In the early 1970s serial killers Edmund Kemper and Herbert Mullin terrorized Santa Cruz, California. Mullin, the religious-minded schizophrenic son of a Marine colonel, spent a number of years smoking marijuana and taking LSD. When he was twenty-five, he began to hear vices that told him that if he sacrificed human lives, he would prevent the massive earthquakes predicted for Southern California. Between October 1972 and February 1973, he killed thirteen people: a tramp he met in the mountains, a lone girl whose body he mutilated, a priest in a confessional, four campers, the couple who introduced him to marijuana, a woman and her two children, and finally, on February 1973, an old man working in his backyard. Mullin shot the old man because he heard his father’s voice say that he needed to kill someone before coming to his parents’ home that day. He committed the murder in broad daylight, and was caught. At Mullin’s trial it was shown that he had voluntarily committed himself to mental hospitals five different times in the preceding years. Each time he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with dangerous aggressive tendencies, given some drugs, and sent on his way. The jury, determined he should not be released, found him Guilty on ten counts of murder, and he was sent to prison for life.
Herbert Mullin went in the afternoon of November 2 to St. Mary’s Church in Los Gatos, a suburb of Santa Cruz to seek help from a priest. Father Henri Tomie at random entered the confessional booth to listen to Mullin. Mullin began to hallucinate that Father Tomie was asking Mullin to kill him. Mullin recalls that he told the priest that his father had been telepathically ordering him to sacrifice people. In Mullin’s recollection of the conversation, the priest asked him:
Herbert Mullin went in the afternoon of November 2 to St. Mary’s Church in Los Gatos, a suburb of Santa Cruz to seek help from a priest. Father Henri Tomie at random entered the confessional booth to listen to Mullin. Mullin began to hallucinate that Father Tomie was asking Mullin to kill him. Mullin recalls that he told the priest that his father had been telepathically ordering him to sacrifice people. In Mullin’s recollection of the conversation, the priest asked him:
Priest: “Herbert, do you read the Bible?”
Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “The commandments, where it says to honor thy father and mother?”
Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “Then you know how important it is to do as your father says.”
Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “I think it is so important that I want to volunteer to be your next sacrifice.”
Mullin then beat the priest, kicked him, and stabbed him six times in the chest and back, leaving him to die in the confessional booth.Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “The commandments, where it says to honor thy father and mother?”
Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “Then you know how important it is to do as your father says.”
Mullin: “Yes.”
Priest: “I think it is so important that I want to volunteer to be your next sacrifice.”