Ed Kemper is pictured here with a prison guard at the California Medical Facility in the early 2000s.
Source: The Co-Ed Killer – Mind of a Monster (documentary, 2021)
Category: Film
Born on December 18, 1948, serial killer Edmund Kemper turns 72 years old today. He is still incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where he has been living since his conviction in 1973.
Edmund Emil Kemper III is the second of three children and the only son born to Edmund and Clarnell Kemper. Kemper bitterly recalls that his father was not around much when he was young and that his parents separated completely when he was 9, after which his mother moved the family from California to Montana. As a result of the move, Ed almost never saw his father. This greatly embittered him, and he blamed his mother entirely. As a child, Kemper was physically and socially awkward, always the largest boy in his class. He ultimately grew to 6 feet 9 inches and weighed 280 pounds. He was a loner who dwelled in the world of science-fiction and the occult for escape. His mother once wrote, “I was deeply worried during the years about the lack of a father relationship, and so I tried everything I could to compensate for that.” According to Ed, this meant she felt a need to punish and ridicule him in order to “make him a man.”
Source: Murder and Madness by Donald T. Lunde, 1976, San Francisco Book Company / Image taken from documentary The Killing of America by directors Leonard Schrader and Sheldon Renan (1981)
Ed Kemper speaking in 1981 of his current glasses: “The State has made me much more credible as a human being.”
This post was inspired by this article in The Guardian: “Why does it seem like serial killers all wear the same glasses?”
Source: Excerpt from The Killing of America (Leonard Schrader, 1981)
Sentence notice
November 8, 1973
Case number: 73-152-M-01
The defendant is adjudicated guilty on 8 counts of first degree murder and is to be imprisoned for term of natural life for each count
Filed in open court by Judge Harry F. Brauer
Source: documentary “Forgiven” (D. Smarto)
Santa Cruz Superior Court
State of California V. Edmund Emil Kemper III
Notice of arraignment on 8 counts of homicide
April 30, 1973, 10 am
Source: documentary “Forgiven” (D. Smarto)
Ed Kemper often went to see movies at the Del Mar theater in Santa Cruz. Kemper has mentioned that he enjoyed films very much, such as John Wayne movies, war films and police thrillers.
Built in 1936, and located on Pacific Avenue, the Del Mar Theatre is an art deco triplex featuring a grand auditorium, tasty local snacks, organic popcorn (with real butter!) and weekly Midnight Movies. The theatre shows a wide variety of independent and foreign language films, as well as the best big-budget Hollywood movies, with state-of-the-art presentations in a welcoming community atmosphere. Extensively renovated and restored in February 2002, it has been operated by Landmark Theatres since December 2015.
