Frontier Town Chapel Scene of Susan Hughey Kemper Irving R. Swanson Wedding
The chapel at Frontier Town was the setting for the wedding of Susan Hughey Kemper and Irving R. Swanson. Standards of white chrysanthemums and pink gladioli, tied with pink ribbon, decorated the sanctuary. The Rev. Roland S. Rasar officiated at the double ring rites in the presence of 30 relatives of the couple.
The bride is the daughter of Mrs. Edmund Emil Kemper, Jr., of Helena and Edmund Emil Kemper Jr., of North Hollywood, Calif. Her husband is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick E. Swanson of Big Timber.
Escorted by Brother
Given in marriage by her brother, [Ed] Guy Kemper, the bride wore a street-length, white sheath dress styled with scoop neckline and full, lace overskirt attached at the waistline with two pearls. She wore matching lace mitts, gathered at the wrist with seed pearls, and carried a white Bible topped with baby pink roses and shattered carnations tied with white streamers.
The bride’s shoulder-length veil of silk illusion cascaded from a circlet of pearls. Her jewelry, a single pearl pendant, was a gift of the bridegroom.
Sharon McDowell was maid of honor. Her gown of blue was similar in design to the one worn by the bride. She chose dyed-to-match shoes and a small pink headpiece of flowers and veiling. She carried pink carnations tied with white lace.
Mrs. Kemper chose a navy-blue shantung dress with peplum for her daughter’s wedding. The mother of the bridegroom chose an emerald green satin sheath dress. Each wore pink accessories and a pink corsage of roses and carnations.
Ray Swanson acted as best man for his brother. Harvey Jung, cousin of the bride, seated the guests.
Antique Organ
Mrs. Tate Peek played traditional nuptial music on the chapel’s antique organ before and during the ceremony. Two candelabra, holding white candles decorated with sprays of lily-of-the-valley and white streamers, decorated the table for a reception dinner in the Frontier Town dining room.
The five-tier wedding cake, decorated with white roses and white bells, was topped by two white satin bells ringed with pearls and shot with tulle. Elnora Jung, aunt of the bride, cut and served the cake. Sylvia Newburn of New York had charge of the guest book and assisted Mrs. Jung with the gifts.
Reside in Bozeman
Since returning from a wedding trip to Glacier Park, the newlyweds reside in Bozeman, where the bridegroom is employed by Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Co. He is a Navy veteran.
For traveling, the bride chose a navy blue and white suit with navy blue cummerbund, blue jewelry, white accessories and a red corsage.
The bride, who attended North Hollywood High School and Helena High School, was employed at St. Peter’s Hospital prior to her marriage.
Wedding guests included Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Swanson, Michael and Cherie, and Mr. and Mrs. Duane Kirkpatrick, Douglas and David, all of Livingston. Swanson and Mrs. Kirkpatrick are a brother and sister of the bride-groom.
Prior to her marriage, the bride was honored at a miscellaneous shower given by Miss McDowell at the home of Mrs. Jung.
Source: The Independent Record, Helena, Montana, Sunday, July 23, 1961
Ed Kemper and his older sister Susan Swanson discussed the Santa Cruz murders and Herbert Mullin in April 1973 before Kemper’s arrest: “Guy [Kemper’s nickname] and I discussed them one day when mom and I went to the university to borrow a movie projector so I could show a movie I had brought from home [in Montana]. There was something said about Mullin firing his attorney because he had long hair, and I asked Guy if he thought Mullin had done the co-ed slayings too. He said he didn’t because none of them were similar in any way to how his victims had been shot–then the subject was dropped. The first weekend I was there, Guy went to Turlock and picked up [Kemper’s fiancée] and brought her to mom’s. We went to San Francisco that weekend Mom, I, [Kemper’s fiancée], and Guy, and along the road he mentioned that down there, pointing to the right, was where they had found two girls propped up against something I don’t remember the exact area. We drove along the coast highway, but this was a hilly section inland, just a bit. I believe it was just south of San Jose. Another time, I commented on the girls hitchhiking and mentioned they weren’t too bright, considering what happened and the particular ones I mentioned were really dressed shabby. He said it was strange because some of the co-eds killed were very attractive girls, not hippie looking at all. I think this was mentioned at the same time the conversation about Mullin was discussed on the way to the university. The subject changed. He didn’t say or do anything strange or comment any more than anyone might comment because of what had been happening.”
“One day when we were driving from Aptos along the beach toward Santa Cruz, just sightseeing, [Kemper] pointed off toward the beach and mentioned that a girl’s head was washed up along there -no more was said, and he brought it up.”
“Several times while we were riding around while I was there he would notice a girl and really stare, not just look or glance, and I teased him that he’d better get out of that habit when he gets married or [Kemper’s fiancée] would sure get jealous. He said she’s used to it or something along that line and most of these girls were dark skinned, possibly Mexican heritage, with black hair and medium build, tending toward heavy. He also commented that he sure likes those big butts- again I just passed it off and went on to other talk.”
Source: Book “Murder Capital of the World” by Emerson Murray, 2021 / Photo: Yearbook, University of Southern California, 1964
When Ed Kemper was arrested in August 1964 after murdering his grandparents, his mother, Clarnell Strandberg, and his older sister, Susan Swanson, were interviewed by doctors and social workers from the Atascadero State Hospital where Kemper was imprisoned for the next five years.
Clarnell Strandberg: “She [Kemper’s older sister, Susan] was always responsible for and protective of Guy [Kemper’s nickname] while I worked. Sometimes protected him from my discipline out of misguided love. He and Sue were close until she began to mature and then Allyn, my fourteen-year-old daughter and he had a close relationship-however his needs were building and hers were normal and gregarious and outgoing and she had friends he resented.”
Susan Swanson: “As far back as I can remember, Guy has wanted to be by himself, he has seemed to be happier when there was only family. He never seemed too interested in participating in activities with other children. We seemed fairly close at times, but if something didn’t go Guy’s way he would get awfully mad, not as if he were spoiled and throwing a tantrum but mad at everyone… All kinds of things would bother him, like the way my kids would cry or when my little girl would be drooling or spitting I would never hear the end of it from Guy. Sounds of a constant coughing or crying or heavy breathing would really upset him.”
Source (text and photo): Murder Capital of the World by Emerson Murray, 2021
Some time in March 1973, Ed [Guy] Kemper and his mother went off-roading in a jeep and Clarnell injured her shoulder. Kemper’s sister, Susan Swanson, came and stayed with Kemper and his mother on April 1:
“A little vacation and also it would be a good time to go down and help mom with her stuff that she couldn’t handle with her broken shoulder. So, it was kind of a two-way visit. So, I went down the first of April and I came home on the 19th. In fact, I missed all this by forty hours, which was very shattering to me. It was a beautiful nineteen days. [Kemper killed his mother on April 21st]. During the days, Guy would sleep an awful lot, he would get up maybe at noon or two o’clock. Either that, or I understood him to be going off with friends during the day, like target practicing or something. He might leave oh, around noon or something and come back around dinner time or whatever. Some days, he’d just kind of hang around the house or be gone for a couple of hours and then he and I would do things during the day. I would take mom to school to work and then I’d come back and kind of clean up the apartment while Guy was asleep and then when he’d wake up we’d either go do something or he’d go do something and I would just, you know, drive around or sightsee, or whatever. In the evening, I would pick mom up from school and Guy most always was gone in the evening. He would go to the Jury Room a lot or go to the show, or… as far as the accuracy, whether he was really there or not, I don’t know; but he was gone in the evenings a lot, and would get home quite late- two or three in the morning. And he drank quite a bit, of beer. For breakfast, he had two large cans of beer and he seemed to be able to hold beer quite well. I mean, it would take quite a bit before you would notice any signs that he had been drinking. I never saw him drunk. I never saw him staggering. I never saw him slurring his speech or anything.
“I’ve never taken lessons in judo or karate, but I have picked up a few little things, I’m fascinated with the tournaments, watching the art. I wanted to show [Kemper] this new throw that I had just picked up on television. Well, being 6’9″, or whatever, I’m 6’1″, or 6’1/2” myself, and not any weakling, and I was going to show him how the throw goes and I couldn’t even waver him on his feet and he says, he’s standing there with his hands on his hips saying, “What are you doing? What are you trying to do?”
“I said, “Oh, I’m going to throw you.” You know. We clowned around and made little fake karate chops and say, if I came around a corner or something and he was coming around at the same time, kind of like a surprise, not to surprise each other, but just bumping into each other coming around the corner, we’d go POW POW, and a few little phony karate things and the most scary thing right now is he would make a motion like he, with his hands in a karate chop, had lapped off my head and then held his hands out like he caught it. And laughed. And I would laugh. Because it seemed so funny, you know, this karate business, ho ho, and we were just playing around with it all the time. And this motion especially now, just this WHAP, and make his hands like he’s catching my head–and I’d laugh. I can’t believe this now.”
Source: Murder Capital of the World by Emerson Murray, 2021 / Photo: Ancestry, Yearbook, University of Southern California, 1963
Born on December 18, 1948, Edmund Emil Kemper III turns 74 today. He is still incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, CA.
We often receive messages from our dear followers asking news about Kemper’s health and current situation. We don’t have direct access to him. He apparently now lives in the G tower at Vacaville, which is where the hospice is located. This is from an unconfirmed source who knows someone who works there. As Kemper suffers from different medical conditions (diabetes, heart problems, etc.), it might not be surprising that he now lives in hospice.
Pictured above is Ed Kemper (center) during his 1973 trial. On his left is his lawyer, Jim Jackson, and to Kemper’s right is County sheriff’s deputy Bruce Colomy who accompanied Kemper during his trial and who Kemper considered as a father figure, although they were practically the same age.
Photo by Pete Amos / Source: Murder Capital of the World bay Emerson Murray, 2021 / Ed Kemper Chronicles Facebook page
Ed Kemper: “I wouldn’t blame [Mullin], I was in a jail cell right next to him for months and I was in prison up in the hole here, in the lockup unit, for going on three years with him. About two-and-a-half years, and at one point, I got him a job in the kitchen. I was already on the kitchen crew and the sergeant pulled me aside and asked me to talk to the guys about him coming on the crew, because he’d alienated a lot of the guys and they were afraid there’d be violence. So, I talked to them and there was no problem, so they brought him out to the crew. He worked a few months and he goes to the main line. I’m still sitting in the hole saying, “Geez, what happened here?”
“You know; I knew Herbie. I don’t call him “Herbert Mullin.” And of course, I don’t call myself Edmund Emil Kemper III either… I never heard that in my life until I was locked up for murder, right? But little Herbie was, when I met him in Redwood City Jail, okay? Our first meeting was I bumped him out of the priority cell, where they could look from the office and see through the steel door, the glass in the door and see him, physically. Or they could watch the monitor and watch him. He got bumped next door. There was a shower in the priority cell. You never had to leave the cell. For him to shower from the other cell, he had to go out in the main area, they had to lock everybody in one of the … uh, I guess you call them “tanks.” They moved 15 guys, 30 guys, out of the tank into the activity area. They’d walk him around into their tank. He’d shower. He’d come back out and all the way over there and all the way back there. They’re cat-calling him. They’re calling him names. They’re yelling, because he caused them great interruption in their day. Right? He resented that. He got bumped out of the priority cell into a non-shower cell. I got the shower cell. Right?
“So, he wasn’t too friendly at first. I’d say, “Excuse me, Mr. Mullin.” I say, “Do you have a bar of soap? There’s no soap over here.” He took it all with him. He had no need for it, but he took it with him. He’d say, “yes” and l’d say, “Well, can I use a bar of it?” He said, “No.” I‘d say “Oh, I got one of these little shits here…” and what it is, that he’s a little wimpy guy that hates big guys because he always feels intimidated by them. Right? And that’s how we started out.
“So, I started thinking about that and I went back to my old relationships in therapy and group therapy in Atascadero and Youth Authority and stuff and I’m saying, “Okay, well we can deal with this. “So, I started. I said, “Well, I have to be kind to him.” So, I found out something he liked. He loved Planter’s Peanuts. Little bags of peanuts. Shelled peanuts. So, I bought 20-30 bags of them. I didn’t care for them myself. I offered him some one day. We were both on camera 24 hours a day. So, I said, “Herbie, would you like some peanuts?” And he’d say, “Yeah!” And I said, “Oh, I got to him, right down to the inner core there.” “Yeah!” This little childhood thing comes out and it says, “Oh, here!” And he was fascinated by this thought of “Gee! He’s just giving me some peanuts and I didn’t do anything for them. I don’t know him. I’m not being nice to him. Why would he be giving me some peanuts?” So, he comes over to the bars. We can’t even see each other, and I reach out with these peanuts around the side, and I see this little hand come out and I thought of it almost as a little monkey paw. It’s what it seemed like. So innocent. This little hand comes out, starts to reach for the peanuts, and then he hesitated. He pulls back and I thought, ‘Oh, geez, he’s defensive. He’s thinking I’m gonna grab his hand and rip his arm off or something. I’m this great big guy, right?
“So, without saying anything, I just reached around and I laid them on the bars and then pulled my hand away: He took them and he enjoyed them and all of that and I’d say later, I’d say, “Gee, uh, Herbie, did you eat all those peanuts?”
“He’d say, “Oh, no, I still got some left.”
“I said, “Well, I got plenty more, go ahead and enjoy them.” So, what I did, I started giving him bags of peanuts, and he had this horrible habit. There’s guys back in the tank, and he and I are in these cells facing them through three bars. Three sets of bars. I can’t see him and he can’t see me. I don’t know where on the set of bars he is. The set of bars (stretches out his arms wide) is nine feet wide and eight or nine feet high. When he would get to acting up, he’d sit there hours writing and writing at this little desk and the other guys were ignoring him, so that night they’re watching Saturday Night Live, you know, with all of this rock music playing and stuff and they’re enjoying it. He’d get up and make this real loud speech about how bad television is for you and why you shouldn’t watch it. All the things it’ll do to you. And they’re having fits. They’re trying to throw things at him and they can’t get at him. They’re raging. They’re mad, because he’s destroying the one thing they really enjoy and he’s just having a ball doing this. He’ll sit for hours all day writing this two-hour speech, exactly as long as it takes to watch the show.
“So, he’d also sit over there and sing these horrible songs. He couldn’t sing a lick at all. He’s singing these horrible songs and one time I was in the car coming back to Redwood City and the cop go so upset at this singing he’s doing at the back of the station wagon, he turns around with his can of mace and says, “I had it, get out of the way, Kemper. I’m saying. “Hey, wait a minute! You’re going to get me with that stuff.” They’re just trying to mace the guy in the back of the car because he won’t shut up! He’s trying to get him to shut up, and the guy just ignored him. He had this way of really getting on people’s nerves. So, he’d pull these little stunts, these horrible songs and the speeches and things and I say, “Herbie, why do you do stuff like that?” He says, “I have a right to do what I want to do, too.” And then “Yeah, okay, right.”
“So, I started this, they call just real basic behavior modification therapy, okay? I had a little bit of psychology study. I worked in the psych testing area in Atascadero. I knew some of these things. So, I set up a very basic and very essential-just bare minimum-behaviour mod experiment.
“Behaviour modification, right? You reward them when they’re good. You punish them when they’re bad, and if you’re absolutely accurate in when you do these things, quick punishment when they do bad and quick reward when they do good, supposedly this is supposed to attack you at a subliminal level. A subconscious level. And you don’t have a lot of control over your reactions. That would improve your behaviour, essentially and then have these great elaborate experiments, like in Youth Authority when I went through where they try these things. So, what I did was when he was bad, I’d get a cup full of water in a Styrofoam cup and I’d reach around and throw it on him. It’s embarrassing and it also gets his papers wet, and, you know… so we got this cat and mouse game. When he was good, I’d give him peanuts and I tried gas him when he was bad. It’s called “gassing.” You throw this water on him, and he’d duck all over the house. I couldn’t figure out where he was at, so I kept missing him.
“So, what I did is I waited one day till I knew he was asleep or I suspected he was. I called one of the guys over to the bars from the place in the back, the tank and I went like this (Kemper pretends he is sleeping with his folded hands beneath his face for a pillow]. I says (he holds his hands out in a mime-gesture to ask ‘what is he doing?’) He reads it and says (nods yes]. I says, “Sshh.” I called him over to the bars and I said, “Hey, I want to work something out where I can get Herbie with these cups of water and he can’t figure out how I’m doing it.” I said, “I just thought of a way.” He says, “What’s that?” And I said, “I want you to set up a grid on the bars where you’re at, put a little piece of string, or a little piece of plastic, or a little something he won’t notice. Count over how many bars there are on his cell, on his cell front, and from the wall go over that far on you’re set and set up boundaries. Then, when I give you a signal, that will be a hand signal, very casually walk over, don’t look at me, just casually walk over and drape yourself on the bars where he’s at so I’ll know. If he’s back away from the bars, go back that far and position yourself so it’s a grid. It’s a targeting grid. So, he would do this, and Herbie would hear me turn the water on or maybe I’d have some already set up, and I would reach through the bars and I blasted him. I got him every time.
“He couldn’t figure out how all of a sudden, I got so accurate. It was without fail. I’d get him with that water. Wham! You know, it’s embarrassing and everybody’s laughing back there and “Good shot, Ed!” And all that stuff, and then I’d ask him if he’d do something, or “Hey, can we do this” or whatever, you know, and he’d participate in something with me. I’d give him peanuts. When he’s bad, he gets blasted with water. This went on for two or three weeks.
“He actually got away from the bad behaviour when he said, “Hey! I want to sing!”I says, “Well, hey guys in the back, do you mind if he sings?”
“Oh, we don’t want to hear that shit, man!”
“I said, “Hey you want to hear it now or do you want to hear it tonight when you’re watching the show?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“So, go ahead, Herbie, sing.”
“He’d sing for 30-40 seconds, and then get bored and say, “Gee, | don’t want to do this anymore.” You know? Because the fun was gone out of it. But the point is, I got a handle on his behaviour, and the cops are watching this. The deputies are on camera watching me. I mean, they’re on the monitors watching every move I’m making. Right? And they’re fascinated. They’re watching this thing go back and forth with me and Herbie. They’re not involving themselves. They’re just watching it, and after a while, one of them come in and said, “Herbie is completely cooperative now. He’s not messing around.” Because, I’ve been … as we’re talking, these little frictions out between he and I, I’m showing him some insights into why people don’t like him, and showing some insights into what his behaviour is causing in them and he had realized by that point that it was just he’s reacting to how people are reacting to him. It’s just a self-perpetuating thing, and it was the only way he could get out his negative feelings. I said, “Well, why don’t you pose on the positive. Focus on the positive instead and the negative will go away.” I don’t think anybody ever did that with him before, because he responded real well to it, and later when we were up here in the hole together, and we weren’t even supposed to be together, they didn’t want us together. But we were up in the hole together. I was the only guy be could talk to.”
Source: 1991 Interview with Ed Kemper by Stéphane Bourgoin / Book Kemper on Kemper, by Peter Scott Jr., 2020
Ed Kemper: “I would pose little comments or questions aimed at [Herbert Mullin] as we’re sitting up there on the tier, on the concrete floor, sitting against the wall talking to one another [at the CMF in Vacaville]. I would say, “How did you feel, you know, when you bought that little Saturday Night Special. 22? Did you ever go out shooting with that? You know, just target shooting?”
[Mullin] says, “Well, not much.”
“I say, “Well, try this on. You loaded it up, you went out. You set up bottles, you set up cans. You set them around in little areas right around close and practice shooting them real fast.” And he looks at me all shocked, he says, “How do you know that?” I said, “Because that’s what I used to do. Those were people, those weren’t cans and bottles and you never told anybody.” So, he got all fascinated about how I was able to read his mind and stuff. I wasn’t. I saw a kindred spirit there, somebody who was doing something very similar to what I was doing as a child. He went to mental institutions and he went through these processes where these doctors told him what was wrong with him, and these doctors treated things that they decided were wrong with him and he just sat back very passively and went through these treatments and they had almost no effect on him because he didn’t dare say what was really going on in his head.
“Because, they would cast him off somewhere. He’d be totally separated from the human race and there were certain things he and certain things I enjoyed in being in the human race and being part of the human race we weren’t willing to let go of. So, that was that little desperate hanging on. So, here comes these professionals saying, “Oh this is what’s wrong with you little lad and this is what’s wrong with you and we’re gonna fix this up,” and “Okay, okay I’m well and yeah.” He goes out and buys a gun and starts killing people, and I talk about what happened when he killed those people.”
“Oh, they fell dead.”
“No, they did this, they did that, they gurgled and that some of them kept moving like you hadn’t even shot them and you shot them again.”
He says, “How did you know this? You weren’t there!”
I says, “I know.”
“I never told anybody that!”
“I know. I was there on my own trip. I know what happened.”
Source: 1991 Interview with Ed Kemper by Stéphane Bourgoin / Book Kemper on Kemper, by Peter Scott Jr., 2020
MASTERCLASS is now offering Legendary Special Agent John Douglas’s masterclass “How to Think Like an FBI Profiler.” Douglas teaches how criminal profiling methods can help you predict people’s motives to benefit your everyday life.
Kemper and Douglas during an interview at the CMF in Vacaville in the late 1970s.
There is a lesson dedicated to Ed Kemper, “Learning From a Killer: The Kemper Tapes”, where Douglas shares never-before-heard clips with Ed Kemper, known as the “Coed Killer,” who murdered college students, along with his mother. Douglas’ interviews with Kemper set him on a path to understanding that all criminal minds exemplify three personality traits: manipulation, domination, and control. Douglas challenges you to identify these traits in people you know to avoid being manipulated.
During our trip to Santa Cruz last August, we returned to the Jury Room, the bar where Ed Kemper would hang out regularly in 1972 and 1973, as it was also frequented by the police officers involved in the solving of his murders. At the time, they had no suspicion about Kemper.
On the day of our visit, legendary owner and bartender Marv Easterby was at work. He told us that he wasn’t the owner of the Jury Room at the time of Kemper’s crimes and never met the serial killer. The Jury Room was owned at the time by a fellow named Joe Mandela, who owned several bars in Santa Cruz. Mandela was the owner from 1968 to 1976. He then sold the Jury Room to Marv Easterby.
Marvin “Marv” Easterby is a bartender’s bartender. Known for his collared shirts, stylish cuffs, curled mustache and soft-spoken but take-no-shit attitude, Easterby, or Marv to his friends and regulars, “is the quintessential, strong, handsome, silver-tongued, no bullshit bartender,” says Molly McVeigh. She’s tended downtown Santa Cruz’s Rush Inn since 2009 and has known Easterby for 16 years.
Born in Andover, South Dakota, Easterby was the youngest of seven. His first job behind the bar was in 1963, when he was 19, in a small town called Pierpont which, in 2010, boasted a whopping population of 135.
“You could drink beer at 18 and then hard liquor at 21,” he remembers. “When I interviewed, I told them I was going to be 22; I just didn’t tell them how long it would take me.”
After he was subsequently fired for being underage, he followed a sister to Washington state, where he found a job as a fry cook and eventually managed a bar and restaurant.
He arrived in Santa Cruz in April 1976 and soon bought The Jury Room for $75,000. Over the next several decades, he would fine-tune his skills, rubbing elbows with locals and authorities.
“When I bought [The Jury Room], it was a total cop bar,” he remembers. “If I had 40 customers at once, I bet you 25 of them would’ve been off-duty law enforcement.”
Marv Easterby is seen behind the bar with tender and his dog
It seems he was always a favorite around town, earning the nickname “Judge Roy Beans,” given to him by a Jury Room regular, who also printed up business cards with the nickname and a caricature of Easterby on them. It’s the same caricature the bar still uses today on pins and other merchandise. During the holidays, local police acted as designated drivers for Easterby and gave him rides to and from their precinct parties, for which he helped supply the booze.
Easterby owned and operated The Jury Room for 23 years, until 1999, when a health scare made him relinquish some responsibilities. Still, he continued tending at the local institution, after Karen Madura purchased it.
In 2013 GTreaders voted Easterby the Best Bartender in Santa Cruz, a title he still cherishes proudly with a picture on his phone.
Jury Room tender Tim Hall says: “Marv’s said to me many times, ‘Anyone can sling drinks, but not everyone can be a bartender,’” he says. “He’s Santa Cruz’s Kris Kristofferson or Sam Elliott. A class act with the old school mentality. It’s a lost art.”
Warm thanks to Marv for taking the time to chat with us!