Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer, rapist, cannibal, and necrophile who murdered six college students before murdering his mother and her best friend from September 1972 to April 1973 following his parole for murdering his paternal grandparents. He is noted for his height of 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m), and for his high intellect, possessing an IQ of 145.
Kemper was nicknamed the Co-ed Killer, as most of his victims were female college students hitchhiking in the Santa Cruz area. Most of his murders included necrophilia, with occasional incidents of rape.
Born in Burbank, California, Kemper had a troubled upbringing. His parents divorced in early life; as a child, he moved to Montana with his abusive mother Clarnell, who locked Kemper in their basement which had been frequented by rats.
He ran away to reunite with his father but was left behind in North Fork, California on Christmas Day in 1963, where he murdered his paternal grandparents when he was 15. Following the murders, he was briefly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by court psychiatrists and sentenced to the Atascadero State Hospital as a criminally insane juvenile.
Released at the age of 21 after convincing psychiatrists he was rehabilitated, Kemper was regarded as non-threatening by his future victims.
He targeted young female hitchhikers during his killing spree, luring them into his vehicle and driving them to secluded areas where he would murder them before taking their corpses back to his home to be decapitated, dismembered, and violated.
Kemper then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself into the authorities.
Found sane and guilty at his trial in 1973, Kemper requested the death penalty for his crimes.
Capital punishment was suspended in California at the time, and he instead received eight concurrent life sentences.
Since then, he has been incarcerated in the California Medical Facility.
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