Edmund KemperMia Oyler

grandparents in San Jose, California. He was around 15 years old, when he took his .22 caliber rifle, that his grandfather gave his last year, and shot his grandmother in the head, and 2 times in the back. He then stabbed her repeatedly, 3 times in the back. She was arguing with him at the time and he lashed out with the rage he kept inside from his mother. He said he murdered her just to see how it would feel to "kill grandma". He drug his grandmother up into her room. His grandfather had arrived home and before he could even go inside, Kemper shot him from the window. He then drug his grandfather into the room also. He called his mother and confessed what he had done, and waited on the porch step to be taken into custody.

CHILDHOODKemper's childhood was rough. He was a 6'4" socially awkward teen at the age of 15. His parents got divorced when he was 9 years old. When he was 13 years old he buried alive his pet cat, dug it up, decapitated it, put its head on a stick and its body in his bedroom closet. His mother treated him badly and attacked his man hood and self-esteem. She was always on his case and scolding him everywhere he went. She was considered a bitter woman. He'd grown frustrated and angry, and later described himself as a "walking time bomb." He ran away to his father's, who already moved on with another family, and was rejected and sent back home to his mother's house. She then sent him to his father's

Kemper was sent for psychiatric testing and diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. He was also found to have a near-

genius IQ. Instead of staying at a facility operated by the Youth Authority, he ended up at the secure Atascadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He was released on his 21st birthday.

He was 6'9" and nearly 300 pounds. When released by the parole board from Atascadero in 1969, the psychiatrists had

advised that Kemper not be returned to Clarnell (his mother), because it could trigger more violence. But Kemper did move in with Clarnell and she took up attacking him again. As part of his parole requirements, Kemper went to a community college and did well, but he hoped to get into the police academy one day. When he learned that he was too tall, his consolation was to

hang out in the jury room where the police gathered and listen to their stories. He got several different jobs and finally ended

up with the California Highway Department.

ADULTHOOD

MOTIVESKemper's motive was that he loved having

possession and complete control over women. His mother's berating has ruined his self-esteem

and he felt dominating women and taking the heads off of them was intoxicating, like a drug, to

him.

Edmund Kemper and his mother, Clarnell Strandberg did not have a healthy family relationship. Clarnell always screamed and yelled at Edmund, putting down his self-esteem. This mad Edmund resent women. He was disowned by his own father, when his parents divorced.

MethodsKemper would pray on young female college students that hitchhiked

their way to school. He would pick them up, take them to a deserted road and murder them (stabbing, shooting, suffocating, slitting their throats, and raping, etc). He would then bring them home to his mothers house. He would dismember each body of the victim he murder. Sometimes he would have sexual intercourse with the heads and bodies of the victims

and sometimes he would eat parts of them. After dismembering, he would take pictures and he would then take the body parts and spread

them all over Santa Cruz. He eventually murdered his mother and invited her best friend over to murder her as well. Both had been decapitated

and raped then stuffed into his mother's closet in her duplex. His mother's friend had been battered and apparently used for dart practice. Her

tongue and larynx were chopped up, having been placed in the garbage disposal, which had spit them back out.

During the early 1970s, when the murders began, townspeople were already torn over the "hippies" moving in, thanks in part to the University of California opening a new campus there. Young people flooded in, and not all of them were what residents called "desirable."

PROFILES OF VICTIMSKemper's victims were all female. There wasn't really a specific age. The majority was young female who were

hitchhiking to their colleges. No specific heights, weights,

hair color, race, etc.

Maude M. Hughey Kemper66 years-old

Edmund Kemper's grandmother

August 24, 1964

Edmund Emil Kemper, Sr.72 years-old,

Edmund Kemper's grandfather

August 24, 1964

Mary Anne Pesce18 years-old May 7, 1972

Anita Luchessa 18 years-oldMay 7, 1972

Aiko Koo 15 years-old

September 14, 1972

Cindy Schall 19 years-oldJanuary 8, 1973

Rosalind Thorpe 23 years-oldFebruary 5, 1973

Alice Liu 21 years-oldFebruary 5, 1973

Clarnell StrandbergEdmund Kemper’s Mother50+ years-oldApril 20, 1972

Sara Hallett Edmund Kemper’s Mother’s Friend50+ years-oldApril 20, 1972

HOW HE WAS CAUGHT

The factors that led up to Kemper getting caught was Kemper calling the police and turning himself in. He called, yet the cops didn't believe at first

it was a honest call, and told them the exact places where he hid or buried the body parts of the victims. When one police officer actually checked the home of Edmund Kemper's mother, the officer found the

decaying bodies in the closet. They also did checks on the places Edmund mentioned and found the bones and body parts of the victims. Edmund

was then taken into custody again.

CHARGED/SENTENCED

On November 8, the jury find Kemper sane and guilty of eight counts of first-degree murder. Kemper hoped to receive the death penalty, but he

was convicted during a time when the Supreme Court had placed a moratorium on capital punishment and all death sentences were

commuted to life imprisonment. The judge asked him what he thought his punishment should be. He told the judge that he believed he should be tortured to death. Instead, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He

was sent first to the California Medical Facility State Prison at Vacaville , north of San Francisco , for observation, and ended up at the maximum

security prison at Folsom.

Being handcuffed, Edmund Kemper in on trial. He was given a life sentence. In 1977 Kemper filed a petition with the state to allow him to receive what he called “psycho surgery” to make him stop wanting to kill people.

MONSTER OR VICTIMS1. Why are serial killers so difficult to

spot/find? Serial killers are hard to spot/find because people believe they are the weird, creepy person on the streets talking to themselves and are aggressive. In reality, serial killers are the opposite. They are the charming, the well-dressed, and polite people. They blend with the average day people. Like all evolved predators, they know how to stalk their victims by gaining their trust. Serial killers show emotions but instead, they hide behind a carefully constructed fake smile. They are very manipulative.

2.Explain four childhood events that seem to contribute to the development of a serial killer.The four childhood events that seem to contribute to the development of a serial killer are: Adoption- The biological parents may have left their child with deviant genes. Also finding out that one was adopted may also undermine the sense of identity in a fragile youth, and make the child prone to fantasizing an identity of his "true" parents, either good or bad. Witnessing Violence- Some murderers claim that exposure to violent events starts their craving for murders. Juvenile Detention- Punishments in the reform schools were evil and sadistic and it twisted the minds of the mentally unstable and made them have rage and anger towards people. Peer Rejection- As isolation grows more severe, the reliance on fantasies, especially destructive ones, can grow. These fantasies of violence often reveal themselves through two of the three "triads" of predicting criminal behavior, fire starting and animal cruelty.

MONSTER OR VICTIMS3. What are the most surprising pieces of

information you learned from doing this web quest? The most surprising pieces of information I learned from doing this web quest were that looks can be deceiving and that people are always who they seem to be. Serial killers are hard to find. They blend in with the norm of society today. It is sick to know a human being can do something as murder or kill another human being.