Ed Kemper, the schoolgirl killer

Ed Kemper, known as the “schoolgirl killer,” had a bitter hatred for his mother, which led to a wave of murders. Humiliated, despised and abandoned by his mother, he would never forgive her.

With a height of more than two meters and an IQ of 145, this organized serial killer stood out for his thoroughness. Finally, he was captured when he himself decided to confess to the murders of him in great detail.

Ed Kemper’s Childhood

When he was just a teenager, Edmund Emil Kemper III, the real name of serial killer Ed Kemper, shot dead his grandmother and grandfather. However, that rage and explosion of violence was not new, since from a very young age he showed his sadistic and cruel nature.

The truth is that his anomalous behavior had an origin, as he would reveal as an adult. He would talk about the contempt and mistreatment to which he was subjected by his mother Clarnella mother who would transmit a strict education and in which sex was seen as a sin.

His mother feared that Ed would abuse his sisters, so He was sent to sleep alone in the basement of the family home.. These attitudes of rejection, as well as the development of a psychological pathology, generated in Ed a resentment towards women. The origin of this resentment would be her mother.

He didn’t fit in at school, and his gigantic height was partly responsible. Due to adaptation difficulties, his father, who like his mother, did not want to take care of himdecided to take Ed to his grandparents on their farm, so they could help him with his education.

What Ed found was a carbon copy of his mother, abuse and humiliation, and after an alleged outburst, he would end the lives of his grandmother and grandfather. When the sheriff asked him why, his response was: “I was wondering what it would feel like to kill my grandmother.”.

Adult life

After a psychological examination, his diagnosis was schizophrenia paranoid, for which he was confined in the State Hospital, a facility specialized in sexual offenders and criminals with psychological problems. It was 1969, when Ed, 21 years old, more than two meters tall, weighing 130 kilos and with an IQ of 145, finally gained freedom.

The third murder was committed in 1972, after a big argument with his mother.. He took his car and two students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa, got in when he invited them to accompany them to Stanford University.

Ed took a secondary road and took them to a secluded and lonely place. He stabbed them and then transported their bodies to her apartment, where he took photographs to keep as a souvenir. Subsequently, he desecrated their corpses and after dismembering them, he buried some parts of them on the highest mountain in Santa Cruz. As he would later confess, he visited the site and the tomb on several occasions.

Murder wave

For Ed Kemper, death and sex were completely linked. He had not received an adequate education and this was compounded by serious psychological problems. His obsession at that time was only one: picking up hitchhikers..

The victims were always female students from the area. Unlike Ted Bundy, he provoked initial rejection, remember his gigantic height, sporting a style hippie short hair with a long mustache, but he was kind, correct and polite, why not trust him?

Driving, he looked for his victims. However, his vehicle had a special technology, the type of car he drove had a safety handle on the armrest. Thus, when the door was closed, a latch was lowered, preventing the victim from leaving through the door.

It is estimated that during the years 1970 and 1971, The murderer loaded more than 150 hitchhikers into his car. Cataloged as an organized and meticulous assassin, he gradually modified his modus operandiwhich made it difficult to capture.

Besides, had perfected the way of leading a double lifesince he had gotten a job as a signalman and had rented a room in a suburb of San Francisco, thus managing to put a balance between himself and his mother.

He had also attended meetings with experts to evaluate his mental state, and He feigned such lucidity that the professionals agreed that Ed no longer posed a threat. for himself or for other people. The deception was absolute, because that day he was carrying the head of one of his victims in the trunk of his car.

But Ed knew that he had not “fulfilled his true wish”: ending the life of a mother he despised. He was aware that his double life had just broken down, so he decided to call a friend of his mother to come to her home, where she suffered the same fate.

The End of Ed Kemper

Ed soon phoned the police station and he ended up confessing to the murders. When he was arrested, he explained all the murders he had committed during those years in great detail, as he possessed an extraordinary memory. He blamed his mother, stating that all of his actions had been a kind of preparation to kill his mother, therefore, once he fulfilled his wish, he decided to turn himself in.

On November 8, 1973, The State of California sentenced him to life imprisonment.. During her trial, she even requested the death penalty, which she could not apply because at that time she was already suspended.

After waiving his right to apply for parole, he is currently He has become an exemplary inmate. On several occasions she agreed to interviews with investigators, one of them was Robert Ressler, a criminologist and FBI agent. During a conversation in the 1970s, Ressler’s tape recorder recorded the following words Ed spoke: “If it were society, it wouldn’t trust me.”.

Main image of Edmund Kemper’s character in the series Mindhunter from Netflix.

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