Dary Matera - Ed Kemper: The Shocking True Story of the Co-Ed Butcher

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ISBN 978-1-4549-4316-7

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Cover design by Elizabeth Mihaltse Lindy
Interior design by Gavin C. Motnyk
Picture Credits See

This book is dedicated to all the victims of domestic abuse and random senseless violence.

Ed Kemper has often told wildly conflicting details about his life, background, and murders, apparently to play with the heads of law enforcement, journalists, broadcasters, and authors. Either that, or he has embellished, merged fantasy with reality, or told different stories to different entities, depending upon how he felt it might benefit him. For example, over the years, when hes been up for parole, Ed has sometimes denied the more gruesome and sexually perverted acts that he once freely admitted to, on the slim hope of earning his freedom.

QUOTES FROM, AND ABOUT, ED KEMPER III

INTRODUCTION

1. A SOCIOPATHIC GIANT IS BORN

2. TO GRANDMOTHERS HOUSE WE GO

3. A PLACE OF COMFORT AND HEALING

4. A VERY SICK MONSTER IS RELEASED INTO SOCIETY

5. THE HITCHHIKER HIGHWAY TO HELL

6. THE TINY DANCER CANT BREATHE

7. EDDIES GOT A BRAND NEW GUN

8. THE SECOND QUINELLA

9. TRAINING DAY HAS ENDED

10. THE HOMESICK GIANT CALLS IT A CAREER

11. A MOST HORRIFYING TRIAL

12. CHARLES MANSONS NEW BFF

13. FREE BIG ED?

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

APPENDIX I:

A Few of The Books on Tape Read by Edmund Kemper III

APPENDIX II:

Edmund Kemper III Guest Essays

APPENDIX III:

Ed Kemper: Superstar In Popular Culture

SOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PICTURE CREDITS

I remember being told as a kid, you cut off the head and the body dies. The body is nothing after the head is cut off.... Well, thats not quite true: theres a lot left in the girls body without the head.

I just wanted the exaltation over the party. In other words, winning over death. They were dead and I was alive. That was the victory in my case.

... It [decapitations] was very exciting... there was actually a sexual thrill.... It was kind of an exalted triumphant type thing, like taking the head of a deer or an elk or something would be to a hunter. I was the hunter, and they were the victims.

What is it like to have sex with a dead body?... What does it feel like to sit on your living-room couch and look over and see two decapitated girls heads on the arm of the couch? The first time, it makes you sick to your stomach.

One side of me says, Wow, what an attractive chick. Id like to talk to her, date her. The other side of me says, I wonder how her head would look on a stick.

I hate to get into such detail on that [his slaughters and mutilations], but my memory tends to be rather meticulous.

As Im sitting there with a severed head in my hand talking to it, or looking at it. And Im about to go crazy, literally. Im about to go completely flywheel loose and just fall apart. I say, Wow, this is insane. And then I told myself, No, it isnt, youre saying that and that makes it not insane. I said, Im sane and Im looking at a severed.... Wait a minute, wait a minute, Id seen old paintings and drawings of Viking heroes... talking to severed heads and taking them to parties, old enemies in leather bags. Part of our heritage.... Thats just me back then.

Toward the end, I became sicker, bloodthirsty, and yet these streams of blood annoyed me. Its not something I want to see, but what I long for is to witness death, and to savor the triumph that I associate with it, my own triumph over the death of others. Its like a drug, which I want more and more. I want to triumph over my victim. Overcome Death. They are dead and Im alive, its a personal victory.

I lived as an ordinary person most of my life. Even though I was living a parallel and increasingly sick life.

I imagine myself committing mass murders, where I gather a large number of pre-selected women in one place, killing them before passionately making love to them. Taking their life, possessing everything that belongs to them. All that would be mine. Absolutely everything.

I was trying to gain control.... I was convinced she was in control of it.... For twenty minutes we were arguing back and forth over what was going to happen.... I was trying to keep it away from what was going to happen. Which was murder.... I was suicidal. Very disturbed... but I manipulated that to allow them to help me to the point of resolving their [fearful] behavior until we got to a place where they could be killed. I have the biggest problem with that from a guilt basis, because that entailed unusual trust....