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Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261

December 05, 2018 / 01:00:32

This episode covers the life and crimes of serial killer Edmund Kemper, including his childhood, psychological profile, and interactions with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit.

Hosts Nick and the Captain discuss Kemper's upbringing, focusing on his abusive relationship with his mother, Claire, and how it influenced his violent behavior. They highlight his childhood games and early signs of psychopathy, including animal cruelty.

The episode also details Kemper's infamous murders, including the killings of his grandparents and the subsequent interviews he had with FBI agents John Douglas and Bob Ressler, who sought to understand his motivations.

Listeners learn about the development of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and how Kemper's case contributed to their understanding of serial killers. The hosts reflect on the chilling nature of Kemper's personality and his manipulation of those around him.

Throughout the episode, the hosts share their thoughts on the complexities of Kemper's character and the societal implications of his actions, making connections to the popular series "Mindhunter" which dramatizes these events.

TLDR

The episode examines Edmund Kemper's life, his crimes, and the FBI's study of serial killers through his case.

Episode

1:00:32
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that would
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so yes you should receive them by Christmas and that's enough of the business everybody gather round grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime many have told the story of Edmund Kemper but you've never heard it quite
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like this before most of the information in this case is well-known but I will lay some of it out
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here Edmund a milk Kemper the third was raised by a mother that even when he was
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just a small boy she very likely hated him Edmund like to play death ritual games
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with his sister he tried living with his father but he didn't want him either he
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grew to be a large man an extremely intelligent IDI was about six foot nine inches tall and his IQ near genius level
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some call him the ogre of Aptus as an adult he was convicted of the mutilation slayings of eight women was this hulking
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monster born evil or was he made evil this week we will study Edmund and those who have studied him before we will try
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to learn about the angry little boy that lives inside this giant homicidal man this is a look at the murderous madness
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of Edmund Kemper the co-ed killer well I'm not an expert I'm not an authority I'm someone who has been a murderer for
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almost 20 years can you say how many people might be doing crimes like you were doing it would be a guess but it's
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not it's a far more than 35 it isn't that impossible in this society it happens are there more people they
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didn't give up how many she didn't give up I did I came in out of the cold and what I'm saying is there are some people
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who prefer it in the cold you were able to appear like a ordinary person non-threatening - I
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lived as an ordinary person most of my life even though I was living a parallel I'm increasingly sick wife other life
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one that can let me back in the car I locked myself out she opened the door for me my gun was under the seat what
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the hell am i doing telling you that am I looking am ia masochist am I looking to be tormented further we're trying to
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show you just how awful the Scott how commanding his rages God the true-crime garage army loved the hit
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series mine hunter the show based on the real-life events of the genesis of the FBI's behavioral science unit housed at
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FBI headquarters in Quantico Virginia on mind hunter the main characters Holden Ford and built inch are essentially the
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dramatized on-screen versions of famous real-life FBI agents John Douglas and Bob Ressler like on the show in like in
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real life these agents worked in a special unit of the FBI that had many objectives but two of the most important
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were helping local law enforcement agencies solve crimes and studying the new phenomenon at the time which was the
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realization of the significant increase of stranger on stranger crimes serial offenders and serial killers which are
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both terms now often use but back then serial offender and serial killer were new terms both coined by the special
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agents working with this unit at the FBI this week we will be discussing serial killer Edmund Kemper who spent a lot of
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time talking with the FBI over the years the general topics of discussion who was
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he what crimes did he commit and why the first series of mine hunter features some of these dramatizations of these
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talks with Kemper and the FBI now we both watch season 1 and loved it and one thing we have discussed on our show off
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the record and I say this almost shamefully captain we both loved actor Cameron Britton as serial killer Edmund
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Kemper heck sometimes during breaks we when working we would stop the show and we both were doing Kemper impressions I
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particularly liked the scene when they were talking about the horrible murders Kemper has committed and he's offering
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the agents another slice of pizza now this is disturbing on several levels because while I'm watching the show and
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thinking to myself I could listen to Ed Kemper talk for day then the realization comes back to you
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kicks you in the teeth with the reminder that Edie Kemper was a despicable human
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being he's a monster and yet I find him somewhat charming and some might be saying well that's the TV version of
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Edie kernel and it is but if you and we have watched interviews with the real Edie Kemper it's very similar so we felt
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bad about that but we're not alone in our liking of the TV version of Kemper because actor Cameron Britton did win an
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Emmy for his work on the show yeah well on some of the lines that they use in the show are direct lines from the
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interviews that were recorded so let's go to the real-life version of the genesis of the FBI's behavioral science
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unit and case study of Edmund Kemper now interviewing serial killers so it was it
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was John Douglas that suggested to Bob wrestler that since there were so many serial killers locked up that they
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should start talking to them to see if they would talk about what they had done and why they believed that they did it
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one just like you here earlier with the pizza offering the pizza the FBI would offer them a special meal
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like hey if you interview with us we can get you a pizza or we can use some specialty sub or something that you
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can't get in prison well Bob Ressler agreed with Douglas and they decided that they were going to start
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interviewing these guys and actually they decided that while they were in California helping law enforcement to
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start there because as we all know from the various cases we have covered here in the garage California has certainly
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had it's more than fair share of weird crimes and serial killers yeah so this was 1978 and they're going to go
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interview their first serial killer and they decided to start with Edie Kemper Edie was housed at the California
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medical facility in Vacaville California they decided their best method of going
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about this was to show up unannounced and without permission from the FBI and without giving the prison prior notice
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as well so this is for two reasons one the FBI these guys believe the FBI would have
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told them no you can't go around interviewing serials right and - they also believe if the meeting was
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scheduled with the inmate that the inmate would likely be considered a snitch by the other prisoners thus
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possibly putting their subject in danger and making them far less likely to cooperate and agree to these interviews
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so if they showed up unannounced the other inmates would just assume that they simply were investigating a case or
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investigating something or other now we have to consider how terrifying this could be even for federal agents first
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they can't go in there with their gun or weapon you know they don't want those things
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working their way into the you know population right and second they have to sign waivers agreeing that if they were
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to be taken hostage at any time that they understood that they would not be bargained for well on both these men
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they're gonna go in as a pair so both of these men are trained but ed is also six
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nine that's a big boy yeah basically locked alone in a room with six foot nine inch tall almost 300-pound man and
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then another thing that Douglass was concerned about was the IQ of Edmund Kemper now I gotta be honest with you
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here captain I've seen this IQ kind of all over the shop I've seen it listed as high as 146
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and as low as 131 yeah or 31 well I do know that he was tested at least twice so that might be the cause of some of
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these variations I also understand that there's multiple versions of the what we
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would just call the IQ test which could give a different score so to speak sound
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like credit scores there's different top levels of different credit scores yes and so we have Douglas who he thought to
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himself and I'm sure he discusses with Ressler in advance he was a little worried that you know these guys are
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used to being the smartest guys in the room and now they're in there with this giant and they're worried that he's
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than them you know so physically he could overpower them mentally he might be able to manipulate them or to
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[ __ ] them to put it quite frank right but like I said both these guys are trained individuals these guys have
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made it to the FBI so they've dealt with some of the scum of the earth mmm oh yeah so they're gonna I mean but just
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imagine if you're not trained at all right some of these police officers have taken criminals that have done heinous
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crimes and they had to lock them up handcuffed them put them in the backseat of their car and transport them to
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another prison or to another jail by themselves mm-hmm and so yes this is a this sounds crazy to us to go hey you're
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gonna go in to this little steel cage with this killer but uh but I also think these guys are a lot tougher them that
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maybe he gave him credit for well you and I discussed Wickline which was a somebody that was put to death
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here in Ohio for a couple of murders yeah and Wickline was a large man who was quite strong as well and he was
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intelligent too he was not as big as Edmund Kemper his IQ was probably not as high as Edmund
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Kemper Zinn and he he was a guy that you know we spoke to several officers that said I knew guys that had to transport
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him I knew guys it had to be in a room with Wickline and they told they went to their superiors in advance and said I
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refuse to be alone with him right if I'm going to be in a room or in a car with this guy
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there better be multiples you know there better be a bunch of good guys and only
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one Wickline so the thing with you know and like you said these guys are trained
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these guys are skilled individual Douglas was a I believe he was a boxer in in college you know so so a bit of a
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tough guy I guess yeah I mean this lucky if you're a trained boxer and then you have to you had to deal with the scum of
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the earth those guys aren't off they're not afraid of this guy but keep in mind just the
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reach alone on Ed Kemper I mean six foot nine yeah but you know the difference between a norm
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human in actual trained boxer I think that anytime somebody says hey I trained as a
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boxer you don't want to fight that guy right that guy knows how to throw a punch the thing no to that it's tough
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for us regular civilians to get over is just the idea of forget about his size or his intelligence but just the idea of
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being in a room with somebody that you know is not only capable of murder but according to the case file it tells you
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that he enjoyed it yeah I'm not trying to put a damper on this but I also think some of the
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psychological warfare on this is you know II d69 he kills women hmm you know I mean like it's not like he just killed
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anybody in everybody right you mean you mean he's not like like Russell Crowe entering the Coliseum
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fighting - yeah are you not entertained are you not entertained so the John Douglas and Bob wrestler
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they were interested really in truly and anything that Kemper wanted to tell them
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but per the unit's study they were primarily interested in getting answers to the following questions one what
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leads a person to become a serial sexual offender and what are the early warning
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signals to what serves to encourage or to inhibit the commission of his offense 3 what types of response or coping
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strategies by an intended victim are successful with what type of sexual offender and avoiding victimization for
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what are the implications for his dangerousness prognosis disposition and mode of treatment
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alright so question for you because if you watch mine hunter they don't really have questionnaires or really much of a
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objective at the beginning or that's at least what the show portrays hmm so do you think that this was the first the
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first things that they're trying to get answered and then that developed more later
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I think that probably the between the two of them John Douglas and Bob Ressler that this was their primary goal right
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from the onset of everything right I just don't think that they put pen to paper to come up with an
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effective strategy so according to this show the TV show and what I think we can
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kind of infer from the show is like you said they come up with basically a questionnaire hey here's kind of a
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script to not share with the subject but between the two of you you know that you're working to get answers to these
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set of questions right but that script happened once they got a doctor involved correct and I think what that the whole
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genesis of that would be and where the smarts of that comes into play is these guys were extremely busy and what I mean
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by that is when this first started they weren't being paid to or their superiors
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didn't even understand that they were out interviewing these serial killers they were actually supposed to be there
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on other business they're training local law enforcement agencies on how to detect and deduce certain crimes they're
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also working with local law enforcement agencies to actually solve crimes so while they happen to be in the
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neighborhood so to speak they're like okay well what prison is nearby and who is locked up for life or you know any
00:18:33
let's go talk to them yeah both of these guys were also original members of New Kids on the Block so they had a lot of
00:18:40
stuff going on so most of the time in the beginning until they got their grant money they were doing this on their own
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time in the evenings and on the weekends so I think the script and I think putting together a list of actual
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questions is really just a way to maximize their time in their efficiency while they're there talking to him
00:19:04
you've watched plenty of interviews with Ed Kemper you you know it's obvious he can just talk and talk and talk and talk
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for hours and hours and hours when he graduated he was most likely to have a podcast in his high school class so the
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the interesting thing here though is you asked do you believe that these were were questions that they saw
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answers to right from the beginning yeah does it because if I'm wrong it made it
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seem like we don't know what to expect so let's just go in there and see if we could get him talking I think that's the
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truth I think that's the truth on some level we do know that this was their objective because this was later
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released many years later this was after they got their grant money it's kind of
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to champion their cause so to speak they released these sets of questions hey this is what we're looking for when we
00:19:58
interview these guys in an FBI news bulletin to the rest of their department in their agencies I'm confused in real
00:20:04
life with the TV show but also in this TV show wasn't the first meeting a solo meeting where he actually didn't go in
00:20:13
with his partner well that's a dramatization in real life there were three individuals this sat down with Ed
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Kemper the first time and I don't know the name of the other officer involved and I can to be honest with you I think
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it was a local FBI agent you know Douglas in wrestler not local to the area right I think that that FBI agent
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probably worked because they had not been in a prison yet and they didn't know that hey you could just walk up
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within flashier FBI badge and most the time that works to get into the prison right well cuz a lot of these prison
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guards or local officers had a lot of respect for the FBI well think about two of the questions that they listed there
00:20:58
within those four you know and they're all kind of lengthy questions if you really dissect them each one is actually
00:21:04
multiple questions worked into one question right but the simplicity of it is two things one what is the early
00:21:13
warning signals of who this person could turn into be I know the answer too much
00:21:18
flicky flicky and then too this is interesting what can a victim do if you find yourself it caught up with an individual
00:21:28
like this a serial killer serial rapist what can I do to try to get myself out of this situation and it be
00:21:36
a viewer wise you know are there things that I can say things that I can do are there actions I can take or reactions to
00:21:43
this madman that I can use to to save my own life and get me out of this situation right because what we've seen
00:21:49
with Bundy you're gonna see with Kemper you're gonna see with other serial killers that they will have moments
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where everything you know this plan that normally takes place normally these serial killers it's like after the first
00:22:06
attack or the second attack then they start going well this is how I'm gonna do it this is my ruse to get them in my
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car then we go here then we drive this and then we do this and then I pulled my gun on them and they kind of have a
00:22:18
routine that they're building but there's also times where it's like my routine was to pick up pick up a
00:22:23
hitchhiker or my routine was to pick up a sex worker and they will do that and they just drop the individual off and
00:22:30
there is no murder right so what made those difference than the actual attacks the simplicity of both of those
00:22:38
questions and actually in my opinion almost all four of those questions is really early detection of a serial
00:22:45
killer and preventing more loss of life you know we have how can a victim get out of this situation one as law
00:22:53
enforcement you want a victim to get out of the situation not only to save their
00:22:56
own life but to help you solve the crime help you make an arrest somebody that could later identify somebody that did
00:23:03
something terrible to them or at least attempted to do so and then we have the early warning signals you know the early
00:23:09
signs of of the creation of the serial killers if I could just interject for a second this has been on my mind all
00:23:18
morning but we're talking about serial killers so it's relevant okay don't give me those eyes big shout out to Bill burr
00:23:26
the comedian I was watching his show last night his cartoons show on Netflix f is for family and there's a scene
00:23:35
where he's arguing with this kid and he starts fighting the kid mm-hmm and then the dad comes up and he's like what do
00:23:43
you what are you doing you're trying to fight my nine-year-old son you what what
00:23:47
are you some kind of [ __ ] right and then you notice that the guy's name on his name
00:23:53
badge that's fighting bill Berg's character his last name is Dahmer and he's then he starts calling his son
00:24:01
Jeffery and the kid has blonde hair with the little glasses and I just thought I
00:24:07
can't one I can't get away from true crime but how clever it is that he just kind of threw it in there like I wonder
00:24:14
how many people watch that and didn't even know that it was Jeffrey Dahmer and true crimes kind of seeped its way into
00:24:20
all different kinds of media well on the fact too that like the cartoon is based
00:24:25
around that time period where Jeffrey Dahmer would have been manjil okay okay well but a key thing to keep in mind
00:24:32
when talking to these serial killer types and we've touched on this a bit already is that they are often skilled
00:24:41
manipulators and some of them quite intelligent which as is the case with Kemper so it was it was and is extremely
00:24:49
important that the FBI agents know the case inside and out in order to hopefully get the answers to the
00:24:56
questions and to advance the FBI's ability to prevent detect and capture serial offenders and serial killers now
00:25:07
the agents are going to want to learn everything they can about Kimber's childhood environment relationships
00:25:14
crimes habits and his arrest but they're gonna want to know this in his own words
00:25:20
right from his mouth and when we come back we will talk about some of the things that they learn
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your mother worked there yes I was also involved in killing coeds because my mother was associated with college work
00:30:16
college co-eds women and had had very strong and violently outspoken position on men for much of my upbringing my
00:30:28
mother was a sick angry hungry and very sad woman I hated her but I wanted to love my mother and I watched the alcohol
00:30:41
increase I watched her social life drop off I watched her get bizarre she had terrible pain from her life earlier life
00:30:50
her upbringing a failed marriage with my father I'm a constant reminder of that failure I hate
00:30:55
to distill it down into such the one word reality is like dad there's a lot that leads into that happening but that
00:31:03
is what happened they represented not what my mother was but what she liked what she coveted what was important to
00:31:11
her and I was destroying it why did you actually kill the girls my frustration my inability to communicate socially
00:31:22
sexually I wasn't impotent but emotionally I was impotent I was scared to death of
00:31:30
failing in male-female relationships I knew absolutely nothing about that whole area even if just sitting down and
00:31:37
talking with the young lady I need to be able to really communicate and ironically enough that's why I began
00:31:44
picking people up and I'm picking up young women and I'm going a little bit farther each time it's a daring kind of
00:31:50
a thing at first there wasn't a gun I'm driving along we'd go to a vulnerable place there aren't people watching where
00:31:59
I could act out and I say no I can't and then a gun is in the car hidden and this craving this awful raging eating
00:32:10
feeling inside I could feel it consuming my insides this fantastic passion it was
00:32:22
overwhelming me it was like drugs it was like alcohol a little isn't enough at first it is and as you adjust to that
00:32:30
psychologically and physically you take more and more and more it's the same process so it finally came down to the
00:32:36
thing of do I dare bring this gun out already realizing if that gun comes out something has to happen
00:32:44
Edmund amel Kemper the third was born December 18 1948 in Burbank California now during his childhood Kemper was
00:32:54
physically and emotionally abused by his alcoholic mother Claire Nell who was divorced from his father before the
00:33:02
divorce ed was close with his father after the divorce Ed's mother hated him and it's believed this is because Edie
00:33:09
looked almost exactly like his father one of EDS favorite games to play as a boy was a game that he invented in which
00:33:17
he called it gas chamber or the gas chamber this would be a game that he played with his sister where they would
00:33:24
take turns basically pretending to be gassed or gassing one another and then he would
00:33:30
ride around pretending to be in pain on the floor as he's pretending to die because of this game that they were
00:33:38
playing now why Claire Nell and Ed's two sisters slept upstairs she made her son at the age of just
00:33:46
eight years old sleep in the dark and cold basement alone at night this is likely that she
00:33:54
did this for many reasons but the reason most often cited for this treatment or abuse was she was afraid
00:34:01
Edie would molest or rape one of his sisters so and we've heard in several interviews Edie described this and he
00:34:10
describes it in a way that makes you really realize how tormenting this was for him this was a
00:34:18
form of some kind of psychological abuse because he was afraid to be in the basement by himself right but there was
00:34:24
there any evidence that he would do this or is this just a made-up nonsense fear
00:34:31
by his mother oh then he would rape or molest the sister right that's a really good question and I've this is the thing
00:34:40
that I've often wondered about because now let's say you're his mother you're now in a situation where much later in
00:34:50
life this is projected as being a form of abuse and torment that you instilled on only one child out of three right you
00:34:59
kind of signaled out this dude singled out this dude and put him through hell and you know it's it's kind of like a
00:35:05
Cinderella situation right treat one bad and the other good well but you hit on something important here what if there
00:35:13
is some type of evidence that he would have molested or maybe even raped his sister yeah then in a sense you're
00:35:21
preventing the torture or abuse of another of your children you see what I mean by putting him in the basement
00:35:28
well right and you're not puttin him out in a shed right but now this is also the
00:35:33
50s so the basement they're not what basements are now a basements must have been terrible in the 50 Ryan they're
00:35:40
probably wet and I I heard also that he could hear rats possibly yeah so the thing when we talk about Edmund Kemper
00:35:49
here that we should be completely clear about regarding this story is that there
00:35:55
has been variations of his childhood and variations of his story throughout the years I do wonder what is fact and what
00:36:05
is fiction after all these years have passed I do know from an interview that he gave he
00:36:11
described sleeping in the basement and described it simply as every night he would go down he you know he would he
00:36:19
would walk down the stairs right so picture like an old rickety wooden staircase he would walk down the
00:36:26
stairs and there was a single light at the bottom of the staircase and he would you know it has the string hanging
00:36:33
from it he would reach up and he would pull the string to turn it on and then he said that that would only light up
00:36:39
basically that corner of the basement right well he slept in the far corner away from that so he would walk all the
00:36:47
way because he was afraid of being in the dark in the basement by himself well that was that's the age where your
00:36:53
mom says go get the towel out of the basement you go okay and then you brave the courage bits middle of the day and
00:36:59
you turn on the light and then you grab the towel and now you have to turn off the light but you have to run up the
00:37:05
steps you're so afraid that something's gonna grab you right so he would walk the length of the basement basically to
00:37:14
the other end where there was another light hanging and he would put you know with a string and he would pull the
00:37:20
string and turn that light on and then he would walk all the way back to turn off the light that was near the stairs
00:37:25
and he there most reports and stories would say that he was locked in the basement every night I don't know if
00:37:34
that in fact is true because his own words state that he he was in charge of closing the the basement door
00:37:42
he actually references that he would get yelled at by his mom because of the the
00:37:46
cold would seep up into the house if he didn't close the basement door and she didn't want to feel the cold wow that's
00:37:54
so nice of her I don't know if he could hear rats you know then that's the other
00:37:59
rumor was that he could hear the rats scratching around in the night hour if that was just made up in his head yeah
00:38:05
or if it's just the story to make it worse than what it actually was and all reality let's say there were no rats at
00:38:12
the very least we have an eight-year-old boy somebody who's very young mentally young as well emotionally young sleeping
00:38:21
by himself in a dark cold basement to which it's so cold that he's required to shut the door so the cold doesn't seep
00:38:28
into the rest of the house and at the very least in the middle of the night he's gonna hear the furnace turning on
00:38:33
and off so there would be noises that would probably startle him and wake him up or scare him throughout
00:38:40
the night all right and on top of that why are you there why are you in the basement if you know it's
00:38:47
because your mother fears this then it's late and again if there's no evidence that you're gonna do this or even
00:38:54
capable of doing that do you then become capable of doing it because you are essentially being accused of being
00:39:01
capable of doing it well the other thing too captain is it is no question that his mother was an alcoholic so there
00:39:11
could be a skewed perception on her behalf as to what was going on in her home if she was drunk or under the
00:39:19
influence a lot of the time while she was home but Kemper did engage in psychotic and psychopathic behavior
00:39:26
early on so he started off by dismembering his sister's dolls this was all based around a violent fantasy that
00:39:35
he would later tell us about killing his mother and his sisters now one book describes this scenario pretty simply in
00:39:42
something something like this stating that as Edie sat awake in the cold dark basement at night and his hatred grew
00:39:50
and grew he fantasized about killing the females upstairs so right because he's less than right and they made him less
00:39:58
than but also just because your son rips apart your daughter's baby you know our
00:40:03
Barbie dolls I don't know if that's a sign of anything the fact that he is stating that it was a replication of how
00:40:13
he would murder his family now that's that's a whole different level but a kid just ripping apart a doll that's
00:40:19
sometimes boys will just be boys yeah and he said that he started off by like popping off their heads you know so like
00:40:26
if you picture like a Barbie doll or any kind of doll they usually had like that
00:40:31
plastic head connected to a much stiffer stronger sturdier plastic body and he says you know he would get like pleasure
00:40:39
from hearing that that noise when he would pull the head from the body right well later he said that he actually
00:40:47
believes he even received some kind of or got some kind of sexual arousal by doing this and look I'm just gonna
00:40:54
put this question out now because we're gonna be talking a lot about his viewpoints on things and again this is
00:41:01
this is also hindsight is he just making some of this stuff up later in life to make him seem more interesting I mean
00:41:09
this is a guy that wants to talk he wants to be heard he wants people listen to him are they more likely to listen to
00:41:17
you if you're coming up with these and arresting scenarios mm-hmm well and here's Captain where I think we should
00:41:25
probably drop a bit of a warning for the listeners as we're going to get into a couple things that I know some people
00:41:32
don't like to hear about and this is typical behavior of a lot of these serial killers so some of you might want
00:41:40
to just kind of fast forward about a minute minute and a half or so so one of these behaviors that Kemper Kemper was
00:41:49
showing us as a young man when he was a teenager early in his teen years this included
00:41:56
the torture and killing of animals now the family had two cats one of them he buried alive and he later dug it up in
00:42:04
which he stored the carcass of the cat in a closet in their house and then the second cat he killed with a machete so
00:42:13
this is a different situation much different one buried alive the other he's actually physically attacking it
00:42:19
with a machete to the point of he's getting blood on himself during the course of killing this animal right but
00:42:25
this is a huge step up from dismembering dolls yes and actually I found this quite interesting some psychologists say
00:42:34
that cats are the most killed animals by these young later to be serial killers because of a couple of psychological
00:42:43
reasons one most by far most serial killers are men and many have suggested that the cat on some psychological level
00:42:53
is representative of the female gender right and then a lot of these guys kill for their hate of a single female or of
00:43:01
all of the gender well I think you see this with dahmer you also saw with the cat torture
00:43:09
videos of Luka Magnotta aka pukin ah ha de but in that scenario with the Luka Magnotta case his victim was was a male
00:43:19
yeah and so that's that's why they believe that cats are usually you know we see the torture of different animals
00:43:27
we certainly did when we talked about BTK and as you mentioned several others but seems to be the cancer the most
00:43:36
often killed by these guys now this is a good time for us to introduce what the mine hunter guys would refer to as the
00:43:44
homicidal triad well hold on this is a good time to apologize for people that we probably says that two and a half
00:43:50
minutes fast forward two and a half minutes so you probably caught that tail in and we're sorry about that yes so the
00:43:57
the homicidal triad as the mine hunter guys would later come up with this is after years of studying these serial
00:44:05
killers and interviewing them and coming up with and getting information straight
00:44:09
directly from them so these behaviors these three behaviors that we would see time and time again in the childhood of
00:44:18
these eventual serial killers are these three types of things one fire starting to bedwetting and three Cruelty to
00:44:28
Animals I'm a fiow stata twisted firestarter hey so uh with that edmond is he wet in the bed is he making the
00:44:41
wet basement wetter I don't know about wetting the bed or fire-starting but we do know he was doing the cruelty to
00:44:49
animals but this is I mean throughout their studies this is something that they would see enough to the point that
00:44:55
they came up with a name for it the homicidal triad and this is something that they would see out of these serial
00:45:02
killers where they would often exhibit one or two or all three of these behaviors during their the course of
00:45:11
their childhood well there's different levels too of like pyromaniacs I mean when you're a kid especially a young boy
00:45:18
and you yet a box of matches or you get a lighter you're gonna light every toy that you
00:45:25
can on fire mm-hmm but then sometimes you're hanging out with one of your buddies and they're like to the extreme
00:45:32
and I think that's kind of what they're talking about there's always gonna be somewhat of a fascination especially
00:45:38
with little boys playing with lighters or matches yeah yeah so people out there listening shouldn't freak out if they've
00:45:46
experienced them I would freak out if your son or daughter is doing the cruelty to animals thing that seems to
00:45:52
me to be a different level but like you said some kids play with fire some some kids wet the bed
00:45:59
I mean right and I don't know how much I think years later I'm curious to see how
00:46:05
much they think the bedwetting is actually involved because it's not that's not a destructive behavior when
00:46:12
you compare it to the other two you know it's not a destructive behavior at all did you have a wedding of the bed
00:46:17
problem well but they're talking about seems like you're defending this one no I'm not defending any of it what I'm
00:46:24
saying is it ain't what they mean by bedwetting is of of a considerable older age right you know if you have a
00:46:33
three-year-old kid in there wetting the bed sometimes they're just a three-year-old kid right anyway it's
00:46:40
what we do know is Edmond grew up to hate his mother and at the age of 14 he ran away from home this is in search of
00:46:48
his father and he finds his father in Van Nuys California so when he caught up he was looking for a better basement
00:46:55
well when he caught up with his father his father had a new family and he didn't want Edmond staying with them so
00:47:02
Kemper said just him being around gave his stepmother migraine had headaches so he was shipped off to go live with his
00:47:12
father's parents on a 17 acre farm in North Fork California yeah but can you imagine though okay let's say you're not
00:47:22
well okay say you are married and then you bring your son around and your wife is saying I get migraines hmm this kid
00:47:31
gives me migraines you're really gonna pick this Looney tune over your son well you got to keep
00:47:40
in mind he's already chose to not choose his son he's right not been living with
00:47:45
his son he's already walked away from that job and from that responsibility and that's why I but you also yeah I see
00:47:54
I wonder what the actions were between you know or what kind of relationship was there violence or anything between
00:48:01
Kemper's mother father what was their dynamic like because if she is you know this alcoholic Looney tune then you'd
00:48:12
think on some level okay yeah I didn't choose you then but hey things are probably pretty bad for you so maybe I
00:48:17
should do something well he would have had a good idea and when I say he I mean Edmonds father would had a good idea
00:48:25
because I believe his and I don't remember the exact words but something something similar to this he stated that
00:48:34
being with Claire Nell with Edmonds mom was worse than the time he spent fighting in the war and he was from my
00:48:44
understanding like he referred to his time in the war he was in in served I don't know which war it was but he
00:48:49
served over a year in combat to what he referred to as suicide missions and he said being with her was worse and more
00:48:58
frightening than being in those suicide missions saying there you go so you would have to so you're you're a bit
00:49:06
yeah but well here's my point though it's worse than a suicide mission and that's what you're putting your
00:49:11
eight-year-old son through in his opinion yes and then when your son finally shows up and leaves there and
00:49:18
says look I didn't like living there so I've ice I sought you out I came and I found you I do have to give some some
00:49:28
credit here you know I'm not liking Edmonds father at all I don't I don't say he sounds like a he's a piece of
00:49:35
[ __ ] I don't appreciate him not being around for Edmonds childhood or for taking the responsibility of being a
00:49:43
real father but what I will give him credit for is sending him to his parents home
00:49:49
rather than shipping him back to Claire now alright so use a piece of [ __ ] but
00:49:55
you a little less piece of [ __ ] because you sent him with your parents well he
00:49:59
probably figured hey if I can't raise you here then I'm gonna look I turned out yeah maybe he considers he turned
00:50:06
out pretty fine and he maybe he has good fond memories of his childhood and thought well I'll send you to go live
00:50:11
with my parents he imagine what this country would be like or what this world would be like if
00:50:16
if every man actually manned up and raised their kids well that's a big portion of of this study into the serial
00:50:26
killers and why I said that we'll take a look at this situation and try to figure
00:50:31
out if Edmund Kemper was born evil or if he was made to be evil because the very
00:50:38
simplistic thought of a serial killer is this that they cannot have and and you can email me you can hit me up on the
00:50:47
blog you can do whatever you want but you it would be tough to convince me otherwise for a person to knowing and
00:50:54
willingly and plan out the murder of multiple people of multiple individuals they cannot have the same or share the
00:51:03
same emotions that quote-unquote normal people have so why don't they have the same emotions as we do what about is
00:51:12
that excluding like soldiers well again that's that to me is a different situation a serial killer is a very
00:51:22
defined type of person and killer okay where a soldier is a different definition of a killer
00:51:30
technically they both are still they both are killers but there are they're huge differences between the two so
00:51:39
again why don't they had so then the question then becomes why don't they have the
00:51:44
same emotions why don't they have the same responses as we would to their environments into behaviors around them
00:51:53
into treatments that they're receiving and this when you go back and you really get to
00:52:00
probably the simplest form of this is does it start with being a little baby and does it start with having a mother
00:52:09
that didn't want you and having a father that wasn't there and not developing those emotions and not of you know
00:52:17
developing those behaviors empathy and not developing empathy at a very young age while and also knowing that it
00:52:26
doesn't always have to be that order sometimes it's the mother that rejects them and the father is still around but
00:52:33
he is just uh not such such a great father so there I think you see it happen multiple ways yes and not all
00:52:43
serial killers had a horrible time growing up a horrible childhood but some of them did and I do understand that
00:52:50
there are a lot of people out there that had bad childhoods because look if if everybody out there that had a bad a
00:52:56
quote/unquote what they have determined to be a bad childhood right grew up to kill people in the double digits and the
00:53:03
it you know ten or more people yeah we would be running out of people on this planet so it's I'm not saying it's an
00:53:09
excuse it's more of a question of why and how alright so his father ships him off to live with his parents yes on a 17
00:53:17
acre farm in North Fork California and it seems like Edie got along well with his grandfather but not
00:53:25
so much with his grandmother his grandmother was a bit of a strict disciplinarian his grandparents got him
00:53:33
a 22 rifle for Christmas for small game hunting there are differing stories about what I'm about to tell you but the
00:53:42
simple truth of it is this that on August 27th 1964 fifteen-year-old Edmund Kemper used his Christmas present to
00:53:52
shoot his grandmother in the back three times as she sat at the kitchen table typing afterwards he stabbed her three
00:54:01
times with a kitchen knife this is because he says that he didn't want her to suffer he wanted to end it for her as
00:54:09
quickly as possible the reason being for killing his grandmother he's stated over the years that there's
00:54:16
been several reasons but the one that he cites the most often is he wanted to see
00:54:22
what it would feel like so his grandfather was out it was not home during the time when he killed his
00:54:29
grandmother and the reason why I say there are differing stories about this is because there's the way that these
00:54:37
stories go is either his grandfather was out in town shopping and then returned home or he was out hunting and the IDI
00:54:48
was mad that he could not go or upset that he could not go hunting with his grandfather well if his grandfather in
00:54:55
fact wasn't out hunting then we know he wasn't mad about that right regardless when his grandfather returned to the
00:55:03
home as Edie would describe it they had a brief interaction where his grandfather waved to him you know he's
00:55:10
getting out of his truck and he waves to him and like I said it seems like the two of them had had a good relationship
00:55:16
you know and Edie waited till his grandfather turned his back and he shot his grandfather he would later then hide
00:55:25
the body in a closet and he said that he shot his grandfather for reasons that all seemed to stem from not wanting him
00:55:35
to have discovered that that he had just killed his grandmother yeah maybe not wanting him to see the body maybe not
00:55:41
wanting him to be disappointed and in kemper yeah probably several things here so not wanting him
00:55:48
to be angry ahead or upset with that disappointed in that as you had said or also at the loss of life of his wife
00:55:55
right you know his longtime companion the weird thing though here captain and we've actually heard this with several
00:56:03
other serial killers and and how reference BTK as a prime example here his Edmund immediately felt like at any
00:56:13
time a whole bunch of people were going to come to get him like everybody in the
00:56:19
whole world probably knew what he had just done and that they're going to come up there they're going to arrest him
00:56:24
they're going to attack him they're going to kill him any number of those things right
00:56:28
and we heard that with BTK Dennis Rader would say that often when he would go out and he would kill somebody or kill
00:56:33
multiple people he felt like in the first 48 hours afterwards that the police were just going to show up at any
00:56:40
time at his door knocking and saying hey we know what you did buddy now you're arrested it's like this paranoia sets in
00:56:48
yeah that's interesting and so Edie said that in that situation he was going to shoot and kill anyone
00:56:58
that would have approached the the farm or the house at that time that was his mindset at the time so we almost have to
00:57:07
count our blessings here in some form right because he's out on a 17 acre farm out in kind of the middle of nowhere if
00:57:15
he were in a major city when he had done this can you imagine all the innocent people that weren't coming to get him
00:57:22
that would have probably had been killed that day I mean you even something as simple as the person delivering the mail
00:57:28
right you know we'd have a scenario where it would be he'd be a mass murderer and they would have caught him
00:57:35
and then the other the serial killings would have never happen well mm-hmm that's tough to say that stuff to
00:57:44
citizens not tough to say when I what I'm assuming is that in the 60s 64 if you had a guy that went on a rampage
00:57:52
going around killing people in a city that the cops are gonna come and arrest that individual yes but essentially
00:58:00
isn't that what ended up happening and what I mean by that is that okay so we get lucky that there's nobody else there
00:58:08
and at some point his paranoia it wears off and he calls his mother and explains
00:58:13
what he had done and he is going to be picked up like you said he gets arrested for killing his grandparents right
00:58:21
Kemper was committed to the attesa Darrow state hospital for the criminally insane
00:58:40
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download the free Poshmark app today all right captain I want to let everybody out there know I received a lot of great
00:59:09
emails several people asking about specific cases to cover I mentioned a few of them here one the honey and berry
00:59:16
Sherman case the Tico Lewis case the ami Mahalo Vic case and Laura Spurrier I want to point out that we did cover all
00:59:24
of these cases already and you can find all of our back catalogue it's a huge back catalog we're over 260 episodes
00:59:31
strong now you can get our back catalog for free and listen to those cases on the stitcher app we also have a show on
00:59:39
stitcher premium called off the record it's $5 a month and you get every premium show on stitcher premium all
00:59:45
right we will talk more ed Kemper the co-ed killer tomorrow back here in the garage until then everybody be good be
00:59:52
time and don't litter

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 80
    Most intense
  • 75
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  • 70
    Most shocking
  • 70
    Biggest twist

Episode Highlights

  • Welcome to True Crime Garage
    Join hosts Nick and the Captain as they dive into true crime stories.
    “Thanks for listening!”
    @ 01m 07s
    December 05, 2018
  • The Story of Edmund Kemper
    Exploring the life and crimes of the infamous co-ed killer.
    “You've never heard it quite like this before.”
    @ 03m 31s
    December 05, 2018
  • The Mind of a Killer
    A look into the psyche of serial killer Edmund Kemper and his interactions with the FBI.
    “Was this hulking monster born evil or was he made evil?”
    @ 04m 28s
    December 05, 2018
  • Kemper's Childhood Abuse
    Edmund Kemper's mother subjected him to severe emotional and physical abuse, shaping his psyche.
    “My mother was a sick, angry, hungry, and very sad woman.”
    @ 30m 34s
    December 05, 2018
  • The Homicidal Triad
    Kemper's early behaviors included animal cruelty, a common trait among future serial killers.
    “Cruelty to animals is one of the three behaviors seen in future serial killers.”
    @ 44m 21s
    December 05, 2018
  • The Homicidal Triad
    Kemper exhibited behaviors typical of the homicidal triad during childhood.
    “Some kids play with fire, some kids wet the bed.”
    @ 45m 55s
    December 05, 2018
  • Edmund Kemper's Childhood
    Edmund Kemper grew up with a tumultuous family life, leading to his later actions.
    “He grew up to hate his mother and ran away at 14.”
    @ 46m 40s
    December 05, 2018
  • Kemper's First Kill
    At 15, Kemper killed his grandmother, citing a desire to see what it felt like.
    “He shot his grandmother in the back three times as she sat at the kitchen table.”
    @ 53m 50s
    December 05, 2018

Episode Quotes

  • Was this hulking monster born evil or was he made evil?
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261
  • I could listen to Ed Kemper talk for days.
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261
  • I can't get away from true crime.
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261
  • It was like drugs, it was like alcohol.
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261
  • He was locked in the basement every night.
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261
  • He wanted to see what it would feel like.
    Edmund Kemper /// Part 1 /// 261

Key Moments

  • True Crime Garage01:07
  • Edmund Kemper03:31
  • Murderous Madness04:46
  • Psychological Warfare15:30
  • Mother's Abuse30:34
  • Cravings Described32:22
  • Homicidal Triad44:21
  • First Kill53:50

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown