00:00:04
♪♪
00:00:05
-On August 27, 1964,
00:00:09
in North Fork, California,
00:00:11
15-year-old Edmund Kemper
00:00:13
shot and killed
his grandmother Maude.
00:00:16
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:00:17
Then, when he returned home,
00:00:19
the boy also shot and murdered
his grandfather Edmund Sr.
00:00:25
-Do I think Kemper
is an evil man?
00:00:27
The answer has to be yes.
00:00:29
He is the definition
00:00:32
of violence and evil.
00:00:34
You pray nobody else is
out there like that again.
00:00:37
-Kemper Jr.
then called his mother,
00:00:40
to tell her what he'd done.
00:00:43
-He says, "I've killed
my grandparents,"
00:00:46
and she tells him,
"Well, you stupid boy,
00:00:49
just call the police and wait
there until they arrive."
00:00:52
-Released after just 5 years
00:00:54
in a facility
for the criminally insane,
00:00:57
Kemper went on a killing spree
00:01:00
that targeted young,
female coeds.
00:01:03
-She was hitchhiking home
from school.
00:01:05
She was taken
out to a remote area,
00:01:08
where she was shot in the head
with a .22-caliber gun.
00:01:12
-In all, the vicious
serial killer
00:01:15
would slaughter 10 people,
00:01:17
including his mother.
00:01:18
He would typically dismember and
sexually desecrate the bodies,
00:01:23
making Edmund Kemper one of the
world's most evil killers.
00:01:28
♪♪
00:01:38
♪♪
00:01:40
[ Suspenseful music climbs ]
00:01:43
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:01:45
♪♪
00:01:48
[ Eerie music plays ]
00:01:49
For nearly 10 terrifying years
between 1964 and 1973,
00:01:55
a 6'9",
300-pound man-mountain,
00:01:59
Edmund Kemper,
preyed on the innocent.
00:02:04
His hunting grounds were
in and around
00:02:06
the beautiful beach town
00:02:08
of Santa Cruz,
in Northern California.
00:02:12
-People know the city
of Santa Cruz by its beaches
00:02:17
and body parts of these people
were found in the sand,
00:02:21
sticking out of the sand.
00:02:23
So you can imagine, now,
the fright in the community.
00:02:28
You know, "What is going on?"
00:02:31
-Kemper's reign of terror began
00:02:33
after he was released
from Atascadero State Hospital
00:02:37
for murdering both
of his grandparents
00:02:40
when he was a juvenile.
00:02:41
He would go on to kill
another eight people,
00:02:44
including his mother;
her neighbor;
00:02:46
and six young women,
all female coeds.
00:02:51
When some of the murdered
and mutilated bodies began
00:02:54
to show up,
half-buried on local beaches,
00:02:57
the public was horrified.
[ Gull cries ]
00:03:00
-It's just one of the strangest
times in California history.
00:03:06
-Terry Medina was a detective
00:03:08
with the Santa Cruz
County Sheriff's Office
00:03:11
in what were trying times
for the Golden State
00:03:14
and the investigators charged
with protecting them.
00:03:18
-We're trying to say,
00:03:20
"Stop hitchhiking,"
00:03:23
and there was a big
backlash from that.
00:03:28
You have to remember, now,
it's flower power.
00:03:31
It's a protest
of the Vietnam War
00:03:34
and "The man can't tell us
what to do
00:03:39
and the pigs
can't tell us what to do.
00:03:41
We're not gonna stop
hitchhiking.
00:03:43
It is our right."
00:03:44
[ Eerie music plays ]
00:03:46
-The fact that we had
the protests,
00:03:49
Harvey Milk was assassinated,
00:03:51
so, there was a lot of stuff
going on in the area.
00:03:55
-Forrest Schall lost
his sister Cindy in 1973.
00:04:00
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
-It was very difficult.
00:04:02
I lost my sister.
00:04:05
[tearfully]
My mom lost her daughter.
00:04:08
-19-year-old Cindy Schall
was callously killed by Kemper
00:04:12
on January 7, 1973,
00:04:15
in the woods near Santa Cruz
00:04:17
and her lifeless body
was defiled.
00:04:22
-Oh, she was
a rambunctious child.
00:04:23
She was a very giving,
caring individual,
00:04:28
and she was sent to some
of the better schools
00:04:33
'cause my mom
really busted her butt
00:04:36
to make sure she got
the best education.
00:04:40
-It was not just coeds
00:04:41
who were targets
in California in the 1970s.
00:04:45
The fear was that anyone
could be a victim,
00:04:48
young or old, man or woman.
00:04:50
That was because there were
at least three serial killers
00:04:53
on the loose in California
at the same time.
00:04:57
-There was also another
murderer, named Herbert Mullin,
00:05:01
who killed 10 girls in the
same vicinity as Edmund Kemper,
00:05:07
and, on top of that,
00:05:08
the Zodiac was loose,
00:05:11
and so there was a lot of fear.
00:05:12
♪♪
00:05:14
[ Sinister music plays ]
00:05:16
-But this is the story of one
00:05:18
of the most sadistic
serial killers ever known:
00:05:22
Edmund Kemper.
00:05:23
It began some 70 years ago.
00:05:26
-Kemper was born in 1948
00:05:29
and he came into the world
in the postwar years
00:05:32
and, rather than being
a time of hope
00:05:34
and a time of prosperity
for him,
00:05:36
it was a time of abuse;
it was a time of neglect.
00:05:40
-Kemper lived in Burbank,
in Southern California,
00:05:43
with his mother, Clarnell;
00:05:44
his father, also called Edmund;
00:05:46
and his two sisters.
00:05:48
-His father was
a World War II veteran
00:05:53
and had worked
on nuclear testing
00:05:55
before coming back after the war
to work as an electrician.
00:06:00
Ed's father used the expression,
00:06:02
"Suicide missions
were nothing compared
00:06:05
to living with Clarnell."
00:06:08
Clarnell was
an extraordinary personality:
00:06:12
neurotic, aggressive,
00:06:15
alcoholic,
00:06:16
and utterly domineering.
00:06:19
She terrorized
both her husband and her son,
00:06:24
favoring the two daughters.
00:06:26
-In 1957,
when Kemper was 9 years old,
00:06:30
his parents divorced.
00:06:32
His mother took him
and his two sisters
00:06:34
to live with her
in Helena, Montana.
00:06:37
She would allegedly play havoc
with the young boy's psyche.
00:06:42
-She demeaned him
and she abused him
00:06:44
and basically ostracized him
and made him feel terrible.
00:06:47
♪♪
00:06:49
-Kemper expresses,
00:06:51
more than almost any serial
killer I've ever heard of,
00:06:54
a hatred of his mother
that's indescribable.
00:06:56
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:06:57
-The young Kemper develops
some macabre fascinations.
00:07:02
-He would play games
with his sisters,
00:07:03
like gas chamber
or electric chair.
00:07:06
He would get them to tie
himself to a chair
00:07:09
and then he would pretend
to be electrocuted.
00:07:12
[ Ominous chord strikes ]
00:07:13
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:07:15
-Afraid that he would harm
his sisters,
00:07:18
when he was 10,
00:07:19
Kemper's mother ordered him
to sleep in the basement.
00:07:23
-Now, you can have two
different views of this.
00:07:26
One is that it's horribly cruel,
00:07:28
and the other is
00:07:30
this is a mother who did
the only thing she could
00:07:32
to protect her daughter.
00:07:35
Regardless of the explanation,
00:07:38
from Kemper's point of view,
it was torture
00:07:42
and he reviled his mother.
00:07:46
-Aged 13, young Kemper took off
00:07:49
and went to find his father
in California.
00:07:52
-He goes and he finds
his father,
00:07:54
but his father doesn't
really want to know
00:07:55
'cause he's got a new life now.
00:07:57
He has a stepson.
He has this new family unit
00:08:00
and Ed feels incredibly
rejected by that.
00:08:03
-But his mother rejected
him, too.
00:08:06
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:08:08
A year later,
she sent the boy, aged 14,
00:08:12
to live with his paternal
grandparents
00:08:14
on a farm
in North Fork, California.
00:08:18
It would be a fatal decision.
00:08:21
-His grandmother is very
similar to his mother.
00:08:23
♪ [Heartbeat] ♪
She's incredibly domineering.
00:08:25
She's not particularly
nice to him.
00:08:28
-Kemper would grow to be
an imposing physical figure.
00:08:31
At 15, he already stood
6'4" tall.
00:08:35
-He grew to 6'9";
weighed 21 stone,
00:08:39
300 pounds.
00:08:41
He was, in a way,
almost a Frankenstein figure.
00:08:46
-Tragically, the die was cast
00:08:48
and the powerful teen was about
to strike with a monstrous rage.
00:08:54
On August the 27th, 1964,
00:08:57
a 15-year-old Kemper
would kill for the first time.
00:09:02
-His grandmother is sitting
at the kitchen table.
00:09:05
Without really any warning,
00:09:08
Kemper goes and fetches a rifle,
which is in the house,
00:09:12
and shoots her.
00:09:14
[ Two gunshots ]
00:09:16
In fact, he shoots her twice,
just to make sure she's dead.
00:09:20
Then, he sits down
at the kitchen table,
00:09:22
opposite the body
of his grandmother,
00:09:24
and waits for his grandfather,
00:09:26
and he shoots him, too.
00:09:27
[ Gunshot ]
00:09:30
-Then, in a bizarre twist,
Kemper made a surprising move.
00:09:34
-Immediately after he killed
his grandparents,
00:09:37
he calls his mother
and he says,
00:09:39
"I've killed my grandparents."
00:09:41
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:09:43
And she tells him,
"Well, you stupid boy.
00:09:45
Just call the police and wait
there until they arrive."
00:09:49
-And he sits there,
waiting for the police.
00:09:50
He doesn't run.
00:09:52
He doesn't do anything.
00:09:53
And, when they get there,
he explains it,
00:09:55
"Well, I wanted to find out
00:09:56
what it felt like
to kill Grandmother."
00:09:58
♪♪
00:10:00
-Arrested, and diagnosed
with paranoid schizophrenia,
00:10:04
Kemper was incarcerated
00:10:06
in the Atascadero State
Hospital in California.
00:10:10
In the high-security facility
for the criminally insane,
00:10:14
Kemper seemed
to have found peace.
00:10:17
-He was an absolutely
model inmate.
00:10:22
He helped the staff;
he organized visits.
00:10:25
He started doing
psychiatric testing.
00:10:27
They realized, at Atascadero,
00:10:30
that he actually had
an extremely high IQ:
00:10:32
It was 145.
00:10:34
-He's very smart,
very manipulative,
00:10:36
and he did what many
serial killers can do.
00:10:39
He convinced the staff of the
hospital that he was cured
00:10:43
and so he was released.
00:10:45
-On his 21st birthday,
00:10:47
December 18, 1969,
00:10:50
Kemper was set free
00:10:52
and his criminal records
as a juvenile were sealed.
00:10:56
In hindsight,
a psychiatric report
00:10:58
conducted after his release
made for shocking reading.
00:11:02
[ Ominous chord strikes ]
00:11:03
-The report stated, in part,
00:11:05
"Edmund Kemper is no longer
a danger to society."
00:11:10
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:11:12
"He, in fact, is no more
dangerous to society
00:11:16
than the motorcycle
that he rides."
00:11:18
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
-But, tragically,
00:11:20
that was all about to be
proved very wrong.
00:11:23
Living with his mother,
00:11:25
Kemper's rage was once again
welling up inside.
00:11:29
-From the perspective
of people with this,
00:11:32
what I will call
psychopathic rage?
00:11:36
[ Eerie music climbs ]
00:11:37
Nothing less than killing,
00:11:40
torture, and mayhem
00:11:41
is sufficient to give
even momentary relief.
00:11:45
-In May 1972,
00:11:47
the dam full of rage
would break.
00:11:51
In just 11 months,
Kemper would callously kill,
00:11:54
disembowel, decapitate,
00:11:57
and perform necrophilia
00:11:58
on eight new victims
across California,
00:12:01
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
including six beloved coeds.
00:12:05
♪♪
00:12:06
After serving just 5 years
in a state mental institution
00:12:10
for shooting his grandparents,
00:12:12
he moved to Santa Cruz,
California,
00:12:15
and went to live
with his mother,
00:12:17
near to the university
where she now worked.
00:12:20
With his criminal record
as a juvenile sealed,
00:12:23
Kemper was able to get a job,
in 1971,
00:12:27
with the Department
of Transportation.
00:12:30
But, it ended prematurely.
00:12:32
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:12:35
-Ed Kemper was involved
in an accident
00:12:37
and he received quite a lot
of compensation for that.
00:12:39
It was around about $15,000.
00:12:41
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
00:12:43
He injured himself quite badly
in this accident,
00:12:46
so, he could no longer
do his work
00:12:48
for the state highway authority.
00:12:51
So you've got a young man, now,
who's got a lot of money.
00:12:54
He's got a lot of time
on his hands.
00:12:57
-Now age 23, Kemper spent
his days drifting, driving,
00:13:02
and picking up young,
female hitchhikers.
00:13:05
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:13:07
In the 1960s and early 1970s,
00:13:10
hitchhiking up and down
00:13:12
the sun-soaked highways
of the Golden State
00:13:15
was a carefree pastime
00:13:18
and an activity
00:13:19
that soon-to-be serial killer
Edmund Kemper thrived upon.
00:13:25
-He starts cruising around.
00:13:27
He starts going up and down
the state highways
00:13:30
and he's essentially
doing trial runs.
00:13:33
He's becoming aware that
he can have access to people.
00:13:36
He has the opportunity
to harm people.
00:13:38
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
-In one year, in 1970,
00:13:41
Kemper would later claim
00:13:43
that he picked up
and then dropped off
00:13:45
as many as 150 young women.
00:13:49
But Kemper's interest
in hitchhikers
00:13:52
would soon take an ominous turn.
00:13:55
-He would drive around
the university
00:13:57
where his mother was working
and pick up coeds
00:14:01
and he describes
this specifically as being done
00:14:05
because those coeds
had a connection,
00:14:07
however ephemeral or symbolic,
00:14:10
with his mother
and her place of work.
00:14:12
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:14:13
-He has a sticker on his car
00:14:14
from the university
where his mother works,
00:14:16
so girls feel that they can
kind of identify with him.
00:14:19
He doesn't look like a monster.
00:14:21
♪♪
00:14:22
-On May the 7th, 1972,
00:14:25
Kemper's trial runs were over.
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:14:28
On that day, Kemper picked up
two young students in Berkeley,
00:14:33
Mary Ann Pesce
and Anita Mary Luchessa,
00:14:36
both aged 18.
00:14:39
They wanted a ride
to Stanford University,
00:14:42
about 40 miles away.
00:14:45
-Kemper's modus operandi,
his MO,
00:14:48
was pretty straightforward.
00:14:49
He would drive around.
00:14:51
He would look for hitchhikers:
00:14:54
vulnerable, available.
00:14:56
They had to have
the characteristics
00:14:58
which reminded him
of his mother:
00:15:01
desirable.
00:15:02
And then he would
offer them a ride.
00:15:05
-These were coed girls.
00:15:06
These were girls
that were in college.
00:15:08
They had their entire
lives ahead of them.
00:15:10
They were happy.
00:15:13
And, for him, this represented
what he didn't have.
00:15:17
These would often be girls
that would reject him
00:15:20
and he couldn't have
relationships with them,
00:15:22
but he still wanted them,
00:15:24
so this was his way of actually
getting access to these women.
00:15:29
-Kemper drove the two young
women to some secluded woods.
00:15:33
[ Suspenseful outro plays ]
00:15:34
[ Dirge plays ]
The big, 300-pound man
00:15:37
then got them out of the car
00:15:40
and handcuffed both of them.
00:15:43
Kemper then put one
of the women, still alive,
00:15:46
in the trunk of the car,
00:15:48
while he killed her friend.
00:15:51
-Often, he'll say to them,
"I'm not going to kill you,"
00:15:53
in order to placate them
and make sure
00:15:55
that they don't make a fuss
and try and run away,
00:15:59
and then he does murder them
00:16:00
and then he has sex
with their dead bodies.
00:16:02
♪♪
00:16:04
-Kemper stabbed,
then suffocated,
00:16:06
each girl, in turn, to death.
00:16:09
He then put the bodies
in the trunk of his Ford Galaxy
00:16:13
and took them home
to the apartment
00:16:15
he now rented,
near to Santa Cruz University.
00:16:19
There, he dismembered the bodies
00:16:22
and gratified himself
with the lifeless corpses.
00:16:26
[ Eerie music plays ]
-The horrifying aspect
00:16:28
of Kemper, now,
00:16:30
is that his sexuality
is completely deformed.
00:16:37
He cannot effectively
operate sexually
00:16:41
if the woman is alive.
00:16:43
-The only reason that he's not
raping them before he kills them
00:16:47
is that he doesn't want
to be rejected by them.
00:16:50
When you're having sex
with a dead body,
00:16:52
it's not going to reject you;
it's not going to insult you
00:16:54
or demean you in the same way
00:16:56
that his mother had insulted
or demeaned him.
00:17:00
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-Kemper then stashed
00:17:02
the body parts in plastic bags
00:17:04
and stored some bits in his home
00:17:06
and others
in the trunk of his car.
00:17:09
-This is something
that's known as partialism.
00:17:11
It's a sexual arousal
through keeping body parts
00:17:14
and, I think, for Kemper,
00:17:16
this is his way of staying
close to his victims,
00:17:19
of owning them
and possessing them
00:17:20
and literally carrying
a part of them with him.
00:17:23
-Kemper would later dump
the violated body parts
00:17:26
in the Santa Cruz Mountains,
near Berkeley.
00:17:30
-A couple that were out,
hiking and walking their dog,
00:17:35
came across these heads.
00:17:37
♪♪
00:17:39
Subsequently, we identified
00:17:41
Mary Ann Pesce
and Anita Luchessa
00:17:44
and we find out that these two
young women were hitchhiking.
00:17:50
Unbeknownst to us,
00:17:53
those were the first two victims
of Edmund Emil Kemper.
00:17:57
♪♪
00:18:00
-Four months later,
in September 1972,
00:18:04
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
Kemper killed again.
00:18:06
This time, his victim was
a 15-year-old girl:
00:18:10
Aiko Koo.
00:18:11
-This one really hurt me.
00:18:14
This was really --
00:18:17
This was really, um,
00:18:20
a difficult victim for me.
00:18:26
Aiko Koo was this young,
Korean American girl
00:18:32
who lived with his mother,
who worked in the library
00:18:35
at the University of California
at Berkeley.
00:18:40
Her mother was dedicated
to this young girl.
00:18:43
She was a single mom,
raising this kid.
00:18:46
She was learning how
to dance and take ballet
00:18:50
and her mom made her costumes.
00:18:53
[ Melancholy tune climbs ]
-On the 14th of September,
00:18:55
Aiko was heading
to her ballet class
00:18:58
in San Francisco, 25 miles away.
00:19:02
Usually, she would take the bus,
but, on this day,
00:19:05
the conscientious student
was behind schedule.
00:19:10
-She was at a bus stop
and she missed the bus.
00:19:13
She didn't want to be late
for the dance class.
00:19:17
She was so anxious about that,
and so frustrated,
00:19:21
so, she started
to look for rides
00:19:25
and Edmund Kemper
was cruising the area,
00:19:30
looking for victims.
00:19:32
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:19:33
And pulled over.
00:19:37
He drove across the Bay Bridge
to San Francisco
00:19:43
but just kept driving,
00:19:45
and this young girl knows, now,
she is driving
00:19:50
through San Francisco,
not where she wants to go.
00:19:54
He gets to Highway 1
and is now traveling south,
00:19:57
towards Santa Cruz,
00:20:00
and she is just
panicked and crying
00:20:05
and wants to be let out.
00:20:08
And he makes a turn
on a country road.
00:20:12
She has a chance here.
00:20:14
He pulls into a field
on the edge of a forest.
00:20:18
He's gonna kill her.
00:20:19
♪♪
00:20:21
He gets out of the car
00:20:24
to get a weapon
out of the trunk, a knife.
00:20:27
She locks the door.
00:20:29
She locks him out of the car,
00:20:31
but she doesn't know how
to start the car,
00:20:34
let alone drive the car.
00:20:37
-Kemper turned on
his fatal charm
00:20:39
to try and convince the girl
that he meant her no harm.
00:20:43
-As he explained to us later,
00:20:46
he spent over an hour
coaxing her,
00:20:49
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
encouraging her,
00:20:51
to unlock the car
and let him in.
00:20:54
As I recall,
it was things like,
00:20:56
"I'm sorry.
00:20:59
I'll let you go.
00:21:00
Let me in.
00:21:02
I won't harm you."
00:21:05
And she let him in.
00:21:07
And she was killed.
00:21:11
-Kemper strangled,
then raped and murdered her.
00:21:15
He took the lifeless body back
to his apartment,
00:21:19
where, as he later detailed,
00:21:21
he cut up the body
and had sex with the corpse.
00:21:24
♪♪
00:21:26
-Women were a source of rage.
00:21:29
They became a focus
of his sexuality.
00:21:32
It evolved around death,
rather than around life.
00:21:37
He didn't want to celebrate
a relationship with a woman.
00:21:40
He wanted to humiliate
and to destroy a woman.
00:21:46
-But one crucial
characteristic of Kemper,
00:21:49
something he has in line
with many lust killers, is
00:21:53
there are times when the level
00:21:56
of rage, hatred,
and intensity in him
00:22:02
is truly beyond control.
00:22:07
-Kemper's unrelenting rage
and violence now knew no bounds.
00:22:12
In the next few months,
00:22:14
his killing spree
would pick up apace,
00:22:17
and Kemper would callously kill,
00:22:19
decimate, and defile the bodies
00:22:22
of five more women.
00:22:25
-He engaged in necrophilia.
00:22:27
He engaged in sexual acts
00:22:29
with the dismembered
parts of the body.
00:22:32
-Kemper eviscerated some
of his victims.
00:22:35
Evisceration is simply
the process
00:22:37
of removing organs
from the body.
00:22:40
Opening up the body cavity
00:22:41
and seeing that organs
were missing
00:22:44
would be immediately apparent
00:22:46
and obviously
[chuckling] very worrying.
00:22:49
-Making matters worse,
at the time,
00:22:51
local detectives had little idea
of what they were dealing with.
00:22:55
-What we did not know
at the time was,
00:22:57
during the time period
00:23:00
of late '71 through
the beginning of '73,
00:23:05
two serial killers
were operating
00:23:08
in the same place,
at the same time.
00:23:11
Herbert William Mullin
killed 13,
00:23:15
so, it was confusing to us.
00:23:18
In the beginning,
our thinking was,
00:23:20
"They had to be connected.
This is unusual."
00:23:23
But the evidence
did not connect them.
00:23:25
-With the Zodiac Killer
also on the loose
00:23:28
and thought to have
murdered seven people
00:23:30
in Northern California in 1969,
00:23:34
and Charles Manson on trial
in Southern California in 1970,
00:23:39
the citizens of the state
were in tumult.
00:23:43
-We had two stores
in our community
00:23:46
and they were selling out
of guns and ammunition.
00:23:51
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
-In January 1973,
00:23:54
Kemper struck again.
00:23:56
His prey was 19-year-old
Cindy Schall.
00:24:00
For her family, the pain
they felt is still hard to bear.
00:24:04
Her brother Forrest recalls
00:24:06
those harrowing first few days
after she vanished.
00:24:10
-It was very scary
'cause, you know,
00:24:12
we didn't know if she'd run away
or had been, you know, abducted.
00:24:17
It's the middle of the winter
and very depressing
00:24:19
and, you know, you just
start thinking of things.
00:24:22
♪♪
00:24:26
-Cindy was a dedicated student
00:24:28
and worked hard
to help support herself.
00:24:31
-She took a job as an au pair
in Santa Cruz, California,
00:24:35
and attended school
during the day
00:24:39
and then would take care
of the children thereafter
00:24:43
and she went to a --
00:24:44
it was a junior college,
called Cabrillo.
00:24:47
It was adjacent to the Cal State
University, Santa Cruz.
00:24:50
♪♪
00:24:52
♪ [Heartbeat] ♪
-On January the 7th,
00:24:53
Kemper was on the prowl again.
00:24:56
He was on Highway 1, driving
east, away from Santa Cruz.
00:25:01
-She was hitchhiking home
from school.
00:25:04
It was cold
and a car pulled up
00:25:08
and it had a school staff
sticker on the bumper.
00:25:12
From the police reports,
they said that she probably
00:25:14
felt comfortable getting in.
00:25:17
And she was taken
out to a remote area,
00:25:22
where she was shot in the head
with a .22-caliber gun.
00:25:25
[ Gunshot ]
[ Sinister music plays ]
00:25:27
And then, we don't know
all the details,
00:25:30
but she was dismembered.
00:25:33
Parts of her body were thrown
into the Pacific Ocean.
00:25:38
Kemper kept her head.
00:25:40
♪♪
00:25:42
[tearfully]
This is hard to speak about,
00:25:45
but it's been almost 50 years,
00:25:46
so, it's a little
[chuckling] easier now.
00:25:49
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
00:25:53
-At the time,
Kemper was still subject
00:25:56
to regular psychiatric analysis,
00:25:59
a condition of his parole
after serving time
00:26:02
as a juvenile
for killing his grandparents.
00:26:06
-He was having an interview,
a final interview,
00:26:08
with a psychiatrist
in a nearby city.
00:26:14
The psychiatrist,
in his report to the court,
00:26:17
said that Edmund Kemper
was rehabilitated.
00:26:22
The problem with that,
00:26:24
that whole thing?
00:26:26
Cynthia Schall's head
00:26:28
was in a bag in the backseat
of Edmund Kemper's car
00:26:32
at the time of that interview
with the psychiatrist.
00:26:36
-You often see this type
of behavior with serial killers.
00:26:40
They get a kick out of it.
00:26:41
They get bored
with their offending
00:26:43
and they wanna mix things up
00:26:44
and keep it interesting
and have some fun.
00:26:47
-This kind of bizarre,
pseudo-schizophrenic logic is --
00:26:53
is classic
of a level of pathology
00:26:55
we see in very few people
in the world.
00:26:59
-Early in 1973, low on money,
00:27:03
Kemper moved back in
with his mother
00:27:05
and the murders continued.
00:27:08
Just 4 weeks
after his last attack,
00:27:11
on February 5, 1973,
00:27:14
Kemper killed again.
00:27:16
-Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Liu
were our next two victims.
00:27:22
He would later tell us that
00:27:24
he actually shot them
as he drove off of campus.
00:27:27
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:27:29
Stabbing all these victims
to death
00:27:32
was getting to be a lot of work.
00:27:34
It was starting to bother him.
00:27:36
A lot of blood.
00:27:38
He was cleaning everything.
00:27:39
So he went and bought a gun,
purchased a gun,
00:27:42
and, as he was traveling towards
the city of Santa Cruz,
00:27:47
he just turned and shot them.
[ Two gunshots ]
00:27:49
One was in the backseat;
one was in the front seat.
00:27:51
♪♪
00:27:55
-Within a week of the latest
two coed murders,
00:27:58
body parts started washing up
on shore in Santa Cruz.
00:28:03
[ Eerie music plays ]
-As time went along,
00:28:05
we were finding body parts
on Cowell's Beach.
00:28:09
Other parts were found
down below Monterey,
00:28:12
between Carmel and Big Sur,
00:28:16
and that started
to create huge issues,
00:28:19
as we started
to identify people:
00:28:23
Cynthia Schall, Aiko Koo,
00:28:25
a number of young women.
00:28:30
Clearly, there was
a pattern in the coeds.
00:28:33
Number one, they're young,
student women.
00:28:37
They are stabbed to death.
00:28:41
They are dismembered, common.
00:28:44
All the investigators
starting to focus on,
00:28:48
"Okay, now,
this is one set of crimes,"
00:28:51
and the thread
that weaved between them
00:28:56
was hitchhiking.
00:28:58
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:28:59
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:29:01
-During his 11-month
killing spree,
00:29:04
Kemper was said to frequent
a bar in downtown Santa Cruz
00:29:08
called The Jury Room.
00:29:10
It was here his behavior took
an even more sinister turn.
00:29:15
-It's a bar
across from the courthouse.
00:29:18
A lot of cops hang out there.
00:29:20
A lot of people that work
in the courts hang out there.
00:29:23
Lawyers hung out there.
00:29:25
-By all accounts, personally,
Kemper was a gentle giant.
00:29:29
Even some of the police officers
he had befriended him
00:29:31
described him that way.
00:29:33
-They called him Big Ed,
in a kind of friendly manner,
00:29:37
so he knew that he was coming
across as nonthreatening.
00:29:41
-There's only one occasion that
I remember seeing him there.
00:29:44
He was at the far end
of the bar.
00:29:46
He didn't like push himself
onto anybody, that I saw.
00:29:51
To me, it was almost like
he was listening.
00:29:54
Are any of the detectives there
00:29:57
talking about any
of these murder cases?
00:30:00
Is he getting
any information from us?
00:30:05
Very interesting.
00:30:07
He blended in very well there.
00:30:10
-He was picking their brains.
00:30:12
He was trying to find out
if they knew anything.
00:30:16
I don't fault the cops,
you know.
00:30:18
How the hell would they know?
00:30:21
I've never faulted the police,
by the way.
00:30:23
They did their job.
00:30:24
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:30:26
-But, unbeknownst to Kemper,
00:30:28
in April,
a diligent clerk in Santa Cruz
00:30:32
ran a routine check
on a gun dealer's sales records.
00:30:36
-A records clerk
at the sheriff's office
00:30:39
finds a 3x5 card,
00:30:41
Edmund Emil Kemper,
00:30:43
same as on the dealer record
of sale for the gun.
00:30:46
All the information
is blacked out.
00:30:48
Why?
00:30:49
Because his record
had been sealed!
00:30:51
But she could read through
the blackout, and it said,
00:30:56
"187 PC, Madera, California."
00:31:00
187 PC
00:31:02
is the California penal code
for murder.
00:31:05
Madera County was where
he killed his grandparents
00:31:09
many, many years ago.
00:31:12
She brought that card
00:31:15
to the detective lieutenant
in the bureau and said,
00:31:19
"This gun has already been
delivered to this guy.
00:31:22
I'm not so sure
he's supposed to have it,
00:31:23
but his record is sealed."
00:31:25
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:31:26
-On April 6, 1973,
00:31:29
two detectives went
to question Kemper.
00:31:32
He was not at home.
00:31:34
They were driving away from the
home he shared with his mother
00:31:38
when the killer
finally showed up.
00:31:41
-Kemper drives up and they
watched him get out of the car.
00:31:45
Remember, he's 6'9".
00:31:48
He's huge.
He blocked out the sun.
00:31:52
They identified themselves
and made the inquiry about,
00:31:56
"Did you buy a gun?"
00:31:59
He said, "Yes, I did."
00:32:00
They said, "We don't think
you're supposed
00:32:03
to have this gun,
and we want it."
00:32:06
Now, he later said, "I thought
they knew I was the killer,"
00:32:11
that he was gonna open
the trunk and shoot 'em both.
00:32:14
But, they're very good cops,
good training.
00:32:18
They took his keys.
00:32:20
They wouldn't let him
open the trunk.
00:32:22
They made him move far
to the side.
00:32:25
One of them opened the trunk.
00:32:26
They took the gun,
gave him a receipt,
00:32:28
and they drove away.
00:32:30
[ Suspenseful music climbs ]
00:32:31
-The police had the weapon
00:32:33
that Kemper used
to murder his last two victims.
00:32:37
Kemper knew it would now
only be a matter of time
00:32:41
before the police would
discover his terrible secret.
00:32:46
By the spring of 1973,
00:32:49
serial killer Edmund Kemper
00:32:51
had murdered a total
of eight people in California.
00:32:55
They included
his paternal grandparents,
00:32:58
and six coeds
who'd been hitchhiking
00:33:00
in and around Santa Cruz.
00:33:03
Having just been visited
by the police
00:33:06
over an issue
with a gun license,
00:33:08
Kemper decided to end it all,
00:33:11
with one final
and ferocious act.
00:33:14
-Back in April of 1973,
00:33:17
Kemper starts to get
a little bit skittish
00:33:19
because he's been
visited by the police
00:33:22
and I think this is one
of the things
00:33:23
that brings about
the murder of his mother.
00:33:27
-Ultimately, he believes
that killing his mother
00:33:29
is the only way
to stop killing coeds.
00:33:32
He actually figures out
the connection and decides,
00:33:36
almost like a psychologist,
"I've gotta kill my mom
00:33:39
'cause that's the source
o' all my problems
00:33:40
and, once I kill her,
I won't be a killer anymore."
00:33:42
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
-On April 20, 1973,
00:33:46
Kemper waited for his mother
to return from a party.
00:33:50
-She'd got back.
She was drunk.
00:33:52
She was belligerent.
00:33:54
She went to bed.
00:33:56
Kemper
00:33:59
went to see her.
00:34:00
[ Suspenseful music climbs,
chord strikes ]
00:34:02
You know, this...
00:34:05
young man.
00:34:06
We're not talking about
anyone who's old.
00:34:09
This young man, always seeking
his mother's affection.
00:34:14
And she sits up in bed and says,
00:34:16
"I suppose you want
to talk all night now."
00:34:18
And Kemper is so horrified
and upset that, in a way,
00:34:21
perhaps, he just simply
snaps at that moment.
00:34:24
But, interestingly,
00:34:26
he doesn't kill his mother
while she's awake.
00:34:29
He kills her while she's asleep.
00:34:31
-At 4:00 in the morning,
while his mother slept,
00:34:35
he took a hammer,
00:34:37
went to her bed,
00:34:40
and drove the hammer
through her skull
00:34:44
a number of times.
00:34:46
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:34:47
-But he doesn't just kill her.
00:34:49
Of course he doesn't.
00:34:51
He decapitates her.
00:34:52
He uses her head as a dartboard,
00:34:55
throwing darts at it,
00:34:58
shouting at it for an hour.
00:35:00
-Yelling at her, "You're not
gonna yell at me anymore.
00:35:03
You're not gonna yell
at me anymore."
00:35:06
-And then,
he does something that
00:35:08
I know of no other instance
of this in serial crimes.
00:35:13
He cuts open her neck,
takes out her vocal cords.
00:35:17
And, remember,
his mother's vocal cords
00:35:19
were the offending organ
00:35:21
'cause that's how
she demeaned him;
00:35:23
that's how she criticized him.
00:35:24
And he took her vocal cords
and put it down
00:35:27
the garbage disposal.
00:35:28
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:35:30
-He then spent
the rest of the day,
00:35:32
into the afternoon,
cutting her into pieces,
00:35:37
washing her completely clean
in the bathtub,
00:35:41
and hiding her body parts
in the back of her closet.
00:35:45
♪♪
00:35:46
-But killing
his 52-year-old mother
00:35:49
♪ [Heartbeat] ♪
and desecrating her body
00:35:51
was not to be the end
of his cruel crimes.
00:35:55
-It was as if this was
00:35:57
the only and inevitable ending
of his entire life
00:36:02
and, yet, there was a sting
in the tail, a twist,
00:36:05
because, not only does he keep
his mother's body in a cupboard,
00:36:09
and the head,
00:36:10
but he invites her best friend
00:36:13
round for supper
the next night.
00:36:15
-Kemper asked 59-year-old
Sara Taylor Hallett
00:36:18
to come over to the house
at 5:00 p.m.
00:36:21
-Mrs. Hallett walks
in the door.
00:36:23
He pretends
to take her coat off,
00:36:26
but just pushes it down over
her arms, so she can't move,
00:36:31
[thwack] ...bludgeons her
to death with his fists,
00:36:34
stuffs her in the front closet.
00:36:36
His car is already packed
00:36:39
and off he goes.
00:36:41
Until he gets
to Pueblo, Colorado.
00:36:45
-After Kemper has killed his
mother and his mother's friend,
00:36:48
he goes on the run
for around about 4 days.
00:36:50
He takes the car that belonged
to his mother's friend.
00:36:54
-He decides he's going
to make a getaway.
00:36:58
He knew the cops
would be on his tail
00:37:00
and he planned to shoot it out
when they tried to stop him.
00:37:05
-Kemper drove for 3 days,
00:37:07
finally stopping
in Pueblo, Colorado.
00:37:10
On April the 23rd,
00:37:12
he went to a phone booth
and made an astounding call.
00:37:17
-He dials the Santa Cruz
Police Department.
00:37:20
It's a busy Friday night
in Santa Cruz.
00:37:24
Kemper calls.
00:37:27
Officer says,
"Santa Cruz Police Department.
00:37:28
Can I help you?"
00:37:30
"I need to talk
to Lieutenant Sheer."
00:37:33
"He doesn't work
on the weekends.
00:37:35
You'll have to call back
on Monday.
00:37:37
I gotta put you on hold."
00:37:39
Kemper hangs up.
00:37:40
He gets upset.
He hangs up.
00:37:42
He calls back
and he finally says,
00:37:46
"Hey! I got information
about all those dead girls!"
00:37:50
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:37:53
Now we're payin' attention.
00:37:54
The officer's puttin'
everything else on hold
00:37:57
and does a great job.
00:37:58
-It's not a rarity.
00:38:00
Oftentimes, serial killers
are not the kind
00:38:02
that they're gonna
go down fighting.
00:38:03
Oftentimes, we see that.
They give themselves up
00:38:05
or, once they're caught
and they know
00:38:07
that they're not gonna get out,
then they give it all up.
00:38:09
It's almost like
they want the notoriety.
00:38:12
-The local police arrive
to arrest the man
00:38:15
who had just confessed to being
the notorious Coed Killer.
00:38:20
-Kemper takes up
the entire phone booth.
00:38:22
They get him into custody,
put a hold on him,
00:38:25
and the story now starts
to get filled in and unraveled.
00:38:31
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:38:34
We sent the district attorney;
00:38:36
the district attorney
investigator;
00:38:38
and my partner,
Detective Aluffi.
00:38:41
They flew to Colorado,
rented a station wagon,
00:38:47
and the four of them
00:38:48
took three days
to drive back to California.
00:38:52
They started out by saying,
"Ed, can you tell us
00:38:57
how all this started?"
00:38:58
♪♪
00:39:01
And he sat there,
like I am sitting here,
00:39:05
and he said, "On such and such
a date and such and such a time,
00:39:10
I was in Berkeley, California."
00:39:11
♪♪
00:39:15
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:39:16
Kemper. connects. every. dot
00:39:20
to every. single. case.
00:39:24
He was so precise, we were able
to link the evidence
00:39:27
to his statements,
to the crime scenes.
00:39:31
-According to some analysts,
after killing his mother,
00:39:35
Kemper had lost
his murderous purpose.
00:39:38
-He said later,
00:39:40
"I started feeling the folly
of the whole damn thing."
00:39:44
But he said, and, I think,
more tellingly,
00:39:47
"The original purpose was gone."
00:39:50
And that was, of course,
Clarnell.
00:39:52
♪♪
00:39:54
-Given how dysfunctional
00:39:55
Kemper's relationship
with his mother was,
00:39:57
I think that perhaps,
had it been different,
00:40:00
then Ed Kemper maybe
wouldn't have gone on
00:40:03
to kill all of the people
that he did.
00:40:06
So I think that Kemper's mother,
00:40:08
she started writing the story
of the serial killer,
00:40:11
but Kemper finished that.
00:40:12
♪♪
00:40:16
-On May 7, 1973,
00:40:19
♪ [Heartbeat] ♪
Kemper was indicted
00:40:20
for the eight murders
he had confessed to.
00:40:23
His trial began 5 months later,
on October the 23rd that year.
00:40:28
But, there was a twist
in the case.
00:40:31
-Edmund Kemper pleaded
not guilty.
00:40:33
He had a great law team.
00:40:35
They hired one of the best
forensic psychiatrists
00:40:40
in California,
if not the United States.
00:40:43
I gotta say,
they put on a great defense.
00:40:45
-He's all too aware
that, actually,
00:40:46
life in a state mental hospital
00:40:48
is more favorable
than life in prison,
00:40:51
so he's making quite
the calculated decision here
00:40:53
to plead insanity,
00:40:55
but he wasn't fooling anyone
at this point in time.
00:40:57
[ Sinister chord strikes ]
00:40:58
-It's not our first rodeo.
00:41:00
I've been to court
a thousand times.
00:41:03
You know what's coming.
00:41:05
You know how a case
is gonna be attacked.
00:41:08
On the prosecution side,
00:41:09
we just keep putting the
evidence in front of the jury,
00:41:13
how it connects
to Edmund Kemper.
00:41:15
It came down to, really,
his state of mind.
00:41:18
[ Distorted tune plays,
suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:41:20
-After just 5 hours
of deliberation,
00:41:22
on November 8, 1973,
00:41:26
the jury declared
Edmund Kemper sane
00:41:29
and found him guilty
of first-degree murder
00:41:31
on all eight counts.
00:41:34
He was given 7 years to life
on each count
00:41:37
and the terms are being
served concurrently.
00:41:41
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
-Edmund Kemper is
00:41:44
still in prison, as we speak.
00:41:48
-He's where he's
supposed to be,
00:41:50
and society's better off
for that
00:41:54
and, um,
I hope he never gets out.
00:42:00
[tearfully]
It didn't give me closure.
00:42:03
I'm not sure
if it gave me peace.
00:42:06
You can cut this out, but,
I could write a letter to him
00:42:09
right now, saying,
"Dear Ed fuck you."
00:42:12
[ Eerie music plays ]
00:42:14
-Do I think Kemper
is an evil man?
00:42:18
The answer has to be yes.
00:42:19
[ Melancholy tune plays ]
00:42:22
When I think of Aiko Koo,
00:42:24
when I think of
00:42:27
his mother,
00:42:30
no matter how he
appeared outwardly...
00:42:33
♪♪
00:42:35
...he is the definition
00:42:38
of violence and evil.
00:42:41
You pray nobody else is
out there like that again.
00:42:44
♪♪
00:42:47
-Edmund Kemper is destined
to die in prison.
00:42:52
The senseless slaughter
and unmitigated violence he used
00:42:56
to kill 10 people --
00:42:58
his grandparents, six coeds,
00:43:01
his mother, and her friend --
00:43:04
makes Edmund Kemper one of the
world's most evil killers.
00:43:09
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
00:43:12
♪♪
00:43:20
♪♪
00:43:23
[ Suspenseful music climbs ]
00:43:25
[ Suspenseful chord strikes ]
00:43:29
♪♪
00:43:34
♪♪
