A seemingly unconcerned young giant agreed yesterday to return to California to face charges of killing his mother and a family friend – two of eight women he confessed slaying in the Santa Cruz area in the past year.

Edmund Kemper, 24, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound labourer who killed his grandparents nine years ago, turned down a judge’s offer of an attorney and voluntarily signed papers allowing Santa Cruz authorities to fly him back from Pueblo, Colorado. [He was eventually driven back by car to Santa Cruz.]

Kemper, wearing a gray shirt and baggy blue jeans, refused District Judge Jack F. Feaby’s offer to appoint an attorney. “I don’t think it is necessary, your honor,” Kemper said, then signed six copies of extradition papers.

He laughed aloud on his way back to his jail cell when police lost the keys to his handcuffs. Kemper had asked them to remove the cuffs while he smoked.

“He was very cooperative,” District Attorney Peter Chang said after he and homicide detectives questioned Kemper for several hours about the killings.

Pueblo Police Chief Robert Mayer described Kemper as “big enough to beat a mountain lion with a switch.”

Source: The San Bernardino County Sun, Thursday April 26, 1973 / Getty Images