, which was a popular hangout with local law enforcement officers. None of his friends had any suspicions and freely discussed the case with him. However, his mother's death changed all of that.
Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa
On May 7, 1972, Kemper was driving in Berkeley when he picked up two 18-year-old hitchhiking Fresno State students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, on the pretext of taking them to Stanford University. After a one-hour journey, he drove to a secluded, wooded area near Alameda. There, he smothered and stabbed Pesce to death before fatally stabbing Luchessa.
Kemper then put both corpses in the trunk of his 1969 Ford and returned to his apartment. In his room, he took some pornographic photographs of the naked corpses before dismembering them and putting the body parts into plastic bags, which he later abandoned near Loma Prieta Mountain. Kemper had oral sex with Pesce's severed head before disposing of it and Luchessa's head in a ravine.
Aiko Koo
On the night of September 14, 1972, Kemper picked up 15-year-old Aiko Koo, who had decided to hitchhike home instead of waiting for a bus. While keeping her at gunpoint, he stopped his car at the side of a road and strangled her to death. He placed her body in the trunk of his car and drove back to his mother's house. In his room, he proceeded to rape and dissect her body, as well as conduct several experiments on her corpse. He later dismembered her body and buried her severed head in his mother's garden as a joke, later remarking that his mother "always wanted people to look up to her." He buried the rest of her remains in the backyard of his mother's house.
Cindy Schall
On January 7, 1973, Kemper was driving around the Cabrillo College campus, where he picked up 19-year-old student Cindy Schall. He stopped his car in a secluded, wooded area, where he fatally shot her with a .22 caliber pistol. He placed her body in the trunk of his car and drove back to his mother's house, where he dissected her in a bathtub. He kept the body in his room overnight until he removed the bullet from her head and decapitated her, burying the severed head in his mother's garden. He later proceeded to dismember the rest of her body and discarded the rest of her remains in a ravine.
Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu
On February 5, after an argument with his mother, Kemper left the house in search of possible victims. He later encountered 24-year-old Rosalind Thorpe and 23-year-old Allison Liu, who were on the UC Santa Cruz campus. According to Kemper, Thorpe entered his car first, which apparently reassured Liu to enter after her. Right after leaving the university grounds, Kemper fatally shot Thorpe and Liu with a .22 caliber pistol. He then wrapped their bodies in blankets, and placed them both in the backseat of his car. He drove back to his mother's house where he beheaded them, while his mother was in the backyard. He then sexually abused their bodies. The next morning, he dismembered the bodies of Thorpe and Liu, and discarded the remains off a seaside cliff.
Clarnell Strandberg Kemper and Sally Hallett
On Good Friday of 1973, Kemper battered his sleeping mother to death with a claw hammer. He then decapitated her and used her severed head for oral sex before finally using it as a dart board. He also cut out her vocal cords, then put them in the garbage disposal. The garbage disposal could not break down the tough vocal cord tissue, then ejected the tissue back up into the sink. "That seemed appropriate," he said after his arrest, "as much as she'd bitched and screamed and yelled at me over so many years." He then invited his mother's best friend, 59-year-old Sally Hallett over to the house. When she entered the house, he strangled her to death, and then Kemper left the scene of his final crimes.
Kemper drove eastward leaving California, then driving through Nevada and Utah, but when he heard news reports of the murders on the radio he became discouraged. He stopped the car at a phone booth while in Pueblo Colorado and called the police to confess to murdering his mother and Hallett. At this time, he did not speak of his crimes as the "Co-ed killer", and waited inside his car until he was arrested.
Imprisonment
At his trial he pleaded "not guilty" by reason of insanity. He was found guilty in November 1973 of eight counts of murder. He asked for the death penalty, but with capital punishment suspended at that time, he instead received life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.
At the time of Kemper's murder spree in Santa Cruz, another serial killer named Herbert Mullin was also active, earning the small California town the title of "Murder Capital Of The World." Also adding to the college town's infamy was the fact that Kemper's and Mullin's crimes were preceded three years earlier by multiple murders committed by John Linley Frazier, who murdered Santa Cruz eye surgeon Victor Ohta and his family. Kemper and Mullin were briefly held in adjoining cells, with the former angrily accusing the latter of stealing his body-dumping sites.
Edmund Kemper remains among the general prison population at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California Kemper's next scheduled parole hearing will occur in July 2012.