Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I have to be honest,
usually when we sit down to record these, I have
a stack of notes and I'm ready to jump in with
a lot of energy. But looking at the stack of
sources we have on the table today, it's heavy.
It really is. Physically heavy. Sure, we've got
biographical records, court transcripts and archives
from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. But it's
the content that feels like it has a gravitational
pull. It does. We are staring into an abyss today.
There's no other way to put it. We really are.
We're looking at a figure who is a complete paradox
in the history of American crime. We're talking
about Edvin Emil Kemper III. Known to the world,
of course, as the co -ed killer. Right. And the
first thing that hits you before you even get
to the crimes is just the sheer physical presence
of the man. I mean, looking at these photos in
the file. It's Seger. He was six feet, nine inches
tall. Six nine. And weighed nearly 300 pounds.
He was a literal giant. A giant who, and this
is the first disconnect. by all accounts, from
the local police who knew him before he was caught,
was a friendly nuisance. A friendly nuisance?
What does that even mean? It means he was the
guy who hung around the cop bar, the jury room,
bought officers drinks, listened to their stories.
He was a police buff. They called him Big Ed.
He was just there. A harmless, oversized guy
who was maybe a little lonely. So when you see
someone that size, your brain automatically categorizes
them. You expect a brute. You expect a thug.
Exactly. You don't expect a man with a genius
level IQ. And that's what I wanted to ask you
about. The records say his IQ was tested multiple
times, and it always came back between 136 and
145. Correct. That's not just smart. That's,
what, top 1 or 2 percent? It's well into the
genius range. To put it in perspective for you,
that's higher than most of the psychiatrists
who were tasked with evaluating him. He was,
in all likelihood, the smartest person in any
room he was in. And that creates the core tension
of this entire deep dive, doesn't it? It's the
central question. How does a man who possessed
that level of intellect, who was polite, who
spent 5 ,000 hours, 5 ,000 hours narrating audiobooks
for the blind? Reading children's stories. Star
Wars. Right. How does that same man possess the
capacity to dismember college students and bury
a human head in his mother's garden? It's the
ultimate Jekyll and Hyde scenario, but without
the potion. It's all happening in one mind, all
at the same time. Okay. So here is the mission
for today. We aren't just going to read a timeline
of horror stories. Anyone can look up a Wikipedia
page for that. We want to analyze the taxonomy
of this specific type of predator. Because Kemper
isn't just a killer. He's arguably the reason
we understand modern criminal profiling, right?
He is the prototype. He is the Rosetta Stone
for a certain type of killer, specifically for
what the FBI calls the organized killer. So people
like John Douglas, Robert Ressler, the Mindhunter
guys. Their work would look very, very different
today without the hours they spent talking to
Edmund Kemper. So we need to look at the systemic
failures that released him, the intense psychological
warfare with his mother, and the chilling, chilling
rationality he applied to murder. Okay, let's
unpack this. We have to start at the very beginning.
Section one of our outline, the creation of a
monster. And with Kempel, is it fair to say we
have to look at the biology first? Because he
was massive from day one. You can't ignore the
biology. You simply can't. He was born in Burbank,
California in 1948. And get this, he weighed
13 pounds at birth. Wait, 13 pounds. That sounds
medically dangerous, especially in 1948. It was
huge. I mean, that's practically a toddler. And
it didn't stop there. By age four, he was a full
head taller than anyone else in his peer group.
So right from the start, before any psychology
comes into play, he is physically alienated.
He is other. He doesn't fit in, literally. He's
the giant in the kindergarten class, and that
sets a precedent. But if we want to talk about
the nature versus nurture cauldron, we have to
look at the home life. His parents, Edmund Jr.
and Clarnell Elizabeth Kemper. The sources describe
their relationship as pretty volatile. Volatile
is putting mildly. It was toxic. It was a war
zone. And there's a quote from his father, Edmund
Jr., that really sets the scene for me. He was
a World War II veteran. He'd seen combat. He'd
also been involved in testing nuclear weapons
at the Pacific Proving Grounds. So this is a
man who understands extreme stress. Serious stuff.
He's seen the worst humanity can do. Indeed.
And he said that living with Clarnell, his wife,
was worse than 396 days and nights of fighting
on the front and dealing with nuclear testing.
That is, wow. He's comparing his wife to trench
warfare and atomic bombs. That tells you everything
you need to know about that house. It gives you
a sense of the emotional radiation in that household.
So when the parents finally divorced in 1961,
Kemper went with his mother to Montana. And that
is where the pathology really begins to curdle.
Carnell Strandberg remarried and changed her
name. She sounds like an absolute nightmare of
a guardian. I was reading about her discipline
style, and it wasn't just strict. It seemed designed
to dismantle him. It was systematic emasculation,
demoralization. She was an alcoholic, she was
neurotic, and she was incredibly domineering.
And she locked him in the basement at night?
She locked him in the basement. Now, her justification,
the reason she gave, was that she was afraid
he would hurt his sisters. Which, to be fair,
knowing what we know now, maybe that was an intuitive
fear, a mother's intuition that something was
wrong. It might have been. It's possible. But
think about it from the child's perspective.
You're a young boy. You're sleeping in a locked
basement in the dark, separated from the family.
That is imprisonment. It's not protection. It
sends the message. You are a monster to be contained.
And the abuse wasn't just physical separation.
It was psychological, wasn't it? Specifically
about his size and... And his sexuality. Oh,
absolutely. She refused to show him affection,
wouldn't hug him, wouldn't kiss him goodnight
because she was terrified she would turn him
gay. That was her stated fear. But at the same
time, she was mocking him for not getting girls.
Right. I saw notes where she called him big,
ugly and awkward. She told him no girl would
ever want him. Exactly. It's a classic double
bind. It's psychological torture. She's telling
him no woman will ever love him while simultaneously
criticizing him for not bringing girls home.
It's a damn if you do, damn if you don't scenario.
It breeds deep, festering resentment. So he just
grows up with this idea that he is unlovable
and that women, represented by his mother, are
the source of that pain. He viewed her as a sick,
angry woman. But what fascinates me, what profilers
point to, is that he didn't just sit there and
take it. He began to rehearse. He began to act
out his retaliation in symbolic ways. This is
where we start seeing those red flags, right?
The Dark Triad or the McDonald Triad. The McDonald
Triad. The classic trifecta of warning signs
in children, bedwetting, fire starting, and cruelty
to animals. With Kemper, the animal cruelty is
the neon sign. It's flashing. It's always the
animals first, isn't it? Almost always. It's
about power. It's a safe way to exert the ultimate
control over a living thing when you feel you
have no control in your own life. And his cruelty
was specific. Ritualistic. Very. At age 10, he
took the family cat and buried it alive. Okay.
But he didn't stop there. That wasn't enough.
He went back later, dug it up, and decapitated
it. And then he put the head on a spike in the
yard. On a spike? Like a trophy? Like a warning?
Like a totem. A declaration. This is a 10 -year
-old boy. Then at 13, he killed another cat with
a knife. And his reasoning for that one is incredibly
telling. What was it? He felt the cat preferred
his sister over him. That's... that's profound
jealousy. To project that level of intent and
betrayal onto a house cat. It shows a deep pathological
possessiveness and a complete inability to handle
rejection, even from a pet. If something doesn't
love him best, it must be destroyed. And the
rehearsals, they weren't just with animals. He
involved his sisters in these dark games. Yes.
Decapitating their dolls, for one. Again, the
focus on the head, on decapitation, it's there
from the very beginning. But the games were even
more disturbing. He would play gas chamber. An
electric chair. How does a game like that even
work? What were the rules? He would have his
sister tie him to a chair and she would pretend
to be the executioner. She'd flip an imaginary
switch and he would writhe on the floor pretending
to die. Convulsing. That is bone chilling. Most
kids play tag or hide and seek. He's role playing
his own execution. He is playing the victim,
but he's controlling the scenario. He is fascinated
by the mechanism of death. He's learning how
it looks, how it feels, desensitizing himself
to the idea. These weren't just games. They were
dress rehearsals for what was coming. And that
dress rehearsal, the actual first act of violence
against humans, happens incredibly early. He's
only 15 years old. 15. This is what we have in
Section 2 of the outline. He's 14. He can't take
living with his mother anymore. He runs away
to find his father in California. And gets rejected.
His father has remarried, has a new family, and
basically says, I can't handle you. You're your
mother's problem. Which must have been another
massive blow. The one parent he thought might
be a refuge turns him away. Crushing. So he's
sent to live with his paternal grandparents in
North Fork, California, a seemingly quiet rural
place. And this is a critical error in placement,
isn't it? He runs from a domineering maternal
figure, his mother, and is placed with... His
grandmother, Maude Kemper. who, in Kemper's mind,
was a carbon copy of his mother. Basically the
same person, from what I gather, the same kind
of personality. He certainly perceived her that
way. He saw her as exactly the same type of emasculating
figure. He hated her. He felt she was constantly
nagging him, constantly belittling him, just
like Clarnell. The pattern was repeating. So
on August 27, 1964, the tension snaps. He's 15.
He has an argument with his grandmother in the
kitchen. Walk us through what happens. He's sitting
there fuming. The rage that has been building
for years against his mother is now directed
at this surrogate. He has a .22 rifle his grandfather
had given him. Oh, wow. He goes and gets it.
He shoots her. Once in the head, then twice in
the back as she fell. Okay, but it didn't end
there. The reports say he also used a knife.
He did. After shooting her, he grabs a kitchen
knife and stabs her repeatedly in the back. That
sounds like overkill. That's a term profilers
use, right? It is exactly that. Overkill usually
indicates a rage -motivated crime, a personal
crime where the violence is far in excess of
what's needed to cause death. He wasn't just
killing her. He was obliterating the source of
his annoyance, of his humiliation. But what happens
next is what truly reveals the twist in Kemper's
logic. It's the moment the cold, rational killer
emerges from the hot -blooded, angry teenager.
His grandfather wasn't home when this happened.
Right. His grandfather, Edmund Sr., was out grocery
shopping. So Kemper drags his grandmother's body
into a room, cleans up the blood, and he sits
there. And he waits. He waits. He doesn't run.
He waits. And when his grandfather's car pulls
into the driveway, Kemper goes out to meet him
with a rifle. He shoots him, too, as he's getting
out of the car. Why? I mean, if the rage was
at the grandmother, why kill the grandfather?
He seemed to have a decent relationship with
him. His reasoning is one of the most disturbing
things in the files. He said he did it so his
grandfather wouldn't have to find out his wife
was dead. He framed it as an act of mercy. A
twisted, detached, psychopathic form of mercy.
He loved her, so I had to kill him so he wouldn't
be sad. The logic is completely self -serving,
but in his mind, perfectly sound. So you had
this hot rage with the grandmother and then this
cold, calculated mercy killing of the grandfather.
Exactly. But then when the police asked him about
the grandmother, why he did it, he gave that
famous chilling quote. I just wanted to see what
it felt like to kill grandma. So you have mercy
on one hand and cold curiosity on the other.
It's like he's trying on different justifications.
He confesses immediately, though. He calls his
mother first, tells her what he did. What was
her reaction? According to him, she just said,
oh, for heaven's sake, as if he'd spilled milk.
Then he called the police and calmly waited for
them to arrive. He's 15 years old and he's committed
a double homicide. So he gets sent to Atascadero
State Hospital, a maximum security psychiatric
facility. Right. And initially, the doctors diagnose
him with paranoid schizophrenia. They look at
the crime and think, OK, a kid kills his grandparents,
stabs the body. Yeah. He must be detached from
reality. He must be psychotic. But that diagnosis
didn't stick, did it? No. And this is where the
systemic failure begins. A Tascadero didn't cure
him. A task gear became his university. It's
where he learned to perfect his mask. How so?
The staff eventually observed that he had no
delusions. He wasn't hearing voices. He was,
in fact, hyper intelligent and incredibly introspective.
He could talk about his feelings and his childhood
with amazing clarity. So they changed the diagnosis.
They re -diagnosed him with a personality trait
disturbance, passive aggressive type. Passive
-aggressive type sounds like a bad roommate,
not a double murderer. It sounds so much less
dangerous. Sounds manageable. Sounds curable.
And Kemper, being a genius, realized exactly
how the system worked. He figured out the game.
He became the model prisoner. What did that entail?
What did he do? He was so trusted, so articulate,
that the doctors actually trained him to administer
psychiatric tests to other prisoners. The thematic
at perception test. The Rorschach inkblots. Wait,
I need to wrap my head around this. The inmates
are running the asylum, literally. He is giving
the tests that are designed to catch people like
him to other potential psychopaths? It sounds
unbelievable, but yes. He's sitting across from
other inmates, showing them inkblots and taking
notes on their answers for the doctors. So he's
learning the system from the inside out. He later
admitted it. He said he learned the specific
responses the doctors wanted to hear. He analyzed
the test questions. He learned what answers triggered
a red flag and what answers signaled rehabilitation.
So when it was his turn to be evaluated, he simply
gave them the answers they taught him to look
for. He aced the test. He hacked the test. He
gamed the entire institution. He absolutely did.
He played the part of the cured, remorseful young
man so perfectly that he convinced them. And
it worked. He was released on his 21st birthday.
In December of 1969. And the doctors? Did they
have reservations? They did. The file is clear
on this. The psychiatrist advised against sending
him back to live with his mother. They knew that
was the source of the initial pathology. They
warned that it was a volatile situation. But
the legal system overruled them. Well, he was
an adult. He'd served his time in the juvenile
system. His juvenile records were eventually
sealed, then expunged. Legally, it was like it
never happened. And he had nowhere else to go.
So the court approved his release into his mother's
care. So he goes right back to the lion's den,
back to Clarnell. It is the classic Greek tragedy.
He returns to the very source of his trauma.
But the dynamic has changed. When he left, he
was a 15 -year -old boy. He returns as a 21 -year
-old man who is 6 '9", nearly 300 pounds, and
he has killed before. He knows he can do it.
So we move into the 1970s, Section 3, the co
-ed murders. He's living in Aptos near Santa
Cruz with Clarnell. Is the relationship just
as bad as ever? Vicious verbal battles is how
he described it. Constant fighting. She belittled
him. He resented her. Nothing had changed except
now he was bigger and the rage was simmering.
But now he has resources he didn't have before.
Exactly. He got a job at the Division of Highways.
This is a crucial detail. It meant he knew the
roads around Santa Cruz County like the back
of his hand. He knew the scenic turnouts, the
isolated wooded areas, the blind spots. He knew
where the police patrolled and where they didn't.
He had a map of the hunting ground in his head.
Precisely. And he had money, too. The notes say
he got a $15 ,000 settlement from a motorcycle
accident. In the early 1970s, that's a huge amount
of cash. That's life -changing money back then.
It gave him independence and mobility. He buys
a car. A big Ford Galaxy. He buys guns. He buys
cameras and recording equipment. And he starts
experiencing what he called the zapples. The
zapples. That's such a strange, almost cartoonish
word for something so dark. What did he mean
by that? It was his term for the visceral homicidal
urges. The pressure building up inside him that
he needed to release. But notice the discipline
here. The control. He didn't just explode and
start killing immediately. He practiced. This
is the part of the file that I found unbelievable.
He picked up approximately 150 hitchhikers. 150.
And let them go. 150 women who sat in a car with
a serial killer and had no idea how close they
came to dying. What was he doing? He was desensitizing
himself. He was testing his ability to control
the situation. He was refining his persona, his
camouflage. He realized that if he wore glasses,
dressed reasonably well, and kept his car clean,
these young women, mostly college students, didn't
see a monster. They saw a big, safe teddy bear.
He was A .B. testing his approach. He was. And
every time he let one go, he was proving to himself
that he was the one in control. He held their
life in his hands and chose to grant it back.
He was a power trip. He was getting off on the
control itself before the violence even started.
And then the switch flips. May 1972. The practice
runs are over. Mary Ann Page and Anita Lucasa.
Two students from Fresno State hitchhiking near
the Berkeley campus. This is the beginning of
his organized methodology. He picks them up.
What's his story? What does he tell them? He's
friendly. He's charming. He tells them he's going
their way. He drives them to a remote wooded
area that he knows from his highway job. And
this is where the organized label really applies,
right? He didn't just attack them in a frenzy
in the car. No. Total control. He had a kill
kit in the trunk, weapons, restraints. He had
a plan. He separated them. He controlled the
scene from start to finish. But it's what happens
after that defines Kemper. He brings the bodies
back to his apartment. To his apartment, where
he lived with his mother. At this point, I believe
he had a roommate in a separate apartment, but
he would later take victims back to his mother's
place when she was out. Still, the risk is astronomical.
It seems incredibly risky for someone so organized.
It is. but is the arrogance and the risk -taking
behavior of a psychopath who feels superior to
everyone else. The roommate was out but could
have returned at any moment. Kimber didn't care.
And what does he do there? He dismembers them
in the bathtub, he engages in necrophilia, and
then he disposes of the remains in different
locations. But he keeps the heads for a time.
Why keep the heads? What is the psychological
significance of that? For an organized offender,
the act of murder is just the beginning. The
possession is the goal. Keeping a part of the
victim, especially the head, the seat of their
identity, allows him to relive the fantasy, to
own the victim completely, even after they are
gone. It's the ultimate trophy. The details of
these crimes are horrific, and we won't go through
every single one in graphic detail, but I want
to talk about Aikoku. She was a 15 -year -old
dance student. There is a specific detail about
the car door that haunts me. It is a moment of
pure... tragic irony he had her in the car and
he stepped out for a second and accidentally
locked himself out while she was still inside
so in that moment she was safe completely she
could have walked the door she could have laid
on the horn she could have tried to start the
car anything but she didn't know who he was she
didn't see a threat no she saw the friendly giant
looking flustered so she reached over and unlocked
the door to let him back in she let her killer
back into the car that's just it speaks to how
disarming he was He later told a story about
driving around with her body in the trunk. He
parked outside the jury room, the cop bar, went
inside for a drink, and said he was admiring
his catch in the trunk. He was taunting them
without them even knowing. And then Cindy Schall.
This one. This one has a detail that I think
is the most revealing about his relationship
with his mother. It's the key that unlocks his
entire motivation. He killed Cindy Schall, a
Cabrillo College student. He dismembered her.
And he buried her head in his mother's garden.
But not just anywhere in the garden. He buried
it. Facing the mother's bedroom window. And he
angled it slightly upwards. Why? That seems so
specific, so symbolic. He told the investigators
his exact reasoning. He said it was because Clarnell
always wanted people to look up to her. Oh, God.
Even in his most depraved acts, everything circled
back to Clarnell. He was using these victims
as stand -ins. He was conducting a psychological
war against his mother, and these young women
were the casualties. Can you explain that concept
of the surrogate victim a bit more? A surrogate
is a substitute. Kemper felt rejected and emasculated
by his mother, who he viewed as this upper -class,
educated, powerful woman, an authority figure.
He couldn't kill her, not yet. The psychological
barrier, the societal taboo, it was too high.
So he hunted women who were like her. Women who
reminded him of what she valued. Young, intelligent,
beautiful college students. By destroying them,
he was symbolically destroying pieces of her.
He was, as he put it, perfecting his skills for
the final target. He even used her as a tool
in his murders. He used a university parking
sticker from his mother's job at UCSC to get
access to the campus for his later victims, Rosalind
Thorpe and Alice Liu. Exactly. The symbolism
is just layered. He was using his mother's status
to hunt the surrogates of his mother. It's a
closed loop of psychological warfare. He's driving
onto campus, waving at the guard who recognizes
the sticker, using Clarnell's credibility to
find the victims that will satisfy his rage against
Clarnell. Which leads us to the inevitable conclusion.
The whole spree was just a prelude. Section 4.
The Endgame. Matricide. The climax of his life's
work. April 20, 1973. He picks the date carefully.
It was a good Friday weekend. The campus was
quiet. His mother's workplace was closed. He
knew he would have time. The house would be quiet.
Walk me through that night. Clarnell comes home
from a party, a bit drunk. She and Kepper have
another argument. It's vicious, like always.
She goes to bed angry. And then he waits. He
waits for her to fall asleep. And then he goes
into her room. And he unleashes 15, 20 years
of repressed rage. He used a claw hammer first.
Then a penknife to slit her throat. And then
the desecration. The desecration is where you
see the pure, symbolic hatred. He decapitates
her. He takes the head into the living room and
performs rituals. He screamed at it for an hour,
venting all his frustrations. He used it as a
dartboard. And the garbage disposal incident?
I read that and had to put the notes down for
a second. It is deeply, deeply symbolic. He took
her larynx, her voice box, and tried to force
it down the garbage disposal. He wanted to silence
her. Literally and figuratively. He wanted to
destroy the very organ that had belittled him
and screamed at him his entire life. But the
disposal wouldn't grind it up. It jammed. And
Kemper, with his chilling logic, noted that it
was appropriate because she had bitched and screamed
at him for so long that even a machine couldn't
handle her. After all that rage, he becomes cold
and calculating again. He murders her friend
Sally Hallett that same night. But that seemed
almost distinct from the mattress side. It was
purely functional. It was a business transaction.
He knew people would wonder where Clarnell was.
So he called Sally Hallett, who was an older
friend of hers, invited her over for dinner to
establish a cover story that he and his mother
were going on a surprise trip. And when she arrived?
He strangled her as soon as she walked in the
door. It was cold, calculated, and done purely
to buy himself time. There was no passion there,
just utility. And then he flees. He gets in his
car and drives all the way to Pueblo, Colorado.
He's got guns. He's got ammo. He thinks there's
going to be a massive nationwide manhunt. He's
listening to the radio constantly, waiting to
hear the co -ed killer identified as Ed Kemper.
And he hears nothing. Crickets. Days go by. Nobody
knows. He's just another guy in a motel room.
And what does that do to him? The realization
hits him. The pressure valve has been released.
With his mother dead. The urge to kill those
Zappos, it just vanished. The mission was complete.
The driving force of his entire life was gone.
So he calls the police from a payphone in Pueblo.
And this is the part that feels like a dark comedy
sketch. They don't believe him. It goes back
to that friendly giant paradox. He calls the
Santa Cruz Police Department and that a dispatcher
who picks up knows him. Knows him as Big Ed from
the jury room bar. The cop buff. Right. So when
he says, I killed my mother and her friend and
I'm the co -ed killer you're looking for, they
literally laughed at him. They thought he was
drunk or pulling a prank. So what did he do?
He had to keep calling. He had to convince them.
He had to provide specific details about the
crime scenes, about the victims, details that
only the killer would know just to get them to
take him seriously. He practically had to talk
them into arresting him. When they asked him
why he surrendered, he said the purpose was gone.
His exact words were, it was just a pure waste
of time after that. That level of detachment
is chilling. It separates him from the compulsion
-driven killers who can't stop. Most serial killers
hunt until they are caught or they die. Kemper
stopped because the source of his pathology,
Clarnell, was gone. He had won his war. Now this
is where the story shifts. It goes from a crime
drama to a scientific breakthrough. Section 5.
the Mindhunter connection. This is his second
and perhaps more lasting legacy. Kemper is in
custody. He's intelligent, he's articulate, and
he loves to talk. He's proud of what he did.
Enter John Douglas and Robert Ressler of the
FBI's new Behavioral Science Unit. We have to
set the stage here. In the early 70s, the BSU
was in its infancy. They were trying to build
a new science to understand the why and how.
of serial murder from the murderers themselves.
And they were interviewing anyone they could
get access to. Right. They interviewed Charles
Manson, Richard Speck, but most were difficult.
They were crazy or they were liars. Manson would
speak in riddles. Speck was withdrawn and surly.
They weren't getting good data. But Kemper. Kemper
was a goldmine. He wasn't just a subject. He
was a collaborator. He was the professor of murder.
He basically defined the organized killer typology
for them, didn't he? He laid it out on a platter.
He explained how he hunted, how he chose victims,
how he listened to police scanners. He explained
how he controlled the scene, brought a kill kit,
cleaned up after himself. He was socially competent.
He explained how he could talk his way out of
a traffic stop with a body in the trunk because
he knew how to act like a polite, deferential
citizen. So he gave them the blueprint for catching
people like him in the future. He gave them the
psychological architecture. He described his
crimes with what Douglas called clinical precision.
He helped them understand that for killers like
him, these crimes aren't always about sex in
the traditional sense. They are about power,
control, and manipulation. He explained the fantasy
life that precedes the crime, how it builds and
builds until it has to be acted out. And there
is that famous story of the head snap incident.
I think this really captures the danger of dealing
with someone like Kemper, no matter how polite
he seems. This is legendary in the BSU. Agent
Robert Ressler was interviewing Kemper, and for
some reason he was alone with him in a small
interview room. The guard had stepped out. Just
the two of them. Kemper's not in restraints.
Not in that room, no. And Kemper, who is 6 '9",
looks at the much smaller Ressler, looks at the
door, and says, very calmly, The guard isn't
coming back for about 30 minutes. My blood just
ran cold. You know, if I went crazy in here,
you'd be in a lot of trouble, wouldn't you? I
could snap your head off and leave it on the
table for them to find. And he follows it up
with something like, I'd own the prison then,
right? They'd have to kill me, but I'd own this
place. It was a pure power play. A reminder that
no matter how articulate he was, the monster
was right there, just under the surface. Can
you imagine? Ryslin must have been terrified.
Ressler tried to play it cool. He tried to de
-escalate, but he knew it was true. Kemper later
claimed he was just joking to make a point about
lax security. But that incident changed FBI protocol
forever. After that, agents were never, ever
allowed to interview subjects like this alone.
It established the buddy system for all future
interviews. He literally rewrote the rules for
the FBI. Let's move to Section 6, life behind
bars and his strange pop culture legacy. He goes
to trial in November 1973. And in another display
of his weird, twisted logic, he actually requested
death by torture. He wanted the jury to sentence
him to be tortured to death. He did. He told
them he felt he deserved it. He was probably
the only person in the room who wanted the death
penalty. But it was suspended in California at
the time. So he got seven concurrent life sentences.
He was sent to the California medical facility
in Vacaville. And he wasn't alone there. He was
in a unit with some other infamous names, Charles
Manson, Herbert Mullen. Right. And Mullen was
another serial killer operating in Santa Cruz
at the exact same time as Kemper, which is just
an insane coincidence. But Mullen was the polar
opposite of Kemper, wasn't he? If Kemper was
the prototype for the organized killer, Mullen
was the textbook disorganized. his killer. He
was a paranoid schizophrenic. He heard voices
telling him to kill people to prevent earthquakes
in California. His crimes were random, frenzied,
and left a mess. And in prison, Mullen had a
habit of singing loudly and bothering people,
and Kemper, the giant, decided to train him.
He couldn't stand the chaos, so he used behavior
modification on Mullen, like training a dog.
When Mullen was quiet and behaved, Kemper would
reward him with peanuts. Peanuts. And when he
sang or acted out, Kemper would throw a cup of
water on him. And apparently it worked. Mullen
quieted down. It's dark, but it's fascinating.
He's applying Pavlovian conditioning to another
serial killer to maintain order. It just shows
Kemper's absolute need for dominance. He viewed
Mullen as inferior, as a pest. Even in prison,
Kemper needed to be the one in control of his
environment. But the thing Kemper is most famous
for in prison, other than the murders... is his
voice. The Volunteers of Vacaville, the audiobook
program for the blind. Kemper spent over 5 ,000
hours in the recording booth. He had this deep,
calm, articulate voice. He narrated hundreds
of books. Including Flowers in the Attic, The
Glass Key, and unbelievably, Star Wars. Can you
imagine listening to the story of Luke Skywalker
and Darth Vader and the voice telling you that
story belongs to a man who decapitated his own
mother? It is deeply, profoundly ironic. This
voice, which was the last thing his victims heard,
likely reassuring them, tricking them, became
a comfort to thousands of blind people who had
no idea who was reading to them. It speaks to
his compartmentalization. He could shut off the
monster side and just be the articulate, helpful
narrator. He took great pride in it. He even
ran the program for a while. It's another role
he could play perfectly, the helpful giant. So
where is he now? We are recording this deep dive
in early 2026. What's his current status? Kemper
is still at the California Medical Facility,
but he is a shadow of his former self. In 2015,
he suffered a major stroke that left him partially
disabled. He's in a wheelchair now. He's in his
late 70s. And there was a parole hearing recently,
right, in 2024? Yes, in July 2024. Kemper is
eligible for parole periodically, but he didn't
even attend the hearing. He's frail, dealing
with heart disease, diabetes. He was denied parole,
obviously. But interestingly, despite his frailty,
the board still considered him a high risk for
future violence. Why? I mean, if he's in a wheelchair
and can barely move, what's the risk? Because
of an incident in 2022. It proves the pathology
is still there. Even in a wheelchair, even with
his health failing, he was caught inappropriately
touching a female staff member during a diaper
change. He just can't turn it off. The impulse
is still there. It proves that the urge to violate
boundaries, to manipulate, to take what isn't
his, that part of his personality doesn't age
out. It doesn't get sick or frail. The predator
is still inside the dying body. His cultural
impact is massive. You can't really talk about
serial killers in fiction without seeing his
shadow. He inspired Buffalo Bill and Silence
of the Lambs, elements of Patrick Bateman in
American Psycho. And of course, the portrayal
by Cameron Britton in the show Mindhunter was
just uncanny. It brought him to a whole new generation.
He is the archetype of the intellectual monster.
He scares us because he breaks the mold. We want
monsters to look like monsters. We don't want
them to be polite, well -read men who can fix
your car and narrate your favorite book. Kemper
forces you to look at the fact that evil can
be incredibly rational and articulate. So what
does this all mean? We've looked at the biology,
the abuse of mother, the systemic failures, the
murders, and the legacy. What's the takeaway
here? It is a terrifying case study in the perfect
storm. You had the biological predisposition,
the size, the intelligence, the possible brain
wiring. You had the extreme environmental abuse
from the one person who should have protected
him. And you had the intellectual capacity to
mask it all. If any one of those factors had
been different, maybe you would have just been
an unhappy guy who hated his mom, but together.
They created a monster. It raises a provocative
final thought for me. Kemper always said he turned
himself in because the popis was gone. He killed
his mother, the source of his rage, and the urge
vanished. Which is what he claims, yes. The mission
was complete. So if he hadn't killed his mother,
if she had died of natural causes, or if he had
just moved away and never seen her again, would
he have ever stopped? Or would he have kept hunting
surrogates forever, trying to satisfy an urge
that could never be satisfied? That is the million
-dollar question. And, perhaps more disturbingly,
Kemper turned himself in. We didn't catch him.
He was a friendly giant hiding in plain sight.
It makes you wonder, how many others are out
there right now, sitting at a bar, chatting with
the locals, completely invisible because they
just haven't finished their personal mission
yet? That is a thought that is going to keep
me up tonight. Thank you for listening to this
deep dive into Edmund Kemper. It's a dark one,
but... Understanding the mind of the hunter is
the only way we can hope to spot the next one.
Stay curious and stay safe. We'll see you on
the next Deep Dive.