THE CO-ED BUTCHER

CO ED BUTCHER

Edmund Emil Kemper III, commonly known as The Co-ed murderer, was an American serial murderer who was active in the early 1970s. As a youngster, he perpetrated the act of shooting both of his grandparents while residing on their 17-acre ranch in North Fork, California. He was incarcerated for this act, which marked the beginning of his criminal career.

Later in his days, Co ed butcher claimed responsibility for six female hitchhikers’ death and dismemberment in the Santa Cruz, California region over time. He subsequently killed his mother and one of her acquaintances before surrendering to the authorities. But the background of what caused Edmund Kemper to take the leap into serial homicide is just as disturbing as the murders that he committed, which have been well-publicized for years. In fact, the hit Netflix series Mindhunter even focuses on Kemper.

Co ed butcher’s Formative Years

A native of Burbank, California, Edmund Emil Kemper III came into this world on December 18, 1948. Clarnell and Edmund were his parents, and his sibling count includes two females. His father participated in World War II and likewise conducted nuclear bomb tests. His subsequent occupation was that of an electrician. His mother was a harsh alcoholic who preferred his two sisters, Susan and Anyll, and consistently seized opportunities to demean him. He maintained a dreadful relationship with her. Some conjecture that Clarnell may have experienced borderline personality disorder.

Kemper’s parents divorced in 1957, and he relocated to Helena, Montana, with his mother. She consistently compelled him to sleep in the basement. It wasn’t long before warning signs started to pop up. Kemper harbored a sinister fantasy life, occasionally envisioning the murder of his mother. His sisters’ toys had their heads severed by him, and he even forced them to play a game he termed “gas chamber,” in which he was blindfolded, taken to a chair, and made himself writhe in pain until he died. At the age of ten, he interred one of them alive, and at thirteen, he executed the second with a knife.

Kemper departed from his mother’s residence and relocated to his father’s home in California. There, he discovered that he had entered into a second marriage. He was thereafter placed in the care of his paternal grandparents, Edmund and Maude.

Co ed butcher and the Murdering of His Grandparents

The property that Kemper’s grandfather owned was a place that Kemper detested. Even before he arrived to North Fork, he had started studying guns; however, his grandparents confiscated his rifle following his hunting success with birds and other small game. On August 27, 1964, Kemper ultimately directed his pent-up anger towards his grandparents. The 15-year-old fatally shot his grandmother in the kitchen following an altercation, then upon his grandfather’s return, he exited the house and shot him beside his vehicle before concealing the body.

Subsequently, he contacted his mother, who advised him to notify the police and report the incident. The reason Kemper shot his grandma, he would later claim, was just to test the sensation. Furthermore, he stated that he had terminated the life of his grandfather in order to prevent him rom learning that his wife had been slain. As a result of his transgressions, the California Youth Authority took Kemper into their custody. Multiple assessments yielded the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and an exceptionally high IQ for him. A maximum-security institution for inmates with mental illness, Kemper was subsequently transferred to Atascadero State Hospital.

Edmund Kemper’s Advanced Years

Co Ed Butcher’s Release

Notwithstanding the jail physicians’ advice against cohabitation with his mother due to her history of abuse and his psychological challenges related to her, he reunited with her in Santa Cruz, California, where she had relocated following the dissolution of her third marriage to accept a position at the University of California. After working his way through a number of occupations and a stint at a community college, Kemper landed a job with the DOT in 1971.

Kemper applied to become a state trooper but was rejected due to his size—approximately 300 pounds and 6 feet 9 inches tall—resulting in his nickname “Big Ed.” On the other hand, he did occasionally hang out with a few of the Santa Cruz police officers. As stated in “Whoever Fights Monsters” by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman, one of them supplied him with a badge from the training school and handcuffs, while the other allowed him to borrow a firearm. Kemper even drove a vehicle that looked like a police cruiser. Kemper was riding his motorcycle when he was struck by a car the year he started working for the highway department.

In the same year he commenced employment with the highway department, Kemper was struck by a vehicle while riding his motorcycle. A civil claim he initiated against the driver of the vehicle resulted in a fifteen thousand dollar compensation for his severely wounded arm. Kemper, who was unable to work, began to fantasize about doing other things. He observed a significant number of young women soliciting rides in the vicinity. Kemper started stashing knives, handcuffs, a gun, and other weapons in the new car he purchased with a portion of his settlement money. He believed he may use these items to satisfy his murderous instincts.

“The Coed Killer”

Initially, Edmund Kemper would pick up female hitchhikers and subsequently release them. He did, however, offer two Fresno State students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, a ride, but they would never get to their destination. Immediately after that, their loved ones reported them missing; nonetheless, the fates of Pesce and his companions remained unknown until August 15, when a female head was found in the woods close to Santa Cruz and was recognized as hers. But no one ever located Luchessa’s body. According to Kemper’s later explanation, he stabbed Luchessa before stabbing and strangling Pesce. When the killings were over, he returned to his flat and dismembered the corpses. Kemper allegedly had sex with their bodies as well.

When Aiko Koo, then 15 years old, opted to hitchhike instead of taking the bus to her dance lesson, Kemper picked her up later that year, on September 14, 1972. She would be doomed to the same end as Luchessa and Pesce.

Continuing to give in to his violent impulses, Kemper picked up hitchhiker Cindy Schall in January 1973 and shot and killed her. Kemper broke into his mother’s house when she was out and stashed Schall’s corpse in his room. The next day, he disassembled her body there and tossed the pieces into the sea. Later, as they washed up onshore, some portions were found. In his mother’s backyard, he buried her head.

Kemper performed a double murder on February 5, 1973, using a parking permit that had been handed to him by his mother. He offered Rosalind Thorpe and Alice Liu a ride to and from the campus in his car. Tragically, he shot the two young women shortly after he picked them up and then proceeded to drive past the school security at the gates while carrying their lifeless bodies in his car. Kemper executed his two victims by beheading them and then dismembering them further. He then withdrew the bullets from their skulls and scattered the fragments. March saw hikers in San Mateo County finding fragments of Thorpe and Liu’s bodies near Highway 1.

In addition to Kemper, two other serial killers operating in the region at the same period were John Linley Frazier and Herbert Mullins; as a consequence, Santa Cruz was derogatorily dubbed the “Murder Capital of the World” by the media. Kemper, on the other hand, was termed the “Co-ed Butcher” and the “Co-ed Killer.”

Murdering His Mother

Two of Kemper’s final murders occurred in April 1973. He had an angry argument with his mother on Good Friday when he visited her house. As his mother slept, Kemper brutally assaulted her, hammering her in the head and then slitting her neck with a knife. Following the same pattern as his previous victims, he severed her hands and decapitated her. However, instead of disposing of her hands, he removed her larynx and tossed it in the trash.

Having concealed his mother’s remains, Kemper contacted Sally Hallett, his mother’s friend, and extended an invitation to visit. Kemper waited until Hallett had come before strangling her and stashing her corpse in a wardrobe. The following day, Kemper set out for the east, eventually arriving in Pueblo, Colorado. It was on April 23 that he phoned the Santa Cruz police to confess to his crimes. Initially, they failed to acknowledge that the man they referred to as “Big Ed” was a murderer. Subsequently, though, he would provide the proof they required to identify him as the notorious “Co-ed Killer.”

Arrest

After getting back to Santa Cruz, Edmund continued his seemingly interminable confession while directing detectives to the many disposal sites he had utilized. Upon completion, he had been so meticulous that he had left James Jackson, the court-appointed public attorney, with no defense option except insanity. Despite calling a battery of witnesses to disprove Edmund’s guilt, the prosecutor cast doubt on their credibility.

It was Dr. Joel Fort, the prosecution’s witness, who severely undermined Edmund’s insanity claim. He had immersed himself in Edmund’s case for a long time, revisiting his diagnoses from the time of his grandparents’ murder and his stay at Atascadero. He also interviewed Edmund, revealing previously undisclosed information regarding his sexual habits with corpses and instances of cannibalism.

Fort stated that Edmund was not a paranoid schizophrenic. He exhibited an obsession with sex and violence, seeking attention to the extent of inflicting self-harm with a ballpoint pen during the trial in a purported suicide attempt; nonetheless, he was not mad. Moreover, Fort stated that if he were to be released, he would commit murder again, targeting the same type of victim.

There was not a single witness who could persuade the jury that Edmund was mad throughout the whole three weeks of the trial. Not even his sister or his Atascadero doctors could. They just spent five hours deliberating, but they convicted Edmund guilty of eight charges of first-degree murder. A life sentence at Folsom’s maximum-security prison followed a brief observation period at Vacaville Medical Facility.

Even now, Edmund Kemper is incarcerated. His 1973 sentencing has piqued the interest of many serial killers, many of whom are as heinous and evil as he was. Edmund, seemingly intent on preserving his prominence in public awareness, is keen to discuss his offenses. When the FBI’s serial killer profiling program was in its early stages, he conducted in-depth interviews with Robert Ressler to help shape it.

He was one of two legendary killers who discussed their murders on a 1988 satellite broadcast; the other being John Wayne Gacy. Like before, he spoke at length and was very forthright, and this time he appeared to have gained some psychological understanding of the acts he committed. In prison, he exhibits exemplary behavior and cooperation, seemingly taking considerable delight in his designation as the “genius” serial killer who facilitated his own apprehension and conviction. He is cognizant, as is universally acknowledged, that his release would result in calamity, and he is both aware of and resigned to the reality that he will remain in place, which is acceptable to him and undoubtedly to all others.

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