Who is Edmund Kemper, why is the Mindhunter murderer called the co-ed killer, who were his victims and where is he now?
The serial killer had sex with the corpses of his victims, including that of his mother whose head he used as a dartboard
AFTER more than 40 years, Edmund Kemper's unthinkably barbaric murders still have the power to shock.
As a Netflix series explores his psyche in Mindhunter, we ask who Kemper was, whose lives did he claim and where is he now?
Who is Edmund Kemper?
Edmund Emil Kemper III is an American serial killer whose ten victims included his own grandparents and mother - along with six students aged between 15 and 23. He raped, murdered and decapitated his victims, often performing sex acts on their dead bodies.
Born in 1948, Kemper had disturbed fantasies as he grew up, living with his mum in California.
As a boy, Kemper killed two family cats, chopping up the second and hiding it in his cupboard. He also enjoyed decapitating dolls.
He was just 15 when he murdered both his grandparents, who he had moved to live with.
Kemper was sentenced as a criminally insane juvenile to Atascadero State Hospital, but his record was wiped clean when at 21 he was released from the psychiatric hospital.
Back in society, Kemper embarked on a murder spree between May 1972 and April 1973, that started with two college students and ended with the murders of his mother and her best friend.
He would pick up female students who were hitchhiking and take them to isolated areas where he shot, stabbed, smothered or strangled them.
He would then take their lifeless bodies back to his home where he would perform sex acts on their severed heads, rape the corpses and decapitate and dismember them.
After killing his mother and her best friend he handed himself into the police.
He was found sane and guilty at his trial in 1973 and requested the death penalty for his crimes. Capital punishment was temporarily suspended in California, so he instead received eight life sentences.
Kemper is known for his height - he stands 6 ft, 9 in tall and weights over 250 pounds. His reported IQ of 145 enabled him to befriend psychiatrists at the hospital where he was held and lure his unknowing victims.
He has spoken publicly on a number of occasions about his motivations for killing, and is the subject of Netflix series Mindhunter.
Why is the Mindhunter murderer called the co-ed killer?
During Kemper's 11-month spree between May 1972 and April 1973, he killed five college co-eds, one high school student, his mother and his mother's best friend.
Co-eds were female students who attended co-educational university or college facilities - less common 40 years ago than it is now.
For this reason he has become known as the "co-ed killer".
Who were his victims?
Maude Matilda Hughey Kemper (1897–1964) and Edmund Emil Kemper (1892–1964)
As a 15-year-old, Kemper fatally shot his grandma in the head after an argument in which she told him not to shoot any birds.
He then fired two more shots into her back with the .22 caliber rifle - a present his grandfather had given him for hunting.
After dragging her body into her bedroom, Kemper saw his grandpa returning from a grocery shop.
Kemper went outside and shot him in the driveway, before handing himself into the police.
When questioned by authorities, Kemper said that he "just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma," and that he killed his grandfather so that he would not have to find out that his wife was dead.
Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa
On May 7, 1972, Kemper picked up two 18-year-old hitchhiking students, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Mary Luchessa, on the pretext of taking them to Stanford University.
He drove them to a secluded wooded area near Alameda, where he handcuffed Pesce and locked Luchessa in the trunk, before stabbing and strangling Pesce to death and killing Luchessa in a similar manner.
Kemper then put both of the women's bodies in the trunk of his Ford Galaxie and returned to his apartment, remaining undetected despite a police officer stopping him for a broken taillight.
He took the bodies into his apartment, where he took pornographic photographs of, and had sex with, the naked corpses before dismembering them.
He then put the body parts into plastic bags, which he later abandoned near Loma Prieta Moutnain.
Before disposing of Pesce's and Luchessa's severed heads in a ravine, Kemper engaged in irrumatio with both of them.
Pesce's skull was found only last August on Loma Prieta Mountain while no trace of Luchessa has been recovered.
Aiko Koo
On September 14, 1972, Kemper picked up 15-year-old Korean dance student Aiko Koo, who had decided to hitchhike to a dance class after missing her bus.
He killed her in a remote area inside his car, choking her unconscious, raping and killing her.
He later raped and dismembered her body, before disposing of it nearby.
Cindy Shall
On January 7, 1973, Kemper, who had now moved back in with his mother, was picked up 18-year-old student Cynthia Ann "Cindy" Schall at Cabrillo College.
He drove to a hidden wooded area and fatally shot her with a .22 caliber pistol.
He then placed her body in the trunk of his car and drove to his mother's house. The next morning he had sex with Schall's corpse before dismembering and decapitating it in his mother's bathtub.
After performing sex acts with head over the next few days, he then discarded the rest of her remains by throwing them off a cliff.
Over the course of the following few weeks, all but her head and right hand were discovered and "pieced together like a macabre jigsaw puzzle". Police and a pathologist determined she had been hacked to death, then cut into pieces with a power saw.
Rosalind Thorpe and Allison Liu
On February 5, 1973, after a heated argument with his mother, Kemper left his house in search of possible victims.
At this time hitchhikers in Santa Cruz were being advised only to get into cars with University stickers on them due to heightened fear of a serial killer in their midst.
Chillingly, Kemper had such a sticker as his mother worked at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California (ICSC).
Kemper met both Rosalid Heather Thorpe, 23, and 20-year-old Alice Helen "Allison" Liu on the UCSC campus.
He then fatally shot Thorpe and Liu with his .22 caliber pistol and wrapped their bodies in blankets.
Kemper again brought his victims back to his mother's house, this time beheading them in his car and carrying a headless corpse into his mother's house to have sex with.
Remains were found at Eden Canyon a week after the murders.
Clarnell Strandberg and Sally Hallett
On April 20, 1973, Kemper killed his own mother as she lay asleep, bludgeoning her with a claw hammer and slitting her throat with a knife.
He then decapitated her and performed sex acts with her severed head before using it as a dartboard, before cutting out her tongue and larynx and put them in the garbage disposal.
Kemper then had sex with his mother's corpse, hid it in a closet and went out for a drink.
On the same night, he invited his mother's best friend, 59-year-old Sara Taylor "Sally" Hallett, over to the house for dinner and a movie.
When Hallett arrived, he strangled her to death, before leaving a note to the police by a note he left on the table saying:
"Appx. 5:15 A.M. Saturday. No need for her to suffer any more at the hands of this horrible "murderous Butcher". It was quick—asleep—the way I wanted it. Not sloppy and incomplete, gents. Just a "lack of time". I got things to do!!"
Despite him phoning police to confess his crimes, officers did not take his call seriously. Hours later he called, asking to speak to an officer he knew and confessed to all eight murders.
Where is he now?
Kemper was found guilty on November 8, 1973.
MOST READ NEWS
He is currently serving his eight life sentences in the California Medical Facility.
Here, as at the Atascadero State Hospital, he is considered a model prisoner, in charge of scheduling other inmates' appointments with psychiatrists.
Kemper lives in the general prison population. In July 2017, he was procedurally denied parole and is next eligible in 2024.