Edmund Kemper is a serial killer who started early with the murders of his grandparents when he was still a teen. Edmund would be sent off to a State Hospital where he would remain until he was twenty one years old and would be paroled against doctors advice. A few years later Edmund would continue his murderous ways and started killing female college students and would end with the murder of his mother and one of her friends.
Kemper wanted the death penalty however his trial would coincide with the temporarily ban of the death penalty and he would be sentenced to multiple life sentences. Kemper has been up for parole though he refuses to attend stating the world is not ready for someone like him. A feature that made Edmund Kemper stand out is that he is six foot nine
Edmund Kemper Current Information
Edmund Kemper – Current Facility – California Medical Facility
Parole Eligibility Date – 1979
Edmund Kemper Other News
Edmund Kemper III, a psychopathic serial killer, and necrophile who became known as “The Co-ed Killer,” was born December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California. He was arrested in April of 1973, at the age of 24, after murdering six female students, his own mother, and her mother’s best friend.
Despite his relative youth upon capture, Kemper had actually committed his first two murders nearly a decade earlier. Kemper was an extremely intelligent child but he engaged in psychopathic behavior early on. For Kemper, this behavior included the torture and killing of animals, which is a common childhood practice among nearly half of all serial killers.
During childhood, Kemper was physically and emotionally abused by his alcoholic mother, Clarnell, who was divorced from his father. Clarnell frequently locked her son in a dark basement alone at night.
Not surprisingly, Edmund Kemper grew up to hate his mother and at the age of 14 ran away from home in search of his father in Van Nuys, California. After locating but being rejected by his father, young Edmund was sent to live with his paternal grandmother and grandfather in North Fork, California. Kemper claims that his grandmother, similar to his mother, was very abusive and he disliked her intensely.
In 1964, at the age of 15, Edmund Kemper shot his grandmother in the head allegedly just to see what it felt like. He then killed his grandfather, too, because he believed that his grandfather would be angry at him for killing his grandmother. Kemper was subsequently committed to the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane. To his chagrin, he was released into his mother’s care in 1969 after less than five years of confinement and treatment. His juvenile criminal record was expunged.
As a young adult, Edmund stood six-foot-nine and weighed 280 pounds. He frequently thought about killing his mother by 1970 but was not yet ready to do so. The prospect of killing his mother without first perfecting his murder skills on others was too overwhelming for Kemper.
Between May 1972 and February 1973, Edmund embarked on a series of six shocking serial murders in which he picked up hitchhiking female students along the highway and then transported them to rural areas where he would kill and then decapitate them, and have sex with their corpses. He collected their dismembered heads in his apartment and would later have sex with them also.
Similar to other infamous serial killers such as Dennis Rader and the Zodiac Killer, Kemper sought public recognition and acclaim for his murders. This led him to socialize and drink in a bar called “The Jury Room” with the very law enforcement officers who unbeknownst to them were pursuing him. His law enforcement friends began calling him “Big Eddie.”
Edmund finally realized his ultimate fantasy and killed his mother with a claw hammer and strangled her best friend on Good Friday 1973. After having sex with his mother’s decapitated head, Edmund Kemper casually telephoned the local law enforcement authorities to confess what he had done.
The police initially refused to believe him, thinking that their friend “Big Eddie” was just pulling a prank on them. After several follow-up calls and the disclosure of information that only the “The Co-ed Killer” would know, Kemper finally convinced the police that he was the man they sought. He was quickly arrested without incident and charged with eight murders in the first degree. Edmund was found guilty and given a life sentence because there was a stay on the death penalty in the U.S. at the time of his conviction.
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Edmund Kemper: The True Story of the Co-Ed Killer (2026 Update)
Edmund Emil Kemper III is not your typical serial killer. At 6 feet 9 inches tall with an IQ measured at 145, he was intelligent enough to administer psychiatric tests to fellow inmates, charming enough to befriend Santa Cruz police officers, and brutal enough to murder ten people — including his own grandparents and mother — between 1964 and 1973.
Known as the “Co-Ed Killer” because he targeted hitchhiking female college students around Santa Cruz, California, Kemper remains one of the most studied criminal minds in FBI history. His case directly shaped modern criminal profiling and inspired the character in Netflix’s Mindhunter.
This 2026 update answers the questions people ask most: Is Edmund Kemper still alive? Where is he now? Why did he kill? And what made him so different from other killers?
Who Was Edmund Kemper?
Born December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California, Edmund Emil Kemper III was the middle child and only son of an alcoholic, domineering mother and a WWII veteran father. By age four he was already a head taller than his peers, eventually reaching 6’9″ (2.06m).
His nicknames tell the story: Co-ed Killer, Co-ed Butcher, Big Ed, The Ogre of Aptos. Unlike impulsive killers, Kemper planned meticulously, dismembered victims in his apartment, and engaged in necrophilia and decapitation — crimes he later described in chilling detail to the FBI.
Early Life: The Making of a Killer
Kemper’s childhood was a textbook case of escalating fantasy and abuse.
- Age 10: He buried the family cat alive, dug it up, decapitated it, and mounted the head on a spike. At 13, he killed another cat and kept pieces in his closet.
- Fantasy games: His favorite childhood games were “Gas Chamber” and “Electric Chair,” where he had his sister tie him up and flip an imaginary switch.
- Maternal abuse: His mother Clarnell forced him to sleep in a locked basement, fearing he would harm his sisters. She told him no woman would ever love him because he reminded her of his father.
Kemper himself said he was molested by a cousin and pushed in front of a train by his older sister. After his parents divorced in 1961, he was sent to live with his mother in Helena, Montana, where the psychological torment intensified.
At 14, he fled to his father in Van Nuys, only to find his father had remarried. Rejected, he was sent to live with his paternal grandparents on a remote ranch near North Fork, California.
The First Murders (1964)
On August 27, 1964, after an argument with his 67-year-old grandmother Maude, 15-year-old Kemper retrieved a rifle and shot her once in the head and twice in the back, then stabbed her repeatedly.
When his grandfather Edmund Sr. returned home, Kemper shot him dead in the driveway. He then called his mother, who told him to call police.
His explanation to police was stark: “I just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma”. He later added he killed his grandfather so the old man wouldn’t be angry about his wife’s death.
Court psychiatrists diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, and Kemper was sent to Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum-security facility for the criminally insane.
Atascadero: The Student Becomes the Tester
At Atascadero, staff disagreed with the schizophrenia diagnosis. Testing revealed no delusions or hallucinations. Instead, they found a brilliant, introspective young man.
His IQ was first scored at 136, then later at 145 — placing him in the gifted range. He was re-diagnosed with “personality trait disturbance, passive-aggressive type.”
Kemper became a model prisoner. He was trained to administer the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) to other inmates and even claimed to develop an “Overt Hostility Scale”. This access taught him exactly how psychiatric tests worked — knowledge he would later use to manipulate his release board.
He told psychiatrists what they wanted to hear. On his 21st birthday, December 18, 1969, against hospital recommendations, he was paroled into his mother’s care in Aptos, California. In 1972, his juvenile records were permanently expunged. His final psychiatric report called him “very well-adjusted” and “no danger to society”.
The Years Between: Building Resentment
Kemper stood 6’9″ and weighed over 250 pounds. He wanted to be a police officer but was rejected for his size. Instead, he befriended Santa Cruz police at a bar called the Jury Room, learning investigative techniques.
He worked for the California Division of Highways and received a $15,000 settlement after a motorcycle accident in 1971. With that money he bought a 1969 Ford Galaxie — the car he would use to pick up victims.
He claimed he peacefully picked up around 150 female hitchhikers before his urges turned homicidal, which he called his “little zapples”. Living with his mother again, the verbal battles became vicious. Kemper later said he searched for victims after fights with her, seeing the co-eds as surrogates for his ultimate target.
The Co-Ed Murders: May 1972 – April 1973
Between May 1972 and April 1973, Kemper murdered six young women, took them home, decapitated them, and engaged in necrophilia before dismembering the bodies.
The Victims
| Date | Victim | Age | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 7, 1972 | Mary Ann Pesce & Anita Luchessa | 18 | Stabbed and strangled, taken to his Aptos apartment |
| Sept 14, 1972 | Aiko Koo | 15 | Suffocated, raped post-mortem |
| Jan 7, 1973 | Cindy Schall | 18 | Shot, buried head in mother’s garden |
| Feb 5, 1973 | Rosalind Thorpe & Alice Liu | 23, 20 | Both shot in his car on UCSC campus |
| April 20, 1973 | Clarnell Strandberg (mother) | 52 | Beaten with claw hammer, decapitated |
| April 21, 1973 | Sally Hallett | 59 | Strangled (mother’s friend) |
Kemper’s methods were consistent: offer rides to hitchhikers, drive to isolated areas, shoot or strangle, then return the corpse to his home where his mother slept in the next room. He photographed, dismembered, and often kept heads as trophies. He admitted to cannibalism in later interviews, though this was never forensically proven.
The murder of his mother was the climax. On Good Friday 1973, after years of humiliation, he bludgeoned Clarnell with a claw hammer while she slept, decapitated her, removed her larynx and destroyed it in the garbage disposal — symbolically silencing her forever. He then invited her best friend over and murdered her too.
Arrest and Confession
Unlike most serial killers, Kemper turned himself in. After killing his mother, he drove to Pueblo, Colorado, and called Santa Cruz police from a phone booth. They initially didn’t believe him. He had to call multiple times before they sent a car.
He confessed to all eight murders in graphic detail, even leading investigators to burial sites. He requested the death penalty at trial, saying he was a danger to society. But California had suspended capital punishment, so in November 1973 he received eight concurrent life sentences.
Life in Prison: 2026 Status
Kemper has spent over 50 years at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, a prison that houses inmates needing medical care.
He became famous for his cooperation with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. Agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler interviewed him extensively in the late 1970s. His insights into sexual homicide, fantasy escalation, and post-offense behavior helped build the first criminal profiles.
He also narrated thousands of hours of audiobooks for the blind — a model prisoner role he maintained for decades.
However, his recent years have been marked by decline. At his 2024 parole hearing (his 12th denial), the board noted he was 75, diabetic, had suffered a stroke, has coronary disease with a pacemaker, and is confined to a wheelchair. A psychiatric evaluation ranked him “high risk” to reoffend.
The board also cited a 2022 incident where Kemper grabbed a female prison staffer on the buttocks while being transferred to his wheelchair. He refused to attend the hearing. His next parole date is set for 2031, when he will be 82.
Psychological Profile: Why Was Kemper Different?
Three factors make Edmund Kemper unique in criminology:
- Extreme intelligence combined with self-awareness. With an IQ of 145, Kemper could articulate his fantasies, childhood trauma, and maternal hatred with clinical precision. He understood he was a sociopath.
- Organized and disorganized traits. He planned abductions meticulously (organized), but committed extreme mutilation and kept trophies at home (disorganized).
- Matricide as release. Most of his co-ed victims were surrogates. Psychiatrists agreed his real rage was toward his mother. Once he killed her, his compulsion stopped — which is why he could surrender peacefully.
He was not legally insane. The jury found him sane and guilty because he knew right from wrong and could control his actions between murders.
Mindhunter and Pop Culture
Kemper’s cultural impact exploded after Netflix’s Mindhunter (2017). Actor Cameron Britton’s portrayal — his calm voice, massive frame, and intellectual conversation with FBI agents — earned an Emmy nomination and introduced Kemper to a new generation.
He has also been featured in documentaries on Oxygen, A&E, and countless true-crime podcasts. Unlike many killers who lie, Kemper’s interviews are considered unusually honest, making him a primary source for FBI training.
How tall is Edmund Kemper?
He is 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 meters) tall, which contributed to his nickname “Big Ed” and his police rejection.
What was Edmund Kemper’s IQ?
Tested at 136 at age 15, and later at 145 at Atascadero State Hospital — well above the genius threshold of 140
Did Edmund Kemper eat his victims?
Kemper claimed in interviews that he engaged in cannibalism with two victims, but this was never proven forensically. He definitely admitted to necrophilia and decapitation
Why did Edmund Kemper surrender?
He said after killing his mother, his fantasy was complete. He stated, “The original purpose was gone… it wasn’t serving any physical or real or emotional purpose.” He wanted notoriety and feared killing again aimlessly.
Is Edmund Kemper in a wheelchair?
Yes. As of his 2024 parole hearing, he is confined to a wheelchair due to diabetes, stroke history, and heart disease
Did Edmund Kemper ever get parole?
No. He first became eligible in 1979 and has been denied 12 times, most recently in 2024.
Where did Edmund Kemper bury the heads?
He buried Cindy Schall’s head in his mother’s garden facing upward because “she always wanted people to look up to her.”
What is Edmund Kemper doing now?
He remains in protective custody at California Medical Facility, no longer records audiobooks, and spends most time in the medical unit.
Final Takeaway for True Crime Readers
Edmund Kemper is the rare serial killer who explains himself better than any profiler can. His case teaches three hard lessons that still shape law enforcement today: intelligence does not equal empathy, childhood humiliation can metastasize into lethal fantasy, and psychiatric tests can be gamed by the very people they are meant to catch.
