5 facts to understand… the case of Ed Kemper, the serial killer with a higher IQ than Einstein
This monstrous sociopath is truly impressive, both for his exceptional intelligence and for his “humor” when interviewed in prison. “The Ogre of Santa Cruz” is actually 2.06 meters tall, making him the tallest serial killer, and weighs 136 kg. His murders of unspeakable barbarism have made the whole world tremble with fear, but who is he really?
A gloomy childhood
Ed Kemper, whose full name is Edmund Emil Kemper, was born on December 18, 1948 in California. Problems mounted from an early age for the would-be serial killer who grew up in an unstable and cruel family that abused him. His parents divorced very early in his childhood, which saddened young Ed, who was very close to his father. His mother, Clarnell stageShe is an alcoholic, suffers from severe mental health problems and harbors a deep hatred for her young son. For example, she forces him to settle down in the dark basement of the little house, on a heap of rubble, near the boiling cauldron…
cruelty and sadism, his older sister, Suzanne is no exception. She spent her youth beating him, and she even tried to kill him twice: by drowning him in a swimming pool and throwing him onto the tracks of a train…
What were your favorite childhood games? The dining area, barbies or even toy cars? For Ed Kemper and his sister, their favorite game was to mimic killings like the electric chair or the gas chamber… The innocent little kid also enjoyed dismembering his eldest’s dolls, no doubt to train for his future murders?
As a child, like most serial killers, he first tested the limits of his cruelty on animals. This is how pets disappeared all over the neighborhood… brutally tortured and murdered by the killer in diapers.
First murders and psychiatric hospital
Angered by his existence, his mother sends him to live with his grandparents, who are far from happy to have him under their roof…
His grandmother, Maud Kemper abuses him and finds every possible excuse to hit him. At the end of his tether, Ed Kemper, then only 15 years old, committed his first murder on August 27, 1964… He shot the old woman with a gun and then stabbed her corpse several times. When his grandfather returns home, he meets the same fate… Edmund will later confess that he killed the old man out of respect for him, so that he would never find the body of his beloved wife.
When he was arrested and admitted to Atascadero State Hospital, a psychiatrist diagnosed him as having a paranoid and passive-aggressive schizophrenic.
In this psychiatric hospital, he will have wonderful encounters with murderers, pedophiles and rapists, which fuels his killing lust even more. He also expanded his knowledge of understanding the human mind and the art of manipulation. Skills that will be very useful to him later to kill his next eight victims.
working method
Five years later, when he was released from the institution, he was sent back to his mother against the advice of his doctors. The descent into hell continues for the young man, who will later claim in prison that he was deprived of “the best years of his life and his sexual discovery.”
His murder spree in Santa Cruz begins three years after his release. Six young women between the ages of 15 and 23, all students and mostly hitchhikers, then succumbed to the hands of the giant.
Son working method (Procedure) is unique, to say the least. He’s a necrophile and a cannibal… Sensitive souls do without it for describing his manner of killing in the following line: He decapitated and dismembered his poor victims, mostly with his bare hands, before raping their corpses and performing fellatio on their severed heads…
After the horrific crime was committed, he buried the severed heads in his mother’s garden, gazing at her room so that she felt constantly watched…
In short, a real psychopath! However, his main goal was always to kill his mother, the first trigger of his murder spree.
These poor students have all “trained” him to achieve the “perfect murder” of his parents. So he kills her, using exactly the same modus operandi as the previous ones, including necrophilic rape, but with one detail! Her son rips out her larynx, claiming she was “screaming the whole time.” He then places his decapitated head on the fireplace as a target for a game of darts.
Arrest and Detention
He tries in vain to cover up his latest crime by killing a close friend of his mother’s to give the impression that they were both on a trip.
He then takes his car and drives off without looking back until he realizes that life as a refugee is definitely not for him and he ends up confessing to all his crimes. A good friend of his town’s cops, who hold him in high esteem, Edmund is initially dismissed by those who think he’s telling them a bad joke again. They end up believing his crazy story as he divulges extremely specific details of the investigation that have never been made public…
The mustachioed 7-foot-tall giant was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for life at Vacaville State Prison in California. He escaped the death penalty by almost a year as it was suspended from 1971 to 1974.
Outstanding Personality
At his trial, it is proven that the psychiatrist had made a diagnostic error at the time of his incarceration and that he was not suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or psychotic disorders. He just has, and is, antisocial personality disorder sociopath (Contempt for others, lack of empathy and emotions). This disorder in no way reduces his sentence as he is not classified as mentally ill at his trial. A process which also finds that his intelligence is exceptional. Ed Kemper actually has a much higher than average IQ, which is around 140.
He’s blessed with a phenomenal memory and a love of media when it comes to recounting his crimes. He never hesitates to share his most notorious details with chilling accuracy working method to the journalists and police officers who interrogate him. Horrified, his interviewers listen intently to the serial killer’s story, from the details of the smell to the facial expressions of his victims’ physical and mental attitudes.
He takes great pleasure in speaking out about his crimes, for which he has never shown a shred of guilt or compassion for the young women whose lives he has taken. For him, receiving media coverage and sadly becoming famous is the greatest possible recognition for his “work”.
Ed Kemper is the first serial killer known to famous profilers Robert Ressler etc John E Douglas will interrogate. Both men are brilliantly portrayed in the series Mindhunter, where Ed Kemper also occupies a prominent position. You interview him as part of an interview program FBI with 36 serial killers and sex criminals to better identify them. After his talks with the Santa Cruz ogre, John Douglas will say that putting his monstrous murders aside, you can clearly see his human aspect and that he is “a normal person with a good sense of humour”.
Ed Kemper is a manipulative and highly intelligent monster who commits inhuman and comical crimes in his interviews. He is definitely a serial killer of great complexity who deserved to be investigated by the profilers of the time who saw him as a unique monster.
