While he was in the Santa Cruz jail [during his 1973 trial], Kemper got along famously with the other prisoners. Jovial and fun-loving by nature, at least with male companions, he genuinely enjoyed the companionship of the communal cellblock. According to other inmates, the jail authorities were feeding him sedatives. The downs apparently had little effect on him, and he stopped taking them, preferring to trade them for extra food from the prisoners employed as “kitchen trustees.”

Source: Urge to Kill by Ward Damio (1974, Pinnacle Books)