Documenting the Co-Ed Killer case

Category: 1978

“Budget cuts are hell” ceramic mug

Here’s another ceramic mug that Ed Kemper made at the CMF in Vacaville in 1978. It’s a half mug. Really pretty and nice to the touch.

As written on the face of the mug, “Tony” is Tony Palmiero (also Palmerio), a film writer and producer who was in charge of making a film about Kemper in the late 1970s. Kemper was very involved with Tony in making it as close to the real story and the truth, but funding was cut to the movie. Kemper was mad and decided to make two halves of a mug stating “Budget cuts are hell” in regards to the cancelling of the film.

I don’t know if Kemper made the two halves. On the certificate of authenticity prepared by Kemper, he says that the project was not completed and that he retained the half mug until 1991 when he gave it to a friend.

This ceramic mug is part of my collection of true crime collectibles.

“From one word freak to another.”

A unique piece:  “The Annotated Dracula” hardcover book, signed, dated and dedicated on the inside first page by Ed Kemper in 1992 and signed, dated and dedicated on the title page (second page) by famed author and poet Leonard Wolf in 1978. This book was Kemper’s personal copy given to him by Wolf. I blurred the names in Kemper’s note to protect their privacy.

This book is part of my collection of true crime collectibles. 

Polaroids of Ed Kemper

Two original Polaroids of Ed Kemper and famed author and poet Leonard Wolf together at visitation in 1978 at the CMF in Vacaville. They were the property of Kemper, who has annotated and dated the bottom of both Polaroids. We can appreciate his sense of humour. Leonard Wolf was a professor at San Francisco State University and a regular visitor of Ed’s in the late 1970s.

These Polaroids are part of my collection of true crime collectibles.

“I was tired of people walking away from me.”

I let more of my personality come out, and I was suicidal, huh, very disturbed. Grasping out at someone. I had abducted them and I wasn’t going to let them out of the car, because I was tired of people walking away from me. So, some of that was very true. But I manipulated that to allow them to help me to the point of resolving their behaviour until we got to a place where they could be killed. And I have… the biggest problem with that on a guilt basis because, obviously, that entailed unusual trust between the captor or the perpetrator and the victim of the crime. 

– Ed Kemper about his state of mind during the Pesce and Luchessa murders.