Ed Kemper – also known as the Co-Ed Killer – is one of the most frightening serial killers of all time.
Following his release from Atascadero State Hospital, where he was incarcerated after killing his paternal grandparents, Kemper was placed back in the care of his domineering mother, and the results were fatal.
He set out on a murder spree targeting female hitchhikers; he also killed his own mother and her friend.
Yet how did the Atascadero psychiatrists not see this coming? After all, Kemper was clearly a deeply paranoid and dangerous young man.
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Troubled Beginnings
Born Edmund Emil Kemper in Burbank, California, on December 18th, 1948. He was the middle child and only son born to Clarnell Kemper – a woman who he despised his entire life.
His parents split at a young age and Kemper said that his mother’s hatred towards him was because he looked so much like his father. He later said: “My mother was there to beat me and to humiliate me, she was there to use me as an example of how inferior men are.”
By the time he was 8 years old, Kemper was already a foot taller than other children his age so his mother was worried that he would overpower and molest his sisters.
She then made him sleep in a windowless basement every night, yet his sisters were allowed to sleep upstairs with their mother where they could all be together. This is when his murderous thoughts had begun to blossom.
Age 9 years old, Kemper had a recurring fantasy of sneaking up behind his mother and hitting her over the head with a hammer.
Later as a teenager, he started decapitating cats. He lied to his sisters when they kept asking where their beloved pet cat was. Then, one day his mother found the decapitated head of her favorite Siamese cat in the wardrobe. That was the final straw.
With so much tension at home, Kemper ran away to his father’s house. Yet he wasn’t exactly welcome there either, his father’s new wife felt very nervous around the teenager. He creeped her out so badly that she prayed he would just leave.
So, then his father – with nowhere else to turn – dropped young Ed off at his grandparent’s farmhouse in North Fork, California.
His father said he would collect his son once the Christmas holidays were over but he never came back for him.
First Murders
So now we have arrived in the year 1964. Kemper’s grandparent’s small farm in North Fork is located in the foothills of the magnificent Sierra Mountain range. Yet for Kemper, he became extremely bored.
In a later interview, Kemper said: “I went to live with Dad and he sends me up to Grandma. Now she’s going to undo all the terrible things that my mother did to me. I’m going to be a showpiece. She’s going to show the world that my mother was a lousy parent. I’m going to be a pawn in this little game.”
Kemper’s seething rage turned him into a walking time bomb and he eventually blew.
Age 15-years-old, he shot and killed both of his grandparents. He then called his mother and confessed to what he had done.
He later told police: “I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.”
Kemper was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Psychiatrists believed the killing of his grandparents was actually the symbolic killing of his own parents who he felt had both rejected him throughout his entire life.
Further reading: “Why Serial Killer Victims Are Symbolic”
So due to this diagnosis, Kemper was placed in the Atascadero State Hospital criminally insane unit.
Atascadero State Hospital
Atascadero is an all-male, maximum-security facility and forensic institution that houses mentally ill convicts who have been committed by California’s courts.
Kemper said: “At Atascadero, I found myself, a minor, in a psychiatric hospital for hardened criminals. According to the law, I should have been sent to an institution with minimal security, but the judge was so outraged by my crimes that he declared ‘I’m not wanting to send this young man to Disneyland.’ That’s why I ended up in Atascadero, with people on average twenty years older than me. Believe me, I grew up very quickly.”
Kemper spent five years at Atascadero and during this time he managed to convince the chief psychologist that he was a well-adjusted, normal, functioning patient who was no risk to society.
So, then at the age of 19-years-old, Kemper landed a job at the hospital as head of the psychological testing lab. It was his job to file all of the psychological tests on other patients.
In the book ‘Mask of Sanity’, all about the Psychopathic Personality first published in 1941, there is a chapter about spotting Superficial Charm in psychopaths and it is still relevant today – more than 70 years later.
It reads:
“More often than not such a person will seem particularly agreeable and make a distinctly positive impression when one first meets him. Alert and friendly in his attitude he is easy to talk with and seems to have a good many genuine interests.
“There is nothing at all odd about him and in every respect, he tends to embody the concept of a well-adjusted happy person.
“He looks like the real thing and very often indications of sound reasoning will emerge and one is likely to feel soon after meeting him that this is a normal and pleasant person with high abilities.”
Kemper was able to use that exact psychopathic charm to not only convince the top doctors he was harmless but also his job in the test lab meant he could manipulate his own test score to appear as a completely sane individual.
Kemper said: “I hid it from them. They can’t see the things going on in my mind. All I had to do to conceal it from them was not talk about it.”
After five years at Atascadero, Kemper was allowed to leave the hospital under the condition he would see his parole officer and social worker every other week.
The original plan was to release him in stages. First, he would be sent to a “halfway house” where he could attend supervised social functions with persons of his own age group.
Yet he only spent five months in this program before he was fully released back into society.
Kemper said: “When I got out on the street it was like being on a strange planet. People my age were not talking the same language.
“Two weeks after I was on the streets, I got scared because I hadn’t seen anyone. Finally, I called the district parole office and asked if I was doing something wrong… was I supposed to go to my parole officer, or would he come to see me, I asked.” Kemper said the man on the phone asked him, “What’s the matter, you got a problem?” When Kemper told him, “No,” the man replied, “Well, we’re awfully busy with people who have; we’ll get to you.”
Conditions of his parole also meant that custody went to his mother; the woman who is his psychosocial stressor.
Psychosocial Stressors are a life situation that creates an unusual or intense level of stress. Examples include divorce, the death of a child or parent, prolonged illness, unwanted change of residence, a natural catastrophe, loss of a job, or being placed back in the care of a domineering and controlling mother who has beaten and berated you for your entire life…
Kemper later told investigators the killings were impulsive – following yet another fight with his mother, he would leave the house and kill another innocent victim. Former FBI agent John Douglas himself said if Kemper’s mother wasn’t there, he would not have turned out to be a serial killer.
Further reading: 10 Most Terrifying Serial Killers Interviewed By John Douglas
Kemper later took the bodies of many of his victims home with him, where he decapitated, dismembered, and violated their corpses. After he murdered his mother, he pinned her head against the wall and screamed and threw darts at it.
Kemper Now
At the time of his second arrest on April 24th, 1973, Ed Kemper stood 6ft 9″ tall and weighed approx. 285 pounds.
If what you have read terrifies you – this giant natural-born killer, the systematic failures at Atascadero hospital, and how true evil really can hide in plain sight… then you will also be terrified to know that Kemper will be eligible for parole in July 2024.
He will then be age 75 years old.
