April 10, 2024 • 11 mins
Discover the chilling story of Edmund Kemper III, a notorious serial killer who committed horrifying crimes during his lifetime. From a troubled childhood filled with monstrous acts to a brutal killing spree that has left a lasting mark on American history, this episode will walk you through every disturbing detail. Learn about Kemper's struggle with mental health, his relationship with his family, and his disturbing fascination with violence.
Born in California in the mid-20th century, Edmund Kemper III showed signs of antisocial behavior from an early age - extending to cruelty towards animals. Despite professional diagnoses and treatment attempts, his behavior escalated into a gruesome killing spree that shocked the nation. Explore the chilling sequence of events that led to his arrest, trial, and imprisonment.
Through personal confessions and research, gain in-depth insights into the mind of this notorious murderer, his horrifying crimes, and his life in prison. Highly detailed and thoroughly researched, this episode serves as a stark reminder of the extent of human brutality, the complexities of the human mind, and the immense importance of mental health awareness in society.
Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence and mental abuse that may disturb some listeners.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:10):
Is Edmund Kemper III? Born December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California,
to Clarnell and Edmund Kemper Jr., he was 13 pounds at birth and the middle
child of three, along with being the only boy.
His father was a World War II veteran that became an electrician in California.
Edmund's mother would complain about her husband being an electrician,
(00:31):
saying it was a menial job and berating him any chance she could.
From an early age, Edmund started showing antisocial behaviors behaviors and being cruel to animals.
When he was 10, he buried the family cat alive, then dug it back up to decapitate
it and put it on a spike in the yard.
He later said he got pleasure from successfully lying about it to his parents.
At age 13, he killed another family cat because he believed it liked his sister more than him.
(00:57):
He kept pieces of the cat in his closet until his mother discovered them and
made him throw them away.
Edmund had dark fantasies, that he would act out using his sister's dolls that
that included removing the doll's head and hands.
Some of his favorite games to play were gas chamber and electric chair.
He would have his sister tie him up and pretend to flip the switch,
to which he would act like he was really being electrocuted,
(01:19):
by tumbling over and withering on the floor.
He started to sneak out at night to visit his second grade teacher's house to
watch her through the window.
His older sister would tease him about it and say, why don't you just try to
kiss her? Edmund's response was that if I kissed her, I'd have to kill her first.
His parents separated in 1957, which devastated Edmund, because he was very close to his father.
(01:41):
When they divorced in 1961, he was sent to live with his mother in Helena, Montana.
Edmund didn't have a good relationship with his mother. In fact,
it was severely dysfunctional.
Clarnell was an abusive alcoholic that belittled and humiliated Edmund.
She would often make him sleep in the basement, locking him in,
saying she feared he would harm his sisters because of his size.
(02:01):
He was 6'4 by the age of 15.
Clarnell never showed any affection
towards him, saying it was because she didn't want to turn him gay.
And then she would tell him that he was like his father and no woman would ever love him.
Edmund ran away from home in hopes of living with his father in Van Nuys, California.
However, when he got there, he discovered that his father had a new wife and stepson.
(02:22):
His father let him stay for a few
days before sending him to live with his grandparents in Sierra Nevada.
Edmund hated being with his grandparents. parents. He thought his grandfather
was senile, and his grandmother treated him just as bad as his mother.
On August 27, 1964, Edmund was sitting at the table with his grandmother,
Maude Matilda Kemper, when they got into an argument.
(02:43):
He got mad and grabbed a rifle, shooting her in the head and twice more in her
back. He then waited for his grandfather, Edmund Kemper Sr., to return home.
When he arrived, Edmund went outside and shot him in the driveway,
later saying he only killed him so he wouldn't have to know his wife was dead.
He then called his mother to ask what he should do. She told him to call the police and confess.
(03:03):
He called and waited for them to arrive. His crimes were deemed incomprehensible
for a 15-year-old to commit.
He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to Ascadero State Hospital,
a maximum security facility in San Luis Obispo County for mentally ill convicts.
While in prison, psychiatrists and social workers disagreed with the diagnosis
(03:25):
of paranoid schizophrenia, schizophrenia, stating he had no flight of ideas,
no interference with thoughts, no expression of delusions or hallucinations,
and no evidence of bizarre thinking.
They found him to be intelligent and in an IQ test that resulted in a 136.
They diagnosed him with a personality trait disturbance, passive-aggressive type.
Edmund was a model prisoner and trusted by his psychiatrist so much that they
(03:48):
trained him how to administer the test on other inmates.
Edmund later in life confessed that it was helpful to know how the tests were
done so he could manipulate them and that he learned a lot when he gave the test to sex offenders.
In 1969, on his 21st birthday, Edmund was released into his mother's care.
She had recently moved to Aptos, California, and got an administrative assistance
(04:09):
job at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Edmund showed such good behavior to his psychiatrist that on November 29,
29th in 1972, his juvenile record was expunged.
Edmund attended community college as part of his parole requirements and had
hopes of becoming a police officer but was rejected from the academy due to his size.
(04:30):
He stood six foot nine. He still had a relationship with the Santa Cruz police
officers and would hang out with them at the bar called Jury Room.
He worked some menial jobs before getting a job at the State of California Division of Highways.
He was able to save up enough money to finally move out of his mother's house.
But their relationship was still toxic because Clarnell would call him all the
(04:51):
time and randomly show up to his place, where they would get into arguments.
Edmund struggled financially, so when he wasn't able to afford his place,
he would have to move back in with his mother.
In 1973, Edmund was in a car accident while riding his motorcycle and injured his arm.
He received a $1,500 settlement in the civil suit, which is about $100,000 in today's conversion.
(05:12):
He used the money to buy a 1969 Ford Galaxy.
While he was driving around, he started to notice how many women were hitchhiking
and began giving them rides.
He said he did this around 150 times before he started to get homicidal sexual
urges towards the women he picked up. This is when his killing spree began.
On May 7, 1972, he was driving in Berkeley when he saw Marianne Presch and Anita Mary Luchessa.
(05:38):
They were both 18 and looking for a ride to Stanford University.
So Edmund offered them a ride.
He drove them for an hour to a secluded area in Alameda. The girls hadn't noticed
that they were going the wrong way.
He then handcuffed Mary and placed Anita in the trunk. He then began to stab
and strangle Mary to death, first before doing the same to Anita.
He then placed both bodies in his trunk and started to drive back to his apartment
(06:02):
when he was pulled over for a broken taillight.
The officer didn't suspect anything, and Edmund acted normal,
so after discussing getting the taillight fixed, the officer sent him on his way.
Edmund returned to his apartment and found his roommate was not home,
so he took the bodies inside.
He had sex with the bodies and took photos before dismembering them.
He placed them in bags, later dumping them near the Loma Prieto mountain.
(06:25):
Edmund kept the heads for a while to use them to perform aromatio before he
disposed of them as well.
In August, Mary's head was discovered and the area was searched.
Unfortunately, they were unable to find the rest of her remains.
They were never able to find Anita remains.
September 14th, Akiko Yu, a 15-year-old, was hitchhiking to dance class when Edmund picked her up.
(06:46):
He drove her to a remote area and pulled a gun on her.
In the process, he ended up locking himself out of the car with the gun inside. side.
Unfortunately, she let him back in, where he proceeded to strangle her until she was unconscious.
He then raped her before killing her. Edmund then placed her body in the trunk
and went to a bar for a few drinks.
When he got back to his apartment, he took her inside and had sex with the body
(07:08):
and then dismembered her, disposing of her remains the same way as the others.
January 7, 1973, Cynthia Ann Schall, who went by Cindy, was 18 when Edmund picked
her up and drove her to a wooded area before shooting her to death.
He put her in the trunk and drove to his mother's house that he had recently moved back into.
Once there, he hid her body in his closet for the night.
(07:31):
In the morning after his mother left, he had sex with her body and removed the
bullet so it wouldn't be traced to him.
He then dismembered and decapitated her body in his mother's bathtub.
Edmund kept her head for several days, regularly using it for aromatio.
He buried her head in his mother's garden, making sure it was facing upwards towards her bedroom.
Her remains, except for her head and right hand, were found over the next few weeks.
(07:55):
By February that year, police believed they had a serial killer in the area
and advised students to take precautions.
They were told to only accept rides from other students that had the university sticker on their cars.
However, Edmund was able to get a university sticker since his mother worked there.
So on February 5th, when Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Helen Liu accepted a ride
(08:16):
from Edmund, They thought they would be safe.
After driving for a few minutes, he pulled over and shot Rosalind in the head.
He then turned and shot twice at Alice but missed.
The third shot hit her in the temple, killing her. He drove to his mother's
house, decapitating them in the car before taking their bodies inside to have sex.
He dismembered them and removed the bullets before disposing of their bodies.
(08:39):
Some of the remains were discovered in March. On April 20, 1973.
Edmund woke up when his mother came home late from a party.
He went into her room after she fell asleep and bludgeoned her with a claw hammer
and slit her throat with a penknife. He decapitated her, placing her head on
a shelf where he screamed at it for hours while throwing darts at her face.
(08:59):
Edmund then cut out her tongue and larynx. Her body was put in a closet and
then he went out to have a few drinks.
When he got home, he called Clarnell's best friend, Sarah Taylor Hellett,
to come over for dinner and movie.
When she arrived, he strangled her to death then placed her in a closet.
He cleaned up and left a note for police that read, No need for her to suffer
(09:20):
anymore at the hands of this horrible, murderous butcher.
It was quick, asleep, the way I wanted it.
Not sloppy and incomplete, gents, just a lack of time.
I got things to do. After he was done, he drove non-stop to Pueblo,
Colorado, taking caffeine pills to stay awake during the thousand-mile drive.
He had guns and ammo in the car, believing he was being tracked down by the police.
(09:43):
After not hearing any news about the murders once he got to Pueblo,
We found a phone booth and called the police station to confess,
but they didn't believe him, and he told them to call back.
Several hours later, he called back and asked to speak to an officer that he
knew personally. He confessed again to him and was taken seriously.
Edmund waited for the police to arrive and arrest him. When they got there,
(10:04):
he told them about the students he had also killed.
On May 7, 1973, Edmund Kemper was indicted on eight counts of first-degree murder.
Due to his detailed confession, the only choice his attorney had was to try
and plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The trial began on October 23rd. He was found sane by three court-appointed psychiatrists.
(10:26):
He took the stand on November 1st and testified that he killed the victims because
he wanted them all to himself like possessions.
He then tried to say he had two beings inhabiting his body, and when the killer
personality took over, he would black out. On November 8th, the six-man and
six-woman jury deliberated for five hours before finding him sane and guilty on all counts.
(10:48):
Edmund asked for the death penalty, but was denied due to capital punishment
no longer being allowed in California.
He was sentenced to seven years to life for each count to be served concurrently
and was sent to California Medical Facility in Vaclaville.
Edmund is considered a model prisoner and is held in the general population. relation.
While in prison, he scheduled other inmate psychiatrist appointments and became
(11:09):
a narrator of audiobooks, recording over 5,000 hours until 2015,
when he had a stroke and was declared medically disabled.
He has worked with the FBI to help them better understand the mind of a serial killer.
He is honest and it has been said he is friendly, open, sensitive,
and has a good sense of humor.
There have been movies, documentaries, and shows based on Edmund Kemper.
(11:31):
Over the years, he has been denied parole nine times.
He stated that, society is not ready in any shape or form for me.
I can't fault them for that.
He remains at the California Medical Facility.
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like and share it
with your friends. Stay safe, and I'll be talking to you next week.
Music.
(00:10):
Is Edmund Kemper III? Born December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California,
to Clarnell and Edmund Kemper Jr., he was 13 pounds at birth and the middle
child of three, along with being the only boy.
His father was a World War II veteran that became an electrician in California.
Edmund's mother would complain about her husband being an electrician,
(00:31):
saying it was a menial job and berating him any chance she could.
From an early age, Edmund started showing antisocial behaviors behaviors and being cruel to animals.
When he was 10, he buried the family cat alive, then dug it back up to decapitate
it and put it on a spike in the yard.
He later said he got pleasure from successfully lying about it to his parents.
At age 13, he killed another family cat because he believed it liked his sister more than him.
(00:57):
He kept pieces of the cat in his closet until his mother discovered them and
made him throw them away.
Edmund had dark fantasies, that he would act out using his sister's dolls that
that included removing the doll's head and hands.
Some of his favorite games to play were gas chamber and electric chair.
He would have his sister tie him up and pretend to flip the switch,
to which he would act like he was really being electrocuted,
(01:19):
by tumbling over and withering on the floor.
He started to sneak out at night to visit his second grade teacher's house to
watch her through the window.
His older sister would tease him about it and say, why don't you just try to
kiss her? Edmund's response was that if I kissed her, I'd have to kill her first.
His parents separated in 1957, which devastated Edmund, because he was very close to his father.
(01:41):
When they divorced in 1961, he was sent to live with his mother in Helena, Montana.
Edmund didn't have a good relationship with his mother. In fact,
it was severely dysfunctional.
Clarnell was an abusive alcoholic that belittled and humiliated Edmund.
She would often make him sleep in the basement, locking him in,
saying she feared he would harm his sisters because of his size.
(02:01):
He was 6'4 by the age of 15.
Clarnell never showed any affection
towards him, saying it was because she didn't want to turn him gay.
And then she would tell him that he was like his father and no woman would ever love him.
Edmund ran away from home in hopes of living with his father in Van Nuys, California.
However, when he got there, he discovered that his father had a new wife and stepson.
(02:22):
His father let him stay for a few
days before sending him to live with his grandparents in Sierra Nevada.
Edmund hated being with his grandparents. parents. He thought his grandfather
was senile, and his grandmother treated him just as bad as his mother.
On August 27, 1964, Edmund was sitting at the table with his grandmother,
Maude Matilda Kemper, when they got into an argument.
(02:43):
He got mad and grabbed a rifle, shooting her in the head and twice more in her
back. He then waited for his grandfather, Edmund Kemper Sr., to return home.
When he arrived, Edmund went outside and shot him in the driveway,
later saying he only killed him so he wouldn't have to know his wife was dead.
He then called his mother to ask what he should do. She told him to call the police and confess.
(03:03):
He called and waited for them to arrive. His crimes were deemed incomprehensible
for a 15-year-old to commit.
He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to Ascadero State Hospital,
a maximum security facility in San Luis Obispo County for mentally ill convicts.
While in prison, psychiatrists and social workers disagreed with the diagnosis
(03:25):
of paranoid schizophrenia, schizophrenia, stating he had no flight of ideas,
no interference with thoughts, no expression of delusions or hallucinations,
and no evidence of bizarre thinking.
They found him to be intelligent and in an IQ test that resulted in a 136.
They diagnosed him with a personality trait disturbance, passive-aggressive type.
Edmund was a model prisoner and trusted by his psychiatrist so much that they
(03:48):
trained him how to administer the test on other inmates.
Edmund later in life confessed that it was helpful to know how the tests were
done so he could manipulate them and that he learned a lot when he gave the test to sex offenders.
In 1969, on his 21st birthday, Edmund was released into his mother's care.
She had recently moved to Aptos, California, and got an administrative assistance
(04:09):
job at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Edmund showed such good behavior to his psychiatrist that on November 29,
29th in 1972, his juvenile record was expunged.
Edmund attended community college as part of his parole requirements and had
hopes of becoming a police officer but was rejected from the academy due to his size.
(04:30):
He stood six foot nine. He still had a relationship with the Santa Cruz police
officers and would hang out with them at the bar called Jury Room.
He worked some menial jobs before getting a job at the State of California Division of Highways.
He was able to save up enough money to finally move out of his mother's house.
But their relationship was still toxic because Clarnell would call him all the
(04:51):
time and randomly show up to his place, where they would get into arguments.
Edmund struggled financially, so when he wasn't able to afford his place,
he would have to move back in with his mother.
In 1973, Edmund was in a car accident while riding his motorcycle and injured his arm.
He received a $1,500 settlement in the civil suit, which is about $100,000 in today's conversion.
(05:12):
He used the money to buy a 1969 Ford Galaxy.
While he was driving around, he started to notice how many women were hitchhiking
and began giving them rides.
He said he did this around 150 times before he started to get homicidal sexual
urges towards the women he picked up. This is when his killing spree began.
On May 7, 1972, he was driving in Berkeley when he saw Marianne Presch and Anita Mary Luchessa.
(05:38):
They were both 18 and looking for a ride to Stanford University.
So Edmund offered them a ride.
He drove them for an hour to a secluded area in Alameda. The girls hadn't noticed
that they were going the wrong way.
He then handcuffed Mary and placed Anita in the trunk. He then began to stab
and strangle Mary to death, first before doing the same to Anita.
He then placed both bodies in his trunk and started to drive back to his apartment
(06:02):
when he was pulled over for a broken taillight.
The officer didn't suspect anything, and Edmund acted normal,
so after discussing getting the taillight fixed, the officer sent him on his way.
Edmund returned to his apartment and found his roommate was not home,
so he took the bodies inside.
He had sex with the bodies and took photos before dismembering them.
He placed them in bags, later dumping them near the Loma Prieto mountain.
(06:25):
Edmund kept the heads for a while to use them to perform aromatio before he
disposed of them as well.
In August, Mary's head was discovered and the area was searched.
Unfortunately, they were unable to find the rest of her remains.
They were never able to find Anita remains.
September 14th, Akiko Yu, a 15-year-old, was hitchhiking to dance class when Edmund picked her up.
(06:46):
He drove her to a remote area and pulled a gun on her.
In the process, he ended up locking himself out of the car with the gun inside. side.
Unfortunately, she let him back in, where he proceeded to strangle her until she was unconscious.
He then raped her before killing her. Edmund then placed her body in the trunk
and went to a bar for a few drinks.
When he got back to his apartment, he took her inside and had sex with the body
(07:08):
and then dismembered her, disposing of her remains the same way as the others.
January 7, 1973, Cynthia Ann Schall, who went by Cindy, was 18 when Edmund picked
her up and drove her to a wooded area before shooting her to death.
He put her in the trunk and drove to his mother's house that he had recently moved back into.
Once there, he hid her body in his closet for the night.
(07:31):
In the morning after his mother left, he had sex with her body and removed the
bullet so it wouldn't be traced to him.
He then dismembered and decapitated her body in his mother's bathtub.
Edmund kept her head for several days, regularly using it for aromatio.
He buried her head in his mother's garden, making sure it was facing upwards towards her bedroom.
Her remains, except for her head and right hand, were found over the next few weeks.
(07:55):
By February that year, police believed they had a serial killer in the area
and advised students to take precautions.
They were told to only accept rides from other students that had the university sticker on their cars.
However, Edmund was able to get a university sticker since his mother worked there.
So on February 5th, when Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Helen Liu accepted a ride
(08:16):
from Edmund, They thought they would be safe.
After driving for a few minutes, he pulled over and shot Rosalind in the head.
He then turned and shot twice at Alice but missed.
The third shot hit her in the temple, killing her. He drove to his mother's
house, decapitating them in the car before taking their bodies inside to have sex.
He dismembered them and removed the bullets before disposing of their bodies.
(08:39):
Some of the remains were discovered in March. On April 20, 1973.
Edmund woke up when his mother came home late from a party.
He went into her room after she fell asleep and bludgeoned her with a claw hammer
and slit her throat with a penknife. He decapitated her, placing her head on
a shelf where he screamed at it for hours while throwing darts at her face.
(08:59):
Edmund then cut out her tongue and larynx. Her body was put in a closet and
then he went out to have a few drinks.
When he got home, he called Clarnell's best friend, Sarah Taylor Hellett,
to come over for dinner and movie.
When she arrived, he strangled her to death then placed her in a closet.
He cleaned up and left a note for police that read, No need for her to suffer
(09:20):
anymore at the hands of this horrible, murderous butcher.
It was quick, asleep, the way I wanted it.
Not sloppy and incomplete, gents, just a lack of time.
I got things to do. After he was done, he drove non-stop to Pueblo,
Colorado, taking caffeine pills to stay awake during the thousand-mile drive.
He had guns and ammo in the car, believing he was being tracked down by the police.
(09:43):
After not hearing any news about the murders once he got to Pueblo,
We found a phone booth and called the police station to confess,
but they didn't believe him, and he told them to call back.
Several hours later, he called back and asked to speak to an officer that he
knew personally. He confessed again to him and was taken seriously.
Edmund waited for the police to arrive and arrest him. When they got there,
(10:04):
he told them about the students he had also killed.
On May 7, 1973, Edmund Kemper was indicted on eight counts of first-degree murder.
Due to his detailed confession, the only choice his attorney had was to try
and plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The trial began on October 23rd. He was found sane by three court-appointed psychiatrists.
(10:26):
He took the stand on November 1st and testified that he killed the victims because
he wanted them all to himself like possessions.
He then tried to say he had two beings inhabiting his body, and when the killer
personality took over, he would black out. On November 8th, the six-man and
six-woman jury deliberated for five hours before finding him sane and guilty on all counts.
(10:48):
Edmund asked for the death penalty, but was denied due to capital punishment
no longer being allowed in California.
He was sentenced to seven years to life for each count to be served concurrently
and was sent to California Medical Facility in Vaclaville.
Edmund is considered a model prisoner and is held in the general population. relation.
While in prison, he scheduled other inmate psychiatrist appointments and became
(11:09):
a narrator of audiobooks, recording over 5,000 hours until 2015,
when he had a stroke and was declared medically disabled.
He has worked with the FBI to help them better understand the mind of a serial killer.
He is honest and it has been said he is friendly, open, sensitive,
and has a good sense of humor.
There have been movies, documentaries, and shows based on Edmund Kemper.
(11:31):
Over the years, he has been denied parole nine times.
He stated that, society is not ready in any shape or form for me.
I can't fault them for that.
He remains at the California Medical Facility.
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like and share it
with your friends. Stay safe, and I'll be talking to you next week.
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