Category: Blind Project

The following article was published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, on May 2, 1979. Due to a decision by the state Parole Board, only one reporter from this area was allowed to be present at Edmund Kemper’s parole hearing Tuesday. That reporter was Marj Von B of the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian, who filed this report.

Kemper first became eligible for parole in 1979. He was denied parole that year, as well as at parole hearings in 1980, 1981, and 1982.

Coed killer Ed Kemper, imprisoned in 1973 on eight first-degree murder counts, will not be freed next year, a state prison parole board decided Tuesday. Kemper, 30, was found to be “unsuitable for release at this time,” but the board’s decision did not seem to dismay him.

He told the three-member board at the conclusion of a three-hour hearing at the Vacaville State Medical Facility, “I’d have refused to be considered for parole, but I didn’t want to be provocative.”

Earlier, he had stated to the board he felt his release on parole was not “feasible, legal or moral,” saying he had been sentenced to prison by Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Harry F. Brauer “for the rest of your natural life.”

In addition, Kemper said, “I don’t want to set a precedent of being a person two-times released after multiple murders. I don’t want to ever hurt anybody again.”

Kemper killed his grandmother and grandfather when he was 15, and was sent to Atascadero State Mental Hospital and then to the California Youth Authority, where he was paroled in 1970.

But during the hearing, in which he was represented by a lawyer, Steve Bedient of Sacramento, Kemper seemed bent on personally straightening out the state’s recorded version of his crimes.

Part of the hearing procedure was the reading of a summary of his criminal history into the record by the chairman, Ruth Rushen.

It was a recitation of brutality, sexual depravity and violence, detailing the killing of six young women, Kemper’s mother and one of her best friends.

According to a confession made to police alter his surrender, Kemper said he had sexually assaulted the coeds after killing them, and then had dismembered their bodies, disposing of them in sites in Santa Cruz and other adjacent counties.

As Mrs. Rushen read on, in a strange contrast, birds chirped in a tree outside the windows of the second story prison conference room.

Then Santa Cruz District Attorney Art Danner was asked to add his comments for the record, and he noted that the material related by Mrs. Rushen did not reflect the fact that “parts” of one of the bodies of Kemper’s victims had been cannibalized by the defendant.”

Nor, Danner said, did it reflect that Kemper had “mutilated” parts of his mother’s body “by putting it into the garbage disposal.”

Kemper refuted the confession, saying that in telling the police the lurid details, “In my unwise and immature judgment, I thought I was building a case supporting my psychiatric plea (of not guilty by reason of insanity).”

“I disclaim any sexual misconduct during any of my crimes,” he said emphatically. “I made those statements when it was understood that I was to be the only witness at my trial.”

And he added, “I am not a cannibal. That’s unsubstantiated and only claimed by me.”

“As every hunter knows, I could get physically ill or die from eating an animal or person in that state,” Kemper argued.

In his account of the murders, Kemper said, he had been trying to “go to Atascadero” instead of state prison. “I was trying to get myself locked up for good.”

“I was trying to seal my fate, and the state in presenting its case botched it… I have ample opportunity now to save myself in the courts.” Kemper said.

But then he continued, “I’m not going to avail myself of them.”

Kemper also denied that he recently sought court permission to have psychosurgery to help him get out of prison later. Kemper said, “I asked for multi-target neurosurgery in the hope of gaining relief from any kind of homicidal tendencies whatsoever.”

The court denied his request.

Asked if he was “still having urges to kill people,” Kemper said, “No.”

But he explained, “I felt as if I had one foot in the coffin and one on a banana peel.”

He said he was afraid that “if some time I had a bad day and a prison officer or technician had a bad day and was provocative or insultive, I might smack his head up against the wall, and I would die in CDC (California Department of Corrections).”

Kemper referred to a state law which demands the death penalty for the murder of a prison guard or official.

But then he said mildly, “I am not known for a very short temper. I am a passive aggressive.”

And in a sort of aside to himself, Kemper, who works as a clerk in a prison psychotherapy ward, said, “I’ve had nine diagnoses in my time, I wonder how many of them are valid?”

Kemper also appeared offended at a statement in a psychiatric report that he had shown no remorse for all the killings.

“I feel very strongly about what I’ve done,” he said. “I do feel remorse in what I’ve done.”

But when pressed for a reason behind his killings, Kemper always seemed to return to his relationship with his mother.

“I hate her — guts,” he said in a rare explosive moment during the hearing.

He, said he had turned to killing the six women because he was “feeling persecuted and destroyed by my mother.”

And it was his childhood hatred of his mother that led him to kill his grandparents, too, he revealed.

But he explained, “I’m not blaming my mother, I’m saying I hate my mother.”

After the coed murders, Kemper said he was “sick of killing,” but murdered his mother knowing that would “blow the whistle.”

He said, “If she died they (the police) were going to get me, and if they got me for her, they would get me for the others.”

Kemper denied he killed his mother’s friend to make persons think the two women were away together for a weekend and give him time to flee before an investigation of their disappearance.

Incongruously he said, “I killed her because she had hurt my mother very grievously.”

The board members also talked with Kemper about his adjustment to prison life.

According to prison reports he is “doing an outstanding job” as a therapy clerk, has no disciplinary problems and “gets along with the staff and his peers.”

He was asked by board member Craig Brown why he got along well in Vacaville and other institutions “and in the community you become violent?”

“Because when I am in a structured situation, I can get help when I need it,” Kemper replied. But on the streets, I felt rather forgotten and sometimes I felt abandoned.”

The loquacious Kemper later expounded on his life in prison saying, “I was convinced when I came here, I would soon be dead.”

“But the last six months have been the best of my life. I’ve learned to live with myself and with God. I believe I have an obligation to myself and the people around me.”

He also spoke with pride of his work in recording books on tape for the blind and the handicapped, which recently won him a public service award.

However, Danner warned the board not to be complacent about Kemper.

“It’s the kind of complacency he wants,” Danner said, “the kind that was seen at Atascadero where he was released to kill again.”

The district attorney said, “Mr. Kemper poses such an unreasonable risk and danger to society, he is now unsuitable for release and probably will remain so for the rest of his life.”

After a 30-minute deliberation in private, the board called Kemper, the lawyers and the press back into the room and announced its decision.

Chairman Rushen outlined the reasons for denying the parole.

First, she said, Kemper’s crimes “contained elements of such extraordinary violence that it was incomprehensible to think that he should be released at this time.”

Also:

– He had a previous record of violence, and although his juvenile record was sealed, “he stated several times during the hearing that he had killed his grandparents.”

– His violent and bizarre conduct after the crimes, which included mutilation and defiling of the corpses of the victims, showed a total disregard for the dignity and worth of a fellow human being… and this included the victims and their families.”

– The psychology reports do not support suitability for release.

Mrs. Rushen noted that the latest report on Kemper, dated in March of this year diagnosed him as paranoid schizophrenic in a state of “good remission.” But she added the report said that there was no way to predict the possibility of his violence in the future if he is released.

Kemper greeted the decision with a smile and thanked the board.

Referring to an initial outburst and his demand that the press and one reporter in particular, be barred from the hearing, Kemper said, “I would like to apologize for my untoward and abusive behavior, although it’s probably better than some you’ve had in here,” he added with a chuckle.

Then with a wave of his hand, the six-foot, nine-inch inmate, known as “Big Ed,” ambled down the long hall and was admitted into the locked area of the prison building.