Edmund Emil Kemper III: A Case Study

Edmund Emil Kemper III was born on December 18, 1948, in Burbank, calcium to Clarnell and Ed Kemper Jr. He was the only son of the family. Edmunds childhood was anything precisely normal. While most other little boys were playing games simulation they were super heroes, Edmund was pretending he was in a gas chamber and his sister was throwing the switch. Once the switch was thrown he would wiggle around on the floor as if he were dying of asphyxiation. Edmund also enjoyed cutting the heads and hands off of his sisters new dolls.He had trouble relating to his peers because he was afraid of them, afraid of any intimate linkup between himself and another. During his childhood years, Edmund also found it amusing to torture the family cats. He buried the early cat up to its neck then kept the cut off head as a trophy. His fuck off replaced the cat. With the new cat Edmund decided to continue his torturing spree by cutting it with a machete, exposing its brains and dissecting the bo dy. These ants resulted in many pieces of trophies for him to keep. Until his mother discovered them in his closet.From this point on is when his mother truly began to express her opinions of him as having a spiritualo personality. lf his home manners was not weird enough, Edmund had a crush on his second grade teacher, Whom his sisters teased him about relentlessly. With this crush developed fantasies of putting to death his second grade teacher. Edmunds reply to his sisters teasing was, If I kiss her, ld view to kill her first. On numerous occasions Edmund visited her house with his fathers bayonet and his fantasies. With Edmunds home life already a rough one and the fantasies of killing already in his head, the news of his parents divorce did not sit advantageously.His parents fought constantly leaving Edmund, now age 9, to bounce back and forth between them. after his mother became fed up with him she sent him to live with his father, Ed Jr. , and his stepmother. However, this did not last long before he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents at the age of thirteen in rural North Folk, Ca. Edmund did not get along with his grandparents any better than he did with his mother or father. In fact, Edmund lasted with them until August 27, 1964, at age fourteen, when he shot his grandmother in the back of the head with a . 2 caliber rifle after an argument.He later stabbed her lifeless body numerous whiles with a kitchen knife, and then he shot his grandfather as he returned home. He called his mother and told her what had happened and waited patiently for her and the police to arrive. Once the police arrived and they questioned him about what had happened, Edmunds only response was, I secure wondered how it would feel to shoot grandma. Edmund later explained that grandpa was shot out of mercy, a way to spare him from the discovery of his wife.As a punishment for the murder of his grandparents, the courts sentenced Edmund to Atascadero subjec t Hospital where he was placed in the criminally insane unit. Atascadero pass on Hospital is an all-male, maximum security, forensic facility serving the entire state of California. Upon entering the facility the psychiatrists there examined and tested Edmunds level of intelligence and came up with the findings that he had an IQ of about 145 and possessed the personality disordered titled personality trait disturbance, passive-aggressive type.While in ASH Edmund became such a mannikin inmate that the doctors trained Edmund in how to administer the tests. Knowing how the tests worked allowed Edmund to learn ways in which to provide the doctors with appropriate responses that would pave the way for him to be later deemed no longer a danger to society. Once Edmund passed the tests, he was released back into the world under his mothers care. Now age twenty-one, Edmund returned to his mothers house and fell right back into the torment ways. Edmunds mother blamed him for everything.She would repeatedly yell at him that it was his fault she had not been with a man for a number of years. With Edmunds new found way of life, he decided he would try to find work. His mother saw how intent he was on getting a job so she tried to exact his juvenile records sealed. He first worked at a Green Giant canning plant as a laborer before he applied with the State Division of Highways in 1971 a job that would allow Edmund to hang out with law enforcement. He tried hard to get a job in law enforcement but was rejected due to his large size, of six foot nine inches, and weighing almost 300 pounds.But his new found friends supplied him with handcuffs, a training badge and gun. Part of Edmunds release agreement was to visit with a psychologist regularly. Edmund did this, however as he began to get close with the police officers, and attend his weekly sessions, he began training himself for his next kill. That is he would fragment up hitchhikers and provide them with the necessary ride, putting on the gentle giant charade so as to provide a sense of genuine sincerity for those whom he picked up. This manipulation and control over the situation are primary talents of this psychopathic serial killer.Edmunds first kill did not happen until May of 1972, in which he picked up cardinal college women, Mary Anne Pesce and Anita Luchessa, on a freeway ramp. Edmund knew the area so well that he was able to get the car turned around without the girls having any clue that their direction had changed. Edmund then drove to a remote area he versed about from his interaction with the highway department. Upon arriving to the area, Edmund handcuffed Pesce in the backseat and placed Luchessa in the t occurk of the car. Edmund returned to Pesce and placed a plastic bag over head, and tied it on with the belt of a bathrobe.However, the belt broke and Pesce had managed to bite through the bag, so Edmund drew his knife and began stabbing her inthe back. These stabbings did not s eem to have any raise on her because she was up to now wiggling around and fighting back. Then Edmund grabbed her by the chin, pulled back her head, and slit her throat. After killing Pesce, Edmund went back to the trunk and began stabbing Luchessa repeatedly in the throat, eyes, heart and forearms. Now that these women were dead, he took them back to his apartment where he dissected their bodies, took Polaroid pictures, and cut off their heads.I remember there was actually a cozy thrill. You hear that little pop and pull their heads off and hold their heads up by the hair. Whipping their heads off their body sitting there. Thatd get me off (Vronsky). Edmund took the remainder of the two women and put them into plastic bags, of which he buried in the Santa Cruz hills, their torsos and limbs in one area, their hands in another. All the patch disguising the burial ground with techniques he had learned as a Boy Scout. With the excitement of the killing behind him, Edmund began to return to his normal routine of attending bars filled with law enforcement personnel.All the while he was attending these local gatherings he was remaining one step ahead of all clues about the cases. In September 1972, Edmund struck again, only this time it was a fifteen year old girl, Aiko Koo, on her way to dance class in San Francisco. Edmund took her to a remote location where he strangled her into unconsciousness, sacked her, and then placed her body in the trunk of his car. On his way home however, he stopped off for a beer. When he returned to his car he opened the trunk and, admiring my catch like a fishermans looked in at the little girl.The next mean solar day Edmund buried the body in his typical fashion, but kept her head. With the head of Koo in the trunk of his car he drove to the psychiatrists office for his regularly scheduled appointment. While at the appointment, the psychiatrist is quoted as saying, If I were seeing this patient without any history available o r without getting the history from him, I would think that were dealing with a very well modify young man who had initiative, intelligence and who was free of any psychiatric illnessIn effect, we are dealing with two different people when we talk of the 15 year old boy who committed the murder and of the 23 year old man we see before us now. . . it is my opinion that he has make a very excellent response to the years of treatment and rehabilitation. . . (Vronsky). No one knows for sure what the psychiatrists would have said that day if they had known of the head in Edmunds trunk. After living on his own for a while, Edmund decided to move back home with his domineering mother. Since the last killing in September Edmund was doing well, that is until he picked up college student Cindy Schall.Edmund shot Schall in the head and brought her body back to his mothers house, and when she wasnt looking he carried her up to his room and put her in his closet. The next day while his mother w as at work Edmund took the corpse to bed and had sex with it. After this he drained the body of blood in his mothers bathtub, cut the body into pieces, bagged them and threw them off of a cliff. He kept the head, this time repeatedly having sex with it. When he grew tired of the head Edmund buried it in the backyard facing up towards his mothers chamber window.The local university at this time had gotten word of a string of unsolved murders and warned its students not to take rides from strangers. Lucky for Edmund his mother worked at the university and frequently needed him to pick her up, so he ended up with a decal for the university to allow for his easy access. His mother was well liked, respected, and known for her kindness at the university. Edmund used the decal on his car to pick up two more unsuspecting college women. He then took these women back to his mothers house where he decapitated one of them in the trunk of his car.Later that night while his mother was sleeping h e carried the headless body up to his room. Edmund has been quoted as saying, in the head is where everything is at, the brain, eyes, mouth. Thats the person. I remember being told as a kid, you cut off the head and the body dies. thats not quite true. With a girl, there is a lot left in the girls body without the head. Of course, the personality is gone (Vronsky). Edmund went from the kill of the two college women until one fatal Easter weekend in 1973.On this weekend Edmund had finally conquered what had driven his offense all these years, Edmund killed his mother. While his mother lay sleeping in her bed the night before Easter Sunday, Edmund went in with a claw hammer and nonsensical his mothers head in. Edmund then decided, whats good for my victims was good for my mothers He then proceeded to decapitate her, and raped her headless corpse. He then removed her larynx and tried to run it through the garbage disposal only to have it jam and spit the larynx back at him. Edmund l ater recalled to police as saying, even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me.I couldnt get her to shut up. This same evening Edmund called and invited his mothers best friend over for a surprise dinner party. Upon her arrival however, Edmund punched her, strangled her, and again cut off the head which he placed in his bed. He then slept in his mothers bed. The next day Edmund got in his car and began to drive aimlessly. He drove all the way from Santa Cruz, Ca. to Colorado. A11 the while listening to the radio hoping for near sort of news flash to come out of the killing he had just committed.But since no such thing happened, and he had grown tired of waiting, Edmund called the Santa Cruz police confessing to all of the crimes. They however, knowing Edmund as friend, did not commit him, forcing him to call several(prenominal) times before they took his word. Which then lead local authorities to his destination where he surrendered willingly. While awaiting trial, Edmun d attempted twice to commit suicide by cut down his mists, and was soon transferred to a solitary cell. The trial itself was rather short the evidence was there, and it showed clear premeditation.A1l of the psychiatrists asked, testified that Edmund was sane at the times he committed his crimes. Edmund was put into prison, where he calmed down and became a well-behaved inmate. At the trial he was asked what he thought would be an appropriate punishment for his actions, his response was death by torture. He was sentences to response was death by torturers He was sentenced to eight concurrent life-prison terms with possibility of parole. Edmund has been up for parole since 1980, but has been denied every time hes applied. Edmund Kemper is said to have been a egotistic lust killer.That is these people set out not with the interest to kill or hurt anyone, but with the intention of wearing your pare or eating your liver, or in the case of Edmund to have sex with your severed head and decapitated corpse. lts just that your life gets in the way of their fanta sy. In Edmunds instance he explained that the actual killing of each victim had little to do with his fantasies, he goes on to say, but what I needed to have was a particular experience with person, and to possess them in the way I treasured to I had to evict them from their human bodies. (Vronsky). When it comes to classifying Edmund as a psychopath, it can be make but in the broadest sense of a definition. A psychopath derives their tendencies from biological predispositions. Including, but not limited to faulty family enviro ends, aloof parents, and inconsistent rewards and punishments. In Edmunds life his parents w re never really there for him, they just shuffled him back and forth before finally sending him to live with extended family.The punishments were inconsistent because his mother locked him in his basement bedroom due to the fear felt by his sister even though he did nothing to provoke the fe ar. I believe more appropriately Edmund Kemper fits the definition of having a Homicidal Pattern Disorder. Which according to the future volume of the DSM will be defined as deliberate and businesslike murder or attempt at murder of strangers on more than one occasion tension or affective arousal at some time before the arts and pleasure, gratification, or relief in commission or reflection of the ants.In the end, I believe that all Edmund truly wanted was a womans love. Something he wished for greatly, but was always an illusion, never attainable. It is clear what Edmunds purpose for killing these women was, the need to feel a close intimate connection with a member of the opposite sex, more specifically a connection between himself and his mother. Once this conquest was fulfilled, the intimate connection between him and his mother, Edmund willingly turned himself in because his mission was over.