This Polaroid of Ed Kemper recently surfaced on the Supernaught website. It was taken in 1993 at the California Medical Facility (CMF) in Vacaville. Sitting next to Kemper is his younger sister Allyn, who regularly visits him, still to this day. The other man on the picture is Mike, an inmate at the CMF who was released a few years later. His wife is sitting next to him with their baby son.
Why would anyone visit that freak
Hello, the man visiting Kemper is an ex-inmate at Vacaville and befriended Kemper while he was imprisoned. I guess he saw Kemper’s humanity somehow.
Because he is human, as are we all. He was tormented by things that drove him to do what he did. I will grant you that, most would not react the way he did. That’s why he’s in prison. However; hurling insults does nothing more than make you sound ignorant. Perhaps you feel as if you are above him. I can assure you that you are not. He is acutely insightful of his own condition, and has repeatedly said as much.
He’s still no less human then us
Indeed, but not everyone sees it that way.
“us”??? He may be “no less human” than YOU, but he is definitely “less human” than most of the rest of us. Before uttering thunderingly ignoranty and stupid statements like the one you did here you might want to consider the famous Abraham Lincoln quote; “Better to remain silent and be thought an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt.”
I see Kemper a lot of weekends during visits at CMF – well not in the past 8 months. But I remember the first time I saw him. I was at the microwave when my husband pointed him out about 3 years ago. He looked very different than any picture I had ever seen. I didn’t recognize him and it took my husband minutes to finally describe where he was sitting. He doesn’t look at all like the scary monster described. He doesn’t appear big and tall at all sitting at a “tall table” (what we call tables for people who have medical conditions or need assistance) in his wheelchair. My husband says he appears harmless inside, he stays to himself, is quiet but “aware” of his “fame”. I’m an activist, and also on the IFC at CMF. I stumbled across this page as I was doing research for the IFC page I’m building. I stumbled into all kind of information. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your experience. With COVID, I guess he is confined to his room in the hospital portion of the prison. He’s an ill elderly man, so I’m sure he has changed considerably. Please send me the link to your IFC page when it’s finished!
Yes indeed!
Hello, dear colleagues. I write from Spain, and first of all, I beg you to excuse my English if you dare, I want to show respect to you, and about the sad story of Ed’s life. He was misunderstood from the beginning, rejected by his own family, with no skills to communicate with the others. I understand him, because I’ve been through a similar situation. When you are adolescent, that can drive you crazy. It leaves a permanent print on you. You could even hear voices in your mind, even if you would not be taken as a “crazy” person. I think he wanted to love his mother, and from his childhood the only way to get her attention was behaving wrong. So his mother just punished him hardly. His abilities were not communicating, were something I don’t know. So he followed her way, and they fall into a negative boucle where there was no way of.
This is very interesting. I’m using this blog for my research project on serial killers and I happened to find Edmund Kemper. I’m not a full fanatic on serial killers but I find their brains interesting. The way they function is beyond me and it’s very intriguing! Thank you so much for this!
Welcome!