Every now and then I succumb to a morbid fascination with true-crime. Occasionally, more specifically, that means those über-transgressive subjects, serial-killers. One of the most intriguing of these is Ed Kemper.
Today I listened to a longer version of some interviews with Ed Kemper, short extracts of which have long been on YouTube. Hearing the fuller versions is very illuminating. Selective editing can, and does (obviously, really) vastly change how things come across.
Ed is massive! 6’ 9”, and very heavy set with it. A giant of a man! As the above images attest. I’m 6’ 1”. Ed’s the best part of a foot taller! And he is beefy with it. This imposing physical presence – even via the abstracting distance of the interweb – also adds to his ‘dark charisma’
I have to say that I find both Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy fascinating to listen to. In a way that’s very much not the case with a lot of killers. This is because they are clearly both intelligent and articulate.
One of the bits of Kemper’s story that’s usually left on the cutting room floor, but in this unexpurgated version really struck me, is Ed relating how his ability to think had lain dormant. And was finally brought out by an high school art teacher.
Unlike Bundy, who had to be caught (and re-caught!), and who doggedly maintained his innocence for many years, Kemper turned himself in, has not tried to escape (unless you count suicide attempts), and has never denied his culpability for his crimes.
Another thing I’ve learned about Big Ed is, rather surprisingly/amazingly, he had a pretty blond girlfriend – to whom he was engaged – during his grisly spree. He has said that she is one of the reasons he ultimately turned himself in.
A great resource for all things Ed is edmundkemperstories.com. I’ve learned a lot about this grim but fascinating chapter of history reading the posts there. And that’s also where a number of the photos I’ve used come from.
FBI profiler John Douglas found that, ultimately, he couldn’t help but like Edmund. Primarily for his intelligence and humour. This is not to belittle the horror of Kemper’s crimes. Rather, it is simply an honest response to the post-killing spree person Kemper managed to be.
To this day, however, Kemper – who requested the death penalty – has either not attended his parole hearings, or has admitted that he is best staying where he is, in prison. He knows he passed way beyond the pale. And admits he’ll never really come in from the cold.
Now, ill with severe diabetes, and having had an aneurysm, he is probably both too infirm to be a real threat to anyone, and simultaneously too institutionalised, physically and mentally, to survive outside of prison.
Interest in Ed and his crimes remains strong. Johnny Burke, someone I know socially/personally (brother of a best buddy’s wife) directed The Co-Ed Killer, in 2021. And a French team has rendered Kemper’s story as a graphic novel.
* Kemper killed his maternal grandparents, Edmund and Maude Kemper, aged just 15. Jailed for these killings, he was released back into society just six years later, on his 21st birthday. Shortly thereafter, between May 1972 and April 1973, he killed six young women – Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa; Aiko Koo; Cindy Schall; Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu (these killings earning him the name ‘the co-ed killer’), and finally, his mother, Clarnell Strandberg, and her friend and neighbour Sally Hallett. Armed to the teeth, he then went on the run, anticipating going down in ‘blaze of glory’ gunfight with the law enforcement posse he felt was bound to track him down. When that didn’t happen, he called the police and gave himself up.