Documenting the Co-Ed Killer case

Month: March 2021

Kemper’s sexual achievement

Inv. Michael Aluffi:   Did you ever have any kind of a sexual achievement while you were killing them [his victims]?

KemperYes, I’m sure it’s happened before, but the only time I actually noticed an ejaculation was as I was killing Mrs. Hallett on Saturday night, as she was dying, it was a great physical effort on my part, very restraining, very difficult, much less difficult that I made it, I went into a full complete physical spasm let’s say. I just completely put myself out on it and as she died, I felt myself reaching orgasm. In the other cases, the physical effort was less. I think with the Koo girl, in the case of a suffocation, the same thing happened. But I didn’t really notice it, because I did have sex with her right after causing her to be unconscious. 

Source: Excerpt from Ed Kemper’s official jailhouse confessions in Santa Cruz on April 28, 1973 (after his arrest in Pueblo, Colorado), pages 27 and 28 / Video of confessions from the Oxygen documentary Kemper on Kemper (2018)

Anita Luchessa – School photo souvenirs

Anita Luchessa was Ed Kemper’s second co-ed victim. Kemper killed her and her friend Mary Anne Pesce on May 7, 1972 after he picked them up in Berkeley, California, as they were hitchhiking to Stanford University.

Here are some photo souvenirs of Anita during her years in high school. She was involved in many clubs in school, including the freshman yell leaders, the sophomore yell leaders, the German club, the American field service, le Circle français and the science club. A red star identifies Anita in the pictures below.

From the 1968 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto
From the 1969 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto
From the 1969 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto
From the 1969 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto
From the 1969 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto
From the 1971 yearbook of the Davis High School in Modesto

Source: Ancestry

Murder Capital of the World

This photo and famous Kemper quote are from the upcoming book Murder Capital of the World by Emerson Murray, which will be released in May 2021. It covers the crimes of the three active serial killers in the Santa Cruz region in California in the early 1960s, that of Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullin and John Linley Frazier. The stories are all told through direct quotes from the murderers themselves, people from their families and those who were involved in their respective cases.

I had the chance to read an advanced copy and this book is simply terrific. Many new information and details about the Kemper case. Direct quotes from his mother, his father and his older sister are quite revealing. Many new pictures of Kemper during the trial and a never-seen-before mugshot of young Kemper. Kemper researchers will be thrilled by this book as it enriches his story quite a lot. We will do an official review when the book comes out this Spring.