Kemper's Mother example essay topic

The TV program "MUGSHOTS" uses the testimony of authorities that worked the case along with interviews with Kemper himself as to what was happening throughout the case from both sides of the story. The product of a broken and abusive home, Edmund Kemper grew up timid and resentful, with a perception of his own inadequacy. Before the age of ten, Kemper graduated to living targets, burying the family cat alive and subsequently cutting off its head, returning with the gruesome trophy to his room, where it was placed on proud display despite his tender age, he brooded over fantasies of love and sex, with violence playing an inevitable role. One afternoon, discussing Edmund's childish crush upon a grade-school teacher, Kemper's sister asked him why he did not simply kiss the woman.

Kemper answered, deadpan, 'If I kiss her, I would have to kill her first. ' A second family cat fell victim to his urges; this one hacked with a machete, pieces of the carcass hidden in his closet until his mother accidentally discovered them. Kemper's mother first packed him off to live with her estranged husband, and then - after running away - the boy was delivered to his paternal grandparents, residing on a remote California ranch. There, in August 1963, fourteen-year-old Kemper shot his grandmother with a. 22-caliber rifle, afterward stabbing her body repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

When his grandfather came home, Kemper shot the old man as well, leaving him dead in the yard. Interrogated by authorities, Kemper could only say 'I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma. ' Motiveless violence displayed in his actions got Kemper committed to the state's maximum-security hospital in Atascadero. In 1969, a 21-year-old behemoth grown to six-foot-nine and some 300 pounds, Kemper was paroled to his mother's custody over the objections of the state psychiatrists. During Kemper's enforced absence, his mother had settled in Santa Cruz, a college town whose population boasted thousands of attractive co-eds. For the next two years, through 1970 and '71, Kemper bide d his time, holding odd jobs and cruising the highways in his leisure time, picking up dozens of young female hitchhikers, refining his approach, his 'line,' until, he knew that he could put them totally at ease.

Some evenings, he would frequent a saloon patronized by off-duty policemen, rubbing shoulders with the law and soaking up their tales of crime, becoming friendly with a number of detectives who would later be assigned to track him down. On May 7, 1972, Kemper picked up two 18-year-old roommates from Fresno State College, Mary Ann Pesce and Anita Luchessa. Driving them to a secluded cut-de-sac, he stabbed both girls to death, then took their bodies' home and hid them in his room. Delighted with his 'trophies,' Kemper took Polaroid snapshots, dissected the corpses, and sexually assaulted various organs before finally tiring of the game. Bundling the remains into plastic bags, he buried the truncated bodies in the Santa Cruz Mountains, tossing the heads into a roadside ravine. Four months later, on September 16, Kemper offered a ride to 15-year-old Aiko Koo.

Suffocating her with his large hands, Kemper raped her corpse on the spot and then carried it home for dissection. Another four months passed before the 'Co-ed Killer's truck again, on January 9, 1973. Picking up student Cindy Schall, Kemper forced her into the trunk of his car at gunpoint, and then shot her to death. Driving back to his mother's house, he carried the corpse to his room, and there had sex with it in his bed. Afterward, Kemper chopped up her body and threw the pieces into the ocean.

By this time, various remains of Kemper's victims had been found and officers were on the case. Apparently, none of them had the least suspicion that their friend, Ed Kemper, was the man they sought, and some felt comfortable enough in Kemper's company to brief him on the progress of their homicide investigation. Smiling, often springing for the next round, Kemper was all ears. On February 5, 1973, Kemper picked up Rosalind Thorpe, 23 and another hitchhiker, Alice Liu.

Both young women were shot to death in the car. Driving home, Kemper ate dinner and waited for his mother to retire before stepping outside and decapitating both corpses as they lay in the trunk. Unsatisfied, he carried Liu's body inside and sexually assaulted it on the floor. Returning to the car, he chopped her hands off as a casual afterthought. Still not sated, Kemper telephoned a friend of his mother's, Sally Hallett, and invited her over to go to a movie with him and his mother.

Upon her arrival, Kemper clubbed her over the head, strangled her to death, and then decapitated her. The headless body was deposited in his bed, while he wandered off to sleep in his mother's room. On Easter Sunday, Kemper started driving east, with no destination in mind. He got as far as Colorado before pulling over to a roadside telephone booth and calling police in Santa Cruz.

Several attempts were necessary before his friends would accept his confession, and local officers were dispatched to make the arrest while Kemper waited patiently in his car. In his detailed confession, Kemper admitted slicing flesh from the legs of at least two victims, cooking it in a macaroni casserole and devouring it as a means of 'possessing' his prey. He also acknowledged removing teeth, along with bits of hair and skin from his victims, retaining them as grisly keepsakes, trophies of the hunt. Described as sane by state psychiatrists, Kemper was convicted on eight counts of murder. Asked what punishment he considered fitting for his crimes, the defendant replied, 'Death by torture. ' Instead, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

He will be up for parole in two years. Kemper could have been charged with a number of things. He was convicted on 8 counts of first-degree murder. Many factors came into play, like the obvious premeditation throughout the killings. If push came to shove he could have been slapped with aggravated kidnapping, rape, assault and battery, stalking and much more. Here are some very disturbing quotes from Edmund Kemper himself: .

'One side of me says I'd like to talk to her, date her. The other side of me says, I wonder what her head would look like on a stick?'. 'I just wanted to see how it felt to shoot Grandma. '. 'I certainly wanted for my mother a nice, quiet easy death like everyone else wants. '.

The punishment for his crimes that he said was fitting: 'Death by torture. '. 'Even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me. I couldn't get her to shut up!'. 'The first good-looking girl I see tonight is going to die.

'. 'It was an urge... A strong urge, and the longer I let it go the stronger it got, to where I was taking risks to go out and kill people -- risks that normally, according to my little rules of operation, I wouldn't take because they could lead to arrest. '.

'If I killed them, you know, they couldn't reject me as a man. It was more or less making a doll out of a human being... and carrying out my fantasies with a doll, a living human doll. '. 'I remember there was actually a sexual thrill... you hear that little pop and pull their heads of and hold their heads up by the hair. Whipping their heads off, their body sitting there. That'd get me off.

'. 'With a girl, there's a lot left in the girl's body without a head. Of course, the personality is gone. '